#ian c. burden

[gallavich-annise]

Shameless Rewatch Thoughts! 

Parenthood  

Oh season 2 Lip... I know he had other downward spirals and all but season 2 Lip is a special Lip that is especially annoying. 

And this episode was a showcase in season 2 Lip being himself. It also has the end of the Grammy saga, hooray! And it also has Mickey's third and last episode of the season (we were robbed). Fiona has more drama with Jimmy-Steve, Debbie and Carl are school children, and Karen is attempting to sell her unborn baby.

The problem of course is that, with the exception of the Mickey and Ian story, I didn't strongly care about any of this. The emotional resonance was very low. There was some stuff with Grammy that was effective, but my goodwill towards that plot was already eroded, so it was difficult to really feel it emotionally, especially on rewatch.

So I guess I'll start with that...

Grammy has been shoved over to Sheila's house for the night because she blew up the Gallagher house. And what follows is a character sketch of a dying woman. We see her in pain. We see her losing control of her body, both in terms of mobility and bowel control. We see her fighting for her last shreds of dignity. 

And on the other side, we see Sheila softening because even though Grammy is awful, it's hard to see a human being in that much pain. And while Shameless rarely textualises is message, I felt it very much as a "is this justice" plot. Yes, she was horrible. She did a lot of damage. Does her being in pain fix any of it? Is the world better because she's suffering? No. 

So I got where Sheila's coming from. And I appreciated that Grammy is able to show at least a little gratitude towards her and Jody for their efforts. 

Jody, who was previously portrayed as squeaky clean, turns out to have access to a shit-tonne of drugs because "he knows a lot of people from programs that end in the letter A". And... Yeah okay, I can believe he is and just never really got caught. He is at least using those powers for good to help a dying woman with her pain. 

We do get a nice moment where he explains why he doesn't drink because all the stupidest things he'd ever done were done drunk, which was a better character moment for him than we've really had so far. I liked it.

Frank, of course steals all Grammy's drugs, to the point of switching out her morphine drip while she sleeps. And thus Grammy writes him out of her will, effectively, by sending her remaining money to her other sons but not Frank. At least that was her stated motivation. Given how she's been with Frank all along, I doubt it would have taken much provocation.

On the way to post stuff and go to the Alibi to drink her pain away, Grammy tries to wheel herself in front of a bus. The bus stops in time and Jody rescues her, asking "was that on purpose?!" And... I don't know why but I liked that reaction. He's seen her at her very worst and can see that she's a woman that wouldn't be happy with that. There's no judgement in it, just a temperature check, and I liked that, and that she didn't lie in reply. It would have been a shit thing to do to an innocent bus driver, and it's a sad thing to want to end a life at all, and to have a healthcare system in general that isn't able to provide paid relief and dignity to dying people... 

Ugh, this plot line. It bugged me. Because assisted suicide plot lines are always going to bug me. Trying to write this is hard because my dislike of it is not about Grammy at all, or her situation. In the show it's fairly clear cut that she wants to end it. It's about all the situations that are superficially similar but where the dying person was coerced or manipulated or just felt like it was unfair to their living relatives that they were 'a burden' because that speaks to awful palliative care systems more than to any individuals. And... This is not the place for me to have that conversation with myself. 

So let's just go with... Sheila kills Grammy with Grammy's consent. And... Well now she has that in common with Frank, I guess?! 

The bit of this storyline that I felt did work was watching Sheila's admiration for Jody grow, and seeing them get closer. Like, I don't care about Sheila/Jody as a couple, any more than I cared about Jody/Karen. On balance, I'd prefer not having Karen's mother sleep with her husband, but it's meh on the Shameless scale. That said, this episode does a nice job of setting it up as something plausible and not shockingly left field. 

I guess I'll go on to Lip and Karen next. Karen has decided to give her child up for adoption, as long as she can get some cash out of it. She goes to a Catholic adoption agency and gets a "well done for choosing life" skeezy talk while the camera focuses on the Catholic imagery in the room. Not sure why, but okay. When she realises that they won't pay, Karen tries another adoption agency, this time not religious, but gets pretty much the same response. Lip asks questions about the parents they find, and I like that he is putting energy into caring where the kid ends up. Karen has become blasé and annoyed about the whole thing, which is a point of view I can understand but it's harder to sympathize with her being literally uncaring... Plus her motivations are so unreliable. This episode does have her saying she thought she loved Jody but doesn't, and thought she wanted a baby but doesn't. So perhaps her motivation is just that she's a teenager who really doesn't know what she wants. Which, again, understandable but hard to sympathize with in this context.

Anyway... They eventually get directed to a family lawyer who can set them up with rich wannabe parents who will pay for an "all-white American" baby (eeeeuuuuugggghhhh). Lip is a bit put-off by him but Karen is 100% on board with being paid to have a baby and even suggests she'll make it an annual activity. 

I dunno. I think I could get behind a lot of Karen's motivations if she was more consistently drawn. I never know what to make of Karen. I am fine with 'made a mistake', I'm fine with 'doesn't want a baby after all', and I'm even kind of fine with the mercenary attitude to adoption... It's just never really feeling like I've got Karen's number that makes it somewhat perplexing going through her storylines. And it's not that the acting is worse than the other characters... I feel like the writers just didn't get a proper handle on her, so a lot of this stuff just falls flat. 

Which is a shame because it takes up a lot of screen time and we are supposed to believe it drives Lip to... everything.

So the other half of Lip's storyline intersects with Fiona. She's covered with him at school for a week but is now insisting he goes back because he's the one they knew was capable! He was the one that had to succeed! He has to graduate high school. And they argue. And the argument is another good example of the way they've set Fiona up as the mother-sister. She argues like a sister, but the reason for the argument is very motherly. 

Lip is spiralling, and it's so hard to watch. Because it's about Karen and I also get the feeling it's very much not about Karen. It's about goals and ambitions that he doesn't have. It's about the weight of everyone's expectations. And it's actually a really nice contrast to Ian; Ian who works hard and wants and has goals that no one really expects him to meet... While Lip is nothing but potential and he doesn't want anything. A great point from South Side Rules was talking about Lip actively avoiding wanting things, and these episodes show that in a raw and highly self-destructive way. 

But. He eventually agrees to go back to high school if Fiona does. He is incredibly blasé about what this would mean for the whole family. What's stopping you Fiona? Well, maybe the fact that she's primary carer and breadwinner for a family of 6, Lip, you asshole. But she's game so she agrees.

The high school is a little less positive, though. A very negative admin person signs Lip up and tells Fiona what she's need to do before directing her to the GED instead, because it's "for quitters". And once again we have the complete lack of compassion from someone in the education system, and once again it's a black character and Shameless could we really just not? Please? I love so much about you it would be great if there weren't also these egregious moments. 

Fiona starts studying for her GED. Lip is annoyed that she's going for an equivalent and says he could get a GED too... Which is a fair argument to a point, except for all the ways in which even getting the GED would be tricky for Fiona who has been out of school for several years and, as previously mentioned, is the primary breadwinner for a family of six. Jesus, Lip, how I hate you sometimes. (I also love you, but ffs).

I do like that his argument doesn't solely revolve around Karen and the baby, though. Lip mostly assumes the baby's his on statistics, but he admits to Kev it might not be. I like that he has that conflict around whether it's his and whether he wants it to be, especially if Karen is giving it up for adoption. 

But the rest of this argument? I kind of felt it to my bones. Lip is the genius. The one who can succeed at school without trying. But why should he have to be the one to rescue everyone else? When Kev says he should enjoy being the smartest person in the room and then make a shit tonne of money so he can put everyone else through college, he said it from a good place as Kev does. But I get that Lip doesn't want that responsibility. Everyone is putting it on him as if he's a dead cert, but Lip doesn't know for sure that he can succeed in that way. Lip is far too cynical. And like so many talented kids who've been told they have a shit tonne of potential... He must feel that pressure and think "i might fail anyway, but I'll feel better about failing if I don't try". 

So that part of the argument I get. It's superbly performed as well; Fiona and Lip have a great argument at the end of the episode. "I'll pull my weight but I'm not going to be the golden goose" while Fiona is desperately trying to give him the chance she gave up so that he could have better. It's heartbreaking. One of the best scenes of the episode. Loved it. 

But Fiona gives a teenage boy an ultimatum. School or leave. And... Well even if Lip wasn't in full on destructo-spiral mode at this point that was a bad move. I get it; Fiona has good points, but they argue badly. They're both trying to win rather than get a point across. She's trying to enforce her will like a controlling parent when she's frequently relied on him as a partner in keeping the house going. It's so in character and real and raw, and they're both right and they're both wrong.

And Lip leaves. I kind of loved that it was Carl who chased after him, though it left a lot of questions about what Lip's relationship with Ian is looking like at this point. Don't think Ian and Lip interacted once in the episode because Ian kept running off to deal with his own plot. But Carl runs after him and shouts for him not to go while everyone else is reeling. Carl who rarely knows what's going on, but knows that this is bad.

Which is as good a way as any to segue into talking about Carl in this episode. Carl's place in this episode is to... Play (American) football at school. His coach got arrested (there is an actually pretty okay conversation about why people get upset about seeing penises, which kind of echoed back to the conversation they all had about Liam masturbating and at what age it becomes socially unacceptable to touch yourself in public). Anyway the team need a new coach. Ian can't. Lip won't. And then... Enter Jimmy Steve!! 

Ugh. 

Just briefly, the football side of this plot is fair enough, I'm sure kids Carl's age do that. But it's one of those things that they use for an episode then forget about entirely. Fiona "never misses a game" how? Literally how? How many games are there? I can't imagine how she would be able to see every one, even with the best intentions. She missed Debbie's fake birthday sleepover because her boss threatened to fire her if she didn't work; are we saying that Fiona in her precarious financial situation doesn't have that come up on the regular? But even if we imagine this is hyperbole, we never see Carl's practise or these games come up again. We never see them mention it. I always find it vaguely unsatisfying when these things are used as plot hinge points and then it just vanishes. Lazy writing. 

But anyway, before I move on to Jimmy I would like to call out two little Carl scenes:

First, where Carl entreats Debbie to hit him with a baseball bat with his helmet on to "strengthen his neck muscles" and she looks at him, at the bat, at Fiona, shrugs, and whacks him. Great character work from Debbie there. Loved it. Very siblings. 

Second, during the (American) football game (scrimmage? I know nothing about American football other than vague stuff I pick up from tv... It's just padded rugby) Carl tackles another kid and everyone cheers despite the fact that it looked like a really bad tackle and the presumably 10yo kid could have broken his neck. This was a very Shameless scene. We never find out what happens to that kid. Carl never faces any kind of consequence. It's just there. It just happens. I get that that is the shows schtick and I've made my peace with that, but... Yeah, I hope that kid was okay. 

Or maybe Carl got kicked off the team and that's why we never hear about it again. 🤔

Sigh. Fiona and Jimmy-Steve I guess. 

Jimmy is trying to wheedle his way back into Fiona's life. His wife, Estefania thinks Fiona is his cousin, so it's not that weird that he'd visit her with coffee and doughnuts and offer to drive the kids to school. (I would like to note here that Ian is already gone at this point. Ian still doesn't know that Steve is called Jimmy. This family really needs to have weekly meetings to catch each other up on their respective drama, but who has time for that?) So Fiona and Steve talk and bicker-flirt but not in a cute way. And Fiona is initially telling him to get lost, but then it becomes "take care of the woman wearing your wedding ring and we'll talk" which felt like giving too much ground because previously she'd said that that would still mean she couldn't trust him. But he takes the bone and runs with it.

Estefania is such a shittily written character. With her not speaking English. And Steve been so obnoxious towards her. Given how much character they gave Dottie for her two episodes, it feels almost intentionally grotesque that Estefania follows the "two designated character traits" school of character development. Her assigned traits being "physically attractive" and "always on the phone". Here we do see snippets of her conversations with someone where she makes assumptions about the Gallagher house being a crack den, and so... We're supposed to dislike her because she's judgemental about the Gallaghers? Maybe? I dunno. I'm more inclined to dislike Steve for the way he uses them all as pawns in his game to get Fiona back. Anyway, Estefania is clearly into someone else she's talking to. She must be incredibly lonely in a country where she doesn't speak much of the language and only has Steve, who seems to have no interest in learning Portuguese (or teaching her English, or treating her like a person) for company. But she's not given enough character development for us to care about her. It could have been done. It could have been done well, even. It wasn't. Alas, another thing we must mourn. 

Anyway, none of the Jimmy stuff is resolved in this episode. He is present when the big blow up with Lip and Fiona happens, but he gets told to butt out and does. Fiona's emotions are not really interrogated here.

