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dilfdoctordoom · 3 years

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On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

#barbara gordon #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #tom taylor #tw ableism #okay to rb

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multiverseforger · 3 years

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For United States agents, see Federal law enforcement in the United States.

U.S. Agent (John Walker) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, usually those starring Captain America and the Avengers. He first appeared in Captain America #323 (November 1986) as Super-Patriot.[1] He was later redesigned as an incarnation of Captain America and, a few years later, as U.S. Agent.

U.S. Agent

U.S. Agent.

Art by Leinil Francis Yu.

Publication informationPublisherMarvel ComicsFirst appearanceAs Super-Patriot:

Captain America #323 (November 1986)

As Captain America:

Captain America #333 (September 1987)

As U.S. Agent:

Captain America #354 (June 1989)Created byMark Gruenwald

Paul NearyIn-story informationAlter egoJohn F. WalkerSpeciesHuman (empowered)Team affiliationsMighty Avengers

Omega Flight

New Invaders

S.T.A.R.S.

The Jury

Force Works

Secret Defenders

West Coast Avengers

Dark Avengers

Commission on Superhuman Activities

Bold Urban Commandos

Astonishing AvengersPartnershipsBattlestarNotable aliasesJack Daniels, Super-Patriot, Captain AmericaAbilitiesExceptional hand-to-hand combatant

Highly trained acrobat and gymnast

Superhuman strength, agility, reflexes/reactions and endurance

Peak-level speed, dexterity, coordination and balance

Use of nearly indestructible shield and firearms

Wyatt Russell portrays John Walker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe streaming television series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021).

Publication history

Fictional character biographyEdit

OriginEdit

Learn more

This section needs additional citations for verification.

John Walker was born in the fictional town of Custer's Grove, Georgia. He grew up idolizing his older brother, Mike, a helicopter pilot who died in the Vietnam War in 1974. John wanted to live up to Mike's memory, who was idolized by their parents, and so he later enlisted in the military. John served at Fort Bragg, although it was never specifically stated which unit he was attached to.[5] Unfortunately for John, he served during peacetime and so never became the hero that he perceived Mike to have been.

After John received an honorable discharge from the United States Army, he was told by a friend about the Power Broker, a mysterious individual who gave people superhuman abilities.[volume & issue needed] Walker and his friend received treatments that granted superhuman abilities.[6]

Super-PatriotEdit

John Walker as Super-Patriot. Cover of Captain America #327 (March 1987). Art by Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod.

Walker, now in debt to the Power Broker, intends to join the Unlimited Class Wrestling Federation but meets Ethan Thurm who becomes his manager and persuades Walker to become a hero instead. Thurm secures financial backing, helps Walker design a costume, and sets out a strategy that allows him to debut as the corporate-sponsored Super-Patriot who then travels the country promoting his image to the nation through patriotic rallies and community service.[6]

At a rally in Central Park, he holds a secretly rehearsed performance in which he publicly criticizes Captain America and is subsequently attacked by three extremist supporters called the Bold Urban Commandos or "Buckies". Walker defeats the Buckies in the staged fight as a demonstration of his combat prowess and patriotism. Steve Rogers confronts Walker privately afterwards and demands that he stop using the Buckies, since people attending the rally could have been hurt in a panic resulting from the staged attack. Walker refuses, arguing that his actions are justified by his quest to replace the outdated Captain America as the nation's symbol.[7]

When Captain America repeatedly refuses his challenges to a fight, Super-Patriot attacks Captain America. Although Captain America proves to be a more skilled fighter and lands blow after blow, the trash-talking Walker manages to absorb the attacks. With neither man falling after a lengthy brawl, Super-Patriot flings a number of throwing stars at Captain America who is too tired to dodge. One hits in the chest, embedding into Captain America's uniform but doing little to no actual physical damage. With the successful strike, the gleeful Super-Patriot claims victory and promptly departs. The weary and dejected Captain America tries to tell himself that the fight was a draw, as neither man actually went down but is nonetheless left questioning his own fighting abilities while acknowledging Super-Patriot's superior strength and stamina.[8]

Walker catches the eye of the nation though when he tackles the terrorist Warhead who threatens to detonate a nuclear weapon in Washington, D.C. atop the Washington Monument. Walker scales the monument, disarming Warhead with a throwing star, before sending Warhead plummeting to the ground below. Warhead – preferring to go out 'like a man' – kills himself before hitting the ground by detonating a hand grenade.[9]

This high-profile act makes him an instant celebrity, appearing in The Washington Post and on national television where he claims himself to be "America's future", which in turn brings him to the attention of Valerie Cooper's role as a Presidential advisor.[6]

Captain AmericaEdit

Soon after, Steve Rogers abandons Captain America's costume and identity when ordered to report directly to the Commission on Superhuman Activities, feeling that Captain America had grown beyond the name's original role as a symbol of America during the war and not wanting to be tied down to a political agenda.[9] The Commission debate who should be the new Captain America, with Nick Fury and Sam Wilson both being considered as candidates, although it was considered that the former was too old and would not want to give up the autonomy enjoyed as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, where as in the case of the latter they did not believe that the United States was ready for a black equivalent.[10]

Dr. Valerie Cooper, a member of the Commission, suggests that Walker should be made the new Captain America as a U.S. government operative. Though repulsed by the notion of giving up being Super-Patriot and taking on the Captain America identity he has criticized so much, Walker ultimately answers, "Ma'am, if Uncle Sam wanted me to be Mickey Mouse, I'd do it." As Captain America, he is forced to abandon Thrum as his manager, and can only retain Lemar Hoskins, one of the Buckies, since the other two fail to pass background checks.[6]

Walker is partnered with Hoskins as the new Bucky but Hoskins later changes the codename to "Battlestar" due to the negative racial name connotations for a black man. The two follow Adrian Sammish's orders. Walker is trained by the Freedom Force, the Guardsmen, and the Taskmaster—Taskmaster's training focusing on teaching him how to use Captain America's shield—and goes on his first mission against the Watchdogs militia group.[11]

Another of Walker's early acts as Captain America was a mission to "aid stability and democracy in South America" by teaming up with the Tarantula in order to hunt escaped political dissidents from his home country on behalf of its oppressive regime in order to silence them. Despite believing in the fight against Communism and in the principle of helping America's "Democratic allies in Latin America", Walker becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the methods used by Tarantula after he interrogates and threatens occupants of an immigration detention center for information on his targets. The two battle and wound Spider-Man, however Walker – increasingly conflicted by the fact that both the immigrants who Tarantula interrogated and Spider-Man looked upon him and the uniform he wore with fear, seeing him as an enemy – decides to walk away, convincing himself that this course of action was not something that Captain America would support. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Tarantula and Walker later learns that the individual who gave him his orders to help Tarantula was a rogue agent who did so without legal authority, beating him and telling him that the uniform he wears is supposed to inspire, not terrify.[12]

Although Walker finds himself trying to emulate Rogers's ethics, Walker is more brutal than his predecessor due to his reactionary points of view. His superhuman strength and lack of emotional control lead him to inadvertently beat Professor Power to death.[13] as well as badly injure 'The Resistants' mutant group.[14]

Left-Winger and Right-Winger, the two rejected Buckies, crash the press conference arranged by Cooper to reveal the "new" Captain America and Battlestar, and announce Walker's name and birthplace on national TV.[15] His parents are subsequently killed by the Watchdogs; this incident drives Walker closer to a mental breakdown, particularly when the Commission orders him not to step out of line in the future, resulting in him missing his parents' funeral due to his responsibilities. In a state of rage, he kills many of the Watchdogs,[16] and beats Left-Winger and Right-Winger to a pulp, leaving the two to die in an explosion,[17] and are left terribly burned and in critical condition.[volume & issue needed] Walker is then captured by Flag-Smasher, but rescued by Rogers, Battlestar, and D-Man.[18]

The Red Skull, now in a clone body of Steve Rogers, lures Walker to Washington, D.C. The Red Skull attacks Walker with a horde of Walker's enemies, but Walker kills or critically injures the enemies all in a single brawl. The Red Skull arranges for Walker to confront Rogers—now using "the Captain" identity and costume—but Rogers defeats him and confronts the Red Skull. Walker wakes up and throws his shield at the Red Skull, causing the latter to be exposed to his own "dust of death" which resulted in the supervillain's reddish skull appearance, but the Red Skull escapes. Rogers and Walker give a report to the Commission, which returns the Captain America uniform to Rogers. Rogers declines the offer, but Walker persuades Rogers to reconsider and accept it. At a press conference announcing the original Captain America's return, General Haywerth fakes Walker's assassination by a Watchdog in order to set up Walker in a new identity.[19]

To address Walker's psychosis, he is hypnotized into believing his parents are still alive, and he would not recover his full memory for many years. He is also given a new cover identity of 'Jack Daniels' as well as speech therapy and work to erase old mannerisms in order to help hide the fact that he was the man the public had recently seen "assassinated".[20]

U.S. Agent/West Coast AvengersEdit

Walker soon resurfaced as an adventurer known as the U.S. Agent, wearing a variation of the Captain costume and using the vibranium disc as a shield. Walker continued to work for the Commission. He was first seen as the U.S. Agent, battling an Iron Monger as a test for the Commission.[20] He was placed as a watchdog of West Coast Avengers and the Vision by the Commission, as a condition to possibly get their government clearance reinstated.[21] Some time later, he rescued Battlestar from the Power Broker, and reconciled with the former; Walker learned that his memories had been altered and that his parents were dead.[22]

The manner of his appointment to the West Coast Avengers team, and his own abrasive attitude, saw U.S. Agent frequently come into conflict with his colleagues, in particular the headstrong Hawkeye (Clint Barton), which culminated in a battle between the two that saw both suspended.[23] He later almost killed Spider-Woman (Julia Carpenter) – an ex-employee of U.S. Agent's former employers – hesitating over delivering the fatal blow before collapsing in grief – his guilt over his long history of violence catching up with him.[24]

While under the employ of the Commission for Superhuman Activities, U.S. Agent was charged with the responsibility of taking down the Punisher (Frank Castle). U.S. Agent locates the Punisher and after some hand-to-hand combat, the Punisher discloses in attempting to take down the Maggia; he agrees to help the Punisher, vowing to take the Punisher into custody once they had done so. U.S. Agent takes down the superpowered mercenary Paladin who had been employed to kill the Punisher by the Maggia, breaking both legs with his shield. Ultimately, the Punisher upon completing the mission escapes U.S. Agent by dressing a deceased henchman in his uniform and leaving him in a burning building, convincing U.S. Agent that the Punisher had perished in the fire. U.S. Agent is berated by his employers who inform him that his job is to act, not think and declaring that it is no wonder that he failed as Captain America. U.S. Agent walks away halfway through his dressing-down.[25]

