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marvellouspinecone · 2 years

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8, 13 and/or 22 for the goncharov ask, please? Hope you are having a great day!

Thank you for the ask! Any excuse to talk about blorbos

8) A quote from the movie I use on the daily

I have to admit I didn't know the film existed until yesterday when it started trending, idk how it managed to escape me, maybe bacause I'm not American? So I haven't had a chance to abuse any of the quotes. "Do you hear the clock ticking?" would've been an easy answer, but I think Mario's "God is looking away, anything can happen" has great meme potential, only in the way that the jokes based on tragic moments in media are the funniest (that dw post with Rose from Doomsday photoshopped into a picture of a vending machine? Still cracks me up as much as the actual scene makes me cry).

13) My favourite ship

Not to sound basic or anything, but it's Katya/Sofia, any day. Maybe I'm just gay, but no one does it like them. The codependency? The loneliness and isolation that they are in together? The childhood friends to strangers to enemies to maybe lovers thing they got going on? Impeccable. Honestly the fact that they found each other again, in Naples of all places, so far from the town they both grew up in, seems more like fate that anything that Katya and Goncharov have. I just wish we could see more of them than the seventies dudebro mafia thriller was willing to show us. We could've had it all if Scorsese and Mateo JWHJ0715 weren't cowards.

And here I absolutely have to address the religious themes. I don't even think that the creators understood the implication, it's not like 1970's Americans knew a lot about life in Soviet Russia, but we have to understand that both Katya and Sofia have most likely spent their formative years in a very anti-religious culture (hell, Goncharov himself makes a mistake of talking dismissively about faith in a deeply catholic country). And who Katya gives her dead father's Saint Nickolai locket to? Sofia. She is willing to part with the thing that protects her to keep Sofia safe. It might've been played in the film as not that big of a deal, but the implications! I'm going to combust!

22) My favourite Goncharov reference in unrelated media

This question is definitely the hardest because I am not much of a film connoisseur, I only watched Goncharov bc everyone was talking about it. I guess taking another JWHJ0715's work is cheating, since it's not entirely unrelated, but it's the best I got.

JWHJ0715's written the screenplay for a movie "Back At Last" that we studied at uni at some point as a part of a post-modernism course. The set up is different to Goncharov, but the themes are pretty similar, it's obvious that he has been drawing inspiration from his older work more than a decade later. So in this one in the big climactic scene in the end the main character says to her husband "Spring comes to Florence", with Florence being the hometown of both of them. I didn't realize it at the moment, but this most definitely was a "Goncharov" callback, but with an insight of the older Mateo, and the movie really reflects that change. I just think it's sweet that the implicit message here is that after winter there is always spring. "Goncharov" might have reflected Mateo's more pessimistic outlook on life, but in twelve years he is able to look back and say "it does get better, you can come back home again", which, knowing his life story, makes me cry a little bit. Idk, I may be looking too deeply into it, as I tend to do, but oh well, that's what makes engaging with media fun!

#goncharov #unreality #thank you for the ask again #i haven't had the chance to flex my bullshitting muscles in a while now #i absolutely did take it too far i hope it's still realistic #but it's so fun!

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cybermoonmoon · 2 years

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“...A Parallel Earth”

We live in a multiverse. Our earth in one of an infinity of them. I like writing stories about such. On some we never evolved or there are Neanderthal interstellar societies. Others are as dead the moon. Airless open to the void. This one has a baseline of Kennedy not being successfully assassinated. He lived into the early 1990's.

Our historic divergence from each other. From ours to the Kennedy lives world was in the mid-1800's. A seriously failed U.S. Civil War Reconstruction. More complete genocide of the Natives Peoples. A longer Great Depression. WW2 started earlier. The United Kingdom is not a friendly power. A different Royal line with a hostile Emperor. Our histories tho' close have important differences.

Once upon a world:

In the other world's WW2 Germany in early 1945 made the components for one functional atomic bomb. However, didn't use it. The Russians overran its construction site before it could be moved. The Russians based on German work were making their own bombs by mid-1947.

In the Kennedy history as ours two American A-Bombs were dropped. But theirs on uninhabited islands in the south pacific for Japanese observers. The second demonstration bomb failed to detonate. However, the Japanese delegation got the message. The Pacific war had a negotiated end in late 1944.

In the Kennedy history Peter Best stayed in the Beatles. Ringo died of Polio as a child. George was never born his father having been killed in WW2. Two other artists unknown on our world filled those places. The Beatles had limited fame. They disbanded in 1966.

The Edsel was a success. It is still being built by the other world's Ford. Newfoundland is a U.S. state. It nearly became one on our world in the late 1940's. India is three different nations. Australia/New Zealand is one country and has been a republic since 1994.

There was never large scale black and white TV broadcasts in the U.S. Color was mandated by the FCC as the norm in 1952. The first internet message was sent in 1964. The first with color images and video in 1982. A decade before we did. DVDs came early as well. This in the mid 1970's along with CD's, and cheap cell phones. There are six international space stations.

What in our world is North Dakota in theirs is 'Jubilee'. A state given to freed Slaves. This was nearly done in our history. Jubilee was gradually taken from them in the 1890's when gold was found. This led to the great migrations of Blacks to the Northern industrial cities. Which caused a violent clash with new European immigrants. This caused the same problems as in our history just much worse.

The Civil Rights Act which ended legal segregation and returned a small portion of Jubilee came sooner than ours in the Kennedy timeline. May 1962. There was a failed assassination attempt because of it on JFK a month later.

There was no prolonged Vietnam war beyond a short period of military advisors. These were recalled in 1964. However, there was a three-year U.S./Soviet proxy war in Iran. The country was divided between east and west in 1970. That nation was re-unified in 2012.

The Equal Rights Amendment for Women was passed in 1976.Limited federal gay rights in 1979. Though both constantly challenged by religious groups. The Cold War ended in 1982 with the NATO Warsaw Pact conventional 'Phony War'. After an accidental near detonation of an American tactical warhead at its forward base. A mutual battlefield pull back set in motion peace negotiations. Their world still has a Soviet Union tho' a more liberalized and stable one.

There was a major flu pandemic in Mexico in 1996. This an earlier mirror of our COVID. The Rio Grande Flu took more than half a million lives there, and in parts of the U.S. Southwest. This both brought the U.S. and Mexico closer together and butterflied away the Cocaine Cowboy Cartels.

There was race tinged sentiment to build a US/Mexican wall to prevent another cross border pandemic. This was refused by the federal government as an irrational response to an international tragedy.

The American Mars Juno mission failed with the loss of its crew of 8 in 1989. An International flotilla of ships returned in 2009. This exactly 20 years after the failed U.S. mission. They successfully established bases at the equator, and south pole of Mars. In 2014 a memorial to the American Juno crew was built at the Martian equatorial base.

A former businessman named Trump is currently doing life in Angola prison. This for fraud jury tampering multiple statutory rapes and being part of a mob conspiracy to murder federal judges. All this and selling classified documents to a foreign hostile power.

In 2021 a signal from a star 28 light years away was received by Chinese radio telescopes. This was later confirmed by other nations. It was basic mathematical equations plus compress data streams. Radio telescopes on our world are now also listening to that frequency. So far...silence.

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eretzyisrael · 3 years

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What We Can Do About It

Last week I explained How They Did It, how the enemies of Israel – the Arabs, the Soviets, the international Left, and others – turned much of the West against us. What can we do about it?

I concentrated on the ‘softer’ aspects of cognitive warfare, such as the infiltration of higher education and international organizations like NGOs and UN agencies, corporations, the use of social media, the exploitation of minorities with grievances, and the support of public antisemites (e.g., Ilhan Omar). But we should keep in mind that more kinetic actions can also have primarily cognitive objectives. The PLO’s European terrorism during the 1970s paved the way for its conversion from a gang of despicable terrorists into a member of the UN, and for murderer and thief Yasser Arafat to become a “statesman.” The 9/11 attacks against the US changed the media portrayal of its Arab and Muslim citizens from “billionaires, bombers, and belly dancers” to hardworking citizens who are targets for islamophobic hatred (this is not the case with Jews, despite the fact that Jews are far more likely to be the victims of hate crimes today).

Terrorism works on various levels, but on the deepest, visceral one it creates paralyzing fear, which the mind – still subconsciously – tries to rationalize away by distancing itself from the victims and identifying with the terrorists. “Don’t kill me, I am on your side!” the terrorized mind shouts. “I’m one of the good ones!” (e.g, a “Jew for Palestine”).

The counterattack has to be planned, coordinated, and specifically targeted in all of the arenas, soft and hard, in which cognitive war is being waged against us. This is something the State of Israel has never come close to doing. Our efforts at public diplomacy have often been most charitably described as a bad joke, like the campaign to advertise Israel as a destination for gay tourism(“Come to Israel! We have nice beaches and we won’t hang you!”) At best we are reactive, responding to vicious accusations of war crimes, apartheid, and other depravities, usually long after the damage has been done. And we often ignore the cognitive implications of our actions, or the lack thereof.

It won’t be easy. Organized support for anti-Israel organizations (including those connected with terrorism) has been going on for decades, with millions of dollars annually flowing from sources like the George Soros organizationsand the European Union. Social media, especially, is constantly changing and new battlefields appear almost daily. Everywhere you look (e.g., Wikipedia) there is anti-Israel bias. And for every pro-Israel activist there are ten, or a hundred, attacking us.

An effective cognitive counterattack must have two parts: how we speak to the world, and – most important – how we act. Let me take the second part first.

There are basic human instincts that precede the ideas expressed in the UN charter by hundreds of thousands of years. Our actions must affect those instincts in a way that will cause others to respect us, and our enemies to fear us. I am not suggesting that we follow the example of the PLO and hijack planes in Europe, but our response to terrorism and threats from enemy countries (e.g., Iran) can be designed to have the appropriate effect. Humans are attracted to strength. They want to be on the side that’s stronger. They talk about the importance of moral and legal principles, but they bet on the winner. Our actions should radiate power and control, and even ruthlessness.

For example, no terrorist should survive his attack. Israeli security forces and the individuals involved have been sharply criticized, both by Israelis and others, for the “Bus 300 affair” in 1984, when two captured terrorists were executed in the field after interrogation. My contention is that this action sent exactly the right message, both to our enemies – “don’t try this or you will die” – and to the rest of the world – “Israel does not tolerate terrorism against her citizens.”

Our pusillanimous responses to Hamas, which has on numerous occasions killed Israelis and which today holds two Israeli citizens and the bodies of two soldiers hostage, is supposed to be justified for practical reasons, but is a total failure from the standpoint of cognitive warfare. When Israel bombs an unoccupied Hamas installation after arson balloons or even rockets from Gaza have burned crops or damaged buildings, the message that is sent is that we are too weak to protect ourselves. When our citizens are held captive while we supply electricity and water to the Gaza Strip, the message is that Hamas is in control, not Israel. I understand the limitations of our power, as viewed by the IDF, but I believe that they are not weighing the cognitive aspects of the question heavily enough.

Recently, the IDF demolished the home of a terrorist murderer, a citizen of the PA who was also an American citizen, despite a request from the US State Department to desist. This was the correct action from the cognitive point of view, sending the message that Israel is a sovereign state which controls Judea/Samaria, and which does not tolerate terrorism. On the other hand, the continued presence of the illegal Bedouin settlement of Khan al-Ahmar as a result of pressure from the EU and the UN tells the world that Israel does not control the land.

