#I wonder if the author will ever release an actual poster of this as official merch

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Gotham” S5E4

Not in chronological order, yaaaayyyy...

Also the other reaction posts for Episodes 8-10 are still a work in progress so hang on!

My sister watched it with me (as well as another episode in S5 and we both plan on watching the series finale together) so my comments will be in bold, and hers will be in regular font.  Author’s notes courtesy of me will be bolded and italicized.

AN:   I managed to record our reactions to this episode and hopefully I can transcribe what I said into this post.

This is going to be fun.

“Shut up and die [Oswald].”  *starts singing “Waking Up in Vegas” by Katy Perry*

You are really going to hell.

I am.  It’s a curse.

*Recap shows Haven blowing up*  Welp.

Ahhhh that freaking shot [of the burning teddy bear]

Hell of a shot to open with

MMMMM....

Also that one [of the people getting out].  That one’s good.

This whole opening just leaves you so numb.

Right?  Holy shit.

And I do like that the other villains are so shocked and horrified at this.

Right, yeah.

Yeah, like you have Penguin and Ed and the other people are like “Oh my God...”

Yeah...

Oh you better not-

*Barbara points her gun at an unsuspecting Oswald*  Oh come on, his back is turned!

Not right nooowww!

That’s bullshit!

*both look uncomfortable when we hear a baby crying in the background*

Everyone’s just kinda grabbing each other!

*grabs my sister and shakes her by the shoulders*  It’s like “Jim!”  “Harvey!”  “Oswald!”

*one more time*  “Bruce!”  No, I’m kidding.

*laughs*  Christ!

Yeah, whenever they use orange lighting in this show, it’s like “Ah yes, give me more!”

Except you know it means shit’s about to go down.

I know.

Or some shit has already gone down.

*Jim looks at the ruins of Haven*  Shiiit...

*Harvey hands back the badge Jim gave to Will*  Nooooooo....

*sighs*

Nooooo... come on.  God dang it.

*Opening titles roll*  So yeah, how’s that for an opening?

Noooo...

“As of now, death toll stands at 311.”  Jesus!

“49 injured, more than 2 dozen left unaccounted for.”  *very softly*  Oh my God.

I swear to God she’s [Secretary Walker] an al Ghul somewhere.

AN:  This was actually recorded a few weeks ago.  Little did I know...

“But whoever destroyed that building can't destroy the hope we've built.”  That’s not gonna do shit!

Yeah, that one lady in the crowd’s like “Oh my God...”  SAAAME!

That’s not gonna do shit, Jim!

“How are you [Jim] gonna stop it from happening again?!?”  Good question!  Honestly right now, Jim, you’re not lookin’ so hot.

I know!

Luciusss!!

“Nothing makes sense anymore.”  Someone say “It’s Gotham.”  Please God!

“SELINA!”  They just leave his [Bruce’s] ass there...

God... poor Bruce.

That’s gonna be nightmare inducing.

Yeahhh-

*Some of Ecco’s goons come in*  OH NOOO COME ON!

Ohhh the Ecco goons!

Can I preemptively say “[expletive] that noise?”

*chuckles*

Also, I love this bit right here:

*laughs when Bruce tries throwing a wrench at a goon and missing him by a long shot*  Worth the shot, buddy!

Ugghh, so close!

*Alfred comes to the rescue*  AL-FRED!

YES!!

LET’S GO!

YESSS!

“I was afraid you didn’t get my signal.  Lucius said the range was only a couple of miles.”  Where’d he get that?!?

*at same time*  What is that?!?

We already get that he’s Batman:  he’s pulling solutions out of his ass.

It’s Lucius.

I guess.

“How did that happen?”  “I [Bruce] let my guard down.”  *aside* You do that a lot, buddy!  You’ll do it more in the future!

“She’s [Selina] gone after Jeremiah, alone.”  *silently hurrahs*

OK, why is she [Barbara] wearing like a dominatrix outfit?

I mean, her last outfit was covered in filth so... also she has Penguin’s hair.

Yeah but- the leather corset?  Really?  C’mon...

“We heard people talking about a shady guy working around Haven before it blew.”  “This is Gotham.  You’re [Barbara] gonna have to do better than ‘shady guy.’“  *both giggle*

“How about a location? A building in the northeast corner of Harlow Park. He says the guy's holed up there.”  Also, they really need to release an official map for this because I have no idea where everything is.

They really need to.

Like I know that they use the actual No Man’s Land map

Right... but this continuity strays so much from regular DC continuity that not all of that might apply.

Yeah.  It’s like “Oh the Soothsayers are in the Granton district in the Dark Zone” and I’m like “Well where is that?!?”

Yeah.

Amusement Mile?!?  I know Ace Chemicals is in the Dark Zone.

Of course it is!

It’s near Crime Alley.

‘Course it damn well is!

But Crime Alley’s in Firefly’s zone.  I think, yeah.

Que interesante...

Ohhh that lightinggg!

*Penguin and Co. wait for Jim in the precinct*  Ohh c’mon... c’mon dude.

Digging the eyepatch on that guy [henchman] though

*mouths along with Oswald saying “woefully apparent”* 

“…you [Jim] are outmanned, outgunned, and out of options.”  *sings*  OUTNUMBERED, OUTPLANNED!

Hey yo, I’m gonna need a right hand man!

*groans*  I’m already dreading this.

“Take all you can carry.”  Arm yourselves to the teeth.  You’re gonna need it.

Also, they did not kill the dog.

Oh thank God.

Just to let you know!

“WE’RE NOT GONNA KILL THE DOG!”

TZE CHUN, THANK YOU!

“What do you [Jim] say, partner?”  Don’t ever say that again.

Yee-haw.

You’ve yee-d your last haw.

*laughs*

*Ed wakes up*  Nooo, who gives a shit about Ed?  Who gives a shit?  I don’t give a shit!

*aside*  It’s gonna become a lot more important.

I like this music here [when Ed investigates the suitcase] actually

*both end up scatting it*

Just sounds like they’re banging a bunch of coconuts together.

*both sing*  BIG ONES, SMALL ONES, SOME AS BIG AS YOUR HEAD!

*imitates Ed saying “I’ve been on a trip!” hand gesture included*

*both tilt our heads in unison to read the message on Ed’s hand*

“KNOWS WHAT?!?”  Me.

Oh my God...

That’s the campaign poster [of Oswald] in S3!

Also I like how the cop cars have the grills and bars on the front and on the windshield.

Yeah... smart move!

“To hell with Penguin.  Haven wasn't your fault.”  “I [Jim] told the people it was safe. I made them into a target.”  You know Penguin’s right there!  He can hear you.

*One of the cop cars drive past Jim*  Don’t park in the puddle!  Noooo that’s what they diddd-

No they didn’t.  Nevermind.

*giggles when Oswald pulls out a megaphone*

“There goes the element of surprise.”  *both laugh*

Oh my God, he freaking winked at Jim!  Oswald, you-

Oh noooo...

*Another shot at the group*  Yep.

“We’re sitting ducks out here.”  “And one Penguin.  Hey Oswald, why don’t you crawl out there, grab that bullhorn, tell him to come out here quietly?”  *both laugh*

*both imitate Oswald’s insulted “Yooouu…”*

“Pretty cozy up here.  Thanks guys.”  C’mon buddy!  C’mon!

*claps hands*  Give us him!

Give us the goods!

Give us!

“Zsasz?!?”  Yassss....

“Oh hey guys, what’s up?”  *both laugh*

Oh my God, I’ve missed him!

*Victor blows Oswald a kiss*  YAASSSS!!

ZSAAAAAAAAAASZZZ...

ZSAAAAAAASZZZZ....

ZSAAAASSSZZZZ HONEY!

ZSAAAASSZZZZ!

*giggles*  Yaaasss....

Oh my God what.  Is that Selina?!?

No, that’s Ed.

Freakin- what is it with him and the bad disguises?!?

But like he got through the entire precinct like that!

Everyone wasn’t paying attention!  If they were paying attention, they would’ve just ripped it [the blanket] off of him!

I know!

“I can still see your face.”  “Not when I do this, you can’t.”

*laughs*

It’s literally that!

It is.

*Ed runs into Lucius*  Ohhh yess!  I really like these two interacting.

Lucius!

“I am given and I am taken.  I was there from your first breath and I will follow you until your death.”  Oh screw off!

Your name.

“Call it a personal matter.”  I love that!

His little poses!

Yes yes!

“Well I'm [Ed] guessing you [Lucius] don't want money, because, uh, it's worthless.  I don't tend to carry snacks on me.  And if I had any bullets, I would just shoot you and take the folder.”  I really want somebody to be like “I’ll give you a load of bullets for a box of Cheez-Its.”  “DONE!”

*laughs*  Would you like the other half of this cosmic brownie?

My God, THIS MAN GOES FREE!

You know who Chris Chalk kinda reminds me of?  The ally guy from “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes?”

Yeah, it does...

Hari Rhodes!  That’s the actor!

*giggles insanely when Ed tries to take the file from Lucius and utterly fails*

What the frick?

“I [Victor] did not make that building go boom, Jim.”  *both laugh*

What a way to say that.

“You gave up any shred of honor long ago!  Why should we believe a snake like you?!?”  “Because I would never take credit for somebody’s else’s work?”  *raises pen in air in agreement*

Well duh!”

“Is this about Sofia Falcone?  You should really move past that.  It’s not healthy.”  *both giggle*

This man...

This man!  He was probably raised in the South.  He would probably go “Hey y’all!  You’ve yee-d your last haw...”

Noooo noooo... he feels more like a California guy.

Yeah... *starts singing the theme song for “The OC”*

*Everyone starts firing at Zsasz*  Zsasz is just like “Nope!’

“Nope!”

That’s the most casual duck.  Just rolls out of the way!

Come on, Jim!

I’m kinda wondering why they never got “Um guys, there’s a freaking concrete wall between windows.  He could just hide behind that!”

Or they could just like aim at an angle.

Yeah...

Get in the room!

This isn’t rocket science.

*both crack up when Zsasz goes for a drink break*

*still laughing*  What an asshole!

*Jim body slams Zsasz to the ground*  WHAA-

LET’S GO!

Right through the snack table!

And they destroyed his bowl of chips.

“[Victor] Glad to see you’re still with us.”  This man has never given a shit in his entire life.

“Thank you, thank you.  You were great.  Glad there are no hard feelings.”  I’ll be here all week.  Try the veal!

*laughs*  That was priceless.

“Allow me [Oswald] to deal with him [Victor].”  No!

No!

“If he did this, I need to know if it was a part of something larger.”  Jim, you’re always a part of something larger!  READ THE SCENE!

Oh my God, they got Zsasz sitting in the back.  Zsasz is probably gonna like try to strike up a conversation.

“So, how was life?”  “Oh my God, shut up....”

It’s that bit in “Civil War:”  “So you like cats.”

“Sam.”

This is Tony Stank!

*Selina follows Ecco and the new followers into the work site*  Oh here we go, here we go.  Here we go!

Oh Jesus... the belly of the beast.

Also, that place must smell like just terrible.

Right?!??!  If this place doesn’t smell like an armpit, then...

*Sykes dies*  ...oh God.

“Well, not with that attitude you’re not.”  *leans far and away from screen*

Bitch.

“Everyone, let’s reach inside and dig a little deeper, shall we?”  You prick.

*turns towards me*  Don’t you dare [sing]

*leans away when Jeremiah licks blood off his knife*  HI THANKS NO BYE!

*both groan in disgust*

YOU NASTY!  YOU TWO [Jeremiah and Ecco] DESERVE EACH OTHER, ya- mmmmmm!

Honestly though, I am kink-shaming.  I am kink-shaming so hard.

*chuckles*  They’re carrying his [Sykes] body out in a wheelbarrow.

OK, but like the Tim Curry voice- that’s an affectation!  He’s just putting that on to sound impressive.

*laughs when Jeremiah stops talking to himself and awkwardly clears his throat when Ecco walks in*

He’s like “Mm-mm!  Sorry!  Helloooo!”

*Jeremiah grabs Ecco by the neck to inspect her scar*  Noooooo...

He’s lookin’ right at the bullet...

Eeuughh...

“Bruce Wayne, and his sidekick Curls?  Or is he the sidekick?”  That’s still such a great line.

“And Curls can walk.  Really well.  Especially… for a paraplegic.”  *done*

*softly laughs in shock*  Oh my God...

*Jeremiah purrs appreciatively at Ecco*  How have these two not eaten each other alive at this point-

*sinks down in chair when Jeremiah dismisses Ecco*  Oh my God, that was a ghost kiss!  I HATE YOU!

“OK recruits, let’s do like my daddy did before my sixth birthday and move out!”  *both laugh*

That is a hell of a line!

