#narrator: julie yard

[cypanache]

What’s a podfic? I saw something related to countdown abt it

In reference to this post

A podfic is basically like an audiobook for fanfic. (Think ‘podcast’ but fic). Where amazing creators take a fic and read it aloud often with voices. As a long time audiobook addict since the days of books on tape, I think it’s a wonderful addition to fandom and was incredibly honored when @your-dose-of-obidala asked to do one for Countdown. The idea that someone would like something I wrote enough to spend the time doing that is just … I can’t even begin to describe it.

I listened to it the other day and her 15 year old Padme is a lovely mix of imperious and innocent. If you like audiobooks or podcasts give podfic a go. People never cease to impress me with all the different talents they bring to fandom.

[your-dose-of-obidala]

(Podfic) Countdown (1/6)

My dear Obidala folks, may I present the podfic to the beautiful fanfic Countdown by @cypanache

It was a lot of fun to record this. I tried to channel my 15yo self while narrating Padme. I hope she sounds like a little know-it-all. As for Obi-Wan... It's getting easier to voice him in the later chapters.

If you enjoyed the story, please let the author know.

julie-yard · Countdown (Year One) by CyPanache

If you prefer Ao3, you can also listen to it here (only for logged in users)

[mydearesthrry]

honeyed bliss - h.s.

a/n: hi! here’s another one. post hslot harry, and dadrry, which should be a warning in itself. enjoy!

🎀 warnings/cw: nothing, fluff, ITALYRRY AND DADRRY. im a wreck.

🐇 pairing: husband!dad!harry styles x fem!reader

💐 wc: 800

“Babe, can you come here? I need to tan, but I can't get the tanning lotion on my back.” Y/N shouted sweetly to her husband, voice soft as she turned on her tummy. 

“Yeah m’love, give me two seconds. ‘M cutting up some watermelon for Daisy.” He called back, standing at the drink bar, a knife in his hand as he watched his daughter toddle around in the small area that he stood in. Daisy knocked on the doors that were in the square, knocking on the door to exit as she babbled quietly to herself. 

“Mumma, want mama,” Daisy pouted, perking up when she heard her moms voice. She stumbled a bit when she turned around to look at her dad with pleading puppy dog eyes, her axis of gravity not perfect quite yet. 

“Oh, y’want mama, baby? Okay, let’s get y’to mama.” Harry plucked her up off the ground and hiked her up onto his hip, scooping a couple blocks of watermelon into a yellow bowl. Harry pushed open the door to the drink bar, walking over to his wife who was laying down on a beach chair. His wife turned onto her side, reaching out for her baby who was already squirming in her dads arms. 

“Hi baby! You wanna come lay down with mama? Wanna sunbathe?” Y/N turned on her mom voice, babying her daughter. 

“Mama, mama, mama,” Daisy giggled, patting her mom’s face, a wide smile on her face, looking almost identical to Harry down to the dimples. 

“God, H. I can’t believe I birthed her, held her in my stomach for months, the whole nine yards, and she just looks exactly like you. Like, not even an inch of me in here. She’s got her Daddy’s curly hair, pretty green eyes, and cute little dimples… Don’t you, Dais?” She smiled, turning onto her back to place her baby on her thighs, Daisy’s head coming up to rest on her knees, her legs laying on her torso. 

“Guess so, m’love, but don’t worry, she still loves her Mumma waaaay more than her Daddy.”  Harry comments, munching on watermelon on the beach chair next to you. She turns her head to him and raises an eyebrow, and he smiles sheepishly. 

“Sorry,” he scratches his nose awkwardly. “I didn't mean that.” 

“Good, y’know she loves you just as much as she loves me.” She gave him a stern look, and he could see her eyes through her sunglasses. 

“Yeah, I know. Bad joke, didn’t land. Tough crowd, eh?” He smiled sheepishly. 

“Mmm, guess comedy isn’t for you, hm? Better stick to singing, pretty boy.” Y/N muttered before bringing her baby up to her chest, pressing small butterfly kisses to her head. 

“M’sweet girls, prettiest girls ever,” Harry grins, pulling your phone from underneath the throw pillow your head was resting on, snapping a few precious pictures. “Can’t believe ‘M so lucky.” 

Twisting his back to look behind him, he reached out to switch the bowl of watermelon for the camcorder, turning it on and recording his wife and daughter, a wide grin plastered on his face. “Today is July 26, 2023, a couple of days after the final Love On Tour show, and we’ve just gotten home to the Styles Villa in the Amalfi Coast of Italy. Here we have Mama and baby bunny in their most rawest forms,” Harry narrated, a grin on his face when he heard a sweet giggle emit from his wife’s chest. “Baby bunny’s sporting a cute swim set gifted to her from her favorite uncle, Uncle Alessandro, and Mama’s wearing a Gucci swim set as well, looking as beautiful as ever with the most beautiful and glowy skin-”

“H, shut up!” She guffaws, placing an embarrassed hand on her face. “Dais is gonna watch these one day and be scarred by the way you’re talking about me.”

Harry turns the camera so it’s on his face, “Little Daisy, if you’re watching these right now in the future, never settle for less than how I treat Mama. Y’deserve to be treated like a queen, m’soul, never ever settle for less.”

He flips the camera around again to face his girls, catching a tail end of YN’s eyeroll on camera. “Yes, sweet girl. I agree with Daddy, never settle for less.” She places more sweet kisses on Daisy’s head, cooing with Harry when a soft snore leaves their baby’s lips.

“Well, since y’asleep now, I think that’s a good place to leave it. We love you, Daisy. Byeeeee!” Harry waves, turning in his seat to have the camera face him and his small family. YN giggles and blows kisses, waving until Harry turns off the camera.

“We’ve got it good, Lovie.” He smiles, leaning forward to peck a kiss to her cheek, her temple, and then one on her lips, being cautious of the sleeping baby on her chest.

“Yes, we do.”

[grapesodadarkchocolate]

On My Mind

While We Were Away 

On a stormy night in July.

Straight line winds blew — hard. 

A towering 100 year old tree crashed to the ground with a resounding THUD.

Snapping fences and a tree trunk.

Totally altering our backyard landscape. 

Getting a call about the destruction while three time zones away.

Seeing videos and photos. 

Initially not understanding what had been lost.

A week later, another photo told it all.

Good bye serviceberry. 

Gracing our yard for decades. 

Remembering the pick out and planting. Being just a sapling that could be toted home in our car.

Not knowing how attached to its blooms, berries and fall foliage I would become.

Sorry to have it go so quickly. 

Returning home. 

Seeing the reality. All that was damaged. 

Missing it even more. Knowing the cardinals and robins will miss it too. +++

In the news this week: 

“A visit to Auschwitz and the thoughts that can’t be ignored” by Ron May, The Minnesota Star Tribune, September 2, 2024: Read 📰

“A visit to Berlin and another aspect of ‘It could happen here’” by Katherine S. Michael, The Minnesota Star Tribune, September 10, 2024: Read 📰

Remembering: James Earl Jones (1931-2024): Lincoln Portrait by Aaron Copeland narrated by James Earl Jones: Listen 🎙️🎶

“Kamala Harris is leader for all of us” by Arne Carlson: The Minnesota Star Tribune, September 9, 2024, Read 📰

[lenbryant]

"Undeterred by truth or science"

(The Atlantic) Trump Rants About Sharks, and Everyone Just Pretends It’s Normal

Par for the course. Trump is Trump. But imagine the response if Joe Biden had said it.

By Brian Klaas

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage.

Hours before meeting with his probation officer about his recent felony convictions, a leading candidate for U.S. president went on a bizarre rant about sharks.

Sharks, Donald Trump claimed, were attacking more frequently than usual (not true) and posed a newfound risk because boats were being required to use batteries (not true), which would cause them to sink because they were too heavy (really, really not true—the world’s heaviest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas, managed to stay afloat because of the laws of physics despite weighing more than 550 million pounds).

Trump, undeterred by truth or science, invoked his intellectual credentials by mentioning his “relationship to MIT.” (Trump’s uncle was a professor at the university, pioneering rotational radiation therapy, which seems a somewhat tenuous connection for conferring shark- or battery-related expertise to his nephew.) If Trump had been able to ask his uncle about the risks of being electrocuted by a boat battery because, as Trump put it, “there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water,” perhaps the professor would have informed him that high-capacity batteries would rapidly discharge in seawater and pose minuscule risk to humans because the water conducts electricity far better than human bodies do.

Sharks appear to have troubled Trump’s mind for years. On July 4, 2013, Trump twice tweeted about them, saying, “Sorry folks, I’m just not a fan of sharks—and don’t worry, they will be around long after we are gone.” Two minutes later, he followed that nugget of wisdom with: “Sharks are last on my list—other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!”

McKay Coppins: Why attacks on Trump’s mental acuity don’t land

These deranged rants are tempting to laugh off. They’re par for the course. Trump is Trump. But Trump may also soon be the president of the United States. Imagine the response if Joe Biden had made the same rambling remarks, word for word. Consider this excerpt:

“I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery’s underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’ By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark … I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy.”

Coming from Biden, that exact statement might have prompted calls from across the political spectrum for him to drop out of the race. From Trump, it was a blip that barely registered. I’ve previously called this dynamic “the banality of crazy”: Trump’s ludicrous statements are ignored precisely because they’re so routine—and routine occurrences don’t drive the news. They are the proverbial “dog bites man” stories that get ignored by the press. Except that even this truism breaks down when it comes to the asymmetry between coverage of Trump and Biden: Based on Google News tallies, the news story about Biden’s dog biting a Secret Service agent spurred far more press coverage than Trump saying that he would order shoplifters to be shot without a trial if he became president.

Brian Klaas: Trump floats the idea of executing Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley

Still, Trump appears to be benefiting from the sheer superfluity of crazy. At rallies, the former president makes stream-of-consciousness statements that would raise questions about the mental acuity of anyone who said them at, say, the tail end of a night at a neighborhood bar, but that somehow don’t generate the same level of concern within the press or the Republican Party when Trump says them in front of a cheering crowd. By contrast, when Biden makes a gaffe—mixing up a name or a date rather than, for example, suggesting that boats sink because they’re heavy—questions arise about his mental fitness to be president. A president who occasionally misspeaks is far less worrying than one who purveys delusional fantasies and conspiracy theories. Biden may gaffe, but he lives in reality; Trump often doesn’t.

Today, a prominent New York Times columnist called on one of the two candidates to drop out. Astonishingly, it wasn’t the authoritarian felon who inspired a violent mob to attack the Capitol, tried to overturn a democratic election, has been banned from doing business in New York due to fraud—and yet again showcased his loose grip on reality by ranting about sharks.

Brian Klaas is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and an associate professor of global politics at University College London.

