#that was the part where he lost me as a video essayist because how can you miss the dynamic so hard

[le-corbeau]

With the whole Somerton drama coming out, does anyone remember in that one Owl House video he made where he claimed the show was setting up Gus and Hunter to be a couple…you know a 12 year old and a 16 year old

[geraltcirilla]

What did Jenny Nicholson do to John Boyega? Genuinely curious, it's the first time I'm hearing of this and would love to know so I can stop paying her any attention if she doesn't deserve it

Disclaimer before I get started: I’m a white woman and this topic is about racism perpetuated by white woman so please keep that in mind as you read. I’m gonna do my absolute best to echo what I’ve seen black people say about this situation and this type of covert racism but I am not black so they get final say on this topic.

This is not an easy thing to explain in it’s entirety because it happened about a year ago on Twitter and Jenny deleted a lot of Tweets after the fact because she’s a spineless coward. I’m going to do my best to remember and I’ll include any receipts I can find, which unfortunately will be limited to what people saved at the time. :(

This all started because John made a joke about Rey and Finn having sex on Twitter.

It was a harmless silly joke. And it was not about Reylo. But Reylos took it upon themselves to be personally offended and absolutely LOST it at him, calling him a misogynist, saying his statement was sexist, and sending him a slew of harassment, hate, and racism.

Now there’s a lot of hypocrisy going into this controversy because Reylos are notorious for sexualizing Rey often to disgusting degrees, like demanding the actual Star Wars movies be more explicit, saying light sabers are phallic symbols, accusing JJ Abrams of wanting Rey to stay his pure virginal Mary Sue, etc. (I’m not gonna bother providing receipts on this, just search the Reylo hashtags on Tumblr or Twitter, or check out the Twitter @ShitReylosSay). Let me make it clear that sexually explicit =/= sexist, and John’s statement was not sexist. Period. At the end of the day I think they were just looking for an excuse to attack John. Because he cannot breath without people attacking him.

Well John noticed right away it was Reylos going at him so he took the opportunity to drag Reylo.

Was he being a petty? Of course he was, but he had EVERY RIGHT TO after the endless racism he has endured from the Star Wars fandom. People are always applauding white actors like Robert Pattinson and Jacob Elordi for shitting on shows, movies, or fandoms related to their work. But when John does it suddenly he’s “unprofessional”?

John eventually started replying to some of the Tweets being sent at him.

They were all along this vein where a person was being outright hostile and vile, so yeah, he had every right to respond.

This all culminated in him picking out a bunch of hateful Tweets being thrown his way and posting this video to Instagram.

Well this triggered Reylos even more so they shifted tactics and took the whole white feminist approach that he was “attacking SHIPPING CULTURE which is majorly made up of WOMEN so he’s a MISOGYNIST”. They wrote these long essays and Twitter threads about how John was spreading harmful messages etc. But he wasn’t attacking shipping culture, he was attacking Reylo. Because it’s vile and abusive and he was no longer contractually obligated to endure it. And honestly? His tweet was mild at best. 

But please remember all this started because John made a joke that Rey and Finn ended up together. HE DID NOT START ON REYLO. THEY STARTED ON HIM. Everything that happened was reactionary on his part. We as a society refuse to let black people defend themselves and it’s fucked up and racist.

One of these pseudo-intellectuals spreading the whole “John is a misogynist and Reylo shippers are his VICTIMS uwu” narrative was none other than Jenny Nicholson.

Just so you know the “inbreds” comment was photoshopped by a white fan, not that Jenny would tell her incredibly large audience this to prevent spreading further slander about John.

A lot of people started replying to Jenny telling her why SHE as a WHITE WOMAN framing herself and other Reylos as the VICTIM of John, a BLACK MAN who did absolutely nothing to her or anyone besides not like Reylo and defend himself against online harassment and bullying, was racist.

And you know what she did? She blocked them all.

And to this day she continues to block anyone who brings it up because she’s a spineless coward who can’t be bothered to own up to her racist slip-ups.

Some of these people were being mean, but most were not. Some were nicer than she deserved. She still blocked them. She didn’t want to see any form of criticism (constructive or not) sent her way.

She even had the nerve to go at John AGAIN during the BLM protests after George Floyd was murdered because she has no fucking clue how to read a room. This was her bringing back her distasteful dislike of John DURING THE BLM MOVEMENT when John made that emotional speech in London’s Hyde Park. This was not the time or place but she can’t seem to help herself.

As a white woman with respect, authority, and a large audience, who viewed as an “intellect” on online spaces so her opinion is taken more seriously thank others, the things she says matter and impact a large group of people. She used her whiteness and her woman-ness to frame herself and other white women as John’s victim when she was not, because she knew it would be easy and she would get away with it. And she did and she has. As one person in the screencaps above tweeted so gracefully, she “participated in the fandom dogpile of John” when he had done nothing wrong except exist and have opinions.

Jenny is your classic example of a performative ally and she accidently showed her true colors. I no longer trust any white female video essayist who ship Reylo and are friends with Jenny because you know they all silently agree with what she was stupid enough to say out loud. This means Lindsay Ellis as well.

I believe the reason she refuses to acknowledge this situation is because she would be forced to either apologize or confess she still stands by what she said. And based off her vague-tweeting the situation as recent as June of 2020 I feel safe saying she still believes she was in the right.

The receipts I offered are only a small part of a much larger jumbled mess. I didn’t include everything there was but even this small amount is pretty damning.

[eddtober]

Eddtober Masterpost: About, Rules, Boundries and Prompt Lists.

I hadn’t done anything about it until now due to no response - however the wonderful @ldhenzel​ suggested that I do it this way for mobile users. 

About Eddtober

Eddtober is a list of prompts made in an effort to encourage the Eddsworld Fandom to spread their wings of creativity beyond the norms that they are used to, during the month of October.

It is all without harming others or causing drama, a neutral ground for all fans of Eddsworld to come and have fun, no matter what side of a discourse they’re in.

It hopes to promote inspiration beyond the usual angsty and over-dramatised content, to revive a spirit in Eddsworld that hasn’t been seen in many years, and to stretch the invitation to all who can create.

Eddtober calls not only the artists who have a talent for drawing, painting and so forth, but also: the authors (fanfics, journalists, essayists, diarists, poets, ramblers), the cosplayers, the video-makers (animators, video essays, memers, youtubers) and all those who want to be inspired with unconventional creativity.

Eddtober’s motto for the fandom it came from is this: To come forth, be inspired and break from the old and the mold!

With that out the way, buckle up. This post is gonna be a long one under the cut.

RULES 

Base Rules need to be set so everyone can participate in Eddtober safely and in a fun way. Please read them carefully!

Always tag it with #eddtober. Gore and related NSFW is allowed in the challenge, but please tag it as #Eddtober gore, etc. Also, no shortenings or reimaginings of those tags, so the minors on this site don’t find it on accident. Though many of us may be over 18, please keep these things in mind.  

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others. I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain types of art, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you post.

Credit Where Due. This should be blatantly obvious right now, but please, please don’t steal other’s creative fanwork or post it without credit. Always have permission from the creator to post something of their’s, and always have their username when you post it, not just ‘credit to the artist’. If you do not follow this, actions will be taken for your consequences.

Keep yourself chill. You can do one prompt for Eddtober, some of the prompts or all of them - up to you! It’s understandable if life gets in the way. The goal of Eddtober is not to do every prompt, but to be inspired to create fan-content in a way you usually wouldn’t have.

Spread the word. This is less of a rule and more of a personal request from Admin Panda, but since she doesn’t have many social media accounts you’d expect, spreading word of Eddtober would mean a LOT, so they can join in the fun too!

Sharing is caring. Reblogging and sharing from your fellow creators doing Eddtober would be great to give them a motivation and confidence boost!

Go Beyond the Boundries of Your Imagination. The whole purpose of Eddtober is to promote new, fresh things to come up in the Eddsworld fandom and break a cycle of the same old that’s been there for a while. Take a leap, spread your wings, do your best, and go have fun.

BOUNDRIES

Most of this list will be related to Rule Two of Eddtober:

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others.

Quote:

‘I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain types of art, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you post.‘

Whilst Eddtober is a fun, neutral place to spread our creative wings, there are boundries that need to be taken in order to keep everyone safe. Which means certain parts that are usually seen as ‘common’ within the Eddsworld Fandom will not be acceptable in the challenge.

Edd Gould’s death. Admin Panda wishes to make it clear that creative pieces that draws clear lines to Edd’s passing IS NOT okay. This includes Edd in hospital for cancer, Angel Edd or any AU that depicts him as a divine being of any sort (including Blessworld) unless Tom, Matt and/or Tord are also similar divine beings in the AU. Here at Eddtober, Edd's life is something to be celebrated, not his death. While Admin Panda isn’t 100% offended by this, many others are and it should be more recognised as such.

Sinsworld. Believe it or not, the sinsworld tag was specifically made back in the day to keep the porn out of the main. But due to a certain in-fandom event, this intended action has been long-lost. Because of all of these events, any sinsworld (porn, lewds and related NSFW) that’s Sinspired by the Eddtober prompts WILL NOT be accepted into the event by any means. This is because many in this fandom are minors/underage and more who are 18+ are repulsed to porn and such (Admin Panda is part of the latter group). So please, it is fine to be sexually inspired by the prompts, PLEASE keep your Sinsworld content away from the Eddtober tag - don’t put both tags into that post, essentially.

Abusive/Self-Harm Creative Content. No. Just. No. Death or pain like this isn’t allowed to be depicted in the challenge and should never be romanticised or supported. Eddtober aims to be a safe and uplifting space for all creative people, no matter what their space is at the moment.

More sensitivities and boundries will be added onto this list as Admin Panda recieves questions and requests for this area through the askbox here.

PROMPT LIST

Quick reminder: when this list says ‘create something for’, it’s not just referring to fanart - it refers to any medium, digital, traditional or unconventional, that can be used. The challenge here is to be creative as possible, not to stay conventional.

The List features Admin Panda’s Commentary. Some useless, some useful.

Create something for Edd. (Not his real-life counterpart, but the character. That needed some clearing up based on 2017’s results.)

Create something for Tom.

Create something for Matt

Create something for any pre-legacy season episode, except WTFuture. (You can do WTFuture if you want, but seeing that much of this fandom is currently made of people who came in after The End… It’d be worth having a crack at pre-legacy episodes.)

Create something for the crew’s symbols.

Create something for Superhero Alter Egos! (It doesn’t have to stop at PowerEdd’s canon either! Go nuts! Give Edd and his friends new superhero alibis and outfits!)

Create something for Supervillain Alter Egos! (Reminder that it doesn’t have to stop at the ‘Green/Blue/Purple/Red Leader scenario! Again, go nuts! Get wacky if you must!)

Create something for Minor characters of the show. (Except the Neighbours - they already have their own prompt.)

Create something for descendants of the main four guys. (Sure, you can make it about the love children of your favourite ships, but the point of this prompt specifically is to not be ship-related. See if you can come up with descendant characters from the bloodlines of the main four.)

Create something for Tord. (He’s late in this list for a reason. Trust me.)

Create something for the neighbours of 29 Dirdum Lane. Are Kim and Katya still there, or are there newbies in the street?

Create something for the neighbours of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for unlucky things happening to the guys, or one of them. Feel free to go as dark or as humourous as you like!

Create something for genderbends of the guys, maybe as if the Ellsworld we know never existed. Or you can stick to canon, up to you.

This prompt is a wild card. Do with it as you wish. (In 2017 everyone was told to quote: ‘go whole hog on this’. The next thing we all knew, everybody literally drew pigs with the guys. That wasn’t supposed to be literally taken, but by god it was hilarious.)

Create something for your crew. Whether you’re the main character with your friends or have OCs taking that place or a mix of both is up to you.

Create something for an AU of Eddsworld. You can make one up on the spot, or even fan content for an AU that already exists is cool too. (As of rule number two of Eddtober, the Blessworld AU will not be accepted for this prompt. I know it is a popular AU, but if you have any issues with this, please contact me in the blog asks myself.)

Create something for Eddsworld as a video game. Whether it’s concepts and covers for your own ideas or fanart for games in the making such as Eddsworld Armageddon, up to you.

Create something for Todd, or whoever the ‘Tord’ figure is of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for a Saloonatics-WTFuture Crossover. (What? Shenanigans could be made here, guys. Just take it!)

Create something for the future selves of the guys. Or if you want to take it up a notch, make your own versions of them! Have them all be hobos (#HoBrosforlife), or have cola not be banned in the future… up to you!

The End who? Create and elaborate on how you would finish off the Eddsworld Legacy season. (For the purposes of this prompt, I can accept an angsty end for this, but I personally do not recommend it. The Eddsworld fandom has had enough unnecessary angst already.)

Create something for Zanta. (I guess you could call him a Nightmare Before Christmas, then.)

Create something for an Eddsworld movie. Whether it’s stuff for the Eddsworld Fan Movie or your own ideas, up to you!

Create something for the deal with Tom’s eyes. If you want to call them that.

Pick a song, any song, and put that on repeat. Use it as inspiration to create something in relation to Eddsworld.

Create something for Edd Gould himself. Not his character in Eddsworld, the real-life person.

An obligatory prompt without Eddtober in the beginning: create something for Edd’s birthday. (This was made into a prompt and will permanently remain as one as Edd’s birthday shouldn’t be taken away from today.)

Create something for someone/multiple someones in the fandom who inspire you - even the small artists and writers and such who are just starting out!

Are you afraid of the dark? Are you getting goosebumps? Create scary/monstrous/terrifying things happening to the guys. Interpretation and how far you go with it is up to you.

Happy Halloween! Create something about the guys on this special spooky day. Interpretation is up to you.

If you have any questions, concerns or queries as to all of this, don’t be hesitant to come shoot an ask through this blog. Have fun and a safe Eddtober!

[pandorem]

The Big Old Youtuber Rec List

So I decided to put together a rec list of some of my favourite Youtubers. Mostly video essayists and other thoughtful critical analysis on geeky media, because, you know, that’s my jam, but that won’t exclusively be the case.

This isn’t a comprehensive list, I don’t know all of the good youtubers out there, and there are some that I like and generally find are good people but still run into a few problems that I can find tiring, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending them. Still, I hope to update this list as I find more content creators I find worthwhile.

Full Disclaimer: I don’t expect anyone on this list to be completely without fault, and I literally do not have the energy or time to comb through their social media and check all of their opinions. That being said, I have ZERO interest in defending why I, a queer woman with mental health issues, won’t be including youtubers on this list who deny the importance of representation, who use “triggered” as a joke, who engage in casual homophobia or racism, and other such things. If that's fine with you read on, I think you’ll find some interesting people. If not, kindly do not interact.

Brian Jordan Avalrez

These aren’t all going to be video essays. Some of them are going to be forays into pitch perfect queer absurdist humor.

Brows Held High

While Kyle Kallgren’s earliest videos were more humor based, he eventually found it more creatively fulfilling to make more serious and thoughtful video essays on  film. The turning point was around his review of Melancholia. And while I enjoyed some of his earlier videos, it’s his later ones that made him into one of my favourite youtubers. Still, even if you have zero interest in his earlier parody videos, his review of Angels in America (a very early video of his) is a must watch, and more in line with his later work.

Every Frame a Painting

A FANTASTIC series of video essays on the medium of film, looking into it’s form rather than it’s narrative, by Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou. The series unfortunately is over now, both creators having decided to move on from the channel, but the essays that are there are well worth a watch if by some chance you haven’t already.

Is This Just Fantasy?

A newer and smaller channel that I hope to see more from going along, because I really like the work she’s put out so far. The Dead Poet’s Society: Why we (don’t) study the humanities in particular is worth a watch. Look, I’m putting these in alphabetical order, but I’m not writing them that way, and there are only so many ways I can say “interesting and insightful”. Go watch her stuff.

Film Joy

This channel, as it says in the title, is all about the joy of loving films rather than tearing them down. Dissecting and destroying a bad movie has it’s merits, it can be incredibly cathartic, but we need some positivity in our lives. Enter Movies With Mikey, Mike Neumann’s impassioned attempt to make the audience look at the movies he loves from new angles. I have honestly lost track of how many times he has knocked it out of the park and created content that I feel is genuinely important. Also Deep Dive, where Mikey and friends watch terrible, terrible movies, not in an attempt to tear them down, but in an attempt to find something to love about them. Which is as adorable as it is hilarious.

Folding Ideas

As a show that describes itself as “Deconstructing the craft of visual narrative”, Folding Ideas is one of those shows that dissects media in a productive way- even when it is taking a bad movie to pieces to show you it’s parts. The show doesn’t tear down movies just to tear them down, it takes them apart so we can understand them better.

Lessons From the Screenplay

A video essay series that focuses on - as the title suggests - the scripts themselves and how they are translated to screen. I have less to say about this one, but it’s still worth a look.

Lindsey Ellis

I probably don’t have to explain who this is, if you are into video essays and critical media analysis you’ve probably already watched her stuff. Still, if you haven’t, she’s great, her work is often as entertaining as it is insightful. Go watch. Her series Loose Canon, where she looks into multiple screen representations on a single character is so keyed in to my specific interests in adaptation that it genuinely makes me jealous, even as it brings me abundant joy.

Nerdwriter1

“A weekly video essay series that puts ideas to work” is a pretty good description honestly, I’m not sure I can summarize it better. Still, this series examines all forms of art and culture, be it movies, music, paintings and more in fascinating ways. WARNING though: He has two essays on Louis C.K that were released before his whole scandal went down that have not aged well. I’d skip them.

Patrick (H) Williams

Does great video essays as well as comedy videos, mostly on comic book movies. Has a hilarious and pitch-perfect series of fake trailers for if comic book movies were directed by different people (i.e: What if Wes Anderson Directed the X-Men), as well as a series where Patrick Explains why a movie is great to his beleaguered and adorable parents (and let’s face it, Patrick’s Mum is the true star of the show there).