U.S. Agent was once more forced to choose between following the rules and laws of the nation he had dedicated himself to serving, or ignoring said rules in favor of doing what he personally believed to be right, when he investigated a series of gruesome murders of illegal immigrants on the Mexico/U.S border who he later discovered were being committed by a corrupt law enforcement official.[26]

U.S. Agent investigates the killer "the Scourge of the Underworld" and discovers that Scourge is not an individual at all, but is in fact essentially a franchise of killers trained towards the singular purpose of wiping out the menace posed by the world's various super-villains.[27] U.S. Agent attempts to infiltrate the organization but is captured, tortured and interrogated until he is released by a masked operative who reveals himself to be none other than Mike Walker – U.S. Agent's older brother who he had long thought to have died in the Vietnam War. Mike tries to convince U.S. Agent to join the Scourge program before letting him go in order to think it over.[28]

It is later revealed that "Mike" is not U.S. Agent's brother at all but rather a cleverly designed deception intended to lure U.S. Agent into joining the Scourge program himself. U.S. Agent decides against joining the program at which point 'Mike' – better known as 'Bloodstain' – attempts to wipe him out unsuccessfully.[29]

Through interrogating members of the Scourge organization, Agent traces its mysterious benefactor back to a high-class estate, at which point he is revealed to be none other than Thomas Holloway – the man previously known as the World War II era hero "The Avenging Angel" – who reveals how he had set up the Scourge organization using his immense wealth after witnessing an innocent bystander killed by a criminal's bullet meant for him. Unable to continue his costumed career because of the guilt he instead decided to set up the organization to atone for his failings as a crime fighter and battle those criminals who would undermine America's moral character.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent and Bloodstain battle one last time, and Bloodstain is eventually dispatched by his own bullets as they deflect off U.S. Agent's shield. Thomas Holloway is subsequently arrested for his crimes and the Scourge program seemingly closed down. Later, U.S. Agent muses that just like Holloway he had done things as a hero that he feels he needs to make amends for, but promises that unlike Holloway he will find the true path to salvation.[30]

U.S. Agent fought alongside the Avengers in several battles. After the Avengers moved to a United Nations based charter, he received only one vote (though not from himself) in the ensuing vote and consequently lost his place on the team.[31] Even with his personality conflicts and reckless behavior, he soon proved himself worthy of being an Avenger and was able to rejoin.[32]

During his time with the West Coast Avengers, U.S.Agent participated in the 'Infinity War' in which he was part of the team that remained on Earth to protect it against Magnus waves of superhuman dopplegangers,[33] the 'Infinity Crusade', during which he was recruited by the Goddess along with other heroes who were susceptible, as they are either especially religious, mystically inclined, or have had a near-death experience,[34] and Operation Galactic Storm in which he was responsible for guarding the Kree prisoners Captain Atlas and Dr. Minerva,[35] and battled a Kree Sentry.[36]

U.S. Agent also helped the team battle the likes of the Lethal Legion,[37] Dr Demonicus and his Pacific Overlords,[38] Ultron and his robotic 'bride' War Toy,[39] the 'Night Shift',[40] the 'Bogatyri' – a group of Russian extremists intent upon ushering in a new Cold War,[41] 'Death Web' – a team of spider-themed villains,[42] and Immortus.[43]

U.S. Agent, along with fellow "replacement" heroes Thunderstrike and War Machine, was manipulated into battling the heroes who had inspired them – Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man – by the time travelling villainess "Terminatrix", before putting their differences aside to team up against their common foe.[44]

U.S. Agent along with the rest of the West Coast Avengers, the Avengers and the X-Men, participated in the 'Bloodties' crossover,[45] during which Professor X attempted to negotiate a peace to end the civil war on the island of Genosha.[volume & issue needed] U.S. Agent was charged with the responsibility of acting as bodyguard for Professor X.[46]

Captain America sarcastically cited U.S. Agent's use of his "famous powers of composure and diplomacy" as one example of the recent failings of the West Coast Avengers when he indicated his intention to shut the team down. This provoked U.S. Agent's fury who raised his hand to strike Captain America; Iron Man stopped him and uttered, "Not now. Not ever".[47]

During this time, U.S. Agent was featured in a Marvel UK comic called Super Soldiers, initially battling, then teaming up with American and British soldiers empowered by a variation of the drugs that created Nuke.[48]

Force WorksEdit

When the West Coast Avengers dissolved, he dumped his U.S. Agent costume and shield into the Hudson River.[49] Soon after, most of the then-current members of the West Coast Avengers were asked by Tony Stark to found Force Works. Initially U.S. Agent was reluctant, however Scarlet Witch later persuaded him to join, stating that she needed U.S. Agent to be the team's "backbone" and intended to run the team on tight military lines and the values of strength and dedication that Agent had shown her during their time together on the West Coast Avengers. U.S. Agent ultimately joined the new team, wearing a new costume and using an energy-based shield provided to him by Stark.[50] Stark describes U.S. Agent as a "loose cannon", suggesting that he could have an identity problem, expressing the desire to develop a new look for him "to get U.S. Agent out of Captain America's red, white and blue shadow".[51]

U.S. Agent travels to an isolated region of Tennessee in order to locate Hawkeye who had disappeared after the death of Mockingbird. Angry at the fact that Hawkeye had abandoned his teammates when they had desperately needed his support to avoid the dissolution of the West Coast Avengers, U.S. Agent finds him and they initially fight before eventually reconciling, at which point U.S. Agent informs Hawkeye of all the recent changes – including the formation of Force Works and the death of Wonder Man (Simon Williams).[volume & issue needed]

Hawkeye vents that he has been through a lot with the loss of his wife, and that he mistrusts Tony Stark, prompting a rare showing of emotion from U.S. Agent who confesses that the death of his own parents haunts every waking moment of his life and that he more than anyone knows what it is like to live life on the outside looking in – never quite good enough for anyone – but at least he is not running and hiding from it![volume & issue needed]

The two agree to put their spat aside and sleep, with U.S. Agent telling Hawkeye that he will be taking him back in the morning regardless of any objections, however when U.S. Agent wakes Hawkeye is gone – although he leaves him a note thanking him for helping him get some things off his chest, and letting him know that he is not all bad after all.[52]

In the spirit of forgiveness, U.S. Agent later formulates a plan to reconcile Hawkeye with the rest of his former teammates – especially Stark – by inviting him as a secret guest to the Force Works Christmas party. While Hawkeye waits alone he monitors U.S. Agent and the rest of the Force Works team via video feed as they listen to Stark issue a sincere apology for his behavior in recent times – from walking out on the West Coast Avengers team, to faking his own death and not trusting them with the truth.[volume & issue needed]

Unfortunately Hawkeye only catches the part of the speech where Stark talks about Hawkeye's "loud mouthed opinions", switching the feed off before he hears Stark refer to Hawkeye as the backbone of the West Coast Avengers team, a friend, and how he misses his presence more than anything, and when U.S. Agent learns that Hawkeye has left in a temper, he wonders what on Earth could have gone wrong...[53]

U.S. Agent remained a member throughout the team's tenure, fighting threats such as the Kree,[50] alien parasites The Scatter,[54] Slorenian supernatural threat Ember, Slorenia's armored protectors Black Brigade,[55] The Mandarin,[56] fighting alongside Australian super hero Dreamguard (Willie Walkaway) against the dream-manipulating Orphan,[57] Slorenia's undead shock troops The Targoth and Volkhvy the Eternal One,[58] teaming up with the Avengers against the Kree commandos Excel,[59] intergalactic mercenary The Broker,[60] battling Force Works' own rogue security system VIRGIL,[61] an alternate reality version of deceased former Force Works member Wonder Man (Simon Williams),[62] and the Serpent Society.[63]

Heroes ReturnEdit

U.S. Agent was briefly referred to as the Liegeman as it was the codename for him in the Morgan le Fay verse.[64]

U.S. Agent briefly appears in Captain America (Vol 3) during the 'American Nightmare' story arc attempting to steal an experimental jet plane. Captain America stops him, and U.S. Agent is later seen in stasis along with others affected by the villain Nightmare.[65]

He eventually became the field leader of the Jury, a group of armored corporate vigilantes, owned by Edwin Cord, owner of Cordco. U.S. Agent again wearing his original U.S. Agent uniform and now using an eagle-shaped shield that could be directed in midair via remote control. The Jury's job was to take down the Thunderbolts, but they were defeated by the Thunderbolts and their new leader Hawkeye, a former Avenger teammate of Walker's.[66] The Jury attempted to apprehend the Thunderbolts a second time, but instead the two groups joined forces together against Brute Force and the Secret Empire's soldiers.[67]

U.S. Agent was severely beaten to near death by Protocide. Due to emergency medical procedures performed on him, he was outfitted, by S.H.I.E.L.D., with an enhancing exo-skeleton.[68]

S.T.A.R.SEdit

Following his recovery, he soon adopted a new costume and rejoined the Commission on Superhuman Activities, with the position at the head of the federal government's U.S. Marshal division, called S.T.A.R.S., the Superhuman Tactical Activities Response Squad. The group battled alien invaders and superhuman threats and was responsible for their imprisonment.[69] In this role, he was placed in charge of coordinating Earth's heroes during the 'Maximum Security' crisis when Earth became a prison planet, claiming that he was needed to prevent the other heroes getting 'sidetracked' by their concern for the prisoners to ensure that their focus remained on what was best for Earth.[70]

U.S. Agent continued to work for S.T.A.R.S as America's super human 'top cop' under the observation of Valerie Cooper. In this role his former love, and current agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, Kali Vries—who he had endured Army boot-camp with many years previously, and who had bested him in almost all physical tests—was thrust upon him as second in command. U.S. Agent was uncomfortable with Vries' appointment as she had previously jilted him, although she was still affectionate towards him. Other S.T.A.R.S agents warned Agent that Vries was playing him. Vries is later revealed to be in the employ of ambitious Senator Warkovsky and on his order places a parasite capable of allowing mind control on U.S. Agent's neck.[69]

In their second mission together U.S. Agent and Vries teamed up to tackle a radical faction of Atlantians working with the super-villain Poundcakes (Marian Pouncey). It transpired that Pouncey was attempting to trade more of the alien parasites capable of mind control with the Atlantians. The Sub-Mariner (Namor) disrupts the battle and discovers the parasite placed on U.S. Agent's neck by Vries. Vries later attends Agent's room and attempts to seduce him, placing another parasite on him. U.S. Agent—apparently no longer in control of his own will, and despite being informed that a S.H.I.E.L.D envoy had been dispatched—then takes the duffle bag full of parasites seized by S.T.A.R.S in order to take them to his manipulator who transpires to be none other than the Power Broker (Curtis Jackson)—the man originally responsible for granting John Walker his super-human powers, whose plan is to infect the International assemblage of Heads of State with the mind-controlling parasites.[71]