[mothidocandart]

Episode documentaries made in America during the 2000’s to around 2012 be like *DARK BACKGROUND WITH WHITE DISPOROTIONATE LETTERS AND TYPEWRITER SOUNDS* July 15, 2003. Tampa Bay, Florida. *CUTS TO SCENES OF A RANDOM LANDSCAPE. A HOME VIDEO RECORDING OF A FAMILY HAVING FUN PLAYS. THERE ARE POLAROIDS OF THE MAIN PERSON THE DOCUMENTARY IS FOCUSING ON. THE NARRATOR STARTS TALKING. HES A GUY WITH A MEDIUM TO LOW VOICE AND NEVER SOUNDS SHOCKED AT ALL.* Riley was just a normal kid. She liked playing in the yard, and posing for pictures with her brother. *SAD, OMINOUS MUSIC* but she never could have believed. What happened next. *THE THEMESONG, WHICH HAS A EDITING STYLE SIMILAR TO BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY INTRO, PLAYS SOME FUNKY ELECTRONIC MUSIC. THERE ARE RANDOM PEOPLE AND STOCK FOOTAGE OF DOCTORS AND HOUSES.*

Riley: It was just a normal day you know?

*CLOSE IN ON HER FACE. FLASH NOISES. DISASTER IMAGES* Riley: But it all changed when I saw that truck. That awful truck.

*MORE CLOSE UPS OF HER FACE. SHES CRYING. FLASHES OF A UNIDENTIFIED TRUCK AND MORE EDIT NOISES*

Riley: It took my brothers away.

*EXTENDED SHOT OF RILEY LOOKING GUILTY.* *NARRATOR COMES IN, COMPLETELY CALM, AND STARTS TELLING THE STORY FROM WEEKS BEFORE THE EVENT HAPPENED*

[readingsrantsrambles]

Malick on Badlands

By Beverly Walker

This article originally appeared in Sight and Sound 44:2:82-83, Spring 1975. Copyright Sight and Sound.

Interviewing Terry Malick, producer-writer-director of Badlands, turned out, like his film, to be full of idiosyncratic surprises. My prepared list of questions went by the wayside as Malick talked with passion, conviction and sometimes anger about his film. Acknowledging that he "couldn't have asked for more" in terms of critical acceptance, he also indicated that the actual filming was painful.

Working in the dead heat of the 1972 summer, with a non-union crew and little money ($300,000, excluding some deferments to labs and actors), Malick encountered all sorts of problems, from difficulties over finance to the destruction of all the cameras during a fire sequence. Eventually, upon completion, Warners bought Badlands for just under a million dollars. It might turn in a decent profit for them. 

The son of an oil company executive, Malick grew up in Texas and Oklahoma. He went to Harvard and later to Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. Philosophy was his course of study, but he never completed his thesis--in fact, his topic wasn't even acceptable to his Senior Tutor, Gilbert Ryle. Summer jobs took him from the wheat harvests in America and Canada, to work in oilfields and driving a cement mixer in a rail yard, to journalistic endeavours for Life, Newsweek and the New Yorker. He was sent to Bolivia to observe the trial of Regis Debray; Che Guevara was killed the day after his arrival. In 1968, he was appointed a lecturer in philosophy for one year at MIT. 

“I was not a good teacher; I didn't have the sort of edge one should have on the students, so I decided to do something else. I'd always liked movies in a kind of naive way. They seemed no less improbable a career than anything else. I came to Los Angeles in the fall of 1969 to study at the AFI; I made a short called Lanton Mills. I found the AFI very helpful; it's a marvellous place. My wife was going to law school and I was working for a time as a rewrite man-two days on Drive, He Said, five weeks on the predecessor to Dirty Harry at a time when Brando was going to do it with Irving Kershner directing. Then we all got fired by Warners; the project went to Clint Eastwood. I rewrote 'Pocket Money' and 'Deadhead Miles'. I got this work because of a phenomenal agent, Mike Medavoy.

"At the end of my second year here, I began work on Badlands. I wrote and, at the same time, developed a kind of sales kit with slides and video tape of actors, all with a view to presenting investors with something that would look ready to shoot. To my surprise, they didn't pay too much attention to it; they invested on faith. I raised about half the money and Edward Pressman (the executive producer) the other half. We started in July of 1972.”

"The critics talked about influences on the picture and in most cases referred to films I had never seen. My influences were books like The Hardy Boys, Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn--all involving an innocent in a drama over his or her head. I didn't actually think about those books before I did the script, but it's obvious to me now. Nancy Drew, the children's story child detective--I did think about her.

There is some humor in the picture, I believe. Not jokes. It lies in Holly's mis-estimation of her audience, of what they will be interested in or ready to believe. (She seems at time to think of her narration as like what you get in audio-visual courses in high school.) When they're crossing the badlands, instead of telling us what's going on between Kit and herself, or anything of what we'd like and have to know, she describes what they ate and what it tasted like, as though we might be planning a similar trip and appreciate her experience, this way.

"She's a typical Southern girl in her desire to help, to give hard fact; not to dwell upon herself, which to her would be unseemly, but always to keep in mind the needs of others. She wants to come off in the best possible light, but she's scrupulous enough to take responsibility where in any way she might have contributed." 

I suggest to Malick that the film has been criticised for patronising Holly and her milieu. "That's foolishness. I grew up around people like Kit and Holly. I see no gulf between them and myself. One of the things the actors and I used to talk about was never stepping outside the characters and winking at the audience, never getting off the hook. If you keep your hands off the characters you open yourself to charges like that; at least you have no defence against them. What I find patronising is people not leaving the characters alone, stacking the deck for them, not respecting their integrity, their difference."

"Holly's Southernness is essential to taking her right. She isn't indifferent about her father's death. 

(line missing) tears, but she wouldn't think of telling you about it. It would not be proper. You should always feel there are large parts of her experience she's not including because she has a strong, if misplaced, sense of propriety. You might well wonder how anyone going through what she does could be at all concerned with proprieties. But she is. And her kind of cliché didn't begin with pulp magazines, as some critics have suggested. It exists in Nancy Drew and Tom Sawyer. It's not the mark of a diminished, pulp-fed mind, I'm trying to say, but of the 'innocent abroad.' When people express what is most important to them, it often comes out in cliches. That doesn't make them laughable; it's something tender about them. As though in struggling to reach what's most personal about them they could only come up with what's most public. 

"Holly is in a way the more important character; at least you get a glimpse of what she's like. And I liked women characters better than men; they're more open to things around them, more demonstrative. Kit, on the other hand, is a closed book, not a rare trait in people who have tasted more than their share of bitterness in life. The movies have kept up a myth that suffering makes you deep. It inclines you to say deep things. It builds character and is generally healthful. It teaches you lessons you never forget. People who've suffered go around in movies with long, thoughtful faces, as though everything had caved in just yesterday. It's not that way in real life, though, not always. Suffering can make you shallow and just the opposite of vulnerable, dense. It's had this kind of effect on Kit. 

"Kit doesn't see himself as anything sad or pitiable, but as a subject of incredible interest, to himself and to future generations. Like Holly, like a child, he can only really believe in what's going on inside him. Death, other people's feelings, the consequences of his actions-they're all sort of abstract for him. He thinks of himself as a successor to James Dean-a Rebel without a Cause-when in reality he's more like an Eisenhower conservative. 'Consider the minority opinion,' he says into the rich man's tape recorder, 'but try to get along with the majority opinion once it's accepted.' He doesn't really believe any of this, but he envies the people who do, who can. He wants to be like them, like the rich man he locks in the closet, the only man he doesn't kill, the only man he sympathises with, and the one least in need of sympathy. It's not infrequently the people at the bottom who most vigorously defend the very rules that put and keep them there."

And there's something about growing up in the Midwest. There's no check on you. People imagine it's the kind of place where your behaviour is under constant observation, where you really have to toe the line. They got that idea from Sinclair Lewis. But people can really get ignored there and fall into bad soil. Kit did, and he grew up like a big poisonous weed. 

"I don't think he's a character peculiar to his time. I tried to keep the 1950s to a bare minimum. Nostalgia is a powerful feeling; it can drown out anything. I wanted the picture to set up like a fairy tale, outside time, like Treasure Island. I hoped this owuld, among other htings, take a little of the sharpness out of the violence but still keep its dreamy quality. Children's books are full of violence. Long John Silver slits the throats of the faithful crew. Kit and Holly even think of themselves as living in a fairy tale. Holly says, "Sometimes I wished I could fall asleep and be taken off to some magical land, but this never happened." But she enough believes there is such a place that she must confess to you she never got there." 

Back to the Articles on Terrence Malick

https://www.eskimo.com/~toates/malick/tmarticles.html

[trekspertise]

Bibliography for ‘Rethinking The Prime Directive Of Star Trek’

Writers - Kyle Sullivan & Katie Boyer

Narration & Editing - Kyle Sullivan

There are many contributors to this video. We start by recognizing Isaac Zuren, who let us use footage from his insane short film,“The Encounter,” which is the most insanely cool depiction of the city of Tenochtitlan we have ever seen. You must watch it: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQzEr2

Access Isaac’s Artstation page here: https://www.artstation.com/isaaczuren

The video was made with input from Annelise Baer, Aisling Tierney, Brandon Fibbs, and Jay Manning. Annelise Baer and Dr. Aisling Tierney proofread this essay, offering thoughts and critiques which ended up in the final version. Their help is invaluable. You can find more about Annelise here: https://linktr.ee/annelisebaer. And Dr. Aisling Tierney: https://sites.google.com/view/archaeologyash?pli=1

Special Thanks - Alex Blocker, Irrum Fazal, Michael Goggin, Sam M, and all the rest of y’all who love and support Trekspertise. Thank you! Thank you very much, everyone!

Patrick Sullivan of Bone Yard Music provided some all-important and neat sounds. Go hire him to make music compositions for your next project: www.bymcustommusic.com. And check him out on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3wp2EVT

A big thank you to Leo Thompson and Garrett Wang over at Dragon Con’s Trek Track, where we got the chance to test this video essay’s concepts in front of a live audience of smart, engaging Star Trek fans. Thank you!

And a special thank you to Joseph Yracheta, the executive director of the Native Biodata Consortium, an indigenous-led biobank protecting the genetic and scientific data of indigenous people the world over from their homebase on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. Joseph is the fella who read our credits in this video.

Additional thanks to the Daystrom Institute subreddit, a place dedicated to Star Trek discussion, and to www.memoryalpha.com, a Star Trek wiki. And to Trekcore, a treasure among Trek fans everywhere.

Do check out www.filmlore.no! FilmLore is a nerdy website all about science fiction, fantasy and fandom, with reviews, interviews and articles covering everything from the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars down to the silliest cult films about Killer Klowns. Go take a look! 