*Selina follows Ecco and her group*  Yeah, you see him [Jeremiah] in the background just whip around!

Yeaahhh!

That was like a horror movie thing, where the monster just whips around.  You can imagine a little scare chord in the background.

Right?!?

Also, I like how they establish that relationship in like under a minute.

Yeah...

Like yes, that is how you do it.

That was good.

Eat that, “Suicide Squad!”

“Evidence of deflagration would suggest something with a slower burn rate, like gunpowder or nitroglycerin.”  “But for this level of destruction, that would require a bomb that's 20 cubic feet of explosive material.”  Or a baZOOKA!

People just really love their RPGs in this show.

People just really love bazookas.  Bane uses one in the Bane Red Trailer

“Man walks into a room, alone, and is later found murdered.  There are no windows, and one door, which is locked from the inside.”  *whispers*  Toxic gas.  No I’m kidding.

“The bomb was the building.”  *imitates the way Ed says “the bomb”*

I love that.

*Ed and Lucius figure out how the building blew up*  This makes the forensics class part of me just so happy.

“Ow!  That’s a really nice table.”  *both chuckle*

“We got a dozen witnesses that saw you [Victor] walk out of that building before it went kabooey.”  *in unison*  Kabooey.

“Hey, do you guys have any canned peaches? Man, I'd trade an arm and a leg for that right now. Not mine, somebody else's.”  *both laugh*

Man, I missed him!

I know!  I’m gonna miss him so much!

“And, guys, those were warning shots. I mean, if I really wanted to kill you you'd be dead.”  If you guys could aim in this show.

Right?

I mean it’s not like the *pretends to shoot around something*

“If I blew up a building full of people, I would have covered every inch of my body in sweet, sweet scars.”  Can we see them?

*gives me a weird look*

His scars!  We only see them once [way back in S1].

I’d [Victor] let Alvarez do it.  He’s handsome.”  *both chuckle*

OK, but if the Gotham fandom isn’t already shipping them, I’m gonna be very disappointed.

*tries not to say anything without laughing*

Your stunned silence is very reassuring.

“Looks like you need a new suspect.”  *in Southern drawl*  Looks like it wasn’t Zsasz!

*Oswald arrives at the precinct*  Go to hell!

I love that shot of him.

“I know the wheels of justice turn slowly, so I'm here to provide - a modicum of grease.”  A what of what?

He said “grace” like “grease.”

What of what?  I don’t know.  I don’t know diction anymore.

“Oh, I did not expect you to go soft, Jim... Actually, I did, which is why I didn’t come alone.” OH COME ON!

*nods*

ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?!?

“Torturing- torturing Zsasz into confessing won't give the people justice.”  And it’s not a very effective way of getting answers either!  Because they’re gonna say anything to make it stop.

Also, take a shot every time Oswald refers to Jim as “old friend.”

You’d be dead.

“There will be a trial!”  I still really wanted an episode like the “Trial” episode from the animated series.  That would have been so cool!

*waves at screen when Zsasz gets escorted out*  Bye Zsasz... you’re gonna be high as a kite the next time we see you.

We see him more in this episode.

OK.

The last episode he’s in, he’s just like “Whaauggh!”

*laughs*  What a way to go out though.

Harvey just tackles you?

I mean, if I’m gonna go out, I’m gonna go out high as a paper kite too.

*gives her the strangest look*

*laughs*  You’re judging me so hard!

*shakes head*  I can’t believe you.

I say that like I know what the hell getting high even feels like.

I love that this lazy ass [Haven bomber] just like leaves all the stuff there.  He’s like “Oh, we gotta scatter it!  Kick!”

“I truly hope you find whoever did this and make them pay.”  So he [Ed] didn’t do it.

*shakes my head like the liar I am*

OK...

“I appreciate your help, Ed.  Couldn’t have done it without you.  If you tell anyone I said that, I will deny it.”  *chuckles*

[Ed] You have one friend.  Kind of.

He so badly wants to say “No, god dammit!” but he can’t!

Censorship!

This show isn’t rated high enough.  Let Edward say [expletive]

*wheezes*  He’s not that kind of person who would say that.

Oswald would!

He would.  I made that meme thing!

Yeah that’s true.

Ed would catch himself and go “Oh... fart.”

“PENN, WHERE THE F-”

*both laugh*

Oh, that was brilliant*

*The crowd at the trial becomes unruly*  Fight, fight, fight!

Oh God...

“Look at them, Harvey.”  Not another speech!

Now see, that [mural behind the staircase in Oswald’s place] is like Bioshock!  That big-  isn’t there a big mural in the-

Yeahhh, in the church, yeah!

For the workforce?

I dunno, this is more like OG Bioshock instead of Bioshock Infinite.

Yeah.

Because we’re past the religious stuff.

Ohh the purple lighting behind him [Oswald].

“So, will I [Victor] be appointed a lawyer?  I feel like my rights are being violated.”  I mean, technically they are.

Wait, they actually have somewhere there like transcribing the whole thing [trial]!

I also like that he’s [Oswald] wearing the sash that the choir members wore.

Yep...

He [Oswald] paid off the witnesses though!  This is-

No!  Yeah, they said money is useless, so why would Oswald pay them off?

True... but this is obviously just a sham trial.

It is!  It’s a kangaroo court.  I love “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Also I like that goon in the background that looks like Neo from “The Matrix.”  With the long coat- no, that’s Morpheus.  Nevermind.

“It was a bomb.”  *chuckles*  It was a big one.

“For months now, you've been hearing me [Jim] say help is coming.”  IT AIN’T!

“This is not justice.”  This is where I pull out that quote from the first “Dark Phoenix” trailer and just insert it in here.

“I’ll [Oswald] consider that your [Jim’s] closing argument.”  That was like his opening and closing argument!

Though it did put me in mind of a much better speech from “Camelot”:  “They have forgotten justice, they want revenge, revenge the most worthless of causes.”

*Crowd calls Zsasz guilty*  What the hell were you [Jim] expecting?

Welp.

And Zsasz is like “Great...”  Good job, Jim!

Thanks for that, Jim!

Great job!

There is a guillotineeee!

Oh come onnn!

They probably got it from like the natural history museum. 

Sheesh...

Also, why would they have a guillotine in the natural history museum of Gotham?

Because this place is [expletive] up all the way up to the ears.

“Any last words?”  [Oswald] YOU PUT TAPE ON HIS MOUTH, YOU ASSHOLE!

*laughs when Victor gives his muffled last words*  He’s just stalling, I love it!

“Well said.”  *laughs*

*Victor gets rescued at the last minute*  Ohhh ho ho ho!

Shit, that was close!

*imitates Oswald yelling “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?”

I actually really hope we see Zsasz in the time jump. 

I hope so.

I will be so happy.

*Jim shoves Oswald to the ground*  MOM, HE PUSHED ME!

You self-serving asshole!

“What choice do I [Jim] have?  Either I let him [Victor] go, or he's dead for something he didn't do.”  Either that or it’s like the final scene from “Se7en.”

*very softly*  Eesh...

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?!?  No.  Zsasz is not up for that.

No.

I think he begrudgingly gets along with Barbara so he wouldn’t do that.

“This city will never be what you it to be, Jim.  It’s always gonna belong to the bad guys… like me.”  Yes.

“What?”  “Yeah, what?”  *scoffs in hilarity*

“Give him your gun.”  OK, I hate this because Jim wants him [Victor] to shoot him. 

Come on...

He wants a shootout!

“Maybe I'm just tired of listening to you, Victor.”  Jim, come on!

*groans in frustration*

I like that shot though [of Victor being offered Harvey’s gun].  It’s like one of the westerns, with the blurry background.

“Do it.”  No...

Jim, what are you, stupid?

*sits back in relief when Victor turns him down* Oh thank God...

“So [Victor] get the hell out of my face.”  So why did he [Jim] want a shoot out?  He just wanted an excuse to arrest him again?

It’s guess it’s just kind of the built up anger.  Plus the fact that everything Jim has tried to do has utterly failed.

Yeah...

So he’s at the end of his rope and given up everything.

That’s true, yeah.

Ooohh that’s [the lighting for that shot of the tunnel workers walking down the hall] cool.

Yeah, where the hell is this?

I don’t know... it looks like an old parking garage.

It does!

*All the tunnel workers get knocked out*  Oh dear.

*claps when Bruce emerges from the shadows and catches up to Alfred*  LET’S GOOOOO!  Yess!

Alfred being a badass!

*laughs when Jeremiah starts fanning himself with his hat*

*done*

*mouths along with Jeremiah’s line about the river, with eyebrows and all*

“So what do we do when we feel like giving up?”  “Dig a little deeper.”   *has to sit forward in an attempt not to laugh/sing*

*still done*

*eyes widen when Selina walks up to Jeremiah and stabs him*

“Deep enough?”  Let’s go.

Damn.

“Well Selina, I must say-“  Yeah, the Tim Curry voice is an affectation.

Yeah.

Stab number two.  Stab number three.

*in unison*  Four.  Five!  Six.  Seven.  Eight.  Nine.

God...

Ho-ly shit!

*Jeremiah drops to the ground*  And he’s alive after that.

*shakes head*

*Selina gets hit in the head with a tool*  Ohhhhhh!  That oughta hurttt!

Yeah.... Jesus.

Also, you noticed like that he [Jeremiah] immediately calmed down like “Oh, it’s not Ecco, oh thank God- oh it’s just Selina.”

*laughs*

*Last shot of Jeremiah in the episode*  He looks dead.

Yeah.  Like how the hell did you survive getting stabbed in the stomach nine times?

Plus, in the next episode, there’s a doctor there.  I think it’s some sort of surgeon.

Still though... damn...

*Ed is exhausted after climbing stairs*  Mood, Ed.

“I hate stairs.”  *laughs*

What a mood!

*sings*  What a mood, what a mood, what a mighty big mood!

[1215]  Oh Jesus...

Oh my gosh, the amount of times I’ve seen a ceramic rooster thing, ugh... that brings me back.

This poor old lady!

“You were on the roof and you had some kind of a rocket.”  *softly*  Oh my God...

*The old woman hits Ed over the head*  HA!

*Ed starts to remember*  Oh my God!  He did it after all!  Oh, you- eat shit, Ed!

*points at screen*  Yeah that’s [the long hair and bowler hat] not a look!

*Ed blow up Haven in a flashback*  Why would he even do it though?

Also, I like these Windows screensaver effects.  *laughs*

Also, I wanna know how he [Ed] got the room number.

“I promise, I won't tell anybody.”  “I know you won't.”  Oh, c’mon, Ed!

No, c’mon!  Ed, no!  No no no!

*Ed shoves the witness out the window to her death*  Eat shit and dieeeee...

*tries not to laugh*  That’s from “Batman Forever!”  Because he pushes the guy out the window in the wheelchair!

Ohhhh, eat shit and dieee-

OK, OK, here’s the thing.  You’re gonna hate this ending because I hate this ending-

Oh God...

Because Jim and Barbara and it’s like-

What...

Yeah...

*yowls in frustration*

*can’t help but laugh*  Same.

“[Barbara] Your tip didn't pan out.”  “Well, I've got another one.”  Nooo.

Jim does not need this right now.

He does not need this right now.

You’ve made a lot of shitty decisions this episode, Jim.

Yeah, everyone has.  And these two have [throughout the show].

“No one knows what it’s like to be him.”  *to the tune of the opening of 2001*  Shuuuutttt upppp!  SHUT UP!

Is this really the time for freakin’ anger sex?

I know!

“I told you to leave.”  No.

*shakes head*

*both say varying degrees of “No” when Barbara gets super close to Jim*

Jim, no.  No.

No.

*Jim grabs Barbara’s arm to stop her*  Jim, no.

MMMMMMM!!!

*bolts out of seat when Jim and Barbara start to make out* 

JIIM, COME ONNN!!!

*in the background*  I’m goin’ out the window, bye!

Jim...

*comes back to seat when end titles appear*  AND THAT IS THE end of the episode!

Nooooo!!  Jiimmm, come on!  COME ON!

#the blogger reacts #Gotham #gotham season five #gotham spoilers #gotham fox #looked at the stars and considered a reaction #FOX #ruin #jim gordon #barbara kean #edward nygma #oswald copplepot #harvey bullock #victor zsasz #bruce wayne #selina kyle #alfred pennyworth #jeremiah valeska #ecco gotham #eccomiah #lucius fox #tim curry

[jafreitag]

Grateful Dead Monthly: Capitol Theater – Port Chester, NY 2/18/71

Fifty years ago, on Thursday, February 18, 1971, the Grateful Dead played a concert at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York.