PBS Idea Channel

Another series that has ended, and another you’ve probably already watched. Still, this show that posed questions rather than gave answers is well worth a look if you haven’t already, even if it’s too late to join in on the community discussions.

Rantasmo

The series Needs More Gay looks less at specific movies and more at Queer Culture as a whole, as has personally given me a higher connection to a culture that I’m a bit too much of an anxious hermit to always interact with directly. Rantasmo illustrates the importance of representation and empathy, while still not pretending the Queer Community is without it’s own problems. Also, he’s really hecking funny.

What’s so Great About That?

Another relatively newer series that I am REALLY enjoying so far. Usually (but not exclusively) focusing on different forms of horror, Grace Lee manages to make video essays as haunting and mesmerizing as the films and video games she talks about. Also I found her through an essay about Over the Garden Wall that actually managed to say something new about it in a really beautiful way.

[magpiedragon]

Elisabeth das Musical exposition/setting notes

Back when I was translating the ‘92 Vienna rehearsal footage to English I ended up digging deeper than I probably should have into lyrics, because I was kinda fascinated with how precisely you could pinpoint some of the songs in time that way.

I ended up including an extremely short summary of...fun trivia I learned as footnotes in my yt videos for Americans and other aliens (...kidding. kidding! Not like I really remember what was up with Spring of Nations either other than ‘Poland was there too’...) but since a) like nobody watches ‘92 Elisabeth b) if they do they are almost guaranteed not to read video descriptions anyway, I finally decided to repost this here.

Or, you know, you can check out @land-of-blitheness-and-catharsis Vienna Revival Elisabeth translations for some way more entertaining background comments.

PROLOG

[1] Luigi Lucheni (1873-1910) Italian anarchist famous for assassinating Empress Elisabeth of Austria in 1898. Died in 1910 by hanging himself in his cell while serving a life sentence in Geneva. Curiously enough, his head had been preserved in formaldehyde and only buried in 2000, 90 years after his death.

[2] Grammar bonus in case you live under a rock: German is a language with what is known as grammatical gender, effectively making the noun 'death' come with built-in male pronouns unless stated otherwise.

[3] "Why not? She loved Heinrich Heine!" Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856) Born to a Jewish family but later converted to Christianity, German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic. Elisabeth was something of a fan, to put it mildly.

WIE DU

[4] "In this case, it's impossible." Elisabeth absolutely can't come with her father because, according to the libretto, he is actually on his way to spend a night with an actress in Monachium.

[5] "...with a zither under one arm" The flat, black box Elisabeth doesn't want to give back to her father is indeed a zither case.

JEDEM GIBT ER DAS SEINE

[6] Franz-Joseph I of Austria (1830 – 1916) The oldest of four brothers, ascended the throne in 1848 at the age of eighteen when, after his epileptic uncle's Ferdinand I abdication, his father stepped aside in his favor.

[7] "Russia, we owe rescue.../...from the revolution." In 1848 a wave of political upheavals swept across Europe, an event known as the Spring of Nations. Stuck between fighting in the territories of today's Italy and the rebelling Hungarians, who were at the time under the rule of the Austrian Empire, Austria lacked the power to quell the latter. Assistance from its ally, Russia, was sent for and the revolution suppressed.

[8] Crimean War (1853 - 1856) Military conflict fought between Russia and an alliance of France, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia started over the rights of Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire. Russia lost and apparently was none too happy about Austrian Empire choosing to remain neutral.

SIE PASST NICHT

[9] "Rauscher's speech was too long." Joseph Othmar Ritter von Rauscher (1797-1875), Cardinal and Austrian Prince-Archbishop of Vienna, considered the father of the Austrian Concordat of 1855. This will kinda keep coming up.

DER LETZTE TANZ

[10] "In mirror room" (der Spiegelsaal) Large mirrors used to be difficult to produce and thus very expensive. Naturally, for a while small rooms and galleries with mirrors embedded in the walls seem to have been a must-have in every grand residence.

DIE ERSTEN VIER JAHRE

[11] "Where does she stand on Hungary?" After the rebellion of 1848 Hungary wasn't exactly in the Austrian Empire's best books. A lot of its former independence was taken away.

DIE FRÖHLICHE APOKALYPSE

[12] "One more coffee!" Wiener Melange ("Viennese blend") is a type of coffee drink specific to Vienna, traditionally consisting of a shot of expresso topped with hot milk and milk foam.

[13] We've signed a concordat!" A concordat is convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the [..] privileges of the Catholic Church in a particular country. (Thanks wikipedia...) In the case of Austrian Concordat of 1855 the Church was granted full control over their direct affairs, oversight of approx 98% of public schools and their curriculum as well as jurisdiction over marriages where either or both the couple were Catholic. In other words something of a big deal and most liberals really weren't a fan.

[14] "The last Crimean War neutralized us.../And Austria is now.../ ...politically, completely isolated./[...]/And we are now at war with Piedmont!" In 1858 England and, more importantly, Russia, is definitely still sulking over Austrian Empire's neutrality in the Crimean War. In the meanwhile wars in what is today's Italy continue, notably with the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. Up until 1871 Italy was a collection of small kingdoms/city states. The Second Italian War of Independence of 1859 will prove to be a crucial part of their future unification.

[15] "...crowds of men waving their fists/at her on Ballhausplatz." The Ballhausplatz is a square in central Vienna and the location of the residence/set of office of the Chancellor of Austria. It's also located a short walk's distance from the Austrian Parliament building.

SCHÖNHEITSPFLEGE

[16] "Here, veal for the face./Lay it in thick slices on the cheeks.../[...]/The meat sauce, that she drinks at midday.../...has to, imagine.../...absolutely be from a fillet." etc Supposedly all true. She is also known for fasting, exercising rigorously and tight-lacing her corsets to a worrying degree.

WIR ODER SIE

[17] "A ringleader advanced.../...to a minister of state!" Likely refers to Count Gyula Andrássy (1823 – 1890), a Hungarian statesman who, in 1867, with Elisabeth's backing became Prime Minister of Hungary. By all accounts a close friend, thought to be lover by some.

[18] "...she rules like a Pompadour!" Madame de Pompadour (1721 – 1764) chief mistress of French king Louis XV and, later, his close friend and confidant. While having little official political influence, she was able to gather a network of supporters and wielded considerable power behind the scenes.

[19] "Instead of Goethe or Schiller.../...she recites Heine!" A serious offense indeed seeing as Goethe and Schiller are some of the most iconic/well-known German-language writers, while Heine's more radical works were banned.

[20] "I will, myself, undertake.../...delivering a Circe to him" In the Greek epic poem Odyssey, the hero Odysseus is steadfast and unrelenting in his attempt to return home to his faithul wife Penelope, except for that one entire year he spends feasting and sharing a bed of a powerful sorceress named Circe. Because why not.

MALADIE

[21] "One.../...known as the French disease." Anemia, fever and dizzy spells are not exactly the most prominent symptoms of secondary syphillis and Elisabeth's bad health is only speculated to be a result of a veneral disease instead of constant stress she was under, but I suppose we’ll just have to trust the personification of death on this one. You'd assume he'd know.

DIE RASTLOSEN JAHRE

[22] "Wants to Corfu, Pest and England..." Budapest is the capital and the largest city of Hungary. Originally two separate cities, Buda and Pest, it became a single city occupying both banks of the river Danube in 1873.

DIE SCHATTEN WERDEN LÄNGER

[23] "To the tune of the Pied Piper.../...they dance wildly..." "Der Rattenfänger von Hameln", better known in the Anglosphere as "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is a German legend concerning a rat-catcher hired to lead rats away from the city of Hamelin using his magical flute. When the townsfolk refuse to give him the promised payment, he turns the magic on the town's children instead, luring them all into the unknown.

HASS

[24] "Nationalists! Supporters of Schönerer." Georg Ritter von Schönerer (1842 – 1921), German landowner, politician, rabid nationalist and antisemite. In 1888, he was temporarily jailed for ransacking a newspaper office and his popularity soared, with nationalist marches organized to demand freeing him etc. Likely the person to introduce Führer (”leader") to the nationalist vocabulary. All around a great guy like that. Hitler is said to have been a big fan as a young man.

[25] "Wilhelm should be Emperor!" Wilhelm II (1859 – 1941), the last German Emperor and Austrian nationalists' preferred Habsburg replacement.

[26] "For Heinrich Heine she wants to, here, in Vienna.../...erect a statue!" She really did, except by the time it was finished, the nationalist protests were so widespread there was nowhere to put it. Somehow, and don't ask me how or why, it is now located in Bronx, New York City and known as the Lorelei Fountain.

[27] "The Guard on the Rhine stands proud!" "Die Wacht am Rhein" is a famous patriotic German song, for a while considered something of an unofficial second anthem.

MAYERLING-WALZER

[28] Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and his 17-year-old lover Baroness Mary Vetsera died on 30 January 1889 in what is widely considered to be a murder-suicide pact, known as the Mayerling Incident. His death caused Franz-Joseph I's nephew, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to become first in line to the throne of Austro-Hungarian Empire. Franz Ferdinand is perhaps best known as the man whose assassination in Sarajevo  in 1914 kickstarted the WWI.

AM DECK DER SINKENDEN WELT

[29] Maximillian I (1832 – 1867) Younger brother of Emperor Franz-Joseph. Accepted Napoleon III's offer to move to Mexico where he declared himself Emperor in 1864 and was executed by firing squad three years later.

[30] Maria von Wittelsbach (1841 - 1925) Elisabeth's younger sister. By all accounts a rather unhappy lady with an equally unhappy marriage.

[31] Ludwig von Wittelsbach (1845 – 1886) Elisabeth's cousin, king of Bavaria. Known as an eccentric with a love for extravagant artistic and architectural projects. Declared insane and deposed in 1886, died under unknown circumstances. Body found floating in a lake near his residence at the time.

[32] Sophie von Wittelsbach (1847 – 1897) Elisabeth's youngest sister, died in a fire of the Bazar de la Charité in Paris, during a charity event.

DER SCHLEIER FÄLLT

[33] Elisabeth, Empress of Austria died on the 10 September 1898 after being fatally stabbed in the heart with a stiletto improvised out of a sharpened needle file. Perhaps thanks to her practice of lacing her corsets very tightly the injury wasn't immediately detected and it took half an hour for her to die. Ironically, first recorded successful treatment of this exact kind of injury was achieved by dr Ludwig Rehn in Frankfurt am Main exactly two years and one day before that date.

...also something I failed to mention in footnotes, but occurs to me not everyone knows: yes, a porcelain tea set with portraits of Franz-Joseph and Elisabeth painted on it was not a very strange item to own. That’s kind of what Kitsch is about XD

[whenpraxisbecomesunbearable]

Judith Butler: Speaking of Rage and Grief (2014)

I came across this brief intervention by Judith Butler at the Opening Night of the 2014 PEN World Voices Festival. The description of this opening night, held on 28 April 2014, read: “An audience of readers, activists, writers, intellectuals, and lovers of the written word gathered to kick off the 2014 PEN World Voices Festival. Some of the globe’s most prominent thinkers each, in turn, brought their enthusiasm for societal improvement to the stage for a 7-minute oration—a kind of mini-soliloquy of unrestrained intellectual fury—on the social or political phenomenon of their choosing. This was a rare opportunity to hear about the issues, both macro and micro, which preoccupy the imaginations of these brilliant women and men, and to learn about what they would change immediately if they had the means to do so.” The Festival, organised by PEN ("Poets, Essayists, Novelists") American Center, was launched in 2005 under the PEN presidency of Salman Rushdie. It is a week-long literary festival held in New York City, with the aim of advancing literature, promoting free expression, and fostering international literary fellowship. The 2017 PEN World Voices Festival will be held from 1-7 May in New York City.

What I found striking about this beautiful Butler video is not her ability to say so much in so little time, but also the thematic reach and performative power of her oration. The style - accessible, rhetorical at times - reminded me of slam poetry in certain instances, especially in the second half of the speech. In 11 minutes, she manages to give a taster of the great insights of her work on ethics, explaining her uses of the concepts of grievability, survivability, unbearability (a recurrent theme of this blog), relational constitution, non-violence, injurability, un/doing, interdependency and community. I often remark that sections of her Precarious Life or Giving an Account of Oneself read like poetry; they ooze with passion as well as theoretical rigour. But, then again, who said that the abstraction of theory can’t be fleshy and colourful? Butler’s works are a case in point. I’m posting below a transcript of Butler’s speech, with the video at the bottom of the page. 

The transcript was done by a generous Youtuber (a certain Maya R):

Speaking from rage does not always let us see how rage carries sorrow and covers it over, so I cannot do it well, at least not this evening. How often is sorrow effectively shouted down by rage? How does it happen that sorrow can bring about the collapse of rage? Is there something to be learned about the sources of non-violence from this particular power of grief to deflate rage of its destructiveness? Anne Carson asks, "why does tragedy exist?" And then answers, "because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief. Ask a head-hunter why he cuts off human heads, he'll say that rage impels him and rage is born of grief. The act of severing and throwing away a victim's head enables him to throw away all of this bereavements. Perhaps you think this does not apply to you, yet you recall the day your wife, driving you to your mother's funeral, turned left instead of right at the intersection, and you had to scream at her so loud other drivers turned to look. When you tore her head off and threw it out the window, they nodded, changed gears, drove away."

The grief is unbearable, and from that unbearability one kills, a killing that produces more grief. Have we yet figured out how this works, the transition from unbearable grief to uncontrollable rage and destructiveness? Perhaps grief is imagined to end with violence, as if grief itself could be killed. Can we perhaps find one of the sources of nonviolence in the capacity to grieve, to stay with the unbearable loss without converting it into destruction? If we could bear our grief, would we be less inclined to strike back or strike out? And if the grief is unbearable, is there another way to live with it that is not the same as bearing it?

We know the contours of this terrible circle: destroying to stop the unbearable grief, to bring an end to the unbearable, only to then redouble that loss by destroying again. Perhaps that destructive act is a way of announcing that what is unbearable is now someone else's problem, not mine. Here, you take this unbearable thing, now it belongs to you. But has anyone ever stopped grieving by devastating another's life? What is the fantasy, the conceit at work in such an act? Perhaps the wager is that this I, in destroying, suddenly becomes pure action, finally rid of passivity and injurability -- finally, that is, for a passing moment. Or perhaps in destroying, one insists that the rest of the world become mired in one's own sense of devastation. If the world is unlivable without those whom one has lost, perhaps there emerges a despairing form of egalitarianism according to which everyone should suffer this devastation.

The destructive acts born of unbearable grief are perhaps premised on the thought that with this loss, everything is already destroyed, so destroying becomes a redundancy, a ratification of what has already happened. But perhaps there is an effort to bring grief to a full stop through taking aim at the world in which such a grief is possible, rolling over into a form of destructiveness that furiously proliferates more loss, wantonly distributing the unbearable.

Of course, what is unbearable is already more than one can bear, so how can there be any more of that which is already too much? This terrible form of the ineffable is loosed upon the world in that furious form of grieving known as destructiveness. We may ask, is there a satisfaction in such destruction? Or indeed, a satisfaction to be found in war? Freud tells us that certain forms of destructiveness yield no pleasure, no satisfaction, but churn on in a nearly mechanical way, repeating without even any final satisfaction in revenge. And yet there are, as we know, sometimes terrible satisfactions in war, the kinds of satisfactions that must be resisted. Peace is only very occasionally acquiescent state. For the most part, it is a struggle against destructiveness, the practice of resisting the terrible satisfactions of war.

So what is my plea? Do I counsel more grief? Do I think that an exponential increase in grief will produce less destructiveness in the world? No, I do not. If only because grief does not submit to mathematical measures. Grief is not just about registering the reality that someone, or some group, or some whole population is gone or nearly gone; it's not a straightforward process that comes to an end when a reality principle delivers its verdict: yes, the one or ones you are grieving are definitively gone. And it does not even conclude when we find ourselves having more or less successfully incorporated a lost one into our psychic reality -- our gestures, our clothing, our ways of thinking and modes of speech.

Mourning has to do with yielding to an unwanted transformation where neither the full shape nor the full import of that alteration can be known in advance. This transformative effect of losing always risks becoming a deformative effect. Whatever it is, it cannot be willed -- it is a kind of undoing. One is hit by waves in the middle of the day, in the midst of a task, and everything stops. One falters, even falls. What is that wave that suddenly withdraws your gravity and your forward motion? That something that takes hold of you and makes you stop, and takes you down -- where does it come from? Does it have a name? What claims us at such moments when we are most emphatically not masters of ourselves and our motion?

When we lose certain people or when we are dispossessed from a place or a community, it may be that something about who we are suddenly flashes up, something that delineates the ties we have to others that shows us that we are bound to one another and that the bonds that compose us also do strand us, leave us uncomposed. If I lose you under the conditions in which who I am is bound up with you, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself and this life unbearable. Who am I without you? I was not just over here and you over there, but the I was in the crossing, there with you, but also here.  So I was already de-centered, one might say, and that was precious -- and yet when we lose, we lose our ground, we are suddenly at risk of taking our own lives or the lives of others.

Perhaps what I have lost on those occasions is precisely that sense that I can't live without you, even if it turns out that I can live without that specific You that you happened to be, even if I was surprised to find I survived when survival was unthinkable. If I can and do live without you, it's only because I have not, as it were, lost the place of the You, the one to whom I address myself, the generalized addressee with whom I am already bound up in language in a scene of address that is the linguistic condition of our survivability.

This apostrophic You may be this You or that other one with another name, but maybe also some You I do not yet know at all, maybe even some vast set of Yous, largely nameless, who nevertheless support both my gravity and my motion. And without You -- that indefinite, promiscuous, and expansive pronoun -- we are wrecked, and we fall.