Our greatest enemy is Iran, whose regime has explicitly threatened to destroy us on numerous occasions and is developing nuclear weapons. There are obviously multiple considerations that play into choosing the best response, from a pre-emptive strike on her nuclear installations to a continuation of the campaign of sabotage that Israel has been waging for the last few years. Cognitively, the best approach is the one that publicly demonstrates that Israel has the power to destroy the installations, regardless of the distance or their fortification. This could be a massive aerial attack, or it could be covert action that is made public after the fact. The worst case is that we refrain from taking action because of pressure from the US.

In the soft realm, one priority is to put an end to Israel’s self-imposed cognitive failures. There is no reason that Israelis should be allowed to act as paid agents of the EU or the international Left, as is the case with B’Tselem and numerous other anti-state organizatons. There is a weakly enforced law that requires Israeli NGOs that receive half of their funding from foreign governments to report that, on penalty of a relatively small fine; and even that was opposed by the Left and the Arab parties in the Knesset. It is absurd that these groups should be allowed to operate in Israel. All foreign funding – private or governmental – for political NGOs should be forbidden, period. Representatives of foreign NGOs hostile to Israel should not be allowed into the country.

Speaking of Arab parties, there is a Basic Law that says that in order to run for election to the Knesset, a candidate or list must not “[negate] the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” This law is interpreted loosely by the Supreme Court, so that Arabs who do precisely that can sit in the Knesset. That must end.

Israel has military censorship, which sometimes makes us look foolish when foreign publications are revealing details that Israelis are not allowed to read or hear from their own media, but at the same time, the Ha’aretz newspaper is allowed to attack the state, day in and day out, often using material from the foreign-funded NGOs. Foreign propaganda outlets make good use of it, saying “even Israelis admit…” This is unacceptable; it borders on treason, and it must stop.

There is a place for traditional hasbara, explanation, or presentation of the news from the viewpoint of the state. I am not sure why everyone is entitled to an opinion and a platform from which to broadcast it, while the state is not. Why not a government TV/radio/Internet news outlet, staffed with professionals who could respond immediately and accurately to false accusations? Doing this properly, so that it would be both authoritative and not boring, would be expensive and require high quality personnel that would not be easy to find; but it is worth doing.

Much of what I have suggested will be criticized because “it violates human rights” or it is “antidemocratic,” or similar things. I don’t disagree. But the idea that Israel has to be a paragon of human rights and democracy is wrong. It is an expression of the antisemitic idea that Jews must always be held to the highest of standards – indeed, to a standard that is continually raised so as to always be out of reach. Israel is not a Platonic ideal state; it is not even the United States. It is a tiny nation with no strategic depth that is surrounded by enemies who themselves violate every standard of civilized behavior. National survival is more important than human rights – especially when those defining the concept of human rights are indifferent (or worse) to our survival.

Abu Yehuda

#Information War #media #terrorism #war

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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No, Ivan chides himself. Don’t be ridiculous. Fedya already hated the lighthouse; you think he would ever want to spend the rest of his existence trapped in the frozen wastes of nowhere? You still don’t even know which country this is. He wants a city and the comforts that he’s used to, you would have to give him that. Besides, when you get to civilization and he’s not utterly dependent on you to keep him alive, he will say thank you, give you a handshake, and vanish into the crowd. He said that he would kill anyone who hurt you – but would he? Would he? You are too old, Ivan Ivanovich. Too grumpy, too used, too tired. He couldn’t. He deserves better, and as soon as he has literally anyone else to compare you to, he will see that at once.

we need to talk about this passage from ch. 12 of lighthouse au. for many reasons. one of which is the fact that if fedyor knew ivan was thinking this, he’d probably pull out his own hair and eat it. And while i dont see fedyor as someone who particularly craves solitude in the way ivan does — lol obviously the fete scene — Fedyor does have this other layer in lighthouse au where he just seems so exhausted. and we kinda talk about this with ivan (or we at least joke about it lol), but fedyor is so emotionally and physically exhausted — not just from the past few days, but for years. and now he’s finally met this man who loves to listen to his voice and his thoughts and who makes him feel so safe and loved for who he is and i think fedyor would love nothing more than to just be left the fuck alone with Ivan.

I dont think Fedyor would necessarily love being in that much solitude forever (lol and his thoughts on surviving in nature in ch.13 are iconic), but if he could be assured that Ivan and him get to be safe, left alone, and finally get to just be together and enjoy their little domestic bubble where they can spend the nights laughing and loving each other — yea, Fedyor would pick that a thousand times over.

and of course. ivan. ivanovich. that motherfucker. doesnt realize this.

Lmao, well, we can all agree that literally EVERYTHING Ivan thought in that entire passage was wrong, bless his dumbass heart. (To his credit, he did kinda realize it was bad brain voice talking and try to shut it up, but still.) You're absolutely right that lighthouse Fedyor is deeply, deeply exhausted from having to survive in the 1970s/80s USSR as a gay left-wing academic, when none of those things are welcome, supported, or allowed to be visible. He's been living a double life even more than most Soviet citizens, he comes from a respectable family with good connections so he's had a little leeway before, but now he doesn't, and it's just... exhausting. He's spent five years trying to think how the hell he's going to get out of here, he trashed it for Ivan (which he doesn't regret, but it has indisputably gotten them into a lot of trouble) and now he's stuck on a horrible wilderness adventure all on his lonesome. Poor man. He would LOVE some time to just be alone with Ivan and to feel safe and to recuperate from all their misadventures. Not forever, but... a while.

But yes, alas, Ivan Ivanovich That Motherfucker does not realize this, and is still mostly convinced that as soon as they get to civilization and Fedyor doesn't need him any more, he will cut his losses and get out of there. Now they're separated, and don't know where the other is or what they're doing, and You Know Who has made his dramatic garbage ho arrival on Ivan's end. So. Welp.

#anonymous #ask #lighthouse au

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pop-punklouis · 3 years

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Hello Hope! Can you recommend some tv shows? Your favs or must see or your recently seen

hi bb! of course!

• Dark (2017-2020)

A missing child sets four families on a frantic hunt for answers as they unearth a mind-bending mystery that spans three generations. (** the best depiction of time travel i’ve ever seen also one of the best shows i’ve ever seen)

• Mr. Robot (2015-2019

Elliot, a brilliant but highly unstable young cyber-security engineer and vigilante hacker, becomes a key figure in a complex game of global dominance when he and his shadowy allies try to take down the corrupt corporation he works for. (** one of the best shows i’ve ever seen)

• True Detective (Season 1)

Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson play detectives determined to solve a macabre 1995 murder (** the best season of a television show i’ve ever seen. watched it at least four times. the best performances from McConaughey and Harrelson you’ll ever see. The symbolism in the last few episodes are jaw-dropping)

• Mindhunter (2017-2019)

Set in the late 1970s, two FBI agents are tasked with interviewing serial killers to solve open cases. (last season really focuses on how corrupt the police system is).

• Russian Doll (2019)

A cynical young woman in New York City keeps dying and returning to the party that's being thrown in her honor on that same evening. She tries to find a way out of this strange time loop.

• Broad City (2014-2019)

Called "sneak attack feminism" by the Wall Street Journal, the series follows two friends in New York City navigating their way though the minutiae that is life.

• Sharp Objects (2018)

Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Gillian Flynn, Sharp Objects stars Amy Adams as reporter Camille Preaker, who returns to her small hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. Trying to put together a psychological puzzle from her past, she finds herself identifying with the young victims a bit too closely.

• Trinkets (2019-2020)

An unexpected friendship forms when three teenage girls meet in Shoplifters Anonymous.

• Seinfeld (1989-1998)

The continuing misadventures of neurotic New York City stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld and his equally neurotic New York City friends. (** my favorite show of all time)

• Twin Peaks (1990-1991)

An idiosyncratic FBI agent investigates the murder of a young woman in the even more idiosyncratic town of Twin Peaks.

• Parfum (2018)

When a singer is found murdered, with her scent glands excised from her body, detectives probe a group of friends who attended boarding school with her.

• The Chalet (2017)

A reunion of childhood friends at a remote chalet in the French Alps soon turns into a desperate struggle for survival as they get cut off from rest of the world and a shocking dark secret from the past surfaces.

• Westworld (2016—)

Set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past, explore a world in which every human appetite can be indulged without consequence.

Living with Yourself (2019)

An existential comedy about a man struggling in life who undergoes a new treatment to become a better person, only to find that he's been replaced by a new and improved version of himself.

• Skam— Norway (2015-2017)

The story of young teenagers and pupils on Hartvig Nissens upper secondary school in Oslo, and their troubles, scandals and everyday life. Each season is told from a different person's point of view. (**have also seen this series multiple times)

• The Vow (2020)

A look at the experiences of the members of the NXIVM, an organization and sex cult who made headlines for being charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.

• Love, Victor (2020—)

Victor is a new student at Creekwood High School on his own journey of self-discovery, facing challenges at home, adjusting to a new city, and struggling with his sexual orientation.

• The Outsider (2020)

Adaptation of Stephen King's novel about the investigation of the gruesome murder of a boy in the Georgia woods and the mysterious force surrounding the case.

• Queer Eye (2018—)

• Sex Education (2019—)

A teenage boy with a sex therapist mother teams up with a high school classmate to set up an underground sex therapy clinic at school.

• Schitts Creek (2015-2020)

When rich video-store magnate Johnny Rose and his family suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup in Schitt's Creek.

• The Expanse (2015—)

In the 24th century, a disparate band of antiheroes unravel a vast conspiracy that threatens the Solar System's fragile state of cold war.

• Vikings (2013—)

Vikings transports us to the brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar Lothbrok, a Viking warrior and farmer who yearns to explore - and raid - the distant shores across the ocean.

• Chernobyl (2019)

In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics becomes one of the world's worst man-made catastrophes

• Sense8 (2015-2018)

A group of people around the world are suddenly linked mentally, and must find a way to survive being hunted by those who see them as a threat to the world's order.

• Derry Girls (2018—)

The personal exploits of a 16-year-old girl and her family and friends during the Troubles in the early 1990s.

• The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo (2016)

A wonderous story of the complexities of relationships, friendly and romantic. Blurring the lines of expected troupes through random comedy and a realistic, interconnected interaction

• Special (2019—)

A young gay man with cerebral palsy branches out from his insular existence in hopes of finally going after the life he wants.

#that’s so many shfjfk #i could go on but here’s the gist rip #tv recs

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passionate-reply · 3 years

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Great Albums is back! This week, we’ll take a look at one of the greatest electronic albums of all time, Kraftwerk’s The Man-Machine, and try to avoid getting sued by Ralf Huetter! Full transcript for the video can be found below the break. Enjoy!

Growing up, my main genre of choice was 80s synth-pop, and while the deep influence of Kraftwerk is as significant there as it is everywhere else in electronic music, I was one of those people who initially saw them as somewhat "intimidating." Today, moreso than ever, Kraftwerk are held up as one of those more high-brow or cerebral groups with a philosophy that transcends mere pop or dance music, which makes them seem respectable, a kind of “model minority” in the world of music outside rock. While I don’t buy into the judgmental quality of that sort of praise, which damns so many of Kraftwerk’s greatest fans and imitators, I did get the sense, as a child, that these hoity-toity Germans, working with primitive equipment way back in the 1970s, might not be what I was looking for in a new favourite band. That was before I heard The Man-Machine.

