#kevin camus

[grooviestguru]

the unintentionally funniest thing about aftg, specifically trk, is the knowledge that edgar allen is a small uni that leans more towards arts programs. so you’re telling me that the ravens are all arts majors, and the fans who stomp along to the scary music are just fuckin arts kids

[sillypenguinwitch]

isaac's books in heartstopper s2

episode 1:

Tillie Walden: I Love This Part

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: Ace of Spades

episode 2:

Nina LaCour: We Are Okay

Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

episode 3:

Ocean Vuong: Night Sky with Exit Wounds (the one he is carrying under his arm, I'm assuming that's his and not for the display?)

has read: Ritch C. Savin-Williams: Bi: Bisexual, Pansexual, Fluid, and Nonbinary Youth

Emily Henry: Book Lovers

episode 4:

Victor Hugo: Les Misérables

Antoine De Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince

Kate Chopin: The Awakening

Nina LaCour: We Are Okay (again)

episode 5:

Albert Camus: The Outsider

episode 6:

Martin Handford: Where's Wally? The Great Picture Hunt

Meredith Russo: Birthday

Jules Verne: Around the World in Eighty Days

Sara Pennypacker: Pax Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, Sophie Mas: How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are ? ? ? Damian Dibben: The Color Storm Alice Oseman: Loveless Susan Stokes-Chapman: Pandora Katy Hessel: The Story of Art Without Men ? Evelyn Waugh: Rossetti Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles A.O. Scott: Better Living Through Criticism ?: Then We Came to an End (?) Ruth Millington: Muse Dr. Jaqui Lewis: Fierce Love Charlotte Van Den Broek: Bold Ventures - Thirteen Tales of Architectural Tragedy ?

Richard Siken: Crush

episode 7:

Garrard Conley: Boy Erased

George Matthew Johnson: All Boys Aren't Blue

Samra Habib: We Have Always Been Here

episode 8:

Akemi Dawn Bowman: Summer Bird Blue

Angela Chen: Ace

bonus:

Truham school library pride display (seen in ep. 3 and 8):

top to bottom, left to right: Angela Chen: Ace Andrew Holleran: The Kingdom of Sand Mary Jean Chan and Andrew McMillan: 100 Queer Poems Scott Stuart: My Shadow Is Pink Lotte Jeffs: My Magic Family Tucker Shaw: When You Call My Name Ritch C. Savin-Williams: Bi - Pansexual, Fluid, Nonbinary and Fluid Youth Alok Vaid-Menon: Beyond the Gender Binary George M. Johnson: All Boys Aren’t Blue Mason Deaver: I Wish You All the Best Alex Gino: George Melissa

on top of shelves (left to right): Kevin Van Whye: Nate Plus One Xixi Tian: This Place is Still Beautiful Becky Albertalli: Leah on the Offbeat Mya-Rose Craig: Birdgirl Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other Connie Glynn: Princess Ever After Saundra Mitchell: The Prom

Charlie's choice at Shakespeare and Co (ep. 6): Allan Hollinghurst: The Swimming Pool Library

That's it for now.

Sorry about the ones i couldn't identify and sorry if i missed any! Might try and do some of the ones in Isaac's room later but that'll take a minute

[mysticstarlightduck]

Incorrectly Described OCs Tag

I don't know if this was done before, but I was inspired to make this by the "Badly Summarized WIP Tag" (:

Rules: Describe your OCs (personality-wise) as badly and weirdly as you possibly can

I'll go with some OCs from my WIP Mutant Inquiries for this one.

(Main Cast)

Becca Sillvers - middle kid with daddy issues and strong feral gremlin energy, basically becomes a computer virus after accident and has an overall bad time before deciding to pick a fight with the world

Cory "Diamond" Blythe - has only the power of anime, glitter and vodka on their side. basically made a deal with this world's equivalent of "rumpelstiltskin" (but not really) and regrets life choices.