Nahuatl translations and etymologies based on work by author David Bowles: https://davidbowles.medium.com/etymology-of-the-triple-alliance-18f5e7c4a228

Concorde-Wheel argument borrowed from Mexicolor: https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/home/the-concept-of-the-wheel-in-ancient-mesoamerica

Discussions about European weapons and armor in Native American contexts can be found in two books by Charles C. Mann: “1491: New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus,” and “1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created.” Books available here: https://bit.ly/3ZBrizQ and here: https://bit.ly/3GHSXX6

Support Trekspertise on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/trekspertise

Footage

“The Omega Glory”, Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), 1968

“Symbiosis”, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), 1988

“Time And Again”, Star Trek: Voyager (VOY), 1995

“Who Watches The Watchers”, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), 1989

“Justice”, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), 1987

“Pen Pals”, Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), 1989

“Star Trek”, 2009

“ABC World News Tonight”, July 25, 2000, accessed via Ben J. Ditzel YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/3joRTPW

“The Encounter” by Isaac Zuren, accessed via: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/qQzEr2

Access Isaac’s Artstation page here: https://www.artstation.com/isaaczuren

“Strange New Worlds”, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, 2022

“The Trouble With Edward”, Star Trek: Short Treks, 2019

Images

“Da Nang, Vietnam - A young marine private waits on the beach during the Marine landing. - August 3, 1965”, unknown author (probably a US Marine), 1965, uploaded by Armbust, 2014, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3iribR5

“The President's News Conference, Washington, D. C., State Department Auditorium”, Abbie Rowe, National Park Service, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston, 1961, uploaded by Hohum, 2019, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VF5oZE

“U.S. Army Bell UH-1D helicopters airlift members of the 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment”, James K. F. Dung, SFC, Photographer, 1966, uploaded by Madmax32, 2007, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3UoFHvr

“A female demonstrator offers a flower to military police on guard at the Pentagon during an anti-Vietnam demonstration”, By S.Sgt. Albert R. Simpson. Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. U.S. Army Audiovisual Center, 1967, uploaded by Alinerawer, 2020, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Vm8CBu

“President of USA Lyndon B. Johnson (r.) with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin”, by Yoichi R. Okamoto, 1967, LBJ Museum & Library, uploaded by Jatkins, 2010, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3OPIg8B

"Crack troops of the Vietnamese Army in combat operations against the Communist Viet Cong guerillas”, by the US Information Agency (now the Bureau of Public Affairs in the US Department of State), 1961, uploaded by BrokenSPhere, 2007, access via: https://bit.ly/3P7e0q5

“Captured communist photo shows VC crossing a river in 1966”, unknown author, found in George Esper’s book, The Eyewitness History of the Vietnam War 1961-1975, Associated Press, New York 1983, 1966, uploaded by Hohum, 2020, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3OZYUT1

“Gezicht op Nieuw Amsterdam”, by Johannes Vingboons, 1664, uploaded by Patrickneil, 2013, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VXLvgE

“Washington Crossing The Delaware”, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1851, uploaded by Aavindraa, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Y4N0vg

“Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in Saint-Cloud”, by Francois Bouchot; Bouchot, 1840, uploaded by TheHistoryBuff101, 2020, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3HmgMpp

“Portrait of Alexander von Humboldt”, by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806, uploaded by Hohum, 2015, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BIeRbh

“The Muir Portrait” of Adam Smith, unknown author, circa 1800, uploaded by Filetime, 2021, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VYgFoF

“Portrait of Adam Ferguson”, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1781-82, uploaded by Wfrancome18 , 2008, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3FCjUvW

“Miniature of Prof John Millar, 1796, Scottish National Portrait Gallery”, photo by Stephencdickson, 2014, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Bhhala

“On the barricades on the Rue Soufflot, Paris, 25 June 1848”, by Horace Emil Jean Vernet, 1848-49, uploaded by Niketto sr. , 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VM2iUe

“Columbia University Library”, 1903, unknown author, upload by Ineuw, 2011, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3uzCazY

“Portrait of Rudyard Kipling”, by Elliott & Fry, early 20th century, uploaded by DIREKTOR, 2015

“Portrait of William M. Gwin”, taken by Mathew Benjamin Brady, between circa 1844 and circa 1860, United States Library of Congress, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3WdvQtM

“Ku Klux Klan Parade”, 1926, United States Library of Congress, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3HtQFgm

“Senator James Eastland (D-MS) with President Lyndon B. Johnson”, 1968, White House photo, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BVXHXN

 “The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 1919”, by Sir William Newenham Montague, Gulielmus Orpen, 1919, uploaded by Malcolm77, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3G01DZV

“Episode of the September Days 1830 (on the Grand Place of Brussels)”, by Egidius Karel Gustaaf Wappers, 1835, uploaded by Szilas, 2008, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3j9xUoq

“Danish soldiers return to Copenhagen, 1849”, by Otto Bache, 1894, uploaded by BigMittens, 2015, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3hvISEf

“Burke and Wills, Crossing Lodden Plains”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Burke and Wills, Discovery of King with the help of Aborigines”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Burke and Wills, Crossing the Stony Desert”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Burke and Wills, Arrival at Carpentaria”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Burke and Wills, Return to Cooper's Creek”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Arrival of Burke, Wills and King at the deserted camp at Cooper's Creek, Sunday evening, 21st April 1861”, by John Longstaff, 1907, uploaded by Adam Cuerden , 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3v8UlfW

 “Burke and Wills, Death of Bourke”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Burke and Wills, Death of Wills”, by Samuel Thomas Gill, 1860-61, State Library of New South Wales, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3BUCmOb

“Australian Aboriginal Man”, (identity unknown) taken by Henry King, ~1880

“Portrait of William J Wills”, by Thomas Adams Hill, State Library of New South Wales uploaded by Jay D. Easy , 2019

“Concorde landing Farnborough Fitzgerald”, taken by Steve Fitzgerald, 1974, uploaded by Russavia, 2011, accessed via: https://bit.ly/2VRyZ3g

“The History of Mexico”, by Diego Rivera, 1929-1935

“Aztec glyphs for the member-states of the Aztec Triple Alliance”, modern version created by XcepticZP / Goldenbrook, 2014, with recent adjustments by Alphathon, Illegitimate Barrister, Goldenbrook, all based on unknown Mexica authors in codices

“Codex Mendoza depicting the coat of arms of Mexico”, unknown author, 1541, uploaded by Ixtal, 2021

“National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. Reconstruction of an Aztec market in Tenochtitlan”, photo by Wolfgang Sauber, uploaded by Xenophon, 2009

“Totocalli, the zoo of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, part of the palace of Montezuma II”, Manuscript by Bernardino de Sahagún. Illustration by an unknown artist, 1577, uploaded by ErickTErick, 2022

“Bathers perspire in a temazcal”, mid-1500s, Codex Magliabechiano

“Royal Gardens in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec Captial”, by Scott and Stuart Gentling, Scott and Stuart Gentling Papers, Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas, https://bit.ly/3WlgIef

Various illustrations from "L'Amérique. La Vie privee des Hommes - Au temps des Mayas, des Aztèques et des Incas”, by Pierre Joubert (book written by Louis-Rene), 1981

“View of the central ceremonial city plaza in the Aztec captial of Tenochtitlan”, by Scott and Stuart Gentling, Scott and Stuart Gentling Papers, Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas, https://bit.ly/3WlgIef

“Sacred Plaza of Tenochtitlan”, by Scott and Stuart Gentling, Scott and Stuart Gentling Papers, Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas, https://bit.ly/3WlgIef

“Aztec Aqueduct and Causeway, Tenochtitlan”, from - Les Voyages d'Alix Les Aztèques, by Martin & Jean Torton with illustrations by Jacques Martin, 2005

“A bustling marketplace in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan”, by H. Tom Hall, National Geographic, 1987

“Depiction of a Palace in the Highlands outside of Tenochtittlan”, by Scott and Stuart Gentling, Scott and Stuart Gentling Papers, Amon Carter Museum of American Art Archives, Fort Worth, Texas, https://bit.ly/3WlgIef

“Air France Concorde”, by ALexander Johnson, 20023, uploaded by Russavia , 2011, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3C84HRr

“British Airways Concorde official handover ceremony”, by Steve Fitzgerald, 1976, uploaded by Russavia , 2011, accessed via:https://bit.ly/3jCCH1C

“Aztec (Mexica) Gallery, INAH, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City”, taken by Gary Todd, 2012, uploaded by Chronus, 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3GrDTy7

Inka Map compiled from several other maps: primarily from Manco Capac (road map: https://bit.ly/3FXK23u) and QQuantum (territorial expansion map: https://bit.ly/3CaIMc0)

World Map of 1493 derived loosely from a map in “1493: Uncovering The New World Created By Columbus”, by Charles C. Mann, 2011

“Part of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, paved with stones”, taken by Mx._Granger, 2017, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3vvcDse

Photo of Inka road in Cusco, taken by Crystal Luxmore, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Cc9SQ6

“Qapaq Nan on causeway from Chucuito”, taken by Aga Khan (IT), 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3WRfHue

View of Machu Picchu, taken by Gregory Laurent, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Q25Boe

“Wiñay Wayna Inca Site”, taken by Bex Walton, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3YY9DSC

“Yacata en Michoacán”, taken by MaloMalverde, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3G5g3qn

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, taken by Mobilus In Mobili, 2021, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3vxEo32

Shot of Moundville at sunrise, by Sean Shore, The University of Alabama's Strategic Communications, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3FXRE64

“Retrato de Hernán Cortés”, unknown author, 18th century, uploaded by Alonso de Mendoza, 2017, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3QcXZ2e

“Conquista de México por Cortés”, unknown author, second half of 17th century, uploaded by Artanisen, 2021

“Map of the Aztec Empire lead by Tenochtitlan circa 1519, before the arrival of the Spanish”, Yavidaxiu, 2010, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Ihl95H

“The Tlaxcalan Senate”, by Rodrigo Gutiérrez, 1875, uploaded by DcoetzeeBot, 2013, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3i9ongO

“Aztec ruler Xicoténcatl and Hernán Cortés on the Lienzo de Tlaxcala”, Diego Munoz de Camargo, et al., 16th century , uploaded by ErickTErick, 2021, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3jNQKlg

“Storming The Teocalli”, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze, 1848, uploaded by Alonso de Mendoza , 2017, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3IgmOsa

“The Last Days of Tenochtitlan”, by William De Leftwich Dodge, 1899, uploaded by Infrogmation, 2008, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Q9tomd

“La Captura de Atahualpa”, by Juan Lepiani, circa 1920-1927, uploaded by Artanisen, 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3jSplPa

“The Spanish Calvary Breaks the Mexica Line”, by Peter Dennis, Tenochtitlan 1519–21”, Osprey Publishing, 2018

“Codex mendoza Folio”, mid-16th Century, uploaded by Ptcamn~commonswiki, 2006, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Z59a13

“Aztec Warrior Gear”, by Peter Dennis, Tenochtitlan 1519–21”, Osprey Publishing, 2018 

“Testing Bullet Proof Vest”, National Photo Company, 1923, uploaded by Fordmadoxfraud, 2008, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VK1YEz