While it’s certainly true that Kraftwerk were a highly experimental band in their own time, they’re one of those acts whose ideas have deeply permeated contemporary music, to the point where their actual work is extremely approachable and listenable to today’s ears. Of all the fairly early electronic acts, who started making this kind of music before it began to become mainstream in the late 70s, Kraftwerk are almost certainly the ones people nowadays listen to for pleasure the most, and that’s no accident. While their earlier albums like Trans-Europe Express took more overt inspiration from classical music, The Man-Machine was their first great foray into the arena of pop, which I think is key to why it resonates with people. For evidence of that, look no further than the biggest mainstream hit of Kraftwerk’s career, “The Model.”

I think it’s easy to see why “The Model'' became a hit single. Sure, it may not have the most traditional pop song structure, let alone instrumentation, but unlike a lot of what Kraftwerk had done before, it’s got a lot of lyrics and a real sense of narrative. Plus, that narrative we get is about a person and not a machine--a good-looking person, in whom the narrator is sexually interested. It’s the perfect pop material. Of course, I would be remiss to mention that “The Model” didn’t achieve all of its success until the single was re-released in many markets in 1981, and in those few years, the idea of “synth-pop” advanced significantly in the charts and popular consciousness. By the time “The Model” was a hit, Kraftwerk admirers were already taking over: look no further than Gary Numan’s "Cars” or OMD’s "Enola Gay,” two synth-pop classics that, it must be said, are still about vehicles!

That aside, though, not everything on The Man-Machine sounds like “The Model”--in fact, it’s surrounded by tracks that have much more in common with Kraftwerk’s earlier LPs. Literally surrounded, in the track listing. I think that adds to this album’s appeal as an ideal entry point into their catalogue: it has some things that sound familiar, while also preparing you for what else you’ll encounter if you choose to probe deeper into the band. The Man-Machine has the least homogeneous profile of any Kraftwerk album. While most of their other classic albums are highly cohesive “song cycles” that almost blend into one long song when you listen to them in full, The Man-Machine doesn’t really have those repeated melodies and motifs that tie its tracks together. While many people, especially fans of psychedelic and progressive rock, really like those cohesive albums, I think this change is a welcome one. It gives the individual tracks a bit more room to breathe and express distinctive identities, and makes the album feel a bit more pop, even if the material itself isn’t always all that poppy. *The Man-Machine* actually only has six individual tracks; they range in length from the three-minute pop stylings of “The Model” to the urban sprawl of “Neon Lights,” which luxuriates in an almost nine-minute runtime.

Given that the average track length is around six minutes, I’m almost tempted to think of The Man-Machine as six tiny Kraftwerk albums, or at least, musical ideas that could have been expanded into full LPs in another universe. “Neon Lights” and “Spacelab” feel dreamy and easy-going, with floating melodies that draw from the “cosmic music” scene, one of the many emergent styles that began as something uniquely German and spread throughout the world--in this case, becoming an important forerunner to ambient electronic music through acts like Tangerine Dream. Meanwhile, the hard, tick-tocking rhythms of “Metropolis” and the title track point to the newfound focus on rhythm and the so-called motorik beat that made the music of Neu! so compelling.

The Man-Machine can serve not only as an introduction to Kraftwerk, but also as a sort of crash course in this entire period of electronic music, showcasing some of the most distinctive and influential features of the German scene, as well as the shape of synth-pop to come. It’s a complex and busy historical moment with huge ramifications for almost all of subsequent electronic music, and The Man-Machine really creates a microcosm of that whole environment. There’s also the fact that each side of the record has one track from each of my three broad groups, like an expertly-designed sushi platter or charcuterie board for us to sample from, and they both follow the same formula: a pop appetizer, a cosmic *entree,* and motorik for dessert.

*The Man-Machine* also has what is almost certainly the most iconic cover of any of Kraftwerk’s LPs. This is how lots of us still picture them in our minds, and it’s inspired tons of parodies and riffs over the years. I think all of that acclaim is deserved! Emil Schult’s graphic design for the album was heavily inspired by avant-garde Soviet artists of the 10s and 20s, chiefly El Lissitzky. These visual artists used their art to express their hope for a new world, defined by the promise of technology, and their literally revolutionary philosophy--so what could be a better match for Kraftwerk’s electronic revolution in music? Lissitzky used bright, primary colours, straight lines, and geometric shapes to convey the “built environment” of modern cities and man-made architecture, and you’ve got all the same sentiment on display here. The use of strong diagonals really draws the eye and lends this image a lot of continued visual interest. It’s also worth noting the extent to which Kraftwerk’s aesthetics inspired later electronic acts almost as powerfully as their sound. When you picture an electronic band, and get a mental image of stiff and stone-faced musicians behind synthesisers wearing shirts and ties, you can certainly thank Kraftwerk for that, as well.

I also love the title of The Man-Machine! The relationship between people and technology is one of, if not the, most central themes in Kraftwerk’s entire discography, which is full of references to anthropomorphic machines as well as mechanically-mediated humans. The particular choice of the phrase “man-machine,” as opposed to words like “android,” has a fun vintage flair to it, which matches the use of early 20th Century visual art quite nicely.

As might be expected from the album’s stylistic diversity, *The Man-Machine* would prove to be something of a transition point in Kraftwerk’s career. Their 1981 follow-up, Computer World, would return to the song cycle format, but with increasing emphasis on ideas from the pop sphere, championed by percussionist Karl Bartos. By the time of the last classic-lineup Kraftwerk LP, 1986’s Electric Cafe, they had not only amped up the pop, but also incorporated influence from the electronic dance music of the time. Ultimately, Bartos would leave the group, chiefly due to discontent with his treatment by founding members Ralf Huetter and Florian Schneider-Esleben, and their persistent lack of musical productivity.

On a somewhat lighter note, my personal favourite track on this album is its opener, “The Robots.” Per my typology from earlier, I classified this as a pop-oriented song, and it certainly is an approachable one that’s proven to be quite popular. But it’s got just enough more experimental touches to keep things quite interesting. From an ominous, dissonant intro, a slightly more pop form, hinting at a verse/chorus structure, soon emerges and contrasts. I love the groove of the rhythm and percussion here, as well as the very heavy vocoder, rich in texture and certainly a Kraftwerk staple.

While the lyrics can be read as sort of light and silly, I like to think that the robots in question might also be dangerous. The track “Metropolis” seems to reference the seminal 1927 silent film of the same name, which is famous for its portrayal of an evil, mechanical doppelganger. Likewise, the choice to translate the lyrics of the song’s interlude into Russian is likely inspired by another great work of art from this era: the stage play R.U.R.--Rossum’s Universal Robots. Written by Karel Čapek in 1922, it’s the progenitor of the “robot revolution” trope in science fiction, the source of the word “robot” for autonomous machines in almost every human language, and one of the first entries in the illustrious career of an author who helped make Czech a true literary language. While the titular robots take time to assure us that they’re programmed to do what we humans want, should we really trust them...?

#music #kraftwerk #great albums

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queerchoicesblog · 4 years

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Time After Time: a View in My WIP Folder Pt.2

Continuation of the anticipations of my WIPs folder...

I left these behind because I am thinking of experimenting a little and showing both sides with these ones, giving voices to both the main characters. I’m thinking of writing these in a way that the story progesses but the main narrator switches from chapter to chapter. Whaddaya say?

Thirties: A golden decade for the silver screen, so many icons started back in those years like Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn...but also the years of strictly prudish Code Hays, “sewing circle” and lavander marriages. The rise of Hollywood and the vibrant yet silenced queer underwood of the capital of American cinema are the perfect background for a lesbian romance...

Each chapter will be named after and inspired by an Al Bowlly song because I simply can’t get enough of how amazing he was.

A Postwar Romance: ideally set on the Isle of Skye (but I am sorry, I won’t go full Scottish with it cause I don’t want to make a pantomime of it and cause @scottishqueer wrath), a romance a tiny bit influence by Bly Manor and Tell It To The Bees...which you should totally check out if you haven’t done already, btw. A widow and her little boy find shelter in a remote town after the havoc of the war. They will soon discover that fitting in is not as easy as they first though especially after they befriend a local queer outcast.

Inspired to this song, that will appear in the story. I love old love songs and I think that, while they work fine with straight romances, they acquire a new deepest meaning if applied to lgbtq ones for well, obvious reasons (see I Just Want To Hold Your Hand, for instance). Just pay attention to the lyrics and tell me if People Will Say We’re In Love doesn’t scream queer subtext!

youtube

Lastly, I am not sure if I will post it here or keep it for other occasions mainly because I am not sure if anyone here would be interested in DDR (mayve GDR for you? German Democratic Republic) and USSR, in short lives on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain.

I am somehow interested in the topic and one of the ideas I got is about this love story spanning well, more than a decade, between the 1970s and 1990s, between a German student and the promising star of the Soviet Ballet on the notes of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

Curious fact but did you know that the great Russian composer was gay too?

#long post #sorry but these are hard times for writers #on tumblr especially #writing update #wlw writing project

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larsmaischak · 4 years

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Race, Gender, Class and the Old vs the New Left

With an afterword by Sojourner Truth

1960s

Capital: Maybe we look bad, now that the Soviets have female tractor drivers and engineers, and Africa is governed by actual Africans, while we have a labor market that privileges white men?

New Left: The Old Left has not done enough to recognize the specific ways in which women and African-Americans are oppressed.

Old Left: Who has been leading all those Civil Rights marches, if not the left? Who has been paying for the field organizers and buses, if not the labor unions? Who has been pushing for equal pay and equal rights for women, if not socialists like Margaret Sanger?

1970s

Blue Collar Workers: Let’s beat the crap out of some hippies. USA! USA!

New Left: See? The Old Left is for the war, and against the counter culture, and all that. They are squares!

Old Left: You know that the craft unions representing those reactionary white, male workers have a long history of exclusion of women, immigrants, and African-Americans that goes back to the 1880s, right? That’s different from our industrial organizing tradition that goes back to Eugene Debs, the Wobblies, the CIO…

New Left: Workers are the enemy! Let’s focus on women and people of color!

Old Left: Now wait a minute! 95% of women and people of color rely on wage work for their income! They are working class!

New Left: Let’s march through the institutions! I’ll be a lawyer! You can get tenure!

1980s

Capital: Let’s squash Communism and the unions!

New Left: What unions? Were there any left? How quaint!

Old Left: We have to defend the rights of workers!

New Left: Workers are (a) fine, and (b) sexist, racist, reactionaries. Shut up!

1990s

Capital: Look, the Soviet Union is gone! Let’s modernize our economy, and return personal responsibility to the individual!

Old Left: Responsibility for what, exactly?

Capital: For how they survive a modernized economy without adequate wages, health care, housing, and retirement benefits.

New Left: Did you know that all those old, secure, well paid jobs were held by - gasp! - white men? It is about time that they let go of their privilege and give women and people of color a chance. Did you know that women and people of color like flexible jobs and thrive in them? The kinds of jobs for which working class men are frankly not suited? That require intelligence and education?