Luka Stormme - guy with anger issues becomes vigilante during business days after a couple boxing classes. is the "soccer-mom" to his cousins and his friends when he's not fighting crime

Cass Holborn - dropout with a bunch of explosive chemicals in his garage builds underworld empire while successfully failing, but somehow managing, to raise sister

Nydia Tainnen - unstable ballerina with severe childhood trauma decides to become an assassin and give a middle finger to the government

Matthias Harke - runaway tries to keep his friends out of trouble when they decide to mess with the worst people possible, ends up having to take the lead.

Samantha Holborn - troublemaking teen who never learned the meaning of "none of your business" and had too much free time sneaks somewhere she should not be and causes chaos

Jym Callister - over-caffeinated insomniac takes up computer hacking as a way to avoid his problems and just be a menace

Alexey Morikov - cat parent who only wanted to mind his own business and read must get back into the fray after a bunch of unsupervised teens bring the problems he'd successfully been avoiding now knocking on his door

Killien Lux - government experiment and supersoldier develops sentience and starts developing free will while making it everybody's problem. is also a knife

Keilly Phaedre - is the Only Remaining Braincell tm of the team and is completely done with life

(Antagonists)

'Signor' Teague - pathetic guy with severe ego problems, who thinks he's the big man. would be the type of person to unironically listen to those bullsh1t "alpha male podcasts" and take notes like it's an essay

The Mutant Control Agency - bunch of "Karens and Kevins" in fancy suits with lethal weapons and a warrant to chase people around + practice illegal experiments in the name of ✨""""a brighter future""""✨

PHANTOM Industries - big tech company that thinks they're so hip and cool, and are the ones sponsoring the karens above. gives off big "13-year-old playing fortnite and threatening other players" vibes.

Tagging (gently, with no pressure): @oh-no-another-idea, @writernopal, @tabswrites, @rickie-the-storyteller, @steh-lar-uh-nuhs, @little-peril-stories, @clairelsonao3, @jay-avian, @forthesanityofstorytellers, @aziz-reads, @doublegoblin, @gummybugg, @junypr-camus, @olivescales3, @saltysupercomputer @unstablewifiaccess, @late-to-the-fandom and @lassiesandiego

[visionkept]

WHAT GHOST HAUNTS YOU ?

the ghost of the damned.

you rot with the need for something more than what you have. the ghost is built up of the feeling of stagnation. you find it staring at the ceiling with sleep - blurred vision ; this is the third night you have met its eyes in the early hours of the morning. you tear yourself apart looking for comfort, for validation, for acceptance. but it never feels quite enough. you ruin everything you touch, despite every attempt to be more than what you have always been. you would sculpt yourself as something perfect for those around you, but you are no artist. when albert camus wrote, “be silent, heart; there is no hope!” when lucille clifton wrote, “maybe i should’ve wanted less. maybe i should’ve ignored the bowl in me, begging to be filled.” when taylor swift said, “i’m still on that tightrope, i’m still trying everything to get you looking at me.”

tagged by @pearlcure 💖 tagging @al-hazen @rukuan ( + mr. kevin ) @chasersglow @anemxvisions @chiheru @snowtombedstar @ccaptain @gonguji @mielmoto @pnthra @tsuuhime @crimsonbesotted @zorkaya ( + miss black swan )

[boredtechnologist]

Resident Evil Outbreak for the PlayStation 2 explores the philosophical themes of existential isolation, the human condition in crises, community versus individualism, and the nature of fear and despair. The diverse array of characters, including a waitress, a police officer, and a doctor, each with their unique perspectives and moral dilemmas, offers a canvas to analyze these themes using philosophical perspectives from thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, Søren Kierkegaard, Emmanuel Levinas, and Michel Foucault.

1. Hobbesian State of Nature and Survival: Thomas Hobbes’s notion of the 'state of nature' as a life that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" aptly describes the chaotic world of "Resident Evil Outbreak." In this game, the breakdown of societal structures due to the zombie apocalypse forces characters into a survival mode reminiscent of Hobbes’s description of human life without societal rules and protections. This setting allows an exploration of Hobbes’s idea that in such a state, individuals have a natural right to do anything in their power to preserve their lives. The decisions made by characters, like the police officer Kevin Ryman, reflect the complex interplay between self-preservation and the maintenance of moral and social order in a lawless environment.