At this point Captain America (Steve Rogers), who had been revealed to be the S.H.I.E.L.D envoy responsible for collecting the parasites, along with Kali Vries, burst into the meeting between U.S. Agent and the Power Broker. Power Broker places a parasite on the neck of Senator Warkovsky intent upon influencing his address to the International assemblage of Heads of State, but is interrupted by U.S. Agent who is subsequently assaulted by Captain America intent upon stopping him. The two battle with neither of them able to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, Vries is captured by the Power Broker who reveals that he had been attacked and left for dead by aliens during the 'Maximum Security' crisis at which point, barely alive, he had become the host for an alien which produced the mind-controlling parasites, subsequently attempting to expand its control by infecting influential individuals. Power Broker then infects Vries with a parasite. Eventually Agent manages to escape Captain Americas attentions long enough to reveal the presence of the parasite on Senator Warkovsky's neck and removes it with his energy baton. Together Cap and Agent fight off the crowd of V.I.P's (also apparently under the control of the Power Broker), escaping and then teaming up to restrain both Power Broker and Vries and removing the parasites from each of them. Dum Dum Dugan then appears on the scene to inform U.S. Agent that Vries, far from being a traitor, was actually a deep cover agent acting on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D with the intention of gaining Senator Warkovsky's confidence and discovering who was using the parasites and attempting to take the mother-parasite into custody for study and as evidence. Agent destroys the specimen and then speculates that he didn't believe it to be alien at all but rather a product of a government genetics lab that went wrong. Dugan is suspicious by his silence and shocked when Captain America indicates that he believes U.S. Agent's accusation. U.S. Agent is later seen deep in thought, looking at a photo of himself and Vries during better times and reading a letter of apology from her for her deceptions. He later burns the photo before running out of his room after being informed that there is an assignment for him, declaring "I love this job!"[5]

U.S. Agent is later summoned along with fellow Avengers Captain America, Thor, Jack of Hearts, Beast, Iron Man, and She-Hulk to unite against a common threat. That threat? Litigation![volume & issue needed]

Accountants Janice Imperato and Max Catan (executives from the Maria Stark foundation who help fund the Avengers) intend to hold a meeting in order to maintain the Avengers tax exempt status, audit the team's finances, and review a recent case – a battle against the "Elements of Doom" which resulted in the expensive loss of an Avengers Quinjet, and widespread property damage.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent – stubborn as ever – claims a complete lack of knowledge of the incident as he "is a very busy man". When asked to justify his actions, U.S. Agent refuses to do so, with his response being "Forget it. Theyre alive right? They should be grateful!" and accused his interrogators of just wanting to drag heroes down.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent leaves his interviewers with one piece of advice: "I go out there to save lives. You just pay the bills. Just be good little bean counters – and pay em!"[72]

InvadersEdit

Clockwise from top left: Human Torch (Jim Hammond), Captain America, Sub-Mariner, Union Jack (Joseph Chapman), U.S. Agent, and Blazing Skull on the cover to New Invaders #1, with art by Scott Kolins.

Walker eventually became a member of the New Invaders,[73] wearing a Captain America-like costume,[73] serving alongside the likes of the original Human Torch, Union Jack (Joseph Chapman), and the Blazing Skull until the team disbanded.[74]

U.S. Agent's first task was to negotiate the release of the Blazing Skull from captivity at the hands of middle Eastern terrorists. It is revealed that U.S. Agent can speak fluent Arabic, but he is forced to exterminate the terrorists when they renege on the agreed deal.[75]

The New Invaders then team up with Namor and his Atlantean forces in order to overthrow the government of Mazikandar – an alliance Namor agrees to because Mazikandar has been choking the seas with pollution by sinking oil tankers in an effort to control supply to the USA.[76]

The New Invaders alongside the forces of Atlantis assault Mazikandar's government forces, scattering them and moving on to the capitol building in order to capture its head of state. Suddenly however they find themselves opposed by none other than the Avengers. U.S. Agent is confronted by Captain America, who calls him a disgrace to the uniform, instructing to take it off before he tears it off, but Walker replies that his country gave him that uniform because Rogers was not willing to do what they needed him to. Walker calls Rogers a traitor, and states that his country has given him the authority of the real Captain America, and that Rogers never understood duty to country and doing what is required to keep its shores safe. Rogers retorts that Captain America represents an ideal for all people, of all countries.[volume & issue needed]

Ultimately U.S. Agent is defeated by Rogers. Mazikandar's dictator is presented to his hand picked successor, who promptly executes his predecessor on the steps of the capitol building to the surprise of both the Invaders and Avengers alike.[77]

The murder of a man without trial causes a further schism with the Avengers, who blame the New Invaders for declaring open war on Mazikhandar. Namor responds that Mazikhandar had declared war on his nation when they decided to pollute the oceans.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent – captive for the time being – receives word from the Thin Man requesting a distraction, which Walker provides by breaking his bonds and aggressively approaching Captain America, growling that the New Invaders operation is sanctioned by the U.S., Britain, and Atlantis, and that the Avengers have no grounds to interfere. Hawkeye tries to cool the situation as only the hot-headed archer could by shooting U.S. Agent in the backside, prompting the now furious Walker to turn his attention from Captain America to Hawkeye.[volume & issue needed]

With the two teams battling once more, Thin Man retreats to the inside of the Capitol building where he berates the new political leader for killing his predecessor and explaining that the previous leader had actually been a simulacrum – an imposter placed into that position when US Secretary of Defence Dell Rusk (secretly the Red Skull) had the real leader assassinated – and the New Invaders only agreed to help because they needed the synthetic alive.[volume & issue needed]

The fighting ends when Namor announces that he has formed an alliance with Mazikhandar, and that it is now a protectorate of Atlantis thus giving the Avengers no need, and no power to remain.[78]

Thin Man later informs the team that they have been formed to tackle a new threat – the "Axis Mundi" – a creation of the Red Skull and something born out of the ashes of Hitler's Third Reich, who have an army of assassins armed with sub-dimensional technology that gives them the ability to move instantly to wherever they wish without fear of barriers or borders and a plan to replace world leaders with synthezoids.[volume & issue needed]

The U.S government, needing to counter the threat first created an elite strike force – the New Invaders – then equipped them with a battleship named The Infiltrator, capable of travelling the world unseen and armed with tactical missiles with the ability to drop entire cities into sub dimensional space.[79]

Walker insisted on being called Captain America.[80] Captain America (Steve Rogers), while attempting to close down the New Invaders, threatened Walker with legal action over his use of the uniform, stating that he owned the copyright to it. Walker informed Rogers that he had only taken the role in the first place because Rogers had refused the Thin Man's invitation to lead the team and that they had to show their enemies "that Captain America is not afraid to fight!"[81]

While Walker initially proved to be unpopular with many of his new allies, he later gained their respect, in particular winning over Namor who had been a close ally of Steve Rogers. Walker saved Namor from a brainwashed and murderous Wolverine, who had been resurrected by The Hand during the "Enemy of the State" storyline. The badly injured Namor later offered Walker his personal thanks.[82]

Civil WarEdit

In the special one-shot Civil War: Choosing Sides, Tony Stark (at this point U.S Secretary of Defense) orders U.S Agent north to Canada – vulnerable due to the death of Alpha Flight, in order to act as U.S liaison to the newly formed Omega Flight team, with an objective to stop super-powered criminals attempting to flee America's Superhuman Registration Act.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent reacts as expected – furiously – stating he "serves Uncle Sam, not Major Maple Leaf", and there is no way he is going to "freakin' Canada". Stark makes the case that Canada supplies the U.S with 20% of its oil, and their security is a top priority for S.H.I.E.L.D., but U.S. Agent is unimpressed and even the threat of arrest is not enough to persuade him as he storms out.[volume & issue needed]

Later U.S. Agent overcomes an attack by a team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents mind-controlled by the super villain Purple Man, but is overcome by the Purple Man himself who orders him to fall from great height after stealing his shield – something he only survives because of his advanced biology.[volume & issue needed]

Eager for revenge, U.S. Agent's defeat gives Stark the leverage to finally persuade him to join Omega Flight when he reveals that the Purple Man has fled north himself.[83]

Omega FlightEdit

As an employee of Omega Flight, U.S. Agent is given the responsibility of training Weapon Omega (Michael Pointer).[volume & issue needed]

During a mission to take down un-registered super-criminal Tentakill, Weapon Omega passes out mid-combat for unknown reasons forcing U.S. Agent to detain the criminal single handed. Weapon Omega's unusual behaviour rouses U.S. Agent's suspicions, who is later seen to be communicating covertly with an unknown source.[volume & issue needed]

It later transpires that Weapon Omega is being manipulated by Omega Flight's handler Agent Brown as well as his psychologist Dr. Benning, but worse than that unregistered super-criminals are being detained, with no record being made of their detention, and their powers are being used to fuel Weapon Omega's energy absorbing power, resulting in the deaths of several of the inmates who are completely drained of life.[volume & issue needed]

It is later revealed that U.S. Agent is acting on behalf of Iron Man who is monitoring Weapon Omega's progress and requires U.S. Agent to obtain the data analysis of Omega's powers as well as the details of his private consultations with Omega Flight's psychologists.[volume & issue needed]

Before his departure Stark, due to his lack of knowledge that the super-villain Rap-tor had been recently detained—despite having access to all prisoner manifests—unknowingly confirms Agent's suspicions that super-villains detained by Omega Flight are not being officially recorded and that the villains are subsequently disappearing without explanation.[volume & issue needed]

U.S. Agent's suspicions grow when Weapon Omega is not seen for weeks at a time. He is repeatedly told by Agent Brown that Omega is simply unwell and resting. Arachne (Julia Carpenter), acting with U.S. Agent in order to uncover the conspiracy, spies and informs him that Weapon Omega isn't resting and for some reason he is being constantly observed.[volume & issue needed]

During their next training session U.S. Agent is easily besting Weapon Omega in combat when Omega's handlers increase the flow of power from the super-powered detainees. This results in Omega losing control as he manifests the various powers of numerous inmates, breaking U.S. Agent's ankle before manifesting the reptilian powers of Rap-tor, beating and lacerating U.S. Agent almost to death—an assault only stopped by the interference of Sasquatch (Walter Langkowski). U.S. Agent tries to warn Weapon Omega—who is shocked at his loss of control—that power is being fed into him via his suit, but is sedated before he is able to do so.[volume & issue needed]