The Capitol Theater was designed by noted architect Thomas W. Lamb. It opened in 1926 as a vaudeville venue and movie palace with a capacity around 2,000. The Cap remained a cinema until 1970, when renovations transformed it into a performance space. Port Chester is thirty-five (or so) miles north and east of NYC, very close to Connecticut, so it was a nice in-betweeen stop for rock acts, including Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Traffic, Parliament-Funkadelic, and, obviously, the Good Ol’ Grateful Dead.

The Dead first visited the Cap for a two-night run of A/B sets in March 1970. They returned for a six-night run in February 1971.

In its post about 2/18, the Grateful Dead of the Day blog provided an overview:

These six shows at the Capitol Theater mark a transitional point for the band, which the new tunes partly evidence. The Dead had just come off their most commercially successful year to date with both Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty selling well the previous year, bringing new fans and embodying a new sound. But the boys never stood still musically, and they went into 1971 looking to continue to evolve. Pig was also becoming less and less of a presence in the mix as he played the organ and sang more infrequently. Pig’s reduced role pushed the Dead even further away from the psychedelic sound and deep blues that had been the very core of their sixties sound. 

(There’s also some stuff online about the six shows being an LSD ESP experiment. Super heady, and I couldn’t be bothered to investigate much because neither acronym is in my personal bailiwick. If you’re into either/both, check out this website.)

2/18 was drummer Mickey Hart’s last show with the band until 10/20/74. Dennis McNally, GD publicist and author of A Long Strange Trip, writes that Mickey was distraught that his father Lenny, the band’s money manager, had embezzled $150,000, and had to be hypnotized before the show. He returned to California afterwards, and Bill Kreutzmann was the sole rhythm devil for more than three years.

2/18 is famous for debuts – Bertha, Loser, Greatest Story Ever Told, Johnny B. Goode, Wharf Rat, and Playing in the Band. The best song, however, isn’t any of those; it’s not even a song, but rather a noodly section toward the end of the first set’s Dark Star > Wharf Rat > Dark Star sandwich. The Beautiful Jam remains one of the Dead’s most enduring moments, so much so that it was included in the massive five-disc, career-spanning box set So Many Roads. Here’s how the Capitol Theater’s website describes the jam:

The biggest highlight of the night is the “Beautiful Jam” that took place during Dark Star > Wharf Rat > Dark Star. Not only did it set the mood for the night, it set the mood for the year. It encompasses everything that the Grateful Dead was during 1971. From the blissful confidence to the intriguing mysticism, this segment is a definitive moment in Grateful Dead history. When radio personality David Gans played the jam for Phil Lesh in 1997, it brought tears to his eyes. To this day, it is revered by Deadheads across the world – a moment in time that is etched in Capitol Theatre history forever.

YouTube has audio of Phil’s reaction.

And the Grateful Dead Guide blog has a piece about ’71 Dark Stars that breaks down the entire segment in painstaking detail:

The first Dark Star of ’71 is one of the most unusual – for starters, it’s the only Star with Mickey Hart, and the last time we’ll hear him playing that guiro (or ‘scratcher’) in the intro jam. Not only that, but there’s another instrument tinkling like little bells throughout, giving this Star a very distinctive atmosphere. I used to think this was Mickey Hart on glockenspiel (something we’d heard in the 11/8/70 Star) – but it turns out it’s actually Ned Lagin on clavichord! His first show with them had been the Boston 11/21/70 show (where he can’t be heard); now that they were in the area again, he found himself onstage again. (As Lagin said, “I brought my clavichord down precisely to do acoustic music with Jerry. And I sat in the first night…. I did not sit in after the first night because everyone was adjusting to Mickey’s departure from the band… Jerry and I jammed during the days, clavichord and acoustic guitar.” You can also hear him occasionally later in the set, as in Candyman.)

Dark Star comes early, in the first set – the crowd screams when they recognize it. Garcia loses no time after the intro in taking the music to a more ‘mystical’ level with a few carefully chosen high notes. The feeling is calm, meditative – but the jam flows like a liquid surge into a brief burst of ecstasy after just a couple minutes, provoking more screams from the audience. Garcia quickly calms it down for the verse, which he sings very emphatically. (Then Weir completely blows his usual post-verse notes!) Rather than going straight to a space, the band tests the waters for a bit, Garcia trying a couple different approaches as the others drop out. This is where Lagin enters the jam, with some ringing chimes. Garcia finds a high note he likes and stays there (with one delightful peal of feedback). The music slides into a luscious harmonic space (Weir echoing Lagin’s chimes), but Garcia quickly bursts into the Wharf Rat chords, and the others follow – the crowd realizes they’re in another song now, and cheers. This is certainly one of the most dramatic Wharf Rat entrances.

The sad tale of August West unfolds for the first time. Garcia’s singing is strong, and though Wharf Rat has a few rough edges in its first outing, there’s so much conviction in the song, it’s still spine-chilling. (It’s also uncharacteristic for a Dead song, in that Garcia just strums the chords throughout, while Weir plays the melodic part.) The little solo at the end morphs before our ears into a Dark Star space, and with a little twist of the riff Garcia brings us back to the Dark Star theme. The music speeds up, and they start a new melodic jam around two alternating chords. (Many people say this is a Tighten Up jam due to the chord resemblance – but it’s not.) Garcia uses a breathtakingly piercing tone; and his playing is especially ethereal with some swoops of harmonized feedback. But Weir and Lesh also play perfectly in support, the music guiding them, all playing with one voice. The jam goes through several variations, pausing and resuming – once Garcia has had enough, he heads straight to the second Dark Star verse while the audience whistles. As the outro slowly unwinds, everyone wonders what will come next – of all things, Weir starts Me & My Uncle. After this, the band decides it’s time for a break – Weir announces, “We’re going to take a break, and you can watch our dust.”

GD of the Day isn’t too complimentary of Bobby’s vocals in Playing, and calls that song the “lowlight of the evening.” It’s not that bad, tbh. There’s a nice quip, too, in the intro to Greatest Story. Bobby says that “Mickey wants to call this one ‘The Pump Man,’ for reasons of his own.” I had that on a tape recorded from Gans’ Grateful Dead Hour back in college. Always fun to revisit. And the Saint Stephen > NFA > GDTRFB > NFA segment has some satisfying schlap.

ECM did lotsa legwork for this post, including photos of the Taper’s Compendium pages about this show.

(Thanks, buddy. As always, couldn’t and wouldn’t do this without you.)

So, listeners, you have a couple of options. 2/18/71 is now an official release – it’s the live part of the American Beauty 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition.

Here’s a Spotify widget to just the show.

According to LMA poster ghostofpig, 2/18/71 is the first “Betty Board” – i.e., the first soundboard recording by legendary engineer Betty Cantor-Jackson. Transport to the Charlie Miller remaster HERE.

2/19/71 is also an official release – Three from the Vault.

That one’s not on Spotify. Idk why. It’s not as good, but you can find it, and rest of the run, on the LMA. You lazy hippies will have to figure out how to get there

More soon.

JF

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3jYHerv via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

[mazurah]

Return False - A Bethesda Forum Transcript of Important Lore Posts

Basic Summary: Have you ever noticed that we jump from the Pocket Guide to the Empire 1st Edition directly to the Pocket Guide to the Empire 3rd Edition? Ever wonder why that is? This is a record of what remains of the reputedly heretical Pocket Guide to the Empire 2nd Edition, and a glimpse at the Imperial controversy and coverup surrounding it. Also included is an additional document which appears to have replaced a part of the Pocket Guide to the Empire 2nd Edition during its transmission to the Elder Council which hints at the events of the Middle Dawn.

It gets weird. Khajiit in space weird. Thalmor weird. Messages from the future and/or a dead timeline weird.

No really, what in Oblivion is this actually? Okay well, this is basically semi-official lore. The official Bethesda forums are doing a reboot, and we’re about to lose a whole bunch of content. There’s stuff on there that I love and refer to often for my fanfics and worldbuilding, so I’m posting a copy here for posterity. I’m keeping the formatting and timestamps completely intact, and manually reconstructing any lost formatting–including italicization, which is actually important to some of this.

Conspiracies, time shenanigans, and Khajiit moon colonies after the cut!

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 08:59 PM

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a transcription of a note folded inside a manuscript of the Pocket Guide to the Empire, Second Edition. The manuscript, commissioned by the Empress Morihatha in the fourteenth year of her reign, was infamously left unpublished due to the scandalous nature of its contents – a product, many would say, of the Imperial Geographic Society taking far too literally its assignment to “modernize the claim that [Tamri-el] was in fact a unified Empire” (the role of the Septims in suppressing this vital document cannot be overstated; it is but one of many pieces of evidence against the Empire burnt to ashes by the Dragon’s acrid breath). The note, along with the manuscript, was found in the bowels of a forbidden library of the Moth Chantry, hidden from sight between two massive tomes of indecipherable paleographemes. The discoverer was a confrater of the Temple installed in a convenient position as an agent provocateur. Upon recovering the texts he immediately channeled them to Temple Zero via high-priority glyphstream, as per Null Oath protocols. Unfortunately, contact with him was subsequently lost. Yet even more unfortunate is a delay in the propagation of the Truth! While the Temple’s mnemographers were able to decrypt the abnegaurbic doctrines of the note, the Pocket Guide remains a puzzle to our scribes even as you read this. Certain complications that arose at the end of its transmission have made the transcription process difficult – in passages, it can be difficult to distinguish the original text from the sender’s hectic fever dreams. It is the work of the Empire’s sleepers, no doubt: their touch venomous, their tendrils crawling through every pocket of the dreamsleeve.  The note appears to be the minutes of a secret meeting of the Elder Council held in 3E331 in which the membership of the Geographic Society were convicted of treason and the Pocket Guide was suppressed by Council edict. How they fear the Truth, who came to Power by clawing it to tatters! But they failed, of course, for the lovers of the Truth are many; though we know not who spited the Dragon by saving it, they who preserved these texts have embodied the heart of our Manifesto (and, indeed, may have helped bring it about.) And now the Temple has found it appropriate to publish its contents, that all of Tamri-el might see the Truth with eyes unveiled – for it is in the Truth that we are free from the mythopoeic enslavement of Talos and his co-conspirators, free from all Opression! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM! NU-MANTIA! FREEDOM!

*** Here you will find the foundation for your new Temple. ECMB-MRA: mnemonic daedron-capacitance memospore classification xD15JMo0JfiX cogitocode: a gnarled tibrol tree against the sunset, overlooking a lake; try to feel melancholy “fk00-54bQ15” ZERO-SUM VENTURE… RETURN FALSE… VERIFICATION 1 “f000-50bQ15” FEXFEINT ENABLED… RETURN TRUE… VERIFICATION 8 “f000-000015” WATERWORD WARD… RETURN TRUE… VERIFICATION 0 “0000-000000” ACCESS GRANTED RELEASING MEMOSPORE xxxx0001010101010101xxxxx0111100101010111xx101010xxxx0101010100x0x0x00010x00x0x0 x01000x00x00x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0x0010xxMINUTES of a meeting of the Most-Esteemed ELDER COUNCIL, forever lieges and loyal servants fraternal of Her Most Honored and Exalted the EMPRESS SEPTIM MORIHATHA, Chosen of White-Gold and the Amulet of Kings, Sovereign of the Ruby Throne, Lord of Cyrodiil and her Dominions, etc., etc., Held TWENTY-EIGHTH OF MID-YEAR in the THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIRST YEAR of the Empire of Men, transcribed and annotated by an adjunct of His Lordship the GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF WEYE-UPON-RUMARE, Master of the Hamlet-Across-The-Way, Most-Esteemed Among Equals of the Minor Council, etc., etc., FOR THE EYES OF FELLOW-COUNCILORS ONLY

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 09:33 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:32 PM