“Modular Tactical Vest Okinawa”, taken by Sgt. Ethan E. Rocke, 2007, uploaded by Sometrager, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3WNDyv5

“Erik XIVs rustning från 1562”, photo taken by Göran Schmidt in 2014 or earlier, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3IpQvXY

“US Navy 071211-N-9623R-010 Seabees attached to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion”, taken by U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kenneth W. Robinson, 2007, uploaded by BotMultichillT, 2009, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3ZfHtTo

“La entrada de Hernan Cortes en Tenochtitlan”, by Augusto ferrer dalmau, 2020, uploaded in 2021, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3IkwSjT

“Arquebuse à rouet, Nuremberg, 1671. Dépôt du Musée de l'Armée. Inv : 2007.0.305 / M220”, taken by Tylwyth Eldar, 2019, accesse via: https://bit.ly/3Iq83TQ

“The Battle Of Otumba”, unknown author, mid-17th Century, uploaded by Ptcamn~commonswiki, 2009, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VR3zZj

“Desfaite des Yroquois au Lac Champlain”, by Samuel de Champlain, 1613, uploaded by Pierre5018, 2014, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3ieUlbF

“El rapto (El Malón)”, by Johann Moritz; Rugenda, 1834, uploaded by Rec79, 2020, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3X3odq2

Queen Anne Silex pistol, 1760, uploaded by Rama, 2010, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VLh7FD

Pennsylvania / Kentucky Flintlock Rifle, 1810, uploaded by File Upload Bot (Kaldari), 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3CqWtns

“Captain John Smith”, 1880,  Emmet Collection of Manuscripts Etc. Relating to American History, New York Public Library’s Digital Library, uploaded by Fæ, 2016, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3jSvMSb

“The Village Of Pomeioc”, author unknown, 1585, uploaded by Tungsten , 2013, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3ilhCIT

“King Powhatan's daughter Pokahontas beggs Smith's life”, 1624, uploaded by Pierre5018 , 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3vFyXiD

“John Smith Captured”, by Elmer Boyd Smith, 1906

“John Smith taking the King of Pamunkey prisoner”, Robert Vaughan, 17th Century, uploaded by Pierre5018, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Zhhzye

“Aztec drawing of smallpox victims”, 16th Century, uploaded by Graham Beards, accessed via: https://bit.ly/2Cg2uS1

“Native American medicine man caring for an ill Native American”, by Captain Samual Eastman, 1857, uploaded by Smgaynor , 2009, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3GkNF3B

“The Emerald Mound”, by Kaotate, 2016, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3VSDER9

“O desembarque dos portuguezes no Brazil ao ser descoberto por Pedro Alvares Cabral em 1500”, Roque Gameiro, 1900, uploaded by JotaCartas, 2016, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3iGlNz0

“Fundación de Santiago”, Pedro Lira, 1888, uploaded by Alonso de Mendoza , 2016, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3XmO5NS

“Cook Island Annexation”, unknown photographer, 1900, uploaded by Afrodita nz, 2011, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3ixs28j

“Stand With Standing Rock SF”, Pax Ahimsa Gethen, 2016, uploaded by Funcrunch , 2016, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3vYT0c5

“The Sounds of Earth Record Cover”, NASA / JPL, 1977, uploaded by Mattes, 2012, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3XnukFW

“Pioneer Plague”, NASA, 1972, uploaded by BotMultichillT , 2006, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3GYTx4c

“Launch of Artemis 1”, NASA/Joel Kowsky, 2022, uploaded by Huntster, 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3Xr5MM9

“Earth rising behind the Moon”, Artemis 1 mission, NASA Johnson, uploaded by Spaceman2288, 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3GYan39

“Eugene Cernan on the Moon, Apollo 17”, NASA / Harrison H. Schmitt, 1972, uploaded by Craigboy, 2011, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3IGYGz6

“Dancing Secotan Indians in North Carolina”, by John White, 1585, uploaded by AnonMoos, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3QEGxUI

“Yaxchilan Lintel 15”, photo by Michel wal, 2008, accessed via:  https://bit.ly/3vXUZNJ

“Dog attack during protest”, Bill Hudson / AP, 1963

“World Map”, Abraham Ortelius, 1570, uploaded by Gabagool, 2009, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3kbfrrV

“The Mill Yard”, William Clark, 1823, uploaded by Jheald, 2014, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3iALcu5

“Alexander von Humboldt und Aimé Bonpland am Fuß des Vulkans Chimborazo”, Friedrich Georg Weitsch, 1806, uploaded by Laserlicht, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3CNQuJx

 “Códice Casanatense, depicting a Hindu ritual of self-sacrifice”, 1540, uploaded by Wareno, 2017, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3X6AcDS

“Remarkable description and original illustration of a foreign, unknown people” (likely Inuit peoples), 1578, uploaded by Zentralbibliothek Zürich, 2013, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3IQ8G9c

“Pizarro Seizing the Inca of Peru”, John Everett Millais, 1846, uploaded by BoH, 2018, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3H2PHa7

“The Slave Trade (Slaves on the West Coast of Africa)”, François-Auguste Biard, 1833, uploaded by Trzęsacz, 2015, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3CGQOKb

“Herero and Nama prisoners”, during the Herero and Namaqua genocide, author unknown, 1904, uploaded by Jonund, 2019, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3XsRY3T

“Landing of Columbus”, by John Vanderlyn, 1847, uploaded by Davepape, 2007, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3QD58ZS

“The Trial of Red Jacket”, by John Mix Stanley, 1869, uploaded by Botaurus , 2013, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3kj5sB6

“Indians of the Kuikuro ethnic group at the closing ceremony of the ninth edition of the Indigenous Peoples Games”, Valter Campanato/ABr, 2007, uploaded by Jurema Oliveira , 2007, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3vZEnFp

“Mujeres bailando la Sandunga en traje tehuana en la Guelaguetza”, 2018, uploaded by Tyrv, 2022, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3H3x99N

“Totonac Civilization, Diego Rivera, uploaded by Drkgk, 2019, accessed via: https://bit.ly/3H4x4me

“Angelica - a Seri woman”, taken and uploaded by Tomascastelazo, 2018, accessed via:

https://bit.ly/3CHk7MH

Music

“Chaos Theory” by Ava Low

“Idiosyncrasies” by Gavin Luke

“Night Bells” by Lotus

“Tiger Tracks” by Lexica

“Orbit” by Ebb & Flod

“Last Cassette” by William Claeson

“Alternative Analysis” by Silver Maple

“Wonky” by Soara

“Dark Western” by Raighes Factory

“Shifting Angles” by Experia

“Peruvian River” by Sight Of Wonders

“Aztec Empire” by Jimena Contreras

“Maya Ritual” by Jimena Contreras

“Selah” by They Dream By Day

“Synth Sensation” by Atwood Media

“Thyone” by Ben Elson

[uomo-accattivante]

I recently came across a bunch of press articles and photos about Oscar Isaac that are so old, they appear to be out-of-print and pre-date social media. Considering they were probably never digitally transcribed for internet access, I’m guessing that the majority of current fans have never seen this stuff.

Even though a lot of these digital scans are challenging to read because they are the original fuzzy news print, I think there some gems worth sharing with you guys. Over the next several weeks, I will transcribe and share those gems on this page. Hope you enjoy them!

Let’s start with this fantastic 2001 profile piece done before Oscar was accepted into Juilliard:

South Florida’s rising star isn’t just acting the part

By Christine Dolen - cdolen@herald.com

February 4, 2001

As fifth-graders at Westminster Christian School in Miami, Oscar Isaac and his classmates were asked to write a story as if they were animals on Noah’s Ark. Oscar turned in a seven-page play – with original music – from the perspective of a platypus. Then he starred in the production his teacher directed.

He hasn’t stopped expressing himself creatively since. Today, Isaac is one of South Florida’s busiest young theater actors, and certainly its hottest. And not just because he’s a slender five-feet nine-inches tall with an expressively handsome face and glistening brown eyes.

Since making his professional debut as a Cuban hustler in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage in July 1999, he has played an explosive Vietnam vet in Private Wars for Horizons Repertory, a pot-smoking slacker in This Is Our Youth at GableStage, another Cuban on the make in Praying With the Enemy at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, the entrancing narrator of Side Man at GableStage, a Havana-based writer in Arrivals and Departures for the new Oye Rep and, most recently, a young Fidel Castro in When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba at New York’s Cherry Lane Theater.

Beginning Wednesday, he’ll be juggling five roles in City Theatre’s annual Winter Shorts festival, first at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach, then at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts. But that is not all: During the two weeks he is doing Winter Shorts, he’ll also be playing dates with the punk-ska band The Blinking Underdogs (www.blinkingunderdogs.com), which features him as lead singer, guitarist and songwriter.

Oh, and he just got back from auditioning for New York’s prestigious Juilliard School of Drama.

All this for a guy a month shy of his 22nd birthday.

Sure, you could hate a guy who’s that talented, that charismatic, that transparently ambitious. But the people who have worked with Oscar Isaac don’t. On the contrary, they’re all sure he has it – that magical, can’t-be-taught thing that transforms an actor into a star.

Playwright Eduardo Machado, who put in a good word for Isaac at Juilliard, says “he does have that star quality that makes your eyes go to him. It’s great that someone with that talent still wants to train.”

“He has a star quality that’s rare in a young actor,” adds Joseph Adler, who directed him in Side Man and This Is Our Youth. “Without a doubt I expect to be hearing great things from him.”

‘I JUST LOVE CREATING’

Isaac, who also makes short films, can’t say exactly why he was attracted to acting. He just knows it makes him happier than anything, that it’s what he was meant to do. And he’s been doing it since he was a 4-year-old putting on plays in his family’s backyard with his sister Nicole.

“I just love creating, whether it’s music or films or a character on a stage. I love taking people for a ride,” he says. “In Side Man, every night I would love being that close to the audience. I felt like I was talking to 80 of my closest friends.

“I could feel what the audience was feeling.”

His powerful, mournful-yet-loving monologue near the end of the play, he said, “worked every night. I knew it would get them. I’d hear sniffles.

“But it had less to do with me than with the atmosphere [created by the playwright and director].”

You could understand if Isaac, surrounded as he is by praise and possibility, had an ego as burgeoning as his career. Instead, he channels the positive reinforcement into confidence about his work.

“He has such a charm and an ease onstage, but he’s very modest,” says New York-based actress Judith Delgado, who shared the stage with Isaac in Side Man. “He’s hungry. He’s got moxie. I was blown away by him.

“He saved me a couple of times. I went up [forgot a line] and that baby boy of mine came through. He’s a joy.”

FORGING HIS OWN PATH

The son of a Cuban-American father and a Guatemalan mother, Isaac was never a stellar student. But he found ways of turning routine assignments – like the Noah’s Ark story – into creative challenges.