A loss might seem utterly personal, private, isolating, but it also may furnish an unexpected concept of political community, even a premonition of a source of non-violence. If the life that is mine is not originally or finally separable from yours, then the we who we are is not just a composite of you and me and all the others, but a set of relations of interdependency and passion. And these we cannot deny or destroy without refuting something fundamental about the social conditions of our living.

What follows is an ethical injunction to preserve those bonds, even the wretched ones, which means precisely guarding against those forms of destructiveness that take away our lives and those of other living beings, and the ecological conditions of life. In other words, before ever losing, we are lost in the other, lost without the other, but we never know it as well as we do as when we do actually lose.

This being in thrall is one way of describing the social relations that have the power to sustain and to break us way before we enter into contracts that confirm that our relations are a result of our choice. We are already in the hands of the other, a thrilling and terrifying way to begin. We are from the start both done and undone by the other -- and if we refuse this, we refuse passion, life, and loss.

The lived form of that refusal is destruction. The lived form of its affirmation is non-violence. Perhaps non-violence is the difficult practice of letting rage collapse into grief, since then we stand the chance of knowing that we are bound up with others, such that who I am or who you are is this living relation that we sometimes lose.

[mrhotmaster]

Best Amazon Prime Video Movies In India (February 2020)

Best Movies Of Amazon Prime Video In India (February 2020)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day From Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro.

Amazon Prime Video's motion picture acquisitions probably won't have a similar global profundity as Netflix, yet it's without a doubt more grounded and more extravagant in its nearby assortment, with its titles spreading over the Tamil, Telugu, and the Malayalam universe of filmmaking notwithstanding Bollywood. Furthermore, that is coordinated with an incredible assortment of American imports, to convey an assortment that can more than hold fast against the world's greatest spilling administration. It needs with its unique endeavors — a couple are available underneath, for what it's worth — but at the same time it's significantly increasingly moderate at Rs. 999 every year, versus Netflix's Rs. 650 per month. To pick the best motion pictures on Amazon Prime Video, we depended on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and IMDb appraisals to make a waitlist. The remainder of them was favored for Indian movies given the setbacks of surveys aggregators in that office. Furthermore, we utilized our own article judgment to include or expel a couple. This rundown will be refreshed once at regular intervals if there are any commendable augmentations or if a few motion pictures are expelled from the administration, so bookmark this page and continue checking in. Here are the best movies right now accessible on Amazon Prime Video in India, arranged one after another in order.

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Hoodwinked into servitude on the record of work, Steve McQueen's adjustment of a free New York dark man's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) nineteenth century journal is a staggering genuine story, and a significant watch.

3 Idiots (2009)

Right now the Indian training framework's social weights, two companions relate their school days and how their third tragically deceased musketeer (Aamir Khan) propelled them to think imaginatively and freely in a vigorously conventionalist world. Co-composed and coordinated by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands denounced in the #MeToo development.

Agantuk [The Stranger] (1991)

In Satyajit Ray's last film, a secretive and world-tired pioneer comes back to India following 35 years to see his lone enduring family member, his niece, however experiences difficulty persuading the family who he professes to be.

Aladdin (1992)

Disney puts its activity season onto the well known society story of a road urchin who camouflages himself as an affluent ruler in the wake of finding a genie in an enchantment light, trying to dazzle the Sultan's little girl.

Amal (2007)

After just a few days before his arrival a poor Delhi rickshaw driver (Rupinder Nagra) was named sole inheritor by a very rich near by person (Naseeruddin Shah).

American Beauty (1999)

A discouraged promoting official (Kevin Spacey) amidst an emotional meltdown succumbs to his high school little girl's closest companion, in Sam Mendes' parody of American white collar class that at last won five Oscars including Best Picture.

Anand (1971)

Rajesh Khanna stars as the eponymous giddy man, who doesn't let his conclusion of an uncommon type of malignant growth impede making the most of what's before him. Told from the perspective of his PCP companion (Amitabh Bachchan). Hrishikesh Mukherjee coordinates.

Anbe Sivam (2003)

Kamal Haasan and right now R. Madhavan star in this tamil cult film, in which both flights are spread over a thousand kilometers from home after a substantial flight drops all the flights. The material was also written by Haasan.

Andaz Apna (1994)

Two bums (Aamir Khan and Salman Khan) who have a place with white collar class families compete for the expressions of love of a beneficiary, and unintentionally become her defenders from a nearby hoodlum in Rajkumar Santoshi's religion parody top pick.

Ankhon Dekhi (2014)

After an enlightening encounter including his little girl's marriage, a man in his late 50s (Sanjay Mishra) settle that he will have a hard time believing anything he can't see, which normally prompts some emotional intricacies.

Aruvi (2016)

A social parody from a debutante essayist chief, which follows an eponymous young lady (Aditi Balan), who experiencing an episode of existential emergency, chooses to sparkle a light on the consumerist and misanthropic practices in her general public.

Back to the Future (1985)

Relatively few movies approach the overall intrigue and inheritance left by this science fiction passage including the notorious DeLorean that Michael J. Fox's character uses to (incidentally) time travel to when his folks were his age. Unusual then that it didn't get the green light for a considerable length of time.

Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015)

The intensely dubious Salman Khan stars as a sincere Hindu Brahmin and an enthusiastic lover of Hanuman, who sets out on an excursion to rejoin a quiet six-year-old Muslim young lady, lost in India, with her folks in Pakistan. Kareena Kapoor co-stars. Salman is an indicted poacher, out on bail, and blamed for chargeable manslaughter, pending intrigue.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

The life of John Nash, a splendid however asocial mathematician, from his winding into neurotic schizophrenia and taking a shot at a mystery venture he made up, to recovering authority over his life and turning into a Nobel Laureate.

The Big Sick (2017)

Kumail Nanjiani stars as himself right now approximately dependent on his sentiment with his significant other, in which a hopeful entertainer interfaces with his sweetheart's folks after she falls into a strange trance state.

Blood Diamond (2006)

Set during the Sierra Leone Civil War when the new century rolled over, an arms dealer (Leonardo DiCaprio) vows to support an angler (Djimon Hounsou) discover his family in return for an extremely valuable precious stone the last found in a stream.

Bombay (1995)

Set during the 1992–93 Bombay riots, author chief Mani Ratnam offers a gander at the public pressures that cause a strain on the connection between a Muslim lady (Manisha Koirala) and a Hindu man (Arvind Swamy).

The Bourne set of three (2002–07)

Actually not a set of three, yet the initial three parts — Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum — featuring Matt Damon in the number one spot as the main CIA professional killer experiencing amnesia were acceptable to such an extent that they changed the longest-running covert agent establishment ever: James Bond.

Brazil (1985)

Terry Gilliam mixes social parody with his mark visual imaginativeness right now fi set in a retro-future world, which follows a modest agent who turns into a foe of the state in the wake of attempting to address a managerial blunder.

Commander Fantastic (2016)

After his bipolar spouse out of nowhere bites the dust, a single parent (Viggo Mortensen), who raised his six kids living off the matrix and detached from society, must acquaint them with this present reality just because.

Ditty (2015)

Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara star right now, and exquisite show around two lesbians living in perfect inverse universes in 1950s New York, as they explore cultural traditions and their own needs. In light of Patricia Highsmith's tale, The Price of Salt.

Cast Away (2000)

After his plane accident arrives in the Pacific, a FedEx worker (Tom Hanks) awakens on a betrayed island and must utilize everything available to him and change himself genuinely to endure living alone.

Catch Me If You Can (2002)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks appear in Frank Abagnale's (DiCaprio) biopic by Steven Spielberg, who, while being checked out by FBI director, created large numbers of dollars of check as a young person.

Chak De! India (2007)

Excluded and denounced by the press and open, a previous Muslim men's hockey chief (Shah Rukh Khan) plans to vindicate himself by training the unpolished Indian ladies' hockey group to brilliance.

Act (1963)

After her important fellow has been killed while trying to leave Paris, three men who need a fortune he has taken and are looking for the help of the outsider (Cary Grant) are looking for a young lady (Audrey Hepburn)." The greatest film ever made by Hitchcock" is known as "Hitchcock."

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

Visit colleagues Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are behind this 'redo' of the 1971 unique dependent on Roald Dahl's 1964 book, where the title character — a little fellow (Freddie Highmore) — wins a voyage through an inventive chocolatier's chocolate industrial facility with four different children.

Chhoti Si Baat (1976)

This transformation of the 1960 British Film School for Scoundrels is the story of a smooth and striking man for love's expressions, Bombay, where a gentle young man (Amol Palekar) went to Colonel (Ashok Kumar) for life mentorship. It appears as Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Hema Malini. The co-ordinatesof Basu Chatterjee.

Chupke (1975)

Hrishikesh Mukherjee's change of the Bengali film Chhadmabeshi, in which a recently married spouse (Dharmendra) chooses to pull tricks on his significant other's (Sharmila Tagore) as far as anyone knows brilliant brother by marriage, discharged in a similar year as Sholay. Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan additionally star.

Guarantee (2004)

Tom Cruise plays a contract killer who takes a cab driver, played by Jamie Foxx, prisoner in Michael Mann's neo-noir wrongdoing spine chiller, in which the last should make sense of how to stop the previous.

The Conjuring (2013)

A couple of paranormal examiners (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are procured by a family who have been encountering progressively upsetting occasions at their farmhouse, right now from James Wan.

Insane Rich Asians (2018)

In light of the novel of a similar name, a Chinese-American educator ventures most of the way around the globe to Singapore to meet her sweetheart's incredibly rich family, where she should battle with abnormal family members, envious socialites, and the beau's opposing mother (Michelle Yeoh).

A Death in the Gunj (2016)

In Konkona Sen Sharma's full length directorial debut, a timid and touchy Indian understudy (Vikrant Massey) addresses a substantial cost for his delicacy, while on an excursion with his vain family members and family companions. Ranvir Shorey, Kalki Koechlin star close by.

The Death of Stalin (2017)

Veep maker Armando Iannucci approaches this earth shattering event throughout the entire existence of Russia through the perspective of dark parody and political parody, portraying the force battles that resulted following the main tyrant's demise in 1953. Jeffrey Tambor, who stars, stands denounced in the #MeToo development.

Dil Chahta Hai (2001)

Farhan Akhtar's directorial debut around three indistinguishable cherished companions whose uncontrollably extraordinary way to deal with connections makes a strain on their fellowship stays a faction top choice. Saif Ali Khan, Preity Zinta & Amir Khan star.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995)

Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol's characters experience passionate feelings for during an excursion to Europe with their companions right now film — which is as yet playing more than two decades later in a solitary screen Mumbai theater — however face jumps as the lady's preservationist father has guaranteed her deliver union with another person.

Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015)

After a court request orders a video tape storekeeper and a RSS volunteer (Ayushmann Khurrana) and a larger measured instructor in-preparing (Bhumi Pednekar) to rescue their bombing marriage, the two start to imagine each other's perspective, before choosing to participate in a piggyback race. Won a National Award.

Ee. Mama. Yau [R.I.P.] (2018)

A child battles to arrange the terrific entombment he guaranteed his father right now dark satire that is to a great extent shot in characteristic light. Lijo Jose Pellissery coordinates.

The Exorcist (1973)

One of the best blood and gore movies ever, that has left an enduring impact on the class and past, is about the satanic ownership of a 12-year-old young lady and her mom's endeavors to spare her with the assistance of two clerics who perform expulsion.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Roald Dahl's kids' novel about a fox who takes nourishment from three mean and well off ranchers gets the prevent movement treatment from Wes Anderson, including the voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Michael Gambon.

Fight Club (1999)

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton star right now from David Fincher, about a white-nabbed sleep deprived person disillusioned with his free enterprise way of life, who frames an underground battle club with a flippant soapmaker, which advances into something considerably more.

Forrest Gump (1994)

A moderate witted however kind-hearted man (Tom Hanks) participates in a progression of characterizing occasions of the second 50% of the twentieth century in the US, while pining for his youth love.

Forushande [The Salesman] (2016)

Oscar-victor Asghar Farhadi utilizes Arthur Miller's play "Passing of a Salesman" as his story inside a story, to portray topical equals with the crumbling relationship of an Iranian couple after an ambush on the spouse. The spouse needs to discover who the aggressor is against her desires, while she manages post-injury stress.

Gangs of Wasseypur (2012)

Roused by the 2008 Tamil-language film Subramaniapuram, Anurag Kashyap comes up with a hoodlum epic that mixes legislative issues, retribution, and sentiment as it takes a gander at the force battles between three wrongdoing families in and around the Jharkhand city of Dhanbad, the focal point of the coal mafia.

Ghare Baire (1984)

In light of Rabindranath Tagore's epic of a similar name, and set in the disorderly repercussions of the segment of Bengal, author executive Satyajit Ray recounts to the narrative of a lady wedded to a ground breaking man whose lives are overturned by the presence of the spouse's extreme companion.

Ghostbusters (1984)

A lot of capricious paranormal lovers start a phantom getting business in New York, and afterward unearth a plot to unleash ruin by bringing apparitions. Brought forth one of the most notable tune verses ever.

Gladiator (2000)

Victor of five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Russell Crowe, this Ridley Scott-coordinated film recounts to a moving story of a Roman general (Crowe) who loses everything — his family and rank — to wind up as a slave and afterward looks for retaliation on the culprit (Joaquin Phoenix).

The Godfather (1972)

In what is viewed as probably the best film ever, a maturing pioneer (Marlon Brando) of a New York mafia moves control of his domain to his most youthful child (Al Pacino), who goes from a hesitant untouchable to a heartless chief.

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Francis Ford Coppola's follow-up to his unique, fixating on Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) at the highest point of the hierarchy while offering a glance back at his dad's (Robert De Niro) past, is considered by some to be superior to its ancestor.

Gol Maal (1979)

A sanctioned bookkeeper (Amol Palekar), with a skill for singing and acting, falls where it counts the bunny opening in the wake of misleading his supervisor that he has a twin, right now parody.

Gone Girl (2014)

In light of Gillian Flynn's top of the line novel and coordinated by David Fincher, a puzzled spouse (Ben Affleck) turns into the essential suspect in the unexpected riddle vanishing of his better half (Rosamund Pike).

Gravity (2013)

Two US space explorers, an amateur (Sandra Bullock) and another on his last strategic (Clooney), are stranded in space after their van is annihilated, and afterward should fight flotsam and jetsam and moving conditions to get back.

Gully Boy (2019)

A hopeful, youthful road rapper (Ranveer Singh) from the ghettos of Mumbai decides to understand his fantasy, while managing the intricacies that emerge out of his own life and the financial strata to which he has a place. Zoya Akhtar coordinates, and Alia Bhatt stars nearby.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Alfonso Cuarón ventured behind the camera for what many consider to be the best Harry Potter film, as the kid who lived enters his third year at Hogwarts, and is informed that Sirus Black, an escapee from the wizarding scene jail Azkaban, is after his life.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)

Working off the tone set by Alfonso Cuarón, the fourth section in the arrangement finds the main picked one maneuvered into a between school supernatural competition, while doing combating the upsetting dreams and the hurting torment that originate from his brow scar.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Right now section, the renowned trio — Harry, Ron, and Hermione — face a test of skill and endurance to discover and pulverize Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, while the understudies and educators of Hogwarts join to protect the school.

Heat (1995)

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro star on inverse sides of the law — the previous a criminologist, the last a cheat — in Michael Mann's expressive wrongdoing show, with a gathering of burglars arranging a heist ignorant the police are onto them.

Hera Pheri (2000)

Jobless and battling with cash, a proprietor and his two occupants (Paresh Rawal, Akshay Kumar, and Sunil Shetty) chance on a payment call and plan to gather the payoff for themselves right now the 1989 Malayalam film Ramji Rao Speaking.

How To Train Your Dragon (2010)

Raised in reality as we know it where Vikings have a custom of being mythical serpent slayers, a youthful adolescent turns into an unexpected companion with a youthful winged serpent and realizes there might be more to the animals than everybody might suspect.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Best picture champ at the Oscars, another pioneer (Jeremy Renner) of a bomb removal squad astounds his subordinates with his perspectives and careless way to deal with the activity in the Iraqi capital. Kathryn Bigelow turned out to be first lady to win best chief.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Coordinated by Steven Spielberg off a story by George Lucas, an eponymous classicist (Harrison Ford) ventures to the far corners of the planet and fights a gathering of Nazis while searching for a secretive antique, in what is currently frequently considered as perhaps the best film ever.

Into The Wild (2007)

In light of Jon Krakauer's genuine book, Sean Penn goes behind the camera to coordinate the tale of a top understudy and competitor who surrenders all belongings and investment funds to good cause, and catches a ride across America to live in the Alaskan wild.

Iruvar (1997)

Aishwarya Rai made her acting introduction with a double supporting job in Mani Ratnam's personal film, which is motivated by the genuine contention of 1980s Tamil Nadu political symbols M. Karunanidhi (Prakash Raj) & M.G. Ramachandran (Mohanlal).

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983)

Right now legislative issues, administration, and the media, two picture takers (Naseeruddin Shah and Ravi Baswani) incidentally catch a homicide while attempting to uncover the rich. A Mahabharata performance in the third demonstration is a prestigious feature.

JFK (1991)

At the point when a New Orleans lead prosecutor (Kevin Costner) attempts to uncover the secret and potentially connivance behind the death of previous US President John Kennedy, he's confronted with impressive weight from the legislature. Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman co-star. Oliver Stone coordinates.

Jurassic Park (1993)

It may be more than 25 years of age now yet viewing the absolute first Jurassic film from Steven Spielberg — in light of Michael Crichton's tale, which he co-adjusted — is an extraordinary method to remind yourself why the new arrangement, Jurassic World, has no clue why it's doing.

Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959)

Master Dutt coordinated and featured in what is viewed as probably the best movie ever, about an acclaimed chief (Dutt) who throws an obscure lady (Waheeda Rehman) in his next film, and the contradicting directions of their professions subsequently.

Kannathil Muthamittal (2002)

After discovering that she is embraced, a little youngster sets out on an excursion across common war-assaulted Sri Lanka to locate her organic mother who is a piece of the progressives. Mani Ratnam coordinates.