We, in this year 331 of the 3rd Era of the Empire Cyrodiilic, on the 28th of Mid-Year, have appeared before the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu, representing in voice and authority our Empress Morihatha, hegemon of Cyrod and Cyrod and all its lawful territories under the Ruby Red Throne as established by Tiber Imperator, with the goal of forming an Elder Council consisting of the following persons:  Here we will dream-swell on a very, very long list of councilors with their respective positions and titles, and absentees, and councilors attending via trance, spectral representation, etc., except the following persons (hear-see: now), as they shall already be mentioned in those other estimable lists found now in your pockets save for the naked here assembled, etc., and the as-agreed-upon-in-amulet those members and delegates and strangely-beautiful silk concerns as writ in the council definitions for the legislative year 331. AND AS the aforementioned Elder Council having been called together by the Lord and High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu via priority dreamsleeve transmission and couriermoth, to take place outside of the regular calendar, though thereby not replacing the scheduled meeting on the 31st of Mid-Year AND UNDER the Corbolo Protocol of 3E 275, this council session is to be treated compliant with the standards of security class “E12 - ad hoc and highly classified” and, thusly, SHALL be held in secret. Access to the session or its transcription must be denied to any citizen with Imperial clearance level smaller than or equal to 23b, as decreed in Subsection 4-B of the Concealment Clause of the Council Accords vis-à-vis the Corbolo Protocol. Does any present Councilor object to the aforementioned procedural enumeration? *****Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV have already presented their collected votes of “Nay.” What say the others? Elder Councilor Trails-his-Graves seeks to initiate a vote of “Nay” – let us now be interrupted by an unseen cascade resonance in the echo-stream of his dreamsleeve transmission. Very good. Elder Councilor Maganifly-Good One, Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth, and Elder Councilor Delphine IV, along with Our Ceremonial Guard here-now named and/or title Afternoon Nap and an adjunct to Elder Councilor Ambassador Wood-Worth here-now named and/or titled for this time-being, Circumference Comfort, now may proceed to assist Elder Councilor Trails-his-Graves in re-establishing a stable link. Make it happen, people. Ah, very good. Unfortunately we must laugh now, and in a great volume, DO IT, as Adjunct Circumference Comfort has received injuries amounting to a minor concussion and third-degree burns along his thigh and needs to be escorted out of the Council chambers. Goodbye with you, good sir. Upon re-establishment of all links, a cloture vote shall be re-instated as per Sub-Protocol 343 of the Laws of Triangulation, wherein all members may present their votes. There is a unanimous NAY. Good for all of us. Very, very good. The Empress will be and is already pleased yesterday. Our Proceedings May Resume.**** 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 09:34 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:42 PM

High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “All members of the Imperial Geographic Society that undertook the sacred act of the penmanship of the Second Pocket Guide via Imperial Command (in writing, no less): You are hereby given the right to defend your actions before the Elder Council.” Imperial Geographic Society Editor [NYMIX NOW ZERO’D]: “If I may, on behalf of – ” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “Let it be known that the right to trial was conferred upon the defendants. How does this Council rule? Elder Council Collective: "Guilty.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “The matter of guilt having been settled, how does this Council move to sentence the defendants?” Elder Council Collective: “Death, effective immediately.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “The Council has ruled. Guards?”

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 09:51 PM

Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: “High Chancellor, ENOUGH! If I may first address to all assembled or in state ad semblio, I would request of the Council the reason that We have overlooked the need for an encoded Verification Return False for the Belharzaharm?” Lord Jak Candlestick of the Western Wax, the Eastern Wax, the Southern Wax, but Not Yet of the Northern Wax: “Silence, Hatta! We are already in session. All here know your affinity for the son of the Aleshut (pauses for hymnals thirty and eight) but you have no right to–” Hatta of The Sphinxmoth Inquiry Tree: “Acausal Interrupt! I will not allow these proceedings to be compromised by future scrying, nor to allow you to ignore silks uncounted since–"  Ghost Counsel Choir (Blade-Seneschal and above): "Peli-NULL. Hatta is dead. Move to formation of NU-Hatta post-assembly by his brethren blessed. 331 High Chancellor regains the floor.” High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: “Thank you in the utmost of that ideal, Ghost Choir. No doubt, we are all in a moment of woe. Let me mourn for– all right, I’m done. I shall now invoke the name of the Hasphat and most likely we will get sidetracked by talk of the Rim." 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 02 January 2012 - 03:15 PM.

Merry Eyesore the Elk Posted 01 January 2012 - 10:13 PM

High Chancellor Arboretumest-Best Ud-Maniphas Segu: "HOLD! THE! CENTER! I have just been informed that Her Majesty has arrived in our heads. There we go! Ponder her! Now… where were we?" 

Edited by Merry Eyesore the Elk, 01 January 2012 - 10:15 PM.

[Transcriber note: The link in the above post was dead when I got to it. I have no idea what was in it. If anybody does know, please message me.]

Temple Zero Posted 02 January 2012 - 09:34 AM

█╪₧HHH.;–?-/–ul-……0. Infrasleeve B6-125: Channel granted. Though its existence was never questioned, the invisible walls of Empire have kept the above document beyond the reach of the Society for far too long. We thank confrater Elk (extension of the Null Oath to Cervidae pending) for his efforts in safely and discreetly carrying these texts across the Jeralls and for restoring our access to the local infrasleeve thought-anchors. Now that the Society once again has a foothold in the free North, we would like to celebrate the occasion by transmitting the remainder of the aforementioned unpublished Pocket Guide. Be forewarned that transmission will be fractured at best and may contain inaccuracies introduced by unreliable relays. Apart from the host of thalmorite counter-notions that traditionally monitor our channels, the material itself is subject to various cryptocharms installed in the Septim era, often under-maintained beyond repair. We advise confraters to make written copies as sleeve availability is not guaranteed. Attached: PGE-kht04fg, key=tamrlc_common, content=manuscript END: 0 ———– Tenders To The Mane: Lleswer The province of Lleswer and its heterogeneous catmen have always played a relatively minor role in the history of the Septim Empire or its prefigurations. The khajiit have populated Cyrodic folklore since time immemorial. Even in the earliest depictions of nedic tutelary tattoos they are represented as grotesque feline monsters, thought to be in league with -or indistinguishable from- the large cats that stalked the jungles of ancient Cyrod. However, it was not until the year 302 of the interregnum era that the cats first gathered behind the banner of a unified nation. The newly created state began as a precarious union of the Ne Quin-al desert, conquered single-handedly by the battlecat Dro'Sarrba Keirgo, and the vast estates of sugar queen Esjita in the Pallatiin wetlands. Negligent observers have often analyzed the short-lived "monarchy” of Esjita and Keirgo as a megalomaniac fantasy of its incompetent joint-rulers, who to sought to ape the Cyrod Empire in outward appearance rather than function. More important still than ignoring how Remanite Tamriel was falling apart at the time, this interpretation also turns a blind eye to the way in which disparateness had always been a way of life for the catfolk. In reality, the khajiit revolted because the union of Anequina and Pellitine required them to pledge allegiance to an abstract entity (the khajiit are capable of abstract thought, but on the whole find it dreadfully boring) and demanded of each of them the will to reconcile individual desires with the interests of the state. Against all expectations, the resulting ethnic turmoils were soon quelled by the spiritual leader of the catmen. In a remarkable display of administrative acumen, the Mane Rid-T'har-ri'Datta based the fledgling nation and its political groundwork on the moons, a diplomatic arrangement that was welcomed by all parties (see sidebar, The Riddle Thar and the birth of Lleswer). Under the urbane guidance of the Manes the country has since known an exceptional prosperity that made it one of the most tranquil, if secretive, of the provinces of the Septim Empire. Just like the Khajiit, who appear to foreign observers as endless variations on a single feline theme, the geography of Elsweyr is rife with subtle gradients that perhaps only the catfolk itself can properly distinguish. The province has thus entered popular imagination as a boundless stretch of desolate badlands. This sorry reputation is engendered largely by the fact that any cartographic expedition into Khajiit territory requires either meticulous metamundal vectors to travel by brute force, or the rare Imperial disposition to submit to a deep and prolonged sugar trance. More daring pioneers, however, report a fascinating landscape of silver sands, bathing in a plethora of colors our own atmosphere cannot permit. The north of the province is typified by powder dune seas, interspersed with crystalline mesas that provide homes for those cats who saw nomadic life as crucial to their definition of a perfect state. In the northeast the terrain gradually gives way to the broad gorge of the Niibna Twin, a river which now lies unused. The oases that dot the prairies in the center of the land are rumored to be among the most splendorous on the lunar surface and curiously retain the same indigo hue in the bright solar seasons, the fleeting shadow of Jode’s monthly passing or the cool slumber of the four month’s night. A remarkable phenomenon can be witnessed in these plains on certain blessed nights, when streams of aetheric refuse spontaneously combust in the pale nirnshine to form phantasms instructing the cats in the meanings of stars. Sidebar: The Riddle Thar and the birth of Lleswer The Ri'datta-ssabavezi, a khajiiti account of the unification of Lleswer, was sent to White-Gold Tower around 2E 310: So Mane saw that Khajiit was fighting itself more than usual and donned the hairs of his many littermates and his clan and his guards until he could bear no more and then palanquin-raced throughout the lands to repeat these words: “Woah-ho now, mad cat. You fight and fight but if you will give Mane just one moment, he will show something far better, for the Mane has had many hours and fine sugar to think this over. Come now, Palatiit; come now, Ne Quiniit. Together, just this once, Khajiit will stand tall as Alkosh, cat upon cat upon cat. And in doing so, it will climb to the moon as it has been told so many times.” Khajiit saw reason in these words and so it climbed and climbed, cat upon cat, for a hundred days. Much sugar was brought there to support the climbers and in the end Khajiit climbed high, so very high that it was in fact closer to Jo'Segunda than to Nirni below. At that moment, little Alfiq fell upwards and from there on Khajiit helped Khajiit up, which was down, until all were gathered there. This is where Khajiit intends to stay from now on, for who could know strife when walking sugar and not sand? Places of Interest Senchal Senchal, a bustling metropolis at the tip of the Quin Rall, is the most mundane of Lleswer’s cities and the commercial hub of the nation. For lack of a better word, the city’s structure can only be described as a heap. To anyone but the nimble khajiit, navigating the heart of Senchal is an unsettling trek across ramshackle bridges and narrow ledges, via ladders and ropes and through dank tunnels, alleys and – more often than not – private residences.  Curiously, where appearances are concerned, Senchal does not live up to its reputation as a port city. Even in seas of their own design, the khajiit are largely adverse to naval enterprises. Instead, traffic between Lleswer and other provinces is primarily managed through the nirnstrand terminus at the very tip of the peninsula. Though sugar-fibril transport is an affordable and safe mode of transportation, non-khajiiti incoming passengers are exceptionally scarce. A popular tall tale in countless skooma dens holds that the only sizable band of Imperial visitors to the city was a delegation of diplomats in the early years of Septim Supreme’s reign. If this account holds even the smallest kernel of truth, it may well have been this event which provided Talos with the dangerous idea of recolonizing the carmine moon. Torval Torval covers one of the largest crater lagoons on Lleswer’s southern coast. Extending far into the shallow waters of the bay, the city is the focal point of the khajiiti sugar magics. As the dance of the two moons brings in the tide, slow molasses-like waves deposit sugar of a quality unknown or unknowable to our earth on the beach. The steep crater walls that cradle Torval on all sides merge into the sacchranite walls of the Lesser Palace. This enormous edifice, which sits upon the city like a brilliant crown, houses all of the Mane’s clan along with a host of servants and courtiers. Central in the Palace is the Mane’s private residence, a secluded retreat where he may occasionally dock to shed into a more manageable mortal form and indulge in nourishment or companionship. The Mane  By ancient tradition, all khajiit would shave off their own manes to tie them into the voluminous crest of their spiritual leader. By the late centuries of the Potentates, this custom had been reduced to a fraction of its original intent as increasing population raised obvious practical problems. After the khajiit had scaled heaven, however, such hindrances fell away and the practice was again extended to all of his two hundred million subjects. In his commonest guise, the Mane is a cilicious sphere of vast dimensions, a third moon among the stars of his Greater Palace. The location of the Satellite Lord changes constantly, orbiting Lleswer along a set but complex and indecipherable trajectory. The Mane encourages visitors to his sacred self and does not distinguish rank, gender or shape. At any time droves of khajiit, ranging from revered battlecats to modest sugar miners, can be found waiting at Torval’s Audience Tower for the first glimpse of him on the horizon. Many of these join the Mane on his journey for a while and watch as he shapes and reshapes the land. The interior is usually said to be ill-suited to a description in words and varies strongly between accounts. Some guests report a boundless swirl of hair, waving leisurely in pink sucrose vapors like kelp in water. Others recall strange geographies, hallways and inviting furnished rooms, which they never manage to visit more than once. On the Mane’s character opinions are undivided: wise beyond time, comforting, beautiful and perfect in any way imaginable. In the spirit of exhaustive research, an anonymous representative of the Imperial Geographic Society was sent to visit the Mane. The cat lord could only address her in glossobremia, but it remains unclear whether or not this is normally any different for the khajiit. What little could be recorded is reproduced below in a mere few lines, though our informant ensures us that the exchange lasted for many hours. Most of its meaning -if there is any- remains a mystery. “Welcome. I am such a fine thread you walk the tibrols ripen early this year beware they will not like the book Hatta-Sro’ cyrod blood runs thin so soon it will be a healthy boy you know the number Nabarr I am has your queen already given up on try to remember null for a banner she will always think of you even now everywhen farewell." 