His science reports were inevitably video documentaries underscored with punk music. He acted through middle and high school, though he had a falling out with his drama teacher at Santaluces Community High in Lantana over his misgivings about a character. When she refused to cast him in anything else, he got his English teacher to let him play the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors his senior year.

His skepticism about authority and love of playing the devil’s advocate have long made him resist doing things the usual way. His post-high school “training” consisted of one semester at Miami-Dade Community College’s South Campus (where he met his girlfriend, Maria Miranda), touring schools playing an abusive character in the Coconut Grove Playhouse’s Breaking the Cycle, and working as a transporter of bodies at Baptist Hospital, where he absorbed the drama of people in emotionally intense situations.

“It was the most magnificent dramatic institute I could’ve attended,” Isaac said. “I was able to observe the entire spectrum of human emotion, people under the most extreme duress. I was mesmerized watching the way people interacted with each other in such heightened situations.

“I learned everything about the human condition, and it was real and harsh and brutally honest.”

Yet even given his propensity for forging his own path, something nudged him another direction while he was in New York making his Off-Broadway debut in December. Walking by Juilliard one day, he impulsively went in to ask for an application. Though the application deadline had passed, Isaac persuaded Juilliard to accept his, noting in his application essay that most of the exceptional actors he admires had acquired “a brutally efficient technique” to enhance their talent by studying at places like Juilliard.

Though he won’t know whether he has been accepted until the end of this month, his audition last weekend went well, he says. He did monologues from Henry IV, Part I and Dancing at Lughnasa, adjusting his Shakespearean Hotspur to a more fiery temperature at the suggestion of Michael Kahn, head of Juilliard’s acting program – though not without arguing that Hotspur wouldn’t be speaking to the king that way.

Isaac, not surprisingly, loves a good debate.

Adler, GableStage’s artistic director and a man who is as liberal as Isaac once was conservative, savored the verbal jousting they did during rehearsals for Side Man.

“He knows exactly how to pull my chain,” Adler says with a laugh. “Intelligence is the cornerstone of all great actors, and he’s bright as hell.

“He has relentless ambition but with so much charm. He’s very hard to say no to. He has incredible raw talent and magnetism that is very rare in a young actor along with relentless energy, perseverance and ambition. I see his growth both onstage and off. He’s mature in both places.”

Part of his growth, of course, will necessarily involve dealing with the rejections that are part of any actor’s life. His career is still too new, his string of successes solid, so it’s anyone’s guess how failure will shape him. But director Michael John Garcés, who picked him for When It’s Cocktail Time in Cuba after Isaac flew to New York at his own expense to compete with a pool of seasoned Manhattan actors for the role, believes his character will see him through.

“Oscar is realistic, but he’s so willing to go the whole nine yards,” Garcés says. “He didn’t go out when he was in the show here. His focus earned the respect of the other actors, some of whom have been working in New York for 30 years.

“He hasn’t had a lot of blows yet, when the career knocks the wind out of you. But he has talent, determination and focus, and if he has perseverance – my intuition is that he does have it – he could achieve a lot.”

FAMILY TIES

His father and namesake, Baptist Hospital intensive-care physician Oscar Isaac Hernandez, couldn’t be more proud. (Isaac doesn’t use the family surname in order to avoid, in his words, being “put in that Hispanic actor box.”)

“I’m ecstatic that he’s probably going to be going to the most prestigious drama school in the United States,” he says. “School will help him focus his energies and give him discipline. He’s got the raw material and the drive.”

Isaac’s mother, Maria, divorced from his father since 1992, is a kidney-transplant recipient who acknowledges that she’ll miss her son if he moves to New York. But, she adds, she wants him “to live out his dreams. He amazes me every day. He calls me every day. I’m very proud of him.”

Even the other guys in The Blinking Underdogs are fans of Isaac’s acting, though it could take him away from South Florida just as the band appears to be, Isaac says, on the brink of signing a recording deal (it has already put out its own CD, The Last Word, with songs, lead vocals and even cover photography by Isaac.

“Oscar’s the leader of the band, a great musician who amazes me and motivates us,” says sax player Keith Cooper. “I’ve been to see every one of his plays. He’s a phenomenal actor.

“I completely buy into his role in every play. As close as I am to him, I forget it’s Oscar.”

His South Florida theater colleagues credit that to Isaac’s insatiable desire to learn and grow.

Gail Garrisan, who is directing him in Donnie and One of the Great Ones for Winter Shorts, observes, “It’s not often that you find a young actor who is willing to listen and who doesn’t think he knows everything. He loves the work.

“He really brought the young man in Side Man to life. When I saw it in New York, it seemed to be the father’s play. When I saw it here, I felt it was his [Isaac’s] play.”

Oye Rep’s John Rodaz, whom Isaac calls “the best director I’ve ever worked with,” gave the actor his first important job in Sleepwalkers at Area Stage. They met when Isaac came to see Area’s production of Oleanna and the actor, knowing Rodaz ran the theater, introduced himself.

“He has so much energy and such a sparkling personality,” Rodaz says. “He knows how to move in the world. He seems to take advantage of every situation in a good way; he’s not a cold, calculating person who’ll stab you in the back.

“[But] he wants it so badly. Everything he does, he’s the leader. When I was 21, I was taking naps.”

Rodaz coached Isaac on his Juilliard monologues and found the experience energizing.

“I got chills just watching him. That happens so rarely. I was so exhilarated when I came home that I just had to go out and run. You just know he’s got all the tools.”

Christine Dolen is The Herald’s theater critic.

###

[tlbodine]

So I Tried Feeding Some Horror to an AI, and it Didn’t Like It

A friend sent me this link to play with: https://app.inferkit.com/demo

You can feed this bot a short passage of text, and it’ll try to complete it. I figured I’d start with a couple lines from my current WIP: 

By the time Silas had finished with his morning stroll — blessedly solitary this time, with no more surprises on the shore — and emerged fully dressed and freshly shaved from the bathroom, Moira was up and decent. She had changed into proper clothes and done her hair, although she’d been lazy with the makeup. She was now happily wearing a long blue dress with three-quarter sleeves and a deep V-neck. The choice of clothing was a change from the casual cardigans and jeans she’d been wearing for the past week, but it was still not what she’d considered to be appropriate for what she had in mind. 

 “You’re thinking the same as me,” he announced, arching his eyebrows. 

 “I know what you’re thinking, but I can’t imagine why.”

 “Good. I don’t want to be overwhelmed by all the cliches.”

The bold text is what I submitted, the rest was provided by the AI. It seems this AI has romance on the brain. I do enjoy that self-awareness about cliches. But okay, fine, it’s confused about the wider context, that’s not playing fair. Let’s give it something horrifying to look at: 

If I hadn't had so many photographs in front of me to compare, I might not have recognized him. His flesh was sallow and waxy, pulled tight over his skull. His sunken eyes were dark and empty, his lips peeled back from yellow teeth. Most of his nose was missing; in its place was an ugly gash, twin jagged holes like something had gnawed off the skin and plucked out its cartilage. 

 Gambier's first victim, on 9 July 2011. An autopsy revealed scars on his legs suggesting that he'd had an amputation at some point. | Center for Investigative Reporting 

Gambier had pulled up a corner of the sheet, exposing his chest, where he had a tiny, smoldering ember of a cigarette between his index and middle finger, or perhaps between his middle and ring fingers. It was the same sort of cigarette that he'd been lighting when the paramedics had arrived, but

Interesting. I give it a zombie, it gives me back a coroner’s report. I’m also very amused by the fixation on Gambier’s cigarette, here. I wouldn’t recommend smoking under a sheet, buddy. And which fingers were you holding it between exactly? And if you’re killing people why are you still smoking at the crime scene after? I have many questions. 

But, fine. Let’s try something else? How about a bit from The Hound? 

Having eaten his fill, the dog turned away from the corpse. He turned, moving easier now, his body as loose and languid as smoke. In two easy strides, the dog passed Nat and into the yard beyond. He smelled of sulfur and the sick-sweet scent of decay. 

It was a smell that made even the boy shiver. The dog stretched, then followed the path out of the yard, taking its time over his leaving. 

 *** 

 Charlie closed the door and looked around the kitchen. Something about it reminded him of his time in the hospital with his mom, but it wasn't just that. There was something in that kitchen, some life, that lent it a weird familiarity. Something more than the same old one wall, same old floor, same old counters. Something that wasn't quite the same,

Now, this is interesting. The AI seems to have picked up that there should be something weird/uncanny/creepy, but it can’t figure out what to do with the dog or any of the other set pieces in play so it just strong-armed it into a new narrative instead. 

What if I make it witness a murder? 

Her mouth hung open, pulled into a slack "o" of surprise, and her eyes went wide. Confusion flared, then her gaze hardened, went glassy and distant. Dark blood gurgled out from between her lips, and her knees went weak, collapsing out from under her. But she did not fall. Instead, she stayed in place, weightless now, suspended like a fish on the ebb and flow of the tide. 

 I sat up. "How... how long have I been out?" 

 Tamsin's voice was a mere rasp, a barely audible whisper. She still looked about a million years old, though. Her brown hair was knotted into knots at her nape and shoulders, and her skin had taken on an ashen grey tinge. "Um...," I said. 

 "It has been five minutes since I last gave you medical treatment," said the old woman. "Five minutes, since you last ate or drank, five minutes, since you last laid down on a

There’s a lot going on here. The AI’s just going to skip right over the part at the beginning, and I have a lot of questions about the paragraph it offered me. Intrigued by this Tamsin figure with her knotty-knotted hair and ashy skin; more intrigued by the narrator’s apparent short-term-memory loss. If you can’t remember eating five minutes ago your head trauma is probably pretty bad, homeboy. 

But fine, fine, maybe the murder wasn’t explicit enough...

From the ground, it was easy to see how the trap had been laid. A deadfall rigged to the door. When the door opened, swinging outward, it triggered the pendulum free-fall of the weighted axe, the sharpened blade of which was now buried deep in the back of Abby's skull. The shadow slowly vanished back into the room behind them. One last scream cut through the air, wavering in and out of existence like a confused cloud before it finally came to an end.

 All of the sounds were now drowned out by a sort of loud and low rumbling that sounded like an earthquake. The floor and walls of the room started moving, the dust in the air raising up slowly as it became apparent to Red that they were no longer trapped. All that they could do now was watch.

 The Shadow

Well, hey, that’s progress. The AI figured out we’re writing a scary thing! I think. I do love “wavering in and out of existence like a confused cloud.” I also enjoy that they are no longer trapped, yet all they can do is watch. I feel like if I discovered that I was no longer trapped, I would want to run, but that’s just me. 

Anyway. I don’t think this AI very much likes my murders :( 

Give it a try to see if you fare any better. Reblog with your best AI-completed passage, if you want!

