#at the same time it’s a deeply problematic piece of literature

[celepom]

Favourite Non-Fiction / Bio Graphic Novels of 2022

When I Grow Up: The Lost Autobiographies of Six Yiddish Teenagers by Ken Krimstein

When I Grow Up is New Yorker cartoonist Ken Krimstein’s new graphic nonfiction book, based on six of hundreds of newly discovered, never-before-published autobiographies of Eastern European Jewish teens on the brink of WWII—found in 2017 hidden in a Lithuanian church cellar. These autobiographies, long thought destroyed by the Nazis, were written as entries for three competitions held in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, just before the horror of the Holocaust forever altered the lives of the young people who wrote them. In When I Grow Up, Krimstein shows us the stories of these six young men and women in riveting, almost cinematic narratives, full of humor, yearning, ambition, and all the angst of the teenage years. It’s as if half a dozen new Anne Frank stories have suddenly come to light, framed by the dramatic story of the documents’ rediscovery. Beautifully illustrated, heart-wrenching, and bursting with life, When I Grow Up reveals how the tragedy that is about to befall these young people could easily happen again, to any of us, if we don’t learn to listen to the voices from the past.

Finding Joy by Gary Andrews

When his wife, Joy, died very suddenly, a daily drawing became the way Gary Andrews dealt with his grief. From learning how to juggle his kids' playdates and single-handedly organising Christmas, to getting used to the empty side of the bed, Gary's honest and often hilarious illustrations have touched the hearts of thousands on social media. Finding Joy is the story of how one family learned to live again after tragedy.

Flung Out of Space by Grace Ellis & Hannah Templer

A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic,  The Price of Salt Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. Veteran comics creators Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell this story through Highsmith’s eyes—reimagining the events that inspired her to write the story that would become a foundational piece of queer literature. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing—what will eventually be Strangers on a Train— which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.   At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake. However, one of those very affairs and a chance encounter in a department store give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind—it gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending.   This is not just the story behind a classic queer book, but of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.     Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith’s life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune.

My Brain is Different: Stories of ADHD and Other Developmental Disorders by MONNZUSU

In this manga essay anthology, follow the true stories of nine people (including the illustrator) navigating life with developmental disorders and disabilities. This intimate manga anthology is about the struggles and successes of individuals learning to navigate daily life with a developmental disorder. The comics follow the stories of nine people, including: a junior high dropout finding an alternate path to education; a former "troublesome" child helping kids at a support school; a so-called problem child realizing the beauty of his own unique quirks; and a man falling in love with the world with the help of a new medication. This book illustrates the anxieties and triumphs of people living in a world not quite built with them in mind.

Ten Days in a Mad-House by Brad Ricca, Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly

Beautifully adapted and rendered through piercing illustrations by acclaimed creators Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly’s complete, true-to-life 19th-century investigation of Blackwell Asylum captures a groundbreaking moment in history and reveals a haunting and timely glimpse at the starting point for conversations on mental health. “I said I could and I would. And I did.” While working for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper in 1887, Nellie Bly began an undercover investigation into the local Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Intent on seeing what life was like on the inside, Bly fooled trained physicians into thinking she was insane—a task too easily achieved—and had herself committed. In her ten days at the asylum, Bly witnessed horrifying conditions: the food was inedible, the women were forced into labor for the staff, the nurses and doctors were cruel or indifferent, and many of the women held there had no mental disorder of any kind. Now adapted into graphic novel form by Brad​ Ricca and vividly rendered with beautiful and haunting illustrations by Courtney Sieh, Bly’s bold venture is given new life and meaning. Her fearless investigation into the living conditions at the Blackwell Asylum forever changed the field of journalism. A timely reminder to take notice of forgotten populations, Ten Days in a Mad-House warns us what happens when we look away.

So Much for Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship by Sophie Lambda

Part memoir, part self-help book, So Much Bad For Love guides readers with honesty and humor through how to spot, cope with, and ultimately survive a romantic relationship with a malignant narcissist. Sophie had always been cynical about love—until she meets Marcus. His affection and doting praise melt away her defenses. The beginning of their relationship was a whirlwind romance, but over time she finds herself on uneven footing. Marcus lies. He's violently angry and bewilderingly inconsistent. Yet somehow he always manages to explain away his behavior and to convince Sophie that it's all in her head. Sophie comes to realize that she's become trapped in a cycle of abuse with someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Once she gets out of the relationship, Sophie documents the experience in this bracing, hilarious, and empathetic graphic novel that's full of advice to readers who may be in similar straits.

#book rec #book recs #comic #graphic novel #manga #autobio #biography #nonfiction #books about real people #and real people are often flawed

[mayamistake]

A fictional and complex portrait of bestselling author Patricia Highsmith caught up in the longing that would inspire her queer classic, The Price of Salt

Flung Out of Space is both a love letter to the essential lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, and an examination of its notorious author, Patricia Highsmith. Veteran comics creators Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer have teamed up to tell this story through Highsmith’s eyes—reimagining the events that inspired her to write the story that would become a foundational piece of queer literature. Flung Out of Space opens with Pat begrudgingly writing low-brow comics. A drinker, a smoker, and a hater of life, Pat knows she can do better. Her brain churns with images of the great novel she could and should be writing—what will eventually be Strangers on a Train— which would later be adapted into a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951.

At the same time, Pat, a lesbian consumed with self-loathing, is in and out of conversion therapy, leaving a trail of sexual conquests and broken hearts in her wake. However, one of those very affairs and a chance encounter in a department store give Pat the idea for her soon-to-be beloved tale of homosexual love that was the first of its kind—it gave the lesbian protagonists a happy ending.

This is not just the story behind a classic queer book, but of a queer artist who was deeply flawed. It’s a comic about what it was like to write comics in the 1950s, but also about what it means to be a writer at any time in history, struggling to find your voice.

Author Grace Ellis contextualizes Patricia Highsmith as both an unintentional queer icon and a figure whose problematic views and noted anti-Semitism have cemented her controversial legacy. Highsmith’s life imitated her art with results as devastating as the plot twists that brought her fame and fortune.

#graphic novel #queer #sapphic

[pensivetense]

.

#I’m hpmor posting again #and as usual I feel like I need to put in a disclaimer #yes I’m aware the thing is cringe and yes all of the criticisms about it are absolutely valid #I have in fact strong opinions on everything wrong with it #however I also think it’s a really fucking good time if you can shut your brain off while you read it #it’s a fun romp and it makes me laugh #and I have Feelings (tm) about the final arc and betrayal #it had such a massive impact on my relationship with media and storytelling and acting ethically in an unethical environment #like the phrase ‘you are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in’ hit different #at the same time it’s a deeply problematic piece of literature #these things can and do coexist #like obviously my worldview departs drastically from Yudkowsky’s but the humanism arc still makes me tear up #ALSO. WE DO NOT SUPPORT ROWLING HERE.

[sybilmarlowe]

Since I joined the One Piece fandom, I was asked different times which character I ship with Doffy the most. Given I'm usually into self insert things, I'd firstly go with "my OC, of course 😛"... But let's talk about what I think of Doffy's most famous ships 😁

DISCLAIMER: all of what follows is TOTALLY my own opinion, don't want to judge anyone who thinks differently than me. OP is a fictional world made of fictional characters and anyone can ship whoever they likes!

So, here's the ships:

Doffy x Viola

Ok, let's start with what many people's don't want to hear: this ship is canon. Yeah. Like it or not, it's a matter of fact.

I honestly like them together, they're a weird couple but somehow they work. I like to imagine how could have been the dynamic between the two of them, and I'm more than sure there was nothing abusive from Doffy's side. I mean, sexually at least. I agree with the fact destroying one's whole life and Country is pretty abusive, but I'm quite sure the feelings between Doffy and Viola have been real for a while. Maybe the concept could sound trivial, but no one chooses who to love and Doffy has many characteristics which may definitely make a person fall for him. Not totally sure HE has ever truly loved her, but I like to think so. After all he does have a weak side and Viola might have been one of the few (even thanks to her powers) who managed to see it and knowing him deeply. This surely strenghtened their bond and it might have finally resulted in love...

My vote is a 8/10

Doffy x Cora

This is incest. I know. And it's indeed problematic and controversial. Irl a thing like this isn't exactly acceptable.

BUT as I told before, OP is pure fiction, so... I have to say quite like them tbh. In my opinion, as long as a relationship is adult and consensual there's nothing deeply wrong in it IN FICTIONAL WORLDS. (I know, there are fanfictions in which their relationship is abusive, but since we’re talking about headcanons here I like to think it’s not). Have you watcher GoT? Cersei and Jamie were one of the best written pairings in the whole series, the same goes for this situation imo, we have all the conditions to make this ship a sensible one.

They’re a realistic couple cause they went through a lot of difficulties together and, even if they chose different paths of life, their bond is very very deep. Their love is a desperate one, like “you’re the only one in this world I can REALLY trust”. This from both sides. The difference is that Cora is a pure person who just want to love and being loved while Doffy... well, he’s not exactly mentally healthy and he’s like “all or nothing”.

A lot of angst and stuff, of course, for this reason my vote is 7/10

Doffy x Crocodile

I’m sure someone out there is going to want my head for what I’m about to write, the DoffyxCroco fandom is huge after all... but... 

I don’t like this ship at all. 

Given one can ship two people with no reason or just because they wear matching colours and look good in fanarts (?) imo DoffyxCrocodile has no sense. They interact, yeah, but nothing about their dialogues or shared scenes makes me thing they could be a good couple. Even that most famous encounter at Marineford which made fanpeople scream... They looked just like contenders who quite disliked eachother, nothing less and nothing more :/ and Doffy saying “I’m jelous!” just gave me the same vibes of a childish sacrastic way to piss off a person, pretty much like the stupid classic “you fight like a girl!”. 

They’re aesthetically beautiful, nothing to say, they’re both among the most handsome characters in OP  and have a similar story, so I’m not saying I don’t understand the reasons of those who ship them... Just... I want ships to be stronger and more credible than this :/

6/10 just because they look good in fanarts XD

Doffy x Luffy 

This is pretty diffused, but..... why. 

I mean... what happened between the two of them which could have made them fall for eachother?? D: Have you ever tried to date a person after trying GearFourthPunch them out of the troposphere? °A° (Also, Luffy could LITERALLY be Doffy’s son. This is weird. Not the weirdest thing, but still.)

Srsly... If you like them together I ask you to tell me which dynamics are there behind this ship. Cause I really can’t see WHERE do you see even a little trace of feelings between the two of them D: 

Sorry D:

3/10 

Doffy x Law

Gods, yes. YES.

This ship HELLA works from every single point of view. Doffy and Law are two of the most (if not THE MOST) well written characters in the whole series. They have a complete and complex background, a deep and multifaceted personality and, above all, an extremely strong bond. 

Ship them or not, they’re literally OBSESSED by eachother for different reasons.

 Law is the ONLY man Doffy considers almost his equal, he thinks he’s like the only person worth being his right hand man and I’m quite sure he’s galvanized by the idea Law is the one who’s gonna sacrifice his life to make him immortal. Like... a great life to complete an even greater one? This is insane. And yet beautiful. 

On the other hand, Law’s thoughts have been completely centred on taking revenge on Doffy for 10 years. Like, he was literally obsessed by that man, consumed by the hate he felt for him which obscured anything else, even his maniacal good sense in the end. 

Turning this all into a tragic and tormented love story is as easy as drinking water. A long-term reciprocal hate mixed with a deep admiration for eachother (even from Law’s side, after all Doffy was the one who thaught him almost... everything?) which slowly turns into something terribly different. Imagine the tension between two arch enemies who have to admit their hate melted into passion... and yet still have this latent feeling of wanting the other’s death.......