Last little notes about Fiona... We have scenes of her studying for her GED and while it seems like she's not got everything down pat straight off, she's clearly putting some effort into studying, and V is adorably supportive and I loved that! I also liked when Kev and Lip are talking about it and Lip says she'll fail and he'll quit school in a week, there's a great exchange. "Fiona's smart!" "Yeah, but not school smart". That I liked. Because it's true that she's smart... Fiona is organised and is able to manage and balance loads of stuff. She can grift and con with the best when she needs to. She can lie smoothly and quickly pick up on social cues. But all we see of her school career is notes she made on Craig Heisner, her track running potential, and her failing two quiz questions in the GED prep paper. As someone who was very school smart but couldn't do what Fiona does... I liked that appreciation for different kinds of smart. 

Debbie doesn't do much this episode besides hit Carl and tease Jimmy. There are hints of her trying to get Jimmy to back off, like she's trying to protect Fiona, but it's low key. She also has a couple of moments of concern for Grammy where she wants to visit or bring her home and Fiona shuts her down. It was odd to me to have Grammy die at Sheila's without seeing the grandkids again... But I guess that's indicative of life having other plans. 

Kev and V appear in scenes with other characters and there's the thread continuing of them now trying to having a baby. But mostly they're just support in this episode.

So finally! The moment you've been waiting for (if you're still reading, which... Bless you). 

Ian and Mickey. And Frank, I suppose. 

As always, it's hard to interrogate how I would feel about these guys if not for Tumblr. I knew about Ian and Mickey before I knew about the rest of them. So obviously I'd tune into those scenes more. But, right, Ian and Mickey are favourites for a reason! Mickey got brought back when it wasn't planned because Cam and Noel had amazing chemistry and they found good stories to tell... They brought him back when it sometimes seemed like they didn't want to, because fans responded to them. 

So... It is incredible to me that Mickey was only in three season 2 episodes, and only two with Ian. Mind boggling. 

It means that, beyond the conversations we see in Summer Loving, we don't really know what stage Mickey and Ian's relationship is at. They're still fucking on the regular, it seems. Still working together at the Kash and Grab. But there's been no effort put into working out how Ian feels about Mickey or exploring how Mickey feels about Ian beyond the eye-fucking and longing looks at the dugouts and the brief casual chat at the store. Not really. We don't even know why Mickey turns up this episode with truly horrific facial hair. 

But he does. 

So we have Frank walking in through the back of the Kash and Grab and spying Ian and Mickey fucking in the back room. We see shock on their faces. Frank just sees them and is like "well clearly this is a situation I can use to my immediate gain" and he steals some groceries and money out of the cash register. Very Frank. Very short term. I think it's important that the only thing he says to them about it is "might wanna check the locks". He gives no shits! Blackmail doesn't occur to him. He doesn't even seem confused... There's no "I thought you were with the other Milkovich, the girl". It's just "oh I guess he does boys". I really really love it. Frank has no redeeming features per se, but homophobia doesn't occur to him and I like that the show made that point so very clearly through this episode. Because it's making this stark contrast between Frank "pick a gender, find somebody who wants to fuck. Preferably for free" and Terry... Who Mickey fears will literally kill him. 

There's even another moment later in the episode to underline this (aside from the one I just quoted) where Frank is doing drugs and watching Carl's football practice and makes a remark about the hot coach. When the guy he's with says it's a guy and Steve turns around to reveal his scruffy ferret beard, Frank just sort of shrugs. Hey ho. 

But back to Ian and Mickey. Because regardless of Frank's intentions, Mickey decides he needs to die. He makes plans. He is assuming Ian will be on board with this... Which does speak volumes (but maybe only because I've read enough meta). Mickey is saying "we" will kill him and dump his body. Ian says he'll talk to him and fix it. Mickey can't trust Frank and thus doesn't trust Ian in this instance. So he runs off.

Enter Iggy and Colin!! So... The brothers Milkovich aren't given much time over the series, and we don't even really ever find out which are brothers and which are cousins for sure... Though in this episode the subtitles call them "brother one" and "brother two" because they're never even named. But they get a couple of scenes. 

And either Mickey isn't thinking clearly or his brothers aren't as idiotic as the show (and/or fanfic) later paints them. Because Mickey wants to shoot Frank, but Colin points out that forensics makes that risky, and stabbing means too much blood. So they will kidnap and strangle. Colin's idea, not Mickey's. They gear up and the rest of the episode is the great Frank Hunt. It's a lovely call back to Mickey's first episode when he's hunting Ian... But has a much more sinister undertone. Because it's not just a beat down he's planning. 

The excuse he gives the brothers (who are on board way before they know this) is that Frank raped a girl. He gives no further details on screen. It's obviously tenuous. But at a later point where Mickey tries to go after Frank alone, his brothers say "we've got your back" in a way that's surprisingly sweet, and "we hate rapists too" which... Yeah, okay I'm sure. Like you didn't make a crack about what I presume were date rape drugs at a party earlier.

While Mickey is hunting, we have him go to the Gallagher house and get V's "dirtiest White boy in America" line. And he goes to the Alibi and we have a brilliant Kev scene! Frank is there but miraculously and conveniently heads to the toilets just before Mickey barges in asking for Frank. "Frank who?" Kev says without missing a beat. And points out two Franks in the bar and one who comes in regular before Mickey specifies Gallagher and Kev shunts him off to another bar... It's beautiful. Without missing a beat. Gorgeous lying, Kev. Excellent instincts to protect his clientele. He did this several times in the early seasons and it's amazing. 

Little aside about Frank here, because that scene was him at the Alibi talking about his mother punching him as a child in a way that sounds both nostalgic and bitter. It's impressively acted and horrible. There's another similar story later. And it's more of that "sympathise with Frank" stuff that is... Well acted, and on some level it hits. But he's still Frank.

While Mickey is hunting, Ian talks to Frank. Not because he cares about Frank but because he doesn't want Mickey to go to juvie. I enjoyed that emphasis, especially coming from Ian. Frank is too high to care and goes about his day. We do get the amazing "Jack Daniels and orange juice go together better than I expected" quote in the first of these scenes. As well as the one I already mentioned about finding someone to fuck in the second conversation.

Before the conclusion, we have one last scene with Ian and Mickey where Mickey realises that Ian warned Frank (but doesn't realise that Frank took absolutely no notice of him).  And it's the "done. Done. Done" scene. It's the "nothing but a warm mouth" scene. It's the 'how can Noel Fisher do that with just a couple of lines' scene. Because we see Mickey's fear, his conflict. That even while he's pushing Ian away in anger there's something else there for him. And we see Ian on the verge of tears and trying to stop him and not having words and... Uuuuuuugggggghhhh my heart. Babies.

Spoilers, Mickey does not shoot Frank. There's another masterclass face journey and he punches a cop. 

Bye bye Mickey, see you next season. 

(We. needed. more. early. Gallavich!!!!!!!)

So that's all for this ramble... Even though it wasn't actually that long ago it's hard to remember what I felt about season 2 when first watching it. I remember where I was when I watched this episode the first time... I think at that point i was at the peak of my puzzlement over why I was watching and wondering why it was so compelling. It was also when I got to binge a few episodes in a row or I might not have continued (I probably would have, let's be real, I knew the club kiss was ahead). 

I guess the problem in season 2 was the plot spends too long trying to make me care about things that I'm never going to love at the expense of things I already do. More Debbie and Carl, please. Much more Ian and Mickey. Less Karen and Jimmy-Steve. Much less Grammy and Frank. 

Season 2 was also trying to settle into the season long character arcs and ensemble feel more, and that means a lot of episodes left threads hanging or felt like set up for later stuff. 

But in the after-credit scene we see Frank go to Monica, and next episode is Hurricane Monica! Which, as I recall did amp things up again nicely!

[smosh-fessions]

obv fandom posts dont speak for all of us there's these mini fan arguments or lashings of how and what behavior one another should expect from smosh. Like maybe they did it right before but if they show a pattern of very select people not committing (ian to anthony) or being overtly present (angela and shayne / Amanda podcast) it's a proof is in the pudding with them. (doesn't make it cool- but it is the burdening truth) I don't want to tell single father how to raise his kids, but you should do everything in your power to succeed, even if it means hiring someone to manage the managers. (You don't have to do this alone- even if anthony left you behind guys- but you certainly cant expect your way of communicating not be reflective of the principles that show in your smosh company) I hate to sound like a Defy Dickhead, but I'm not saying they need to hire or change into that type of era, just hire someone who isn't a young LA type people pleaser. You don't have to hyper post everything coming out- but there is zero communication in so much from merch to crew. Ian cant and does not want to carry it all on his back and be sanitized. (who does..?) He loves the humor and days of nostalgia of Anthony and he is allowed to be his friend on his own arms reach and pace and healing (and that is going to have its own mess ups and self realizations- like a fucked podcast) I don't think people realize that a 6 year gap people change and don't realize they don't give themselves credit for their own strength and flaws. like when people say they could never be as good as this or that b/c they have 600 awards and they themselves only have 6. Like with or without anthony- Ian is stronger than he thinks! And that ALSO means once you realize that- you kinda also don't get to have excuses. Anthony is bad at relationships/ needs work and straight up has anxiety in every journal sentence he ever read. Anthony Falls hard and falls fast. He also loves the idea of things , maybe not the same level or investmentor discipline like ian, but kinda feels like Anthony is getting spat on because he has flaws in the fandom, rather than people just accepting him for who he is- Somene who did NOT have it together in his relationships from girlfriends to ian, to whomeever/ fans. He lets his anxiety take the reigns but we might just need to accept that these 40 year olds don't have it all together. I think it mega sucks. It mega sucks to hear rumors or attitudes of someone unsure if their own idols or creators even like them. It sucks that two men had 40 years to rotate on this earth (and yes I think Anthony even said he had therapists) and they can't guide their flaws or they cant hire in place of them. It sucks that in any capacity you "hate" your own job or cant tackle it, and in turn you wrinkle it with your fans and relationships (you don't have to LOVE smosh to work there -but if you did anything you ever wanted that you are entitled to, you are going to receive anything of such you rightfully deserve.) Like maybe Im a bitch fan who is digging into these guys, and I'm talking out my ass on how to run a business, but past the legal NDA and the Instagram drama, you are two grown men who are allowed to do anything with your free will but you have no idea that karma has aim. good and bad. It feels like they don't have friends to motivate them towards that or they don't want to change- and both ideas hurt in the long run as a smosh fan!

X

[ruthfeiertag]

The White House just announced that President Biden has contacted COVID. I wish him a speedy and complete recovery. Because the President has been fully vaccinated (and because he has access to levels of health care few of the rest of us enjoy), he is likely to be well again soon. But even a mild or asymptomatic case can lead to Long-COVID, and we should be protecting ourselves and each other from catching this corona virus and possibly developing a permanent, debilitating condition.

Apoorva Mandavilli, writing for the _New YorkTimes_, reminds us that “for some people with certain risk factors — age, pregnancy, chronic conditions or a compromised immune system — an infection may bring serious illness.”1

If you want to know what it’s like to live with a post-viral chronic illness, read the Tumblrs of people enduring them (see the tags below), particularly those of us living with myalgic encephalomyelitis (me/cfs), the condition closely aligned with Long-COVID. (“The illness [Long COVID] is similar to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome [ME/CFS] as well as to persisting illnesses that can follow a wide variety of other infectious agents and following major traumatic injury.”2) And while some of us are more susceptible than others, ANYONE, no matter how young and healthy, can develop Long-haul COVID:

“Long COVID occurs more often in people who had severe COVID-19 illness, but anyone who gets COVID-19 can experience it, including children.”3

The CDC article also highlights the way that “Living with Long COVID can be difficult and isolating, especially when there are no immediate answers or solutions.” It does not describe the devastating possible “side effects” of losing the ability to work, to enjoy activities, to be independent, nor of the experiences of having doctors refuse to believe one’s condition is real, of the near-impossibility of getting to a doctor who specializes in post-viral diseases (and who won’t accept insurance)4, nor of the feeling of being an inconvenience or burden to those who care for us.

“In every age group, even a mild illness may trigger a lasting set of problems. Nearly 14 million Americans, or about 5.3 percent of adults, may now be living with long Covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”1

Wearing an N95 might not be the most comfortable fashion accessory, but putting one on when we will be among others can save lives and the meaningful existence of the people with whom we come in contact. The inconvenience is far less than the loss of income, health, and happiness Long-COVID can bring.