Weapon Omega eventually realizes that he is being manipulated and that his handlers intend to continue to use him even against his will, however this is stopped by the U.S. Agent having discharged himself from the infirmary despite his severe injuries. Dr. Benning boasts that as a fail-safe had been activated, all evidence of her manipulation of Weapon Omega had been destroyed. It is at this point that Omega reveals that one of the individuals whose powers he had absorbed had been a technopath, and that he had accessed all of Benning's confidential records and sent them to Tony Stark. Weapon Omega then exposes Benning to a glimpse of the hundreds of personalities within his being, leaving her in a vegetative state. He then vows to become a hero rather than a weapon and is last seen assisting the people of Alaska—the location where his powers had first manifested, resulting in the deaths of the original Alpha Flight team.[84]

Mighty AvengersEdit

During the "Dark Reign" storyline, U.S. Agent is removed from Omega Flight by Loki (disguised as the Scarlet Witch) to aid Hank Pym in defeating the reality-altering Chthon. Initially the pro-registration U.S. Agent finds himself in combat with the anti-registration Hulk and Hercules, but they later endeavor to team up against their common foe. Chthon's power is tied to Wundagore Mountain and U.S. Agent plays a part in separating him from that source by planting explosives in order to destroy it. The team ultimately defeat Chthon, and U.S. Agent quits the Omega Flight team – with their blessing – stating it was an honor to serve with them, but 'once an Avenger, always an Avenger'.[85]

Following their victory, U.S. Agent joins the Mighty Avengers.[86] The team is sent on various missions[86] including saving the Infinite Avengers Mansion from becoming untethered from reality.[87] On a mission to China investigating the Unspoken (a former king of the Inhumans), U.S. Agent is devolved by Xenogen gas which turns him into an Alpha Primitive. He attacks Captain America (James "Bucky" Barnes) while in this condition. Quicksilver convinces him to attack the Unspoken by saying "The Commies will win!"[88] Pym later creates a new shield for U.S. Agent after his previous shield was destroyed by the Collective Man.[89]

U.S. Agent was one of the Avengers who joined Hercules in his Assault on New Olympus. He said he believes that the Gods are just people with super powers and battled against Eris, Goddess of discord.[90]

Following a conflict involving a Cosmic Cube-empowered Absorbing Man and the Dark Avengers, U.S. Agent is stripped of his rank by Norman Osborn.[91]

ThunderboltsEdit

U.S. Agent and several members of the now disbanded Mighty Avengers are called upon by Amadeus Cho during the events of Siege. Their mission is to stop Norman Osborn's Thunderbolts from stealing Odin's spear from the Asgardian armory. After engaging the Thunderbolts in battle, Nuke uses the spear to sever U.S. Agent's left arm and leg.[92]

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musicoccurred · 6 years

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Album Deep Dive: Binaural

Here at Music Occurred our goal is to give you a diverse selection of music-related content to keep you discovering new bands, revisiting bands (and records) you used to love and most of all, get you off your keister and go to a show. Today we're launching a new series: Album Deep Dives. We pick one of our favorite records (it does not have to be a new or megaselling album) and go through both the production of it and the record itself with a fine-toothed comb. Hopefully it will make you dig it out of the crate (or visit your local independent record store) and listen to it with fresh ears.

I've been on a Pearl Jam kick lately, yes that's funny to some of you... I don't actually listen to them all that much, mainly around concert time and new releases. I have a couple shows coming up and I've discovered a podcast dedicated to the band so I am particularly inspired. I consider myself a superfan but there are others that have more time and money to have seen the band literally hundreds of times. In a way I'm envious but truthfully I like witnessing a variety of music to help enhance my palate. Not that I feel you have to be a superfan to do an Album Deep Dive, but my Pearl Jam pedigree is pure. Two tattoos, tens of thousands of miles driven (soon to be more) hundreds of gallons of truck-stop coffee, dozens of shows and countless hours listening to each and every record they release. You can tell a true Pearl Jam fan by asking them what they think of a new track. Their answer will invariably contain "I need to hear it live first" before they render final judgement.

Aided by the passage of time I look back at Pearl Jam's studio discography and notice a distinct pattern: their albums seem to group up as the band evolves. For example, Ten, Vs. and Vitalogy all have a conquer-the-world, angsty sound with Vitalogy giving us a hint of what's to come. Withering from the bright lights and looking to shrink their footprint a bit, the next three albums, No Code, Yield and Binaural, show a band at war with itself, TicketMaster and fame in general. These three are my favorites, mature song-writing and a band with nothing left to prove only trying to figure out how to keep it all going. There seems to be a drastic change at this point. It's like they went from rock stars to graybearded sages. In other words, they grew up. Riot Act, Pearl Jam (aka Avocado,) Back Spacer, and lastly Lightning Bolt all seem to be straight forward rock records. I took artistic liberty with my groupings, I could totally see a Ten, Vs group with a Vitalogy, No Code and Yield group with Binaural and Riot Act together but hey, it's my site.

That brings us to the album I've chosen to examine, Binaural. It's my favorite Pearl Jam record and I dare say it's at or near the top of most Pearl Jam nerds list. To me it's the birth of the modern era of the band. What we know about Pearl Jam today, starts here. Personally, the album’s release coincided with a major life change for me and the first tour of the band where I saw multiple shows in a short time. Fittingly this was Pearl Jam's first album to not go platinum. It debuted at #2 on the chart and moved a quarter-million units the first week then nose-dived. In the following 18 years (that's right Binaural can now vote) I'm fairly certain it has gone platinum at the global level. Binaural also marks the first album since Ten to not be produced by Brendan O'Brien, although O'Brien did mix a few tracks - more on that later.

Pearl Jam staggered into the studio mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. They toured relentlessly for Yield and felt they were at a creative crossroads and needed a change, exit Brendan O'Brien and enter Tchad Blake. Known for his binaural recording techniques (hence the name) he provided the band exactly what they were looking for. Recorded at Stone Gossard's Studio Litho in Seattle from September of 1999 to January of 2000 the stories from the sessions are legendary. Amps at full volume in a room with just the door cracked and the mics down the hall. Amps in trash cans and creative microphone placements are just a few. During final mixing the band found that the slower numbers were perfect for Blake's style but the faster tracks needed the touch of O'Brien. The resulting product is certainly different than any of their records before or after with a sound of its own. While it utilized the binaural recording technique it sounds fabulous on standard hifi gear. I frequently listen to it with my good headphones for the full effect.

Ask anyone their thoughts on Binaural and inevitably the word "dark" will be used. The band was facing inner turmoil as Eddie Vedder struggled with writer's block, Mike McCready dealt with addiction issues, Matt Cameron was new to the band and control of the band had permanently shifted from Stone to Ed. During the tour for Binaural there was a terrible accident at the band's performance at the Roskilde festival where 9 concert goers died. It nearly broke the band up. What's interesting to me is that Binaural sounds as if this incident occurred prior to the recording and the somber tones were a result of it. Earlier I mentioned that "what we know about Pearl Jam today, starts here," what I meant is Pearl Jam present themselves as a unified team, clearly Eddie's team, but a team of equals otherwise. At a Pearl Jam show Eddie will frequently tell a snippet of a story about the birth of a song or who wrote the music to this one. Often it will be someone else in the band. This didn't happen in the earlier albums. Ten, Vs, Vitalogy and No Code the lyrics were almost exclusively written by Ed. Beginning with Yield we started seeing more input, lyrically, from the other members. By the time they entered the studio for Binaural this new way of doing things was in full force. From this point forward their albums are very modular. With each member bringing in already constructed components and assembling them together. It may be a riff or a few lines, or it could be an entirely complete song just needing a solo from Mike or phrasing from Ed. Timing for this change was perfect. The band was nearing a decade together, they had added veteran musician/song writer Matt and Ed was mired in a horrific case of writer's block.

Track by track

Binaural opens with “Breakerfall” a punk inspired run through Eddie’s metaphorical lyrics in a tight 2:19. Side note: Pearl Jam are incredibly thoughtful about their records. They control every aspect of production, track sequencing and packaging. This album is no different, the tracks fit together perfectly. Next up is “God’s Dice” that begins with a rapid fire Matt Cameron drum roll and jams along with a rapid pace that belies the quieter songs later. “Evacuation” has an odd timing signature (hello Matt Cameron!) will strike you as a new sound from Pearl Jam but if you listen to later records you’ll find that some of their new sounds originated with this track. “Evacuation” also serves as a transition into the slower songs on the record. “Light Years” is where the album really begins to shine, music by Mike McCready, it has the classic Eddie story arc. You feel like you’re on a journey with the protagonist, anecdotally, it’s about a friend of the band, Diane Muus from Sony Music who had passed away a couple years prior. “Nothing As It Seems” showcases the binaural recording. Jeff Ament’s bass sounds like it’s behind and below you and Mike’s guitar is sitting on my right shoulder. This slow burn of a song really comes to life at concerts. “Thin Air” is a light acoustic style track reminiscent of college radio classics being played around a beach camp fire. Soulful lyrics, lush background harmonies make you reach for your own guitar. “Insignificance” is likely my favorite of the higher tempo songs. A meditation on war, it features a style of music that’s unique to Pearl Jam, they vary tempos like no other band I’ve seen, slow burn to full on rock all inside of a single song. Next up is “Of The Girl,” if you’ve never been to a Pearl Jam show, they typically open up with a quiet song with the lights down low, then launch into a rocker. Of all of them, my favorite is “Of The Girl” the clean riff with Mike’s lead lightly picking over the top. Eddie’s soft singing really settle you into a groove. I’ll post a video of it as an opener below.

youtube

Shifting gears back into the noisier stuff, “Grievance” is inspired by the protests at the WTO summit in Seattle. It features that signature start-stop rhythm that showcases what Matt brings to the band. Beginning with Vitalogy Pearl Jam can get weird on you from time to time. “Rival” is probably the strangest song on this record. It begins with what sounds to be a pig eating an apple. The music is pretty standard Stone Gossard riffs but with the vocals layered on top.”Sleight of Hand” begins just with a single lead guitar and drums with Ed singing over the top. When the bridge hits the full band joins in only to abruptly go back to the single guitar and drums. It’s a very hard song to describe but sounds great. “Soon Forget” is a short ukulele song that doesn’t seem to fit the album (more on that later) fortunately for us it foreshadows a full album released by Ed a few years later. The album closes with “Parting Ways” an epic closer with a sitar sounding guitar and big tom tom rhythms.