2. Kierkegaardian Existential Despair and Fear: Søren Kierkegaard’s exploration of existential despair and fear provides a profound lens to view the psychological states of the characters in "Resident Evil Outbreak." Kierkegaard believed that confronting despair was essential to achieving a higher state of existence. In the game, characters like the doctor George Hamilton face not only external threats but also internal existential crises. Their fear of the unknown and the inevitability of death challenges them to find meaning or resign themselves to despair, embodying Kierkegaard’s stages of existential development: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.

3. Levinasian Ethics and the Other: Emmanuel Levinas’s ethics, centered on the primacy of the Other and the ethical responsibility to another, are crucial in a cooperative multiplayer game like "Resident Evil Outbreak." Each character must decide whether to prioritize personal survival or assist others, such as helping Cindy Lennox, the waitress, who often needs protection. Levinasian philosophy would argue that true ethical behavior in "Resident Evil Outbreak" is manifested when players recognize the vulnerability of other characters and respond to their needs, thereby transcending self-centered concerns.

4. Foucauldian Biopolitics and Surveillance: Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and panopticism are applicable to the game’s scenario, where a viral outbreak has led to extreme government and corporate measures to control the spread and manage the population. Characters like Yoko Suzuki, a former employee of the Umbrella Corporation, offer insights into the dynamics of power and surveillance. The use of quarantine zones, monitoring of the infection, and control over the city reflect Foucault’s analysis of how societies manage and regulate populations, especially in times of crisis.

5. The Absurdity of Camus and Rebellion: Albert Camus’s notion of the absurd—the conflict between humans’ desire for inherent meaning in life and the silent, indifferent universe—is vividly portrayed in "Resident Evil Outbreak." The relentless threat of zombification and the collapse of social order illustrate this absurdity. Camus argued that the appropriate response to the absurd is rebellion—an embrace of life despite its lack of clear meaning. This is exemplified by characters like Alyssa Ashcroft, a journalist, who continues to investigate and document the crisis, asserting her defiance against the chaos.

In conclusion, "Resident Evil Outbreak" is not just a survival horror game but also a complex exploration of philosophical themes such as the nature of society and morality in a Hobbesian state of nature, existential despair and fear per Kierkegaard, Levinasian ethics of responsibility, Foucauldian biopolitics, and Camusian rebellion against the absurd. These themes challenge players to reflect on deep questions about the human condition, ethical behavior, and the meaning of community and individualism in extreme circumstances.

[alain-keler]

Samedi 17 juin 2023, vers 17 heures 30.

  Près de Lourmarin, Vaucluse, où se déroule la deuxième édition de la manifestation photographique « Réflexivité(s)»*.

  Isabelle Liv, avec qui je partage une exposition**, conduit. Je photographie. C’est une manie. Non, une passion. Il se passe toujours quelque chose sur une route, jour et nuit.

  Ce samedi il fait chaud, cette chaleur du sud-est  accompagnée d’une lumière un peu trop blafarde à mon goût. Elle s’adoucira dans une bonne heure, peut-être deux. À l’heure de l’apéro. Ce n’est pas un hasard. Une femme à vélo, toute de blanc vêtue longe la route. L’instant sera court, le temps d’une seule image.