************************

1. Apoorva Mandavilli. “Long Covid and Vaccination: What You Need to Know,” _New York Times_, July 17, 2024, 6:03 p.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/article/long-covid-vaccine.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

2. Anthony L. Komaroff and W. Ian Lipkin. “ME/CFS and Long COVID share similar symptoms and biological abnormalities: road map to the literature,” Front Med (Lausanne). 2023; 10: 1187163. Published online 2023 Jun 2. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1187163

PMCID: PMC10278546PMID: 37342500

3. https://www.cdc.gov/covid/long-term-effects/?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects/index.html

4. “There are only a handful of specialists and clinical centers that specialize in ME/CFS around the country. Many of them do not take insurance and most have waiting lists that can be years long.” https://solvecfs.org/me-cfs-long-covid/patient-and-caregiver-resources/

[generaltrashshecox]

Was rewatching Love Between Fairy and Devil and I was reminded of the "soulmates who can feel the others pain" and I was thinking a maybe angsty idea of Anthony hoping Ian is his soulmate and vice versa. Then they finally become of age and Ian gets hurt one day and Anthony doesn't feel it. They freak out but they comfort each other saying they don't care what the universe says they're each other's soulmate.

Flash forward to today (kinda) and Anthony has returned and is meeting all the crew (the ones that weren't there before) and suddenly he feels a small pain in his finger as somebody says "ow" quietly and his stomach drops. He and Ian aren't together they haven't been for a while but they're reconnecting... He shakes it off as just a coincidence. Then it happens again another pain this time in his hip as a faint "fuck" is heard in the office. He knows it's inevitable but he hopes he never finds out who it is. But he does and quickly as they're all sitting at lunch and someone accidentally smacks the shit outta their hand on the table (cause depth perception and ADHD aren't friends) and Anthony feels it radiate through his hand and he hisses to see Damien stand holding his to his chest.

"Dammit why am I so clumsy today," he grumbles and Anthony tries to keep his composure cause there's no way right? Him and Ian are just working things out so this can't be happening? So he decides to ignore it not even telling Ian about his suspicions.

On the flip side Damien who doesn't really care about soulmates. Feels like its stupid and forced upon unwilling people sometimes and kinda maybe feels like his wouldn't want him anyways. So he goes about his life normally though he does try to be careful so he doesn't bother his soulmate too much. Even takes a medicine that allows his soulmate to not feel the pain he's feeling (doesn't work in close proximity though) as to not be a burden. He does however start to develop a small maybe kinda sorta crush on his boss but that's nothing...

I really don't know where I want this to go I know I want it to be angsty and a little painful and I saw a few people talking about soulmate aus and had this sitting in the drafts collecting dust so I decided to finish the thought at least!

(also if you watch c-dramas or even if you don't Love Between Fairy and Devil is so good 😭😭)

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume Nine, Number 10

Older, but not a bit wiser, the Hives return

Fall comes with its smell of maple in the leaves, its intimations of mortality and, this year, its share of unsettling events—war in the middle east, AI in everything and the murder of our beloved Bandcamp by capitalist privateers.  (We are not equating these things by any means.)  Like always, we turn to music, the annihilating blare of metal, the agile interplay of improvisation, the well-shaped contours of pop, depending on our individual tastes.  We hope you’ll find something to ease your own personal burden in all this as well.  Contributors include Bryon Hayes, Bill Meyer, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Alex Johnson, Jennifer Kelly and Ray Garraty. 

Due to technical issues we're posting this in two parts, so don't miss the second one.

Ad Hoc — Corpse (Shame File Music / Albert’s Basement)

Ad Hoc was a Melbourne-based improvising unit, an experimental outfit that should have higher prominence. It only took 40-plus years, but Shame File Music and Albert’s Basement are finally spearheading a reissue initiative. Last year saw the arrival of the trio’s sole release, the hypnotic Distance cassette. It disappeared the moment it became available. Corpse documents an unconventional live performance from the group. They prepared their instruments (guitars, an EMS Synthi AKS synth and tape loops) for performance prior to the arrival of the audience and then shut off their amps. When all were seated, the trio turned on the amplifiers and unfurled an aleatoric blast of sound. The resulting music is far removed from the ambient tone clusters of Distance. The first piece shimmers in a way that calls to mind Matthew Bower’s Sunroof project, while the latter piece bathes in guitar noise so thick that it may have influenced The Dead C’s The Operation of the Sonne EP. Ad Hoc have today’s noisemakers beat: Corpse presents itself with a freshness that belies its 1980 provenance.

Bryon Hayes

Axolotl — Abrasive (Souffle Continu)

The French trio Axolotl existed for a few years in the early 1980s, and it reflects the aesthetic concerns of its time. Guitarist Marc Dufourd’s playing betrays some acquaintance with the work of Derek Bailey and Henry Kaiser, and the fibrous tones and agile exchanges between reeds players Jacques Oger and Etienne Brunet recall Evan Parker. All three double on electronics, hand percussion and utterances. These accessories, in combination with the concentration of the album’s 12 tracks, give the music a truculent attitude and just-the-facts brevity that brings to mind punk and post-punk. This may be free improvisation, but it is improvised from a point of view, and it’s that informed attitude that makes the album worth visiting nearly 40 years after its original release.

Bill Meyer

Will Butler + Sister Squares — Self-Titled (Merge)

Will Butler joins with Sister Squares — multi-instrumentalists Jenny (Butler’s wife) and Julie Shore, Sara Dobbs and drummer/producer Miles Francis — for their debut album. Bouncy, heartland rock garlanded with that 1980s Fairlight and Linn drum sound mixes with touches of art rock as Butler emotes wholehearted. The influence of the 20 years Butler spent with Arcade Fire is inescapable, but it feels like the quintet have also been listening to Billy MacKenzie (“Long Grass”) and Russell Mael (“Arrow of Time”) as well as Springsteen, Mellencamp and company. “Hee Loop” sounds like a mash of Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel. The themes and emotions can be big in that Arcade Fire way that’s equal parts exhilarating and exhausting, but the album works best when the band dial down the melodramatic flourishes as on “Car Crash” and “The Window,” where Butler is right in your ear, tired, disillusioned, real. This is a record I wanted to like both more and less. For every heartfelt moment and interesting musical choice, there’s a cringe-inducing gestural overreach that makes you wince. A bit like his former band but with enough promise to persevere with.

Andrew Forell

Claire Deak — Sotto Voce (Lost Tribe Sound)

Melbourne-based composer Claire Deak’s last release on Lost Tribe Sound was 2020’s The Old Capital, a fantastic collaboration with Tony Dupé. In my Dusted review I said, “There’s so much wonderful stuff going on across these seven songs that it’s a delight to revisit.” As its title suggests, Deak’s solo debut, Sotto Voce, very much sits at the opposite end of the musical spectrum. This is subtle, minimal music that softly arises out of silence and speaks an elusive language. The background to the album’s creation is Deak’s exploration of the work of two women composers from the early baroque era, Francesca Caccini (1587–c.1645) and Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677). The dominant musical elements are strings, harp and voice, with other instruments coloring the edges of these understated, starkly beautiful compositions. Across the album’s 42 minutes the music feels, at times, to be battling the entropy of erasure, struggling to be heard amid the cacophony of these overstimulated times. For that reason alone, it’s necessary to invest your attention and listen closely. The experience is eerie and transportive.

Tim Clarke

Mike Donovan — Meets the Mighty Flashlight (Drag City)

On a musical Venn diagram showing the intersecting circles of garage rock, lo-fi, and psych, Mike Donovan has set up his sandbox. With Sic Alps he veered more noisy and lo-fi; with Peacers he favored a straight-ahead garage-rock sound. On this new record with Mike Fellows, AKA The Mighty Flashlight, Donovan steers in the direction of shambolic psychedelic-pop in the vein of the Olivia Tremor Control. (To anyone who knows and loves OTC, this is obviously a very good thing.) The splashy drums and percussion tracks feel like a gestural afterthought rather than a rhythmic backbone the songs are built around, and Donovan and Fellows steer these songs into some choppy, unexpected waters. Opener “Planet Metley” is the clearest and most successful distillation of their aesthetic, offering up a staggering range of ideas in under four minutes, stopping and starting erratically, the bass roving all over the fretboard. At the other end of the spectrum, “Laurel Lotus Dub” is the kind of experiment that sounds like it was more fun to create that it is to listen back to. Between these two extremes there’s the junkshop boogie of “A Capital Pitch,” which features the hilarious line, “Hanging out on the ramparts with some dickheads in black,” the concise drum-machine and organ instrumental “Amalgam Wagon,” and the plaintive, country-flavored “Whistledown.” Wherever Donovan roams it’s usually worth following, and Meets the Mighty Flashlight is a winning collaboration that fizzes with fun.

Tim Clarke

Everything Falls Apart — Everything Falls Apart (Totalism)

“Somn” means sleep, or more poetically death. It’s the title of six of the seven tracks from Everything Falls Apart, the self-titled album from the duo of Belgian bassist Otto Lindholm (born Cyrille de Haes) and English producer Ross Tones. Those titles (numbered six to 11) and the coda “Wonderfully Desolate” tell you only part of the story of the music the pair produce. Their conversation focuses on the nuance of the Lindholm’s double bass which Tones swathes in electronic effects, stretching notes and motifs into near drones in timbres that rise from the murk like lugubrious sentinels. This is seriously heavy music but the dynamism of the duo’s understanding and interplay distinguishes Everything Falls Apart. Whilst many of the pieces focus on stasis and decay, “Somn 9” is a desert storm with clicking percussion, almost didgeridoo like growls from the bass and screeching electronic noise. On “Somn 11”, deep bowed notes support Lindholm’s move through the registers as if shaking from fitful dreams into the morning light. “Wonderfully Desolate” is comparatively unadorned, a string quartet playing against the end times, shimmers of light through the cracks.

Andrew Forell

False Fed — Let Them Eat Fake (Neurot Recordings)

Is it accurate to call a band including members of legendary underground acts Amebix (Stig Miller), Nausea (Roy Mayorga) and Broken Bones (Jeff Janiak) a “supergroup”? It might help to note that Janiak has sung for Discharge since 2014, and Mayorga has done a couple stints as drummer for Ministry. All names to conjure with (though a few of us first encountered Mayorga as a teenager back in the 1980s Lehigh Valley hardcore scene, when he drummed for Youthquake; West Catty Playground Building forever, man). In any case, the players have pooled their talents to create this death-rocking, sorta goth, sorta post-punk record, and it’s a lot of grim, grimy fun. Most of the music is mid-tempo, grand and romantic in its gestures, but shot through with a crusty growl in the guitars and production tone. The best songs speed things up a bit; both “The Tyrant Dies” and “The Big Sleep” have compelling momentum, complementing the stakes of songs’ ideas. It's Armagideon Time, people. Here’s your soundtrack, from dudes that know.

Jonathan Shaw

Hauschka— Philanthropy (City Slang)

German composer Volker Bertelmann’s 15th album of prepared piano pieces under the name Hauschka is noticeably warmer than some of his previous works. Joined by Samuli Kosminen on percussion and electronics and cellist Laura Wiek, Hauschka continues his exploration of the rhythmic and timbral possibilities of his instrument. At times almost jaunty, there are echoes of Bertelmann’s previous experiments with melancholic atmospherics but the general tone here is welcoming and optimistic. Kosminen adds subtle effects which frame rather than obscure the piano. There’s a touch of Satie in Hauschka’s playful iconoclastic approach to the piano and his deceptively simple melodies, especially on “Loved Ones” where Wiek’s plangent cello lines sustain and decay over an allusive harmony that speaks both of innocence and experience. At the other end of the spectrum, the closing piece “Noise” builds abstract ambience from repeated piano notes, smears of cello and a quiet wash of effects as if the players are enveloped in a thick damp fog. A lovely album for both fans and newcomers.

Andrew Forell

The Hives — The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons (Disques Hives)

There are usually going to be some questions when a band comes back with a new record after over a decade, maybe especially so with an act like Swedish garage/punk flamboyants the Hives; can they match the energy of their youth? Are they still willing and able to give us the old thrills? Or have they (and this is usually asked with a small, tasteful shudder of disgust) matured? It doesn’t take very long into first single/first track “Bogus Operandi” for the concerned listener to have reason for a sigh of relief. Anyone who used to (or still does?) blast “Main Offender” or “Hate to Say I Told You So” or “Walk Idiot Walk” should feel the galvanizing charge of a true, Frankensteinian resurrection once the riff hits. And across these not-quite-32 minutes (the brevity is also a promising sign) Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist and the boys kick up exactly the kind of racket you’d want from them, with tracks like “Trapdoor Solution” and “The Bomb” savoring the kind of gleefully dumb fun they’ve always provided (with a nice sideline in some of Almqvist’s deliberately, over-the-top awful narrators on “Two Kinds of Trouble” and “What Did I Ever Do to You?”). They even continue to throw out small, satisfying variations on the classic Hives sound like the brassy swagger of “Stick Up” and the surprisingly heartfelt thrash of “Smoke & Mirrors”. They may have killed off their “sixth member,” but the Hives are otherwise in rude health.