Member by member

Ed had the music for what would become "Grievance" and "Insignificance" two songs that shine in concert by the way. But he had no lyrics and had even given up the guitar. Thankfully he discovered the ukulele and began plucking away at it. This would explain why "Soon Forget" is included on this record despite not really fitting and displacing several other great tracks. It marks his conquering the demon that is writer's block. This, coupled with releasing the somewhat strange "Nothing As It Seems" as the lead single dismisses any notion that this is anyone else's band. In typical enigmatic Ed fashion, the album ends with a hidden track called "writer's block" that is just the sound of Ed pounding away on a typewriter for a couple minutes.

Aside from the music on “Light Years, ”Mike McCready did not write any of the songs on Binaural but he "McCreadys it up" on most of them. Mike is quite possibly one of the most under-rated guitarists of his generation he can absolutely shred but more so he has an instantly identifiable tone. On "Nothing As It Seems" his feedback laced guitar solos are so brilliant that I've personally witnessed the crowd chanting "Mike" so forcefully that Ed had to stop the show so Mike could take a bow. His battle with Crohn's Disease and subsequently prescription medicines certainly took their toll on him. Thankfully he overcame it and is healthy.

Stone Gossard, so aloof in concert but seemingly an engaging person in conversation is really the mastermind behind Pearl Jam. In the beginning it was his band, he wrote most of the music and knew what he wanted it to look and sound like. As mentioned previously, that leadership role shifted over to Eddie Vedder. It's not certain exactly when that happened but my opinion is around the Vitalogy/No Code era. For Binaural, Stone wrote the lyrics and music for "Thin Air," "Of The Girl" and "Rival." He also co-wrote the music for "Light Years."

Jeff Ament is widely known as Ed's best friend in the band. His songs are usually some of the strangest with eclectic phrasing and timing. He wrote "God's Dice," "Nothing As It Seems," and the music for "Sleight of Hand." Jeff is also a very talented visual artist and plays a hand in the album cover/packaging of the records.

That leaves us with Matt Cameron. Now many people have strong opinions on who is the best Pearl Jam drummer but my vote goes to Matt. He has the pedigree of his time with Soundgarden but more importantly his steady hand gave the band a stability they didn't seem to have before, an energy even. Pearl Jam went through several drummers in their first 7 years but Matt has been behind the kit for them for 20 years now. That is no coincidence. He wrote the music for "Evacuation" on this record. One bone to pick, most casual fans will say Dave Abbruzzese is their favorite Pearl Jam drummer. While Dave is certainly a very talented drummer, he was simply the first drummer most people saw in the videos from Ten, they likely don't realize he wasn't the drummer they were hearing on the record. For what it’s worth, his work on Vs and Vitalogy were stellar, the dude can drum.

For all that's included in Binaural, what's left out is just as important. As I've alluded to before, Pearl Jam is a fan's band. Their shows are legendary and each setlist is mostly unique and contains tracks selected just for that venue, crowd and city etc. Ed is effectively Bruce Springsteen Jr so the shows started getting longer and longer, break out the B Sides! Pearl Jam deep cuts are mainstays of the concerts and Binaural has several. "Sad," "Education," and "Fatal" have all become fan favorites.

If you’ve never listened to this record all the way through or if it’s just been a while. Pick it up and drop the needle.

-JS

#album #Pearl Jam #musicoccurred #binaural

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seekmagazine2000 · 4 years

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Sonic The Hedgehog Film Review (2020) - Everything you need to know

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2020 action-adventure comedy movie based on the online game franchise published by using Sega. The movie is directed by Jeff Fowler in his function directorial debut and written by means of Pat Casey and Josh Miller. Development for a movie commenced within the 1990s, however did no longer go past the making plans stage till Sony Pictures received the film rights in 2013. After Sony put the task in turnaround, Paramount Pictures obtained it in 2017. The majority of the cast signed on by way of August 2018, and predominant filming befell between September and October that year in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. Following the negative reaction to the primary trailer in 2019, the movie's release became not on time through three months to redesign Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog premiered at the Paramount Theatre on January 25th of 2020, and changed into theatrically released in the United States on February 14th of 2020. Critics praised the performances, Sonic's design, and its faithfulness to the source material, but criticised its plot and perceived lack of originality. The movie set the report for the most important starting weekend for a video game movie inside the United States and Canada. It grossed $306 million worldwide, turning into the second highest-grossing movie of 2020, even as also turning into the highest-grossing online game variation of all time within the US field office.Sonic, an out of world blue hedgehog who can move at supersonic speeds, finds himself in trouble after after a tribe of echidnas are after him for his electricity. His guardian, Longclaw the Owl, offers him a bag of earrings that may create portals to other planets, the use of one to ship him to Earth at the same time as she protects him from the echidnas, and also offers Sonic a map to a planet packed with mushrooms to apply if he finds trouble on Earth. A decade later later, Sonic enjoys a mystery life close to the town of Green Hills, Montana, but is finding it difficult to make friends. He looks up to the neighbourhood sheriff (Tom) and his veterinarian wife (Maddie) unaware the couple are planning to relocate to San Francisco soon. One night, Sonic turns into dissatisfied over his loneliness when gambling baseball through himself, and runs at supersonic pace as a result, inadvertently triggering an electromagnetic pulse that knocks out strength across the Pacific Northwest. Roboticist and clinical genius Doctor Robotnik is enlisted with the aid of the United States Department of defense to discover the source of the outage. Robotnik manages to track Sonic, who hides within the Wachowskis' shed. Tom discovers Sonic and by chance shoots him with a tranquilliser, inflicting him to ship his bag of jewellery thru a portal to San Francisco. Tom reluctantly concurs to assist Sonic before Robotnik arrives on the Wachowskis' residence and the two flee. As the pair keep far away from Robotnik, who labels the sheriff a terrorist, they slowly bond, with with him mastering about Sonic's desire for a actual friend. Robotnik comes throughout one in all Sonic's quills, coming across the strength in it has the ability to gasoline his robots, and turns into captivated with capturing Sonic. As he tracks them down, Tom reveals his previous plans to depart Green Hills, which Sonic disapproves of. Shortly after defeating a robot despatched via Robotnik, an explosion injures Sonic. While Tom explains approximately their scenario to Maddie, Sonic gets a new pair of shoes from Maddie's niece. The group soon head to the roof of the Transamerica Pyramid, in which Sonic's bag of rings landed, and get better them. Robotnik finally arrives in a hovercraft and attacks them, forcing Sonic to use a teleport hoop to send Tom and Maddie lower back to Green Hills. Sonic flees from Robotnik, who makes use of the energy of Sonic's quill to healthy his pace. The two have interaction in a chase across the world, in the long run returning to Green Hills. Robotnik incapacitates Sonic, however Tom intervenes, allowing Sonic to regain his energy and reclaim his lost energy. Overcoming Robotnik, Sonic defeats him via sending him to the mushroom planet. Following the recent incident, Tom and Maddie decide to stay in Green Hills and lets Sonic live with them. Meanwhile, Robotnik, nevertheless in possession of Sonic's quill and having misplaced his sanity, starts off evolved plotting his revenge. On Earth, Tails, a twin-tailed fox from Sonic's world, emerges with a quest to find Sonic.Read more about the Sonic the Hedgehog Post credit scene hereParents want to recognize that Sonic the Hedgehog is a kid-focused action/adventure film starring the enduring Sega online game character. The well-known blue hedgehog is also an alien with unique powers that put him in threat in his world. While he is being pursued, his mama bird is shot with an arrow (she appears OK). For Sonic's safety, she pushes him via a portal to Earth with a warning that he must hide and stay at the run. Sonic never feels abandoned, however he is lonely. And the movie's messages, which include they are, revolve round the importance of companionship. Language is usually mild ("hell"); it's more jokes about "butts" and "farts" than any actual swearing. One scene may additionally enhance eyebrows: Sonic and human hero Tom (James Marsden) forestall at a roadside bar/restaurant in which they get into a brawl (in most cases punches), and Tom is seen ingesting a beer and driving soon afterward, without incident. In general, the movie's violence is cartoonishly explosive, like an unrealistic video game: It's in general drones taking pictures fireballs, lasers, and bullets. There are some moments of peril, but the target audience is by no means in doubt that everybody may be OK -- even hysterically evil villain Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey).

When the primary trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog turned into released in 2019, fans had been horrified by way of CGI Sonic’s beady tiny eyes and human like teeth — an uncanny valley horror. He had a face that became asking a variety of a mother to love, not to mention moviegoers. So Paramount pushed returned the film’s launch date and taken in animator Tyson Hesse, artwork director for Sonic Mania Adventures, to guide the redesign. Not most effective did the animators pass above and past in fixing Sonic to look more like his online game origins, however they may’ve stored the film. The new Sonic is so adorable that it nearly makes up for a quite conventional plot and a human forged that play the jobs of “heroic” and “bad” so straight, they may be extras in The Good Place. To run faraway from villains after his amazing velocity power, Sonic (voiced by means of Ben Schwartz) leaves his planet thru magical portal jewellery to discover himself on Earth in the small city of Green Hills. We find out that his fast-speaking personality is essentially a end result of 10 years of excessive isolation, having to hide from the townspeople and maintain himself entertained through speak me to himself. After inflicting an strength surge that shuts down the city’s power, the authorities sends Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to investigate. Sonic companions up with good-hearted sheriff Tom (James Marsden), and the 2 broaden a bromance the way guys are prescribed to in movies, through a road experience and a bar fight. Ultimately, Sonic is a children’s movie that recognises it could be kids’ first introduction to the hedgehog, so it makes minimal references to the video game global he comes from and spends extra time alluding to things they may get. Unfortunately, the gags appear a few years too late, at once dating themselves: there are a couple of jokes about Olive Garden’s unlimited pasta. Sonic does the floss dance no longer once, however twice. They make jokes approximately Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious. (Actually, this one will possibly stay applicable for as long as they maintain making FF films, which is forever.) The movie shines when it remembers it’s based totally on a video game, and there’s some in reality amusing stuff; like whilst Sonic makes use of his time-preventing special powers or Robotnik’s elaborate “evil-plott” montage that makes you marvel why more films don’t characteristic bad men with choreographed dance sequences. Carrey plays up Robotnik as the caricature villain he is, and it’s a true pleasure to watch him in his element. And — spoilers ahead — the give up credits hint at a sequel presenting Tails and an even extra unhinged Robotnik going full-on Eggman. But whilst maximum of the film takes place in nondescript city-ville (comes in flavours: small metropolis and big concrete buildings ‘n streets), it’s difficult to now not to suppose returned to the luxurious Emerald Hill Zone planet the film showcased for perhaps 30 seconds. I wish it took place there instead. Sonic the Hedgehog ought to have long past from an excellent to a extraordinary film no longer by means of bringing Sonic into the human world, but by bringing audiences into his. Maybe we have to simply be grateful that the film turned into watchable at all. Sonic’s fulfilment hinges on the person being likeable, and the redesigned Sonic is straightforward to love. Get the full review here.