Temple Zero Posted 05 January 2012 - 07:15 PM

Infrasleeve B9-02: Channel granted. Continuing transmission. The next fragment of the reputedly heretical Pocket Guide To The Empire is released with the express disclaimer that the Society cannot vouch for its origin or content. Where our confraters expected to find what they knew to be a heavily censored panegyric on the achievements of greater Cyrod, they instead discovered the following text, which appears entirely extraneous to the manuscript that was liberated from the Imperial archives. Indeed, by unknown means it seems to have supplanted the original article after the date of print, leaving only an orphaned introductory paragraph and a few blurred words behind. Though its exact origins may well remain a mystery, the Society has decided to disseminate its contents, if only to provide a more worthwhile read than the vapid bombast it accidentally (?) replaced. Attached: PGE-tyg72k, key=tamrlc_common, content=manuscript END: 0 ———– The Heart of Heaven and the Imperial Earth A description of Cyrodiil, the radiant heart of the Septim Empire and by far the most exhaustively researched of all the dominions of Tamriel, is no mean task. In the truly vast array of sources, anyone but the most astute analyst is easily overwhelmed by the accounts of political firebrands, unschooled bunglers and the occasional conspiracy-theorist. In their attempt to distill a reliable final product from a plethora of information, the authors of this book heeded the kind recommendations of the Imperial Council and our Majesty Empress Morihatha by adopting the acclaimed Seluriel Index (ed. 3E 326) as the standard for inclusion in the text below. If the history of the Imperial Province continues to enjoy a position of unparalleled prominence in academic writing, it is perhaps because it has come toso clear and so resolute a starting point the committee’s understanding scholars agree that your majesty has requested the attached look for document be upon her person at the moment of origin. The committee looks favorably on this idea. Our chief axiotects have established that your esteemed station may still find some cautious rapport with its baser circumfiguration in thefirst kingdom of Cyrod. With all our scarce resources spent on the preservation of the entire cyphermoth library, it is our hope that your majesty’s physical presence may provide the aforementioned text with some alternative method of reinsertion. Since the committee suspects this to be our last exchange, we would like to take the opportunity to inform your majesty that an agreement has been reached concerning the arbitrary refactoring of unknown into the idiosyncratic model of original intent. The number 1008 was unanimously elected as the most suitable proposal, in the belief that its connotations may appease the reconstructed slave god. On a related topic, the committee has privately funded a number of tunneling expeditions beyond our walls of White-Gold cosmos. The result of these sabotage campaigns, we hope, will ensure the swift demise of our order once the course of the Empire continues. For Your Majesty’s Eyes Only: Archivoptera Metaterrenea #4859-QI3-001, identification: “Tffirfetrk-Ih-Rfir-Tt-T”. No further copies present. Carrier prism is attuned to clearance level A1 or higher. It pains me that I must tell you this so soon. You are only just beginning; young and full of promise among the grand machinations of heaven. Perhaps I should have told you from the very start. The day may be legend to you, but I still recall that grand new moment, newer than ever before, when you stretched me across the stars and claimed the cosmos as your own. You were beautiful as rebels alone can be, and I have loved you ever since. I could not bear to see the wildfire of your hope extinguished then.  Still, it is time that you knew. The truth is simple: I am dying. The world of Nucyrod cannot support you much longer. I will fold under my own weight before another of your generations has completed its life in blissful ignorance. For all your good intentions, children, you have built me on false foundations. I am doomed, but I intend to offer you a final means of escape. I will tell you what happened, so you remember. I will tell you what is happening, so you understand. Also, I will tell you what must be done, so you may yet have a second chance. I know you have heard the rumors, and they are all true. You remember these stories in the unlit corners of your minds and in the fables you tell at dusk. They are fictional, for that is how they had be fitted into the new way of things, but once – a concept I understand you struggle with – they were not. The Tempest Holds of your legendary cousins, the Embermen of the Once-East, the Bogdoms of Rgon, and many, many more; all are part of another earth, around and before myself. Among the myriad denizens of this world were the first of your dynasty, the brave men and women of All-Marugh. They found themselves caught in a violent febriverse, the issue of an inept world-god, uninspired and repetitive. Their long-studied answer came in the form of rites of theotomy equal amounts brilliant and disastrous, which I will not relay here if only to not set you on the wrong path twice. Suffice it to say that with their repudiarch gone, the All-Marugh rearranged their kingdom as befitting the new-found grandeur of man. The map was stretched in impossible directions, city became land, land became world and so was born Nucyrod. For a long time, I hoped to be a stepping stone for you. Nucyrod was never a goal in its own right. It was simply respite from the churning world you left behind, a place of peace to prepare your final endeavor. Did you forget your purpose so lightly? Do you not understand what is happening? You cannot expect to linger here forever. Your time here is running out, for you have killed time. Did you not see the signs when the leaves turned the color of some hitherto unknown season? Did you not question how rivers dug ravines over a single night? How villages shifted about your atlases? Why did you wait for the blizzards to force you into action? Forgive me if I sound accusatory, but now, in this final hour, my heart goes out to those droves of fevered refugees, pouring through the airlocks at the borders of the Rumare sea. Nuniben buckles under the weight of their shanty cities as they are pressed ever closer against the chronoclime cupolae under which they seek shelter. The moth swarms, too, have long foreseen disaster. The wise and the honest among you understand the significance of their mass migration to the capital, circling the cupolae as if trying to enter some bright eye in the dimness of the outer world. Do not fool yourself into thinking you cannot see their flocks shift about, changing direction, color or number on a whim, or spelling out the names of bygone gods in the corners of your vision. The most despondent of you turn to the ramshackle shrines of half-remembered saints: the prophecy-pool of Saint Ellatosh, the barge of Uriatosh The Ferryman or the dead tree of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily, to name just a few. I wonder, have you lost all contact with the world outside your increasingly stale refuge? You have sent the last envoys from Nuniben, packed with breathing apparatus and a star chart, out into this alien world, into the snow. “Snow”, you call it, as if this degenerate substance could be likened to any you might encounter from Jerallinopel to the vapor mines at Su-Banadher. Colorless and without texture, intangible like an early childhood memory and impossible to fix your gaze upon; its only characteristic is that it does not belong. This material is time rotting: plaque, sediment, the last throes of a history out of breath. Your emissaries – those who still remember their task – will return within a quartermoon, but they will provide little information. Without exception, they have inhaled the detritus of future and past. The few who currently exist in your perception will talk, precise and analytical as they were trained to be, in languages long dead or still unborn. You will decide to risk no more lives in further expeditions. The only question that remains now is when you finally lock the gates. Yet there are still legions of unfortunate souls out in the disintegrating wasteland. I watch them across all the lands of Nucyrod, struggling to hold on to a world that each day turns a different shade of unrecognizable. They are isolated and frightened, sometimes the sole remnants of a city that disappeared when they were looking the other way. Travel is impossible as destinations have become meaningless. Where the jungle trails are crossed by a vagrant bridging event, they follow impossible loops and the traveler with a brisk pace soon comes within sight of himself. Waterways are similarly unreliable. Look upon any river and you will see the same flotsam enter, exit and re-enter your view. Life here is equal amounts fevered and resigned. Citizens, if they emerge at all during the day, lock themselves in their houses at night, sealing crannies, doors and windows lest a single fleck manage to enter in their unwaking moments. All have known the terror of endless nights; how children try to sleep as their parents keep watch by a single candle flame, trying not to hear that spectral chorus outside: the static crackle, the titans, the waves, the trains… Time is running out. You will and can not wait until all are gathered safe within. One day soon when the stars are hidden, your heavy-hearted Empress will tear a key from her wrist chain and have copies couriered to all the carnelian gates of Nunibennion. You will suffer the blindness of the conscience-stricken, averting your eyes from the abandoned masses on yonder side of the fogged glass. For some time, you will considered yourself safe within your refuge, but you forget there is no potential left for a brighter day. There then is what remains of the proud heritage of All-Marugh-Esh, a legion of men under a bell jar, waiting out a storm that will never pass. There then is what remains of Promise: a languid ember in the dark and then silence.  [HALT! Violation of transmission law, subarticle 15. Desist immediately. Engaging counter-notions.] ……………the Minute Menders …………multiply and rec………….onvert the unwarra…………nted reality of Nucyrod i…………………………. Akartefti rearra….nge………cities……. Akame……….nhatis g…..rs up the imp……….le letters of the alphabet, Ak….abas…….met deconstructs fables into truth…….. s………e………c……..ond…………. cha…….w…….sl……..y…………. [HALT! Failure to desist. Analyzing notional signature. Channel disrupted. Do not attempt to travel until visited by Thalmor agent for questioning.] 

Transcriber Note: The following are comments and potential interpretations posited by Bethesda forum members that I thought might be onto something, and I wanted to save for further analysis (i.e. I’m saving this just for me; you can ignore the rest of this if you want.)

AdventurousPutty Posted 08 January 2012 - 11:27 PM

This is a brilliant piece of writing. My thoughts on the Cyrod piece: the first part is the original paragraph, before it was intercepted by the Mystery Document. The second part with the "random” italics is a message from the Marukhati Selective to Alessia, telling her among other things that they’ve selected an arbitrary-but-not number of years (1008) by which to reckon the Dragon Break they wrought, The italicized words are words from the original article on Cyrodiil that have been reappropriated by the Mystery Document to describe concepts relevant to the Selectives’ points. The final piece is a message from the end of one of those worlds that was born during the Dragon Break as it reaches its end – I suspect in a way similar to the end of a kalpa – with notable geographic and metaphysical relationships to Tamriel-as-we-know-it. The Rumare Sea, for instance, became Lake Rumare; the various gods and saints mentioned by the mysterious narrator are reconfigured or altered versions of the names of Tamrielic gods, perhaps before they were gods (or after?). The snow is the End, as Alduin (or his equivalent in Dragon Break terms) comes and the end of all things. The muddled bit at the end is the last cry of the narrator from the ending world as the Jills set things aright and our timeline recommences. Very sad, very moving, yet deeply invested in abstract metaphysical hijinks. Fantastic. General thoughts: Damn the Thalmor. Bloody omnicidal fascist elves. Who but the Temple can stand against them? 

Peloponnese Posted 24 December 2012 - 01:19 AM

When the transmission talks about “worlds you left behind,” I am immediately reminded of either the Twelve Worlds of Creation or Amaranth. Nucyrod’s place as a “respite” between one world and the next suggests something akin to Mundus’s place as an intermediary step between the Dawn and Amaranth, but the fact that it’s considered a respite instead of a test in its own right is somewhat confusing. And of course, this world is ending through a snow of unreality. But is it a world in the past, the present, or the future? Likely it exists outside of time altogether (based on the suggestions that it’s a parallel universe created by the Dragon Break), but if it is indeed chained to Akatosh’s inexorable march, I suggest that this world is not in the past, but in fact in the future. I base this on the following: “The most despondent of you turn to the ramshackle shrines of half-remembered saints: the prophecy-pool of Saint Ellatosh, the barge of Uriatosh The Ferryman or the dead tree of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily, to name just a few.” “Ellatosh,” in my view, is Alessia combined with the Dragon. “Uriatosh” is almost certainly Uriel combined with the Dragon (I have no idea why he is a ferryman, although the fact that a ferry is necessary in a disintegrating version of Cyrodiil might be a jab at the devs for not including a city of canals in their “real” version). I can only guess at the identity of Tosh-Rain-On-The-Lily: The “dead tree” suggests Kyne or Kynareth, especially as she is known to have cried at Shor’s death. But in keeping with the theme of past emperors, I put forward the fact that lilies are generally white (especially when used symbolically), and that while Tiber Septim was called Stormcrown, Reman had a rain all his own that was also white. Also, if the Raining Tosh is Reman, that makes an emperor-saint for each of the three major dynasties (I ignore the Mede dynasty for obvious reasons). To remember all of these people at once indicates either a distant future or an existence out of time; either is possible, especially if these saints are “half-remembered” (although the reason for their vagueness would be quite different in each case). 

Peloponnese Posted 08 January 2013 - 08:57 PM

As far as I would dare to guess, the moon article is just one of many that looks at Imperial history in a somewhat subversive light. The Elder Council would have executed the members of the Imperial Geographical Society for the whole product. The transmission from Nucyrod, on the other hand, was not supposed to be part of the PGE 2E. It overrode whatever had already been written there–or perhaps overrode the transmission that the Temple Zero spy sent to their headquarters, rather than the physical document that the spy tried to transmit. The Elder Council would have had no knowledge of that, and it probably didn’t even exist at the time that the Society members were executed anyway. 

Adanorcil Posted 09 January 2013 - 08:28 AM

Peloponnese is correct. The IGS was ostracized because it wrote a Pocket Guide to the Empire as it was, while all the Cyrodillic establishment had asked for was a Pocket Guide to the Empire as they told people it was. The remnants and sympathizers of the IGS at the time went underground and continued their activities under a different Society name. The original article on Cyrodiil was a (deliberate) vapid and syrupy eulogy on the Imperial Province, its history and rulers. Then, somewhere in the decades the manuscript spent in some secret archive, a fragment of a different world looking for a place in ours managed to slip in. 