Ian Mathers

Islet — Soft Fascination (Fire)

The Welsh psych-electronic oddballs in Islet are on their fourth full-length now but show no signs of settling down. Soft Fascination is a bonkers mash up of dance pop, art song, hip hop, noise and folk. “Euphoria” floats a feather-light daze, a la Avey Tare, then punctures it the rat-at-tat of snare, the rifle shot rap repartee of Emma Daman Thomas. Gossamer textures of synth weave in and around the main action, snapping tight at intervals, like sails catching a hard wind. The whole thing is butterfly ephemeral with strong wires holding it up, a combination of daydream and architecture. “River Body,” if anything, tips even crazier, with its infectious sing-song, skip-rope vocals, its tootling toy keyboards, its blasts of noise and friction. And what can you make of “Sherry” which bucks and heaves and shouts out “Ay, ay, ay, ay,” like a lost Matias Aguayar cut? “Ay, ay, ay, ay,” indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

Jute Gyte — Unus Mundus Patet (Self-released)

Unus Mundus Patet is not the most dissonant or challenging record Adam Kalmbach has released during his 20-plus-year run under the Jute Gyte moniker. But neither is this black metal for the kvlt trve believers or for the hipster-adjacent sets, be they transcendental or ecstatic or blackgazy. The songs twist and turn in on themselves, always clear in their expressions of complex musical ideas, and also — somehow, someway — listenable and enjoyable. Avant-garde? Sure thing, and likely a much more authentic iteration of that phrase’s meaning than the music many other metal bands churn out under cover of high-minded beard stroking. See the by-turns undulating and fragmenting “Killing a Sword” or the trudging, vertiginous and then utterly thrilling “Philoctetes.” Jute Gyte doesn’t make music for the background, but if you can give these songs your full attention, you’ll be rewarded. Turn it up and open the portal into somewhere much weirder and more marvelous.

Jonathan Shaw

Danny Kamins / Chris Alford / Charles Pagano — The Secret Stop (Musical Eschatology)

Free improvisation may be a little sparser on the ground in the southern USA than it is in Chicago or New York, but The Secret Stop affirms the vigor of those who participate. Guitarist Chris Alford and drummer Charles Pagano play in New Orleans, and Danny Kamins is a saxophonist from Texas; this encounter took place in the Crescent City. As even players in places like the aforementioned northern cities or London will affirm, travel comes with this territory. Their interactions display a capacity to sustain balance when the energy is high and to back off when doing so will transform the music’s tension. Kamins intersperses long, coarse tones with emphatic pops, and Alford evidences a fluent stutter that suggests he’s spent a lot of time studying James “Blood” Ulmer’s sound grammar. Pagano’s cymbal sizzle and mutating not-quite-patterns provide both forward momentum and a framework within which the action occurs.

Bill Meyer

MIKE \ Wiki \ The Alchemist — Faith Is a Rock (ALC)

The long awaited collaboration between The Alchemist and MIKE took a sudden turn when they took on board another New York rapper Wiki who steals the show here. Both Wiki and MIKE were outcasts recording music in the vein of Earl Sweatshirt, even though MIKE was always a better version of Earl with only possibly a tenth of his fame. Knowing no rest, The Alchemist (that is his fourth collab this year) takes both MCs way out of their comfort zone, refusing to pander to the needs. MIKE and Wiki have to deal with The Alchemist’s fast and thick layered production, and it works for all of them. “Mayors A Cop” is a standout here, and Faith Is a Rock is one strong contender for the tape of the year.

Ray Garraty

Camila Nebbia — Una Ofrenda A La Ausencía (Relative Pitch)

The title translates as An Offering To Absence, which of course raises the question, what’s missing? Camila Nebbia is a multidisciplinary artist who grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but has seems to have spent a fair chunk of time moving around Europe in recent years, and is currently based in Berlin. She has a sizable discography, but this correspondent has not heard most of it, so let’s just focus on the album at hand. Its 16 tracks present three facets of her work — acoustic tenor saxophone, electronically adjusted saxophone and poetry — with the first method best represented. The unaccompanied saxophone performances reveal her mastery of both weight-bearing muscularity and adroit tap-dancing on the far side of the fences that confine conventional tonality. But when she layers long tones and feedback, Nebbia becomes a one-woman orchestra transmitting heavy Penderecki vibes. The one poem included, “Dejo que me lieve” (“I let it lie”), is recited in Spanish, and no translation is offered; perhaps home is what’s not there, so she needs to manifest it creatively?

Bill Meyer

[Continued in Part 2, because Tumblr decided we only get 10 audio links.]

[whitneyxrossi]

Her whole numb calmness was slipping the more they talked. Being with family usually had that effect. Forcing trough the walls she had so carefully tried to keep between her conscious self and her emotions. Now they were rushing up to the surface. "Of c-course I d-do.. I a-am such a b-burden.." she tearfully protested. No, she didn't ask him to be here, but he knew she needed him to keep all the pieces of herself together. Had it not been for Ian being home she would have been fully falling apart. Yet she had not sacrificed anything. He had given up his whole independent life and moved back home. Friends, women of interest, a workplace.. If that wasn't selfless she didn't know what was. "You gave up e-everything to be here. And there's ha-hardly been t-time for you to gr-grieve between taking care of m-me and mom." She sniffled, not sure how to not feel how she was feeling. It seemed so unfair to her how he had been caught between all of this. Was he really this okay with it? Or was he just putting on a brave face so she would feel better? Wiping at her eyes, she somehow managed a half hearted smile at his quick wit. "Right."

Maybe it had simply been a matter of time. She needed to let it all out instead of bottling it up. And if she couldn't be vulnerable and honest with her brother then she might as well throw in the towel. While the tears still came, the flow abated some as she listened to the story. Their father might have seemed like a serious man to the outside world, but Whitney had always thought he had a clever sense of humor. He had always been such a comforting presence in her life. A sounding board for everything she had going on in her life. But she knew he had been much harder on Ian than he ever was with her. The major difference being that she wasn't expected to take over the family business and Ian was. And maybe it just had to do with her being so much younger and the only girl. Her dad truly had treated her like a princess since the day she was born. The absurdity of it forced out a weak and strangled chuckle. "He had an odd sort of humor." She murmured. Proud of what though? And unfinished Uni degree? No job, no boyfriend..

IAN’S BROW FURROWED. ❛ Whitney, you have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t cause any of this to happen, hell, you didn’t even ask me to be here. ❜ And she wouldn’t, he knew that; she would selflessly press on without calling attention to herself. The attention that she needed. ❛ I meant what I said when I came home to help with Dad. I’m here for the family and I’m not going anywhere. ❜ There was little that he wouldn’t sacrifice for his family, even if it meant leaving behind a completely different version of his life, a future with someone who might have one day been considered family too. Then, good-naturedly, his lips quirked up into a smile, ❛ So get used to it.  

Satisfied with her answer, Ian began to divide the garlic bread between them – 60/40, but he was a master conman, how would she tell the difference?— when he heard footsteps approaching. He had little more than a moment to turn before she was crashing into him, arms wrapping around her instinctively. Whitney was affectionate, always had been, to the point where he’d grown accustomed to being greeted with a hug. This felt different, and his hold tightened. Over her head, he noticed the true state of the kitchen. The half-empty takeout containers, the stacks of dirty dishes, the stains marring the countertops. How had it gotten this bad so quickly? He racked his brain for the last time he’d visited, or rather the last time he’d stepped foot in her kitchen. At this point, he was prepared to call a cleaning service, however, the wet patch he could feel growing on his shirt indicated bigger problems at hand.

❛ There was this one time I went down to the shipping yards with Dad, ❜ he started, ❛ I was eight or nine, and I must have tripped over a rope because I fell into the marina. ❜ It was one of the few untainted memories he had of their father — not that he was a bad father, or intentionally difficult. But, there was always a distance between him and the man, an expectation held that Ian could never quite live up to. Still, Whitney needed him now, they all did, and if recounting a story from decades past was the answer, so be it. ❛ He looked down at me, and I thought he would be mad, but he just grabbed my shirt collar, hoisted me back up onto the dock, and said ‘It takes more than that to keep a Rossi down. But, for your diving form, I give you a seven and a half. ❜ He laughed, a genuine one for the first time since entering the apartment. ❛ He’d be proud of you, y’know. I mean, maybe not as proud as he was of that dive, but close runner-up. ❜

[mitjalovse]

Genesis' commercial rebrand LP contains a name we met before. He should've been understood as one of the most successful producers of the 80's. He is Hugh Padgham, who became noticeable for his work with Genesis and Phil Collins. I assume these collaborations might be the reasons many called him during the 80's, including The Human League. The latter struggled to follow up their Dare, since they only came up with Hysteria. However, the disc does contain the glimpses of their most interesting selves as we can hear on the tune on the link. I consider the piece to be one of the better 80's let's-make-a-political-statement songs. While the composition does feel a bit naff lyrically, the musical accompaniment projects an incredible sense of urgency. Sadly, few saw that like this.

[michaelbaileywriter]

National Superhero Day Is Coming!

National Superhero Day Is Coming!

Sunday marks National Superhero Day, a day to honor and enjoy all things superhero, and to celebrate, I’ve partnered with several other superhero fiction authors for a major cross-promotional effort. If you enjoy my Action Figures series — and I hope you do — scroll down to see what else is out there!

Action Figures by Michael C. Bailey (series)

Join the action with the Amazon best-selling YA…

[elegomez]

Russian Central Asia, 1867-1917: A Study In Colonial Rule, Richard A. Pierce (This is from 1960. "This book describes events under Imperial Russian rule, treating the period in the light of the conflict between nineteenth-century concepts "the white man's burden" and the awakening aspirations of colonial peoples, and as part of the contest between Western imperialism and the Islamic world." I'm curious to see what's said, but I think I should save this reading for later.)

Pre-Tsarist and Tsarist Central Asia: Communal Commitment and Political Order in Change, Paul Georg Geiss (READ THIS NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It at least claims to talk about various central asian cultures! Follow the bibli like the oregon trail)

Everyday Life in Central Asia: Past and Present, Jeff Sahadeo, Russell Zanca (Part 1 Background, Part 2 Intro, 2, 3, and some skimming through the rest of the book, especially in the beginning to try to find gender contexts. Read chapter 22 and 23 if time/for curiosity.)

Thus Spake the Dervish: Sufism, Language, and the Religious Margins in Central Asia, 1400-1900, Alexandre Papas; Caroline Kraabel (Interesting date cut-offs, most continue until 1917. Is there a reason, other than the convenient millennium? This is mostly about Islamic mysticism, or sufism, but it might be worth it to skim)

Russia and Central Asia: Coexistence, Conquest, Convergence, Shoshana Keller (Intro, Chapters 1-4, maaaaaybe the start of 5. Curious how this person is going to interpret "centuries of sporadic war" into "coexistence", not sure I trust this one. We'll see!)

The Russian Conquest of Central Asia: A Study in Imperial Expansion, 1814-1914, Alexander Morrison (This is more war focused, I might look it over once I'm more comfortable with the dates/cultures I actually want to work inside)

Central Asia and the Himalayan Kingdoms (Armies of the Nineteenth Century: Asia), Ian Heath (not sure I actually trust this one. I'll grab it, but it's low on the priority list)

Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change, Jo-Ann Gross (editor), Edward A. Allworth (editor) (worth checking out, 15th century to present. Hopefully useful for understanding what Islam looked like to women at this point - not sure the character/s will be Muslim, but useful nonetheless.)

Beyond the Pass: Economy, Ethnicity, and Empire in Qing Central Asia, 1759-1864, James A. Millward (worth peeking at, not sure I'm going to go this far east, but hey.)

The Early Coinage of Central Asia, Michael Mitchiner (I don't need this, mostly grabbing it because the idea of including a tiny detail that makes exactly 1 historian wig out over seeing it entertains me)

Central Asia: One Hundred Thirty Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview, Edward A. Allworth (preface, part 1, part 2: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Might be useful, especially as it seems to focus on some culture!)

Silk and cotton: textiles from the Central Asia that was, Kushner, Robert;Meller, Susan (yaaaaaaaaaay images to give some set dressing and reference! I want to find some sources on clothing, too)

History of civilizations of Central Asia, Bosworth, Clifford Edmund;Osimi, ̄ Muhȧmmad (Part of v.4 (historical, social, economic), more important v.5, start of v. 6. By the time I read this I'll probably Get It.)