  Je vous invite, au moins pour ceux qui habitent le sud, à vous rendre à la fruitière numérique, où onze expositions vous attendent. La douzième, celle de Hans Silvester a trouvé refuge à l’espace Albert Camus. Le programme complet se trouve dans le lien qui accompagne ce petit billet

*https://www.reflexivites.com

** ALAIN KELER & ISABELLE LIV - Les vies au-dehors – avec un texte de Sébastien Minaux - Victor Hugo

DOLORÈS MARAT - L’instant passé

Texte de Line Papin

 ALAIN KELER & ISABELLE LIV - Les vies au-dehors

Sébastien Minaux - Victor Hugo

 HANS SILVESTER - Jouer à l’ombre des arbres

Yvan Audouard

 ESTELLE LAGARDE - Hélène

Brigitte Patient

 BETTINA PITTALUGA - intime

Simon Johannin

 LAURENT WEYL - President Hotel

Sabrina Rouillé

 LOUIS WITTER - Calais London Calling

Halina Cumft-Niementowska Pobog

 FÁBIO BOUCINHA - Enfants de nos quartiers

Luna Moriceau

 LAËTITIA VANÇON - At the end of the day

Kevin MacNeil

ALINE DESCHAMPS- A life after Kafala

lisa luxx

 ALEX KEMMAN - Only the birds still cross

[computerpeople]

Characters that are my go to kins/charas ppl associate w me (i think)

mituna captor

jake english

josh washington

shelby hawkins

the psiionic

richie tozier

michael afton

vanessa a

blake langermann

miles upshur

kevin wtnv

jude harley

eloise turner

levi

ticci toby

evan myers

aradia megido

junkrat

jevil

john ward

pinkie pie

derpy hooves

roger rabbit

The rest of them ever

grace le domas

denji

kobeni

reagan ridley

bonnie fnaf

jeff the killer

wesley children of the mirror

rainbow dash

trixie lunamoon

crona

herbert west

vanita stretch

alantutorial

daisy brown

bubba sawyer

norman bates

jataro kemuri

ouma kokichi

rigby

miles fairchild

popee the preformer

gir

camus comprix

zane from the uglies

oswald the rabbit

kirby

marx from kirby

fozzer veyles

meulin leijon

john egbert

michelangelo

kris dreemurr

hypnos

rani the fairy

emily merrimack

jay merrick

alois trancy

joker from black butler boc

daria morgendorffer

padparadscha houseki

bright eyes mlp

skully

madotsuki

vice fleshchild

chara

max sam and max

michael myers in the rob zombie version specifically

jedediah sawyer in the leatherface 2017 version specifically

mickey mouse (various versions)

spinel steven universe

peridot steven universe

achilles hello halo head

secret kin of someones oc who is not ok with ppl openly kinning their charas (his names felix)

world from fosters home of imaginary friends

finn mertens

fern the human

sollux captor

okay..................... i think thats it.

[tilbageidanmark]

Movies I watched this Week #121 (Year 3/Week 17):

This week I watched more “Foreign” films (19) and more films by female directors (15) than usual. The best ones were: Lynne Ramsay's 'Gasman' and 'Ratcatcher', 'All night long', and 'Summer 1993'.

🍿  

Carmen Jones squarely belongs to the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge, for which she was nominated for Best Actress Oscar, first for an African-American. Harry Belafonte played the sap who falls for her, is betrayed by her and who finally kills her in a jealous rage. The song numbers were all done in single shots, and the opening title sequence was the first one created by Saul Bass.

RIP, Harry Belafonte.

“About my own life, I have no complaints. Yet the problems faced by most Americans of color seem as dire and entrenched as they were half a century ago.”

🍿  

Scottish Auteur Lynne Ramsay X 7:

She only made 4 feature films and before this week I’ve only seen her most recent one, the dark and ‘Taxi Driver’-violent ‘You were never really there’, which did not speak to me. But because I keep reading that she’s one of the most important female directors of our time, I wanted to check out the rest of her work.

🍿 Morvern Callar, her second feature, took a while to get me. Driftless, precarious supermarket worker Samantha Morton seemed to have no center. One Christmas morning she finds that her boyfriend had killed himself on their kitchen floor, and like Meursault in ‘The Stranger’ by Camus, she’s overwhelmed by her inability to process her emotions. But he left her a manuscript of a novel, and she replaces his name with hers and sends it to a publisher mentioned in his suicide note. Another modern classic it resembles is Antonioni’s ‘The Passenger': As she reinvents herself with his persona, she travels from her small Scottish town south to Andalusia, and eventually finds herself in the middle of nowhere, on a dusty mountain road without any plans, or idea what to do. By the ‘Dedicated to the One I Love’ ending, it all falls into place.