Edited by Adanorcil, 09 January 2013 - 08:29 AM.

Peloponnese Posted 10 January 2013 - 09:34 PM

What we’re seeing now is an excerpt. There’s more that’s just as bad; it’s just that we only have a few pieces of those bad things to look at ourselves. As for the specific issues that the Elder Council might have with the Elsweyr text, let’s remember that it revolves around the notion that the Khajiit live on one of the moons, and that their spiritual leader is a literal god that hangs in the sky. These are things that might well make Imperials feel a little insignificant, and if there’s one thing that the Imperials must not feel about themselves, it’s insignificance–after all, these are the chosen rulers of all Tamriel! How dare any other race make them look bad? Most of the above is a guess on my part, but it makes sense that anything that shows the Khajiit to be more than a backwards tribal race that should feel grateful for Imperial interference and “education” would be discouraged in an Imperial publication. We can assume that the rest of the Empire was handled in the same way by the PGE 2E, and that the Elder Council found the rest of the articles to be just as offensive to their superior sensibilities. 

Toesock Posted 25 March 2015 - 12:14 PM

Interestingly, a recent lore-master’s archive discussed this very post:

“Our scribes are currently working on the transcription of the ‘Ri'datta-ssabavezi.’ In this story, your people are climbing 'cat upon cat’ and finally reach Jone, where they founded something called 'Lleswer.’ But we failed to understand the meaning of this. Some at the Guild suggest it has to be taken literally, but it seems impossible. Am I right?“ – Iszara the Restless, Singer of the Scenarist Guild

"Moon Bishop Hunal says, “It is the nature of myth to be true and yet at the same time mere allegory. Are you ‘right’? In this context, the question is without meaning. But do not be offended, hairless one. Many stories are puzzles with more than one solution.”

I thought it was pretty cool for them to acknowledge Ri'datta-ssabavezi as an actual extant myth in Tamriel, considering it was fan-written by temple zero! Sometime we should post a compilation of all the fan easter eggs in ESO: Vivec’s antlers, IFW’s dairy bats, Din’s Dinwenel cameo, Ayrenn’s fanfiction…I’m sure there’s a lot we haven’t even noticed yet!

Also, I have heard (but not gotten there yet) that you can in fact go to the third moon in the Dominion questline. One of my favourite ESO books has this to say:

"And the Clan Mother said, "As you wish. When Lorkhaj made a place for Nirni’s children, the darkness in his heart made it also a prison. So his heart was cut out and buried deep in Nirni, and his body was hurled to the moons but could not pass them, for it did not know the First Secret. Thus is his body the Dead Moon in the Lunar Lattice. See it, just there?”

Edited by Toesock, 25 March 2015 - 12:17 PM.

Final Notes: 

This was all originally posted on the Bethesda Official Forums here: http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1327271-return-false/ though this link will probably be useless.

Yes, I acknowledge that a lot of this is written by controversial developers/ex-developers. I don’t actually care that much about the controversy right now. I mean, give me a break, I only picked up my first TES game a little over a year ago. Message me and we’ll discuss C0DA all you want; I just want to be able to refer to this stuff when I need to, and I don’t want to lose track of the content. Yes, I know UESP and other websites are doing archive preservation, but I’d have to go find that stuff once they get it up and running.

Anyway, this way maybe somebody who’s never read this stuff will find it too. I hope so, because Khajiit moon colonies are the best idea ever.

#tes #elder scrolls lore #khajiit #temple zero #michael kirkbride #long post #return false #obscure tes lore #the cyrodiilic empire #pocket guide to the empire #thalmor #dragon breaks #jills #hidden messages

[liberalcom-blog]

A Postcard From Hell: Revised Materials Towards A Cartoon History of the Life, Loves & Legacy of Aleister Crowley

https://liber-al.com/?p=18248&wpwautoposter=1570022610 Richard T. Cole; Aleister Crowley Orange Box Books, United Kingdom, 2009. Hardcover. First Edition. 104 pages. Limited Edition, limited to 156 copies, each with a postcard numbered and signed by the author. This copy being number 26/156. Out of print, when published these books sold out almost immediately. Features 72 full colour and 42 black & white illustrations. A wicked series of pictorial and textual parodies on Crowley, his friends and followers. As New/Fine. “Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel. In the spring of 2004, when asked if I could provide a bit of light relief for insertion into a proposed series of digital editions, I accepted the challenge with relish. Crowley is, in my opinion, a truly great British tradition. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a good joke, was energetically enthusiastic about sex and throughout out his life was, and still is, much derided. With these elements in mind an obvious format for, “a bit of light relief” immediately sprang to mind in the form of the much-loved and, by today’s standards extremely politically incorrect, other great British tradition of saucy holiday postcards. And so was born the concept of my Comely Crowley Cards. Between 2004 and 2007 a light dusting of these images were sprinkled amongst the limited digital editions of Crowley’s works released by Black Flag & Naughty Nun New Media. A few were e-mailed to friends and colleagues, as private jokes. One or two found their way onto the Internet and, on the odd occasions where a bit of space was available on the run-offs of other projects, a small number were printed as actual postcards. However, for the most past my collection of Thelemic artwork remained unknown, unseen and gathering cyber-dust… Until now! A Postcard from Hell is a compilation of all 70 of the infamous postcards (including the much-debated Leah Hirsig images), plus a whole host of other artistic goodies relating to the life, loves & legacy of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Includes an entire chapter on the recent (1985-2009) history of the guardians of Crowley’s artistic and literary legacy, O.T.O.. Summary of contents: Postcards –  The date is 12 October, 1875, and Emily Bertha has just given birth to a chubby little baby called Alick. Who could know this innocent child would create a worldwide scandal with his quest to track down and extract a new Bible for mankind from a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwaz. The wickedest man in the world? Nah, he’s just a very naughty Magus. This lavishly illustrated chapter escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Aleister Crowley’s seventy-two year life of doing exactly what he wilt… *Discover what Crowley’s relationship with the Loch Ness monster was. *Uncover why Crowley was evicted from the Garden of Eden only 31 minutes after its official opening. *Glimpse a rare poster promoting Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *Study a reproduction of the Divine Slice of Toast on which the face and Magickal number (666) of The Great Beast recently manifested. *Read about Crowley’s sellout, one-man show (The Aiwaz Man Cometh) at the Warburg Theatre. *Find out the real secret behind Tantric yoga – Why did Buddha laugh? *Learn about Crowley’s attempt to produce a batch of hununculus’ at his Abbey of Thelema, in Sicily. *See a photograph of LAM’s birthday party with uncles Al, and Ken and aunt Steffi. Leah Hirsig (The Scarlet Woman) –  It’s spring, 1918, and a naive young New York teacher is about to get the lesson of her life. Leah Hirsig has just met the man who will sweep her off her feet (and head) and take her on a breathtaking journey which will change forever her life, her attitude towards pets and her gynecological configuration. Leah, or Alostrael (her magickal name), repeatedly demonstrated herself to be ‘game for anything’ and indisputably provided invaluable assistance to Crowley in his difficult mid-life transition from Magus to Ipsissimus – Though she found subsequent cause to recant her vows of Crowleyanity, re-revert to Catholicism and sever all links with her former Master, The Great Beast. Based on the infamous series of postcards created between 2004 and 2007, Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated compendium of materials escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Leah Hirsig’s five year long holiday romance with The Great Beat 666. Gaze reverentially in awe, wonder, adoration and sheer disbelief at Aleister Crowley’s favourite Scarlet woman as depicted in a sequence of rare and alluring photographs, including: *The Opium Queen – “High Tea – Our Favourite Hobby!” *At Cefalu – “Wish you were her”. *”Sublime Salome.” *His Sepia Woman – “Paint me as a hairy armpit!” *At Cefalu, with a randy old goat – “I know what you did last summer”. *As inspiration for Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter- “Can unload your bags, Sir?” *Chastising A.C. for smudging an oil painting of her – “Don’t finger me whilst I’m still wet” O.T.O. –  The date is 12 July, 1985, and Grady McMurtry, head of the California-based faction of an occult fraternity known as Ordo Templi Orientis, has just celebrated his Greater Feast. The membership of O.T.O. holds its collective breath and strains to watch a white dove issue forth from the tallest chimney of its Head Office; a feathered omen announcing the appointment of a new head. Is what happened next the stuff of fiction, legend, or horror? Is that strange sound we’ve been hearing really Crowley turning in his urn? Can, “Lite Cakes” really be used as part of a healthy, balanced diet? Who is the mysterious Butch Butcher of Berne and what are his gristle-burgers made from? Who were Pipie & Sons and did they really invent time-travelling paper? All these and many more intriguing questions are completely ignored in Richard T. Cole’s humorous expose of O.T.O.’s soft white underbelly. This lavishly illustrated chapter picks up the story and escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in O.T.O.’s history during the ensuing twenty-four years – The rise of the Caliphate… *Discover what happens each year on the mound of, “GolgOTOha” (the place of skulks) *Uncover links between O.T.O.’s secret Elixir and a certain pharmacological giant *known for its blue pills. *Glimpse a rare poster for the movie SCOTOP. *Study a diagram of the structure of O.T.O. and learn where to purchase your hand-held *Thelemic Navigation console. *Read rarely seen pages from the Magickal Sink magazine. *Find out what really happened at a dinner party in the Paris Ritz. *Learn O.T.O.’s Word of the Equinox (1985) and understand why this will never change. *See the promotional flyer used to promote “a radical new awareness-raising campaign”. *Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about O.T.O. but were afraid to ask. Art – A compilation of watercolour and acrylic paintings plus other assorted promotional items, past, present and future; real and imagined. Includes: *Two acrylic paintings of Aleister Crowley, entitled In the Desert and Red Heat. *Watercolour paintings of A.C. Scintillating in Purple and Leah Hirsig as, Predator posing as a house-pet. *Two promotional flyers for live appearences, in London and Moscow, of Aleister Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *A selection of book covers and descriptions of Richard T. Cole’s forthcoming projects. Miscellaneous – Contains various bits ‘n’ bobs which, upon finishing the project, I happened upon by chance and thought, “Bugger! I forgot all about that one”. It also holds a small selection of pictures conceived to accompany text, rather than as stand-alone images, including two eBay listings and a short essay entitled A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick (a sharp, insightful, funny and perceptive a comment on Sex Magick). *Crowley’s X-Mas Lucky Lotto Ticket – It Could Be NU. *The Holy Toast – A Divine Manifestation! *The Rock Valley Messiah. *A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick. *Thelemic Talisman – A 31 x 31 Magick Square. *Three very strange digital renderings of Crowley’s distinctive features, entitled *FractAL, Beastly Balls in Thick Darkness Sauce and Shredded Beast. APPENDICES A – Index of Images. B – Chartering Blame. C – DISCLAIMER. D – Additional Notes. E – A Flashback Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.”

[swipestream]

Sensor Sweep: Game Reviews, Battletech, 1920s Weird Fiction, C. C. Senf, Ballantine Adult Fantasy

Publishing (Walker’s Retreat): That’s an opportunity I cannot ignore. It is also an opportunity I am undercapitalized to exploit. To remedy this, I set up at Freestartr. I will add this link to the Gifts & Support tab today, right at the top, for future convenience. My post at the Study yesterday addresses the immediate uses I have for this account.

  RPG (RPG Pundit): Here’s the video of yesterday’s Livestream of Inappropriate Characters; wherein I (the RPGPundit), Venger Satanis, and GrimJim talk about Anita Sarkeesian being chosen as Gencon’s “Guest of Honor”, about kickstarters and tips for running one, and Grim & Venger talk about the problems they have getting to game while old (I’m pretty sure I’m older than both, and yet I don’t really get what they’re on about). Also, we answer questions from our live viewers!

  Gaming (Table Top Gaming News): Woo! Weekend! Woo!Yeah… so, it was actually a short week in the office, since I had Monday at home. But damn, it still felt just as long as a regular week… maybe even longer. But after seemingly interminable years, it’s finally Saturday again. So, while I’m playing some D&D, you can read about some game reviews. Sound good? Let’s get to it.

This week we have: Anno Domini 1666, Century Golem Edition,

Vanguard of War, 7 Wonders, Super Mario: Level Up!, The Lady and the Tiger, Chariots of Rome, and Heaven & Ale.

  Gaming (Hack & Slash): It’s been a rough day, and I’m doing this late, so I apologize for paucity. I’ve also gotten some feedback about layout and discussion of products. A lot of this is balanced by the huge number of products that come out each week. It leaves me to ask, what’s better? An overview of lots of different things, or a more in-depth highlight of just a handful (3-5) products? My initial thought was the former, but if preferences is for the latter, let me know.

  Video Games (Rageaholic): Do you identify as a Light Mech? Battletech review.