“Sonic the Hedgehog” is the worst type of movie a viewer can watch: it is too inoffensive to be hated and too 'wishy washy' to be enjoyable. You may think that this movie’s unhappy limbo kingdom has some thing to do with the giant and publicised last-minute animation redesign that made titular woodland creature Sonic (voiced by using Ben Schwartz) look greater like Sega’s well-known online game character. You’d be wrong: “Sonic the Hedgehog” is rotten because it, like too many other present day blockbusters, was seemingly made by means of an imaginatively bankrupt innovative committee with extra ideas for jokes than real jokes to tell, and extra cookie-cutter, place-holder talk about the strength of friendship than something (anything) to say about that boilerplate quality. “Sonic the Hedgehog” is a horrific action video game character adaptation and friend comedy. It feels almost completely impersonal, store for on every occasion James Marsden, gambling Sonic’s human companion, attempts to rescue the film through being assured and graceful in the face of an otherwise dire send-the-magical-critter-back-home kiddy fantasy. I hope that everybody involved inside the making of this film got paid nicely and on time. Nobody else has an excuse to see “Sonic the Hedgehog,” in particular now that without difficulty defeated dad and mom can park their kids in front of a pc or TV and allow them to watch some “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” gameplay films on YouTube. Trust me: your kids’ happiness does not depend on them seeing this film. Still, if you must take your children to see “Sonic the Hedgehog,” there are a few things you would possibly need to realise. Sonic, a paranormal critter who can run fast, groups up with fine guy/small-metropolis cop Tom Wachowski (James Marsden) to regain the whats it—on this case, a pouch of gold jewellery that open portals to any vacation spot Sonic can assume of—as a way to assist him to escape goony mad scientist Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey), who desires to dissect Sonic. So Tom and Sonic cross on a cross-country street journey from fictional Green Hills to San Francisco, due to the fact that takes place to be the town on Tom’s shirt while he, in a panic, shoots Sonic with a endure tranquilliser, and then Sonic, now greatly surprised on powerful natural world drugs, by accident throw his rings onto a Golden City rooftop. San Francisco also happens to be the metropolis in which Tom desires to flow to, given his absolutely original dream of locating reputation and exhilaration past his quaint hometown. But genuinely, the set-up for “Sonic the Hedgehog” hinges on a endure tranq and some horrific timing. The relaxation of the film’s non-existent sense of urgency is supplied by way of Dr. Robotnik, a hammy antagonist who loves to yell approximately how much smarter and more effective he's compared to anyone else. Dr. Robotnik controls expensive-looking robot drones and has a flimsy waxed moustache that looks like one of these celebration favours you see each third wedding guest carrying on your Facebook friends’ wedding ceremony reception photos. Dr. Robotnik isn't very exciting, but he’s in the “Sonic” video games, so he’s on this film, too. Also, there are some stupid stranger-in-a-strange-land shenanigans involving Sonic’s bucket list, whose bullet points include “tame a wild animal,” “begin a bar fight,” and “make a pleasant friend.” Your child could probably write a better scenario, given a little awareness and the right motivation, two features that the makers of “Sonic the Hedgehog” appear to lack. I don’t imply to be unnecessarily harsh, however based on the film I saw, “Sonic the Hedgehog” doesn’t need to exist. Marsden does quite a few heavy lifting simply by reacting to a computer-generated individual whose handiest distinguishing characteristic is his resemblance to a beloved video game man or woman that changed into by no means definitely interesting unto himself. But Marsden can’t keep this movie from a deluge of uninspired chase scenes, dumb plot twists, and disposable pop culture references (wow, he’s doing the floss dance again, terrific). “Sonic the Hedgehog” is best as a hit as the quantity of time you need to spend looking its animated protagonist move on instantly forgettable adventures, and boy, is that unfortunate. If you really want to recognise why you have to skip “Sonic the Hedgehog,” try and watch the film’s trailer, and spot how plenty of Jim Carrey’s aggressively joyless performance you may take. Like Marsden, Carrey does a variety of acting, however not like his co-star, Carrey is in no way as exciting as he's energetic. Watching Carrey in “Sonic the Hedgehog” is like watching a drunk try and jumpstart a celebration that was properly and certainly useless upon his arrival. Unfortunately, Carrey’s arduous efforts most effective make things worse. I don’t recognise that “Sonic the Hedgehog” was ever salvageable, due to the fact ultimately, the whole thing in it, including the best stuff, is depressing.View more first hand reviews at HERE and watch the film for yourself and let us know what your thoughts are. Watch the first 8 minutes on the film here Read the full article

#2020 #film #Movie #plot #review #sonic #sonicthehedghog

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newyorktheater · 4 years

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In a year that has ended so dramatically off-stage, and during which so many people talked dismissively about “political theater” — but they didn’t mean anything actually happening in a work of art — it’s good to celebrate the memorable moments that happened nightly on New York stages.

These were moments that were memorable as a visual spectacle or a verbal tickle or an emotional punch, moments that meant something because of off-stage events, or meant nothing but stayed with you nevertheless. Some moments were memorable because they were lovely; some because they were ugly. There were enough memorable moments this year in so many shows (even some one might not otherwise have cared for) that the gallery below is just a sample — as was the one last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. I’m forced to focus largely on the moments with human actors — leaving out the unforgettable moments involving a live goat, a rabbit, and most of the puppets (I do mention one.)

Click on any photograph to see it enlarged and to read the extensive caption that explains each moment, which are more or less in the chronological order of the shows’ opening. Some of the moments on stage were so special that the production didn’t provide photographs of them; in such cases, I use a different photograph from that show.

Ruthie Ann Miles as Immigration Judge Craig Zerbe presided over The Courtroom, a re-enactment by Waterwell theater company of actual deportation proceedings, using the transcript. What made this an especially memorable moment was that it marked the Miles first performance in New York after a reckless driver last year killed her four-year-old daughter and caused the loss of her unborn baby.

“4.48 Psychosis,” an opera based on Sarah Kane’s play about her mental illness, featured this exchange, the words projected onto the back wall as the performers sang them: Have you made any plans? With the words projected onto the back wall, the psychiatrist had the following exchange with the patient: Have you made any plans? Take an overdose, slash my wrists then hang myself. All those things together? It couldn’t possibly be misconstrued as a cry for help.

In “Alice By Heart,” the entire colorfully-clad cast turned into a single giant caterpillar

In “The Cake,” Debra Jo Rupp portrayed Della, a good-natured Christian baker in North Carolina who refuses to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding, and then feels guilty about it. Late at night, in bed with her husband Tim, she tries to explore her conscience with him as sounding board. Tim doesn’t want to hear it. He thinks she was right to turn down the lesbians. Tim: It’s – it’s just not natural. Della: Well, neither is confectioner’s sugar!

In “Ain’t No Mo’,” the play by Jordan E. Cooper, making his Off-Broadway debut as both a playwright and an actor, African-American are leaving the United States en masse on flights to Africa. In the final scene, Cooper as pink-garbed stewardess Peaches is left behind. The final stream-of-consciousness monologue, accompanied by the voices of famous black Americans –Bessie and Billie, James Brown, James Baldwin, and Malcolm X — is a metaphor for the black experience in America, as Peaches can’t uproot the bag of black history, and is left defeated, stripped down to a bare black man, shouting “Give it back, give it back.”

“Ashes,” a haunting work of theatre that told the real-life story of an arsonist, was peopled with dozens of characters — all but the narrator are puppets. In one of many astounding moments of magic, the narrator’s father (a puppet) who is dying smokes a cigarette, and exhales the smoke, which then curls up into the air and magically forms the text: “The last thing I did to my father was lie to him.”

Ali Stroker as the fun-loving, oversexed Ado Annie in “Oklahoma!”, teases and kisses, flirts with and sings to the dim Will Parker (James Davis), — and most memorably swings with him gleefully on her wheelchair.

Andre De Shields commands the stage in Hadestown from the get-go. The show begins in complete silence as the rest of the cast watches Hermes, in his elegant, grey silk suit, slide across the stage, pause, and open a button to show a loud and splendid vest, before trombone player Briane Drye lets out a blast from jazz heaven and De Shields launches into the get-down “Road to Hell.” It’s the quietest, and most mesmerizing, opening of any show on Broadway.

“Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise” a kung-fu musical that was the inaugural show in the mammoth McCourt Theater during the inaugural season of The Shed, the arts center that’s part of the gleaming and sterile new Hudson Yards neighborhood. The musical took advantage of the space, when the performers soared up 80 feet in the air for aerial acrobatics and then back down again.

“Moulin Rouge” was thrilling from the moment you entered the theater… until about ten minutes after it began. That’s because the brightest star in this stage adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie musical is designer Derek McLane’s set. Before we even take our seats, it envelopes us in love, or at least in lots of red – a huge red neon “Moulin Rouge” sign above red lights in the shape of a half a dozen hearts nestled lovingly within each other, a full-sized, red windmill full of lights perched on the box seats above us to our left, a life-sized elephant (which, for variety, is purple) in the box seats to our right…

In an arresting moment in “Deluge,” a tall white dancer dressed in black tossed up a short black dancer dressed in red, accompanied by a score that included recordings of some of the most fulsome public comments by Donald Trump and other politicians (“These are animals…Pocahontas…legitimate rape…”) The dance company whose members wrote, choreographed and performed this remarkable piece is called Loco-Motion Dance Theater for Children, and they were performing as part of the 16th annual Rebel Verses Youth Arts Festival, an exciting and inspiring show presenting artists ages 13 to 19 from some dozen youth theater companies. The festival was almost as impressive for what was not on stage as for what was: There were no teenage cliques, no obsession with popularity. It was not the standard depiction of teenagers in even well-meaning shows on Broadway

“Sincerity Forever,” one of the five plays in Perfect Catatrophes, a festival of Mac Wellman plays, takes place in a fictional Southern town named Hillsbottom. Jesus H. Christ, a black woman, comes visiting and the town’s teenagers, dressed casually in Klu Klux Klan’s outfits, are oblivious. In the first of several memorable moments, two of the teens admit that they are ignorant – “I don’t know why the sky is blue, and I don’t know what ‘blue’ is, and I don’t know why I don’t know,” — but conclude that their ignorance must nonetheless somehow be God’s plan. “the most important thing is not what you know, but whether you’re sincere or not.”