🍿 Her early, 15-minute masterpiece Gasman became an immediate favorite. A poetic gem without a single unnecessary frame or word. An 8-year-old goes to a Christmas party at the local inn with her dad and brother, and on the way they meet a woman who leaves 2 other children with the dad. The way the story discloses that the girls are half-sisters is silently and unbearably heartbreaking - 10/10!

🍿 “The very thought of you”...

Things left untold in the haunting short Swimmer, pure cinematic poetry in motion, all exquisite allusions without any explanations. 8/10

🍿 All her early shorts won prestigious awards and established her as a superb visual filmmaker. Small deaths was her film school graduation short. It captures a young girl’s pain. 

🍿 But only when watching her poetic debut feature Ratcatcher, that I understood why Lynne Ramsay is considered to be one of world cinema’s best visionaries. Not knowing anything in advance about it, I was not prepared for its visual gut punch. Beauty and misery among “the garbage and the flowers”. The non-redeemable, poor children of the working class neighborhood in 1973 Glasgow. Mesmerizing pain, transformative guilt, transcendental grace - one of the best well-made movies I ‘ever’ saw!

🍿 I was reluctant to finish with the depressing We Need to Talk About Kevin, since I’m not big on dramas with Omen-like psychopath children, school shooting tragedies and damaged, long-suffering mothers. Throughout the movie, mom Tilda Swinton is washing blood out, trying to atone. Disturbing and not a pleasure trip for sure.

🍿 All her films are about parental abandonment and existential sadness. Now that I’ve seen them all, I can understand her appeal. So meanwhile, here’s Tony Zhou, of ‘Every Frame a Picture’, talking about The Poetry of Details of Lynne Ramsay (From 2015).

And I can’t wait for her next feature “I feel fine”.

🍿

Ang Lee’s 2nd feature, The Wedding Banquet, part of his early “Father Knows Best” trilogy. Surprisingly, it’s another unapologetic mainstream story about a gay couple, done more than a decade before his ‘Brokeback Mountain’. It tells of a young Taiwanese immigrant in Manhattan, whose parents want him to marry a nice Chinese woman, not knowing that he's been living with his boyfriend [Roy Lichtenstein’s real son] for the last 5 years. Like Peter Weir’s Green Card, he agrees to fake-marry a nice woman who needs a green card, but his parents come and throw him a huge party. It gets a bit implausible.

🍿

2 surprising Othello adaptations:

🍿 My second intelligent enigma by forgotten British director Basil Dearden! A week ago I discovered his seminal gay blackmail Noir ‘Victim’ about closeted barrister Dirk Bogards, and I promised myself to look for other works by him. His very next All Night Long did not disappoint.

It re-creates Shakespeare's ‘Othello’ in a 1962 Swinging London jazz jam. Patrick McGoohan is drummer Johnny, a scheming, pot-smoking Iago who prowls the party stirring up jealousy and fear to tear the interracial couple of regal bandleader Aurelius Rex and his wife Delia apart, so that Delia will sing with Johnny when he leaves Othello's band.

It’s a superbly tense tragedy that takes place in one location and in the course of one evening, It mixes a thriller with authentic jazz performances and score, and it casually presents Race (2 mixed race couples are treated in matter-of-fact way) as well as marijuana usage which is part of the plot, but used without any comment.

With young Richard Attenborough and several prominent Jazz musicians including Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus. There’s also the majestic performance of black lead actor Paul Harris as ‘The Moor”: Magnetic and unforgettable!

The trailer. 9/10!

🍿 Desdemona, one of the earliest screen adaptations of Othello, a silent film from 1911. It was directed by August Blom, a pioneer of Danish ‘golden age’ of erotic melodramas. Hard to figure out what’s happening, but what great hats the dames wore.