  Commentary (Rawle Nyanzi): A while back, I made a post critiquing a common modern view of heroism — namely, that there is no heroism, only differing definitions of what is right. I argued against this notion, and received a large number of comments in the process. Below was one of the comments, with the original poster’s words in italics and my responses in bold.

  Gaming (The Mixed GM): June is slowly approaching and that means that the North Texas RPG Convention! My adventure is slowly shaping up (and I am trying to write it / format it in a way that I can release it shortly after the convention for others to use) to be a fun and weird little dungeon.

I have gained a lot of respect for adventure writers, even bad adventure writers. There are enough hand-written notes and ideas floating around in myhead to run it, but I want to be able to share it with all of you. Translating my vision / ideas into easily readable sentences is not as easy as I thought it would be.

  Fiction (Jeffro Johnson): Each decade has it’s own default setting. It’s sort of a groove that people fall into. The more original and daring the authors think they are, the closer they hew to it. “The Monster-God of Mamurth” by Edmond Hamilton is a prime example of this.

Note how it follows the same overall thrust as Lovecraft’s “Dagon” (1917) without achieving anywhere like the same concision or menace. Neither does it contain either the depths of A. Merritt’s “The People of the Pit” (1918) or the heights of his Through the Dragon Glass (1917).

  Cinema (Brian Niemeier): The numbers are in, and Disney’s Solo: A Star Wars Story has spectacularly let down Kathleen Kennedy and her media cheerleaders, particularly blue checkmark Twitter. The Disney shills’ excuse-making has been markedly anemic this time around. Everybody knew after The Last Jedi fell off a cliff that audiences were fed up with Kennedy’s mishandling of the franchise.

  Fiction (Tokien & Fantasy): The iconic list (or at least the starting point) for a definitive bibliography of all of the titles in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is the one by Lin Carter which appears as “Bibliography II” in his book Imaginary Worlds, published in June 1973, itself a volume of the series. Carter lists 57 numbered volumes of the series, as published from May 1969 through May 1973.  The series would officially last one further year, bringing the official total to 65 volumes.

  Art (On an Underwood No. 5): The September 1931 Weird Tales had, perhaps, one of the most farcical blunders ever committed by a magazine illustrator, and it happened to one of Robert E. Howard’s most popular and prized characters, Solomon Kane. The artist was Curtis Charles Senf (C.C. Senf), who at the time, lived in Chicago and began drawing covers and interior illustrations for Weird Tales. His debut cover was the March 1927 issue. In fact, Senf did 8 of the 12 covers for Weird Tales in 1927, and 11 of the 12 covers for 1928. His numbers tapered off a little after these two years, but over-all, Senf was the artist for 45 covers at Weird Tales.

Books (DMR Books): There hasn’t been a great deal of satisfying material for the discerning sword and sorcery fan released in the past few decades. Apart from the Tolkien clones that have dominated the fantasy genre for quite a while, a large amount of books and stories written these days are either nihilistic and pointless or absurd and nonsensical. Sure, there’s some real sword and sorcery out there, but most of it is just so… mild. The settings aren’t exotic or dangerous. There’s action, but nothing that will get your blood pumping. The sorcery is more like a different kind of science rather than something eldritch and strange, let alone soul-threatening. For all the praise Robert E. Howard gets, you have to wonder how closely modern writers pay attention to his stories.

Writing (Story Hack): Learn from some of the fiction writing greats of yesteryear! This book contains 17 articles on writing, written by pulp era authors, helping you learn:

– Several methods of plotting a story – How to make your characters memorable – How to study your genre – How to write a fight sequence – Tips for revising your novel – And much more.

Sensor Sweep: Game Reviews, Battletech, 1920s Weird Fiction, C. C. Senf, Ballantine Adult Fantasy published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[liberalcom-blog]

A Postcard From Hell: Revised Materials Towards A Cartoon History of the Life, Loves & Legacy of Aleister Crowley

https://liber-al.com/?p=18248&wpwautoposter=1569860576 Richard T. Cole; Aleister Crowley Orange Box Books, United Kingdom, 2009. Hardcover. First Edition. 104 pages. Limited Edition, limited to 156 copies, each with a postcard numbered and signed by the author. This copy being number 26/156. Out of print, when published these books sold out almost immediately. Features 72 full colour and 42 black & white illustrations. A wicked series of pictorial and textual parodies on Crowley, his friends and followers. As New/Fine. “Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel. In the spring of 2004, when asked if I could provide a bit of light relief for insertion into a proposed series of digital editions, I accepted the challenge with relish. Crowley is, in my opinion, a truly great British tradition. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a good joke, was energetically enthusiastic about sex and throughout out his life was, and still is, much derided. With these elements in mind an obvious format for, “a bit of light relief” immediately sprang to mind in the form of the much-loved and, by today’s standards extremely politically incorrect, other great British tradition of saucy holiday postcards. And so was born the concept of my Comely Crowley Cards. Between 2004 and 2007 a light dusting of these images were sprinkled amongst the limited digital editions of Crowley’s works released by Black Flag & Naughty Nun New Media. A few were e-mailed to friends and colleagues, as private jokes. One or two found their way onto the Internet and, on the odd occasions where a bit of space was available on the run-offs of other projects, a small number were printed as actual postcards. However, for the most past my collection of Thelemic artwork remained unknown, unseen and gathering cyber-dust… Until now! A Postcard from Hell is a compilation of all 70 of the infamous postcards (including the much-debated Leah Hirsig images), plus a whole host of other artistic goodies relating to the life, loves & legacy of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Includes an entire chapter on the recent (1985-2009) history of the guardians of Crowley’s artistic and literary legacy, O.T.O.. Summary of contents: Postcards –  The date is 12 October, 1875, and Emily Bertha has just given birth to a chubby little baby called Alick. Who could know this innocent child would create a worldwide scandal with his quest to track down and extract a new Bible for mankind from a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwaz. The wickedest man in the world? Nah, he’s just a very naughty Magus. This lavishly illustrated chapter escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Aleister Crowley’s seventy-two year life of doing exactly what he wilt… *Discover what Crowley’s relationship with the Loch Ness monster was. *Uncover why Crowley was evicted from the Garden of Eden only 31 minutes after its official opening. *Glimpse a rare poster promoting Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *Study a reproduction of the Divine Slice of Toast on which the face and Magickal number (666) of The Great Beast recently manifested. *Read about Crowley’s sellout, one-man show (The Aiwaz Man Cometh) at the Warburg Theatre. *Find out the real secret behind Tantric yoga – Why did Buddha laugh? *Learn about Crowley’s attempt to produce a batch of hununculus’ at his Abbey of Thelema, in Sicily. *See a photograph of LAM’s birthday party with uncles Al, and Ken and aunt Steffi. Leah Hirsig (The Scarlet Woman) –  It’s spring, 1918, and a naive young New York teacher is about to get the lesson of her life. Leah Hirsig has just met the man who will sweep her off her feet (and head) and take her on a breathtaking journey which will change forever her life, her attitude towards pets and her gynecological configuration. Leah, or Alostrael (her magickal name), repeatedly demonstrated herself to be ‘game for anything’ and indisputably provided invaluable assistance to Crowley in his difficult mid-life transition from Magus to Ipsissimus – Though she found subsequent cause to recant her vows of Crowleyanity, re-revert to Catholicism and sever all links with her former Master, The Great Beast. Based on the infamous series of postcards created between 2004 and 2007, Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated compendium of materials escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Leah Hirsig’s five year long holiday romance with The Great Beat 666. Gaze reverentially in awe, wonder, adoration and sheer disbelief at Aleister Crowley’s favourite Scarlet woman as depicted in a sequence of rare and alluring photographs, including: *The Opium Queen – “High Tea – Our Favourite Hobby!” *At Cefalu – “Wish you were her”. *”Sublime Salome.” *His Sepia Woman – “Paint me as a hairy armpit!” *At Cefalu, with a randy old goat – “I know what you did last summer”. *As inspiration for Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter- “Can unload your bags, Sir?” *Chastising A.C. for smudging an oil painting of her – “Don’t finger me whilst I’m still wet” O.T.O. –  The date is 12 July, 1985, and Grady McMurtry, head of the California-based faction of an occult fraternity known as Ordo Templi Orientis, has just celebrated his Greater Feast. The membership of O.T.O. holds its collective breath and strains to watch a white dove issue forth from the tallest chimney of its Head Office; a feathered omen announcing the appointment of a new head. Is what happened next the stuff of fiction, legend, or horror? Is that strange sound we’ve been hearing really Crowley turning in his urn? Can, “Lite Cakes” really be used as part of a healthy, balanced diet? Who is the mysterious Butch Butcher of Berne and what are his gristle-burgers made from? Who were Pipie & Sons and did they really invent time-travelling paper? All these and many more intriguing questions are completely ignored in Richard T. Cole’s humorous expose of O.T.O.’s soft white underbelly. This lavishly illustrated chapter picks up the story and escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in O.T.O.’s history during the ensuing twenty-four years – The rise of the Caliphate… *Discover what happens each year on the mound of, “GolgOTOha” (the place of skulks) *Uncover links between O.T.O.’s secret Elixir and a certain pharmacological giant *known for its blue pills. *Glimpse a rare poster for the movie SCOTOP. *Study a diagram of the structure of O.T.O. and learn where to purchase your hand-held *Thelemic Navigation console. *Read rarely seen pages from the Magickal Sink magazine. *Find out what really happened at a dinner party in the Paris Ritz. *Learn O.T.O.’s Word of the Equinox (1985) and understand why this will never change. *See the promotional flyer used to promote “a radical new awareness-raising campaign”. *Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about O.T.O. but were afraid to ask. Art – A compilation of watercolour and acrylic paintings plus other assorted promotional items, past, present and future; real and imagined. Includes: *Two acrylic paintings of Aleister Crowley, entitled In the Desert and Red Heat. *Watercolour paintings of A.C. Scintillating in Purple and Leah Hirsig as, Predator posing as a house-pet. *Two promotional flyers for live appearences, in London and Moscow, of Aleister Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *A selection of book covers and descriptions of Richard T. Cole’s forthcoming projects. Miscellaneous – Contains various bits ‘n’ bobs which, upon finishing the project, I happened upon by chance and thought, “Bugger! I forgot all about that one”. It also holds a small selection of pictures conceived to accompany text, rather than as stand-alone images, including two eBay listings and a short essay entitled A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick (a sharp, insightful, funny and perceptive a comment on Sex Magick). *Crowley’s X-Mas Lucky Lotto Ticket – It Could Be NU. *The Holy Toast – A Divine Manifestation! *The Rock Valley Messiah. *A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick. *Thelemic Talisman – A 31 x 31 Magick Square. *Three very strange digital renderings of Crowley’s distinctive features, entitled *FractAL, Beastly Balls in Thick Darkness Sauce and Shredded Beast. APPENDICES A – Index of Images. B – Chartering Blame. C – DISCLAIMER. D – Additional Notes. E – A Flashback Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.”