Don’t know what’s your opinion about this kind of stories, but for me, the self proclaimed Queen of Angst, in love with the most tragical Theatre and Literature... THIS IS GOOD STUFF. 

10/10 HANDS DOWN.

Doffy x Trebol 

What tHE ACTUAL F***K. 

-10/10 

Doffy x Bellamy

Please, no. 

Alright, I hate Bellamy. He’s exactly the kind of character I find terribly pathetic and incomplete. He barely has a personality of his own, he’s a wild fanboy with nothing original (not like Barto. Barto is the best fanboy ever. All my love goes to Barto.). 

Now, he spent all his 34 years of life trying to... imitate Doffy? And yet he doesn’t even manage to truly understand him. So he’s worse than a fanboy, he’s attracted to the idealization of a man who’s not even half of the things he expects him to be. This is sad. Really sad. And call me a sadist, he deserved being humiliated imo. Maybe this helped him open his eyes and getting a life. Seriously. 

It goes without saying I totally can’t see how a relationship between him and Doffy could work. Doffy despises him, the only kind of plot this thing could have is a quite abusive one :/ and since I deeply dislike abuse.... no. This ship is totally out of question.

0/10

Doffy x Monet

This is another ship which barely touches the canon. I sincerely think the "love" between the two of them is pretty much unilateral. Doffy respects Monet, he deeply appreciates her abilities, intelligence and loyalty, she's clearly among his closest subordinates, but... He doesn't love her in a romantic way. As for Monet, she's totally in love with him, she'd kill and die for him. And in fact that's what she does in the end.

Monet is not among my fav characters, but I still feel quite sorry for how things went for her. She gave her everything away for a helpless, almost obsessive, love.

If something between the two of them really happened for real, I think it was merely physical.

For this reason, tough I have to admit they'd actually look beautiful together, I can't ship them :/

5/10

Doffy x Vergo

Ok, I dislike Vergo. He's quite a flat character imo, don't even like his design 😅 I don't ship him with Doffy for this simple reason, but being honest they could perfectly work as a couple.

Vergo was among Doffy's very first "real friends", he was among those who were considered a family by him and, most importantly, he was the only one around his same age. They literally grew up together, likely supporting each other, and I wouldn't be honest if I said this has no chance to be a good assumptipn for a love story. A quite simple and basic one, if you want, but it's the most realistic kind of bond two people can make.

Still not shipping them, my vote is a honest 7/10.

Guess that's all?

Let me know what do you think about this 😆 do you agree with my votes? Or there are some points you totally disagree with?

Well, anyways. I had fun 😂

#doflamingo headcanons #doflamingo #donquixote doflamingo #one piece #one piece hc

[serpentstole]

I saw that @satsuti was recently sent an ask concerning the works of Robin Artisson and their use, as many people today see him as (to use the anon’s own words) “a pretty huge piece of shit”. I have thoughts on this but didn’t want to derail Satsuti’s post, so I decided to make my own. More under the cut on the idea of problematic writers within the occult community.

I don’t think it’ll shock anyone who has even the faintest idea about the history of magic and the occult that the literature involved and the authors who wrote it can be dubious at best. This, I think, is especially true if you’re someone who tries to stick to more traditionally European forms of occult study rather than dipping your toes where they maybe shouldn’t go, such as the culturally significant practices of groups you don’t belong to. As I’m sure my fellow white people can attest to, middle aged white folks with a single obscure hobby you just happen to share can still be the actual worst. This goes doubly for ones that lived a century or more ago.

Occult study, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty damn niche. If we ignored any writer that had a whiff of a bad take or downright harmful opinion, we’d likely have nothing left to work with. However, I think there are responsible ways to navigate this beyond just ignoring the most notorious authors and crossing your fingers that the book you just bought wasn’t penned by someone who said something deeply Islamaphobic on Facebook the other day.

1. If they’re an author who just tends to regurgitate folkslore or attempts at historical reconstruction, just keep an eye out for how their views might shape their perspective on them, but I’d argue this is one of the safer examples you can encounter.

2. If they’re someone writing their own system or grimoire, try to read between the lines or get a feel for their inspirations. For example, gentiles ripping off and badly repackaging Jewish mysticism and magic has existed for about as long as gentiles have had any sort of remote contact with the aforementioned practices. The implications of that could be its own discussion, as where to draw the line and what to keep our hands off is a topic that’s hotly debated even among Jewish practitioners (since, you know, not a monolith with one universal opinion), but something to keep in the back of your mind if you see the umpteenth Luciferian flavoured Qliphoth grimoire being published.

3. And the most dramatic case, keep an eye out for just... people hiding bad behaviour behind a veil of occult jargon. If they’re talking about how it’s totally fine to sexually initiated minors, we promise, it’s cool guys, that’s not divine inspiration, it’s a felony. Try to learn dogwhistles, try to be aware of the abuse of power and cults of personality that can crop up in occult spaces, and try not to put anyone on a pedestal. I can promise they’ll disappoint you in some way, and you’ll either be wounded by it or scramble to justify poor behavior.

From there it’s deciding what you consider “responsible”. Do you make exceptions for dead authors vs living ones? Pirate books, or only buy them second hand? Do you cut yourself off from someone’s ideas entirely, or just pick out the good bits? I can’t answer this for you. I’m not the morality police nor do I claim to have perfect answers. Many of these cases will likely be situational and have different context for another, not be one size fits all.

Be braced to make mistakes. You can’t be expected to come into the community knowing every bit of occult history or hot gossip from a 2012 message board where a living author showed his entire ass. Be patient with yourself. While I’ve gotten to the point where I try to research any new author or practice I take an interest in, sometimes it’s just hard to find all the information or have a full picture of what’s going on with them.

Some people might be rolling their eyes at this point about how much work I’m pushing onto the consumer/researcher/occultist, but... yes. Being a responsible consumer is a lot of work. Being a good occultist, magician, or witch is a lot of work. Being both of those things at the same time will be, predictably, twice the work. If you can spend hours researching the right way to begin spirit communication you can probably spare some time to mull over your own ethics in regards to our own community’s problematic but prolific contributors.

#witchblr #occultblr

[thrill-cfthechase]

𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐊 𝟏𝟐: 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐄

@gallaghertasks

harry chase, father, 54 (kyle chandler) - elliot has always had a difficult relationship with her father. he loves her in his own way, but he’s never really shown it. she has a few memories of having fun with him when she was very little, like him holding her above his head so she could dunk a basketball or taking her and her brothers for ice cream. but as she got older his dependence on alcohol grew and the time he spent with his children became almost non-existent. as elliot got older his disdain for her increased, and she believes he hates her (he’s even told her as much). he’s a mean drunk and elliot spent most of her childhood trying to get out of his house. he has had a few odd jobs - cab driver, custodian, construction worker, etc. but his lack of work ethic and tendency to show up to work drunk have made it impossible for him to keep a job for long. elliot and her brothers take turns checking in on him to make sure he hasn’t gone completely off the rails, and he always seems to be in some sort of trouble. elliot absolutely despises him. 

talia chase, mother, deceased age 30 (katie holmes) - though elliot never knew her mother, everything she’s heard about her has suggested she was a lovely woman. she was a nurse and a deeply caring mother. elliot is pretty sure she wasn’t as perfect as people make her out to be, but by all accounts she was pretty great. harry was a happier person with her, and she had helped him kick his drinking habit. she always made her sons feel loved and supported, something they tried to do for elliot. she died giving birth to elliot, and elliot has always felt responsible. although she would never say it out loud, elliot has a theory that she wouldn’t be quite as rough around the edges if she’d had someone like talia in her life.

tucker chase, older brother, 29 (sam claflin) - tucker, elliot’s eldest brother, immediately took it upon himself to raise elliot. he bullied her mercilessly in the way that brothers often do, but he also made sure she knew that he loved her unconditionally, and that she was fed and clothed and always at school on time. tucker was fairly problematic as a child - somewhere in between the only adult around being harry and the culture of the many sports he played, he developed a lot of toxic masculinity that he passed down to his younger siblings. for a long time this made elliot feel less than, simply because she’s a girl. but tucker is a very intelligent, and as he got older and learned about the world he realized that he didn’t want to be that kind of person. by the time he was in college he had started reading feminist literature, in part to better himself, but mostly to be a better brother. it hasn’t all gone away, but when it comes up he does everything he can to get rid of it. he went to uc berkeley (on a scholarship) so that he was only an hour away from elliot. there he met alison, his now wife, and he got a degree in social welfare. he now lives outside of seattle with his wife and daughter and is a social worker.

alison adams-chase, sister-in-law, 27 (teresa oman) - elliot first met alison when she was thirteen. alison was eighteen and had become good friends with tucker, and she was the first woman under that age of forty that was really there for elliot. alison taught her a lot of the things that one would be taught by their mother. elliot considers her to be her sister and one of her closest friends. alison and tucker started dating two years after they met. after three years of dating they got engaged, and in 2018 they got married. forrest, their other brother, was the best man and elliot was a bridesmaid. alison is an extremely kind and tolerant person. she’s a kindergarten teacher and by far the kindest chase.

mia chase, niece, 1 - alison gave birth to her and tucker’s daughter on december 3rd, 2019.  she’s a happy albeit somewhat loud baby and an avid crawler. her favorite word is “dog,” and tucker and alison are seriously considering getting a dog because of it. 

forrest chase, older brother, 27 (logan lerman) - forrest is elliot’s other brother and he raised her, too. he bullied elliot, although not to the same extent that tucker did. he was always there to help her practice karate, and then judo, and then whatever else it was that elliot was into. they argued all the time, but at the end of the day she knew he loved her. he was very athletic as a child, but he wasn’t aggressive in the same way tucker was. he held onto a lot of the same toxic masculinity when he was a kid, but he was still fairly young when he started to realize that some of his beliefs were damaging and he made a real effort to change his ways. he’s much quieter than his siblings, and is even smarter than tucker is. he came out as gay to their family when he was fifteen. tucker said he always knew, elliot was too young to care, and to this day harry hasn’t said a single word about it. forrest always loved science, and got a scholarship to study environmental science at nyu. he had always wanted to get as far away from california as he could, and he figured that because tucker was only an hour away that elliot would be fine. there’s a tiny piece of her that still feels like he abandoned her. after graduating from college forrest joined greenpeace, and now works for a non-profit that helps defend natural resources. he lives in nyc with his fiancé, james, and while they do want kids eventually, right now they have their hands full with their dog rambo.

james nam, brother-in-law to be, 28 (seo kang-joon) - forrest and james have been together for four years. elliot doesn’t know james as well as she would like to simply because they always lived so far apart that she didn’t get many chances to spend time with him. but she’s always liked him, and she loves how happy he has made her brother. he’s an environmental lawyer and he recommends a lot of good action movies to elliot. he persuaded james to adopt a dog, and that’s how they got rambo, a very good boy who is not aware that pit bull mixes don’t make good lap dogs. tucker, forrest, elliot, alison, and james are all in a group chat. it’s mostly the chase siblings insulting each other, but it always makes elliot feel a little less alone.

spruce bringsteen, dog, 3 - elliot will almost never admit to being scared of things, but when she drove across the country for the first time, all alone and about to go to a school that didn’t quite seem real, she was scared. on a whim she stopped at a shelter the day before she was set to arrive at gallagher, and in the corner was a one year old dog who already seemed to think he was an old man. he had no name and an ugly face, and elliot immediately fell in love with him. when she held him in her arms she felt safe, and she showed up at school feeling like she wasn’t entirely alone. he got his name through some weird word association and elliot thinks it’s hilarious. he is truly so lazy, and seems like a very odd match for someone as active as elliot, but she adores him nonetheless. 