🍿  

My first by Danish director Martin Zandvliet, A funny man (”Dirch”). It’s a traditional bio-pic about legendary local comedian and actor Dirch Passer. I loved the way it depicted theatrical life in Copenhagen of the 50′s and 60′s. With good performances by current stars of the Danish screen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Ranthe and Lars Brygmann. A solid, personal 8/10.

🍿  

The 2 award-winning Catalan dramas made by Carla Simón:

🍿 Alcarràs, a Spanish drama about a family of Catalan farmers, whose peach orchard which they had tended for 2 generations is sold from under them to be uprooted and used as a solar farm. Played convincingly by non-actors, especially the little girl Iris was pitch-perfect. Some scenes (like the family singing) were superb. 7/10. (Photo Above)

🍿 Her debut feature Summer 1993, was a heartbreaking story about a 6-year-old orphan who has to live with her uncle’s family in the country, after both her parents had died of AIDS. It’s a tender and intimate description of small gestures and inner turmoil. Tremendous “acting” by two little girls, the main subject, as well as her new 3-year-old step-sister.

100% ‘Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes from 97 reviews. This film is also auto-biographical, as Simón’s real parents also died from AIDS when she was 6, and she had to live with her uncle's family in Catalonia. 9/10.

🍿 

Fat, Bald, Short Man, my second Colombian film (after the masterful ‘Embrace of the serpent’). A singular animation feature, using minimalist, nearly abstract, rotoscoping. A story of an invisible middle-age salaryman, Antonio Farfán, who is hampered by his ordinary looks and low self-esteem. 5/10.

🍿  

2 more by Sarah Polley:

🍿 Her debut feature, Away from her. Adapted from the Alice Munro short story, another difficult topic: Julie Christie suffers from Alzheimer's and must be put away in a home. There’s no surprise here, and it goes only in one direction.  

🍿 Take this Waltz, a standard Ménage à trois romantic comedy whereby Michelle Williams is happily married to chicken cookbook author Seth Rogen, but falls in love with the rickshaw driver / hipster-artist across the street. It’s hard to take husband Seth Rogen seriously, and even the Leonard Cohen montage doesn’t elevate the story to more than what it is.

Now that I’ve seen all four of Sarah Polley films, her documentary ‘Stories we tell” is the only memorable one, in my eyes.

🍿  

“The gorillas beat him to death before the zookeepers could gas them all...”

“Frag Waving” Team America: World Police, one of the few action movies I can stand, a vulgar satire of Bush’s militaristic war on the “Terrorists”, and a parody of cliches for everything from Hollywood to politics to American values. The version I saw did not have the complete X-rated puppet sex scene I remember from before, but oh well. Still 7/10.

Also: “You are worthress, Arec Barrwin!”

🍿

2 by french director Rebecca Zlotowski:

🍿 Grand Central, my 14th infatuated film with Léa Seydoux (who seems to have a permanent clause in all her contracts that she must have at least 2 crying scenes in each - not that I mind). She starts a lukewarm romance with some block, an unskilled laborer with no personality, while living with the guy’s supervisor in a trailer next door. At the same time, they all work at a French nuclear plant, as manual sub-contractors, without having any qualifications, and get exposed to dangerous radiations all the time. Two arbitrary and unconvincing plots that fell flat. 3/10.

🍿 Zlotowski’s latest drama Other People's Children was better, because it had a more ‘normal’, adult story. A childless 40-year-old woman falls in love with a divorced man who has a four-year-old-daughter, and tries, unsuccessfully to fit in their lives. 5/10.

🍿 

I was the biggest Beatles fan there was in the 60′s, but I never saw the reconstructed, cheesy Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with Peter Frampston (?) and the Bee-gees before. Embarrassing and Disneyland-style kitschy, it made me ashamed to be alive during the excessive 70′s. Many atrocities involved (George Burns ‘Fixin’ a hole’, Donald Pleasence as a pimp, Steve Martin in Maxwell Silver Hammer, Aerosmith ‘Come Together’, nearly every other “parody” song), with zero redeeming qualities. 1/10.