Old Left: You mean making wage-work less secure and rewarding, more stressful, and placing the burden of obtaining the required education on the individual workers is good for women and people of color?

New Left: Aha! You are still your old racist, sexist, unreformed selves!

2000s

Old Left: Fight Globalization! For the rights of indigenous people, women, workers, for environmental protection!

New Left: Hooray! You know how we can get all those good things? By opening up our markets for Free Trade! Modernize! Knowledge economy! Global village!

Old Left: That sounds an awful lot like the stuff corporate consultants are saying …

New Left: Many corporate consultants are women, people of color, and even gay or lesbian! We are not surprised that you fossils are still afraid of those groups gaining power at the expense of white men!

Old Left: White men, like the indigenous women in Chiapas backing the Uprising?

New Left: Cultural appropriation!

2010s

Old Left: Listen, have you paid attention lately to the free fall of the working class through the tattered social safety net? There’s a swath of human misery and devastation from opioids, the starving of public institutions like schools and libraries, neoliberal schemes to penny-pinch urban areas that literally poison people with their tap water, …

New Left: OBAMA! Oh, the dreamy, well-spoken, intelligent, Obama! Sigh!

Old Left: … as we were trying to say …

New Left: It is the Millennium of Modernity! History is at an end! All contradictions in the world, all conflicts, have been laid to rest! Hosiannah!

Old Left: ... and these unaddressed problems will not just go away. We have to pay attention …

New Left: Will you SHUT UP ALREADY about the flyover states and the human scum that dwells in them! We’re trying to listen to NPR, here.

2020s

Capital: Enough with this democracy business. It allows the wrong people to have their dirty fingers on the levers of power. Didn’t we have a pretty good system in place for dealing with this stuff? Steve?

Bannon: Heil Trump!

Capital: Sounds good.

Fascism: Cultural Marxism has too long incited women and other inferiors to aspire to a status far above their place. It is time to restore America to Greatness by putting these people back in their place. By force, if needed.

New Left: See what you’ve done! All your decades of coddling the working class, those reactionary white men! Now they’re back in full force, and all because of you and your idiotic refusal to go with the program. We had it all! Tenure! Professional jobs! CLOUT! NPR! MSNBC! And you ruined it all!

Old Left: Let’s talk about SOCIALISM …

New Left: All the rights of LGBTQ+ people, women, people of color, and you want to throw that all out by capitulating to the Fascists?

Old Left: No, actually, we want to fight capital, so that the reactionaries are deprived of their funding and support. Then we can rally the vast majority of the people, who are working for wages to survive, around their common interest as working, suffering, hoping, creative, loving humans.

Sojourner Truth:

I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. … That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

#Old Left #New Left #Capitalism #fascism #democracy #socialism #racism #patriarchy #Sojourner Truth #liberalism

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mymarvelbunch · 4 years

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Different Roads... Same Destination: Part Four

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader (established). This specific chapter contains a lot of Steve x Peggy! (Also, brief mentions to Steve x Sharon)

Summary: When the Avengers went back in time to get the Infinity Stones, new timelines were created. By not delivering them back to their exact same spots, you and Steve created major changes in those timelines. What happened? (Non-American!Reader)

This is a sequel to “Be Your Own Hero”. I highly recommend you read it first, since it features many major changes in canon that are addressed here.

Notes: Y/N = your (first) name; Y/Co = your home country; Y/Ci = your home city; Y/N/L = your native language (to be ignored in case you speak English).

Masterlist

Part Four

1945

Peggy was, naturally, in denial. It took a lot of time to convince her of his identity, and even then she was only fully convinced when she kissed him. “You kiss the same”, she whispered, pulling away after brief seconds (enough time for him to cup her face).

He had wanted to keep his return a secret at first, but he failed to account for Howard Stark. Soon Captain America was all over the news as ‘coming back from the dead’. Journalists gathered around him to get interviews, and for months he didn’t have a single moment of peace.

It didn’t matter much, not as he and Peggy danced to a newly released song, kissing every time the lyrics told them to.

“Kiss me once, and kiss me twice, and kiss me once again, It’s been a long, long time...”

1947

He and Peggy got married with only Howard, Jarvis and their wives as witnesses. On their honeymoon, he told her all about alternate Steve and showed the small notebook he gave him.

“Sergeant Barnes alive?”, she nearly gasped.

“Kept prisoner by HYDRA, according to this”, he said. “Had been injected by a prototype serum when I rescued him, which enabled him to survive his fall. Makes sense in retrospect.”

She bit her lip. “I guess it’s worth a look, though we can’t do anything useful before we go back to Washington.”

They didn’t wait long after that. Sgt. Barnes was successfully rescued four months later, along with other prisoners. “I’m offended I didn’t get to be your best man, punk”, was the first full sentenced Bucky said after stepping foot on American soil. Steve laughed, and Peggy grinned.

“I hope being our child’s godfather can compensate for it”, she said, placing her hands on her belly. Steve’s attention was suddenly all on her as he hugged her tightly.

Bucky joined SHIELD soon after Howard made him a new arm. “Way prettier than the one HYDRA gave me. More functional too.”

“Of course”, Howard boasted. “Don’t compare me to that shitty corporation.”

Bucky was also very vocal about not letting Zola inside SHIELD, which reminded Steve of another thing written in The Notebook. He would not tell Howard about his alternate self - he didn’t trust the man to keep his mouth shut - but he was able to reason with him.

“Zola belongs either in jail or in a grave”, Peggy spat. Pregnancy made her more prone to anger. The scientist was found dead not much after, and no one ever found out how he died (not that anyone bothered that much).

1970

Bucky got married in 1950 to Angie Martinelli, Peggy’s friend who was Sarah Rogers’ godmother along with him. Their first children (a couple of twins, Peter and Lyra) came to world two years later, a week before Steve and Peggy’s first son, Christopher.

Peggy was still director of SHIELD, Steve slowly fading to the background as its agent. Not that he minded, even though Peggy insisted on his importance as Captain America. “You are a symbol, Steve”, she’d say.

“Captain America is a title”, he’d reply. “It can belong to someone else.”

However, he was only able to pass his mantle when Sarah turned 20 and completed her training. All his four children (Sarah, Chris, Emily and Paul) were born with his serum on their veins, enabling them to follow their father’s steps if they wanted.

Sarah was the only one who did, much to Steve’s relief; he wasn’t looking forward to a family of spies. She officially took the title of Captain America on the week that marked Tony Stark’s birth.

It was another point of his and Peggy’s talks. The Notebook had notes on Howard’s only son; how he had not received enough love from his father, and only relied on his mother (and sometimes his family butler) for support. “If we got named as his godparents, we’ll have a perfect excuse to be in his life”, he told her, and she agreed.

It was a little odd, the time it took for Howard and Maria to have a child. By the time Tony was born, the only reason they weren’t grandparents yet was the fact that Sarah didn’t want to get married.

Meanwhile, Christopher and Emily were engaged to each of Bucky’s twins. “Reminds me of when the entire 107th though you and I were fucking”, his best friend said, laughing like it was the best joke he had ever heard.

Peggy didn’t help any. “You mean that you were ‘fondueing’?”, she asked while taking a sip of tea, like the British woman she was. Steve just groaned.

1976

Peggy’s sister-in-law (who was ten years younger than her husband) gave birth to her youngest child on the same month she and Steve became grandparents. Sharon Carter was mentioned in The Notebook, but in passing; he missed it on his first reading.

“Agent 13″, he read aloud to Peggy. She already had a few white hair locks, and the difference between their aging speed was visible (though he was sure he saw a white strand on the previous week). “I suppose this means she worked for SHIELD in the other timeline.”

“It might not be the case now”, his wife replied softly. “This is Sharon who had another uncle. She probably saw you looking less than 30.” A chuckle. “Who knows, this other Steve might have even dated her.”

“Absolutely not, she’s my niece.”

“She isn’t the other Steve’s.”

A loud groan was heard. “I really don’t want to imagine it, Peggy. We’re talking about a baby. A baby who’s our grandson’s age.”

The amount of teasing Steve endured at that very moment could not be properly translated into words. You were no help, busy as you were laughing.

“Aw, I wish she was here to watch this”, Sam said. “Why didn’t you invite her, Scott?”

“I... don’t know her?”

“Where is she, by the way?”, Natasha wondered. You glanced at Steve, who huffed.

“I kiss her one time, and now I’m supposed to know all her whereabouts?” When you didn’t answer, just kept staring, he sighed. “I’ve heard she moved to California.”

“See? That wasn’t so hard.”

“I clearly have a type: women who can kick my ass and laugh at my expense.”

“I can’t kick your ass, not without Mjölnir, or Stormbreaker.”

“The mere fact that you can wield them already enables you to kick my ass.”

“Stop arguing before it gets kinky!”, Tony shouted. You two laughed.

1991

Taking down KGB was not an easy task. Without HYDRA, the Soviets invested more on their national espionage division.

However, it got easier with the fall of Soviet Union. Following her father’s instructions, Sarah rescued many little girls training to be spies. One of them was to be brought to US, if she consented to it.

Natalia Romanova, a 7-year-old girl with dreams of becoming a ballerina, is adopted by the Starks. Tony, a 21-year-old adult, happily welcomes his little sister into the family.

“There’s someone else for us to look after”, he mentioned to Peggy. His hair was fully white now, and his ‘Adonis muscles’ had started to fade off, but he was still more energetic than most 73-year olds.

“There are many names, actually”, Peggy replied. She had just retired from SHIELD, after turning 70. She wasn’t as ‘preserved’ as her husband, but still looked younger than her age. “We only crossed Bucky’s, Tony’s and Natasha’s. There is still a lot of work to do if we are going to follow your notebook, and so far it seems to be the right thing to do.”

However, right after they took Clint Barton from the circus and had Emily adopt him too, they took a pause to mourn their youngest son.

In 1979, Paul told his parents he was gay. Although surprised, they simply told him that they’d always love and support him. He and Sarah moved out of their parents’ home and lived together, since neither of them would marry. In 1990, however, he was diagnosed with AIDS after he started coughing blood. It left the whole family terrified; Paul himself had been telling them about his other gay/bi friends who had been taken away due to that horrible disease.

Two years later, he died at home, holding his sister’s hand and gasping for breath.

Was it okay to cry for a son you never had? Because tears were falling down Steve’s cheeks for Paul. You kissed his cheek and embraced him tighter, but didn’t say a word. You tried to imagine yourself in Peggy’s place. Steve might have already been prepared for the possibility of outliving his offspring; after all, no one knew how long he’d live with the serum in his blood. But Peggy was like you, a normal human. At the age of 70 especially, she would never think she’d outlive one of her children, let alone her youngest.

You had studied a bit about the AIDS pandemic at college, but no reading would do justice to the pain you could see in the faces of those alternate versions of your friends and their beloved ones.

1995

By the time Carol Danvers showed on SHIELD’s radar, Sarah Rogers had already passed the Captain America mantle to her 15-year-old nephew John. “It’ll be temporary”, he warned, “until any of my siblings or cousins is ready to take it.”

Still, he was there to watch over Carol and rescue her from the Kree who tried to kidnap her. He took her to her best friend, and he could swear he saw his deceased uncle when Danvers and Rambeau smiled and embraced each other.