#gallagher:task #tw alcoholism #tw death

[robbyrobinson]

I

I haven't the faintest idea how I ended up getting into this position, but I am forever grateful that I managed to escape it. Ever since I was a child, I was an avid reader. I read just about anything: newspapers; comic books; obituaries, you name it. I'm certain that you had the same feelings I had. Of reading whatever you could get your grubby hands-on, you find yourself in a bind. Craving more knowledge, I am assured that you would've done anything to satiate your hunger.

When I was allowing my mind to humor the imagined solutions to my plight, it happened. While I was browsing the town's bookstore, I bumped into a strange man. He was the spitting image of a walrus. He was a rotund man in the perfect shape of an egg. He had a double chin that was partially covered by the thick, wintry whiskers of his mustache. Whoever this man was, he clearly was of some form of nobility. He was dressed in the finest black tuxedo that money could buy...if not for the fact that his paunch peeked through the bottom of his shirt. His arms were of a gargantuan frame with rolls of fat jiggling from the slightest movement.

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir," I said. I had about four books in my hands at the time. I gazed down at them and collapsed on my knees to collect them without hesitation. The man tentatively wiped his shirt off with his pudgy fingers.

"It's quite all right, my good fellow," he said in an understanding tone of voice. While I should've been relieved that he wasn't going to take vengeance on me for my mistake, I felt the heat of his stare. He observed the books on the ground with a passing curiosity. "A fellow book connoisseur?"

"Well, yes," I answered while still being intimidated by the sudden interrogation.

"That is very good news," he replied. His smile shifted down into a frown. "But these books just won't do."

My interest peaked. "You know more appropriate literature for me to indulge myself in?"

"Yes. Just between you and me, let's just say that I have a collection of forbidden literature."

That proved to be the most intriguing part of the discussion. This man I had met on accident had access to literature that was assuredly banned by the government. I've heard stories of such books containing such unorthodox material, they were buried away, never to be seen by the light of day. The opportunities were limitless. I could barely conceal my excitement as I almost glossed over the gentleman providing me with his address. He became like a penguin and wobbled away, throwing his weight on his legs. Before I walked over to the counter, for a moment, I could've sworn that I saw a large, monstrous anomaly acting as the man's shadow.

II

Not too long after my realization that I neglected to ask the man of his name; a series of disappearances befell the city. Children between the ages of 10 and 16 were reported missing. They each disappeared not too long after the other. Approximately, there were six missing children. I thought back to the man I met at the bookstore and how eerily his shadow matched the news reports of the children complaining about being relentlessly pursued by a monster shrouded in darkness. It sent a chill up my spine whenever I weighed more on it.

The day of my little get-together with the man from the bookstore arrived. I fidgeted through my important papers until I fished out the note with his address on it. His home was a decent walking pace from mine. With my briefcase in hand, I traveled down the path. When I reached the house, it did not resemble anything I have imagined for a man of such a high status. The outer layers of the house contorted and shifted. The outer layer was transforming into indescribable shapes unknown to man. The trees around the settlement transformed into scaly talons. I turned to leave, but the voice of the fat man was calling out to me over the onslaught of chaos.

I walked through the shifting front door and trudged down the hallway. The walls were now a fleshy mass of red meat. They shook violently so much so; I was afraid they would leap at me. The other sights were…unappealing. In one room, what I could only describe as the most horrid of debaucheries was transpiring before my eyes. A wave of men and women bereft of clothing were committing the most audacious of sins. They danced around in a perverted succession and clawed onto each other in large orgies. Their incessant moaning disturbed me. “Lust,” I thought. It was undoubtedly a section dedicated entirely to the deadly sin of lust.

The next room was worse. Inside, chains of people were wrought with hunger. They tore into each other as wild dogs looking for scraps. Limbs were ripped off and fingers were plucked one by one like feathers. Not once did they grant me a passing glance. Instead, they continued to indulge in their cannibalistic rituals, never once feeling their hunger subsiding. What I have experienced was the sin of gluttony in its most perverted form.

Sloth was next. It was another guest room. It was relatively easier on the eyes, but that would be comparing a severed arm to a paper cut. Fat blobs sat on the bed and floor without rhyme or interest in anything currently happening. They were of people who were so corrupted by their slothfulness, they were reduced to creatures even below the worms.

The further I glanced into the rooms, the more I felt my mind crack from my incapability of understanding it. A hand reached out and touched my shoulder, sending me over the edge. “Glad you could make it; the festivities had just begun.”

It was the fat man again. But something was horribly wrong. He did not have any noticeable change in his demeanor. He still was just as jolly as he was when I first met him. In fact, he treated the unholy nightmares festering in his home with seeming indifference. That kind of indifference a man may feel when he views the same events daily. I now felt uncomfortable being in the same room as him.

Before I could respond, he whisked me away into the kitchen where he had a lavish array on the table. It looked normal at first glance, but after seeing all the bizarre, surreal nonsense in the respective rooms, I couldn’t help but be suspicious. The obese man sat at the head of the table and glutted himself on fattening foods from turkey legs and mashed potatoes. Thinking back, he looked even more massive than I gave him credit for. He looked up from his many plates and eyed me inquisitively.

III

“So, how are you enjoying your stay?”

I slammed my fists on the table in a dazed frenzy. “What in the name of all decency is going on here!?”

He frowned and sighed deeply. “I see you don’t understand. Such a shame.”

“Shame?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered, “I’m sure that you noticed by now that I am by no means an ordinary man.”

My mind became a blank. Not human? What is he suggesting? I knew he was insane, but what the hell did he mean by those cryptic words? I hushed my thoughts when he began to speak again.

“I am of a race of gods eldritch to your thought processes. Please, call me the Defiler.”

“Where are you going with this?” I asked now in irritation. Great; this man was insane, and he also believes that he was some powerful deity. I rubbed my throbbing temples in bewilderment. If this were a dream, I very much would’ve loved to wake up. I’d imagine waking up in my bed in the early morning going about my day and then indulging in my cherished hobbies. Instead, I was currently in a grotesque house filled with unspeakable perversions getting lectured to by a deranged man who may as well have escaped from a mental asylum not too far from here.

“I see that I am boring you, boy,” he said. His face was contorted into a vengeful scowl. “I am here speaking to you, but I am also far away.”

“How far, fat man?” I asked.

“My body is indescribable to you mortals, but I am confined behind a stone wall.”

I listened tentatively despite my disbelief. What he said next horrified me. If the idea that he was locked away behind a stonewall was already unbelievable, what he spoke of still to this day greatly disturbed me.

“Do you like my latest body?” he asked, “after all, this freak was just like you before I found you.” He told me that there was a man who was much like me who hungered for knowledge. After he grew bored with the typical literature he read, he sought more. In his endeavor, he met a member of an underground cult who told him that he could have access to the more problematic pieces. He was exposed to the depravities that the cult performed in dedication to some Great Old One or something of the sort. Despite it, he nevertheless allowed his cravings to overpower him, and he read a book that summoned that unearthly presence to him.

“It’s a pity that this body is going to waste,” the fat man bemoaned. “It’s about time I parted with him; we had so much fun together.” He feigned a single tear. “Those children were my favorite part.”

“Children?” I said.

He wordlessly took me forcefully out of my seat, and we both walked to the basement of the house. The remains of the missing children were spread astray. I choked back vomit as I took a closer look at them. Large chunks were noticeably taken from the corpses. I looked back at the fat man, his grin only growing larger with a more deranged glaze in his eyes. His smile circled around the tips of his mouth.

“What? What can I say; after I had my fun with them, I got hungry. Can’t blame a Great Old One becoming famished.”

My fists clenched. After everything, I was mentally preparing myself to punch this “god” back towards whatever plane of existence he originated from. “What else did you do to that man?”

He smirked. “When I possessed him, I cast his soul aside. He will forever be trekking that long path between life and death. I maneuvered him like a flesh puppet subservient to my rule. I do wonder though if he ever was made to watch his body cozy up with strangers?”

“What are you wanting from me now? And what is the reason behind any of this!?” I finally yelled.

He shrugged his shoulders. “After about three hours or so in my home and you still fail to understand?” He sighed. “I live for the carnality of you simple humans. I know all of man’s depravities and abominations, and I bask in it. That sense of pleasure mixed with pain is intoxicating. But what I desire the most is to be free from my prison and walk among you simple humans!”

The man’s disguise was wearing thin. His skin became papery with small cracks forming all over. Like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, his disguise cracked open. Underneath was displeasing to man’s eyes. An abnormally fat, headless man burst through the skin and towered over me. His hands were large and enshrouded my head. What sent me the most alarm, however, were the two mouths within the palms of his hands. Hot drool dripped down from his serpentine tongues. The room transformed into a chasm of red meat with oozing slime. A book manifested before me. It opened to the section that mentioned the fat man, the Defiler’s, name.

“Say my name and free me!”

My eyes darted towards his name. I tried my darndest to fight, but once my mind was set on the name, my tongue began to betray me. “Y…Y…”

The Defiler stiffened up in anticipation. “Yes! Yes!”

I grasped my throat and grunted. My attempts at choking myself were also proving to be unfruitful. “Y’gol…”

I immediately stared down on the floor of the basement. Beside one of the bodies of the slain children, I saw a carving knife. With my little time, I made a grab for it. The Defiler was perplexed, though because of lacking eyes, he could only express it through his mouths. I grabbed the knife and held it in front of him. My tongue slid out unconsciously from my mouth, and I grabbed it with one hand.

“No, no!” he screamed.

It was painful, but I sliced my tongue off, allowing half to fall on the floor. The Defiler shook violently. I was running out of blood quickly, but I ran forward with the knife and tussled with the Great Old One. He pinned me tightly with one of his hands and he tried to shove me up his other mouth. I clenched my knife and I rammed it into his chest cavity. He loosened his hold on me and tumbled forward. Blood was leaking out onto the floor. Nevertheless, he laughed. Despite the pain and blatant loss of blood. He was still laughing as if he was having the best day of his life.

“Don’t think that this is over, fool,” he said, “I can never truly die. Shame we won’t be able to play some more, though. Oh well, I guess I’ll go defile some other poor sap.” He laughed through his hands and contorted into dust. Without its owner, the house began to collapse, and debris came raining down. From the sound of the bloody screaming, the Defiler’s followers were also being buried alive. I staggered my way through the horrific freak show and exited the house. The house imploded, burying itself deep into a crater in the ground.

IV

Even though it was a few months ago, I still find myself thinking back about how my lust for reading nearly cost me my life and the threats of that beast getting released. But he also said that he would try to corrupt some other hapless victim. I just wonder who will be the next to fall, victim?

#ramsey campbell #cthulhu mythos #y'golonac #short story #eldritch abomination #great old ones

[lilyreads2020]

Week One: YAL & Me

Growing up, I had a lot of positive experiences with YAL. I was a huge Harry Potter fan; I remember reading Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire way past “bedtime.” Back then, I didn’t recognize the portrayal of the character Rita Skeeter from the series as evidence of Rowling’s transphobia, or the characteristics of the goblins as evidence of anti-semitism. I just loved Dumbledore’s optimism, his belief that “happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and the series’ concept of the Dementors as metaphors for depression - soul-sucking creatures that can be fought off (but not killed) by thinking of one’s happiest memories. The Harry Potter series took me several years to finish because my mom told me that one of my favorite characters died in the fifth book, so I waited to read that one (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) until I thought I was ready for his death. I still deeply appreciate the series, although I am aware that some parts of it are problematic. I certainly wouldn’t say it needs to be withdrawn from shelves for its content, as the extremest of the extremists in YAL cancel culture might say.