Inside central asia: a political and cultural history of uzbekistan, turkmenistan, kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, turkey, and iran, Hiro, Dilip (gimme that sexy sexy culture. Yet another preface without table of contents samples)

A ride to Khiva: an adventure in Central Asia, Burnaby, Fred;Hopkirk, Peter;White-Spunner, Barney (not sure if this will be useful. at all.)

The Bukharan Crisis: A Connected History of 18th Century Central Asia, Scott C. Levi (Possibly useful for putting some of the world around Tselemun into context)

Slavery and Empire in Central Asia, Jeff Eden (first book that starts off mentioning slavery. I'm very curious as to why this one does, and the hundred or so other books I've pawed through don't. Also curious about these lines: "Slavery strained Central Asia's relations with Russia, England, and Iran, and would serve as a major justification for the Russian conquest of this region in the 1860s-70s. Challenging the consensus that the Russian Empire abolished slavery with these conquests, Eden uses these documents to reveal that it was the slaves themselves who brought about their own emancipation by fomenting the largest slave uprising in the region's history." Fascinating and alarming, if no other book has mentioned this.

The Rise and Fall of Khoqand, 1709-1876: Central Asia in the Global Age, Scott C. Levi (more context!)

Sufism in Central Asia: New Perspectives on Sufi Traditions, 15th-21st Centuries, Devin A. Deweese; Jo-Ann Gross (I probably only care about the first half of this book, if I care at all)

Monuments of Central Asia, a Guide to the Archaeology, Art and Architecture of Turkestan, Edgar Knobloch (I'll take a peek at it, not sure how useful. Can't hurt to have.)

A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Volume II: Inner Eurasia from the Mongol Empire to Today, 1260–2000, David Christian (might have done this already, I coiuldn't find it; more history! Yay.)

Being Muslim in Central Asia. Practices, Politics, and Identities, Marlène Laruelle (most interested in: "The volumes discusses what it means to be a Muslim in today’s Central Asia by looking at both historical and sociological features, investigates the relationship between Islam, politics and the state, the changing role of Islam in terms of societal values, and the issue of female attire as a public debate.") Potentially useful!

Waqf in Central Asia: Four Hundred Years in the History of a Muslim Shrine, 1480–1889, R. D. McChesney (How important is this? Is this something a Muslim character in Bhukhara would know about? In any of the other khanates? We'll find out!)

The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929, Gregory J. Massell (Worth checking out, has some historical background)

Islamic Central Asia: An Anthology of Historical Sources, Scott C. Levi, Ron Sela (kissing you <3 yaaaay primary documents)

Visions of Justice: Sharīʿa and Cultural Change in Russian Central Asia, Paolo Sartori (mostly interested in what convictions changed from rather than to)

The Empire of the Steppes. A History of Central Asia, Grousset R. (LOTS OF DIFFERENT TRIBES!!! Ilu so. This is from 1939, and also originally in French.)

History of civilizations of Central Asia. Volume V. Development in contrast: from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, Chahryar A., Habib I. (more culture yaaaay)

Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland, S. Frederick Starr. (Not sure if there's much useful here.)

The Russians in Central Asia : their occupation of the Kirghiz steppe and the line of the Syr-Daria : their political relations with Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokan : also descriptions of Chinese Turkestan and Dzungaria, Valikhanov, Ch. Ch.; Michell, John,Michell, Robert; Venyukov M.I. (second hand source babyyyy)

Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, Laundan Nooshin (not sure how useful, but worth investigating, even just to give musical flavor)

Central Asia and Caucasus, Journal of Social and Political Studies (might be the wrong era, we'll see)

Ferghana Valley: The Heart of Central Asia, Frederick S. Starr, Frederick S. Starr, Baktybek Beshimov, Inomjon I. Bobokulov, Pulat Shozimov (i want intro, chapter 1, 2, 3)

Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia, Adeeb Khalid (This author again! The book I read was wonderful. I don't know how useful this will be, but it talks about insights from the study of Islam and Soviet history, so I'll check it out)

Central Asia Reader: The Rediscovery of History, H.B. Paksoy (only parts 1 and 2 are of interest, and I'm not convinced they will be useful)

[pcstilnt]

 「 ♡ 」 ━ *┊ muse:  ianthina (  a starter for reblogging the promo !!  )  @miimpii ft: ryo 

❛ ryo .❜  tender is the way the name seeps from her tiers  , a young maiden that she had met in the most   unusual    ways .  a human child that held so much burden upon her shoulders  -- ian was   aware    of who the younger was .  not only for the unfortunate event that had landed the young female to be in the catacombs of the prison system her beloved had , but also because of a diablero that often spoke to her about the woman .   it was a sense of fondness that she had grown for the woman before she had ever had the pleasure of meeting her thanks to daniel .  ❛  how are you holding up , darling ?  i know it’s been a while . ❜  she had taken it upon herself to check in on the younger every time she was allowed moments to herself . after all , the enchantress had seen herself within the younger with   c e r t a i n     aspects .  the kindness that was engraved in her aura and yet the fate that hung over her shoulders .  all that power that she possessed , a reason why she was tossed between species that craved to have the other  under their control .   ian knew the trouble that came with having something run through one’s veins that   promised    control over domains .   she felt for the young girl .  

❛ and be honest with me , you aura seems a bit off , little one .  ❜

[citylightsbooks]

City Lights Booksellers’ Pride 2020 Reading List

This June (and always), we look to our queer elders who came before us. Without them and their courage to riot and demand equality, we wouldn't have the Pride we know today. We especially want to name our Black trans siblings, who to this day face disproportionate discrimination and violence in this system.  To honor our own San Francisco history / herstory / theirstory, here are 54 titles to commemorate the 54 years since the Compton Cafeteria Riots in the Tenderloin. (pictured: still image from Susan Stryker and Victor Silverman’s film Screaming Queens)

ART

LGBT: San Francisco: The Daniel Nicoletta Photographs Daniel Nicoletta Foreword by Gus Van Sant Reel Art 9781909526396  Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon  Edited by Johanna Burton New Museum 9780915557165 Paul Mpagi Sepuya  Paul Mpagi Sepuya  Aperture 9781597114806 Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A. Edited by C. Ondine Chavoya, David Evans Frantz, and Macarena Gómez-Barris Prestel 9783791356693   

After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life  Joshua Chambers-Letson NYU 9781479832774 Bloodflowers: Rotimi Fani-Kayode, Photography, and the 1980s W. Ian Bourland Duke University 9781478000891 POETRY HULL Xandria Phillips Nightboat 9781643620084  Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouth Full of Flowers: Poems  Jake Skeets Milkweed 9781571315205 Lo Terciario / The Tertiary Raquel Salas Rivera Noemi 9781934819821 The Easy Body  Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta Timeless, Infinite Light 9781937421229 Homie: Poems  Danez Smith Graywolf 9781644450109  This Wound Is a World  Billy-Ray Belcourt University of Minnesota 9781517908454 Intergalactic Travels: Poems from a Fugitive Alien  Alan Palaez Lopez Operating System 9781946031723 Ordinary Villains E.K. Keith Nomadic 9781732334083 Soft Science Franny Choi Alice James Books 9781938584992 Nepantla: An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color  Edited by Christopher Soto Nightboat 9781937658786 The Tradition  Jericho Brown Copper Canyon 9781556594861 Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader Edited by Jamie Townsend Nightboat 97816436220152 ESL or You Weren't Here  Aldrin Valdez Nightboat 9781937658861 The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos  Dionne Brand Duke University Press 9781478000068  Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics Edited by TC Tolbert and Trace Peterson Nightboat 9781937658106 FICTION Jonny Appleseed: A Novel  Joshua Whitehead Arsenal Pulp 9781551527253 Counternarratives: Stories and Novellas John Keene New Directions 9780811225526 Fiebre Tropical: A Novel  Julia Delgado Lopera Amethyst 9781936932757 Zigzagger: Stories  Manuel Muñoz Northwestern University 9780810120990 I'm Open to Anything William E. Jones We Heard You Like Books 9780996421898  Since I Laid My Burden Down: A Novel  Brontez Purnell Amethyst 9781558614314  Stone Butch Blues: A Novel  Leslie Feinberg Alyson 9781555838539 Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative Writing 1977-1997 Edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian Nightboat 9781937658656 My Brother's Husband: Volumes 1 & 2 Gengoroh Tagame Illustrated by Anne Ishii Pantheon 9780375715181 NON-FICTION The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South  Michael W. Twitty Amistad 9780062379276 Wide Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965  Nan Alamilla Boyd University of California 9780520244740 Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde and Pat Parker 1974-1989  Edited by Julie R. Enszer A Midsummer Night's Press 9781938334290 May Day Speech  Jean Genet City Lights 9780872860575 The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions  Larry Mitchell Illustrated by Ned Asta Nightboat 9781643620060 We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir  Samra Habib Viking 9780735235007 Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill, and the Battlefield of AIDS  Martin Duberman The New Press 9781620971925 Pathways of Desire: The Sexual Migration of Mexican Gay Men  Héctor Carrillo University of Chicago 9780226517735 How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Haymarket 9781608468553 Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza  Gloria Anzaldúa Aunt Lute Books 9781879960855 Queer Times, Black Futures Kara Keeling NYU 9780814748336 Sexuality, Disability, and Aging: Queer Temporalities of the Phallus  Jane Gallop Duke University Press 9781478001614 Cruising: An Intimate History of a Radical Pastime Alex Espinoza The Unnamed Press 9781944700829 Queer Asia  Edited by J. Daniel Luther and Jennifer Ung Loh ZED 9781786995810 Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics  José Esteban Muñoz University of Minnesota 9780816630158 Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence  Darius Bost University of Chicago  9780226589824 Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity  C. Riley Snorton University of Minnesota 9781517901738 Mean  Myriam Gurba Coffee House 9781566894913 White Girls Hilton Als Penguin 9780143134756 Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS Thomas Avena Mercury House 9781562790516  YOUNG ADULT/KIDS Juliet Respira Profundo Gabby Rivera Vintage 9780593081280 Pet Akwaeke Emezi Make Me a World 978052647072 Julián Is a Mermaid Jessica Love Candlewick 9780763690458

[typicalmidnightsoul]

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓸𝔀𝓷 𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓮𝓼𝓼- Chapter 8

𝕝𝕖𝕥 𝕦𝕤 𝕖𝕟𝕕 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕚𝕥 𝕥𝕠𝕠

We began with honesty let us end with it too - Rupi Kaur.

Chapter  1, 2, 3, 4 5, 6 7 <- here

 The farmers were preparing the harvest in Illyria. Julio was waiting for his daughter to come back from training. As he tended to the new crops he saw a distant figure in the lapping waves. A female.

He rushed over.

“Miss-miss are you-”

The waves retreating from her was scarlet. Blood.

Her face was pale, drained of colour.

“Miss please allow me to take-”

She groaned something,

“What?”

“C-cass-ian.”

A crowd had formed. Julio looked at the village message boy,

“Get the King!”

---------------

Cassian’s face was grave.

He had an unsettling feeling since he woke up. A feeling that tugged deep down in his gut.

He was in a meeting when a young boy had come and said that Julio had found an injured female that called his name.

Azriel had got there before he did.

It was Nesta. He hadn’t seen her in a month.

She wore a sleek black one piece suit that was cut open with jagged wounds spilling blood.

They were now waiting outside the infirmary.

The inner circle had now arrived at the infirmary as well, Morrigan as well. Rhys had filled her in on everything once she had taken a break and came to Velaris.

She was shocked, to say the least.

“The Rask Royal family are coming. The proper one.”

Az announced.

“What?” Amren hissed.

“The ‘proper’ one?” Morrigan queried.

“As is the Queen of Rask and the second in command.”

Feyre’s mouth dropped. Cassian was in the corner, face hard.

The healer came out.

Cassian stood, “What’s wrong?”

“She lost a lot of blood your majesty, she is physically drained she is conscious for the minute but you need a stronger healer if you want to keep her stable.”

Rhys nodded, “I’ll send word to Madja-”

“No need High Lord, Our high priestess is capable enough.”

A female with dominance seeping from her voice stepped through the threshold of the infirmary.

Rhys nodded his head, “Welcome your highness, I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances.”

She levelled a cold look and nodded. The second in command stepped in.

Elain gasped.

“Nana?” The female’s eyes were now lined with tears, she stepped closer to Elain her hand reaching up to brush her temple.

The healer had left the door open and Nesta’s voice had travelled to them. She groaned inciting the Queen of Rask to break into a run towards her. The second in command tore her eyes away from Elain and towards Nesta. She went inside without a second glance back.

Cassian followed, they all did, but Feyre wished they didn’t.

Nesta’s face was sickly, still stunning but her lustre had died out.