[tabloidtoc]

People, November 30

Cover: Sexiest Man Alive Michael B. Jordan 

Page 7: Chatter -- Dolly Parton on parenthood, Jason Momoa on wearing pink, Kurt Russell on making a negative first impression with longtime love Goldie Hawn, Taylor Swift on dating Joe Alwyn, Keke Palmer on preferring leggings, Viola Davis on processing the state of the world 

Page 8: 5 Things We’re Talking About This Week -- stars prep a seasonal singalong, a Baby Yoda cocktail wins over famous fans, The Bachelor mansion hits Airbnb, Arnold Schwarzenegger heads to Netflix, Blue Ivy narrates an audiobook 

Page 11: Contents 

Page 12: Contents, Editor’s Letter 

Page 14: StarTracks -- Famous Families -- John Legend and Chrissy Teigen attended the drive-in premiere of Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey in L.A. with their kids Miles and Luna 

Page 15: LeBron James with mom Gloria, Gabrielle Union backyard with daughter Kaavia, Chris Hemsworth and his mother Leonie, Rupert Grint and daughter Wednesday G. Grint

Page 16: Kit Harington filmed a scene for the second season of Modern Love in Dublin, Tiger Woods awarded a green jacket to 2020 Masters champion Dustin Johnson, Patricia Clarkson showed off a shimmering gown at Housing Works’ annual Fashion for Action Benefit 

Page 17: Nashville’s Biggest Night -- Carrie Underwood and husband Mike Fisher attended the 54th annual Country Music Association Awards, Charley Pride performed with Jimmie Allen before accepting his CMA Lifetime Achievement Award, Miranda Lambert with husband Brendan McLoughlin, Maren Morris won three awards and shone a light on Black female country artists 

Page 19: Timothee Chalamet packed on some layers for a bike ride along Manhattan’s Hudson River Park, Molly Bernard and Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff during a break from filming for Younger in New York City’s Upper West Side, Mandy Moore cradled her pregnant belly at the E! People’s Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Tyler Perry at the E! People’s Choice Awards 

Page 23: Scoop -- Healing on Grey’s Anatomy -- inside Patrick Dempsey’s surprise return 

Page 24: Lena Dunham reveals her struggle with infertility and IVF 

Page 26: Heart Monitor -- Olivia Wilde and Jason Sudeikis surprise split, Ryan Cabrera and Alexa Bliss engaged, Michelle Pfeiffer and David E. Kelley happy anniversary, Kristin Cavallari and Jeff Dye dating 

Page 29: Britney Spears’ battle with her dad continues, Britney and Sam Asghari’s island getaway 

Page 30: Ciara and Russell Wilson’s new family moves, Buddy Valastro making progress after his accident 

Page 32: Rebel Wilson -- my year of health and love, Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond becomes a proud foster mom 

Page 34: Passages, Why I Care -- after losing her mother to pancreatic cancer in 2012 Mindy Kaling is raising awareness about the disease 

Page 37: Stories to Make You Smile -- there’s no debate about who won the popular vote in Rabbit Hash in Kentucky: a 6-month-old dog named Wilbur, a tiny preemie grows into a healthy 4-year-old with Superman by his side 

Page 41: People Picks -- The Flight Attendant 

Page 42: Hillbilly Elegy, Happiest Season, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Q&A Lindsey Vonn 

Page 43: Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, People Presents: Once upon a Main Street, Small Axe, One to Watch -- The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two’s Darby Camp 

Page 45: Books 

Page 47: Jewel -- what I know now -- she went from homelessness to pop stardom 25 years ago and now the singer gets candid about healing from her abusive childhood and finding true happiness 

Page 53: At home with The Undertaker -- the (family) man behind the WWE legend -- after 30 years in the ring Mark Calaway reflects on his career and catching up on lost time as a dad 

Page 56: At 51 Julie Loving becomes her daughter’s surrogate -- a mother’s amazing gift -- after years of struggling with infertility Breanna Lockwood thought she’d never have a child and then her mom stepped up and gave birth to a healthy baby girl 

Page 60: John Belushi -- the private world of a comedy legend -- nearly four decades after the groundbreaking actor’s tragic death at age 33 those closest to him open up about the legacy he left behind 

Page 64: Emma Stone and Ryan Reynolds -- kids asked and they answered -- the stars of The Croods: A New Age take questions from their youngest fans 

Page 66: A High School Coach’s Betrayal -- shattered justice -- Emilie Morris told police her former track coach had sexually abused her but charges were dropped when she died; now her family hopes a new TV special will bring fresh attention to the case 

Page 72: Michael B. Jordan is the Sexiest Man Alive -- he’s driven and compassionate and playful and doing more than his fair share to help change the world 

Page 83: Men of the Year -- Chris Evans 

Page 84: Harry Styles 

Page 85: Trevor Noah, Kevin Costner, Maluma, Lakeith Stanfield 

Page 86: Paul Rudd, Steve Kornacki, William Zabka, Ryan Seacrest, Darren Barnet 

Page 87: Brad Pitt, The Weeknd, Paul Mescal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II 

Page 88: Manny Jacinto, Dr. Elvis Francois, Stephen Colbert, Robert Pattinson 

Page 89: John David Washington 

Page 90: Dwayne Johnson, Lucas Bravo, Dr. Anthony Fauci 

Page 91: Pedro Pascal 

Page 92: Chris Rock, Matt Bomer, Penn Badgley, Andrew Cuomo, Justin Bieber, Jonathan Majors 

Page 98: The People Have Spoken -- readers exercised their right to vote by picking their favorites in an online poll 

* Sexiest Star Who Kept Us Smiling -- John Krasinski 

* Sexiest Small-Screen Star -- Jensen Ackles 

* Sexiest Royal -- Prince Harry 

Page 99: Sexiest International Man -- Jeon Jungkook 

* Sexiest New Dad -- Joe Jonas 

* Sexiest Happily Settled Guy -- Ryan Reynolds 

Page 100: Sexiest Sports Star -- Patrick Mahomes 

* Sexiest Social Media Star -- Shawn Mendes 

* Sexiest Brothers -- Liam Hemsworth and Chris Hemsworth

* Sexiest Netflix Heartthrob -- Noah Centineo 

Page 106: Dan Levy -- sexiest man in quarantine -- baking and jigsaw puzzles and so many Zooms: whatever quarantine had to offer the Schitt’s Creek co-creator and star tried it all 

Page 115: Hottest Couples -- these twosomes make being in love look good -- Chrissy Teigen and John Legend, Matthew and Camila McConaughey, Kevin and Eniko Hart, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt and Chris Pratt, Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade, Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez 

Page 117: The Eyes Have It -- in the era of face masks these men are still able to flaunt their finest feature -- Idris Elba, Bradley Cooper, Jesse Williams, Mark Consuelos, Boris Kodjoe, Henry Golding, Zac Efron, Ian Somerhalder 

Page 120: A Sexy Man’s Best (Instafamous) Friend -- Nick Jonas with Gino Chopra Jonas 

Page 123: Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka with Gidget and Spike 

Page 124: Harry Connick Jr. with Tuka 

Page 127: Cats Are Instafamous Too -- these felines and their sexy celeb owners prove they’re just as worthy of social media stardom -- Ed Sheeran with Calippo, Bobby Flay with Nacho, Keegan Allen with Tyn, Ricky Gervais with Pickle 

Page 129: Sexy at Every Age 

Page 130: Silver Foxes -- they’ve still got it -- these former cover stars are as smoldering as ever proving sexiness gets better with age -- Richard Gere, Harrison Ford 

Page 131: Pierce Brosnan, Harry Hamlin, Mark Harmon 

Page 132: All Glowed Up -- this group of guys outgrew their sweet baby faces to become dashingly handsome men -- Adam Rippon, Charlie Puth, Josh Peck, Mario Lopez, Michele Morrone, Skylar Astin 

Page 133: Orlando Bloom, Ramy Youssef, Brooklyn Beckham, Hunter Hayes, Wilson Cruz, Chase Stokes, Jordan Fisher 

Page 134: A Change of Scenery -- we’re all sick of staying home so luckily these sizzling guys have found plenty of ways to get things done outdoors -- Paul Wesley goes camping in his yard 

Page 136: Cole Hauser takes a bath 

Page 137: Common gets a shave and a haircut 

Page 138: Edgar Ramirez enjoys coffee and a book 

Page 140: Derek Hough does his laundry 

Page 143: Cutest Baby Alive -- CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s sweet son Wyatt 

Page 151: Second Look -- Melissa McCarthy in Superintelligence 

Page 152: One Last Thing -- Kate Mara -- the actress stars in the new limited series A Teacher

[ducktracy]

176. porky’s garden (1937)

release date: september 11th, 1937

series: looney tunes

director: tex avery

starring: mel blanc (porky, chickens), george humbert (neighbor), earle hodgins (salesman)

this would be tex avery’s final black and white cartoon until 1941, and his second to last porky cartoon. how time flies! i enjoy his porky entries a lot. the blow out, the village smithy, and of course porky’s duck hunt are all shorts of his that i find myself coming back to frequently. but, of course, greater tex cartoons lie ahead. interestingly enough, this is also the second and final credit for animator elmer wait, who passed away in july of 1937. chuck jones once described him as “a fine young assistant animator who died too young." i’ve heard speculation that tex’s little-known character elmer fudd was named in wait’s honor--i’m not sure if it was that, or the fact that every other cartoon character in the 1930′s was named elmer, but this is a claim i can find myself believing with more conviction than other animation claims. for now, we visit farmer porky, who’s eager to enter the local contest for the largest home grown product. however, his stereotypical italian neighbor seeks to out-perform him at any cost.

this cartoon is a peculiar anomaly in the tex avery-verse, in that it feels much more like the 1936 avery porky cartoons than the 1937 bunch—and almost deliberately, too. the cartoon starts off very similarly to his first directorial entry, gold diggers of ‘49, laying out the time (1927), the place (podunk center), and the population 500 502 — mrs. castle bottom just had twins!). though tex would constantly reuse gags all throughout his career (and quite well, often elevating the hyperactivity of the gag), it’s rather uncharacteristic for him to reuse a gag for nostalgic purposes. nevertheless, the opening is amusing, and faster paced than its facsimile over at gold diggers of ‘49. the sound of the baby wail as the 500 is replaced with 502 is an extra bonus.

a sign gag featuring the tried and true income tax gag (which has been used, and will continue to be used, in a number of cartoons--tex’s milk and money is another porky entry that uses this gag):

porky is amongst the group crowding around the sign, joyfully declaring that he’s going to win first prize with his garden. cue the antagonist of the picture, porky’s curious italian neighbor, voiced by george humbert. humbert was an italian actor, starring in a large number of hollywood films throughout the ‘30′s and ‘40′s. if i recall, bob clampett once mentioned that tex would go to the movies to get ideas, no doubt his reasoning for getting humbert to do the cartoon. humbert’s vocals shine and add a lot of vitality to this otherwise tame entry. speaking of, italian neighbor is quick to contradict porky: “ohohohoho no, i gonna ween with my cheeken!” with that, he leapfrogs over porky, who is quick to bumble along after him.