As a teenager, I read almost every book by John Green: Looking For Alaska, Paper Towns, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson. Revisiting Looking For Alaska, I don’t think I had the same reaction of wanting to avoid reading the descriptions of Alaska’s body (the female character, not the state) by its teenage male protagonist closely then that I do now. 

I also read dystopian young adult novels, such as Matched, The Hunger Games series, The Maze Runner, part of Legend, and others. Also, I read realistic fiction from authors besides John Green, such as It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Speak, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Every Day, and others. And then there were the young adult novels I read for class: Shipbreaker, The Book Thief, The Giver, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and others. There was also the book one of my best friends had to read for class that I read at her house because I was bored: Chinese Cinderella. The audiobooks that I listened to lying down, with my mom, when I needed to sleep or take a break from the real world, and the YA books in print, like the Harry Potter series, that we read together. 

One of the negative biases I have towards the field of YAL is that the plots can be shallow and filled with boy-girl drama/ drama revolving around characters being infatuated with other characters. I think I got the idea that YAL can be shallow from reading others’ reviews of the Twilight series, which is only one book among many in the YAL field.  I acquired the belief that YAL books are mostly about love from making generalizations about popular YAL books I haven’t read in a while, such as Two Boys Kissing and The Fault in Our Stars. However, I realize that at least two of these books definitely have something deeper in them than two characters who are crushing on each other. Two Boys Kissing, for instance, also deals with AIDS, the threats of assault that gay people face, parent-to-child relationships, friendships, and death - not just two boys who like kissing each other. The Fault in Our Stars isn’t just about star-crossed lovers; it’s also about cancer, grief, parents and friends, books (in a meta sense), support groups, and so much more. I definitely wouldn’t call The Hunger Games shallow, and it doesn’t revolve around a love interest, even though it’s a very popular YAL series. So, although there is much more evidence to support the negative bias of YAL as revolving around protagonists’ love interests than there is of YAL having tendencies towards shallow plots, I don’t think either bias is necessarily true - YAL fiction, I think, is actually a form of media that provides an outlet for young adults to think deeply, and about many, many more ideas than crushes or popularity. 

I don’t know a lot about the Twilight series; but I’m not sure how much I want to know about the Twilight series. I’ve never been that interested in the prospect of choosing either a werewolf or a vampire for a romantic partner, so I’ve never read it.

 But now that I think about it, it’s odd how dismissive I am of a book I haven’t even read one paragraph of. So, the controversy I read about was how popular opinions of the Twilight fan base may be more to blame for the public’s dislike of the series than the content of the series itself. The author of the article I read, Ryan Moore, states that “when a specific piece of media has a predominately teenage and female audience, it is immediately seen as ridiculous and stupid,” citing people’s opinions of the boy band OneDirection and the show Glee as non-literary examples of this. Like OneDirection and Glee, Twilight has a predominately teenage and female audience, so it is seen as stupid. I don’t think this bias is justified, and even if Twilight isn’t particularly appealing to me, I think it still is a valuable work of literature that can entertain its readers and connect them with other “Twi-hards.”

 Here’s a link to the article I read,  “Why the Twilight Renaissance is a Feminist Movement:”https://www.genrisemedia.com/2019/10/03/why-the-twilight-renaissance-is-a -feminist-movement/    

[betterthedevilyouknowuk]

Mythology Mondays - Nix

Nix (singular: Neck; feminine: Nixie) are spirits who dwell in quiet rivers and lakes in England, Germany, and Scandinavia. Their love of water is equaled only by their love of music, and their beautiful songs often draw listeners to the banks of their watery homes.

Characteristics

Physical Description

Each culture has its own take on the Nix’s appearance, and the creatures themselves can’t seem to settle on one appearance either. They are avid shapeshifters and may appear as humans, merpeople, snakes, fish, sunken treasures, or horses.

In human form, they usually have an elegant appearance, although their features might hint at their wilder natures. Their ears and eyes are sharper than usual, and their hair and skin might be tinted with green or blue. In more extreme cases, they can have gills, bulbous eyes, and webbed hands and feet. Their garments, though stylish, are chronically wet around the hems.

When they take the form of horses, they are pure white or apple-grey. Though they are far more beautiful than average horses, they still bear telltale signs of their true nature, having manes full of river weeds or constantly dripping water.

Special Abilities

Nix are magical beings; there’s no limit to the hijinks they have committed across the many folktales in which they appear. Still, some of their abilities emerge as common themes.

These water spirits are shapeshifters. Seemingly, they can take on any appearance they want.

Their musical talent is beyond comparison. All of them sing sweetly, and some of them couple musical instruments with their already spellbinding voices. Their music is capable of hypnotizing listeners and drawing them into the water. Generally, Nix have more power over women and children, while the feminine Nixie entrance grown men.

When they’re in an animal form, Nix replace the charms of their music with dazzling physical beauty. As horses, they can hypnotize onlookers by prancing around, flaunting their manes and tails, as easily as they can when singing in a human form.

Weaknesses

Nix are magical, but they’re not invincible. There are several ways you can take on one of these water spirits, if it becomes problematic.

Early legends hold that dropping a piece of silver or iron into a Neck’s home can silence it while you safely cross the water. Shouting the creature’s name, on the other hand, can silence it forever. The Neck will perish at the sound of its own name.

When Nix appear as horses, they’re often subjected to tricks by local farmers, who want to harness their magical powers to a plow. A Neck might be lured into the field by a beautiful maiden, then forced into the plow’s harness by men with silver or iron.

The creatures can’t bear separation from water for a great length of time. If they don’t return to water regularly, their spirits and powers will become depressed. Eventually, they might perish from longing for their river or lake.

After Catholicism gripped Western Europe, many of the traditional folktales were adapted to show the power of the church. At this time, it was said that you could ward the creatures off with holy water or by making the sign of the cross.

Personality

In some tales, Nix appear as dangerous villains. In others, they are wise teachers, and in others still, they are romantic figures.

When Nix take a villainous bent, they usually have seductive qualities. With music or beauty, they lure humans closer and closer to the water’s edge. At last, they grab their victims and drown them in the water.

When they accept humans as students instead of victims, they can impart wonderful musical abilities. Usually, they require payment for their lessons. A black animal, a gift of alcohol or tobacco, or a beautiful maiden can buy a Neck’s time.

At the onset of the Romantic Era, Nix emerged as potential lovers for human beings. Both Nix and Nixie can fall in love with humans. When they do, the humans can rarely resist returning their feelings. After all, these magical water spirits are both beautiful and spectacular at serenading their lovers. Most Nix-human relationships come to a bittersweet end, however. The Neck or Nixie can’t bear separation from its watery home and returns to life there, despite being deeply devoted to its human partner.

Eventually, after Catholicism took hold, the Nix personality was deepened by their desire for Christian redemption and an immortal soul. Their music was said to bemoan the fact that they were shut out of the church, and many people who encountered the mournful spirits were afflicted with heart-rending pity.

Famous Nix Characters

On top of the widespread fame that their race enjoys, some representatives of Nix mythology have a special fame all of their own.

The Fossegrim (Strömkalen) belongs to Norwegian and Swedish mythology. He usually dwells near waterfalls or mills, where he plays gorgeous melodies on a violin. In exchange for the right gift, he will teach humans how to play the violin so that the birds, the trees, and even the blind, deaf, and lame will dance.

The Brook Horse (Bäckahästen) belongs to Scandinavian mythology. He appears as an ethereal white horse near rivers, usually during foggy weather. People are attracted to the white glow of his skin like moths are to light, but if they climb onto the Brook Horse, they will find themselves trapped on his back. The horse then gallops back to the river and drowns his rider.

Related Characters

Some water spirits, outside of the Nix race, might have been influential in the development of this creature’s mythology.

Kelpies, coming from Scandinavian culture, are definitely related to the Nix. Both are water creatures, and both frequently appear on land as horses, with the intent of luring humans into the water and drowning them. In contrast to Nix, Kelpies usually appear as monstrous black horses.

Grindylows, belonging to English folklore, are likely to be related to Nix. Like Nix, they are dangerous aquatic creatures who grab and drown humans when they venture within reach. Unlike Nix, Grindylows commonly inhabit bogs and marshes, and they have no association with music.

Nymphs, belonging to Greek and Latin mythology, might have tinged Nix mythology after Greek culture took root in Germany and Scandinavia. Like Nix, nymphs are associated with nature, sometimes with water. They are beautiful in appearance and often produce sweet music. Unlike Nix, nymphs are gentle and helpful spirits with no reputation for violence. If nymphs did influence Nix mythology, the influence is probably seen in some of the later legends about Nix, when the creatures were more prone to becoming romantically entangled with humans.

Cultural Representation

Origin

Nix come from Germanic, Northern European cultures, where oral tradition goes back much, much further than the written record. For this reason, it’s difficult to trace exactly how they split off from other water spirits and became their own, recognized creature. Certainly, the split occurred before 1210, when Nix were mentioned in a German epic poem, Nibelungenlied.

The word Nix comes from Old German and has undergone many variations (German: Nichus, Niches, Nix; Dutch: nikker, nekker; Norwegian: nøkk; Swedish: näck; Finnish: näkki; Estonian:näkk) as it spread across cultures and as the ancient languages evolved into their modern style. The original meaning of the name is “to wash or bathe.”

Literature and Visual Arts

Nix appear in some of Northern Europe’s earliest epic poems. Some scholars even categorize the river monster in Beowulf, the oldest epic poem written in the English language, as a Neck.

Among other magical creatures from folklore, the Romantic Era ushered Nix onto the canvases of many great painters and onto the stages of many great theaters. Richard Wagner’s opera, Der Ring des Nibelungen, famously featured the Rhinemaidens, a trio of Nixies who protected a golden treasure in the Rhine river. Meanwhile, Heinrich Heine and Friedrich Silcher teamed up to create one of Germany’s most beloved folk songs about a Nixie name Lorelei.

Around the same period, Jakob Grimm, one of the most famous fairytale writers of all time, discussed Nix in his book Deutsh Mythologie, which catalogued the most important creatures from German folktales. Grimm grouped them with other water sprites who enjoy singing and dancing and likened them to the sirens of classical mythology, who drew men into treacherous waters with their hypnotic voices.

Today, Nix appear in many role-playing games and video games. They are usually humanoid and often have magical abilities related to water.

Explanation of the Myth

Water, which is both essential to life and dangerously treacherous, has always captivated the human imagination, and stories of spirits inhabiting the water exist in every culture on earth. To some degree, belief in water spirits, like the Nix, might be an early way in which humans expressed their awareness of the power of water.

Later incarnations of the Nix might have served a more defined purpose. They could be cautionary figures, used by parents to keep their children from venturing too close to a hazardous area of a river or too near the shores of a lake on a foggy night.

1st image source 2nd image source

#myth #mythology #mythology monday #mythological #mythological mondays #nix #folklore

[jeveuxetreecrivain]

The Art of Storytelling - Truth in Fiction

[During the upcoming weeks, I’ll be taking Neil Gaiman’s class on the Art of Storytelling, available on MasterClass - a fitting birthday present. I’ve decided to use my Tumblr site to post the assignments, which I hope will keep me motivated. It is not like I can send them to the Master himself. Bear in mind, those are exercises. Real opinion pieces would require much more research, and I am no journalist.]

Read an essay, write your opinion about it, and “show too much of yourself.”

 The essay chosen for this assignment is Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace.

I am not familiar with this author. I’ve known for a while he exists, in the landscape of American Literature, but I had never taken a particular interest. A few months ago, I heard him being discussed on a podcast by four queer writers and they made me curious, even though it was not enough to prompt me to look him up. But now, since one of his essays is in the list provided for this writing exercise, I figured it was as good an occasion as any.