The King of Comedy (1982)

In Martin Scorsese's disregarded parody of big name love and media culture, a trying comic (Robert De Niro) stalks his late-night syndicated program symbol to win a major break, and afterward abducts him when things don't work out.

Kumbalangi Nights (2019)

Four siblings who share an affection despise relationship remain behind one of their own in issues of the heart right now family dramatization that investigates manliness with subtlety and in detail. Directorial introduction of Madhu C. Narayanan.

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

After a hefty kung fu fan panda is apparently erroneously picked as the Dragon Warrior to battle an approaching risk, he is reluctantly educated by an older ace and his understudies who have been preparing for a considerable length of time.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

As debasement blends in post-war Los Angeles, three cops — one corrupt (Kevin Spacey), one severe (Russell Crowe) and one moralistic (Guy Pearce) — research a progression of murders in their own specific manner, and structure an uncomfortable coalition. Spacey stands charged in the #MeToo development.

Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006)

Right now the 2003 unique (likewise on the rundown), the Mumbai black market wear (Sanjay Dutt) begins to live by the lessons of Mahatma Gandhi to dazzle a radio racer (Vidya Balan) he's stricken with. Some felt it impaired Gandhism. Co-composed and coordinated by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands denounced in the #MeToo development.

The Legend of Bhagat Singh (2002)

Ajay Devgn plays the main communist progressive and political dissident in essayist executive Rajkumar Santoshi's biopic, which follows Singh — and later his partners, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, and Chandra Shekhar Azad — from the Jallianwala Bagh slaughter to the besieging of Parliament House. Some didn't care for its treatment of Gandhi.

The Lego Movie (2014)

A conventional, rules-following Lego minifigure (Chris Pratt) is erroneously distinguished as the most uncommon individual and the way to sparing the world from a malevolent dictator, for which he is entertainingly underprepared. It brought forth the hit single, "Everything Is Awesome".

Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016)

Denied for a discharge for a half year, this dark satire fixates on four ladies in community India who set out on an excursion to find opportunity and satisfaction in a traditionalist society.

The Lord of the Rings set of three (2001-2003)

Subside Jackson brought J.R.R. Tolkien's far reaching Middle-Earth to life in these three-hour sagas, which diagrams the excursion of a tame hobbit (Elijah Wood) and his different sidekicks, as they attempt to stop the Dark Lord Sauron by crushing the wellspring of his capacity, the One Ring.

Maanagaram (2017)

Emergencies happen to a couple of adolescents — a taxi driver, a BPO interviewee, and a hot-headed sweetheart — whose lives are interlinked after they show up in a major city right now spine chiller. Full length debut for author executive Lokesh Kanagaraj.

Manichitrathazhu (1993)

Right now suspenseful thrill ride exemplary, a youthful spouse (Shobana) is controlled by the soul of a vindictive artist after she opens a secured room their new spooky chateau. To help dispose of it, the spouse's therapist companion (Mohanlal) recommends an unordinary fix.

Mean Girls (2004)

Tina Fey's faction hit youngster satire follows a self-taught 16-year-old (Lindsay Lohan) who's a moment hit with A-rundown young lady coterie at her new school, until she tragically falls for the ex of the club's alpha.

Men in Black (1997)

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star as two operators of an eponymous mystery association, whose activity is to screen extraterrestrial life on Earth and conceal their quality from people, utilizing neuralysers to delete recollections whether need be.

Mera Naam Joker (1970)

By a wide margin the longest movie on this rundown with a four-hour runtime, this semi-self-portraying take on executive, maker, and lead star Raj Kapoor's own life is about a carnival comedian (Kapoor) who must make his crowd giggle regardless of how troubled he is inside. Told in three parts, it highlights three ladies — Simi Garewal, Kseniya Ryabinkina, and Padmini — who formed his reality. Contrarily got upon discharge, it later experienced a basic revaluation.

Minority Report (2002)

Steven Spielberg freely adjusts Philip K. Dick's short story of a future where an uncommon police unit can get hoodlums before a wrongdoing is submitted because of an innovation, and what happens when an official from that unit (Tom Cruise) is himself blamed for a homicide.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

After the organization he works for is wrongly ensnared in the shelling of the Kremlin, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and another group are compelled to denounce any and all authority and away from manager's name right now of the establishment.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015)

With the association he works for disbanded and his nation after him, Hunt (Cruise) attempts to beat the clock to demonstrate the presence of the rogues calling the shots right now. Acquainted Rebecca Ferguson with the establishment.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

In what is ostensibly the best section in the establishment yet — 6th, in case you're tallying — insight operator Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Co. set off on a globe-running experience from Europe to Kashmir, to recover three plutonium centers from the hands of fear mongers. Henry Cavill joins the good times.

Moneyball (2011)

In light of the genuine story of Oakland Athletics and supervisor Billy Beane (Brad Pitt), it follows the last's endeavors to assemble a serious group by depending exclusively on measurable examination, with assistance from a Yale graduate (Jonah Hill).

Munich (2005)

After a Palestinian psychological oppressor bunch murders 11 Israeli competitors at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, the last's administration dispatches a mystery counter, entrusting five men to chase and execute those liable for the slaughter. Steven Spielberg coordinates, in light of a genuine story.

Munna Bhai M.B.B.S. (2003)

After his folks discover he has been professing to be a specialist, a genial Mumbai black market wear (Sanjay Dutt) attempts to vindicate himself by selecting a clinical school, where his sympathy catches up on against the tyrant senior member (Boman Irani). Co-composed and coordinated by Rajkumar Hirani, who stands charged in the #MeToo development.

Mustang (2015)

Set in a remote Turkish town, this presentation include by a Turkish-French chief portrays the lives of five youthful stranded sisters and the difficulties they face experiencing childhood in a moderate society.

Nayakan (1987)

Propelled by The Godfather — however good karma getting author executive Mani Ratnam to let it be known — and the life of Bombay (presently Mumbai) wrongdoing supervisor Varadarajan Mudaliar, it delineates and the life and passing of Velu (Kamal Haasan) who turns into a criminal and assembles a domain.

Newton (2017)

Champ of the National Award for best Hindi film, in which Rajkummar Rao stars as an administration agent who attempts to run a free and reasonable political decision in the Naxal-controlled clash ridden wildernesses of India.

Once Upon A Time in America (1984)

Spreading over four decades, Sergio Leone's last rambling film about a child in a Jewish ghetto (Robert De Niro) who ascends to unmistakable quality in New York's universe of sorted out wrongdoing stays one of the best hoodlum movies ever.

Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood (2019)

Margot Robbie, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio Leads outfit cast of Quentin Tarantino's "fantasy tribute" to the winding down days of Hollywood's brilliant age, which follows a maturing entertainer (DiCaprio) and his long-lasting companion and trick twofold (Pitt) as they explore an evolving industry.

Padosan (1968)

Sunil Dutt, Saira Banu, Mehmood, and Kishore Kumar star right now the 1952 Bengali film Pasher Bari, about a youngster (Dutt) who begins to look all starry eyed at his new neighbor (Banu) and afterward enrolls the assistance of his artist on-screen character companion (Kumar) to charm her away from her music instructor (Mehmood).

Pariyerum Perumal (2018)

A hopeful youngster from a poor, abused station family hits a fellowship with an a lot wealthier female cohort at graduate school right now film, procuring him the fierceness of her family members and the general public on the loose. Introduction for author chief Mari Selvaraj.

Peranbu (2019)

After his better half forsakes him and their cerebral paralysis little girl for another man, a single parent (Mammooty) filling in as a taxi driver in Dubai must get back and bring up his solitary child, while on the precarious edge of vagrancy.

Pinjar (2003)

In light of Amrita Pritam's Punjabi tale of a similar name and set in the years when the Partition, a Hindu lady (Urmila Matondkar) comes back to her Muslim ruffian (Manoj Bajpayee) after she's repudiated by her family after getting away. Won a National Award.

The Prestige (2006)

After a heartbreaking mishap, two individual entertainers (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) turn unpleasant adversaries right now Christopher Nolan, and participate in a fight to make a definitive hallucination, while giving up all that they have.

Prisoners (2013)

After his girl and her companion are hijacked, a dad (Hugh Jackman) assumes control over issues while the police deliberately track down different leads, pushing himself into difficulty. Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars.

Pyaasa (1957)

Master Dutt coordinated and featured right now in then-Calcutta which follows a battling, anguished writer named Vijay (Dutt) who can't get acknowledgment for his work until he meets Gulab (Waheeda Rehman), a whore with a kind nature.

Raazi (2018)

In view of the genuine occasions portrayed in Harinder Sikka's 2008 novel "Calling Sehmat", Alia Bhatt stars as a covert Kashmiri RAW operator who weds into a Pakistani military family to keep an eye on the adversary before and during the 1971 Indo-Pak War. A few pundits thought that it was unlikely.

The Report (2019)

An optimistic government examiner (Adam Driver) reveals stunning privileged insights as he plunges into the CIA's post-9/11 utilization of "improved cross examination procedures" — in more straightforward words, torment — and faces extreme pushback from those aware of everything.

Roja (1992)

Before Dil Se.. what's more, Bombay, Mani Ratnam's investigation of human connections against the setting of legislative issues started with this Tamil-language film, about a recently marry lady who moves to Kashmir and battles to discover her significant other after he is seized by Kashmiri separatists.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Right now dependent on Ira Levin's top rated novel, a youthful pregnant lady (Mia Farrow) suspects a detestable clique — including her neighbors — needs to take her child for use in their customs.

Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962)

In view of Bimal Mitra's correspondingly titled 1953 Bengali tale and set throughout the fall of British Raj feudalism, low maintenance hireling (Guru Dutt) builds up a nearby, dispassionate bond with the disregarded, desolate spouse (Meena Kumari) of a privileged person (Rehman). Waheeda Rehman likewise stars.

Sankarabharanam (1980)

Victor of four National Awards, an old style music legend faces ruin right now dramatization attributable to changing music patterns and the sudden bond he shapes with a whore's little girl, who is crashed into outstanding conditions.

Sparing Private Ryan (1998)

In Steven Spielberg's World War II show, while war seethes on in Normandy, a military commander (Tom Hanks) is given the errand of looking for a specific private (Matt Damon), whose three siblings have just been executed.

Looking (2018)

Told completely through screens — PCs and cell phones — a dad (John Cho) breaks into his young little girl's PC after she disappears and criminologists can't locate a solitary lead.

A Separation (2011)

Asghar Farhadi's Oscar-winning show follows an Iranian white collar class couple, whose 14-year-old marriage starts to break down after they arrive at an intersection over the spouse's desires to leave the nation and the husband's interests for his old Alzheimer's dad.

Sholay (1975)

Relatively few movies have a degree of noticeable quality in well known Indian culture that is appreciated by this fine case of "Curry Western", which mixes genuine components with crafted by Akira Kurosawa and Sergio Leone. Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Sanjeev Kumar, and Jaya Bhaduri (presently Bachchan) star.

Screen Island (2010)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese work together for this adjustment of Dennis Lehane's 2003 novel, around two US Marshals (DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) researching the vanishing of a criminally-crazy patient, who was detained for suffocating her three youngsters.

Siddharth (2013)

After a poor Delhi man's (Rajesh Tailang) 12-year-old child disappears while away on work many kilometers away in Punjab, he sets out the nation over to discover him, dreading he's been dealt.

Insect Man 2 (2004)

In what many consider the best Spider-Man film ever, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) can't get a break. He loses his employment, his forces, and the adoration for his life Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst). What's more, his closest companion (James Franco) is out for Spider-Man's blood to vindicate the passing of his dad.

Creepy crawly Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Drawn with a blend of PC produced and hand-drawn craftsmanship, Miles Morales is brought into a between dimensional clash not long after he's bit by an insect and additions superpowers, pushing him to collaborate to spare the multiverse. Set for a 2022 spin-off.

A Star Is Born (2018)

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga star right now fourth, in case you're checking — change of the 1937 exemplary story, of a heavy drinker blurring star (Cooper) meeting and finding a future star (Gaga). Cooper denotes his directorial debut.

Star Trek (2009)

J.J. Abrams reboots the Trek film establishment by bringing it into an other reality, where the youthful Kirk and Spock on board USS Enterprise must battle a decided foe from what's to come, who's making dark gaps to obliterate planets individually.

Sully (2016)

The genuine story of the 2009 crisis plane arriving on New York's Hudson River gets the regular saint treatment from Clint Eastwood, concentrating on the pilot's (Tom Hanks) heroics and the ensuing examination that attempted to paint him in any case.

Eliminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as the android, presently reconstructed and sent back in time (once more) to ensure a more youthful rendition of an opposition chief, in James Cameron's spin-off of the first that is viewed as probably the best film ever.

Thalapathi (1991)

Mani Ratnam coordinates this Tamil-language wrongdoing show inexactly dependent on Karna and Duryodhana's kinship from Mahabharata, where everything changes for a ghetto abiding vagrant (Rajinikanth) who's taken under the wing of a nearby pack master (Mammooty) with the appearance of another region judge.

Tumbbad (2018)

While searching for a mystery treasure in a town in twentieth century Maharashtra, a man and his child face the outcomes of building a sanctuary for an incredible devil who shouldn't be loved right now film.

Unda (2019)

In light of a genuine story, a nine-man Kerala police unit (Mammootty among them) must guarantee serene decisions in the Maoist-inclined territories of Chhattisgarh with a lacking number of shots — unda is Malayalam for "projectile".

Vaastav: The Reality (1999)

Approximately dependent on the life of Mumbai hoodlum Chhota Rajan, a youngster (Sanjay Dutt) from the ghettos incidentally kills somebody, which drives him into an existence of wrongdoing where he quickly moves up the stepping stool — before propelling into a winding.

Virus (2019)

Set against the setting of the 2018 Nipah Virus episode in the Indian province of Kerala, people from different backgrounds meet up to contain its spread right now language spine chiller. Parvathy, Revathi star &  Tovino Thomas.

Whiplash (2014)

A driven youthful drummer (Miles Teller) is pushed as far as possible and past by a damaging teacher (J.K. Simmons) in what became author executive Damien Chazelle's leap forward.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a genuine stockbroker who cheated over $100 million from purchasers and misled his way to the top, before he was gotten and accused of extortion, defilement, and tax evasion. Martin Scorsese coordinates, in manners that were blamed for celebrating its hero's unpardonable activities.

 For Regular & Fastest Tech News and Reviews, Take After TECHNOXMART on Twitter, Facebook, and Subscribe Here Now. By Subscribing You Will Get Our Daily Digest Headlines Every Morning Directly In Your Email Inbox.             【Join Our Whatsapp Group Here】

from https://ift.tt/2HKY9eN

[seocomdfdfpany6]

What occurred with text rewriting methodologies for SEO content composition?

 Having been a long-lasting Houston SEO aficionado of online article promoting revenue driven, I was totally crushed with the ongoing "Google slap" of article showcasing techniques for SEO content written work. Each one of those obsolete techniques for back-connecting articles I'd taken so long to learn simply weren't functioning and they did in 2010 when I could ascend to the highest point of Google in several days.

 Sacred Crap! My SEO content composition systems aren't working!

 Tragically, I need to concede dallas seo experts that, in the entire plan of things, it truly is better along these lines. That is to say, for what reason would it be advisable for someone to who has a kick-ass article showcasing device beat me out of my unadulterated quality article since he has greater rebel instruments? All things considered, Google is extremely just paying special mind to the person looking through the net who simply needs to end up with what he's scanning for.

 Be that as it may, it sort of  houston seo company makes sense when you consider it from the imminent of the customer...

 Nobody needs to wind up with a bit of substance that doesn't bode well due to all the non-human mechanization it's experienced. Furthermore, if that is the thing that individuals ended up with  houston seo consultant all the time when they were endeavoring to look for answers on Google, at that point individuals would in the long run quit seeking!

 So the response to make everybody cheerful is to just give individuals what they're searching for. Endeavor to ask yourself what you would look for in the event that you were seeking to  Houston SEO purchase your item, and afterward fabricate your SEO content composition around that watchword expression.

 So exactly how would you make the web search tools content with "appropriate" SEO content composition?

 What's more, how would you know what number of individuals may scan Google for that watchword expression? The  SEO Houston easiest answer is to utilize the free "Google outside catchphrase instrument" which can be gotten to at "adwords.google.com".

 Watchword Research is Mandatory for SEO Content Writing

 All things considered, the nuts and bolts are as yet the same. Google is as yet positioning for articles that are both significant and well known. You can without much of a stretch make your  SEO Consultant substance applicable by putting your watchword expression all through your article, especially in the title, captions, first sentence and last sentence.

 For YouTube content, you have to ensure the catchphrase expression is in the title of the video and in addition the depiction.

"Prominent" SEO Content  Writing Strategies of Today...

 In any case, how in the hell  Houston SEO Expert would you be able to make it famous without sending those malicious backlinks? Backlinks still work; anyway they should be top notch backlinks. Google will take a gander at the age of the space, its page rank, and alluding areas from excellent locales to assign your site as "famous".

 Proficient SEO is really a  SEO Dallas work of art, organizations in the millions are endeavoring to make sense of the mystery Algorithm set By Google's brains engineers, similar to the scan for everlasting status, it is by all accounts a ceaseless chase for answers.

 So what is the arrangement?

 I know this will sound  SEO Company Toronto abnormal however the main arrangement is to begin ideal back at the establishments of your site, and contrast what you have and what Google needs to see. Do you have a Website in the right arrangement for Google to slither and record your data? Have you advanced the site appropriately - this is a procedure called website improvement, the specialty of ensuring you have new, significant and novel substance that is dynamic and organized such that in the event that some individual looks for your administrations or items, Google will recall how imperative you were and  Digital Marketing Consultant where that data was in your webpage and give you therefore to the client.