“Nesta-Nes its mama Vera,” The Queen of Rask tried lightly shaking her. “Look Nana is here too.” She turned and hissed, “Annie! Come here! She might respond to you.”

“Who….” Nesta managed to make out.

Annabeth came to her other side. Cassian tried not to look shocked at the similarities between the two females.

“We need to move her.” Vera said.

“With all due respect, your majesty, she can’t be moved unless you want her health to deteriorate even more.” The healer sniped back.

“Do not talk to me like that.” Vera hissed.

Annabeth stepped up, “Vera she’s a healer she’s keeping Nesta’s best interests in mind, Call Safia here.”

Vera hesitated but nodded.

Half an hour later, Clare, Jonah and a hooded female with dark skin stepped through. Jonah went stiff. His face turning pale.

Clare went straight to her, “Hey Nes. How you holding up?”

Nesta smiled groggily at her.

Clare flung her accusatory eyes towards Feyre and Rhysand.

“What did you do?!” she seethed.

Feyre’s words got stuck in her throat. Clare’s mere presence frightened her to extended lengths. Frightened her mate.

Annabeth stood up, “Clare, it’s not her fault.”

Clare spun. “Don’t at least be partial to your granddaughter now Mama Annie.”

“She’s right Clare. The Night court had no involvement in this.” Vera replied.

Clare turned her attention back to Nesta.

“Hey Nes, people are asking about your songs, the kids want to get started on the dance for the recital you know.”

Nesta just moaned, “Is Saf here?”

“Yes Nesta I’m right here” Safia said.

“Can you make it stop hurting?” her voice broke.

“Of course I can love just give me a second,” she gave terse orders to the healer on the types of things she’d need.

“Nanna…” Nesta called, “Have you seen Feyre and Elai…Elain.” She spoke in breathless heaves.

“Yes sweetie.”

“They should know. They all should know.” Vera’s eyes widened at Nesta’s words.

“Darling, there is no need for this to happen now.” She said.

“I agree with Vera Nesta, you can tell them after you heal.”

“Not me. Hill…people of… Not much time. If something happens to me-”

Vera put hand over Nesta’s mouth, “Don’t say that.”

Nesta grabbed the hand and said to Vera with more strength, “They need to know. There isn’t much time.”

She dropped back into the pillows, unconscious again.

Vera and Annie exchanged looks. Vera nodded. Annabeth stood.

“Ask no questions.”

She winnowed them all in one go. Feyre stumbled held up by Rhys.

“If you would like to know how any of Nesta’s new life is possible you will follow me no questions asked.”

Elain walked to her, “Nana-”

She turned cutting her off, “Do you trust me?”

Elain answered her voice cold, “Are you the female I knew since I was a child?”

“Yes.”

“Then yes I do.” Feyre came next to Elain.

“If Elain does then so do i.” Annabeth nodded and led the way.

Cassian exchanged a look with Az at the message Rhys sent to all of them.

“We’re in the human lands.”

They were in the forest Feyre used to hunt.

But they had travelled west. So far that even the waves of the ocean could be heard. They came to small hill like features of the forest.

“I call the people of the hill in a plea of help. I call them to tell a story they know better than the characters.”

The ground started to shake, the flowers and rocks shifting into human like forms. The forms stood, covered in emerald robes and gowns, a male stood in front of them all, greeting Annabeth.

“Daemons.” Rhys breathed.

“What are Daemons?” Mor asked.

“Guiding spirit like creatures, benevolent, they contain the power to predict futures.” Amren answered.

“Correct.” The male smiled warmly, “I expect you are here to hear the story of Nesta Archeron.”

Elain nodded profusely.

“I am Algeron. The leader of the people of the hill. I will tell you her story but I must have your word that you do not breathe your opinions of Nesta’s story to her. She is precious to us, we have accepted her. Do I have your word?”

They all hesitated but agreed, Elain being the first to nod.

 A mist took over them, secluding them all. Algeron’s voice towered over them.

“Good now let’s start….

  Nesta’s story started before she was born. It started when the wall went up. Trapping Annabeth Donahue on the side of mortals. She was fae. But she didn’t care; she was married to the love of her life who was a human man. Logan Donahue.

But their love was tiring, he had to protect her. They had three girls, he had to protect them. Because they were half fae and he didn’t know how many years they had left till their Settling. The urge to protect drove him mad.

He became a tyrant.  

He made his eldest, Adelaide, wear iron. Tons of it on her body to suppress her fae side. His two youngest refused to be suppressed and their mother protected them from their father’s wrath. Adelaide wanted nothing more than to please her father so she did everything he told her.

Until she found her mate. The Crown Prince of Rask, Drian. He had been inspecting a hole in the wall. He’d climbed through and found her. They were madly in love. Christie the youngest, falling in love with Drian’s younger brother who had followed his brother to the love of his life. But they kept it a secret.

But Logan found out.

He was furious. He spewed venom everywhere and in his last attempt to control the situation he got Adelaide betrothed to Randolph Archeron.

Adelaide agreed only when her father made a deal with her.

He’d leave her younger sister Romella alone. He’d let Christie live her own life by marrying Drian’s younger brother and Adelaide would go under Iron cuffs for the rest of her life. He agreed with a few of his own conditions.

She got married, Randolph smitten with her. Putting on an act to be in love with the future prince of merchants was part of the deal Adelaide made.

Adelaide stayed in the continent trying to fulfil her father’s last condition. Her father wanted a male heir.

She gave birth to 3 daughters. Not one son.

Randolph was pleased but her father was furious. Then one day in a cruel twist of fate, Randolph came home early from his trades to see his fae mother-in-law and sister-in-law playing with his daughters. He was mortified.

He took Adelaide away snapping any connection with Adelaide’s family. He claimed he did it to protect his daughters.

Something broke the day they arrived in Prythian, Adelaide Archeron kept the act of love even if there was none.

Adelaide was closest to her oldest daughter, Elain and Feyre sticking to their Father as long as he was at home.

But as much as they kept up the façade of a happy marriage, Randolph was first to snap.

And on a beautiful day when Elain was in the garden watching the gardeners and Feyre was playing in her room, He told his wife that he had fallen in love with another woman. He had slept with her and they had a child. They called her Bella. Adelaide tried to keep the betrayal from consuming here. But she couldn’t, she wasn’t upset because she had fallen in love with him. She was mourning the spent loyalty she had wasted. They had children together.

Randolph promised that Nesta, Elain and Feyre would never face the consequences of his decision. He then left.

Adelaide cried in shattering breaths. This was the first secret a young Nesta watching from the door was burdened with.

Drian had sensed Adelaide’s grief from the bond she no longer used anymore and rushed to the other side of the wall.

When Adelaide spent days grieving in Drian’s arms, she felt better, she felt happier. She still loved him. She was pregnant with Drian’s son.

The second secret Nesta was burdened with.

She confronted her mother and her mother broke down begging Nesta not to think of her as a whore. Nesta, a young girl who believed in love and soul mates wiped her mother’s tears and told her she understood. That she was grateful to this male helping her mother when her father had betrayed her. Adelaide wanted Drian to meet her; therefore Nesta was burdened with another secret.

Drian, on the other hand fell in love with Nesta the first time he laid his eyes on her. How much he was like her mother. The cold demeanour, her softer traits, the dimples that pierced her cheeks when she smiled.

He told her to call him ‘Papa Drian.’

Now Nesta was a girl who was so full of life. But there were things she didn’t know.

When her youngest sister was in her mother’s womb.

The people of the hill had begged Annabeth to keep that child safe. To make sure that child, who was star kissed be raised by wolves. The equality of the two races needed her.

Nesta was told this when she asked her mother why she was so cold to Feyre.

Randolph’s visits home were shorter, trips longer. He was tending to his other child Bella, who was a few months older than Elain. Nesta was impaled by the thought that her father didn’t love her.

to be continued....

Tags:

@mis-lil-red

@wannawriteyouabook

@absolute-dissapointment

@skychild29

[rebelwith0utacause]

just dropping random question numbers before i leave work okay: 11,20,45,48,61,72,88

11: Do you have any strange phobias?

I probably do, but I can’t think of anything rn. I try not to think too much about things that make me scared, otherwise I over-fixate on shit and I end up even more scared.

20: What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?

I give ppl too many chances until I’m no longer surprised by their behavior and the magic is gone. I’m extremely calm and focused in difficult situations, it’s almost scary tbh.

45: What’s the worst injury you’ve ever had?

I cut my elbow on broken glass while getting out of a bus crash, I also had a bad concussion + a few sprains but I don’t remember the pain due to adrenaline. 

48: What’s your sexual orientation?

Straight, but according to your anon, I’m extremely bisexual. 

61: Are you wearing socks right now?

Honestly, Heath, you know the answer to this one. A big fat NO.

72: You are at the doctor’s office and she has just informed you that you have approximately one month to live. a) Do you tell anyone/everyone you are going to die? b) What do you do with your remaining days? c) Would you be afraid?

I’d probably tell someone, I don’t wanna be a burden but I also don’t think I’ve been such a bad person that I deserve to die alone. I’d like to say I’d do everything I can to live to the fullest, but I’m pretty sure I’d spend half of the time reminiscing about good old days and being big sad about things I missed in life. I don’t think I’d be afraid, the shock will take over, there won’t be any time for fear.

88: If you could press a button and make anyone in the world instantaneously explode, who would it be?  

No one, I believe in karma. I don’t get to play judge and jury. But I would like to read one day that Ian Watkins is tortured on a daily basis for the shit that he’s done.

[rebelsofshield]

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker-Review

After two great but flawed films, the third trilogy of The Skywalker Saga comes to a sputtering dud of a close in a disappointing, if occasionally fun, film.

(Review contains minor spoilers)

A message has been sent out to the galaxy from the seemingly dead Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) anxiously searches for the potential rival to his rule while also planning to turn this new player to his benefit. However, in order to defeat Palpatine, he will need to officially complete his goal of turning Rey (Daisy Ridley) to the Dark Side of the Force. Meanwhile, Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) work desperately to lead the scattered remains of the Resistance to victory. As the threat of Palpatine and his new fleet of super powerful ships becomes clear, a team forms to desperately search out a way to locate and destroy this new Final Order before it is too late.

The Rise of Skywalker arguably had one of the most difficult tasks of any Star Wars film. Not only functioning as the end of this particular string of films, this final installment of The Skywalker Saga is also burdened with bringing some sense of closure to the succession of plot threads, character arcs, and themes that have been seeded, toyed with, and explored since the first film debuted in 1977. It’s an incredibly hard challenge and it is easy to understand the amount of pressure that must have been on writer and director JJ Abrams, co-writer Chris Terrio, and the whole cast and crew to stick the landing.

From the outside, Abrams seemed like a logical, if safe, pick for the job. The Force Awakens, while it relies heavily on familiar imagery, is a well-paced, very fun film that is buoyant with heart, humor and an incredible ensemble of characters. After Rian Johnson’s delightfully strange, esoteric, and daring The Last Jedi, offering another fun romp to round out the trilogy seemed like a comfortable, if not especially brave, way to end a series of movies that was mostly chugging with momentum and heart. A plan may not have been evident, but having had delivered two films that were still among the strongest in the saga, a road map may have not been needed.

The Rise of Skywalker, however, proves to be a long, loud, and fumbling film that somehow goes out of its way to highlight the weakest aspects of this trilogy in a sloppy and uneven package. There is fun throughout, and on a surface level, much of it is a perfectly serviceable experience, but it sits as one of the most crowded and confused Star Wars experiences in recent memory.

Much of this comes down to Abrams and Terrio’s cluster crash of a script. The decision to return Palpatine as a form of connective tissue, bringing the Dark Side threats of nine films under a single roof, is not an inherently bad one. Ian McDiarmid’s wonderfully campy master planner was easily one of the strongest parts of both previous trilogy cappers, Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, and returning once more to his grand schemes, cackles, and monologues felt like it could have been a smart move to creating closure and consequence. Palpatine ultimately becomes symbolic for many of the larger sins evident in The Rise of Skywalker. His much hyped return is revealed in as purely flippant a manner as possible and his galaxy destroying resources are hand waived in with just as much nonsense and confusion. He exists purely as a scary, familiar plot device and nothing much more.

It becomes representative of a larger film narrative that feels more and more hacked together and confused the more one thinks about it. The Rise of Skywalker’s first thirty minutes are a chaotic nightmare that feel edited together with little thought to cohesion or comprehension. The audience is given no time to linger on a single scene and we hop from location to location with little thought or understanding as to why or clarity of transition. It’s a film that begins at a sprint and wants you to hear everything it has to say while it hurtles forward at top speed. The beautifully orchestrated first third of The Force Awakens that lovingly introduced us to an incredible new cast of characters feels like a far gone thought and the emotional start to The Last Jedi’s own ensemble saga feels all the more impactful. The Rise of Skywalker barely gives the viewer time to breath until close to the end of its first act and by then it will have lightly already bludgeoned many into indifference.