Ten years later, he’d pass the mantle to his young brother James as he and Monica Rambeau had their first child.

2008

Tony was still kidnapped in Afghanistan and still became Iron Man, his parents long gone (Howard had a heart attack in 1993 and Maria had a stroke in 1998). Looking back, he blamed himself for not listening to Aunt Peggy and Uncle Steve; they had always told him to shut down the weapons department of Stark Industries (but how could he? He had a duty to SHIELD).

This time, however, he had more than just Pepper, Rhodey and Happy for support. Natasha soon realized Obadiah Stane’s true intentions and unmasked him before he could do any real damage. Tony’s little sister got an iron suit of her own in her 24th birthday.

Clint and Natasha still joined SHIELD, but with no red on their ledger to wipe out. Hank Pym still recruited Scott Lang, but years in advance, thanks to a ‘casual tip’ Peggy Carter gave him (he never left SHIELD or Stark Industries in this one). His daughter would eventually get a suit of her own, though hers would take more time.

Sam was recruited to SHIELD too, shortly after losing Riley. His new job gave him a purpose, and he was happy.

Banner never turned into the Hulk, not when he had Steve to talk him out of replicate his serum. “This is no blessing”, he told him. “Just look at mine and Bucky’s kids. Why do you think they married within our inner circle? Why do you think John married a woman who lived with a super-powered step-mom? None of us really fit in, we’re outsiders. You don’t want that.”

So, when Loki arrived with the Chitauri army, a slightly different team defeated him. James Rogers was barely 18, too young to lead, but Tony had grown up with Steve as his godfather and Sarah as his ‘cousin’ and knew how to do it. Iron Man, Iron Scarlet (there was no Black Widow alias for Natasha to adopt), Captain America (fourth of his name, as people called him), Hawkeye, Thor, Captain Marvel and Ant-Man teamed up rather easily. (A couple years later, War Machine, Falcon and the Wasp would join the team.)

With no HYDRA, there is no Scarlet Witch, no Quicksilver. Tony is a different man here, not blinded by trauma and fear, and there is no Ultron either. T’Chaka is never killed, but this time, Wakanda is visited by the Avengers and the three former Captain Americas. Their borders are opened without a civil war, and eventually Shuri is the one added to the Avengers line-up (not in a Black Panther suit, of course; it’d be disrespectful).

Peggy passes away in her sleep in 2016. Steve is still strong enough to carry her coffin, with Bucky by his side and their sons behind them. “Did that notebook tell you that?”, his best friend asked after they left the cemetery.

“No. The notes end on ‘Thanos’ and ‘Infinity Stones’. I’m not sure what any of these mean.”

“You should pass it on to the Avengers. It’s past our time to help, punk.”

It was true. Both of them lost most of their built-up appearance, and truly looked like old men. Their third great-grandkid had just been born, and now both were widowers (Angie had died a year before Peggy, in a hospital, after fracturing her left femur). A week later, they moved to an apartment Tony bought for them, near the Avengers Tower. Steve gave the Notebook to James and retired for good.

2018

In the end, no warning prepared them for the Decimation. In their defense, Thanos didn’t really invade Earth this time. Ebony Maw showed up to get the Time Stone and, like in the original timeline, the battle was taken to space.

The heartbreak over losing so many of his family, so suddenly, not to mention his best friend, was too much for Steve. A huge service was made for the first Captain America, and small, intimate funeral was made for the man under the helmet and uniform.

Some things don’t change, though. Three years later, you still show up at the Avengers compound with an idea to reverse things. Time travel was still figured out, and they brought everyone back without any major casualties. You still fell in love with Captain America, and he with you. It was just a different person wearing the mantle.

Bucky died less than a year later. His last words were “till the end of the line, pal”.

It was odd to see a timeline where you never met Steve. “Honestly, it was better this way”, he commented when you pointed that out. “I really don’t want to see if we’re meant to be when I’m over 100 years old. I’ll gladly let this version of you be with my grandson instead.”

“He looks better than you, punk”, Bucky added. “Must be the addition of Peggy’s genes and mine.”

“Your alternate wife also helped”, Natasha agreed.

They laughed. “That was the last one”, Strange said after they stopped laughing. “I’m not doing this again.”

You smiled anyway. “Thank you, Strange. It was fun to watch, especially among friends.”

He nodded and gave you a tiny smile in return.

We’re nearly finished! All that’s left is the epilogue. I plan on writing it to be cute <3

#Steve Rogers #steve rogers fanfiction #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n #marvel imagine #peggy carter #steggy

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bravadoseries · 4 years

Note

Probably weird and hard, so take you time to answer, but if Audrey was canon in the comics, what changes would be made when adapting her character into a MCU? I mean stuff like the fact that Tony built his in Afghanistan in the movie when in the comic he did it in Vietnam.

this was such a fun question thank you so much! i’m gonna separate this into two parts: audrey’s comics storyline and how her mcu adaptation is different. so sorry this is so long!

audrey rogers (later audrey lange and audrey banner) was introduced in the 1950s after captain america’s popularity declined and the war ended. her original aging thing was that she aged pretty fast and then like maxed out when she was physically 18 or 20 (like the baby from twilight). she was originally supposed to speak to teenage girls and other women to encourage them to embrace patriotism and reject communism, and she’s mentored by her father (since peggy’s originally written in the comics as a pretty minor character). audrey is given her batons by howard stark but in the comics they’re much more torchlike (really emphasizing the whole lady liberty moniker).

throughout the 50s and 60s, she’s got a dual-identity thing going on. she’s audrey lange (nee rogers), a teacher married to Joshua Lange, her high school sweetheart and a young, good-hearted, all-american politician. nobody knows about her identity except for her father, howard stark, and howard’s son tony.

during the 60s, lady liberty and black widow are often portrayed as character foils and enemies. lady liberty is sweet as apple pie, she likes to kiss babies and shake hands with senators and say things like God Bless America while the black widow is seductive, brutal, and most importantly—communist. the two are each other’s biggest rivals for the beginning of their respective comics’ histories (ok i just watched killing eve and i am obsessed with it but i think they are usually trying to track each other down similarly to eve and villanelle). idk if you watch glow but it’s like the zoya/liberty belle characters. that’s what’s going on.

in the comics, lady liberty is responsible for helping black widow defect from the red room and join the American cause. their first enemy together is julian bardot, who is selling nuclear tech to the highest bidder, and both of them want to discourage their respective organizations from purchasing nuclear bombs as the comics began to go into more anti-war propaganda. audrey teams up with tony at this point and their comics characters become friends.

during the vietnam war, the whole american propaganda thing was declining in popularity so they sent audrey to vietnam as a spy, where she was known as the angel of mercy. after realizing that the war was a corrupt cause, she abandoned the angel of mercy title and began working as a vigilante with civil rights activist and empire state engineering student lindsey dubois, caroline, a secretary heavily implied to be gay (living with her close female friend and unmarried) who would become the vigilante ace of spades, chinese refugee and nurse claudia liau, and delphine lamontagne, a french exchange student who came to the US looking to find a scientist to help her understand her powers. They specifically target human traffickers.

At this point, Josh Lange becomes mayor of New York City, and the strain of audrey’s vigilantism and her unwillingness to have children leads their marriage to crumble. they divorce and it’s a big comics thing (later, backlash causes marvel to try to retcon their marriage at all and say they were just engaged)

lady liberty is written into the avengers in the 1970s again because she realizes that the vigilantism was too dangerous or something (i feel like realistically it’s just that sales were low for a diverse group of female heroes but whatever). her storylines are based around that for a few years, however, after the marvel comics watergate, captain america abandons his title and becomes nomad and audrey abandons superhero work in favor of working as a lawyer (? i think).

in the 1980s, audrey is written as working as a law professor at culver, where she meets bruce banner. i don’t know a ton about hulk comics but i think he was permanently hulked out for the 70s and started gaining control in the 80s? pretty sure. anyway audrey’s never met bruce before but he’s got a dual identity thing going on and she’s like You Really Seem Familiar. when she figures out his dual identity a) they become romantically involved and b) she tries to get into hero work again.

there was a lack of interest in her character as more than a love interest, though, so from the late 80s to ’91, audrey is kidnapped and brainwashed by hydra. she’s given powers through hydra experimentation but refuses to use them unless forced to because they cause her immense pain. she is activated through trigger words and known by the name Red Scare. During this period, she serves as one of Captain America’s primary antagonists, but he doesn’t realize that Audrey is his daughter, he just thinks she’s dead.

When the Soviet Union falls in 1991, Audrey is returned to the united states and begins working as a shield agent because of the intelligence she’d collected while abroad. Josh Lange, now running for president of the United States, proposes to her in the late 90s and they marry, but Audrey begins to secretly undermine his political agenda once he’s elected due to his staunch anti-gifted stance and preference for order, no matter the cost. Audrey is portrayed as an unsatisfied First Lady until 2005, when Tony Stark starts the New Avengers to help defeat the mass breakout of the Raft, a prison holding many supervillains. Knowing she cannot just stand by, she leaves Joshua and commits to becoming a hero full time.

During the Civil War comics arc, Audrey opposes the mandatory federal registration of super-powered beings due to her experience with politicians. However, many oppose her presence in the movement for that very reason. She and Bruce Banner attempt another romantic relationship, but he favors the registration act and they soon break up. When her father attempts to surrender in order to stop the violence, she does so instead, knowing that she will be less of a loss to the movement.

At the same time, the United States launches Hulk into space (idk this was a real thing with the whole planet hulk arc) and Thor, wanting to help turn Hulk back into banner, breaks Audrey free from prison and brings her to Sakaar. She helps him turn back into Bruce and the two actually begin a romantic relationship, with him seeing where the registration act got him (Launched Into Space). When they return to Earth, Audrey and Bruce both decide to retire from hero work and open a school not for mutants but for other powered people which becomes a rival to charles xavier’s school.

From there, it’s a bunch of sporadic storylines. I think at some point she may become director of SHIELD when Steve is president? Because I know that was like a thing in the 70s. audrey’s powers are connected to thanos in a way that’s spoilery so I won’t go too into detail but when he pops up with the infinity stones arc, she plays a part in that.

anyway!

So there’s a lot of differences between the hypothetical movies and the hypothetical comics but i think obviously the biggest is Audrey’s backstory and aging. Since she ages slowly and was without Steve’s guidance, she grew up isolated and protected from the rest of the world. Audrey’s personality at the beginning is supposed to be reminiscent of her personality as the initial Lady Liberty—very sweet and positive and very much a character foil to Natasha, but instead of Audrey recruiting Natasha to SHIELD and helping her become a hero, it’s the other way around. Obviously Peggy’s role is very different, too, as is Josh’s (he’s a much more minor character in the films than in the comics).

The first Lady Liberty film adapts her transition from more of a hollow, symbolic hero to someone who is directly involved in the fight. There’s also references to her Red Scare arc except it’s the 60s and not the 90s. Here, we also have reference to Natasha and Audrey fighting Julian Bardot and his weapons, but removed from the Cold War context and instead shifted to the post-Chitauri circumstances. Delphine is also introduced, though not as a vigilante at this point or as a student but as a capable DGSE agent. The setup here is for her to have her own adventures eventually I think.