 Proficient SEO organizations can give administrations at a vastly improved cost than doing this without anyone's help by experimentation, it merits searching out an expert SEO specialist to  seo company evaluate your necessities and contrast your webpage with other industry particular sites.

 This in itself is a standout amongst the most troublesome stages on SEO, it is classified "On Page SEO" and can set aside some opportunity to culminate, may should be returned to all the  google optimizing time because of prerequisite changes by the Search Engines and may include a considerable measure of assets for even the most essential of web architectures.

 A flawless alternate way is to affordable seo discover a duplicate composition organization that can make dynamic substance, news channels or expert articles for your sake. Be cautioned, these administrations are mind boggling and can be costly and except if joined in general SEO methodology may create little impact without anyone else. Analyze SEO Copy essayists and Independent Content scholars to locate the correct mix of  backlinks seo  abilities and cost to suit your business part and size of crusade.

 When establishments are set and you have the fundamental on page procedure set up, the time has come to then  buy seo take a gander at your open mindfulness, social mix and references from outsiders with comparable substance on their locales. Web based life and Social Bookmarking through destinations, for example, Digg, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook all add to network mindfulness and brand portrayal and could even prompt direct enquiries and movement to your webpage.  online marketing service Building references, generally alluded to as in reverse connections, in light of the fact that the simple idea of this mean getting other significant site proprietors to interface their substance to yours, is a standout amongst the most troublesome errands in SEO. Once more, most Professional SEO organizations and substance offices can as a rule assist where this is concerned, so in the event that you need results fast and you lack time to look perpetually for these openings, look for help.

 Obtaining a site is vital yet  the best seo company lacking for the achievement of your business. A site that has been composed and facilitated by site experts in return for immense wholes of cash is essentially insufficient to ensure achievement. For individuals to have the capacity to welcome the miracles that your site contains, its perceivability  dallas seo is exceptionally essential.

 On the off chance that your site does not emerge and happens to get lost some place among the a large number of sites that are discharged on the World Wide Web each day, odds of your  houston seo expert business procuring achievement are somewhat thin. Along these lines, it is vital to get your site enhanced for web crawlers, for example, Google, Bing and Yahoo, with the goal that it shows up on the main couple of pages each time an exploration is directed. In all honesty, no one mulls over sites that show up past the third page. Subsequently, the significance  seo consultant of Search Engine Optimization must not be undermined, as it ensures achievement and ubiquity to your site that is attempting to get taken note.

 There are various shabby SEO bundles given by various distinctive SEO specialist co-ops on the web at introduce. These bundles fall into various classes: each bundle is intended  keyword tool dominator to suit the requirements of an alternate kind of business. There are distinctive bundles for maturing agents and business visionaries instead of those for huge companies that have completely extraordinary SEO necessities, attributable to their size. The least expensive SEO bundle is normally alluded to as 'the starter pack' and is fundamentally intended to help private ventures to enhance their web crawler rankings. This SEO bundle permits a streamlining of five watchwords, five article entries, five blog remarks, five on-page improvement including rich scraps, five professional references and twenty social bookmarks. It costs a unimportant $150 every month so it must be considered by people who are low on spending plan and searching for shoddy SEO bundles.

 'The Booster Pack' enables your  seo company site to gain that additional 'lift' that it has never happened to get. Under this bundle, sites can be streamlined by method for ten catchphrases, ten article entries, ten blog remarks, ten on-page advancement prospects with the consideration of rich pieces, ten professional resources and twenty social bookmarks. In spite of all these awesome characteristics that enable your site to sparkle on the World Wide Web, the bundle just expenses a rough of $200 every month. Note that this bundle is an enormous advance up  automotive seo from the 'starter pack', as it gives SEO administrations to a more noteworthy degree.

 In the event that 'the sponsor pack' does not meet the SEO necessities of your business, you can simply consider moving to 'the power pack' which gives far better SEO enhancement benefits and enables you to extend your business to significantly more noteworthy statures. With streamlining utilizing twenty watchwords, fifteen blog remarks, fifteen  houston seo expert article entries, twenty social bookmarks and twenty open doors for on-page enhancement, the bundle just expenses $250 multi month.

[neilchax]

TRUTH OF FEELING

When my daughter Nicole was an infant, I read an essay suggesting that it might no longer be necessary to teach children how to read or write, because speech recognition and synthesis would soon render those abilities superfluous. My wife and I were horrified by the idea, and we resolved that, no matter how sophisticated technology became, our daughter’s skills would always rest on the bedrock of traditional literacy.

It turned out that we and the essayist were both half correct: now that she’s an adult, Nicole can read as well as I can. But there is a sense in which she has lost the ability to write. She doesn’t dictate her messages and ask a virtual secretary to read back to her what she last said, the way that essayist predicted; Nicole subvocalizes, her retinal projector displays the words in her field of vision, and she makes revisions using a combination of gestures and eye movements. For all practical purposes, she can write. But take away the assistive software and give her nothing but a keyboard like the one I remain faithful to, and she’d have difficulty spelling out many of the words in this very sentence. Under those specific circumstances, English becomes a bit like a second language to her, one that she can speak fluently but can only barely write.

It may sound like I’m disappointed in Nicole’s intellectual achievements, but that’s absolutely not the case. She’s smart and dedicated to her job at an art museum when she could be earning more money elsewhere, and I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments. But there is still the past me who would have been appalled to see his daughter lose her ability to spell, and I can’t deny that I am continuous with him.

It’s been more than twenty years since I read that essay, and in that period our lives have undergone countless changes that I couldn’t have predicted. The most catastrophic one was when Nicole’s mother Angela declared that she deserved a more interesting life than the one we were giving her, and spent the next decade criss-crossing the globe. But the changes leading to Nicole’s current form of literacy were more ordinary and gradual: a succession of software gadgets that not only promised but in fact delivered utility and convenience, and I didn’t object to any of them at the times of their introduction.

So it hasn’t been my habit to engage in doomsaying whenever a new product is announced; I’ve welcomed new technology as much as anyone. But when Whetstone released its new search tool Remem, it raised concerns for me in a way none of its predecessors did.

 Millions of people, some my age but most younger, have been keeping lifelogs for years, wearing personal cams that capture continuous video of their entire lives. People consult their lifelogs for a variety of reasons—everything from reliving favorite moments to tracking down the cause of allergic reactions—but only intermittently; no one wants to spend all their time formulating queries and sifting through the results. Lifelogs are the most complete photo album imaginable, but like most photo albums, they lie dormant except on special occasions. Now Whetstone aims to change all of that; they claim Remem’s algorithms can search the entire haystack by the time you’ve finished saying “needle.”

Remem monitors your conversation for references to past events, and then displays video of that event in the lower left corner of your field of vision. If you say “remember dancing the conga at that wedding?”, Remem will bring up the video. If the person you’re talking to says “the last time we were at the beach,” Remem will bring up the video. And it’s not only for use when speaking with someone else; Remem also monitors your subvocalizations. If you read the words “the first Szechuan restaurant you ate at,” your vocal cords will move as if you’re reading aloud, and Remem will bring up the relevant video.

There’s no denying the usefulness of software that can actually answer the question “where did I put my keys?” But Whetstone is positioning Remem as more than a handy virtual assistant: they want it to take the place of your natural memory.

It was the summer of Jijingi’s thirteenth year when a European came to live in the village. The dusty harmattan winds had just begun blowing from the north when Sabe, the elder who was regarded as chief by all the local families, made the announcement.

Everyone’s initial reaction was alarm, of course. “What have we done wrong?” Jijingi’s father asked Sabe.

Europeans had first come to Tivland many years ago, and while some elders said one day they’d leave and life would return to the ways of the past, until that day arrived it was necessary for the Tiv to get along with them. This had meant many changes in the way the Tiv did things, but it had never meant Europeans living among them before. The usual reason for Europeans to come to the village was to collect taxes for the roads they had built; they visited some clans more often because the people refused to pay taxes, but that hadn’t happened in the Shangev clan. Sabe and the other clan elders had agreed that paying the taxes was the best strategy.

Sabe told everyone not to worry. “This European is a missionary; that means all he does is pray. He has no authority to punish us, but our making him welcome will please the men in the administration.”

He ordered two huts built for the missionary, a sleeping hut and a reception hut. Over the course of the next several days everyone took time off from harvesting the guinea-corn to help lay bricks, sink posts into the ground, weave grass into thatch for the roof. It was during the final step, pounding the floor, that the missionary arrived. His porters appeared first, the boxes they carried visible from a distance as they threaded their way between the cassava fields; the missionary himself was the last to appear, apparently exhausted even though he carried nothing. His name was Moseby, and he thanked everyone who had worked on the huts. He tried to help, but it quickly became clear that he didn’t know how to do anything, so eventually he just sat in the shade of a locust bean tree and wiped his head with a piece of cloth.

Jijingi watched the missionary with curiosity. The man opened one of his boxes and took out what at first looked like a block of wood, but then he split it open and Jijingi realized it was a tightly bound sheaf of papers. Jijingi had seen paper before; when the Europeans collected taxes, they gave paper in return so that the village had proof of what they’d paid. But the paper that the missionary was looking at was obviously of a different sort, and must have had some other purpose.

The man noticed Jijingi looking at him, and invited him to come closer. “My name is Moseby,” he said. “What is your name?”

“I am Jijingi, and my father is Orga of the Shangev clan.”

Moseby spread open the sheaf of paper and gestured toward it. “Have you heard the story of Adam?” he asked. “Adam was the first man. We are all children of Adam.”

 “Here we are descendants of Shangev,” said Jijingi. “And everyone in Tivland is a descendant of Tiv.”

“Yes, but your ancestor Tiv was descended from Adam, just as my ancestors were. We are all brothers. Do you understand?”

The missionary spoke as if his tongue were too large for his mouth, but Jijingi could tell what he was saying. “Yes, I understand.”

Moseby smiled, and pointed at the paper. “This paper tells the story of Adam.”

“How can paper tell a story?”

“It is an art that we Europeans know. When a man speaks, we make marks on the paper. When another man looks at the paper later, he sees the marks and knows what sounds the first man made. In that way the second man can hear what the first man said.”

Jijingi remembered something his father had told him about old Gbegba, who was the most skilled in bushcraft. “Where you or I would see nothing but some disturbed grass, he can see that a leopard had killed a cane rat at that spot and carried it off,” his father said. Gbegba was able to look at the ground and know what had happened even though he had not been present. This art of the Europeans must be similar: those who were skilled in interpreting the marks could hear a story even if they hadn’t been there when it was told.

“Tell me the story that the paper tells,” he said.

Moseby told him a story about Adam and his wife being tricked by a snake. Then he asked Jijingi, “How do you like it?”

“You’re a poor storyteller, but the story was interesting enough.”

Moseby laughed. “You are right, I am not good at the Tiv language. But this is a good story. It is the oldest story we have. It was first told long before your ancestor Tiv was born.”

  Jijingi was dubious. “That paper can’t be so old.”

“No, this paper is not. But the marks on it were copied from older paper. And those marks were copied from older paper. And so forth many times.”

That would be impressive, if true. Jijingi liked stories, and older stories were often the best. “How many stories do you have there?”

“Very many.” Moseby flipped through the sheaf of papers, and Jijingi could see each sheet was covered with marks from edge to edge; there must be many, many stories there.

“This art you spoke of, interpreting marks on paper; is it only for Europeans?”

“No, I can teach it to you. Would you like that?”

Cautiously, Jijingi nodded.

As a journalist, I have long appreciated the usefulness of lifelogging for determining the facts of the matter. There is scarcely a legal proceeding, criminal or civil, that doesn’t make use of someone’s lifelog, and rightly so. When the public interest is involved, finding out what actually happened is important; justice is an essential part of the social contract, and you can’t have justice until you know the truth.

However, I’ve been much more skeptical about the use of lifelogging in purely personal situations. When lifelogging first became popular, there were couples who thought they could use it to settle arguments over who had actually said what, using the video record to prove they were right. But finding the right clip of video often wasn’t easy, and all but the most determined gave up on doing so. The inconvenience acted as a barrier, limiting the searching of lifelogs to those situations in which effort was warranted, namely situations in which justice was the motivating factor.

Now with Remem, finding the exact moment has become easy, and lifelogs that previously lay all but ignored are now being scrutinized as if they were crime scenes, thickly strewn with evidence for use in domestic squabbles.

 I typically write for the news section, but I’ve written feature stories as well, and so when I pitched an article about the potential downsides of Remem to my managing editor, he gave me the go-ahead. My first interview was with a married couple whom I’ll call Joel and Deirdre, an architect and a painter, respectively. It wasn’t hard to get them talking about Remem.

“Joel is always saying that he knew it all along,” said Deirdre, “even when he didn’t. It used to drive me crazy, because I couldn’t get him to admit he used to believe something else. Now I can. For example, recently we were talking about the McKittridge kidnapping case.”

She sent me the video of one argument she had with Joel. My retinal projector displayed footage of a cocktail party; it’s from Deirdre’s point of view, and Joel is telling a number of people, “It was pretty clear that he was guilty from the day he was arrested.”

Deirdre’s voice: “You didn’t always think that. For months you argued that he was innocent.”

Joel shakes his head. “No, you’re misremembering. I said that even people who are obviously guilty deserve a fair trial.”

“That’s not what you said. You said he was being railroaded.”

“You’re thinking of someone else; that wasn’t me.”

“No, it was you. Look.” A separate video window opened up, an excerpt of her lifelog that she looked up and broadcast to the people they’ve been talking with. Within the nested video, Joel and Deirdre are sitting in a café, and Joel is saying, “He’s a scapegoat. The police needed to reassure the public, so they arrested a convenient suspect. Now he’s done for.” Deidre replies, “You don’t think there’s any chance of him being acquitted?” and Joel answers, “Not unless he can afford a high-powered defense team, and I’ll bet you he can’t. People in his position will never get a fair trial.”

I closed both windows, and Deirdre said, “Without Remem, I’d never be able to convince him that he changed his position. Now I have proof.”

  “Fine, you were right that time,” said Joel. “But you didn’t have to do that in front of our friends.”

“You correct me in front of our friends all the time. You’re telling me I can’t do the same?”

Here was the line at which the pursuit of truth ceased to be an intrinsic good. When the only persons affected have a personal relationship with each other, other priorities are often more important, and a forensic pursuit of the truth could be harmful. Did it really matter whose idea it was to take the vacation that turned out so disastrously? Did you need to know which partner was more forgetful about completing errands the other person asked of them? I was no expert on marriage, but I knew what marriage counselors said: pinpointing blame wasn’t the answer. Instead, couples needed to acknowledge each other’s feelings and address their problems as a team.

Next I spoke with a spokesperson from Whetstone, Erica Meyers. For a while she gave me a typically corporate spiel about the benefits of Remem. “Making information more accessible is an intrinsic good,” she says. “Ubiquitous video has revolutionized law enforcement. Businesses become more effective when they adopt good record-keeping practices. The same thing happens to us as individuals when our memories become more accurate: we get better, not just at doing our jobs, but at living our lives.”

When I asked her about couples like Joel and Deirdre, she said, “If your marriage is solid, Remem isn’t going to hurt it. But if you’re the type of person who’s constantly trying to prove that you’re right and your spouse is wrong, then your marriage is going to be in trouble whether you use Remem or not.”

I conceded that she may have had a point in this particular case. But, I asked her, didn’t she think Remem created greater opportunities for those types of arguments to arise, even in solid marriages, by making it easier for people to keep score?

  “Not at all,” she said. “Remem didn’t give them a scorekeeping mentality; they developed that on their own. Another couple could just as easily use Remem to realize that they’ve both misremembered things, and become more forgiving when that sort of mistake happens. I predict the latter scenario will be the more common one with our customers as a whole.”

I wished I could share Erica Meyers’ optimism, but I knew that new technology didn’t always bring out the best in people. Who hasn’t wished they could prove that their version of events was the correct one? I could easily see myself using Remem the way Deirdre did, and I wasn’t at all certain that doing so would be good for me. Anyone who has wasted hours surfing the internet knows that technology can encourage bad habits.

Moseby gave a sermon every seven days, on the day devoted to resting and brewing and drinking beer. He seemed to disapprove of the beer drinking, but he didn’t want to speak on one of the days of work, so the day of beer brewing was the only one left. He talked about the European god, and told people that following his rules would improve their lives, but his explanations of how that would do so weren’t particularly persuasive.

But Moseby also had some skill at dispensing medicine, and he was willing to learn how to work in the fields, so gradually people grew more accepting of him, and Jijingi’s father let him visit Moseby occasionally to learn the art of writing. Moseby offered to teach the other children as well, and for a time Jijingi’s age-mates came along, mostly to prove to each other that they weren’t afraid of being near a European. Before long the other boys grew bored and left, but because Jijingi remained interested in writing and his father thought it would keep the Europeans happy, he was eventually permitted to go every day.

Moseby explained to Jijingi how each sound a person spoke could be indicated with different marks on the paper. The marks were arranged in rows like plants in a field; you looked at the marks as if you were walking down a row, made the sound each mark indicated, and you would find yourself speaking what the original person had said. Moseby showed him how to make each of the different marks on a sheet of paper, using a tiny wooden rod that had a core of soot.

  In a typical lesson, Moseby would speak, and then write what he had said: “When night comes I shall sleep.” Tugh mba a ile yo me yav. “There are two persons.” Ioruv mban mba uhar. Jijingi carefully copied the writing on his sheet of paper, and when he was done, Moseby would look at it.

“Very good. But you need to leave spaces when you write.”

“I have.” Jijingi pointed at the gap between each row.

“No, that is not what I mean. Do you see the spaces within each line?” He pointed at his own paper.

Jijingi understood. “Your marks are clumped together, while mine are arranged evenly.”

“These are not just clumps of marks. They are… I do not know what you call them.” He picked up a thin sheaf of paper from his table and flipped through it. “I do not see it here. Where I come from, we call them ‘words.’ When we write, we leave spaces between the words.”