In this essay, Foster Wallace recounts a lobster festival in Maine he was meant to cover as a journalist. The piece starts by being very descriptive of the event and slowly moves into more reflective territories, by becoming a piece questioning eating habits and the cruelty inherent in killing animals for the nutrition and taste they provide.

Foster Wallace doesn’t advocate for veganism – I don’t know if the man himself was – but rather asks questions. At the end of the essay, he does say he asks them because he has a sense of discomfort about the topic, and also states his hope that the piece isn’t too preachy. Which effectively defeats the purpose, I’d say. If you worry about being preachy, I’d argue it is because you already know you are.

I do believe the piece to be preachy. By just asking questions, Foster Wallace effectively puts them to his readers without providing even the beginning of an answer, however weak the latter could be. As a person, it disturbs me. It is a very valid method to question phenomena, but to do so without reaching a conclusion feels like a work half done.

There are valid reasons to question a system that disregards the cruelty inflicted upon other beings perceived as weaker than us. It is also very valid to look at a food event which effectively rests and relies on the killing of thousands of animal for mere entertainment and festivities. That is the perfect illustration of a capitalistic system that view human beings as simple consumers – at best, when it is not a source of cheap labor – and anything else as a common property for grab which sole purpose is to provide an opportunity for profit.

But Foster Wallace doesn’t take that road. Rather, he puts the focus on the individuals, the people coming to the festival, the gourmet and the mortals who dare cook the lobster in their own kitchen, keeping the issue wrapped around itself, not looking beyond it.

I will say this – reading the article, I felt uncomfortable. When he describes the process by which a lobster is put to boil and when I read the details put forth to illustrate the unwillingness of the animal to be boiled, fighting against it, I felt the queasiness in my stomach. It hit close to home because a couple of days ago, I argued with the Viking about the exact same issue. We had talked about going to the restaurant and eat lobsters, because in doing so, a higher step would be reached, a certain standard of living would be achieved. Lobster as a marker for social mobility. When you can afford lobster, you’re moving up in the world, another notion I have no space to dive into here.

The discussion turned into an argument, because we also talked about buying the lobster in the shop and cooking it ourselves, and I did question his willingness and ability to kill the animal. He argued that he didn’t have a problem with the killing as such, but rather about the means, to wit, boiling. That feels inhumane to him, more so that killing a cow in a slaughterhouse because in there, certain standards are applied – I don’t think the Viking has ever watched a video in a slaughterhouses, witness accounts abound to show that there is nothing humane about killing cows, pigs, and chicken one after the other, on a perversion of the (dis-)assembly lane established by Ford, more than a hundred years ago. And to me, it didn’t make sense, establishing a distinction between ourselves, as a couple of individuals living in a city and outsourcing the production of all the food we eat, and the rest of the food industry. Questioning one action when it is only a tiny piece in a much grander system that needs to change as a whole, it felt wrong and misguided and this is why we fought.

If you take part in a problematic system, without actually getting your hands dirty, aren’t your part of the problem? I believe that to be true, I believe it is called complicity.

I am complicit. It is a uncomfortable notion, one I push aside, one I’d rather not examine because if I did, I would actually have to stop and look at what part in the system I play, and I would fall apart, I wouldn’t be able to carry on with my day, I wouldn’t be able to earn the money I need to earn to buy the food I need to function and be a contributing member of society, whatever this latest notion means to each and every one of us. So I have pushed the ugly outside, content to make it disappear in the slaughterhouses and the industrial fishing boats, because I cannot look at it. If I did, my whole life would crumble.

So what is left to do for us, the Viking and I? We could decide not to buy the lobster, but I don’t think that would accomplish anything. We could go to the restaurant and outsource the whole killing and cooking process, and just enjoy the nutriments put in our plates, forgetting that the lump of flesh was once a living creature.

Or we could go out and find a fish shop, talk with the sales person who would have, let’s hope so, been recently at the seaside, to look at the load of individual fishing boat coming back with the tides, to carefully choose which pieces they decide to sell in their shop. We would choose the lobster we want, take it home, plunge the knife in its head and drop it in the boiling water with the herbs and salt. But we wouldn’t go away. We’d stay for the whole process, how uncomfortable it’d make us, fully acknowledging the cost – financial and moral – of doing so. This time, we wouldn’t put the ugly aside, we’d look right at it, and see how it’d make us feel.

And above anything, we wouldn’t put the mental load of killing an animal that we would be eating on another human being. That pain and sense of wrong and disgust with ourselves would be ours to carry.

And maybe – maybe? – that would be the last time we’d enjoy lobster together.

 [I don’t know if I fulfilled the assignment, if I “showed too much of myself.” What I know is that I was deeply uncomfortable writing this, putting words onto unformed thoughts that I didn’t wish to contemplate.]

#neil gaiman #masterclass #writing assignment

[possessedcoast]

I follow Pathetic at the disco, and was wondering if you had the proof where they’ve do e problematic things? I’ve only been following them for a bit and I haven’t seen anything to terrible. (Isn’t hate or anything just curious)

sure! i don’t really mean to hate on anyone or cause more drama, but some of the things they do really bother me. this got a little long and a lot bitter, so i’m sorry i couldn’t write this without any bias. this will be under a cut in case others would rather not read it. and if you want more clarification or a full, fleshed out post, just ask. 

- we can start with them using psychopath in one of their urls. it’s not a word that should be used casually or to refer to people who aren’t diagnosed as a psychopath. they admitted that they were just using the word because it would give them a memorable url. and because “The title was just too good to pass up”

- they say that  “Brendon is out as at least somewhat bisexual (even if he tries to back pedal on it a lot)“ even though he continually refers to himself as straight. (this isn’t great, it’s not terrible, but it connects to the next point) EDIT: please note that all of this was before brendon came out as pan. he now identifies as pansexual, so that’s that.

-they refuse to consider that ryan is anything other than Completely Straight™ and blocked both me and @badbradwalker for trying to share our opinions. they say they’re “letting ryan himself set the narrative” but they also don’t believe brendon when he says he’s straight? okay. they also refused to post any of the “proof” that they asked for about ryan and dan being a couple. proof that is publicly visible on either dan or ryan’s instagrams without having to do any ~~deep analysis~~ 

- they deeply analyze ryan’s personal life and mental health, which honestly just makes me uncomfortable. i know that i personally believe in ryan having relationships with men, which is about his personal life, but i don’t go digging to find proof or just read into things. the mods deeply analyze every little bit of his life, even going so far as to make assumptions about his mental health based on his instagram. (that’s at the end of this post) 

-in the same vein as the last point, they like to make assumptions and then present it as fact. unless they personally know ryan, which would make me even more uncomfortable, they make a lot of assumptions about his personal life. saying that he’s not collaborating with friends on new music (we have no idea), saying he’s “a very troubled artist,” saying his behavior was “erratic” as if they know what he’s like personally, 

-they keep bringing up the chelsey/stalker issue and not letting it die. yes chelsey is/was messed up. yes, it would be best if she was off the internet. but her being active on youtube and instagram is not a new thing. she’s not hacking accounts/pretending to be anyone/going to anyone’s houses. she’s just being a fan online. i don’t forgive her for what she did and i don’t think she’s a good person, but we need to move past it as a fan community. she thrives off of the attention and it would be better for everyone if they stopped giving her so much.

-they post “rare” pictures without ryan’s express permission. this one isn’t that bad, because someone else did post them first, but the point remains. ryan probably doesn’t even know that there are pictures out there of him as a baby and with his dad. i don’t want to assume ryan’s feelings, but he seems to be a private person, esp post 2013, so i can’t imagine he would be thrilled for those to be seen by the entire internet. his dad put them in his yearbook, yes, but i’m certain ryan didn’t know or thing that the entire internet would see them when his dad decided to put them in the book.

-they have a whole “leave ryan ross alone” ~campaign~ they’re trying to make a thing, but then they don’t leave ryan alone. they make those super detailed, super researched analyses of everything about ryan, and then try to tell people to leave him alone. like in that post they say “Let him redefine himself as he sees fit, even if it’s not what you want personally.“ but uhhhh they refuse to accept that he’s not straight?

-it also made me really uncomfortable that they shared pictures of ryan when he was wasted at that phases show back in 2015. (i’m not linking that. i will not take part in spreading those) i don’t have a screenshot or a link, but i remember z asking people on twitter to not spread those because ryan regretted that night and was embarrassed. for “leave ryan alone,” they had no problem searching for and sharing those pictures.

finally, a few nit-picky things that aren’t really big deals, but while i’m here! might as well!

 -they hate on throam a lot. it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, some people take it too seriously. whatever. it’s a good piece of literature regardless of your feelings on ryden, and it means a lot to a lot of people. there’s no reason to be so hateful about it.

-they take everything so seriously. …and then they make analyses about it! like, no one actually believes anything happened in cape town. it’s a running joke to be like “WHAT HAPPENED IN CAPE TOWN” because it was the last show panic ever did before ry and jon left. and they act like they’re running a professional blog, calling themselves Mods C, B, and M instead of using names. it makes me tired. most things are just not that deep.

-honestly this is the most shallow of points and it’s just me being petty at this point, but i’m annoyed so. they caption so many pictures of panic with “Another day, another inexplicable Panic! at the Disco photo shoot.“ when half of them are easily explainable (the magazine says “hanging out backstage” so that’s what they’re doing, they’re posing with a honda civic because IT’S THE HONDA CIVIC TOUR) or it was the early 2000s and all band photoshoots were weird. just look at fall out boy, mcr, basically any band during that time. let it go.

sorry this got so long and bitter. feel free to ask me or lex ( @badbradwalker ) about any of it. she helped a lot on this too.

EDIT: i’ve spoken with carrie about all of this multiple times. we’re over all of it, but i’m leaving this up for transparency’s sake. i still stand by everything i said, but i’m too tired and too old to deal with any of this bullshit. treat ryan with respect. fuck brendon urie

#anon #pathetic at the disco #under appreciated at the disco #psychopath at the disco #Anonymous

[dulma]

On the circle jerk of the art world

Tom Wolfe, author & journalist, is good at being scathing. Case in point: The Painted Word a brief diatribe against what he perceives to be the falseness and pretension of an elitist art world in a capitalist society.

I don’t know enough about art or the art world to agree or disagree with what Mr. Wolfe claims, but I do care deeply about art and its role in civilization. How it can help us, fix us, express us, or how it can’t. 

His ideas, though, strike me as useful departures for my own future research, especially w/r/t Abstract Expressionism, my new obsession. Also—God knows I love a good contrarian, so here are some key points I’ve synthesized from his spirited lambast. For my own reference, mostly. Thanks, Tom.

Art must have its theory, i.e. the dictum du jour. “modern art has become completely literary” 

Realistic 19th century painting dubbed “literary” thereby spawning its rebellious successor movements, i.e. l’art pour l’art

Braque: aim of art is not to reconstitute but constitute “a pictorial fact” 

Artists left the royal courts & salons and by 1900 aimed to shock and subvert the bourgeois 

Now the artists had to be boho & avant garde (sincerely) but also in le monde

“Public? The public plays no part in the process whatsoever. The public is not invited” 

(This question is of importance to me. Art as public artifact vs. art as private commodity/investment—note to self: explore the ethics and utility of these roles, and whether they are conflicting or mutually generative)

The art world is a mere 10,000 souls 

“a mere hamlet!” restricted to les beaux mondes of eight cities 

Modern art enjoyed a huge boom in the States in the 1920s because that’s when the cultured bourgeoisie began to love it 

Imported from Europe to the US not in a bohemian rebellious spirit but institutionalized by the Rockefellers via the establishment of the MoMA in late 1920s 

Art theory used to be something that enriched conversation 100 years prior but now it was “ an essential hormone in the mating ritual” 

(Touché, Tom Wolfe.)