At the end of “Novenas for a Lost Hospital,” which sweeps through the 161-year history of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village, focusing on the cholera and AIDS epidemics, Kathleen Chalfant as Mother Seton leads the audience down the narrow staircase to the street, and then the block and a half over to the so-called St. Vincent’s Triangle, a new park across the street from where the hospital once stood. It’s the site of the New York City AIDS Memorial. The audience stood in a circle for the epilogue, beneath the white steel triangle canopy of the memorial.

In “The Great Society,” which chronicles the final four years of LBJ’s presidency, we get out of the White House in just a handful of scenes. In the most memorable, Jimmy Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old Alabaman tries to register to vote, and is killed doing so, which leads to the confrontations between Civil Rights marchers and Alabama troops on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

There is one spectacularly funny moment in “Scotland, PA” musical comedy version of “Macbeth,” which is based on Billy Morrissette’s 2001 movie, and is set in a fast-food restaurant in the “podunk town” of Scotland, Pennsylvania in 1975. After married couple Mac and Pat Kill Duncan, they take over his restaurant. All the fast-food workers are dressed in construction jumpsuits and the establishment is covered with canvas. Suddenly, all the workers strip off their outfit, and simultaneously all the canvas falls off, and we see red and gold costumes, red and gold décor, a huge yellow M sign, and the new name of the restaurant: McBeth’s. This is one of the two shows this year in New York that featured a funny scene involving McDonald’s. The other was Soft Power — which opened the same week!

At the end of Tina, The Tina Turner Musical, Adrienne Warner — dressed in trademark tight red leather mini-dress, highest of heels and tallest of wigs, ascending a staircase of flashing lights backed by a raucous band each in his own Hollywood Square — delivers Tina Turner’s greatest hits – Nutbush City Limits, Proud Mary ( “Rollin’, rollin’ rollin’ on the river…”) – and we all rise as one, ecstatic, and swoon.. I’m not sure what it says – but it says something – that this greatest moment in the musical’s nearly three hours occurs after the curtain call.

This sexy scene in The Inheritance is not actually the most memorable in the play. That comes at the end of the first part of this two-part play, when the young gay men who died during the peak of the AIDS epidemic walk from the back of the theater one by one to the stage to shake hands with the living.

In “You Oughta Know,” the exhilarating show-stopping number from Jagged Little Pill, Jo confronts her girlfriend Jackie, whom she had discovered in bed with a new boy in their high school named Phoenix: “Every time you speak his name, does he know how you told me you’d be there until you died. Til you died, but you’re still alive….you, you, you oughta know. You, you,you,you…” As Jo, Lauren Patten’s delivery of the song is so forceful and electric that it prompted a standing ovation.

Memorable Moments on Stage in 2019 In a year that has ended so dramatically off-stage, and during which so many people talked dismissively about "political theater" -- but they didn't mean anything actually happening in a work of art -- it's good to celebrate the memorable moments that happened nightly on New York stages.

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flauntpage · 5 years

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Big Plays in Big Moments – Observations from Sixers 117, Nuggets 110

On a night when Joel Embiid was dealing with illness, having had recent trouble holding food down, according to Brett Brown, JJ Redick did the heavy lifting for the Sixers.

Redick poured in a season-high 34 points, carrying the new-look Sixers into the fourth quarter, where the entire starting unit made contributions to close out the second best team in the west, a Denver squad playing without the services of Gary Harris and Paul Millsap.

With the Sixers holding a four-point lead at the 1:52 mark, two huge sequences won the game:

A bread-and-butter ’12’ pick and roll that resulted in a dunk and free throw for Ben Simmons

A massive Embiid block on Malik Beasley, with Tobias Harris keeping the loose ball alive. The Sixers came down the floor, Embiid hit another jumper, and the game was essentially over.

Big plays at the biggest moments. That’s how you win against top teams like the Denver Nuggets, especially when you’re trying to incorporate four new players who were just acquired this week and haven’t even had a chance to practice yet.

Play #1, which I mentioned above, is the same exact play they beat San Antonio with, the same blown defensive sequence, only this time Simmons was the guy given the space instead of Redick:

Simmons Stop, Go, Smosh pic.twitter.com/wkVeSkYjYW

— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) February 9, 2019

Instead of a blown switch, Denver blew the non-switch and Simmons took it himself.

I asked both Ben and JJ about the play.

Ben:

That’s the first time we’ve run that in a while, so I was kind of excited to get that back. As soon as I saw an opening, I took it to the rim. But there are so many different things we can get into and we’ve got to continue to build with the chemistry we’ve got here, Tobias and I, Boban, everybody we’ve got now, things are gonna keep going and we’re gonna get better.

JJ:

It’s just one of our finishing plays. That’s the same play where I got the four-point play to beat San Antonio. It’s just about putting the defense in a position to make difficult choices. They opted not to switch. I can listen to what my guy is calling. Sometimes he calls ‘switch,’ in which case I’m going to slip. If he’s calling ‘slip,’ then I know I can set a screen and Ben can make the decision. Sometimes that’s kind of hesitation and a late drive, sometimes it’s hesitation where the defense has a screw up and I’m able to slip for a late three.

At that point, Jimmy Butler jumped in and said, “there’s a lot of ambiguity to that play,” to which Redick replied, “I taught Jimmy that word the other day.”

As for the Embiid block and bucket, here you go:

Great defense from all five guys on the floor, and Joel is there to meet Beasley when Redick is beat off the drive. Harris keeps the ball in play, they move it up the floor, and I like the mental acumen there to slow it down and get the ball in Joel’s hands for the dagger. Embiid did all of that while being really damn sick last night. Before the game, he had a band aid over his left arm where the Sixers staff had hooked him up to an IV for fluids.

Gutsy performance from Joel last night at much less than 100%, a solid win, and great atmosphere at the Wells Fargo Center.

More observations:

Tobias Harris

They ran him through a horns set on the first play of a game, but couldn’t get a tough bucket near the rim. Still, it was the same way they incorporated Jimmy Butler, by getting him at least one call on the play sheet for his Sixers debut.

Harris hit his first shot on a transition three coming from a cross-court Simmons pass, then backed down Will Barton on the next possession to get a five-footer to fall. His next play was an assist on a Redick three, forcing a Denver timeout at 14-6.

It’s great to see your 6’9″ power forward identify a mismatch, back his guy down with relative ease, and get a shot to fall:

In the second quarter, he had another nice dribble-drive against a mismatch and then threw a cross-court pass to James Ennis for three ball on the next sequence. His ability to put the ball on the floor is excellent, night and day compared to watching Dario Saric try to do the same thing last year.

Harris finished with 14 and 8 on 6-12 shooting last night while hitting 2-3 from deep. He had some good things to say after the game about the crowd, the feeling of appreciation, and how every guy in the starting unit made plays down the stretch.

Harris on the starting five:

Especially coming out in the fourth quarter, I think that’s the big thing about our game today, you can play all types of ways, but when the fourth quarter comes its like well who’s going to get the looks, who’s going to get the shots for the team? What I really liked about the fourth quarter is just kind of like, ‘OK, it’s your turn, no it’s your turn, no it’s your turn, no it’s your turn,’ and we were all able to make plays and live with those plays, so I thought that was awesome to see in the fourth quarter to have the ball continue to move and hit the right hands and make the right shots, so that was big for us.

A story:

After the game somebody texted me and had a video of me smiling after a play. They said, ‘this is literally the first time I’ve seen you actually smile in a game,’ and I was like, ‘you ain’t lying.’ So it was cool to see that. I really had a lot of fun tonight. Just the team, the potential of us, the reaction from the fans. It feels good to be appreciated. I really felt that tonight and it was big for me.

Welcome aboard.

Boban Marjanovic

First big off the bench last night, and it made sense since Denver has been playing rather large through both Jokic and Plumlee. On other nights, Boban is not going to be the best matchup against smaller units.

He scored his first bucket as a roll man on a Butler PNR:

He’s a pretty good roller, isn’t it?

His first shift was about four minutes, then he back in around the seven minute mark of the second quarter and put together a couple of decent defensive possessions against Nikola Jokic.

But you see he’s pretty slow and fairly limited. He’s not gonna close out anyone on the perimeter, and I think he got whistled for a defensive three second call last night. Brett played him 14 minutes or so, and I think that’s probably on the higher end of what you’re going to get from him this year. If they can keep him in the 10-14 minute range and use him to spell Embiid and keep him fresh heading into the playoffs, that’s probably the best course of action with a massive guy who is a great rim protector but historically has had problems when people are able to move him around a bit.

James Ennis

He came off the bench with Boban in a swap for Joel Embiid and JJ Redick.

I thought he quietly had a really nice game, hitting a pair of open corner three pointers and grabbing three rebounds in 14 minutes of play. Both three pointers were chucked from the weakside corner on plays where Tobias Harris and Jimmy Butler sucked in the defense off the dribble-drive:

You’ll take that all day long from a veteran wing coming off the bench.

Ennis’ pick and roll and perimeter defense was very good on the evening and he got the admiration of the crowd with a nice second quarter hustle play and third quarter steal. He’s been around for a while, and if Ennis does what he did last night, that’s exactly the kind of bench production the Sixers have been lacking for some time now.

Mike Scott

The last of the new guys to come on, he was later put into a lineup looking like this:

T.J. McConnell

J.J. Redick

Furkan Korkmaz

Mike Scott

Joel Embiid

Those Korkmaz minutes will likely go to Jonathon Simmons moving forward. I think Simmons will make his debut on Sunday against Los Angeles.

Quiet night for Scott, who only shot 1-4, but he gives you some grit and some defense off the bench, and if he shoots anywhere remotely close to the 39% he’s averaged from three over the last three years, then it’s an upgrade over Mike Muscala and/or Wilson Chandler coming off the pine.

Other notes:

There was a portion of the third quarter where Brown ran out Butler with four bench guys (Scott, Ennis, McConnell, Boban). Not sure I’d put out any lineup without two starters on the floor, especially on a night like this one where you’re trying to work in a couple of new guys. Kyle Neubeck asked about it after the game and Brett Brown was a little bit flippant in his response, joking about how “you guys love to point that out,” or something along those lines. Funny, sure, but when you’ve got four stars in your rotation, shouldn’t two of them always be on the floor at the same time? I dunno, it’s the first game with a new group, so he’ll figure out the rotation moving forward.

Allen Iverson was REALLY into last nights game. On a late Tobias Harris three-pointer, he got out of his seat, walked 10 feet down the floor and said “mother fucker.”

Some dude in the lower bowl was being an insufferable prick, yelling at the dunk squad and telling them to sit down, yelling at the crew bringing in the Moses Malone halftime ceremony equipment, and yelling grade school level insults at the Denver bench. At some point, the guy sitting next to him (might have been his dad), caught a loose ball and rifled it back at the security guard before mouthing a cuss word at him. Both guys were total clowns.