“But what are words?”

“How can I explain it?” He thought a moment. “If you speak slowly, you pause very briefly after each word. That’s why we leave a space in those places when we write. Like this: How. Many. Years. Old. Are. You?” He wrote on his paper as he spoke, leaving a space every time he paused:Anyom a ou kuma a me?

“But you speak slowly because you’re a foreigner. I’m Tiv, so I don’t pause when I speak. Shouldn’t my writing be the same?”

“It does not matter how fast you speak. Words are the same whether you speak quickly or slowly.”

“Then why did you say you pause after each word?”

“That is the easiest way to find them. Try saying this very slowly.” He pointed at what he’d just written.

Jijingi spoke very slowly, the way a man might when trying to hide his drunkenness. “Why is there no space in between an and yom?”

“Anyom is one word. You do not pause in the middle of it.”

“But I wouldn’t pause after anyom either.”

Moseby sighed. “I will think more about how to explain what I mean. For now, just leave spaces in the places where I leave spaces.”

What a strange art writing was. When sowing a field, it was best to have the seed yams spaced evenly; Jijingi’s father would have beaten him if he’d clumped the yams the way the Moseby clumped his marks on paper. But he had resolved to learn this art as best he could, and if that meant clumping his marks, he would do so.

It was only many lessons later that Jijingi finally understood where he should leave spaces, and what Moseby meant when he said “word.” You could not find the places where words began and ended by listening. The sounds a person made while speaking were as smooth and unbroken as the hide of a goat’s leg, but the words were like the bones underneath the meat, and the space between them was the joint where you’d cut if you wanted to separate it into pieces. By leaving spaces when he wrote, Moseby was making visible the bones in what he said.

Jijingi realized that, if he thought hard about it, he was now able to identify the words when people spoke in an ordinary conversation. The sounds that came from a person’s mouth hadn’t changed, but he understood them differently; he was aware of the pieces from which the whole was made. He himself had been speaking in words all along. He just hadn’t known it until now.

The ease of searching that Remem provides is impressive enough, but that merely scratches the surface of what Whetstone sees as the product’s potential. When Deirdre fact-checked her husband’s previous statements, she was posing explicit queries to Remem. But Whetstone expects that, as people become accustomed to their product, queries will take the place of ordinary acts of recall, and Remem will be integrated into their very thought processes. Once that happens, we will become cognitive cyborgs, effectively incapable of misremembering anything; digital video stored on error-corrected silicon will take over the role once filled by our fallible temporal lobes.

What might it be like to have a perfect memory? Arguably the individual with the best memory ever documented was Solomon Shereshevskii, who lived in Russia during the first half of the twentieth century. The psychologists who tested him found that he could hear a series of words or numbers once and remember it months or even years later. With no knowledge of Italian, Shereshevskii was able to quote stanzas of The Divine Comedy that had been read to him fifteen years earlier.

But having a perfect memory wasn’t the blessing one might imagine it to be. Reading a passage of text evoked so many images in Shereshevskii’s mind that he often couldn’t focus on what it actually said, and his awareness of innumerable specific examples made it difficult for him to understand abstract concepts. At times, he tried to deliberately forget things. He wrote down numbers he no longer wanted to remember on slips of paper and then burnt them, a kind of slash-and-burn approach to clearing out the undergrowth of his mind, but to no avail.

When I raised the possibility that a perfect memory might be a handicap to Whetstone’s spokesperson, Erica Meyers, she had a ready reply. “This is no different from the concerns people used to have about retinal projectors,” she said. “They worried that seeing updates constantly would be distracting or overwhelming, but we’ve all adapted to them.”

I didn’t mention that not everyone considered that a positive development.

“And Remem is entirely customizable,” she continued. “If at any time you find it’s doing too many searches for your needs, you can decrease its level of responsiveness. But according to our customer analytics, our users haven’t been doing that. As they become more comfortable with it, they’re finding that Remem becomes more helpful the more responsive it is.”

But even if Remem wasn’t constantly crowding your field of vision with unwanted imagery of the past, I wondered if there weren’t issues raised simply by having that imagery be perfect.

“Forgive and forget” goes the expression, and for our idealized magnanimous selves, that was all you needed. But for our actual selves the relationship between those two actions wasn’t so straightforward. In most cases we had to forget a little bit before we could forgive; when we no longer experienced the pain as fresh, the insult was easier to forgive, which in turn made it less memorable, and so on. It was this psychological feedback loop that made initially infuriating offences seem pardonable in the mirror of hindsight.

What I feared was that Remem would make it impossible for this feedback loop to get rolling. By fixing every detail of an insult in indelible video, it could prevent the softening that’s needed for forgiveness to begin. I thought back to what Erica Meyers said about Remem’s inability to hurt solid marriages. Implicit in that assertion was a claim about what qualified as a solid marriage. If someone’s marriage was built on—as ironic as it might sound—a cornerstone of forgetfulness, what right did Whetstone have to shatter that?

The issue wasn’t confined to marriages; all sorts of relationships rely on forgiving and forgetting. My daughter Nicole has always been strong-willed; rambunctious when she was a child, openly defiant as an adolescent. She and I had many furious arguments during her teen years, arguments that we have mostly been able to put behind us, and now our relationship is pretty good. If we’d had Remem, would we still be speaking to each other?

I don’t mean to say that forgetting is the only way to mend relationships. While I can no longer recall most of the arguments Nicole and I had—and I’m grateful that I can’t—one of the arguments I remember clearly is one that spurred me to be a better father.

It was when Nicole was sixteen, a junior in high school. It had been two years since her mother Angela had left, probably the two hardest years of both our lives. I don’t remember what started the argument—something trivial, no doubt—but it escalated and before long Nicole was taking her anger at Angela out on me.

“You’re the reason she left! You drove her away! You can leave too, for all I care. I sure as hell would be better off without you.” And to demonstrate her point, she stormed out of the house.

I knew it wasn’t premeditated malice on her part—I don’t think she engaged in much premeditation in anything during that phase of her life—but she couldn’t have come up with a more hurtful accusation if she’d tried. I’d been devastated by Angela’s departure, and I was constantly wondering what I could have done differently to keep her.

Nicole didn’t come back until the next day, and that night was one of soul searching for me. While I didn’t believe I was responsible for her mother leaving us, Nicole’s accusation still served as a wake-up call. I hadn’t been conscious of it, but I realized that I had been thinking of myself as the greatest victim of Angela’s departure, wallowing in self-pity over just how unreasonable my situation was. It hadn’t even been my idea to have children; it was Angela who’d wanted to be a parent, and now she had left me holding the bag. What sane world would leave me with sole responsibility for raising an adolescent girl? How could a job that was so difficult be entrusted to someone with no experience whatsoever?

Nicole’s accusation made me realize her predicament was worse than mine. At least I had volunteered for this duty, albeit long ago and without full appreciation for what I was getting into. Nicole had been drafted into her role, with no say whatsoever. If there was anyone who had a right to be resentful, it was her. And while I thought I’d been doing a good job of being a father, obviously I needed to do better.

I turned myself around. Our relationship didn’t improve overnight, but over the years I was able to work myself back into Nicole’s good graces. I remember the way she hugged me at her college graduation, and I realized my years of effort had paid off.

Would those years of repair have been possible with Remem? Even if each of us could have refrained from throwing the other’s bad behavior in their faces, the opportunity to privately rewatch video of our arguments seems like it could be pernicious. Vivid reminders of the way she and I yelled at each other in the past might have kept our anger fresh, and prevented us from rebuilding our relationship.

Jijingi wanted to write down some of the stories of where the Tiv people came from, but the storytellers spoke rapidly, and he wasn’t able to write fast enough to keep up with them. Moseby said he would get better with practice, but Jijingi despaired that he’d ever become fast enough.

Then, one summer a European woman named Reiss came to visit the village. Moseby said she was “a person who learns about other people” but could not explain what that meant, only that she wanted to learn about Tivland. She asked questions of everyone, not just the elders but young men, too, even women and children, and she wrote down everything they told her. She didn’t try to get anyone to adopt European practices; where Moseby had insisted that there were no such thing as curses and that everything was God’s will, Reiss asked about how curses worked, and listened attentively to explanations of how your kin on your father’s side could curse you while your kin on your mother’s side could protect you from curses.

One evening Kokwa, the best storyteller in the village, told the story of how the Tiv people split into different lineages, and Reiss had written it down exactly as he told it. Later she had recopied the story using a machine she poked at noisily with her fingers, so that she had a copy that was clean and easy to read. When Jijingi asked if she would make another copy for him, she agreed, much to his excitement.

The paper version of the story was curiously disappointing. Jijingi remembered that when he had first learned about writing, he’d imagined it would enable him to see a storytelling performance as vividly as if he were there. But writing didn’t do that. When Kokwa told the story, he didn’t merely use words; he used the sound of his voice, the movement of his hands, the light in his eyes. He told you the story with his whole body, and you understood it the same way. None of that was captured on paper; only the bare words could be written down. And reading just the words gave you only a hint of the experience of listening to Kokwa himself, as if one were licking the pot in which okra had been cooked instead of eating the okra itself.

Jijingi was still glad to have the paper version, and would read it from time to time. It was a good story, worthy of being recorded on paper. Not everything written on paper was so worthy. During his sermons Moseby would read aloud stories from his book, and they were often good stories, but he also read aloud words he had written down just a few days before, and those were often not stories at all, merely claims that learning more about the European god would improve the lives of the Tiv people.

One day, when Moseby had been eloquent, Jijingi complimented him. “I know you think highly of all your sermons, but today’s sermon was a good one.”

“Thank you,” said Moseby, smiling. After a moment, he asked, “Why do you say I think highly of all my sermons?”

“Because you expect that people will want to read them many years from now.”

“I don’t expect that. What makes you think that?”

“You write them all down before you even deliver them. Before even one person has heard a sermon, you have written it down for future generations.”

Moseby laughed. “No, that is not why I write them down.”

“Why, then?” He knew it wasn’t for people far away to read them, because sometimes messengers came to the village to deliver paper to Moseby, and he never sent his sermons back with them.

“I write the words down so I do not forget what I want to say when I give the sermon.”

‘How could you forget what you want to say? You and I are speaking right now, and neither of us needs paper to do so.”

“A sermon is different from conversation.” Moseby paused to consider. “I want to be sure I give my sermons as well as possible. I won’t forget what I want to say, but I might forget the best way to say it. If I write it down, I don’t have to worry. But writing the words down does more than help me remember. It helps me think.”

“How does writing help you think?”

“That is a good question,” he said. “It is strange, isn’t it? I do not know how to explain it, but writing helps me decide what I want to say. Where I come from, there’s a very old proverb: verba volant, scripta manent. In Tiv you would say, ‘spoken words fly away, written words remain.’ Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” Jijingi said, just to be polite; it made no sense at all. The missionary wasn’t old enough to be senile, but his memory must be terrible and he didn’t want to admit it. Jijingi told his age-mates about this, and they joked about it amongst themselves for days. Whenever they exchanged gossip, they would add, “Will you remember that? This will help you,” and mimic Moseby writing at his table.

On an evening the following year, Kokwa announced he would tell the story of how the Tiv split into different lineages. Jijingi brought out the paper version he had, so he could read the story at the same time Kokwa told it. Sometimes he could follow along, but it was often confusing because Kokwa’s words didn’t match what was written on the paper. After Kokwa was finished, Jijingi said to him, “You didn’t tell the story the same way you told it last year.”

“Nonsense,” said Kokwa. “When I tell a story it doesn’t change, no matter how much time passes. Ask me to tell it twenty years from today, and I will tell it exactly the same.”

Jijingi pointed at the paper he held. “This paper is the story you told last year, and there were many differences.” He picked one he remembered. “Last time you said, ‘the Uyengi captured the women and children and carried them off as slaves.’ This time you said, ‘they made slaves of the women, but they did not stop there: they even made slaves of the children.’”

“That’s the same.”

“It is the same story, but you’ve changed the way you tell it.”

“No,” said Kokwa, “I told it just as I told it before.”

Jijingi didn’t want to try to explain what words were. Instead he said, “If you told it as you did before, you would say ‘the Uyengi captured the women and children and carried them off as slaves’ every time.”

 For a moment Kokwa stared at him, and then he laughed. “Is this what you think is important, now that you’ve learned the art of writing?”

Sabe, who had been listening to them, chided Kokwa. “It’s not your place to judge Jijingi. The hare favors one food, the hippo favors another. Let each spend his time as he pleases.”

“Of course, Sabe, of course,” said Kokwa, but he threw a derisive glance at Jijingi.

Afterwards, Jijingi remembered the proverb Moseby had mentioned. Even though Kokwa was telling the same story, he might arrange the words differently each time he told it; he was skilled enough as a storyteller that the arrangement of words didn’t matter. It was different for Moseby, who never acted anything out when he gave his sermons; for him, the words were what was important. Jijingi realized that Moseby wrote down his sermons not because his memory was terrible, but because he was looking for a specific arrangement of words. Once he found the one he wanted, he could hold on to it for as long as he needed.

Out of curiosity, Jijingi tried imagining he had to deliver a sermon, and began writing down what he would say. Seated on the root of a mango tree with the notebook Moseby had given him, he composed a sermon on tsav, the quality that enabled some men to have power over others, and a subject which Moseby hadn’t understood and had dismissed as foolishness. He read his first attempt to one of his age-mates, who pronounced it terrible, leading them to have a brief shoving match, but afterwards Jijingi had to admit his age-mate was right. He tried writing out his sermon a second time and then a third before he became tired of it and moved on to other topics.

As he practiced his writing, Jijingi came to understand what Moseby had meant; writing was not just a way to record what someone said; it could help you decide what you would say before you said it. And words were not just the pieces of speaking; they were the pieces of thinking. When you wrote them down, you could grasp your thoughts like bricks in your hands and push them into different arrangements. Writing let you look at your thoughts in a way you couldn’t if you were just talking, and having seen them, you could improve them, make them stronger and more elaborate.

Psychologists make a distinction between semantic memory—knowledge of general facts—and episodic memory—recollection of personal experiences. We’ve been using technological supplements for semantic memory ever since the invention of writing: first books, then search engines. By contrast, we’ve historically resisted such aids when it comes to episodic memory; few people have ever kept as many diaries or photo albums as they did ordinary books. The obvious reason is convenience; if we wanted a book on the birds of North America, we could consult one that an ornithologist has written, but if we wanted a daily diary, we had to write it for ourselves. But I also wonder if another reason is that, subconsciously, we regarded our episodic memories as such an integral part of our identities that we were reluctant to externalize them, to relegate them to books on a shelf or files on a computer.

That may be about to change. For years parents have been recording their children’s every moment, so even if children weren’t wearing personal cams, their lifelogs were effectively already being compiled. Now parents are having their children wear retinal projectors at younger and younger ages so they can reap the benefits of assistive software agents sooner. Imagine what will happen if children begin using Remem to access those lifelogs: their mode of cognition will diverge from ours because the act of recall will be different. Rather than thinking of an event from her past and seeing it with her mind’s eye, a child will subvocalize a reference to it and watch video footage with her physical eyes. Episodic memory will become entirely technologically mediated.

An obvious drawback to such reliance is the possibility that people might become virtual amnesiacs whenever the software crashes. But just as worrying to me as the prospect of technological failure was that of technological success: how will it change a person’s conception of herself when she’s only seen her past through the unblinking eye of a video camera? Just as there’s a feedback loop in softening harsh memories, there’s also one at work in the romanticization of childhood memories, and disrupting that process will have consequences.

The earliest birthday I remember is my fourth; I remember blowing out the candles on my cake, the thrill of tearing the wrapping paper off the presents. There’s no video of the event, but there are snapshots in the family album, and they are consistent with what I remember. In fact, I suspect I no longer remember the day itself. It’s more likely that I manufactured the memory when I was first shown the snapshots and over time, I’ve imbued it with the emotion I imagine I felt that day. Little by little, over repeated instances of recall, I’ve created a happy memory for myself.

Another of my earliest memories is of playing on the living room rug, pushing toy cars around, while my grandmother worked at her sewing machine; she would occasionally turn and smile warmly at me. There are no photos of that moment, so I know the recollection is mine and mine alone. It is a lovely, idyllic memory. Would I want to be presented with actual footage of that afternoon? No; absolutely not.

Regarding the role of truth in autobiography, the critic Roy Pascal wrote, “On the one side are the truths of fact, on the other the truth of the writer’s feeling, and where the two coincide cannot be decided by any outside authority in advance.” Our memories are private autobiographies, and that afternoon with my grandmother features prominently in mine because of the feelings associated with it. What if video footage revealed that my grandmother’s smile was in fact perfunctory, that she was actually frustrated because her sewing wasn’t going well? What’s important to me about that memory is the happiness I associated with it, and I wouldn’t want that jeopardized.

It seemed to me that continuous video of my entire childhood would be full of facts but devoid of feeling, simply because cameras couldn’t capture the emotional dimension of events. As far as the camera was concerned, that afternoon with my grandmother would be indistinguishable from a hundred others. And if I’d grown up with access to all the video footage, there’d have been no way for me to assign more emotional weight to any particular day, no nucleus around which nostalgia could accrete.

And what will the consequences be when people can claim to remember their infancy? I could readily imagine a situation where, if you ask a young person what her earliest memory is, she will simply look baffled; after all, she has video dating back to the day of her birth. The inability to remember the first few years of one’s life—what psychologists call childhood amnesia—might soon be a thing of the past. No more would parents tell their children anecdotes beginning with the words “You don’t remember this because you were just a toddler when it happened.” It’ll be as if childhood amnesia is a characteristic of humanity’s childhood, and in ouroboric fashion, our youth will vanish from our memories.

Part of me wanted to stop this, to protect children’s ability to see the beginning of their lives filtered through gauze, to keep those origin stories from being replaced by cold, desaturated video. But maybe they will feel just as warmly about their lossless digital memories as I do of my imperfect, organic memories.