🍿  

Cracks, the only film directed by Jordan Scott, Ridley Scott's daughter. The genre of British period films about Boarding School for Girls is not my strong cup of tea, and neither is this one. A lesbian love triangle and sexual jealousy between a teacher and her two students on the diving team ended up clichéd. With young Juno Temple and neurotic Eva Green. 2/10.

🍿  

Re-watch: Play it again, Sam, an early and typical Woody Allen comedy, written by him, starred by him (together with past and future girlfriends), but directed by Herbert Ross. 50 years later, it’s dated and unfunny. 2/10.

Should I now re-watch ‘True Romance’, my favorite Tarantino film, in which he based Val Kilmer’s Elvis on the Bogard character from here?

🍿   

There were already 70 Covid-19 films, according to Wikipedia. Of the ones I saw, ‘Bo Burnham: Inside’ and ‘Locked Down' were my favorites.

But the new Life upside down is not. I only watched it because it was directed by a woman, and starred Bob Odenkirk. But these 5-6 shallow LA-characters were tiring and uninteresting. The only innovating aspect of this boring film was disclosed during the end credits: The fact that it was shot remotely over Zoom. 2/10.

🍿  

(My complete movie list is here)

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 1.4

Beer Birthdays

Charles Deulin (1827)

Denis Holliday (1917)

Derek Walsh (1958)

Kevin Pratt (1962)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Les Brown; big band leader, jazz musician (1912)

Albert Camus; author, existentialist (1913)

Matt Frewer; actor (1958)

Jakob Grimm; fairy tale author (1785)

Michael Stipe; rock musician (1960)

Famous Birthdays

Henri Bergson; philosopher (1865)

Louis Braille; Braille inventor (1809)

Dyan Cannon; actor (1937)

Charles Deulin; French folk tale writer (1827)

Everett Dirksen; politician (1896)

Max Eastman; writer (1883)

Dave Foley; actor, comedian (1963)

Tito Fuentes; baseball player (1944)

Sterling Holloway; actor (1905)

Patty Loveless; country singer (1957)

Ann Magnuson; actor, performance artist (1956)

John McLaughlin; musician (1942)

Julia Ormond; actor (1965)

Floyd Patterson; boxer (1935)

Benjamin Rush; physician, politician (1746)

Julian Sands; actor (1958)

William Robert Sherman; character in Stephen King's book Hearts in Atlantis

Don Shula; football coach (1930)

Tom Thumb; entertainer (1838)

James Ussher; bishop, calculated Earth began Nov. 23,.4004 BCE (1581)

[asmeriaplor]

My Dad's Bird

My dad owns a bird. He has had it for quite a long time now. It's the type of bird that speaks, or should I say mimics. It's a Martin bird, and he named it after my mom's nickname, "Maria."

I remember when the bird was just small, whiny, and always looked like it had just swum a river. My dad would make its food by smashing the hard pellet with water to soften it, and then feed it with a spoon to prevent choking since it couldn't eat on its own. The bird was seemingly helpless. Every time I looked at that little creature, it appeared to have no clue it existed, as if it didn't understand anything surrounding it.

I find myself staring at Maria quite often. Now, in her grown body, she eats by herself, showers, talks, and flies. Hearing her yell "Pangit! Pangit!" is always followed by my family's laughter due to her mimicking. I see her diving into her drinking tub, showering in it as if water is her greatest friend. Watching her eat pellets with her neck moving up and down like she's occasionally praying. The bird always flies around, passing the corners of her little cage.

Now, every time I look at the bird, the bird seems as if she has acquired a deeper sense of her surroundings. The bird looks like it knows something, something I will always try to understand.

This leads me to wonder how the bird perceives its own life. I wonder how life was for the bird, to be living inside a metal cage, a metal cage which is its whole world.