A lot of the changes have to do with the order of things. Because the MCU takes place over a decade and not like 50 years, things get switched around. TWS and AOU are both more modern plotlines that got reinvented and brought into the MCU. I think I’m probably gonna be changing the Civil War conflict to add more of the comics element to it as well.

Audrey’s vigilante team storyline, though unpopular at the time of its original publication, works better now, so it’s brought back for the second Lady Liberty film, which is set after Civil War. Audrey at this point is much more brutal and has lost faith in the system similarly to how she lost faith in the system because of Vietnam. Audrey never becomes a lawyer, but she does have a reunion with Bruce post CW during the MCU equivalent of Planet Hulk because (though unlike the comics he went by choice) he got launched into space. Audrey’s involvement in this storyline is much more accidental in the movies than in the comics.

I think also unlike the comics, Audrey doesn’t use her powers more because she feels unnatural when she does and not because it physically hurts. She also loses control. The movies also more specifically detail how where her powers came from.

The third Lady Liberty film, resurrection, is a movie that covers Audrey, Thanos, and more of her outer space adventures lol. And the next gen TV series, which primarily just features guest appearances from the Avengers, adapts the idea of the Avengers Academy.

thank you so much again for this ask sorry it got so long i had so much fun answering it !!!

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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 4 years

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We may be living through times of unprecedented change, but in uncertainty lies the power to influence the future. Now is not the time to despair, but to act.

Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons. […]

It is important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and destruction. The hope I am interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It is also not a sunny everything-is-getting-better narrative, though it may be a counter to the everything-is-getting-worse one. You could call it an account of complexities and uncertainties, with openings. “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivety,” the Bulgarian writer Maria Popova recently remarked. And Patrisse Cullors, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter, early on described the movement’s mission as to “Provide hope and inspiration for collective action to build collective power to achieve collective transformation, rooted in grief and rage but pointed towards vision and dreams”. It is a statement that acknowledges that grief and hope can coexist. […]

Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognise uncertainty, you recognise that you may be able to influence the outcomes – you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists adopt the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterwards either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone. […]

After a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many come from a sometimes vast underground fungus that remains invisible and largely unknown. What we call mushrooms, mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus. Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but it is the less visible long-term organising and groundwork – or underground work – that often laid the foundation. Changes in ideas and values also result from work done by writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists and participants in social media. To many, it seems insignificant or peripheral until very different outcomes emerge from transformed assumptions about who and what matters, who should be heard and believed, who has rights.

Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of centre stage. Our hope and often our power.

Changing the story isn’t enough in itself, but it has often been foundational to real changes. Making an injury visible and public is usually the first step in remedying it, and political change often follows culture, as what was long tolerated is seen to be intolerable, or what was overlooked becomes obvious. Which means that every conflict is in part a battle over the story we tell, or who tells and who is heard.

“Memory produces hope in the same way that amnesia produces despair,”the theologian Walter Brueggemann noted. It is an extraordinary statement, one that reminds us that though hope is about the future, grounds for hope lie in the records and recollections of the past. We can tell of a past that was nothing but defeats, cruelties and injustices, or of a past that was some lovely golden age now irretrievably lost, or we can tell a more complicated and accurate story, one that has room for the best and worst, for atrocities and liberations, for grief and jubilation. A memory commensurate to the complexity of the past and the whole cast of participants, a memory that includes our power, produces that forward-directed energy called hope.

Amnesia leads to despair in many ways. The status quo would like you to believe it is immutable, inevitable and invulnerable, and lack of memory of a dynamically changing world reinforces this view. In other words, when you don’t know how much things have changed, you don’t see that they are changing or that they can change. Those who think that way don’t remember raids on gay bars when being homosexual was illegal, or rivers that caught fire when unregulated pollution peaked in the 1960s or that there were, worldwide, 70% more seabirds a few decades ago. Thus, they don’t recognise the forces of change at work.

One of the essential aspects of depression is the sense that you will always be mired in this misery, that nothing can or will change. There’s a public equivalent to private depression, a sense that the nation or the society rather than the individual is stuck. Things don’t always change for the better, but they change, and we can play a role in that change if we act. Which is where hope comes in, and memory, the collective memory we call history.

The other affliction amnesia brings is a lack of examples of positive change, of popular power, evidence that we can do it and have done it. George Orwell wrote: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Controlling the past begins by knowing it; the stories we tell about who we were and what we did shape what we can and will do. Despair is also often premature: it’s a form of impatience as well as of certainty. […]

More broadly, shifts in, say, the status of women are easily overlooked by people who don’t remember that, a few decades ago, reproductive rights were not yet a concept, and there was no recourse for exclusion, discrimination, workplace sexual harassment, most forms of rape, and other crimes against women the legal system did not recognise or even countenance. None of the changes were inevitable, either – people fought for them and won them.

Social, cultural or political change does not work in predictable ways or on predictable schedules. The month before the Berlin Wall fell, almost no one anticipated that the Soviet bloc was going to disintegrate all of a sudden (thanks to many factors, including the tremendous power of civil society, nonviolent direct action and hopeful organising going back to the 1970s), any more than anyone, even the participants, foresaw the impact that the Arab spring or Occupy Wall Street or a host of other great uprisings would have. We don’t know what is going to happen, or how, or when, and that very uncertainty is the space of hope.

Those who doubt that these moments matter should note how terrified the authorities and elites are when they erupt. That fear signifies their recognition that popular power is real enough to overturn regimes and rewrite the social contract. And it often has. Sometimes your enemies know what your friends can’t believe. Those who dismiss these moments because of their imperfections, limitations, or incompleteness need to look harder at what joy and hope shine out of them and what real changes have emerged because of them, even if not always in the most obvious or recognisable ways.

Change is rarely straightforward. Sometimes it’s as complex as chaos theory and as slow as evolution. Even things that seem to happen suddenly arise from deep roots in the past or from long-dormant seeds. A young man’s suicide triggers an uprising that inspires other uprisings, but the incident was a spark; the bonfire it lit was laid by activist networks and ideas about civil disobedience, and by the deep desire for justice and freedom that exists everywhere. […]

We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision. And yet, and of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless, or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. These are the forces that prefer the giant stays asleep.

Together we are very powerful, and we have a seldom-told, seldom-remembered history of victories and transformations that can give us confidence that, yes, we can change the world because we have many times before. You row forward looking back, and telling this history is part of helping people navigate toward the future. We need a litany, a rosary, a sutra, a mantra, a war chant of our victories. The past is set in daylight, and it can become a torch we can carry into the night that is the future.

#society books #books #culture #communities #society #hope #rebecca solnit

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dweemeister · 4 years

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A list of all films featured in 2020′s 31 Days of Oscar

This is the exhaustive list of all 327 short- and feature-length films featured during this year’s 31 Days of Oscar marathon (down from 388 in 2019, up from 296 in 2018). Every single film that was featured since January 29 was nominated for an Academy Award or won an Honorary Oscar. We started the marathon a few days early this year because of the earlier-than-usual timing of this year’s ceremony (which placed it at Day 12 of this year’s marathon). Thank goodness we’ll go back to usual in 2021 and 2022, where the former’s ceremony will be placed on Day 28 if I, by tradition, start the marathon on February 1, 2021.

Best Picture winners and the one (and only) winner for Unique and Artistic Production are in bold - okay the latter was not featured for this year’s marathon (but perhaps next time!). Asterisked (*) films are films I haven’t seen in their entirety as of the publishing of this post.

7th Heaven (1927)*

The Circus (1928)

The Divine Lady (1929)*

Disraeli (1929)*

The Love Parade (1929)*

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

Anna Christie (1930)*

The Divorcee (1930)*

The Green Goddess (1930)*

Raffles (1930)*

Five Star Final (1931)*

Little Caesar (1931)

The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)

Grand Hotel (1932)

One Hour with You (1932)*

Shanghai Express (1932)

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)

Little Women (1933)*

The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)*

The Gay Divorcee (1934)

It Happened One Night (1934)

The Thin Man (1934)

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935)*

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

Naughty Marietta (1935)

Top Hat (1935)

Broadway Melody of 1936 (1936)*

Fury (1936)*

The Garden of Allah (1936)

The Great Ziegfeld (1936)

Swing Time (1936)

Camille (1937)*

Grand Illusion (1937, France)

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Three Smart Girls (1937)*

Wee Willie Winkie (1937)*

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Dark Victory (1939)

Gone with the Wind (1939)

Gunga Din (1939)

Ninotchka (1939)

Wuthering Heights (1939)*

All This, and Heaven Too (1940)

The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

The Philadelphia Story (1940)

Pinocchio (1940)

Rebecca (1940)

A Wild Hare (1940 short)

Blossoms in the Dust (1941)*

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)*

Hold Back the Dawn (1941)*

Lady Be Good (1941)*

Meet John Doe (1941)

Sergeant York (1941)

Casablanca (1942)

Der Fuehrer’s Face (1942 short)

In Which We Serve (1942)*

Now, Voyager (1942)

Road to Morocco (1942)

Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)

Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Destination Tokyo (1943)*

A Guy Named Joe (1943)*

This Land is Mine (1943)*

Marie Curie (1943)*

The North Star (1943)*

The Song of Bernadette (1943)

The Yankee Doodle Mouse (1943 short)

Double Indemnity (1944)

Gaslight (1944)

Going My Way (1944)

It Happened Tomorrow (1944)*

Laura (1944)

National Velvet (1944)

The Uninvited (1944)*

Brief Encounter (1945)

Caesar and Cleopatra (1945)*

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)*

Pride of the Marines (1945)*

The Southerner (1945)

They Were Expendable (1945)*

Vacation from Marriages (1945)*

Great Expectations (1946)*

The Green Years (1946)*

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)*

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)*

Black Narcissus (1947)

Crossfire (1947)

Gentleman’s Agreement (1947)

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

Green Dolphin Street (1947)*

T-Men (1947)*

The Red Shoes (1948)

Romance on the High Seas (1948)*

It’s a Great Feeling (1949)*

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)*

Little Women (1949)*

Mighty Joe Young (1949)*

Neptune’s Daughter (1949)*

She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

The Third Man (1949)

All About Eve (1950)

La Ronde (1950, France)*

Ace in the Hole (1951)

An American in Paris (1951)

Quo Vadis (1951)

Royal Wedding (1951)

When Worlds Collide (1951)*

The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)

Le Plaisir (1952, France)*

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

The Band Wagon (1953)

From Here to Eternity (1953)

Lili (1953)

Mogambo (1953)*

The Story of Three Loves (1953)*

La Strada (1954, Italy)

On the Waterfront (1954)

Seven Samurai (1954, Japan)

Bad Day at Black Rock (1955)

No Hunting (1955 short)*

Around the World in 80 Days (1956)

The Burmese Harp (1956, Japan)

Friendly Persuasion (1956)

Giant (1956)

Lust for Life (1956)

Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956)*

Written on the Wind (1956)*

Funny Face (1957)

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957)

Tammy and the Bachelor (1957)*

12 Angry Men (1957)

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)

Gigi (1958)

Separate Tables (1958)*

Ben-Hur (1959)

North by Northwest (1959)

The Young Philadelphians (1959)*

The Alamo (1960)