People are made of stories. Our memories are not the impartial accumulation of every second we’ve lived; they’re the narrative that we assembled out of selected moments. Which is why, even when we’ve experienced the same events as other individuals, we never constructed identical narratives: the criteria used for selecting moments were different for each of us, and a reflection of our personalities. Each of us noticed the details that caught our attention and remembered what was important to us, and the narratives we built shaped our personalities in turn.

But, I wondered, if everyone remembered everything, would our differences get shaved away? What would happen to our sense of selves? It seemed to me that a perfect memory couldn’t be a narrative any more than unedited security-cam footage could be a feature film.

When Jijingi was twenty, an officer from the administration came to the village to speak with Sabe. He had brought with him a young Tiv man who had attended the mission school in Katsina-Ala. The administration wanted to have a written record of all the disputes brought before the tribal courts, so they were assigning each chief one of these youths to act as a scribe. Sabe had Jijingi come forward, and to the officer he said, “I know you don’t have enough scribes for all of Tivland. Jijingi here has learned to write; he can act as our scribe, and you can send your boy to another village.” The officer tested Jijingi’s ability to write, but Moseby had taught him well, and eventually the officer agreed to have him be Sabe’s scribe.

After the officer had left, Jijingi asked Sabe why he hadn’t wanted the boy from Katsina-Ala to be his scribe.

“No one who comes from the mission school can be trusted,” said Sabe.

“Why not? Did the Europeans make them liars?”

“They’re partly to blame, but so are we. When the Europeans collected boys for the mission school years ago, most elders gave them the ones they wanted to get rid of, the layabouts and malcontents. Now those boys have returned, and they feel no kinship with anyone. They wield their knowledge of writing like a long gun; they demand their chiefs find them wives, or else they’ll write lies about them and have the Europeans depose them.”

Jijingi knew a boy who was always complaining and looking for ways to avoid work; it would be a disaster if someone like him had power over Sabe. “Can’t you tell the Europeans about this?”

“Many have,” Sabe answered. “It was Maisho of the Kwande clan who warned me about the scribes; they were installed in Kwande villages first. Maisho was fortunate that the Europeans believed him instead of his scribe’s lies, but he knows of other chiefs who were not so lucky; the Europeans often believe paper over people. I don’t wish to take the chance.” He looked at Jijingi seriously. “You are my kin, Jijingi, and kin to everyone in this village. I trust you to write down what I say.”

“Yes, Sabe.”

Tribal court was held every month, from morning until late afternoon for three days in a row, and it always attracted an audience, sometimes one so large that Sabe had to demand everyone sit to allow the breeze to reach the center of the circle. Jijingi sat next to Sabe and recorded the details of each dispute in a book the officer had left. It was a good job; he was paid out of the fees collected from the disputants, and he was given not just a chair but a small table too, which he could use for writing even when court wasn’t in session. The complaints Sabe heard were varied—one might be about a stolen bicycle, another might be about whether a man was responsible for his neighbor’s crops failing—but most had to do with wives. For one such dispute, Jijingi wrote down the following:

Umem’s wife Girgi has run away from home and gone back to her kin. Her kinsman Anongo has tried to convince her to stay with her husband, but Girgi refuses, and there is no more Anongo can do. Umem demands the return of the £11 he paid as bridewealth. Anongo says he has no money at the moment, and moreover that he was only paid £6.

Sabe requested witnesses for both sides. Anongo says he has witnesses, but they have gone on a trip. Umem produces a witness, who is sworn in. He testifies that he himself counted the £11 that Umem paid to Anongo.

Sabe asks Girgi to return to her husband and be a good wife, but she says she has had all that she can stand of him. Sabe instructs Anongo to repay Umem £11, the first payment to be in three months when his crops are saleable. Anongo agrees.

It was the final dispute of the day, by which time Sabe was clearly tired. “Selling vegetables to pay back bridewealth,” he said afterwards, shaking his head. “This wouldn’t have happened when I was a boy.”

Jijingi knew what he meant. In the past, the elders said, you conducted exchanges with similar items: if you wanted a goat, you could trade chickens for it; if you wanted to marry a woman, you promised one of your kinswomen to her family. Then the Europeans said they would no longer accept vegetables as payment for taxes, insisting that it be paid in coin. Before long, everything could be exchanged for money; you could use it to buy everything from a calabash to a wife. The elders considered it absurd.

“The old ways are vanishing,” agreed Jijingi. He didn’t say that young people preferred things this way, because the Europeans had also decreed that bridewealth could only be paid if the woman consented to the marriage. In the past, a young woman might be promised to an old man with leprous hands and rotting teeth, and have no choice but to marry him. Now a woman could marry the man she favored, as long as he could afford to pay the bridewealth. Jijingi himself was saving money to marry.

Moseby came to watch sometimes, but he found the proceedings confusing, and often asked Jijingi questions afterwards.

“For example, there was the dispute between Umem and Anongo over how much bridewealth was owed. Why was only the witness sworn in?” asked Moseby.

“To ensure that he said precisely what happened.”

“But if Umem and Anongo were sworn in, that would have ensured they said precisely what happened too. Anongo was able to lie because he was not sworn in.”

Anongo didn’t lie,” said Jijingi. “He said what he considered right, just as Umem did.”

“But what Anongo said wasn’t the same as what the witness said.”

“But that doesn’t mean he was lying.” Then Jijingi remembered something about the European language, and understood Moseby’s confusion. “Our language has two words for what in your language is called ‘true.’ There is what’s right, mimi, and what’s precise, vough. In a dispute the principals say what they consider right; they speak mimi. The witnesses, however, are sworn to say precisely what happened; they speak vough. When Sabe has heard what happened can he decide what action is mimi for everyone. But it’s not lying if the principals don’t speak vough, as long as they speakmimi.”

Moseby clearly disapproved. “In the land I come from, everyone who testifies in court must swear to speak vough, even the principals.”

Jijingi didn’t see the point of that, but all he said was, “Every tribe has its own customs.”

“Yes, customs may vary, but the truth is the truth; it doesn’t change from one person to another. And remember what the Bible says: the truth shall set you free.”

“I remember,” said Jijingi. Moseby had said that it was knowing God’s truth that had made the Europeans so successful. There was no denying their wealth or power, but who knew what was the cause?

In order to write about Remem, it was only fair that I try it out myself. The problem was that I didn’t have a lifelog for it to index; typically I only activated my personal cam when I was conducting an interview or covering an event. But I’ve certainly spent time in the presence of people who kept lifelogs, and I could make use of what they’d recorded. While all lifelogging software has privacy controls in place, most people also grant basic sharing rights: if your actions were recorded in their lifelog, you have access to the footage in which you’re present. So I launched an agent to assemble a partial lifelog from the footage others had recorded, using my GPS history as the basis for the query. Over the course of a week, my request propagated through social networks and public video archives, and I was rewarded with snippets of video ranging from a few seconds in length to a few hours: not just security-cam footage but excerpts from the lifelogs of friends, acquaintances, and even complete strangers.

The resulting lifelog was of course highly fragmentary compared to what I would have had if I’d been recording video myself, and the footage was all from a third-person perspective rather than the first-person that most lifelogs have, but Remem was able to work with that. I expected that coverage would be thickest in the later years, simply due to the increasing popularity of lifelogs. It was somewhat to my surprise, then, that when I looked at a graph of the coverage, I found a bump in the coverage over a decade ago. Nicole had been keeping a lifelog since she was a teenager, so an unexpectedly large segment of my domestic life was present.

I was initially a bit uncertain of how to test Remem, since I obviously couldn’t ask it to bring up video of an event I didn’t remember. I figured I’d start out with something I did remember. I subvocalized, “The time Vince told me about his trip to Palau.”

My retinal projector displayed a window in the lower left corner of my field of vision: I’m having lunch with my friends Vincent and Jeremy. Vincent didn’t maintain a lifelog either, so the footage was from Jeremy’s point of view. I listened to Vincent rave about scuba diving for a minute.

Next I tried something that I only vaguely remembered. “The dinner banquet when I sat between Deborah and Lyle.” I didn’t remember who else was sitting at the table, and wondered if Remem could help me identify them.

Sure enough, Deborah had been recording that evening, and with her video I was able to use a recognition agent to identity everyone sitting across from us.

After those initial successes, I had a run of failures; not surprising, considering the gaps in the lifelog. But over the course of an hour-long trip survey of past events, Remem’s performance was generally impressive.

Finally it seemed time for me to try Remem on some memories that were more emotionally freighted. My relationship with Nicole felt strong enough now for me to safely revisit the fights we’d had when she was young. I figured I’d start with the argument I remembered clearly, and work backwards from there.

I subvocalized, “The time Nicole yelled at me ‘you’re the reason she left.’”

The window displays the kitchen of the house we lived in when Nicole was growing up. The footage is from Nicole’s point of view, and I’m standing in front of the stove. It’s obvious we’re fighting.

“You’re the reason she left. You can leave too, for all I care. I sure as hell would be better off without you.”

The words were just as I remembered them, but it wasn’t Nicole saying them.

It was me.

My first thought was that it must be a fake, that Nicole had edited the video to put her words into my mouth. She must have noticed my request for access to her lifelog footage, and concocted this to teach me a lesson. Or perhaps it was a film she had created to show her friends, to reinforce the stories she told about me. But why was she still so angry at me, that she would do such a thing? Hadn’t we gotten past this?

I started skimming through the video, looking for inconsistencies that would indicate where the edited footage had been spliced in. The subsequent footage showed Nicole running out of the house, just as I remembered, so there wouldn’t be signs of inconsistency there. I rewound the video and started watching the preceding argument.

Initially I was angry as I watched, angry at Nicole for going to such lengths to create this lie, because the preceding footage was all consistent with me being the one who yelled at her. Then some of what I was saying in the video began to sound queasily familiar: complaining about being called to her school again because she’d gotten into trouble, accusing her of spending time with the wrong crowd. But this wasn’t the context in which I’d said those things, was it? I had been voicing my concern, not berating her. Nicole must have adapted things I’d said elsewhere to make her slanderous video more plausible. That was the only explanation, right?

I asked Remem to examine the video’s watermark, and it reported the video was unmodified. I saw that Remem had suggested a correction in my search terms: where I had said “the time Nicole yelled at me,” it offered “the time I yelled at Nicole.” The correction must have been displayed at the same time as the initial search result, but I hadn’t noticed. I shut down Remem in disgust, furious at the product. I was about to search for information on forging a digital watermark to prove this video was faked, but I stopped myself, recognizing it as an act of desperation.

I would have testified, hand on a stack of Bibles or using any oath required of me, that it was Nicole who’d accused me of being the reason her mother left us. My recollection of that argument was as clear as any memory I had, but that wasn’t the only reason I found the video hard to believe; it was also my knowledge that—whatever my faults or imperfections—I was never the kind of father who could say such a thing to his child.

Yet here was digital video proving that I had been exactly that kind of father. And while I wasn’t that man anymore, I couldn’t deny that I was continuous with him.

Even more telling was the fact that for many years I had successfully hidden the truth from myself. Earlier I said that the details we choose to remember are a reflection of our personalities. What did it say about me that I put those words in Nicole’s mouth instead of mine?

I remembered that argument as being a turning point for me. I had imagined a narrative of redemption and self-improvement in which I was the heroic single father, rising to meet the challenge. But the reality was…what? How much of what had happened since then could I take credit for?

I restarted Remem and began looking at video of Nicole’s graduation from college. That was an event I had recorded myself, so I had footage of Nicole’s face, and she seemed genuinely happy in my presence. Was she hiding her true feelings so well that I couldn’t detect them? Or, if our relationship had actually improved, how had that happened? I had obviously been a much worse father fourteen years ago than I’d thought; it would be tempting to conclude I had come farther to reach where I currently was, but I couldn’t trust my perceptions anymore. Did Nicole even have positive feelings about me now?

I wasn’t going to try using Remem to answer this question; I needed to go to the source. I called Nicole and left a message saying I wanted to talk to her, and asking if I could come over to her apartment that evening.

It was a few years later that Sabe began attending a series of meetings of all the chiefs in the Shangev clan. He explained to Jijingi that the Europeans no longer wished to deal with so many chiefs, and were demanding that all of Tivland be divided into eight groups they called ‘septs.’ As a result, Sabe and the other chiefs had to discuss who the Shangev clan would join with. Although there was no need for a scribe, Jijingi was curious to hear the deliberations and asked Sabe if he might accompany him, and Sabe agreed.

Jijingi had never seen so many elders in one place before; some were even-tempered and dignified like Sabe, while others were loud and full of bluster. They argued for hours on end.

In the evening after Jijingi had returned, Moseby asked him what it had been like. Jijingi sighed. “Even if they’re not yelling, they’re fighting like wildcats.”

“Who does Sabe think you should join?”

“We should join with the clans that we’re most closely related to; that’s the Tiv way. And since Shangev was the son of Kwande, our clan should join with the Kwande clan, who live to the south.”

“That makes sense,” said Moseby. “So why is there disagreement?”

“The members of the Shangev clan don’t all live next to each other. Some live on the farmland in the west, near the Jechira clan, and the elders there are friendly with the Jechira elders. They’d like the Shangev clan to join the Jechira clan, because then they’d have more influence in the resulting sept.”

“I see.” Moseby thought for a moment. “Could the western Shangev join a different sept from the southern Shangev?”

Jijingi shook his head. “We Shangev all have one father, so we should all remain together. All the elders agree on that.”

“But if lineage is so important, how can the elders from the west argue that the Shangev clan ought to join with the Jechira clan?”

“That’s what the disagreement was about. The elders from the west are claiming Shangev was the son of Jechira.”

“Wait, you don’t know who Shangev’s parents were?”

“Of course we know! Sabe can recite his ancestors all the way back to Tiv himself. The elders from the west are merely pretending that Shangev was Jechira’s son because they’d benefit from joining with the Jechira clan.”

“But if the Shangev clan joined with the Kwande clan, wouldn’t your elders benefit?”

“Yes, but Shangev was Kwande’s son.” Then Jijingi realized what Moseby was implying. “You think our elders are the ones pretending!”

“No, not at all. It just sounds like both sides have equally good claims, and there’s no way to tell who’s right.”

“Sabe’s right.”

“Of course,” said Moseby. “But how can you get the others to admit that? In the land I come from, many people write down their lineage on paper. That way we can trace our ancestry precisely, even many generations in the past.”

 “Yes, I’ve seen the lineages in your Bible, tracing Abraham back to Adam.”

“Of course. But even apart from the Bible, people have recorded their lineages. When people want to find out who they’re descended from, they can consult paper. If you had paper, the other elders would have to admit that Sabe was right.”

That was a good point, Jijingi admitted. If only the Shangev clan had been using paper long ago. Then something occurred to him. “How long ago did the Europeans first come to Tivland?”

“I’m not sure. At least forty years ago, I think.”

“Do you think they might have written down anything about the Shangev clan’s lineage when they first arrived?”

Moseby looked thoughtful. “Perhaps. The administration definitely keeps a lot of records. If there are any, they’d be stored at the government station in Katsina-Ala.”

A truck carried goods along the motor road into Katsina-Ala every fifth day, when the market was being held, and the next market would be the day after tomorrow. If he left tomorrow morning, he could reach the motor road in time to get a ride. “Do you think they would let me see them?”

“It might be easier if you have a European with you,” said Moseby, smiling. “Shall we take a trip?”

Nicole opened the door to her apartment and invited me in. She was obviously curious about why I’d come. “So what did you want to talk about?”

I wasn’t sure how to begin. “This is going to sound strange.”

“Okay,” she said.

I told her about viewing my partial lifelog using Remem, and seeing the argument we’d had when she was sixteen that ended with me yelling at her and her leaving the house. “Do you remember that day?”

“Of course I do.” She looked uncomfortable, uncertain of where I was going with this.

“I remembered it too, or at least I thought I did. But I remembered it differently. The way I remembered it, it was you who said it to me.”

“Me who said what?”

“I remembered you telling me that I could leave for all you cared, and that you’d be better off without me.”

Nicole stared at me for a long time. “All these years, that’s how you’ve remembered that day?”

“Yes, until today.”

“That’d almost be funny if it weren’t so sad.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “I’m so sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Sorry you said it, or sorry that you imagined me saying it?”

“Both.”

“Well you should be! You know how that made me feel?”

“I can’t imagine. I know I felt terrible when I thought you had said it to me.”

“Except that was just something you made up. It actually happened to me.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Fucking typical.”

That hurt to hear. “Is it? Really?”

“Sure,” she said. “You’re always acting like you’re the victim, like you’re the good guy who deserves to be treated better than you are.”

“You make me sound like I’m delusional.”

“Not delusional. Just blind and self-absorbed.”

I bristled a little. “I’m trying to apologize here.”

“Right, right. This is about you.”

“No, you’re right, I’m sorry.” I waited until Nicole gestured for me to go on. “I guess I am…blind and self-absorbed. The reason it’s hard for me to admit that is that I thought I had opened my eyes and gotten over that.”

She frowned. “What?”

I told her how I felt like I had turned around as a father and rebuilt our relationship, culminating in a moment of bonding at her college graduation. Nicole wasn’t openly derisive, but her expression caused me to stop talking; it was obvious I was embarrassing myself.

“Did you still hate me at graduation?” I asked. “Was I completely making it up that you and I got along then?”

“No, we did get along at graduation. But it wasn’t because you had magically become a good father.”

“What was it, then?”

She paused, took a deep breath, and then said, “I started seeing a therapist when I went to college.” She paused again. “She pretty much saved my life.”

My first thought was, why would Nicole need a therapist? I pushed that down and said, “I didn’t know you were in therapy.”

“Of course you didn’t; you were the last person I would have told. Anyway, by the time I was a senior, she had convinced me that I was better off not staying angry at you. That’s why you and I got along so well at graduation.”

So I had indeed fabricated a narrative that bore little resemblance to reality. Nicole had done all the work, and I had done none.