Does the bird think her life has a meaning? Does she seek meaning? Does she know her purpose in life? Does she seek purpose? Is she actually living a life? Given that she is imprisoned inside a small prism. Does she take pleasure from living inside that small prism? Does she think she can do so much with her wings? with her life? If it weren't just because of her state. And then it hit me, do birds even have consciousness?

My compulsive random thought needed its answer and so to satisfy my curiosity, I opened the Google search bar. And then, I learned, "Scientists have explored the structure and function of avian(bird) brains—revealing they are organized similarly to mammals' and are capable of conscious thought". So, birds do have consciousness. What a thing!

After I learned that information, I now stare at Maria with a different standing point. If she weren't just locked up and held back by those metal barriers. If she were just able to fly free in the sky with her bird buddies. If she just had the privileges and advantages of a free bird. If she were to approach a lifestyle different from what she has, breaking free from an unending cycle of loneliness.

Would she live her life differently? Would she be happy? Would she be content? Would she be truly free?

The life of a bird is meant for flying. But there are instances that it doesn't happen. Some of these instances can't be changed, but there is something that can be changed: the way of thinking, the ability to recognize and accept the absurdity of living.

Albert Camus' remarkable note, "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion". It is not meaninglessness that hurts, but rather the tormenting paradox of needing meaning, and not getting it, particularly our inability to let go of the very contradiction itself. Call to mind a full recognition and acceptance of our absurd situation of the harshness and slights of life of the fact that we'll probably never attain absolute truth, and purpose and not surrender to that in a blaze of nihilism but living in spite of revolt against meaningless itself.

The quote from Albert Camus, "I rebel; therefore I exist," has to be Maria's mantra, because 'it is' my mantra! For it is a reminder that my existence gains meaning when I resist life's constraints and norms. After all, is there anything more rebellious than finding pleasure in what's supposed to be our punishment?

[yespat49]

Alain Finkielkraut : “Jean-Luc Mélenchon voue Renaud Camus aux gémonies, mais il partage son diagnostic. Il croit dur comme fer au grand remplacement, et il mise dessus pour accéder un jour au pouvoir”

Alain Finkielkraut : « Après les émeutes, si on veut rester fréquentable, il ne faut surtout pas dire ce qu’on voit » (…) «Il y a eu beaucoup de Kevin et de Matteo», a déclaré Gérald Darmanin, récusant «l’explication seulement identitaire des émeutes urbaines». Que vous inspire cette saillie? Cette saillie, comme vous dites, rappelle les propos du ministre de l’Intérieur après les incidents du…

[bookclub4m]

22 “Literary Fan Fiction” (retellings, adaptations, sequels, parallel novels, etc.) books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

For this booklist, the original story being retold/referenced appears (in parentheses).

Telling Tales by Patience Agbabi (Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer)

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (El Gaucho Martín Fierro by José Hernández)

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang (The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Windward Heights by Maryse Condé (Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë)

The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (The Stranger by Albert Camus)

Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan (A Room With a View by E.M. Forster)

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (The Horror of Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft)

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (The Island of Doctor Moreau by H.G. Wells)

The Holder of the World by Bharati Mukherjee (The Scarlet Letter by Nataniel Hawthorne and the Ramayana by Valmiki)

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (The Tempest by William Shakespeare)

Even in Paradise by Elizabeth Nunez (King Lear by William Shakespeare)

The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh (The Tale of Shim Ch'ŏng)

Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel (The Ramayana by Valmiki)

The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall (Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell)

My Jim by Nancy Rawles (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain)

Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson (Wee'git stories)

Unforgivable Love by Sophfronia Scott (Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos)

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Prince of Cats by Ron Wimberly (Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare)

Sansei and Sensibility by Karen Tei Yamashita (Various works by Jane Austen)

Pride by Ibi Zoboi (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

[splendidenolwenn]

▪️ TOURNAGE 📺 - “Abers Road”

[ Bretagne ; 17 mai 2021 ]

La musique avant toute chose... Retrouvailles avec les amis Sébastien Chouard et Kevin Camus ! 🎻🎶

© Photo: JP Mauras / K.C.