The bourgeois art world needed theory to understand the direction of modern art 

Why did theory blow up? 

1. the art world is tiny

2. le monde always looks to the bohemian artists for the next thing

3. the artists are made up of “cénacles” where if one dominates art and has one core theory, that theory comes to dominate all of the art world during that period 

This is what happened post WWII during Abstract Expressionism & when NY replaced Paris as center of the art world 

Greenberg’s theory of flatness and Rosenberg’s Action Painting became big theories picked up by le monde. Peggy Guggenheim then discovered Pollock, beloved of Greenberg, and gave him a place and money and set him off 

“First you do everything possible to make sure your world is antibourgeois, that it defies bourgeois tastes, that it mystifies the mob, the public, that it outdistances the insensible middle-class multitudes by light-years of subtlety and intellect — and then, having succeeded admirably, you ask with a sense of see-what-I-mean outrage: “Look, they don’t even buy our products!””

Pop Art was then a reaction against Abstract Exp. 

It was even flatter. Jasper Johns chose flat real life objects and made them look super flat. Like the flag. 

“Wasn’t there something just the least bit incestuous about this tendency of contemporary art to use previous styles of art as its points of reference?” 

(What else would you use? All major art forms are institutionalized in some way—literature, film, etc.—and draw upon its predecessors, are in conversation with lineage and history. I don’t see this as inherently “incestuous” but in practice in the art world perhaps it’s extreme or problematic... explore further)

Pop Art succeeded not because it rejected Abst. Exp’s premises of moving away from realism, but because it did AE one better: even higher level of not realism. Somewhere that was not abstract nor realistic but based on signs 

Abstract Expressionists were too grim and antibourgeois, too bohemian. The Pop artists were right at home in the cultured world of the bourgeois 

Steinberg: Modern art always “'projects itself into a twilight zone where no values are fixed'” and “'it is always born in anxiety'” and its function is to “'transmit this anxiety to the spectator'” to provoke “'genuine existential predicament'” 

“If you hated it — it was probably great." 

Pop Art was full of cultural and literary ironic commentary and allusions. Op Art, which came after, was also very literary in that it was heavily grounded in theory. Theory was taking idea of painting as real object and turning it into object of pure perception 

Greenberg made a comeback with a new theory/style: against the brushstroke. 

All of these movements were a movement towards reduction, stripping away - first of 19th century realism, then representational objects, then the third dimension towards flatness, then brushstrokes. 

Is that enough? Hardly. 

Minimalists came and stripped away the “sentimental” colors and used gritty or ugly ones 

Got rid of the frame, the hanging up of pictures, the square canvas 

Rosenberg & Greenberg (though sort of rivals) and others were against this - new style was “‘too much a feat of ideation.. something deduced instead of felt and discovered.’” 

Then we got rid of the very idea of wall. 

Moved into installations. Then museums (Earth Art). 

What about idea of a permanent or even visible work of art? so next came Conceptual Art where they said it wasn’t about permanence and materials but the process 

And then they took away idea of visual imagination altogether - piece called Vacant by David R Smith 

My thoughts on this (provisional):

Art movements destroy to create. This is also true in literature, in everything. I find this a natural human impulse. We are meaning-making animals, and art is our way of exploring/expressing this process, and meaning is made inevitably by a destructive-creative process. Learning—and thus growth—is by necessity an act that displaces the dictums of yesterday to make room for the new. So I question Wolfe’s implicit resistance to the deconstruction of every assumption inherent to “art,” but I’m willing to challenge the “destroy for destruction’s sake” imperative, insofar as it is what drives the movements of art today. It sure seems that way, but I assume there’s more there, and the “more” is perhaps as varied as the people who further it.

To ask a naive question that probably Real Art has long since abandoned or mocked until it breathed its last, what about beauty???? As a layperson who wants to believe that art has a public role and some inherent value where beholding it can do something good, even by disturbing us, I often find myself lamenting the un-beauty of contemporary art. That this is probably because I don’t “get it” only further entrenches my sense of alienation from this world of art. Is there respite to be sought in, for example, outsider art? 

Perhaps the answer is as simple as a simple comparison: take music. There is no possibility of defining “beautiful” music; we like what we like, and different people like different things. There are ways to get into a piece and understand what it’s trying to be and to judge it on that basis (also like a book) but no absolute criteria are possible because of the infinite variety of creative possibility. But even so, music and literature seem to me more accessible, somehow, than art. Less conceptual in the way art can be, more inclusive in terms of the gap between what the gatekeepers would deem worth canonizing and what we would claim to enjoy as outsiders.

To what extent do artists themselves (as if it’s a homogeny) want the “public” to “get” or “like” their art? A lot rides on this question I guess.

The beauty of the disturbing and the disturbing of beauty. Would this summarize where we find ourselves today?

(I suppose you could say beauty is taken out of the equation, but you could also reframe that as the expansion of the territory of the beautiful to encompass all, exclude nothing. Ironically. The murder of beauty and the expansion of it to include everything is the same thing, conceptually speaking.)

What I wish existed and whose absence consumes me to no end every time I enter a museum: a summary (impossible) of the timeline of the canon and what/who gets included and what/who gets excluded and why. Note that I’m not issuing the ignorant layperson’s tired old challenge of “My 5-year-old could do that.” I don’t mistake technical skill involved or duration of labor for the Good, but I do want the implicit curatorial values to be made legible, because I’m in a capitalist system that more often than not exacts a price from us to view or own art but I am then paying to engage with something whose value I don’t understand and am expected to receive fully by merely looking at something without the language or conceptual framework to understand its value, all while contributing to that value, reinforcing it. That seems like a scam to me (forgivable) but also like intellectual hypocrisy (unforgivable).

All of this is a rambling record of first impressions re: the art world and my access to an understanding of its values & criteria. Obviously a way to answer my own questions is to examine the world itself, anthropologically, and dissect its political/cultural/social/financial underpinnings. To learn the common answers, debates addressing these small questions of mine. Which I intend to.

But that these are the questions begged when one confronts the whole system as an ignorant layperson is worth noting in itself, I think, because it draws out some assumptions that are contradictory. Assumptions that imply that art is good and we should look at it and pay to look at it. Assumptions that also imply that beauty is not art and skill is not art and accessibility is not art. 

So then what is art? And who gets to decide? We spend our lives taking for granted the fact of a museum, of an art history curriculum, of a canon of famous men and (sometimes) women who have made what we consider “Great Art” without ever being satisfied with a good explanation of why, how come, who says? Especially today?

#art #art history #art theory #tom wolfe

[kashishipr]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly driving crucial developments in technology and businesses. It is being employed across a wide range of industries with an impact on almost every aspect of the creation. The availability of large amounts of training data and the advances in affordable high computing power is fueling AI’s growth.

Today, the tasks that AI can perform were unimaginable a few years ago. Whether it is creating music, original artwork, literature, or even new technology, AI has achieved it all. However, a vital question that arises is. “Who owns the Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in the works created by AI?” Is it the person, who bought/put the AI to use to create the particular result, or is it the inventor of the AI, or better yet, is the AI in itself the owner of such creations? Before our current legal questions can find definite answers to these questions, it is imperative to understand the various possibilities, their complexities, and implications.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

AI is generally considered to be a discipline of computer science aimed at developing machines and systems that can carry out tasks considered to require human intelligence. Machine learning and deep learning are two subsets of AI. In recent years, with the development of new neural network techniques and hardware, AI is usually perceived as a synonym for “deep supervised machine learning.”

Machine learning uses examples of input and expected output (so-called ‘structured data’ or ‘training data’) to continually improve and make decisions without being programmed how to do so in a step-by-step sequence of instructions. This approach mimics the actual biological cognition: a child learns to recognize objects (such as cups) from examples of the same objects (such as various kinds of cups). Today, the applications of machine learning are widespread, including email spam filtering, machine translation, voice, text, and image recognition.

AI-Created Works

Earlier, computer-generated works used to rely heavily on the inputs of the programmer, and the machine was, at the most, an instrument or tool. Over time, the technological revolution has led to the rapid development of machine learning software, a subset of AI that produces autonomous systems capable of learning without being programmed specifically by a human.

A computer program developed for machine learning purposes has a built-in algorithm that allows it to learn from data input and to evolve and make future decisions, which may be either directed or independent. When applied to art, music, and literary works, machine learning algorithms are learning from input provided by programmers. They learn from these data to generate a new piece of work, making independent decisions throughout the process to determine what the new work looks like exactly. A vital feature for this type of AI is that while programmers can set parameters, the work is generated by the computer program itself – referred to as a neural network – in a process akin to the thought process of humans.

Copyright for AI Created Works

In 2016, a group of museums and researchers in the Netherlands unveiled a portrait titled ‘The Next Rembrandt,’ a new artwork generated by a computer that had analyzed thousands of works by the 17th-century Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. A short novel written by a Japanese computer program in 2016 reached the second round of a national literary prize. In another instance, the Google-owned AI Company Deep Mind has created software that can generate music by listening to recordings. Other projects have seen computers write poems, edit photographs, and even compose a musical.

For determining what constitutes a creative work eligible for Copyright Protection, most national copyright regimes rely on the concepts of authorship and originality, among others.

For a work to be protected by copyright – there needs to be creative involvement on the part of an ‘author.’ In the European Union, there is no exact definition of an ‘author,’ but case-law in civil law nations, such as France, Germany, and Spain have established that only human creations are protected. The same essentially means that works reflect the author’s personality. In common-law nations such as the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, to name a few, the Copyright Law follows the utilitarian theory, according to which incentives and rewards for the creation of works are provided in exchange for access by the public, as a matter of social welfare. Under this theory, personality is not as central to the notion of authorship, suggesting that a door might be left open for non-human authors. In 2016, there was a selfie taken by a monkey (popularly known as the ‘monkey selfie case’) where it was held that there could be no copyright in pictures taken by a monkey, precisely because the pictures were taken without any human intervention. The main issue is that copyright can only be granted to a human.

The UK’s Copyright Designs and Patents Act, 1988 somewhat provides a solution to this problem. Section 9(3) states that “the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken.”

This provision assumes some form of creative intervention by a human and not autonomous generation by a computer program alone. It creates legal fiction.

When we talk of originality, it is widely understood under copyright law that a work is original if it reflects the “author’s intellectual creation,” i.e., the expression of the author’s personal touch and the result of free creative choices. When we talk in the context of the originality of AI-generated works, the question, which then arises, is – Does the AI make free and creative choices? Since an AI is implemented by computational means, some argue that the AI is not making a free choice but rather building upon what has already been programmed into it by the programmer. On the other hand, some strongly advocate that AI indeed makes its own creative choices. These areas are still exceedingly new and grey to reach a definite conclusion.

Patents on AI made Inventions

Invention by AI is the future of innovation. Inventing computers are routinely used to create new technologies, such as BMW’s recent design of self-driving automobiles. Few people believe that it is only a matter of time before AI is responsible for the majority of inventions in the world. The same raises the issue of how the Patent System should treat the technologies created solely by AI with insufficient human engagement to recognize a human inventor. The question of whether, and to whom, patents can be granted for AI inventions is yet to be addressed by the legislature and courts.

A primary requirement for inventorship is making a significant contribution to the invention. In the case of TS Holdings, Inc. vs. Schwab, Mr. Barry Schwab was hired to create a video product to be used in automobile marketing. Schwab had obtained a patent on the subsequent invention, and his employer later alleged that he should be included as an inventor. The court disagreed, rejecting arguments that Schwab’s employer was an inventor because he “financed the reduction to practice” and was the initial reason why Schwab began work on the invention. Because providing monetary support and instructing others to create new technology – are not sufficient to constitute an invention, Schwab’s employer was not an inventor.