Much of the first half of The Rise of Skywalker plays out in a series of fetch quest related set pieces that range from fun to nonsensical, but it’s ultimately this portion as we head into the film’s playful middle where it is at its strongest. After spending two films mostly apart, Rey, Poe, and Finn finally get to spend time adventuring together and despite the lack of context, this trio of adventurers really sing as a group. The banter, chemistry and cooperation between this makeshift team is the film’s clear highlight and is a testament to the groundwork done by both prior films and the strength of these performers. Anthony Daniels’s C-3PO also gets some of his meatiest and most emotional material to date and Abrams smartly plays the shiny protocol droid as a mix of heart and humor.

All things considered, the individual character arcs for each of our central three heroes are threadbare but populated with great individual moments and asides. Isaac gets to lean into Poe Dameron’s swaggering heroism to an even greater degree here while also building on, ever so slightly, the developments to his person experienced in The Last Jedi. His occasional butting heads with the far cooler minded Rey is a nice touch, but his chemistry with Finn is a forever highlight, even if a much teased romance between the two never manifests. A connection to Poe’s past, Zorii Bliss, is a great new inclusion and is played with gruff seriousness by Kerri Russell of Felicity and The Americans fame. Yes, there are hints of a romantic connection between the two, but nothing serious occurs and hopefully leaves room to keep our famous Resistance pilot among our potential queer characters.

Finn was maybe the one character who did not get to live up to his potential in The Last Jedi. After The Force Awakens turned him into a charismatic but engagingly flawed co-hero, his story of finding purpose couldn’t help but feel like a weak link in a strong chains of subplots and it certainly didn’t help that it included the much maligned Canto Bight sequence. While Finn doesn’t experience as much of a clear character arc here, John Boyega certainly gets much more to do. As the emotional heart of the team that keeps Poe and Rey connected, Finn becomes an important balancing act to the crew and is privy to many of the film’s emotional moments. A smart move sees Finn bonding with another newcomer, Jannah, played by Naomie Ackie, who shares a similar past. The conversations between these two make for some of the film’s best moments and Jannah, along with Zorii, escape the film as its two best additions. There is even a subtle but very interesting development for Finn in this film that doesn’t get highlighted as much as it should, but will delight fans of the character. I won’t say more than that.

It’s ultimately Rey where The Rise of Skywalker heads into murky water. Dasiy Ridley has always been a talented performer and this film easily marks her strongest performance in the saga. Ridley brings nuanced and complex emotion to her close ups and manages to oscillate between playful heroism and conflicted personal drama with great skill. After years of (incorrect) criticism that Rey was a character that was played too safe, The Rise of Skywalker takes great pains to push her into uncharted waters and uneasy futures. It is here that The Rise of Skywalker consistently makes its largest storytelling missteps. One significant reveal is likely to produce audience eye rolls and feels like a betrayal of some of its predecessors’ most thoughtful themes. Ridley does her best with these moments and they do lead to some beats of weighty character conflict, but they feel like an ultimately safe and simultaneously sloppy route to take her character and it ends up bringing much of the film down with it.  

The Rise of Skywalker leans even further into Rey and Kylo Ren being dyads of both ends of the Force, but it’s ultimately Kylo that ends up being the most disappointing of the central characters of this trilogy. After spending two films being an unpredictable and intriguingly unhinged antagonist bursting with moral confusion, Abrams saddles Adam Driver’s Dark Sider with a mostly clear plot trajectory that lacks a fair amount of the nuance that made the same character such a magnetic part of the past films. He is privy to much of the film’s best action beats and one sequence in particular that functions as a creative escalation of the Force bonds from the previous film is some of the most inventive stuff in the movie, but it isn’t enough to really sell the final steps of his character journey. That being said, there is one, potentially very pandering and indulgent moment that mirrors The Force Awakens that comes across with great emotional vulnerability due in large part to Driver and his co-star’s performances.

The old guard are given surprisingly little to do here. After spending much of the press tour discussing Carrie Fisher’s posthumous role in the film, the end results end up being something of a mixed bag. Having Leia be a central part of the narrative is welcome and it’s nice to get a proper goodbye to the character, but the artificiality of her inclusion is far from seamless and often times is more distracting than it is moving. Billy Dee Williams’s long awaited turn as Lando Calrissian proves fine, but doesn’t amount to much of consequence. He feels like a stand in for all of the original trilogy characters that are inaccessible to this film’s plot. Luke’s return is serviceable as well and is competently acted but is directly tied to some of the wonky storytelling choices made with Rey and is often peppered with disappointing bouts of misguided nostalgia and fan service.

The Rise of Skywalker is a very big movie. There’s quite a lot going on and many players, new and old, don’t get their fair share. It’s hard not to be a little angry that after the abuse hurdled at her for over two years, Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose is given such little to do that she might as well be a bit player. The same can be said for Maz Kanata or any of the other supporting characters of the trilogy. The elusive Knights of Ren finally appear to do little more than stand around and look cool and their one action sequence is a titanic disappointment. The always petulant General Hux is sidebarred as well, but has a rather fun bit of character development that lets him leave the trilogy as a strangely despicable but enjoyable secondary villain.

As an action spectacle, The Rise of Skywalker is occasionally fun but frequently hollow. The early and middle portions concerning our heroes out running and sneaking past First Order forces prove to be the most successful and fun. Abrams injects some of these bits with clever uses of mobile cinematography and an Indiana Jones-esque chase sequence on the sands of Pasana is pure fun. The large Return of the Jedi meets Avengers: Endgame finale feels empty and weightless though. Despite the massive scale demonstrated, it all feels mostly hollow and heavy on effects and explosions. Because it is so predicated on the earlier mentioned loose and bizarre plot choices, it’s unclear what we are supposed to be feeling as we head into this chaotic showdown. Strangely enough, Abrams skimps on the cameos for our big rallying cry. For a film that rarely shies away from fan service, the one moment that seems primed for it is barely utilized.

Even John Williams feels tired. While his score blends together themes from all eight films with mastery, there isn’t much new to really give the movie its own identity outside a briefly heard finale piece.

The Rise of Skywalker isn’t awful. It has moments that are quite strong and more often than not it opts for surface level fun rather than daring choices. However, it’s moments of sloppiness and baffling script choices make its safer moments all the more frustrating. It is not the worst of Star Wars franchise, but it is far, far from the best and it’s hard not to leave the film disheartened, not necessarily by the events of its story, but rather that after all the love and adventure, it ends on such a half-hearted stumble.

Score: C+

[thebachelordiaries]

My Late ASF Recap of Some Early Episodes of ‘The Bachelorette’

What’s up, everyone? I’m at jury duty with some time to kill, so I thought this would be the best time to catch up on my Bachelorette recaps. Don’t feel sorry for me. If I had it my way, Casey Anthony would’ve been found guilty, Luke P. would need to go on trial for gaslighting women, and Ashley I. and Jared would be indefinitely banned from appearing on any Bachelor franchise show. Don’t thank me; I’m just a normal person who wants to make the world a fair and better place.

Ashley I. and Jared are the people five years removed from high school who still show up to the parties. Go home.

What even happened on Episodes 2, 3 and 4? 

I just had to check and make sure there’s been four episodes already. I swear the premiere happened last week. It’s a similar feeling to being 23 and then waking up one day and realizing you’re 28. Time flies when you’re not doing anything with your life. 

I don’t know a lot of things, but...

...Here’s What I Do Know About This Season

I have no idea why Tyler G left. This normal-ass dude with the jawline of a demigod and the personality of a barren midwest field got the first 1-on-1 date with Hannah. The only remarkable thing about it was we realized just how dirty the cast photo photographer did him.

This striking individual is allegedly the same person as this thumb-of-a-man below:

I don’t wish unemployment on anyone, but I hope the photographer who took this picture received a very fair severance package.

By episode four, Tyler G. was quietly sent home with no explanation. Obviously he was accused of something and ABC didn’t want that burden on their back, especially after they casted a SEX OFFENDER on Becca’s season, so he, and his Ian Somerhalder-esque jawline were sent back to wherever they came from.

Goodbye, Tyler G. We hardly knew ye. In the future don’t (allegedly) spit in any girl’s face. You might get kicked off a reality TV show one day.

Luke P. (the “P” stands for PLEASE LET’S STOP GIVING HIM ATTENTION)

I get that he’s the “villain” of this season, but hear me out.

Luke P. isn’t that bad. (Narrator: He really is that bad. Just wait)

Sure, he exudes so much confidence that it makes me roll my eyes into the back of my head, but I kind of respect it. (Narrator: She doesn’t respect it anymore)

I know people are saying he was “love bombing” Hannah on night 1 in order to get the first impression rose, but I just want to make it clear that it doesn’t make him an abusive person just because he flooded her with affection, and people shouldn’t label him a possible abuser because of that single instance. It’s not like he (allegedly) spat in his girlfriend’s face. (Narrator: Gaslighting is abusive behavior)

(Narrator: This paragraph somewhat defending Luke P. has beed removed due to bad judgement. Luke P. actually does suck. A lot.)

Every season there’s a little punk who has no chance at staying on the show with their connection with The Bachelorette alone, so they decide to spark a feud with the guy getting the most camera time. First there was Chad and Evan. Then there was Jordan and David. Now There’s Luke P. and Luke S.

Luke P. and I make the same face whenever Luke S. opens his mouth.

And I get it. I, too, have a secret hatred for every person with the same name as me, but Luke S. annoys me so much that I’m starting to feel bad for Luke P. (Narrator: She doesn’t feel bad anymore)

Maybe I’m wrong and Luke P. really is the worst. (Narrator: He is) 

Maybe he really is being a douche canoe off camera and deserves to be ganged up on by the other guys. (Narrator: He is)

I don’t have the answers. (Narrator: You soon will)

I’m just saying I hate Luke S. more. (Narrator: This is no longer true. Luke S. is still annoying though)

MIKE FOR BACHELOR

I honestly don’t care if you don’t like Mike. Nobody asked you. 

I see so much Bachelor potential in him, and I really think (with the right edit, COUGH, COUGH, ABC) he could become our first black Bachelor.

That smile. That damn smile.

I don’t care if you love Pilot Pete, Tyler C., Jedd, or whoever else the frontrunners are right now. If any of them get the gig over Mike, I’m strongly considering protesting in the streets. I’m fairly confident, with the power of Bachelor Twitter fandom, that we can make the #MikeForBachelor movement happen.

My only concern is that Mike seems like he is getting mixed up in the drama, which I hope doesn’t paint him in a negative light. And I’m scared he’s going to get eliminated before the top 6, which could hurt his chances. I’m at the edge of my seat at every rose ceremony.

Nevertheless, I do think that we can will this to come true. Mike :clap: for :clap: Bachelor :clap:.

FRONTRUNNERS

To put it bluntly, these are the only guys who have a chance with Hannah:

Jedd— He pulled an “8-Mile” and dissed himself before anyone else could by admitting to Hannah that he came on the show for the “wrong reasons.” The thing about “red flags” are that you ignore then when you’re into someone. Despite Jedd waving his “wrong reasons” flag (he wants to promote his country music career) in front of her face, Hannah could care less. She’s smitten.

Tyler C.— Look, if Hannah isn’t into Tyler C., she should just let Twitter fight over who gets what body part. I would like to call dibs on his torso. On a more serious note, Tyler C. is insanely hot, shockingly deep and actually seems like a genuine person. Everyone thought Blake was going to be to hottest ticket in Paradise, but now he’s not even on the starting roster. Meanwhile. Tyler C. is first up at bat. With that said, I don’t think Hannah is going to pick him, but he’s top four for sure.

A short list of people Tyler C. looks like: Patrick Swayze, Miles Teller, Ryan Lochte, Connor, my future husband.

Connor— Poor Connor may have had the worst 1-on-1 date of all time. Hannah was sick, so instead of doing whatever they had planned, they laid in bed for about 15 minutes. He was a good sport about it and still got the rose. My mom said he was the perfect gentleman. There’s something kind of pure about him, and he has big “best to take home to mom and dad” energy.

Pilot Pete— I admittedly didn’t “get” they hype surrounding this guy. He looks like a pudgy man baby from certain angles. But from other angles, he can get it. I officially became part of the Pilot Pete fan club when he PICKED UP HANNAH AND MADE OUT WITH HER AGAINST THE WALL.