[liberalcom-blog]

A Postcard From Hell: Revised Materials Towards A Cartoon History of the Life, Loves & Legacy of Aleister Crowley

https://liber-al.com/?p=18248&wpwautoposter=1569666190 Richard T. Cole; Aleister Crowley Orange Box Books, United Kingdom, 2009. Hardcover. First Edition. 104 pages. Limited Edition, limited to 156 copies, each with a postcard numbered and signed by the author. This copy being number 26/156. Out of print, when published these books sold out almost immediately. Features 72 full colour and 42 black & white illustrations. A wicked series of pictorial and textual parodies on Crowley, his friends and followers. As New/Fine. “Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel. In the spring of 2004, when asked if I could provide a bit of light relief for insertion into a proposed series of digital editions, I accepted the challenge with relish. Crowley is, in my opinion, a truly great British tradition. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a good joke, was energetically enthusiastic about sex and throughout out his life was, and still is, much derided. With these elements in mind an obvious format for, “a bit of light relief” immediately sprang to mind in the form of the much-loved and, by today’s standards extremely politically incorrect, other great British tradition of saucy holiday postcards. And so was born the concept of my Comely Crowley Cards. Between 2004 and 2007 a light dusting of these images were sprinkled amongst the limited digital editions of Crowley’s works released by Black Flag & Naughty Nun New Media. A few were e-mailed to friends and colleagues, as private jokes. One or two found their way onto the Internet and, on the odd occasions where a bit of space was available on the run-offs of other projects, a small number were printed as actual postcards. However, for the most past my collection of Thelemic artwork remained unknown, unseen and gathering cyber-dust… Until now! A Postcard from Hell is a compilation of all 70 of the infamous postcards (including the much-debated Leah Hirsig images), plus a whole host of other artistic goodies relating to the life, loves & legacy of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Includes an entire chapter on the recent (1985-2009) history of the guardians of Crowley’s artistic and literary legacy, O.T.O.. Summary of contents: Postcards –  The date is 12 October, 1875, and Emily Bertha has just given birth to a chubby little baby called Alick. Who could know this innocent child would create a worldwide scandal with his quest to track down and extract a new Bible for mankind from a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwaz. The wickedest man in the world? Nah, he’s just a very naughty Magus. This lavishly illustrated chapter escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Aleister Crowley’s seventy-two year life of doing exactly what he wilt… *Discover what Crowley’s relationship with the Loch Ness monster was. *Uncover why Crowley was evicted from the Garden of Eden only 31 minutes after its official opening. *Glimpse a rare poster promoting Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *Study a reproduction of the Divine Slice of Toast on which the face and Magickal number (666) of The Great Beast recently manifested. *Read about Crowley’s sellout, one-man show (The Aiwaz Man Cometh) at the Warburg Theatre. *Find out the real secret behind Tantric yoga – Why did Buddha laugh? *Learn about Crowley’s attempt to produce a batch of hununculus’ at his Abbey of Thelema, in Sicily. *See a photograph of LAM’s birthday party with uncles Al, and Ken and aunt Steffi. Leah Hirsig (The Scarlet Woman) –  It’s spring, 1918, and a naive young New York teacher is about to get the lesson of her life. Leah Hirsig has just met the man who will sweep her off her feet (and head) and take her on a breathtaking journey which will change forever her life, her attitude towards pets and her gynecological configuration. Leah, or Alostrael (her magickal name), repeatedly demonstrated herself to be ‘game for anything’ and indisputably provided invaluable assistance to Crowley in his difficult mid-life transition from Magus to Ipsissimus – Though she found subsequent cause to recant her vows of Crowleyanity, re-revert to Catholicism and sever all links with her former Master, The Great Beast. Based on the infamous series of postcards created between 2004 and 2007, Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated compendium of materials escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Leah Hirsig’s five year long holiday romance with The Great Beat 666. Gaze reverentially in awe, wonder, adoration and sheer disbelief at Aleister Crowley’s favourite Scarlet woman as depicted in a sequence of rare and alluring photographs, including: *The Opium Queen – “High Tea – Our Favourite Hobby!” *At Cefalu – “Wish you were her”. *”Sublime Salome.” *His Sepia Woman – “Paint me as a hairy armpit!” *At Cefalu, with a randy old goat – “I know what you did last summer”. *As inspiration for Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter- “Can unload your bags, Sir?” *Chastising A.C. for smudging an oil painting of her – “Don’t finger me whilst I’m still wet” O.T.O. –  The date is 12 July, 1985, and Grady McMurtry, head of the California-based faction of an occult fraternity known as Ordo Templi Orientis, has just celebrated his Greater Feast. The membership of O.T.O. holds its collective breath and strains to watch a white dove issue forth from the tallest chimney of its Head Office; a feathered omen announcing the appointment of a new head. Is what happened next the stuff of fiction, legend, or horror? Is that strange sound we’ve been hearing really Crowley turning in his urn? Can, “Lite Cakes” really be used as part of a healthy, balanced diet? Who is the mysterious Butch Butcher of Berne and what are his gristle-burgers made from? Who were Pipie & Sons and did they really invent time-travelling paper? All these and many more intriguing questions are completely ignored in Richard T. Cole’s humorous expose of O.T.O.’s soft white underbelly. This lavishly illustrated chapter picks up the story and escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in O.T.O.’s history during the ensuing twenty-four years – The rise of the Caliphate… *Discover what happens each year on the mound of, “GolgOTOha” (the place of skulks) *Uncover links between O.T.O.’s secret Elixir and a certain pharmacological giant *known for its blue pills. *Glimpse a rare poster for the movie SCOTOP. *Study a diagram of the structure of O.T.O. and learn where to purchase your hand-held *Thelemic Navigation console. *Read rarely seen pages from the Magickal Sink magazine. *Find out what really happened at a dinner party in the Paris Ritz. *Learn O.T.O.’s Word of the Equinox (1985) and understand why this will never change. *See the promotional flyer used to promote “a radical new awareness-raising campaign”. *Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about O.T.O. but were afraid to ask. Art – A compilation of watercolour and acrylic paintings plus other assorted promotional items, past, present and future; real and imagined. Includes: *Two acrylic paintings of Aleister Crowley, entitled In the Desert and Red Heat. *Watercolour paintings of A.C. Scintillating in Purple and Leah Hirsig as, Predator posing as a house-pet. *Two promotional flyers for live appearences, in London and Moscow, of Aleister Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *A selection of book covers and descriptions of Richard T. Cole’s forthcoming projects. Miscellaneous – Contains various bits ‘n’ bobs which, upon finishing the project, I happened upon by chance and thought, “Bugger! I forgot all about that one”. It also holds a small selection of pictures conceived to accompany text, rather than as stand-alone images, including two eBay listings and a short essay entitled A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick (a sharp, insightful, funny and perceptive a comment on Sex Magick). *Crowley’s X-Mas Lucky Lotto Ticket – It Could Be NU. *The Holy Toast – A Divine Manifestation! *The Rock Valley Messiah. *A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick. *Thelemic Talisman – A 31 x 31 Magick Square. *Three very strange digital renderings of Crowley’s distinctive features, entitled *FractAL, Beastly Balls in Thick Darkness Sauce and Shredded Beast. APPENDICES A – Index of Images. B – Chartering Blame. C – DISCLAIMER. D – Additional Notes. E – A Flashback Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.”

[liberalcom-blog]

A Postcard From Hell: Revised Materials Towards A Cartoon History of the Life, Loves & Legacy of Aleister Crowley

https://liber-al.com/?p=18248&wpwautoposter=1566177772 Richard T. Cole; Aleister Crowley Orange Box Books, United Kingdom, 2009. Hardcover. First Edition. 104 pages. Limited Edition, limited to 156 copies, each with a postcard numbered and signed by the author. This copy being number 26/156. Out of print, when published these books sold out almost immediately. Features 72 full colour and 42 black & white illustrations. A wicked series of pictorial and textual parodies on Crowley, his friends and followers. As New/Fine. “Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel. In the spring of 2004, when asked if I could provide a bit of light relief for insertion into a proposed series of digital editions, I accepted the challenge with relish. Crowley is, in my opinion, a truly great British tradition. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a good joke, was energetically enthusiastic about sex and throughout out his life was, and still is, much derided. With these elements in mind an obvious format for, “a bit of light relief” immediately sprang to mind in the form of the much-loved and, by today’s standards extremely politically incorrect, other great British tradition of saucy holiday postcards. And so was born the concept of my Comely Crowley Cards. Between 2004 and 2007 a light dusting of these images were sprinkled amongst the limited digital editions of Crowley’s works released by Black Flag & Naughty Nun New Media. A few were e-mailed to friends and colleagues, as private jokes. One or two found their way onto the Internet and, on the odd occasions where a bit of space was available on the run-offs of other projects, a small number were printed as actual postcards. However, for the most past my collection of Thelemic artwork remained unknown, unseen and gathering cyber-dust… Until now! A Postcard from Hell is a compilation of all 70 of the infamous postcards (including the much-debated Leah Hirsig images), plus a whole host of other artistic goodies relating to the life, loves & legacy of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Includes an entire chapter on the recent (1985-2009) history of the guardians of Crowley’s artistic and literary legacy, O.T.O.. Summary of contents: Postcards –  The date is 12 October, 1875, and Emily Bertha has just given birth to a chubby little baby called Alick. Who could know this innocent child would create a worldwide scandal with his quest to track down and extract a new Bible for mankind from a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwaz. The wickedest man in the world? Nah, he’s just a very naughty Magus. This lavishly illustrated chapter escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Aleister Crowley’s seventy-two year life of doing exactly what he wilt… *Discover what Crowley’s relationship with the Loch Ness monster was. *Uncover why Crowley was evicted from the Garden of Eden only 31 minutes after its official opening. *Glimpse a rare poster promoting Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *Study a reproduction of the Divine Slice of Toast on which the face and Magickal number (666) of The Great Beast recently manifested. *Read about Crowley’s sellout, one-man show (The Aiwaz Man Cometh) at the Warburg Theatre. *Find out the real secret behind Tantric yoga – Why did Buddha laugh? *Learn about Crowley’s attempt to produce a batch of hununculus’ at his Abbey of Thelema, in Sicily. *See a photograph of LAM’s birthday party with uncles Al, and Ken and aunt Steffi. Leah Hirsig (The Scarlet Woman) –  It’s spring, 1918, and a naive young New York teacher is about to get the lesson of her life. Leah Hirsig has just met the man who will sweep her off her feet (and head) and take her on a breathtaking journey which will change forever her life, her attitude towards pets and her gynecological configuration. Leah, or Alostrael (her magickal name), repeatedly demonstrated herself to be ‘game for anything’ and indisputably provided invaluable assistance to Crowley in his difficult mid-life transition from Magus to Ipsissimus – Though she found subsequent cause to recant her vows of Crowleyanity, re-revert to Catholicism and sever all links with her former Master, The Great Beast. Based on the infamous series of postcards created between 2004 and 2007, Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated compendium of materials escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Leah Hirsig’s five year long holiday romance with The Great Beat 666. Gaze reverentially in awe, wonder, adoration and sheer disbelief at Aleister Crowley’s favourite Scarlet woman as depicted in a sequence of rare and alluring photographs, including: *The Opium Queen – “High Tea – Our Favourite Hobby!” *At Cefalu – “Wish you were her”. *”Sublime Salome.” *His Sepia Woman – “Paint me as a hairy armpit!” *At Cefalu, with a randy old goat – “I know what you did last summer”. *As inspiration for Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter- “Can unload your bags, Sir?” *Chastising A.C. for smudging an oil painting of her – “Don’t finger me whilst I’m still wet” O.T.O. –  The date is 12 July, 1985, and Grady McMurtry, head of the California-based faction of an occult fraternity known as Ordo Templi Orientis, has just celebrated his Greater Feast. The membership of O.T.O. holds its collective breath and strains to watch a white dove issue forth from the tallest chimney of its Head Office; a feathered omen announcing the appointment of a new head. Is what happened next the stuff of fiction, legend, or horror? Is that strange sound we’ve been hearing really Crowley turning in his urn? Can, “Lite Cakes” really be used as part of a healthy, balanced diet? Who is the mysterious Butch Butcher of Berne and what are his gristle-burgers made from? Who were Pipie & Sons and did they really invent time-travelling paper? All these and many more intriguing questions are completely ignored in Richard T. Cole’s humorous expose of O.T.O.’s soft white underbelly. This lavishly illustrated chapter picks up the story and escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in O.T.O.’s history during the ensuing twenty-four years – The rise of the Caliphate… *Discover what happens each year on the mound of, “GolgOTOha” (the place of skulks) *Uncover links between O.T.O.’s secret Elixir and a certain pharmacological giant *known for its blue pills. *Glimpse a rare poster for the movie SCOTOP. *Study a diagram of the structure of O.T.O. and learn where to purchase your hand-held *Thelemic Navigation console. *Read rarely seen pages from the Magickal Sink magazine. *Find out what really happened at a dinner party in the Paris Ritz. *Learn O.T.O.’s Word of the Equinox (1985) and understand why this will never change. *See the promotional flyer used to promote “a radical new awareness-raising campaign”. *Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about O.T.O. but were afraid to ask. Art – A compilation of watercolour and acrylic paintings plus other assorted promotional items, past, present and future; real and imagined. Includes: *Two acrylic paintings of Aleister Crowley, entitled In the Desert and Red Heat. *Watercolour paintings of A.C. Scintillating in Purple and Leah Hirsig as, Predator posing as a house-pet. *Two promotional flyers for live appearences, in London and Moscow, of Aleister Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls. *A selection of book covers and descriptions of Richard T. Cole’s forthcoming projects. Miscellaneous – Contains various bits ‘n’ bobs which, upon finishing the project, I happened upon by chance and thought, “Bugger! I forgot all about that one”. It also holds a small selection of pictures conceived to accompany text, rather than as stand-alone images, including two eBay listings and a short essay entitled A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick (a sharp, insightful, funny and perceptive a comment on Sex Magick). *Crowley’s X-Mas Lucky Lotto Ticket – It Could Be NU. *The Holy Toast – A Divine Manifestation! *The Rock Valley Messiah. *A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick. *Thelemic Talisman – A 31 x 31 Magick Square. *Three very strange digital renderings of Crowley’s distinctive features, entitled *FractAL, Beastly Balls in Thick Darkness Sauce and Shredded Beast. APPENDICES A – Index of Images. B – Chartering Blame. C – DISCLAIMER. D – Additional Notes. E – A Flashback Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.”