The case mentioned above establishes that a human using inventing AI is not an inventor for purposes of Patent Law. To initiate AI invention, a person may input seed information, including existing technologies – for instance, for neural networks or relevant parameters to be optimized. Such acts are seen as merely providing AI with access to existing knowledge in the field. Furthermore, the fact that a person – finances, owns, or operates the AI is insufficient to qualify that person as an inventor. In such situations, a person may be responsible for an invention, but they have not invented a new technology. A primary goal of the patent system is the dissemination of technological advances. If AI patents are refused, it will lead to software creators not disclosing their AI inventions themselves and rather keeping them a trade secret. The same will certainly go against the primary goal of the patent regime. Unfortunately, most legal systems are not yet equipped to answer these questions in black and white.

The Bottom Line

The current position of AI under IP is problematic, wherein recognition of works generated by AI is a step towards the future, but its implementation is the real problem. As AI digs deeper and deeper into more of our interactions, we want to reflect deeply on what sets human creativity and ingenuity apart from the work of the machines we are setting forth into the world. IP law was created to reward the creation of novel ideas and to pass them into the public domain after a limited period. So, to what extent do we want to reward machine creation of ideas or discredit them, particularly in comparison with traditional human creations? Views on this stay starkly divided. Some believe that IPRs should be granted to the owner of the IP, at whose behest the work is generated. On the other hand, some argue that this would go against the very core of the IP system and provide a possible solution that AI-generated works should remain in the public domain and be treated as a separate class. However, then again, the question arises as to the liability in case of infringement by AI. Who would we hold accountable if AI infringes upon an invention or copyright? Is it the creator, the user, or the AI itself? Moreover, how would we ‘punish’ AI?  It is not possible to pin the entire blame on the inventor since AI is the self-learning machine, and the inventor may never have envisaged the infringing situation. Few have even suggested treating AI as ‘minors’ under law, with the owner or inventor as the legal guardian being responsible for any illegal act by AI. All of these arguments, on the one hand, make sense in the context of AI but, on the other hand, have several loopholes and unanswered questions. The world will only have to wait and see how jurisdictions integrate AI-generated works into their legal systems with time. ✅ For more visit: https://www.kashishipr.com/

#trademark registration online #ip rights #ai-created works #ip rights in ai-created works #intellectual property rights (IPRs) #deep mind #copyright protection #copyright designs and patents act 1988 #patent system #patent law #kipr #ip right protection #ip rights management #kashishipr #intellectual property law #ip attorney #trademark #trademark registration #register trademark

[marjanefan]

The 12 Days of Christine and the Horror Genre

Please note this essay contains spoilers for the Inside No.9 Episode ‘The Twelve days of Christine’ along with discussion of plot points of ‘Dark Water’, ‘Under the Shadows’ and ‘The Badadook’.

The Twelve Days of Christine has been the most analysed episode of ‘Inside no.9’ with at least two in depth Youtube vlogs and other blog analyses. This reflects the regard and affection with which the episode is held. However one aspect of the episode which is worth exploring further is how the episode utilises horror tropes to tell the story of Christine’s life.

The episode is directed by Gulliem Morales who has directed ten Inside No.9 episodes in its first five series. Guillem Morales made his name with the acclaimed horror film ‘Julia’s eyes’ which brought him to the attention of Steve Pemberton. He shares Pemberton and Shearsmith’s respect and affinity for the horror genre. He like them illustrates that it is a genre which is capable both of profound insight into the human condition and of artistic merit. I have written a previous piece about another episode Morales directed ‘The Stakeout’ that pays tribute to and comments on aspects of the horror tradition.

The episode uses soundtrack (including sound effects), lighting, and pacing in similar ways to horror films. In particular the sequence at the end of ‘April/Easter’ where Christine sees ‘The Stranger’ for the first time and the smashed eggs utilises tropes from horror to considerable effect . There are other occasions in the episode such as the sound of the car alarm/doorbell on the change between September/October (Halloween) where the soundtrack uses techniques from horror. The tropes discussed in this essay are not just used in the films I discuss below but in many different horror films such as ‘The Poltergeist’, ‘The haunting’ and ‘Jacob’s ladder’.

The episode also builds tension and mystery in a similar way to the best horror films. We do not know at first what is happening to Christine but we know it is not good. When we find out that Christine has apparently received a Valentines card from her first boyfriend who had been dead for several years we begin to sense something is not right. This is before we see ‘The stranger’ for the first time. Christine’s growing disorientation and distress as the episode is conveyed incredibly well.

For me ‘The Twelve days of Christine’ fits in with three acclaimed horror films which tell the stories of single mothers whose home and young child comes under threat from dark forces – Hideo Nakata’s ‘Dark Water’ (2002), Jennifer Kent’s ‘The Babadook’ (2014) and Babak Anvari’s ‘Under the shadows’ (2016). These films are set in (presumably) 1980s Japan, modern day Adelaide (Australia) and Tehran during the Iran/Iraq war. Despite their very different setting they all examine the anxieties around motherhood of the central characters and how these women have to fight for their children in often hostile situations and societies. Each of these films are each worth a deep analysis in their own right and can be interpreted in any number of manners. I recommend WeeLin’s analysis of ‘The Badadook’ as an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D02G8QWYXDY&

Horror often gets criticised for problematic portrayals of women and violence against women. There are certainly many films in the genre which are problematic but then this is an issue with most film genres. In these three films and in ‘The Twelve days of Christine’ we see rounded (and usually sympathetic) female characters who all have inner lives and hopes and fears. We see their struggles and their courage. Importantly they are also allowed to have flaws. They show the impact of social issues their central characters face. They take the hard work of motherhood seriously. It is worth noting that ‘The Twelve days of Christine’ is the one episode of ‘Inside No.9’ that has a central figure who is not played by Pemberton or Shearsmith and she is female. Not only that but Christine’s experiences as a woman are the focus of the plot. She is a deeply likeable and sympathetic character (unlike a number of central characters in other episodes!). Sheridan Smith gives a truly astonishing performance as Christine and she brings her to life wonderfully. (As an aside Pemberton and Shearsmith have written some really interesting and worthwhile female characters across Inside No.9’s five series).

The three films I mention concern women who are going through traumatic experiences who find their homes and child under attack from a mysterious force- Yoshimi (Dark Water), Amelia (The Badadook), Shideh (Under the Shadows). In ‘Dark Water’ Yoshimi is struggling within a sexist society to provide for and keep custody of her child. In ‘Under the shadows’ Shideh is contending with both an appalling war and a highly repressive government which has just banned her from studying to be a doctor. In ‘The Badadook’ Amelia is trying to deal with grief and mental illness. The forces that threaten the central characters and their children Mitsuko (Dark water), The Djinn (Under the shadows) and the Badadook all can be interpreted as representing and embodying these threats.

In ‘The 12 Days of Christine’ this figure is ‘The stranger’ (Reece Shearsmith). We first see ‘The stranger’ about a third of the way through the episode at the end of the April/Easter sequence (when we also see the smashed eggs). Then we hear his voice over the baby monitor in ‘June/Father’s Day’ where he apparently takes Jack. We then see him in ‘October/Halloween’ where he is holding Jack saying ‘I’ve got him’. Some people theorised that ‘The stranger’ is actually the ghost of Christine’s first boyfriend but Reece Shearsmith stated this is not the case on the audio commentary of the episode he did with Steve Pemberton. Shearsmith also discussed the work that went into creating the right look for ‘The stranger’ to make him look sinister (with his steamed up glasses and rainmack). Something that is worth noting is that on both occasions when ‘The stranger’ apparently takes Jack, Adam actually either has him or is collecting him. Could ‘the stranger’ represent Christine’s knowledge that Adam will now have to be responsible for raising Jack alone?

One important difference between ‘The 12 days of Christine’ and these three films however is that it gives a logical explanation for Christine’s experiences and who ‘The stranger’ is. Christine is not forced into a final confrontation with him. He is not some malevolent force but just some man who happened to step into the road. He actually managed to rescue Jack and is clearly guilt stricken at what has happened. He is far more mundane and human than he first appears. However his carelessness contributed to the crash which kills Christine.

Another apparently supernatural event that occurs is when the eggs smash against the walls and floor Christine’s flat during ‘April/Easter’. Eggs are symbol of rebirth and fertility so the broken eggs can be seen as symbolic of Christine’s (unsuccessful) struggle to stay alive. We see these broken eggs when we see Christine seriously injured in the car. However I also have my own thoughts on the eggs as a symbol. When we next see need Christine in ‘May’ she is heavily pregnant. We see her express her fears that the arrival of the baby will change and put pressure on her relationship with Adam. These fears are sadly realised. Could the broken eggs also symbolise the fact that Christine would soon be pregnant and her fears about what motherhood would involve? (These are just my own thoughts)

Wee Lin made an interesting observation on the significance of Christine’s burn which we see in ‘November/Guy Fawkes night’. She argues when Christine realises it was her, not Jack who burned their hand on a sparkler as a child, it is her realising that it is she not Jack who is seriously injured. This may also represent Christine taking on the wound on Jacks behalf, in effect ‘sacrificing’ herself for Jack.

In all three films there is a young child of around six/seven (Ikuko, Sam, Dorsa)- about the same age of Jack at the end of the episode. This is an interesting age as it represents a particular point in a child’s cognitive development. They still retain a level of innocence of young children while having a growing awareness and knowledge of the world around them of older children. They also have an ability to react and understand events while being too powerless to alter them We do not hear Jack speak but we can tell from his face at the end that witnessing his mother’s death will be an event that will have a profound impact on him.

It is important to note why Christine only remembers events that occurred in the flat. It was a place where a lot of important events in her life happened. Not only that but its meaning changes as her life changes. It goes from being her ‘batcherlotte’ home to a family home to her home with Jack. This fits in with Christine’s journey from her early 20’s to late 30’s from carefree single girl to wife and mother to divorcee and single mother. Indeed we could say the flat is a representation of Christine’s psyche. Horror films (along with other genres of literature and films) regularly use single locations to represent the psyche or characters relationship to the circumstances of their lives (such as The Haunting and The Yellow Wallpaper).

As noted before ‘The 12 days of Christine’ provides a rational explanation for all that Christine experiences and she is not obliged into a final confrontation. So what is the real horror in ‘The 12 days of Christine’? Several times we see Christine’s anxiety about her relationship with Adam and its eventual failure. We see her distress in her discussion with her father at the end of ‘September/First day of school’ at her feeling that her life is in a rut (she has been in the same flat and job for many years and is a divorcee). We also see her anxiety about being abandoned by the people she loves. Some have explored the idea that the episode shows Christine’s fear that she will develop the dementia that took her father.

This is why the end of ‘The 12 Days is so affecting. In her final moments Christine realises her life was full of love and that she had meaningful connections and times with others. Sheridan Smith’s beatific and peaceful smile in the final moments shows Christine’s realisation of this. She can at least leave her life knowing that she loved and was loved by others. The ending of the episode may be tragic but is not horrific. In the end what is so powerful about ‘The 12 Days of Christine’ is that it shows that even an apparently insignificant life has meaning and purpose and how each person is connected to each other.