“I guess I don’t really know you.”

She shrugged. “You know me as well as you need to.”

That hurt, too, but I could hardly complain. “You deserve better,” I said.

Nicole gave a brief, rueful laugh. “You know, when I was younger, I used to daydream about you saying that. But now…well, it’s not as if it fixes everything, is it?”

I realized that I’d been hoping she would forgive me then and there, and then everything would be good. But it would take more than my saying sorry to repair our relationship.

Something occurred to me. “I can’t change the things I did, but at least I can stop pretending I didn’t do them. I’m going to use Remem to get a honest picture at myself, take a kind of personal inventory.”

Nicole looked at me, gauging my sincerity. “Fine,” she said. “But let’s be clear: you don’t come running to me every time you feel guilty over treating me like crap. I worked hard to put that behind me, and I’m not going to relive it just so you can feel better about yourself.”

“Of course.” I saw that she was tearing up. “And I’ve upset you again by bringing all this up. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right, Dad. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. Just…let’s not do it again for a while, okay?”

“Right.” I moved toward the door to leave, and then stopped. “I just wanted to ask…if it’s possible, if there’s anything I can do to make amends…”

“Make amends?” She looked incredulous. “I don’t know. Just be more considerate, will you?”

And that what I’m trying to do.

At the government station there was indeed paper from forty years ago, what the Europeans called “assessment reports,” and Moseby’s presence was sufficient to grant them access. They were written in the European language, which Jijingi couldn’t read, but they included diagrams of the ancestry of the various clans, and he could identify the Tiv names in those diagrams easily enough, and Moseby had confirmed that his interpretation was correct. The elders in the western farms were right, and Sabe was wrong: Shangev was not Kwande’s son, he was Jechira’s.

One of the men at the government station had agreed to type up a copy of the relevant page so Jijingi could take it with him. Moseby decided to stay in Katsina-Ala to visit with the missionaries there, but Jijingi came home right away. He felt like an impatient child on the return trip, wishing he could ride the truck all the way back instead of having to walk from the motor road. As soon as he had arrived at the village, Jijingi looked for Sabe.

He found him on the path leading to a neighboring farm; some neighbors had stopped Sabe to have him settle a dispute over how a nanny goat’s kids should be distributed. Finally, they were satisfied, and Sabe resumed his walk. Jijingi walked beside him.

“Welcome back,” said Sabe.

“Sabe, I’ve been to Katsina-Ala.”

“Ah. Why did you go there?”

Jijingi showed him the paper. “This was written long ago, when the Europeans first came here. They spoke to the elders of the Shangev clan then, and when the elders told them the history of the Shangev clan, they said that Shangev was the son of Jechira.”

Sabe’s reaction was mild. “Whom did the Europeans ask?”

Jijingi looked at the paper. “Batur and Iorkyaha.”

“I remember them,” he said, nodding. “They were wise men. They would not have said such a thing.”

Jijingi pointed at the words on the page. “But they did!”

“Perhaps you are reading it wrong.”

“I am not! I know how to read.”

Sabe shrugged. “Why did you bring this paper back here?”

“What it says is important. It means we should rightfully be joined with the Jechira clan.”

“You think the clan should trust your decision on this matter?”

“I’m not asking the clan to trust me. I’m asking them to trust the men who were elders when you were young.”

“And so they should. But those men aren’t here. All you have is paper.”

“The paper tells us what they would say if they were here.”

“Does it? A man doesn’t speak only one thing. If Batur and Iorkyaha were here, they would agree with me that we should join with the Kwande clan.”

“How could they, when Shangev was the son of Jechira?” He pointed at the sheet of paper. “The Jechira are our closer kin.”

Sabe stopped walking and turned to face Jijingi. “Questions of kinship cannot be resolved by paper. You’re a scribe because Maisho of the Kwande clan warned me about the boys from the mission school. Maisho wouldn’t have looked out for us if we didn’t share the same father. Your position is proof of how close our clans are, but you forget that. You look to paper to tell you what you should already know, here.” Sabe tapped him on his chest. “Have you studied paper so much that you’ve forgotten what it is to be Tiv?”

Jijingi opened his mouth to protest when he realized that Sabe was right. All the time he’d spent studying writing had made him think like a European. He had come to trust what was written on paper over what was said by people, and that wasn’t the Tiv way.

The assessment report of the Europeans was vough; it was exact and precise, but that wasn’t enough to settle the question. The choice of which clan to join with had to be right for the community; it had to be mimi. Only the elders could determine what was mimi; it was their responsibility to decide what was best for the Shangev clan. Asking Sabe to defer to the paper was asking him to act against what he considered right.

“You’re right, Sabe,” he said. “Forgive me. You’re my elder, and it was wrong of me to suggest that paper could know more than you.”

Sabe nodded and resumed walking. “You are free to do as you wish, but I believe it will do more harm than good to show that paper to others.”

Jijingi considered it. The elders from the western farms would undoubtedly argue that the assessment report supported their position, prolonging a debate that had already gone too long. But more than that, it would move the Tiv down the path of regarding paper as the source of truth; it would be another stream in which the old ways were washing away, and he could see no benefit in it.

“I agree,” said Jijingi. “I won’t show this to anyone else.”

Sabe nodded.

Jijingi walked back to his hut, reflecting on what had happened. Even without attending a mission school, he had begun thinking like a European; his practice of writing in his notebooks had led him to disrespect his elders without him even being aware of it. Writing helped him think more clearly, he couldn’t deny that; but that wasn’t good enough reason to trust paper over people.

As a scribe, he had to keep the book of Sabe’s decisions in tribal court. But he didn’t need to keep the other notebooks, the ones in which he’d written down his thoughts. He would use them as tinder for the cooking fire.

We don’t normally think of it as such, but writing is a technology, which means that a literate person is someone whose thought processes are technologically mediated. We became cognitive cyborgs as soon as we became fluent readers, and the consequences of that were profound.

Before a culture adopts the use of writing, when its knowledge is transmitted exclusively through oral means, it can very easily revise its history. It’s not intentional, but it is inevitable; throughout the world, bards and griots have adapted their material to their audiences, and thus gradually adjusted the past to suit the needs of the present. The idea that accounts of the past shouldn’t change is a product of literate cultures’ reverence for the written word. Anthropologists will tell you that oral cultures understand the past differently; for them, their histories don’t need to be accurate so much as they need to validate the community’s understanding of itself. So it wouldn’t be correct to say that their histories are unreliable; their histories do what they need to do.

Right now each of us is a private oral culture. We rewrite our pasts to suit our needs and support the story we tell about ourselves. With our memories we are all guilty of a Whig interpretation of our personal histories, seeing our former selves as steps toward our glorious present selves.

But that era is coming to an end. Remem is merely the first of a new generation of memory prostheses, and as these products gain widespread adoption, we will be replacing our malleable organic memories with perfect digital archives. We will have a record of what we actually did instead of stories that evolve over repeated tellings. Within our minds, each of us will be transformed from an oral culture into a literate one.

It would be easy for me to assert that literate cultures are better off than oral ones, but my bias should be obvious, since I’m writing these words rather than speaking them to you. Instead I will say that it’s easier for me to appreciate the benefits of literacy and harder to recognize everything it has cost us. Literacy encourages a culture to place more value on documentation and less on subjective experience, and overall I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Written records are subject to every kind of error and their interpretation is subject to change, but at least the words on the page remain fixed, and there is real merit in that.

When it comes to our individual memories, I live on the opposite side of the divide. As someone whose identity was built on organic memory, I’m threatened by the prospect of removing subjectivity from our recall of events. I used to think it could be valuable for individuals to tell stories about themselves, valuable in a way that it couldn’t be for cultures, but I’m a product of my time, and times change. We can’t prevent the adoption of digital memory any more than oral cultures could stop the arrival of literacy, so the best I can do is look for something positive in it.

And I think I’ve found the real benefit of digital memory. The point is not to prove you were right; the point is to admit you were wrong.

Because all of us have been wrong on various occasions, engaged in cruelty and hypocrisy, and we’ve forgotten most of those occasions. And that means we don’t really know ourselves. How much personal insight can I claim if I can’t trust my memory? How much can you? You’re probably thinking that, while your memory isn’t perfect, you’ve never engaged in revisionism of the magnitude I’m guilty of. But I was just as certain as you, and I was wrong. You may say, “I know I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes.” I am here to tell you that you have made more than you think, that some of the core assumptions on which your self-image is built are actually lies. Spend some time using Remem, and you’ll find out.

But the reason I now recommend Remem is not for the shameful reminders it provides of your past; it’s to avoid the need for those in the future. Organic memory was what enabled me to construct a whitewashed narrative of my parenting skills, but by using digital memory from now on, I hope to keep that from happening. The truth about my behavior won’t be presented to me by someone else, making me defensive; it won’t even be something I’ll discover as a private shock, prompting a reevaluation. With Remem providing only the unvarnished facts, my image of myself will never stray too far from the truth in the first place.

Digital memory will not stop us from telling stories about ourselves. As I said earlier, we are made of stories, and nothing can change that. What digital memory will do is change those stories from fabulations that emphasize our best acts and elide our worst, into ones that—I hope—acknowledge our fallibility and make us less judgmental about the fallibility of others.

Nicole has begun using Remem as well, and discovered that her recollection of events isn’t perfect either. This hasn’t made her forgive me for the way I treated her—nor should it, because her misdeeds were minor compared to mine—but it has softened her anger at my misremembering my actions, because she realizes it’s something we all do. And I’m embarrassed to admit that this is precisely the scenario Erica Meyers predicted when she talked about Remem’s effects on relationships.

This doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about the downsides of digital memory; there are many, and people need to be aware of them. I just don’t think I can argue the case with any sort of objectivity anymore. I abandoned the article I was planning to write about memory prostheses; I handed off the research I’d done to a colleague, and she wrote a fine piece about the pros and cons of the software, a dispassionate article free from all the soul-searching and angst that would have saturated anything I submitted. Instead, I’ve written this.

The account I’ve given of the Tiv is based in fact, but isn’t precisely accurate. There was indeed a dispute among the Tiv in 1941 over whom the Shangev clan should join with, based on differing claims about the parentage of the clan’s founder, and administrative records did show that the clan elders’ account of their genealogy had changed over time. But many of the specific details I’ve described are invented. The actual events were more complicated and less dramatic, as actual events always are, so I have taken liberties to make a better narrative. I’ve told a story in order to make a case for the truth. I recognize the contradiction here.

As for my account of my argument with Nicole, I’ve tried to make it as accurate as I possibly could. I’ve been recording everything since I started working on this project, and I’ve consulted the recordings repeatedly when writing this. But in my choice of which details to include and which to omit, perhaps I have just constructed another story. In spite of my efforts to be unflinching, have I flattered myself with this portrayal? Have I distorted events so they more closely follow the arc expected of a confessional narrative? The only way you can judge is by comparing my account against the recordings themselves, so I’m doing something I never thought I’d do: with Nicole’s permission, I am granting public access to my lifelog, such as it is. Take a look at the video, and decide for yourself.

And if you think I’ve been less than honest, tell me. I want to know.

[franswiss]

Teju Cole - Memories of Thing Unseen

[THIS ARTICLE/ESSAY HAS ORIGINALLY BEEN PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES WEBSITE - ON PHOTOGRAPHY]

Link here https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/memories-of-things-unseen.html

A few weeks ago, at an exhibition at the FotoMuseum in Antwerp, Belgium, I walked past a large color photograph of a forest. It was an exhibition about landscape in general, organized to give the visitor the feeling of a hike through mountainous terrain. The photograph of the forest was near the entrance of the exhibition, and I had walked past it without stopping because it seemed to be simply another big photo, of which there are so many in museums these days. But after going through the exhibition, I decided to double back. This time around, I took a good look at the large photograph, which was more than 16 feet wide, and found that there was more to it than size. The leaves were odd, simplified. I read the caption. What the photograph (titled ‘‘Clearing’’) showed was not a forest, but a model of a forest. The German artist Thomas Demand had constructed this model from paper and set it in a steel frame 50 feet wide. Two hundred and seventy thousand leaves had been individually cut. The model was illuminated by a powerful lamp, to mimic shafts of sunlight falling through the trees.

The immense labor involved in creating ‘‘Clearing’’ was part of what made it now interesting to me. But more eerie was the knowledge that Demand had destroyed the model. All that remained was the photo. It was orphaned from its source, and that source would be remembered by only this one angle, this single point of view, under precisely these lighting conditions. The photograph gave us a memory of something we had never seen. Demand had done this intentionally, but ‘‘Clearing’’ reminded me of other photographs that were inadvertent records of artworks subsequently lost to war or fire. This was the fate, for instance, of Vincent van Gogh’s ‘‘The Painter on the Road to Tarascon’’ (1888), which was believed to have been lost to Allied attacks on Magdeburg in 1945, late in the Second World War, and Gustave Courbet’s ‘‘The Stone Breakers’’ (1849), which was incinerated during the firebombing of Dresden the same year. Each now exists only as a photograph.

Photography is inescapably a memorial art. It selects, out of the flow of time, a moment to be preserved, with the moments before and after falling away like sheer cliffs. At a dinner party earlier this year, I was in conversation with someone who asked me to define photography. I suggested that it is about retention: not only the ability to make an image directly out of the interaction between light and the tangible world, but also the possibility of saving that image. A shadow thrown onto a wall is not photography. But if the wall is photo­sensitive and the shadow remains after the body has moved on, that is photography. Human creativity, since the beginning of art, has found ways to double the visible world. What photography did was to give the world a way to double its own appearance: The photograph results directly from what is, from the light that travels from a body through an aperture onto a surface.

But when the photograph outlives the body — when people die, scenes change, trees grow or are chopped down — it becomes a memorial. And when the thing photographed is a work of art or architecture that has been destroyed, this effect is amplified even further. A painting, sculpture or temple, as a record of both human skill and emotion, is already a site of memory; when its only remaining trace is a photograph, that photograph becomes a memorial to a memory. Such a photograph is shadowed by its vanished ancestor.

I visited the Metropolitan Museum in early August this year, at a time when the destruction of artifacts in Iraq and Syria was prominent in the news, to look at the museum’s collection of works from the ancient Middle East. Next to a selection of second-and-third-century Syrian gravestones (many of them fresh with the pain of loss and inscribed with the names of the dead and the word ‘‘Alas!’’), there was an old photograph reproduced from a book of the Temple of Bel, an important archaeological complex in Palmyra. About a week later, the iconoclastic fanatics of ISIS blew up this very temple. The photograph was unchanged; it was still there on the wall of Room 406 at the Met, but it was now filled up with the loss of what it depicted. The Roman-era columns of the temple still stand in rows in the grainy image — ravaged by time, but standing. In life, they’re gone.

The Institute for Digital Archaeology, a joint project of Harvard and Oxford Universities, uses sophisticated imaging techniques to aid conservation, epigraphy, archaeology and art history. One of the institute’s current efforts, the Million Image Database Project, involves photographing artifacts that are at risk of being destroyed for military or religious reasons, a bleak necessity in a world in which the beauty or importance of an object does not guarantee its safety. The goal of the project is to distribute up to 5,000 modified cameras, to professionals and to amateurs, and use them to capture a million 3-D images by the end of 2015. Already, more than a thousand cameras have been distributed, and the 3-D data from them are being received (though the directors of the project, to protect their associates on the ground, are leaving a lag of several months before they make the images publicly available). In the event of some of the objects being destroyed, the detailed visual record could be enough to facilitate a reconstruction. Photography is used to ward off total oblivion, the way that the photographs of Courbet’s ‘‘The Stone Breakers’’ and van Gogh’s ‘‘The Painter on the Road to Tarascon’’ accidentally made the lost paintings visible to future generations.

But memory has a menacing side. Our own appearances and faces are now stored and saved in hundreds, thousands, of photographs: photographs made by ourselves, photographs made by others. Our faces are becoming not only unforgettable but inescapable. There is so much documentation of each life, each scene and event, that the effect of this incessant visual notation becomes difficult to distinguish from surveillance. And in fact, much of the intent behind the collection of these images is indeed surveillance: The government retains our images in order to fight terrorism, and corporations harvest everything they can about us in order to sell us things.

Little wonder, then, that many people would like to be less visible or wish their visibility to be impermanent or impossible to archive. At the dinner party where I had been asked to define photography, I asked my interlocutor if Snapchat, the photo-sharing app that causes sent images to disappear after a set number of seconds, would technically be considered photography. The conclusion we jointly reached was that it certainly would: What was important was the possibility of retention, not actual retention itself. A technology that simply did not have the ability to save the images it was transmitting would be more revolutionary.

I sent a friend a photograph of my face on Snapchat. She sent me one of hers. I sent a photo of my hotel room, its furniture barely visible in the gloom. She sent me one of her hallway, with its piles of brightly colored shoes. We sent a few texts. Over a poor network connection, we video-chatted for about a minute, discussing Demand’s ‘‘Clearing.’’ Afterward, the photographs, texts and video were gone, leaving no evidence of who had done what, as in a meticulously executed heist. I am more familiar with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, where long-finished interactions can be retraced and relived, and the voiding of the record on Snapchat was startling. But it was also a relief. Our real selves remained, but the photographs were no longer there, and something about this felt like a sequence more preferable to the other way around, where the image lives on and the model is irretrievable.

But just as nothing can be permanently retained, nothing is ever really gone. Somewhere out there, perhaps in the cloud or in some clandestine server, is the optical afterimage of our interaction: the faces, the shoes, the texts. In these all-seeing days, the traffic between memory and forgetting becomes untrackable. Photography is at the nerve center of our paradoxical memorial impulses: We need it there for how it helps us frame our losses, but we can also sense it crowding in on ongoing experience, imposing closure on what should still be open.

Teju Cole is a photographer, an essayist and the author of two works of fiction, “Open City” and “Every Day Is for the Thief.” He teaches at Bard College, and is the magazine's photography critic.