Yeah, we stan. (Also follow me on Twitter, @thebachdiaries)

Garrett— He’s my dark horse. I feel like we haven’t seen enough of him, but I think he should get a 1-on-1 date soon. I mean, he literally looks like Jordan Rodger’s long lost brother. He’s rich (you can’t be a pro golfer and poor at the same time. I think you have to pay hefty annual fees), is from Alabama, has an adorable southern accent, and was the first person to come out of the limo (which always means something.) The thing is, I don’t really like him. He reminds me of a frat bro who giggles at immature poop jokes.

HONORABLE MENTION: 

Luke P.— Even though Hannah is fed up with Luke P’s sh*t, she admitted she still has strong feelings for him. Plus, he received the first impression rose, and the recipient of that rose has gone on to get the final rose for FOUR SEASONS IN A ROW. I’m just saying. Luke P. may win this thing. 

Stay tuned for more recaps that will come out whenever I feel like posting them.

I wrote this recap weeks ago, but never posted it. I need to get back on the ball with this blog. I promise I will be back on (or off...depends how you look at it) my bullsh*t soon.

[johnnymundano]

First Reformed (2018)

Directed by Paul Schrader

Written by Paul Schrader

Music by Lustmord

Country: United States

Language: English

Running Time: 113 minutes

CAST

Ethan Hawke as Pastor Ernst Toller

Amanda Seyfried as Mary Mensana

Cedric Kyles as Pastor Joel Jeffers

Victoria Hill as Esther

Philip Ettinger as Michael Mensana

Michael Gaston as Edward Balq

Bill Hoag as John Elder

(Confession: All images stolen from the Internet. We’re all going to hell anyway.)

In which Paul Schrader, a man whose last movie I bought from a pound shop makes a movie with goofy Ethan Hawke as a sad vicar and…it’s my favourite movie of 2018? Damn straight it is, Poncho. In First Reformed Paul Schrader creates a gloriously stark and sedately paced meditation on the question, how can we survive in the face of despair?

First of all, the Ethan in the room. Ethan Hawke. He’s okay, right? Never a chore to watch, but hardly a heavy hitter. A pleasant enough addition to any cast. Well, that was before First Reformed. First Reformed is movie about revelation and Ethan Hawke’s Ernst Toller(1) surely is a revelation. Toller, predictably enough, is the umpteenth iteration of Schrader’s evolving portrait of (Thomas Mann’s) God’s Lonely Man, and, like the Whitman said, he is large, he contains multitudes; he is the refined essence of all the God’s Lonely Men who came before him. Given Hawke’s predecessors in this ever mutating role include such titans of thesping as Robert De Niro, Willem Dafoe, George C. Scott and Richard Gere, the fact that his (Ethan Hawke’s!) performance can lounge comfortably amongst them is perhaps the biggest surprise in First Reformed. Appropriately enough, watching Hawke as Toller you will feel the scales fall from your eyes; Ethan Hawke (Ethan Hawke!) is not a lightweight screen presence, he is, in fact, an actor of the top tier. It helps that in First Reformed he’s given top tier material by a true auteur going at it like he’ll never get to go at it again. First Reformed is Schrader at the top of his mature game, exerting an iron control over material driven by an icy rage. And Hawke (Ethan Hawke!) is more than equal to the task. The boy done good.

1) A toller is defined as “a person who rings church bells (as for summoning the congregation) bell ringer, ringer. signaler, signaller - someone who communicates by signals.” There is some irony here as Toller’s congregation is small, but he definitely communicates via signals, particularly so at the close of the movie. Oh yes, particularly then.)

Everyone else has to act in Hawke’s daunting shadow, so it is absolutely to their credit that they still shine so brightly, so fiercely.  I doubt many people other than his immediate family thought that Cedric the Entertainer could portray such a smoothly venal and slyly manipulative Pastor, while still appearing wholly human and relatable. (Mind you, Brummy funnyman Lenny Henry made a creditable Othello, so who the hell knows?) Michael Gaston is great as Edward Balq (2), the bad businessman who ambushes Toller over apple pie and thinks maybe it’s God’s plan to fuck up the world for cash. And he’s no one dimensional greedy meanie either, he is part of Schrader’s dramatisation of humanity’s struggle with The Bible’s (typically) contradictory command to both tame the world and also to preserve it. The abysmal weight of the latter burden falls on Philip Ettinger, as Michael Mensana (3). Ettinger is worryingly convincing as a man who clearly can no longer control his own mind. This tortured soul is desperately using his last scraps of rapidly fleeing reason to prevent himself from doing an unforgivable thing; either via the humane intervention of Toller or via other, more drastic measures. Amanda Seyfried is harrowingly vulnerable as Michael’s wife, Mary Mensana (4), but she also brings the core of steel essential for survival in the fallen world, a core which her husband, Michael, fatally lacks.  

2) “Balq” is a phonetic ringer for “balk” i.e. to hesitate or be unwilling to accept an idea or undertaking.

3) Mensana alludes to “mens sana”, the Latin for “healthy mind”; it is used ironically for Michael. His mind is unhealthy.

4) Mens sana is used literally in the case of Mary. She also deserves its use in the wider sense; Mary embodies Juvenal’s phrase “mens sana in corpore sano”. She is “a healthy mind in a healthy body”. Her pregnancy is a sign of health and hope. Also, she’s called “Mary” and is pregnant in a movie thrumming with religious tones both over and under; I don’t think we need Sherlock Holmes to puzzle that one out for us.

Things are being said in First Reformed. Things weightier than “Tom Cruise can save the world without chipping a nail” or “uptight businesswomen need to unclench so wacky men can love them”. All true and valuable lessons, no doubt, but they aren’t what’s being said in First Reformed. Of course, something is usually being said in a Paul Schrader movie. That’s the way Paul Schrader rolls; like the thunder. Paul Schrader has been knocking about movies for what, five decades now? Since 1974 anyway, when The Yakuza was filmed by Sydney Pollack from a script by Schrader and his brother, Leonard. It was a good start; an entertaining geriatric action movie, involving an aged Robert Mitchum steamrollering his way through the Yakuza, while delicately pining for his war-time love. A little bit of playing in the Hitchcock sandbox aside (Obsession, Dir. Brian De Palma, 1979), this potent fuel of meditative violence would form the core of Schrader’s early offerings, with Rolling Thunder (dir. John Flynn, 1977) and, particularly, Taxi Driver (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1976) refining the approach. Movies like Blue Collar (1978) and Hardcore (1979) also displayed Schrader’s interest in alienation, guilt, dehumanisation, guilt, sexuality and spiritual inquiry. And guilt. Sure, such themes were certainly less immediately arresting than hook handed ‘Nam vets and tonto taxi drivers, but with American Gigolo (1980) Schrader successfully intertwined all his major themes, high and low, into his first critical and commercial career maker of a knockout. That same year saw the release of the Schrader scripted Raging Bull (dir. Martin Scorsese). Top o’ the world, ma, in effect.

There then followed the ‘80s and, for Schrader, what appeared to be a “kid in a candy store” phase.  (Legal note: no one said “nose candy”) Given the freedom Hollywood success bestows, Schrader  indulged his more personal fascinations via his own scripts and those of others. Schrader having more going on upstairs than most in La La Land, this led to mixed results; his study of the celebrated Japanese author and coup instigator Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) clearly being of more artistic value than his study of Nastassja Kinski’s bare arse in his remake of Cat People (1982). But I have watched the latter far more than the former, so who am I to judge? Somewhere in this wayward and invigoratingly fun period is a movie about kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst (1988) and an adaptation of Paul Theroux’s Mosquito Coast (Dir. Peter Weir, 1986). And I’m pretty sure few filmographies contain a musical starring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett (Light of Day, 1987) and a Jesus movie which managed to upset various touchy Christian groups, including that of his own father (The Last Temptation of Christ, Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1988). A real cinematic fruit basket; lots of fun, something for everyone.

But after the party comes the hangover, alas, and the early ‘90s for our fascinating firebrand seemed somewhat listless and directionless. At best. Schrader working with Harold Pinter sounds dauntingly awesome, especially with Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren on board, but the result was a stodgy Europudding adaptation of Ian McEwan’s The Comfort of Strangers (1990). (Walken is amazing in it though, true.) Then in 1992 there came Light Sleeper, a perfectly fine movie, a pretty damn good movie in fact; if you ignore that it’s basically American Gigolo for drug dealers, with a soupcon of a last act shootout for Taxi Driver/Rolling Thunder flavour. It’s probably Schrader’s best ‘90s movie because it magpies from all his earlier, good movies.  A TV movie starring Dennis Hopper which used fear of witchcraft as a metaphor for the ‘50s Communist scare (Witch Hunt, 1994) sounds…interesting. (I haven’t seen it.) And the lean period sputtered out with a script contribution to City Hall (Dir. Harold Becker, 1996), a movie which despite a class pedigree stubbornly refused to ignite. No period in Schrader’s filmography is a total loss, but there was a clear lack of  artistic traction in those six years.

Maybe even Schrader noticed, because in 1997 his work flowered anew with the release of both Touch and Affliction. As if invigorated by the source works, Schrader produced one of the best ever Elmore Leonard adaptations (an even greater achievement given the atypical nature of Touch. Christopher Walken is excellent in it, obviously), and an appropriately despairing staging of Russel Banks’ grim novel of dysfunctional families and DIY dentistry. As to the latter it would be lax to fail to state how incredible James Coburn is as The Awful Father. I’ve never seen Forever Mine (1999), so for me Schrader’s ‘90s closed on a high with the adaptation of Joe Connelly’s Bringing Out the Dead (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1999). A fine high-octane night-in-the-life-of-a-paramedic parable featuring a lively cast kicking out the jams; all led by a truly great Nicolas Cage before his fall, before his face started adorning novelty sequin cushions.

In 2002, with Autofocus (from Robert Graysmith's book “The Murder of Bob Crane”) Schrader went back to the well of morality and debauchery he had been lightly dipping into throughout his career, and this time chucked the bucket in further than he had since Hardcore, drawing up a weighty, but darkly comic, look at the corrupting influence of images. Pretty ballsy for a man who trades in the things. It was a great start to the 2000s, so obviously it immediately turned to shit. So shit in fact most of the movies from this period appeared without my noticing, were difficult to source, or were disowned by Schrader himself. Not exactly Paul Schrader: The Glory Years. A 2005 Exorcist prequel was yanked off him by the studio and re-edited and re-shot under Renny Harlin. The Walker (2007), was really good with Woody Harrelson as a gay “professional companion” to older women accidentally uncovering Washington corruption; a kind of Light Sleeper for gay consorts. A really good movie, but nobody noticed. In 2008 Adam Resurrected occurred without my noticing, as did The Canyons (2013). In 2014 I did notice The Dying of the Light was taken off Schrader and re-edited by the studio so, without wishing to cause offence:  **** that one. And this is where we came in...last year I picked up Dog Eat Dog (2016) on Blu-Ray in a Pound Shop; it was…very energetic, very hectic; a post fall Nic Cage and a never-even-stumbled-once Willem Dafoe were obviously having fun. I kind of dug it in a weird way, but Schrader definitely looked like his best days were behind him. Then I heard he was doing a movie with Ethan ****ing Hawke as a sad vicar or something. Hoo boy.

HOO BOY! indeed. Cover my face with egg and fry it in a pan! Yeah, Paul Schrader made a movie with Ethan Hawke as a sad vicar or something, and it was one of The 3 Movies I Loved in 2018. (The others, obviously, being Mandy and Let The Corpses Tan. I’m sure everyone agrees.) Schrader, the wily bugger had just been playing possum; letting his energies build, fermenting his themes, you know, getting ready to put out some fires with gasoline, as someone sang over the credits to one of his movies once. Filmed in the hypnotically discreet Transcendental Style so dear to his heart First Reformed is the “Paul Schrader movie” par excellence. It’s all been building to this one, kids!

First Reformed is a heartbreaker, a goddamn beautiful heartbreaker of a thing, it moves soft as a breeze and punches you in the heart like LaMotta on meth. The everyday becomes numinously stunning under Schrader’s soporific direction; the mundane is exalted; an indefinable mysticism hums through every scene; every performance is pregnant with the preternatural. Schrader lays his transcendental groundwork so well that when the movie makes a late lurch into magical realism it doesn’t jar, it just feels right; no, it just feels perfect. In First Reformed, terrible, terrible feelings are going on behind ordinary people’s faces; terrible, terrible feelings Schrader’s camera miraculously, tenderly, delicately captures like snow settling on an outstretched tongue. So, no, slow cinema doesn’t have to be boring cinema; only bad cinema is boring cinema. And First Reformed is good cinema. First Reformed is great cinema. First Reformed is Paul Schrader taking back the crown. Turns out everyone else was just keeping it warm.