we get a brief overhead shot of the two neighbors and their respective houses, the overhead shot once again calling back to earlier porky entries such as milk and money. the competitors both go to their gardens to out-perform the other. cue a short gardening sequence with porky, who uses his straightened out tail to dig holes in the soil, big enough to drop seeds in. his neighbor, on the other hand, concocts a meal full of vitamins and tonics for his chickens cheekens, narrating all the way. the underscore is a stalling favorite, “chicken reel”, and if my memory is correct, i BELIEVE this is the first instance it’s used in a warner bros. short? cue a seemingly arbitrary cut back to porky, who finishes the job of planting. back to the neighbor who summons his chickens to eat his mystery feed of who-knows-what. the chickens dig in... only to halt, spit out the food, and hold their noses (beaks) in disgust. great timing--the drawings especially of the chickens rejecting the food feel quite avery-esque, which is nice: it’s always nice to feel the personal touches of the director.

cut back to porky, a cue of “carolina in the morning” (which is impossible for me to hear without thinking of daffy kaye’s rendition of it in the anomaly that is book revue) underscoring his plan to use hair growth tonic as a means of growing a quick, hearty, full harvest. the scene is cute, yet sluggish--if the cartoon were made even 5 years later, it would have been twice as fast, if not more so. nevertheless, his plan works: the ground shakes beneath him, and crops as tall as the eye can see spurt out from the soil. satisfied, old pigdonald strolls inside, “uh-veh-vuh-vo-do-de-oh”ing and “uh-uh-eh-beh-beh-boop-de-oop”ing all the way along (to remind our audience that this cartoon takes place in 1927--because, why not, right?)

meanwhile, pesky neighbor pops his head over the fence, equally as impressed with the results as porky. perfect food to fatten up the cheekens! the animation of the neighbor is rich and full, humbert’s vocals of course magnifying the quality. with that, the neighbor loosens up one of the boards in the fence, sparking the feeding frenzy: “come an’ get it!”

the chickens do just that. calling back to the days of porky the rain-maker (where there were vegetable gags galore), we get a montage of semi-amusing “chickens eating vegetables in creative ways” gags. one chicken uses a tomato vine as a straw, sucking out the pulp from all of the tomatoes connected. another rolls a line of peas straight into its mouth, rolling up the shell like a toothpaste tube. 

though the gags rouse polite chuckles at most today, the most uproarious gag is the last one: a chicken and a baby chick fight over a watermelon. big cheeken asserts its authority by flicking the baby chick away, spouting tearful insults at the bully chicken. just then, fortune: the chick spots a patch of spinach, the seeds belonging to jones (yes, that chuck jones--whose birthday is today! happy birthday, chuck!) garden company. i can’t say this with staunch certainty, but i do have reason to believe that this cartoon was backlogged for a few months: chuck jones would have been at bob clampett’s unit during the time of this cartoon’s release, but the allusion to his name, the animation of this scene looking peculiarly reminiscent of bob clampett’s animation, and the lack of irv spence animation leads me to believe as such. nevertheless, as you may be able to surmise, the chick transforms into a caricature of popeye, complete with jack mercer-esque mumblings and popeye speak. the newly transformed chick socks the chicken right in the face, usurping the half-eaten watermelon slice and gobbling it down all in one go. easily the highlight of the cartoon, and a gag that can be appreciated regardless of time period.

one last eating gag of a chicken plucking a ripe worm from an apple (fittingly scored to “in the shade of the old apple tree”). the joke suffers from constipated timing, more on the part of carl stalling than the animator. there is a nice, quick, shiver take as the chicken attempts to rip the apple open into two halves. fade out.

fade back in on the feeding frenzy. porky takes notice, and is not happy about it. he does a lumbering, quick little run that calls back to the 1936 porky entries where he was much more short and squat (virgil ross animation?), zooming out of screen, then back in again to retrieve a nearby broom. porky swats the chickens frantically, but to no avail: despite his angry demands for them to get out, they continue to eat.

virgil ross animates the next scene as porky confronts his neighbor: “hey, n-nn-ne-neighbor, eh-teh-teh-tell your cheh-cheh-cheh-chi-chickens to keep outta my uh-geh-eh-geh-eh-geh-garden!” the neighbor complies, his vocals hilariously disingenuous as he haggles with the chickens, who, predictably ignore him. thus sparks an overly-profuse string of excuses from the neighbor, who doth protest too much. “you see? i talk to them! but a-they don’t listen to me!” he pauses. “i’m too sorry for you.” another pause, just as we think he’s finished. “...but i cannot talk-a cheeken talk!” one more pause. “i can no make-a the cheeken coming out!”

neighbor finally leaves the disgruntled pig to his own devices, laughing as he talks to the audience. “eet’za too bad...” he looks at the audience and gives them a knowing wink as he finishes “but not too bad!” overall, a great scene. humbert’s vocals are divine, as is the comedic timing. porky’s befuddlement by the rapid-fire responses from his neighbor is another plus. 

back to a downtrodden porky, who mournfully sulks along to a succinctly timed rendition of “am i blue?” (if you listen closely, you can hear the beats lining up exactly with his footsteps.) suddenly, a thick vine growing out of the patch catches his eye. he follows the vine, pulling it like a rope... 

and the perfect solution awaits on the other side of the fence: a giant pumpkin! perfect for the harvest contest. 

porky lugs his new prize out from the fence, which instantly attracts the attention of the hungry chickens. spark the ever transformative avery moment, where the cartoon halts to make a big production out of nowhere--in this case, football. the favorite “freddy the freshman” score serves as the backing track of the makeshift football game as the chickens line up to take position: “HIKE!”

the next sequence appears to be animated by chuck jones: porky runs long, pumpkin in hand as he swats away the oncoming rush of chickens. the extra touches of making porky do some twirls and swivels as he attempts to maintain balance are not taken for granted. a nice straight-ahead shot of the football field turned garden, with a trellis in the foreground and clothesline in the background to form goal posts--very clever! 

it’s not the chickens who serve as porky’s pumpkin demise, but rather a spare crate left on the ground. porky trips, horrified as he watches his pumpkin launch into the air and across the yard. we get a tashlin-esque concealed pan as porky darts through his house to retrieve his prize, the action obscured: we only see a brief glimpse of the house’s facade, the drumroll and sound effect of the airborne pumpkin being our only indicator to the success of the stunt. thankfully, porky shuffles out of the other end just in time to catch his pumpkin (topped off with a triumphant “ta-da!” fanfare.) wasting no more time, porky dashes down the road and off to the fair. meanwhile, the neighbor’s chickens are all plumped up, ready to win the first-a prize. 

“the merry go round broke down” scores the scenes at the fair as we catch our hero bumbling along with his prize pumpkin into the fair, neighbor and cheekens not far behind. there’s a line of posters advertising the various attractions at the fair, including a caricature of bobe cannon (once more reinforcing the idea that this cartoon was back-logged: he would have been at the clampett unit by the time of the cartoon’s release.) 

earle hodgins voices the salesman (a specialty of his--he played the pill-peddling salesman in porky the rain-maker, as well as the oil huckster honest john in get rich quick porky) peddling the miracle “reducing pills”. his test subject? an elephant. the salesman pops a pill in the elephant’s mouth, who stares at the audience nonplussed as he shrinks to the size of a mouse... literally. 

the next scene of the salesman is great, as it’s full of energy, zaniness, and fervor. i wonder if it’s a clampett scene? the voice of the salesman rises into astronomical pitch as he describes the size of “teensy, weensy, weensy, bitsy, weensy, teeny little mouse”, capping it all off with a flamboyant “WOO!” and pose. the pose looks similar to the same one struck by daffy in clampett’s entry the henpecked duck 4 years later, hence my reasoning. nevertheless, a great scene of zany eye candy. 

peddling his wares, the salesman accidentally knocks over a spare bottle of reducing pills, right in the trajectory of the passing cheekens. and, predictably, the cheekens devour the pills in no-time.

cue a rather blunt cut to porky, who’s about to receive first prize for his pumpkin, standing on stage and politely soaking in the glory. just as the judge reaches to give him his dough, he halts, spotting the ginormous array of poultry behind the pig. the judge is quick to take back his bag of money, much to the awe of porky (which also gives us this intriguing little error for a few frames). neighbor accepts the bag--that is, until the pills kick in. the chickens revert back to the size of chicks, and there’s just enough comedic pause to let the joke sink in before the chicks revert back to mere eggs. 

we iris out--or so we think. just another declaration of tex’s love of playing with the iris out gags. that is one steamed ham.

not the snappiest entry in the avery repertoire, but not exceedingly dull, either. george humbert steals the show with his acting, and the popeye gag with the chick is wonderfully amusing. the cartoon mainly suffers from sluggish pacing in some parts, tired gags in others, but not enough to exclude a watch-through. it’s a fond look back at the earlier days of tex’s directing, and asserts just how far the cartoons have yet to improve. so, for that, i’d say i’m relatively neutral on whether or not to persuade you to watch it: the porky lover in me and ‘30′s cartoon lover in me say go for it! there are bits of greatness that you should definitely seek out. but it won’t kill you to skip this one either.

here’s the link! (excuse the butchered titles/credits: opening title music is the merry go round broke down which is wrong, and the title card music is the opening to porky’s tire trouble--also wrong, as is the porky “that’s all, folks!” ending over the written script) 

[otherpplnation]

782. David Koepp

David Koepp is the author of the novel Aurora, available from Harper. It is the official July pick of the TNB Book Club.

Koepp has written or co-written the screenplays for more than thirty films, including Carlito's Way (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), Mission: Impossible (1996), Panic Room (2002), Spider-Man (2002), War of the Worlds (2005), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Angels & Demons (2009), and Kimi (2022).

As a director, his work includes the films The Trigger Effect (1996), Stir of Echoes (1999), Secret Window (2004), Ghost Town (2007), Premium Rush (2012), and You Should Have Left (2020). Ghost Town and Premium Rush were co-written with John Kamps.

Koepp’s first novel, Cold Storage, was published in 2019. His story "Yard Work," narrated by Kevin Bacon, was released by Audible Originals in July 2020.

He was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from UCLA’s film school in 1986. He lives in New York City with his wife and children.

***

Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers.

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[fridaypreaches]

DO GOOD TO YOUR NEIGHBORS

[Photo: Jame’ Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque]

“O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another and the wombs. Indeed Allah is ever, over you, an Observer.”