As an aside I always recommend this terrific blog as their analysis of individual episodes is always incredibly insightful and detailed

https://dodoswords.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/inside-no-9-review-series-two-the-12-days-of-christine/

#Inside no.9 #Reece Shearsmith #Steve Pemberton #sheridan smith

[endfatphobiayesterday-blog]

Your Favorite Movie Can Be Problematic

Maybe your favorite movie is from the 80s, which uses homophobic language, or employs tired racist characters. Or maybe your favorite movie has a known abuser, or someone who is notoriously MAGA. It is difficult to find a movie that has aged gracefully, or doesn’t contain a problematic aspect, small or large. And I think that’s okay. 

I recognize the problems that lie nestled within Call Me By Your Name, but it is still my favorite movie. In a time when cancel culture, cutting out toxic people, and a huge political divide is the common thematics of our everyday life, I’m allowing space for problems, a space for difference, a space for imperfections. So as I observe and notate the various problems within the movie, I simultaneously hold close my love for it. 

The movie Call Me By Your Name is a queer love story, based on the novel of the same name written by André Aciman, who is Egyptian, Jewish, and unfortunately, heterosexual. Up until I researched the film, I never could have thought that the writer of such a beautiful queer love story could be straight. So while I wished my favorite queer romance was written by someone who identifies as LGBTQ, that is not the case. To continue on the complexities of representation, portrayal and queerness in popular culture, both of our queer characters are acted by cis/het white men. Would the film be better if more queer people were involved in the creation of a piece of media that is so enveloped in queerness? Yes, absolutely. But does it negate the beauty of queer love that is depicted? No, it doesn’t.

Another problem that is easy to observe in the film is the glaring depiction of class. The film takes place in Elio and his family’s summer home, located in the beautiful and lush Italian countryside. The family has a pool, domestic workers...they are served lavish foods and shown in piles of books. Elio’s quick wit, piano skills and literature knowledge reflect privilege in higher education. There is no question that Elio is privileged. But while the film reflects this privilege, it is not overly thrust in the viewer’s face. The house is nice, yes, but it appears old and creaky. Elio seems uninterested in wealth, or clothes, or anything material. Elio finds pleasure in picking peaches off the tree, swimming in the small outdoor pool, writing music on the lawn, and reading old paperbacks. 

The film is blindingly white, too. Elio and Oliver are both Jewish, yes. It is evident throughout the film that their Jewish identity is something that does render them marginalized. But they are both European in a way that comes prepackaged with privilege. So, no, the movie doesn’t offer much diversity. It doesn’t even offer much intersectionality within queer identity. There is no concern with race, class, or ability. The movie is nearly apolitical, if the queerness is disregarded. And while I consider myself deeply passionate about activism and politics, this does not affect my ability to enjoy and become enveloped in the film.

So if the film isn’t about, or even pay mention to, white or class privilege, what is it about? It’s about love. And not just love, it’s about first love. And not just first love, but a first queer love. Oliver is older, a grad student visiting to study with Elio’s dad. Elio is 17, with little to no experience in romance, love or sex. And while the movie does a good job of offering perspective into what Oliver is feeling, the film is ultimately shot through the gaze of Elio. 

When, inevitably, Elio’s father finds out about his love for Oliver, it is met with sincere support, understanding and gentleness. There is no moment, not even for a second, that the audience thinks that Elio will face consequences for his queerness. So if the film does an inadequate job of representing race or class, it does feel like a relief that we get to observe parents support their son in an unwavering love, regardless of sexuality. 

Call Me By Your Name is about falling in love for the first time, and yes, it is about queer love, but it offers none of the fear that is commonly associated with queer love. Elio’s first love with Oliver is simultaneously effervescent, fun, scary, and ultimately, heartbreaking. And these feelings aren’t innately queer, they are universal. So while I identify as queer myself, and yes, while I see plainly the problems another person might assign to the film, I can’t deny the absolute perfect portrayal the film offers of a first romance. 

This film shows exactly how it feels to fall in love for the first time. And as a romantic...and as the tears silently leak from my eyes, even after the 14th viewing...my body can’t deny that this is my favorite movie. 

#call me by your name #queer love #queer romance #queer theory #queer pop culture #media critique #film critique #feminist #intersectional activism #intersectionalfeminism #elio #oliver #italy #first love

[mathwizards10]

Look and See – Math is Everywhere

by: Alec Gabrielle Gonzales and Andrea Trisha Buenaobra

Mathematics is present in everything in this world, and when I say everything there is no exemption. Even in breathing and sleeping, Mathematics is there. We might feel nauseous and problematic upon seeing mathematical formulas and equations, and deny the fact that math is in there.

Before I can fully convince you that Mathematics is present everywhere, let us define it first. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Mathematics is the science of numbers and their operations, interrelations, combinations, generalizations, and abstractions and of space configurations and their structure, measurement, transformations, and generalizations; it is way beyond its branches namely algebra, arithmetic, calculus, geometry, and trigonometry. Basing in its definition, its scope is very vague and can touch all that exists.

Since it is visible and anchored in every field, it is very recognizable in the discipline of Humanities and Art. It has certain mathematical elements, concepts and equations present in each artwork. We may be second guessing in assessing this knowledge, but we must open our minds to the reality that Mathematics has a lot of contribution in all endeavors.

Let us point out how mathematics affects the music industry. Long ago, when classical music dominated the industry, it used much more complex notes and measurements compared to the pop culture we have today.

Fractions are used in music to indicate lengths of notes, and it also signifies the beat of a certain piece. In a musical piece, the time signature tells the musician information about the rhythm of the piece. There are also well-known mathematical relationships between the pitch of various notes on the musical keyboard. An octave is separated by a factor of two; a fifth interval (say C to G) by the ratio 3/2, and two adjacent notes on the keyboard are separated by the twelfth root of two = 1.059463.

A lot of great musicians are mathematicians. Albert Einstein is the greatest example; he can play violin and piano. According to his second wife, Elsa, he may be in a deep concentration at first, then playing the instrument later. The great Baroque composer, Johann Sebastian Bach whose specialty was canon, can be analyzed with the use of mobius strip. His compositions can be analyzed and can sound the same when played reversed or as the original. Bach’s work, Frère Jacques and Canon 3, have the same structure topologically: after the introductory measures, the canon settles into a cylindrical steady state. All of Bach's canons are organized this way.  

Mobius strip is a spiritually significant symbol of balance and union. It is a 2-dimensional surface; has length and width but no thickness. It doesn’t only play a significant part in analyzing music, it is also present in the arts. In real life, it is bet portrayed in conveyor belts and bicycle chains, and it will last longer since all the surface areas get the same amount of rasp.

Math and dancing are also intricately linked. Sequence and power of set (or cardinal number) is observed in this activity to create a choreography. Sequence is an ordered list of objects, whereas the same elements can appear multiple times at different positions in the sequence; power of set (or cardinal number) is a finite set is a natural number which is the number of elements in the set. These elements are present in dancing since choreographers use sequential and repetitive steps to create a whole dance routine.

Geometry – with its shapes, patterns, angles and symmetry – is perhaps the most apparent field of mathematics present in dance. Looking at a solo dancer frozen in one position, we can see the lines of the body, their angles and directions in relation to each other and to the room. In a moving group of dancers, we notice the lines and shapes created by the ensemble, their change with the music, and the patterns of beats that cause those changes.

Mathematical concepts can be used to understand dance at a more profound level and to create better choreographies, and at the same time dance analogies can make math lessons more vivid and accessible for the students.

The connections of mathematics and visual arts are so many. For example, angles and perspective can be used to create dimensions inside the artwork; points, lines and shapes are used to produce an appealing artwork; and measurements are also applied to achieve the accurate size desired by the artist. It may not always be visible when we’re not looking closer and not open for the possibilities, but there is much symmetry, geometry, and measurement involved in creating beautiful art.

Its prominent connection started when the sculptor Plykleitos wrote his Canon, prescribing proportions based on the ratio 1:Ö2 for the ideal male nude back in the 4th BC. Persistent popular claims have been made for the use of the golden ratio in ancient art and architecture, without reliable evidence. This ratio is approximately 1.618 and can be achieved when you divide a line so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is equal to the actual whole line divided by the longer part. It is also represented in represented by the Greek letter phi.

Artists also apply different techniques in doing their artworks; these techniques serve as their “signature” or as a trademark. Mathematics is still present in the picture. For example, the famous Pablo Picasso pioneered the cubism, that is characterized by the use of geometric planes and shapes.

A perfect example is the well-known work of Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa. When looked closely, it has numbers put inside the painting itself. The golden ratio (1.618) is also noticeable when we measure the appendages of the subject. It is considered as a perfect artwork.

Another example is tessellations, the work of the Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher and mathematician Sir Roger Penrose who brought attention to the concept. A tessellation is a pattern of shapes that fit together perfectly and repeat in patterns. It may not seem like it has anything to do with math, but it is all about math as they can be tiled to form a continuous pattern on an infinite plane.

Personally, I also think that the price of an artwork is another participation of Mathematics in visual arts. Since, money involves numbers and currency.

To sum up everything, Mathematics is also a study of patterns, and we can study everything in arts and humanities from different mathematical perspectives, including geometry, number theory, trigonometry, differential calculus, and signal processing. As we can also observe, arts in all forms observe series of patterns for it to come up with an aesthetically pleasing output.

Mathematics is evidently related to Architecture. The concept can even be considered null without it. Architecture is simply a whole other world of Math. This connection simply plays with numbers, measurements, shapes, proportions, perspectives, and everything in between. Architects use geometry to create outputs that are according to different principles such as aesthetic and mathematical.

Let’s go down to history lane. In ancient Egypt, Greece, India, and the Islamic world, the different buildings during that time, such as pyramids, tenokes, and palaces were made with specified proportions due to religious beliefs.In regards to architecture in the Islamic word, Math is used in geometric tiling patterns and shapes for the internal and external structure.

On the other hand, Renaissance architecture used symmetry and proportion as emphasized by known architects namely Andrea Palladio, Leon Battista Alberti, and Sebastian Serlio. They were influenced by De architectura of Vitruvius from ancient Rome. In addition, they were also influenced by Pythagoreans’ arithmetic.

Mathematics in weaving, or fiber arts is deeply inspired by a variety of mathematical concepts. Such creation includes quilts, knitting, cross-stitching, crochet, embroidery, and weaving. The mathematical concepts covered in this relation includes graph theory, number theory, topology, and algebra.

While this connection includes numerous techniques, some are naturally geometrical like the counted-thread embroidery. They also exemplify mathematical concepts through physical expression or visual utterance.

Media Arts and Mathematics go well with each other. Especially using media as an academe for the subject. The collaboration is very useful as it innovates and develops method of learning and teaching. Math can seem easier immersed with Media Arts as various means can be used. Aside from the helpful collaboration of both concepts in learning, you can also see Math in different forms of arts in media. For example, movies. The duration, special effects, and animations also involves Mathematics. It may not be salient in expression but it is evident especially in the process.

The combination of Math and Literature is significantly evident as it also gives us the reason why Math is important. Aside from that, there are also several reasons as to why they work well combined. Literature introduces the subject in a lighter approach and it also has specifications that triggers people’s interest with matter.

In addition, literature makes Math more interactive and less boring and traditional. This is very helpful especially with complicated problems and struggling audience. Examples would be books, they are written in a more understandable way in order to give a better learning process for the people especially complicated equations and problems.

References:

Bailey, D & Borwein, J. (2017, December 6). Why Are So Many Mathematicians Also Musicians? Retrieved in https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-are-so-many-mathemati_b_9814796 on December 2019.

Phillips, T. (2016, November 25). Bach and the Musical Möbius Strip. Retrieved in https://plus.maths.org/content/topology-music-m-bius-strip on December 2019.

Wasilewska, K. (2012). Mathematics in the world of dance. Proceedings of Bridges 2012: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture, 453-456.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_architecture

https://ourjourneywestward.com/math-and-literature-connection/