The Entertainer (1960)*

Pepe (1960)*

Spartacus (1960)

Two Women (1960, Italy)*

Beep Prepared (1961 short)

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

How the West Was Won (1962)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962)

The Caretakers (1963)*

Cheyenne Autumn (1964)

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

That Man from Rio (1964, France)*

My Fair Lady (1964)

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

The Shop on Main Street (1965, Czechoslovakia)*

The Sound of Music (1965)

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966)

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

The Professionals (1966)

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Cool Hand Luke (1967)

Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)*

The Graduate (1967)

The Jungle Book (1967)

The Producers (1967)

The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967, France)*

Funny Girl (1968)

Ice Station Zebra (1968)*

The Lion in Winter (1968)*

Planet of the Apes (1968)

True Grit (1969)

Z (1969, Algeria)

Dodes'ka-den (1970, Japan)

Woodstock (1970)

Carnal Knowledge (1971)*

The Emigrants (1971, Sweden)*

Cabaret (1972)

Cries and Whispers (1972, Sweden)

The Godfather (1972)

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)*

Travels with My Aunt (1972)*

Papillon (1973)

The Sting (1973)

The Four Musketeers (1974)*

The Godfather: Part II (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Dersu Uzala (1975, Soviet Union)

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Shampoo (1975)*

The Sunshine Boys (1975)*

Network (1976)

Taxi Driver (1976)

A Special Day (1977, Italy)*

Star Wars (1977)

Autumn Sonata (1978, Sweden)

Superman (1978)

The Swarm (1978)*

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Kagemusha (1980, Japan)

Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears (1980, Soviet Union)*

An American Werewolf in London (1981)*

Mephisto (1981, Hungary)*

Annie (1982)

An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)*

Victor/Victoria (1982)

Educating Rita (1983)*

Terms of Endearment (1983)

Dune (1984)*

A Passage to India (1984)*

Out of Africa (1985)

Ran (1985, Japan)

Witness (1985)*

Aliens (1986)

Luxo Jr. (1986 short)

Empire of the Sun (1987)

The Last Emperor (1987)

Bull Durham (1988)*

Mississippi Burning (1988)*

Dead Poets Society (1989)

Field of Dreams (1989)

Dances with Wolves (1990)

Ghost (1990)*

Boyz n the Hood (1991)*

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Aladdin (1992)

Unforgiven (1992)

The Firm (1993)*

The Wrong Trousers (1993 short)*

Forrest Gump (1994)

Il Postino (1994, Italy)

Little Women (1994)*

Casino (1995)*

Toy Story (1995)

Emma (1996)*

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Life Is Beautiful (1997, Italy)

The Old Lady and the Pigeons (1997 short, France)*

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

The Insider (1999)

Toy Story 2 (1999)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000, Taiwan)

Gladiator (2000)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Crime of Padre Amaro (2002, Mexico)*

Treasure Planet (2002)

The Fog of War (2003)*

The Triplets of Belleville (2003, France)*

Howl’s Moving Castle (2004, Japan)

Walk the Line (2005)*

Babel (2006)*

The Departed (2006)

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

Atonement (2007)*

Ratatouille (2007)

The Hurt Locker (2008)

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Waltz with Bashir (2008, Israel)

Precious (2009)*

The Secret of Kells (2009)

Inception (2010)

Toy Story 3 (2010)

A Separation (2011, Iran)

Amour (2012, Austria)

War Witch (2012, Canada)*

Omar (2013, Palestine)*

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Japan)

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Timbuktu (2014, Mauritania)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Hidden Figures (2016)

Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

Dear Basketball (2017 short)

Negative Space (2017 short)

The Shape of Water (2017)

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

Roma (2018, Mexico)

The nine nominees for Best Picture, including the winner, Parasite (2019, South Korea)

The fifteen nominees for the short film categories (2019)

Ad Astra (2019)

American Factory (2019)*

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

For Sama (2019)*

Honeyland (2019, North Macedonia)*

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019)

I Lost My Body (2019, France)

Judy (2019)

Klaus (2019)

Knives Out (2019)

The Lighthouse (2019)

Pain and Glory (2019, Spain)

Rocketman (2019)

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

Toy Story 4 (2019)

The Two Popes (2019)*

#31 Days of Oscar

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theliterateape · 6 years

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"You’ll Never See His Like Again!": Revisiting Comics Legend Stan Lee’s Best, Most Literary (and Vastly Underrated) Story, The Silver Surfer (1978)

By Jarret Keene

Stan “the Man” Lee is dead, but his creations are alive, pouncing across theaters, game screens, and t-shirts with equal parts vitality and sorrow. Today, Spider-Man and Thor and Captain America and Black Panther and so many others dominate our media landscape to a degree unthinkable 40 years ago when my father bought me The Silver Surfer graphic novel from a B. Dalton inside Tampa Bay Mall.

Back then comics (22-page floppies) were relegated to a single spinner rack in mall bookshops, a gimmick to draw kids into the store so their parents felt obliged to pick up garbage Sidney Sheldon’s thriller Bloodline. But The Silver Surfer didn’t fit in a metal rung; instead it was displayed amidst the regular literary trade paperbacks. Today it is vaguely praised on obscure blogs as being among the very first efforts to push comics into the realm of the literary epic during a brutal moment in the history of the comics industry. Staggering inflation, a crushing 1977 (and then a 1978) blizzard, and rising paper costs nearly sank DC Comics. Marvel, though, endured such challenges with Stan Lee’s relentless cheer, his grace under pressure, his courage to always try something new when everyone else cowered, caved.

In the late 1970s, the U.S. continued to fall apart. There was the ongoing energy crisis, serial killers like Ted Bundy lurked in every shadow, the Jonestown mass suicide played out like a dress rehearsal for a larger and more diabolical event, toxic waste burbled in landfills adjacent to pleasant neighborhoods, and Soviet Russia rattled its nuclear saber. You wouldn’t know this from reading Marvel Comics, every issue offering a column called Stan’s Soapbox, wherein Lee waxed passionately, positively, and with the eloquence of a poetry-reading pitchman, about what was forthcoming from “the House of Ideas.”

Today Marvel is an idea-resistant shell of the company Lee built and oversaw, a house of ideology teeming with dour, OMG-chirping social-justice superheroes (gay mutant Iceman, lesbian Latinx warrior America Chavez, Muslim teenager Kamala Khan a.k.a. Ms. Marvel, female cancer-stricken Thor). Instead of debuting new characters, the current editorial team is content to reverse race and flip gender of, and add a dash of disability to, classic characters. In its prime, though—and starting in 1961 with the first issue of Fantastic Four — Marvel excelled at depicting authentic outcasts who felt a fierce responsibility to protect even those who hated them, feared them, wanted them dead. Lee’s characters — which he co-created with Jack Kirby, the artist who visually defined comics for an international audience — didn’t nurture wounds of identity and grievance; they waged their internal battles on a mythic scale. In the same way Oedipus confronted the ignorance of his birth, in the same way petulant Achilles struggled to overcome his narcissism, so did hapless high school reject and science nerd Peter Parker combat his own teenage doubt and ego and feelings of inadequacy.

Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) containing the debut of Spider-Man, is arguably the single greatest and most important comics story ever written, its 11 pages defining not just the Marvel superhero but also the last half-century of U.S. comics. “With great power comes great responsibility” wasn’t merely an inspirational and moral slogan; it was also a metaphor for American exceptionalism, which could only result in senseless death (like, say, the murder of Peter’s uncle, Ben) if not applied toward just and proper ends. Parker is spoiled, his own worst enemy. He’s a purveyor of fake news, taking photos of himself in action as Spider-Man and selling them to the Daily Bugle to cover the cost of college tuition. We love Parker for his flaws, though, and for his commitment to overcoming them. We cherish his humanity even as we’re thrilled by his brawls with violent predators like Kraven the Hunter, bulky crime boss Kingpin, hideously armed Doctor Octopus.

The Silver Surfer isn’t human like Parker. The Surfer is carved from the “doomed messiah from beyond” mold a la Superman (or Beowulf or Jesus). But he isn’t adopted as a baby and given a Midwest upbringing. He is a silver-skinned alien riding a floating board, arriving on Earth to determine if it’s suitable for his planet-eating master Galactus. Lee and Kirby made a wise choice in never pinning down the exact size of this god of interstellar death, who, like the Surfer, was first introduced in the pages of Fantastic Four #48–50 (1966). That three-part story is a must-read, yes, but then, a decade later, Lee and Kirby collaborated on a 100-page retelling of the Surfer-and-Galactus saga, only this time the superheroes were removed, leaving just the god and his fallen angel. The result is a romantic, philosophical, and artistic statement that outstrips everything else Lee and Kirby collaborated on prior — which is saying a lot. It is also the last major work either of them would produce for Marvel, or for any company thereafter.

Today Marvel is an idea-resistant shell of the company Lee built and oversaw, a house of ideology teeming with dour, OMG-chirping social-justice superheroes

The Silver Surfer was published by arrangement with Fireside Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster in New York known for publishing a famous chess book. Based on a Kirby sketch, the cover is by artist Earl Norem, known for painting the covers of men’s adventure magazines and more than a few Marvel mags (like Savage Sword of Conan). Indeed, the painted cover gives the book literary gravitas. The interior art is all prime Kirby, with eloquent inks by Joe Sinnott, colors by Glynis Wein (first wife of the late Len Wein, who created Wolverine). The Silver Surfer is a feast for a comics-lover’s eyes; my battered copy still radiates visual power. But it’s the heartbreaking story and dialogue that set this effort apart from anything else in the history of comics and in the bibliography of Lee and Kirby.

Here the protagonist must choose between living forever to serve a devourer of worlds, or else die alongside eight billion earthlings to be rejoined with the obliterated love of his life, lovely and golden Ardina. In The Silver Surfer, Lee gives us a hero who sells his soul to the devil so as to thwart a holocaust and save a populated globe. He only meets a few dozen — many of who attack him physically. But he understands their potential to grow beyond their limitations. It’s not a story in tune with the 1970s, that post-Vietnam, post-JFK, post-Watergate era during which Marvel delivered dark, humorous characters like Ghost Rider. No, this was something else entirely.

The opening splash page is the closed fist of the planet-eater: Behold! The hand of Galactus! Behold! The hand of him who is like unto a god. Behold! The clutch of harnessed power — about to be released! The tone here is elevated, serious, Lee is writing in a style that evokes the Old Testament of the King James. The second page is a splash, too; in it, the mitt of Galactus opens and from it erupts the Surfer, who “streaks through the currents of space — ever-seeking, ever-searching — for he alone is herald to mighty Galactus.” The image is the visual distillation of an artist’s self-confidence, his arrogance. After all, doesn’t every artist believe himself to be God as he manipulates his characters, his images, to suit his imaginative fancy? It’s also a breathtaking rendering of a big bang, or a biblical birth of the universe, without a benevolent designer in control. Here the god of the universe is a destroyer.

The universe seems endless and infinitely alluring to this mysterious star-wanderer, who yearns for his own homeworld, Zenn-La, lost to him forever for reasons Lee doesn’t initially explain, but we presume Galactus ate it.