-Surah an-Nisa: Verse 1

Silaturrahim is a relationship or link formed between family members, relatives, friends, peers, neighbors and other. Doing kindness to other human being, regardless of religion, rank or race is one way to develop the bond. It was stated in Hadith Rasulullah SAW where preserving good connections and honoring one’s neighbors are among the perfections in complementing one’s neighbors:

Narrated by Abu Hurairah, The Prophet said, “Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should not hurt (trouble) his neighbor.” [Imam Muslim]

During the Friday preaches, it mentioned how it is essential to do good and establish relationships among neighbors in order to maintain community and national harmony. In order to have a good connection with our neighbor, it is important to keep and follow the noble principles as structured in our faith, for instance; applying the attitude of assisting each other, greeting each other, saying hello, caring for each other’s feelings, mutual respect and aiding the neighbor when they need help or in danger. It is critical to do good and have a positive connection with one another. This is because in Islam, neighbor are considered as a close family and is in the best position to help us and with a friendly and mutually caring attitude, it may make the community and country’s life more unified and peaceful in some way.

In Islam also teaches us on never damage other people’s heart and sentiments, either via speech or action and always try our best to maintaining cleanliness in the neighborhood such as avoiding leaving grass or tress in the yard to disrupt the area of a neighbor’s house as well as not allowing any trash and litter to pile up and create a foul and unpleasant odor. Additionally, avoid from producing excessive noise or conducting late-night entertainment activities that may disturb the neighbor and causing them having difficulty to sleep. As a Muslim, we should know that people that injure and disturb their neighbor will not enter paradise as stated in Hadith Rasulullah SAW as well as in the Holy Quran:

“Worship Allah and associate nothing with Him, and to parents do good, and to relatives, orphans, the needy, the near neighbor, the neighbor farther away, the companion at your side, the traveler, and those whom your right hands possess. Indeed, Allah does not like those who are self-deluding and boastful.”

-Surah an-Nisa: Verse 36

Reference: Friday preaches 23rd July 2021 http://www.kheu.gov.bn/Lists/Khutbah/NewDisplayItem.aspx?ID=911&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ekheu%2Egov%2Ebn%2Flists%2Fkhutbah%2Fviewall%2Easpx&ContentTypeId=0x0100EE34442FD552CC4FAECE608C6A2C143B

[ellajamesblog]

Best 4th of July Decoration Ideas

4th of July is one among of the most anticipated holidays we look forward to on summers. Independence Day 2018 falls on a Wednesday which glowered most of the working personnel who were looking forward to a joyous weekend. What happens when Fourth of July is on a Wednesday? Well, the last time Independence Day came in a mid-week was on 2012 and it was a mess for employers. With America’s birthday falling on Wednesday, employees nationwide will be searching for their pinch of Independence and drawing the ire of the bosses in the process. It’s 4th of July, can’t help it!

Keeping aside the mid-week ruckus, 4th of July is an ideal time to recollect your patriotic vibes and rejoice in the Freedom our nation has offered. Since the schools are closed down for summer vacation, finding something that might keep the kids busy from gaming consoles and smartphones might be difficult. Well, Independence Day might be your key to find out what your kid is really made up of. Tagging them along with the 4th of July decorations might be the best thing you can do to invoke patriotism in them by drawing out their creativity. Since Independence Day is around the corner and you are looking for some unique 4th of July decoration ideas, this listicle can help you out in many ways….

1. Start With Your Front Yard

Apart from displaying the Star – Spangled Banner at the tip of your house’s bargeboard there are a lot more options available for you. Start with your front yard. Clean out all the clutter from your yard and prepare for some drastic makeover. Starting with your mailbox is a great idea. An American flag mailbox cover can be the perfect pick to kick-start your Fourth of July decorations. If you have a front yard garden, filling the flower beds with red, white and blue tulips can be a unique idea to show off your gardening skills. Run warm light fairy lights along the tulip bed to make them more appealing at night. Adding few patriotic pinwheels can take your garden setup to a whole new level.

2. To The Patio

Patios are a great place to enjoy the summer sun and breathe in some fresh fragrances from nature. With Independence Day just blocks away, patriotism is in the air, and with every breath, you inhale the spirits and vibes of the coming day. Making your patio look beautiful is always on the priority list of most of the home designers. Well, we are about to do the same. Fill your patio with wooden recliner chairs and wooden teapoys. Decorate with mini patriotic flags and patriotic wooden signs. Keep your patio decoration minimalistic but effective. The mini stars and stripes banner can also be used in gardens too. Even though your patio will have the attraction from the display flag, adding a few extras like an American bald eagle ornament will give it some extra patriotic vibes.

3. Knock Knock!

Decorating the doors for every special occasion has been a thing since ages. Even though you wouldn’t find anything new with this idea, following the custom and tradition is always fun. You might remember how you and your mom used to doll up the front door in every holiday seasons.

Wreaths have an important role in every holiday decorations. For this Independence Day, get an American Flag patriotic door hangerand ask your kids to help you out in setting it on the door. This is also the perfect time to trigger your kid’s patriotic emotions by narrating all the great wars our nation has fought. Adding a chime that plays star spangled banner is a pretty unique idea and will channelize patriotic spirits through your veins every time the wind sways past it.

4. God Bless America

Without the blessing of The Almighty One who knows where we could’ve been right now. The path we followed from 1776 to 2018 was indeed challenging and daunting. With blessing from The Almighty Father and with a strong heart, we marched ahead conquering every aspect of life. During this glorious journey, we have fought many, conquered many and mourned over many. We are not yet tired and still have huge reservoirs enough to still strive for and achieve success.

Home decorations for 4th of July must be pursued with the same passion and priority as mentioned above. God bless America wooden sign are a must for Independence Day decorations. Installing American freedom flags between your curtain streaks is an excellent idea if you are planning for a total Freedom day home makeover.

5. Linens and Decors

If you are planning for a Fourth of July themed interior, we would suggest going with changing your house linens. Get some patriotically themed linen from the nearest offline stores and try spicing up your home with it. Try to mix and match red, white and blue colored linens to indulge in freedom day vibes.

Introducing some new decors into your Independence Day decorations ideas can elevate the holiday spirits in you. Add some American flag plush pillows to your sofa to create a spiced up yet an elegant look. Fresh flowers are favorites of every holidays and Independence Day isn’t any different. Get fresh flowers from your garden to decorate your home. Place them in a Patriotic cowboy Boot planter to make them look more adorable and approachable.

6. The Fourth of July Soiree

Barbecue, music, and fireworks! These are the main catches of this day, and we love it. Well, it always brings merry when getting together with your family, friends, and colleagues. Host an Independence Day evening party with barbecues and drinks. Independence Day holiday is all about celebrating the freedom our nation has to offer. Setting up an outdoor Netflix screen is an excellent idea if you are staying far away from firework displays. And don’t forget that the firework show starts at 9:30 pm. So keep your booze under control and enjoy streaming this mesmerizing event.

Hosting an Independence Day soiree is much more difficult than it seems. You might need a lot of stars and stripes balloons, Flag cupcake holders, Patriotic star ribbons and much more. It will be a great idea if you provide an American Flag ice bucket to keep your beers and drinks chilled.

7. The Dining Table Etiquettes

If fine dining is your plan for 4th of July, you must make sure your table setting is perfect and elegant. Right from the tablecloth to the dessert plate, you must make sure everything is intact and perfect. Table centerpieces are a great way to bring luxury to the table. Juliska Berry and Thread  Footed Compote can be the most exquisite table centerpiece for a Fourth of July evening dinner. Use Patriotic Salad plates, American flag cupcake holders and Stars and Stripes printed oven mitts to show justice to the whole setup.

Conclusion

Decorating your home for 4th of July will actually resemble respecting your country and its virtues as its citizen. Make sure you enjoy and celebrate your nation’s birthday with all its glory and pride.

Source: http://blogs.lijodecor.com/special-occasions/best-4th-of-july-decoration-ideas/

[rosemarysenglishlitblog]

Ten Interesting English Novels

One Day

by David Nicholls

15th July 1988: Emma and Dexter meet for the first time on the night of their graduation. Tomorrow they must go their separate ways. (good reads)

Jane Eyre

by Charlotte Brontë, Michael Mason (Editor), Barnett Freedman (Illustrator)

Orphaned as a child, Jane has felt an outcast her whole young life. Her courage is tested once again when she arrives at Thornfield Hall, where she has been hired by the brooding, proud Edward Rochester to care for his ward Adèle. Jane finds herself drawn to his troubled yet kind spirit. She falls in love. Hard. (good reads)

Before I Go to Sleep

by S.J. Watson

Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle-aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories. (good read)

Never Let Me Go

by Kazuo Ishiguro

Hailsham seems like a pleasant English boarding school, far from the influences of the city. Its students are well tended and supported, trained in art and literature, and become just the sort of people the world wants them to be. But, curiously, they are taught nothing of the outside world and are allowed little contact with it. (good reads)

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

by Neil Gaiman 

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy. (good reads)

High Fidelity

by Nick Hornby

Rob does. He keeps a list, in fact. But Laura isn't on it - even though she's just become his latest ex. He's got his life back, you see. He can just do what he wants when he wants: like listen to whatever music he likes, look up the girls that are on his list, and generally behaves as if Laura never mattered. But Rob finds he can't move on. He's stuck in a really deep groove - and it's called Laura. Soon, he's asking himself some big questions: about love, about life - and about why we choose to share ours with the people we do. (good reads)

Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens, Philip Horne (Introduction), Gerald Dickens (Narrator)

The story of Oliver Twist - orphaned, and set upon by evil and adversity from his first breath - shocked readers when it was published. After running away from the workhouse and pompous beadle Mr Bumble, Oliver finds himself lured into a den of thieves peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the Artful Dodger, vicious burglar Bill Sikes, his dog Bull's Eye, and prostitute Nancy, all watched over by cunning master-thief Fagin. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely new kind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery. (good reads)

The Little Stranger

by Sarah Waters

One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

The girl on the train

by Paul Hawkins 

Rachel Watson is an on-off recovering alcoholic who aimlessly rides a train in

New York City

since losing her job and her marriage. From the train, she fixates on the lives of her former husband Tom, his current wife Anna, and their neighbors Scott and Megan Hipwell, whom she idolizes. Megan worked for Tom and Anna as a nanny, but recently quit. During her marriage, Rachel became depressed about her infertility and developed a drinking problem resulting in continual blackouts and destructive behavior. At a barbecue held by Tom's boss, she drunkenly made a scene and was blamed by Tom when he was fired. While drunk, she often harasses Tom, calling him multiple times, though she has little or no memory of this once she sobers up. She also took Tom and Anna's newborn-daughter, Evie, from her crib while Anna was sleeping, then left the child on the ground when Anna discovered her. (wikipedia)

Mrs. Dalloway

by Virginia Woolf, Maureen Howard

Heralded as Virginia Woolf's greatest novel, this is a vivid portrait of a single day in a woman's life. When we meet her, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is preoccupied with the last-minute details of party preparation while in her mind she is something much more than a perfect society hostess. As she readies her house, she is flooded with remembrances of faraway times. And, met with the realities of the present, Clarissa reexamines the choices that brought her there, hesitantly looking ahead to the unfamiliar work of growing old. (good reads)