The Surfer enters the atmosphere of “a verdant sphere” unlike any he’s seen before. Soaring high above the streets of New York, he doesn’t hide from view. He is fascinated by the fear in the eyes of people, noting “how it is always the young who are the first to accept — and to trust.” He sees a woman who reminds him of Shalla Bal, a woman the Surfer loved on his own world. Haunted by her memory, he pursues this woman through the alleyways of Manhattan while imagining a conversation with this Shalla Bal lookalike. We learn that, years ago, the Surfer sacrificed his mortal body to Galactus to save Zenn-La from destruction.

Finally, the woman abandons him to his painful recollections… and then Galactus suddenly appears in a whirlwind of crackling energy, ready to devour Earth.

He congratulates the Surfer on a job well done and articulates in excruciating detail how he plans to sate his appetite: “Here shall I drain the gently rolling seas. Here shall the bountiful land yield to me its gift of life.” It is an impending act of reverse creation, a backward Genesis. But the herald of Galactus isn’t having any of it. When the Surfer fails to convince his master that the price of eight billion souls is too high, he lashes out at Galactus with “the power cosmic,” using it seal the destroyer in a concrete cocoon. It doesn’t hold Galactus for long. Disgusted, the world-eater blasts the Surfer from the sky, cursing the herald to live amidst “the dunghills of man” for a spell in order to ponder his mistake. Then Galactus disappears.

The Surfer recovers from his fall, then disguises himself by altering his appearance to resemble a male fashion model from a billboard. He wanders the city with admiration for its denizens until muggers approach him in Central Park. The Surfer shoos them away with a pyrotechnical display, then pledges to walk around without hiding his identity; concealment did nothing for him anyway. Meanwhile, we witness Galactus gorging on a planet in another solar system. Sated, his thoughts turn toward his missing herald. What can Galactus do to make the Surfer submit? The world-eater’s counsel, a sniveling Master of Guile, advises Galactus to provide the Surfer — our alien Adam — with an Eve, someone to betray the Surfer’s heart.

And so beautiful Ardina enters the picture. She sneaks the instantly smitten Surfer beyond Earth’s atmosphere, and they share in the pleasures of the spaceways. Floating now on a patch of green ringed with bright flowers in a neighboring galaxy, our hero is tempted to give up his standoff with Galactus. In the same way Dido tempted Aeneas to give up his destiny to found Rome, so does Ardina begin to entice the Surfer to submit to her — and by extension Galactus. He refuses, says he’s willing to die to save Earth, and so Ardina leads the Surfer on a journey into human darkness. “You will perish for a worthless cause,” she warns. She shows him “brutal images, a morbid montage of heart-rending scenes filled with carnage and strife.” Domestic violence. A child killed by a hit-and-run driver. A mass execution. Bombed ruins of a once-thriving city. The Surfer is jarred but not dissuaded.

And then something interesting happens: Ardina, designed to coldly seduce the Surfer to make him betray his convictions, ends up feeling a warm love for him.

So much so that when the Surfer, driven mad from having set foot inside a suburban home where the walls seem to be closing on him:

The ceiling — almost touching my head! No room to move! No place to soar! I see no sun — no sky — no endless reaches of rolling space! Wherever I face — wherever I turn — I am surrounded by smothering objects! Shelves and books! Pictures, clocks, and lamps! Chairs and drapes and shuttered windows! But where is the sky? Where is the cold, crisp touch of rolling space? Where are the hills, the seas, the nourishing stars in endless profusion? Without them I perish!

Interestingly, the aspect of humankind that nearly causes the Surfer to surrender his mission is man’s stultifying existence inside tract-housing boxes.

Troubled by the experience, the Surfer races to escape Earth’s atmosphere. Riding bitch, Ardina screams: “The barrier! You have forgotten the barrier!”

The Surfer falls to Earth while Ardina re-materializes before Galactus inside his giant space vehicle. She admits she has failed. She confesses her love for the Surfer. Displeased, Galactus recalibrates her cloned body for one last mission. A mission that involves shattering the Surfer’s heart.

Meanwhile, the Surfer continues to be attacked by various humans. He is shot at, shackled and hammer-smashed, then the U.S. military blasts him with an ultra-sonic cannon, which nearly kills him. Ardina consoles him for a moment, kisses him, telling the Surfer she is with him and by his side, even after death. Which is when Galactus dissolves her into dead particles using a matrix-drone.

Now Galactus asks the Surfer to again join him in scouting the universe for other edible planets. It’s the only way Earth can be saved. The command is agonizing, for what Galactus offers is a living hell. To save Earth, the Surfer must cast off death, the ultimate escape and the one chance he has at being reunited with Ardina. But as the Surfer himself says: “Never was there a choice!”

The curse of immortality at the cost of true love is a familiar idea in ancient epics. The sea nymph Calypso offered Odysseus eternal life, but he refused it in order to be with his wife Penelope. But the Surfer has no options; he can’t be selfish enough to die and thus doom the Earth. What makes him a hero is his refusal to surrender and his willingness to embrace the agony of existence, of enslavement. He must deny himself every exit for humans to live on until they hopefully change themselves for the better. They must have a chance; the Surfer and Galactus give them one.

The Surfer returns to the gauntlet of Galactus, disappearing within the destroyer’s fist.

✶

In this story, there is no Fantastic Four. No cameo appearances by Lee and Kirby. No clever narrative captions. Just the purest narrative of a hero fighting for an ideal, for the steadfast belief in our ability to one day rise above our petty evils, our arrogance and wrath. Lee wrote so many masterpieces of comics literature, but this one is his best because it best speaks to the principle he and his characters lived by: Never succumb to nihilism and despair. Never forget that we are similar in our anxieties and weaknesses, and that our individual identities matter less than our collective aspiration to improve our world and the lives of the people who inhabit it.

It’s a moral stance that today remains obscured by Internet social-justice frothing and the political insanity of being ruled by a reality-TV star. But the embers of Lee’s views are there for anyone to ignite and carry forward. Make no mistake: the world is poorer now without Lee. As the blurb on The Silver Surfer ’s back cover announces: “You will never see his like again!” We can, however, always see Lee’s passion and his love for humanity — for life! — in the work he and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and others left for us to enjoy.

Lee didn’t need to die for our sins. He endures, and so will we.

Never was there a choice.

Jarret Keene is an assistant professor in residence in the English Department at UNLV, where he teaches creative writing and ancient and medieval literature. His fiction, essays and verse have appeared in literary journals such as New England Review, Carolina Quarterly, and the Southeast Review. He is the author of several books and editor of acclaimed short-fiction anthologies. He is currently working on a critical biography of comic book legend Jack Kirby.

#Stan Lee #Silver Surfer #Marvel Comics #Comics as literature #Silver Surfer First Appearance

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[...] The early 1980s brought significant change for lesbians and gay men in East Germany. Disillusioned with the government’s refusal to acknowledge its gay citizens, groups began organizing themselves under the auspices of the Protestant church. The church was East Germany’s only genuinely (if only incompletely) autonomous institution and home to many East Germans critical of the regime. Other groups, including feminists, environmentalists, and peace activists, also found space to organize within the church in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Many church leaders actively opposed giving gay activists space to organize, but the church’s loose structure meant that younger, more progressive clergy had leeway to offer space and resources to whomever they desired.

Organizing under a religious umbrella guaranteed activists a modicum of independence. They could gather, plan activities, and pressure the government without needing to seek permission from the regime or worry that the police might arrest them for participating in an illegal group. Because these groups provided such a convenient setting for queer social life and political activism, they spread rapidly throughout the country. By 1984 there were around a dozen of them, each of them drawing anywhere from dozens to hundreds of attendees to their events.

Ralf Dose, a West Berlin gay activist and historian, recalls: “When we organized something, we had to send around lots of invitations just to get 10 people to show up. East German activists were used to hanging up just one small notice and then there were 250 people.” Unlike their West German confreres, of course, they were not competing for attention with an extensive commercial subculture.

The Stasi, which had thousands of informants within the church, soon caught wind of these efforts. Nothing had changed in the secret police’s view of gay rights and they set to work undermining the new crop of activists. They recruited informants within the groups, both to gather information and to sow discord. Moles accused gay men of misogyny and encouraged lesbians to form their own groups. They cultivated antagonism between the church and the activists, and even accused other activists of being Stasi agents.

But to little avail. Membership continued to swell and activists began to coordinate strategy at national meetings. They soon agreed on a set of wide-ranging policy goals, including better access to housing, abolition of the higher age of consent for homosexual sex, ability to serve in the military, and better access to sexual health services. As the groups grew, the Stasi became increasingly concerned that they posed an existential threat to the socialist regime.

Under pressure to stem the tide of gay liberation, the secret police began debating new strategies. Departments exchanged flurries of memos debating what course of action the government should pursue. In 1985 the Stasi finally produced a new set of guidelines on how to prevent what it termed “the political misuse of homosexuals.” Some of its recommendations were unsurprising, such as ramping up surveillance of gay activist leaders. But its final recommendation was entirely novel. It insisted that the government find “resolution[s] to homosexuals’ humanitarian problems.” That is, the Stasi decided to actually address activists’ demands.

Their rationale for doing so was actually rather simple. If the government tackled gay men and lesbians’ concerns, then all those church-affiliated activist groups would have no reason to exist. No complaints to be made, Stasi officials reasoned, meant nothing to organize about.

Thus began a series of genuinely radical changes in East German society. The state-censored newspapers, which for decades had hardly ever mentioned homosexuality, suddenly started printing dozens of stories about gay men and lesbians. The government also freed periodicals to accept personal advertisements from gay men and lesbians looking for partners.

In addition, the state began granting official recognition to gay groups, such as the Sunday Club, a secular activist collective run by Sillge that had been meeting in East Berlin since the early 1980s. And it authorized East Germany’s first gay discos, such as Die Busche, a club that still exists today.

The government even allowed gay chapters within the Free German Youth (FDJ), the state’s official youth scouting organization, and mandated that all FDJ members attend educational sessions dealing with homosexuality. All of a sudden, East German youth were required to attend meetings of gay groups such as the Sunday Club. Remembering this moment, Rausch told me, “The joke was that suddenly everyone was standing in line to get into the Sunday Club,” only a couple years after it had been a target of state repression.

In 1987 the East German Supreme Court struck down the law that set a higher age of consent for gay men and lesbians. The following year, the military allowed gay soldiers, reversing a policy the government had instituted in the 1950s.

The unexpected gay golden age in East Germany reveals a much more dynamic politics in the former Soviet bloc than we are wont to acknowledge.

West Germans caught wind of these changes and began venturing across the Wall in larger numbers to see East Germany’s gay liberation for themselves. Some even found the subculture there more pleasing than the commercialized one in the West. Martin, an American gay man who lived in West Berlin in the 1980s, recalled, “The gay community in East Berlin was kind of warmer and more friendly than in the West.”

It must be noted that these rapid changes, which Rausch described as a “gay and lesbian Wende” (turning point), were accompanied by continued Stasi surveillance of activists. At least a tenth of the members of gay activist groups passed information to the Stasi. The secret police also resorted to petty torments. One leader, for instance, was forbidden from pursuing graduate study as punishment for their activism. But for many queer people in East Germany, life improved dramatically in those years. Gay men and lesbians in the East still lacked the kind of sprawling, commercial subculture that defined queer life in West Germany. But for all that, West German activists had not succeeded in convincing their national government to act on their concerns.

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