Embiid shot 4-17 from the floor, but finished with 15 and 12 on the strength of 7-8 free throw shooting.

The Sixers were excellent from the foul line overall, hitting 29 of their 32 looks. That’s good for 90.6% and fifth best free-throw shooting night this season.

Korkmaz and McConnell didn’t miss last night, going 4-4 from the floor in limited minutes. Furkan had a nice put-back dunk to end the first quarter.

Butler took the fewest shots of the starting group, just 9, but went 14-14 from the free-throw line, which is ridiculous. He was again somewhat deferential shooting the ball, but contributed 22 points to finish behind only Redick last night.

I’d like to wish a happy weekend to everybody except that one guy in the comments section.

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thrashermaxey · 5 years

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Ramblings: Weber and Boeser Return, Kovalchuk Fading Away (Nov 28)

Weber and Boeser Return, Kovalchuk Fading Away

The question of the day in hockey is, are the Buffalo Sabres for real? Well, you be the judge. But you can’t deny that they are red hot, having now won ten games in a row.

A big part of the reason that the Sabres are a surprise is that Jeff Skinner is a surprise. Skinner scored the OT winner on Tuesday, so he’s now tied for the league lead in goals. Maybe a regression is coming, but it still hasn’t happened. Also just a friendly reminder that he’s a UFA this offseason. With the Sabres’ sudden ascension to the top of the standings, it’s looking unlikely that the Sabres will use him as trade bait.

The Sabres’ win streak means that offseason acquisition Carter Hutton is on a win streak of his own. He’s now won eight games in a row. Turning 33 next month, Hutton might be the goalie of right now more than he’s the goalie of the future, but he’s provided better value than expected from owners who took a chance on him in the later rounds of fantasy drafts.

Shea Weber made his long-awaited season debut (and first game in nearly a calendar year) on Tuesday, recording an assist with three shots on goal in 25 minutes of icetime. For his even-strength minutes, Weber was paired with David Schlemko, a defenseman that he spent very little time with last season. Weber would have been stashed on IR in the majority of leagues, but he deserves an immediate pickup if he’s somehow still available in yours.

Weber and the Habs were outmatched by Curtis McElhinney on Tuesday. The veteran backup stopped 48 of 49 shots in a 2-1 victory for the Hurricanes. In general, the Canes’ goaltending situation is one to stay well away from, since it involves a three-headed monster of McElhinney, Scott Darling, and the recently activated Petr Mrazek. But if you need to pick up a Canes’ goalie, then McElhinney should be your guy. Brought in off waivers as a short-term injury replacement, McElhinney has done everything possible to stick around. He’s won six of his eight games for the Canes and boasts far superior ratios to the other two goalies. He’s also started four of the Canes’ last five games, so he’s been more than just a streaming option recently.

Brady Tkachuk scored two goals and added an assist on six shots on goal in the Senators’ 4-3 win over the Flyers. Like his older brother Matthew, Brady is proving to be a quick study to the NHL game. Much has been made about Elias Pettersson’s impressive rookie season, but Tkachuk is also putting together a solid rookie campaign. Tkachuk already has nine goals in 14 games and is also scoring at over a point-per-game pace (16 points). He’s also recorded six points (3g-3a) over his last three games. He’ll most likely hit the rookie wall at some point (20 percent accuracy), but he’s got a long NHL career ahead.

With two assists on Tuesday, Mikko Rantanen becomes the first player to hit the 40-point mark this season. Right on his tail in the scoring race is Nathan MacKinnon, who scored both goals that Rantanen assisted. MacKinnon now has 37 points to give the Avs a true 1-2 punch.

The debuts from the players involved in the Blackhawks/Coyotes trade on Sunday night, which I covered here:

Nick Schmaltz was held without a point, but he exploded for three shots on goal while receiving first-unit power-play time in 18:38 total. In case you haven’t followed Schmaltz that closely, that’s a high shot total for him. The Coyotes appear to have big plans for Schmaltz, as you can see by the lines below.

#1 20.5% GALCHENYUK,ALEX – KELLER,CLAYTON – SCHMALTZ,NICK

#2 20.5% ARCHIBALD,JOSH – COUSINS,NICK – CROUSE,LAWSON

#3 20% FISCHER,CHRISTIAN – GRABNER,MICHAEL – RICHARDSON,BRAD

#4 14.6% HINOSTROZA,VINNIE – PANIK,RICHARD – STEPAN,DEREK

Although Josh Archibald is on what appears to be the fourth line, he was the Yotes’ scoring star, scoring two goals and adding an assist with a plus-3. He was making his return from a two-game suspension.

Meanwhile, Dylan Strome scored a goal and added an assist in his Blackhawks debut, which wasn’t a great one for his team (8-3 loss to Vegas). Strome was a plus-1 with three shots on goal in 15 minutes of icetime.

Brendan Perlini’s debut wasn’t as impressive, as he was held without a point with a minus-2 and a shot on goal in 12 minutes of icetime.

Blackhawks’ lines on Tuesday:

#1 29.3% DEBRINCAT,ALEX – KANE,PATRICK – STROME,DYLAN

#2 23.4% HAYDEN,JOHN – SAAD,BRANDON – TOEWS,JONATHAN

#3 14.9% ANISIMOV,ARTEM – KAHUN,DOMINIK – KAMPF,DAVID

#4 9.9% FORTIN,ALEXANDRE – KRUGER,MARCUS – PERLINI,BRENDAN

Oh look, Strome lined up with former junior teammate Alex DeBrincat! So it wasn’t just hot stove talk – it might be an actual thing going forward. Also take a look at the other guy on that line, who could really help the two former Erie Otters. So the new coach has decided to separate Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews after placing them together. This also appears to be a move to get John Hayden going. The big winger has just a single goal in 17 games, but could be worth watching if this line sticks.

Brock Boeser returned to the Canucks’ lineup on Tuesday from a groin injury that has kept him out of the lineup since early November. Although he was held without a point, he took three shots on goal and was placed on what appears to be the Canucks’ top line along with Elias Pettersson and Nikolay Goldobin. Although Boeser is still a tantalizing player to own because of his natural goal-scoring ability, he’s inching his way toward certified Band-Aid Boy status (32 games missed because of injury over the past two seasons).

By the way, I’m getting a few questions about Goldobin and whether I think you should add him to your fantasy team. Owned in just 7 percent of Yahoo leagues, Goldy entered this game with 12 points in his last 12 games. Although the returns of Boeser and Sam Gagner will decrease Goldobin’s power-play minutes, he appears to be a fixture on that top line. He and Pettersson have developed a great connection both on and off the ice, so he could be worth taking a flier on depending on who else is available. He’s currently on pace for 50 points, although I see 40 as a safe target at this point.

If you’ve been staying up late to watch the Kings play, you’ve seen (or based on icetime, haven’t seen) the fall of Ilya Kovalchuk. If you own Kovy, unfortunately I don’t have good news to report. He was held without a point for the tenth consecutive game on Tuesday while playing just nine minutes. He is clearly not a favorite of new coach Willie Desjardins, but I’ve also heard speculation that his benching has the blessing of Kings’ management. Otherwise, this would be by far the most ballsy move that Willie D has made as an NHL coach.

I don’t want to say “I told you so” with Kovalchuk, but I’ll reiterate something that I mentioned during the summer. Kovalchuk entered the NHL in the early 00’s as a top prospect along with the likes of Dany Heatley and Rick Nash. Heatley is no longer in the league. Nash was just a shell of his former self last season. So you were basically getting a 35 year old who had aged five years since he last played in the NHL and whose peers were no longer NHL stars. I knew about the strong KHL numbers, so I wasn’t willing to write him off completely. But I was more willing to let someone else take a chance on him and didn’t draft him in any of my leagues.

I’m sure by now the Kings would like to trade him to a contender with considerable cap space. Good luck with that, because he’s got two more years on his contract after this one at $6.25 million per season. Yikes! But before I speculate any further on what happens to him, I will simply tell you to go ahead and shop him around, in case someone out there is willing to pay for the brand name. Someone in my last Ramblings asked if Kovalchuk could be traded away for Alex Tuch. Yes, I would make that trade in a heartbeat if you haven’t already. In fact, if there’s an option on the waiver wire that you’ve got your eye on, you could probably part ways with Kovalchuk.

In my last Ramblings, I also mentioned a red-hot new line in Vegas, and they were at it again on Tuesday. Cody Eakin scored two goals and added an assist with a plus-4, while linemates Alex Tuch and Max Pacioretty each chipped in two points. Tuch has been a point-per-game player and Patches is rebounding nicely after an awful start in Vegas, and I mentioned them a few days ago. So I’ll focus on Eakin today.

You may have written Eakin off as a fantasy option several seasons ago, but it’s worth mentioning that over the past three weeks he has seven goals and 12 points over 12 games. Sure, he plays at a deep center position, but he has the linemates and the “what have you done for me lately” taken care of. So at this point he’s worth a flier in deep leagues at least. Just keep in mind that he may get bumped off this line when Paul Stastny returns. Or maybe not, which would give Vegas some very deep scoring. They’ve exploded for 14 goals over their last two games.

Anton Khudobin and Mikko Koskinen each played 60 minutes without allowing a goal. But in overtime, it was Koskinen who held on for the shutout (not a great night for him to be on my bench, but we’ve all been there). Koskinen has played in five of the Oilers’ last seven games, and he appears to have the faith of the very defensive-minded Ken Hitchcock. So Cam Talbot owners are facing a dilemma of whether to drop him. Talbot hasn’t done himself any favors, allowing at least three goals in each of his last six games, which isn’t going to cut it with coach Hitch. It probably depends on your team’s circumstances since goalie management is becoming harder and harder, but at the very least Talbot should be on your bench.

Finally, one minor trade went down on Tuesday: The Leafs acquired forward Morgan Klimchuk from the Flames for defenseman Andrew Nielsen.

For more fantasy hockey information, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-weber-and-boeser-return-kovalchuk-fading-away-nov-28/

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jeanettigz491799-blog · 6 years

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3 Biggest Regulation From Tourist attraction Blunders.

I told all of them that this was actually an oversight on my component as well as this will certainly never happen once more provided that I worked certainly there. Inadequately written information, which is actually not effectively optimised, is additionally an oversight that may detrimentally impact your SEO-effectiveness. Add clean, totally free web information to your web site including most up-to-date articles, internet resources, as well as prices estimate with a solitary piece of code! Open up communication is a must as well as this is actually frequently the worst dating error you can easily make. Some of the absolute most typical credit error is co-signing on a funding for family and friends participants that don't pay certainly there expenses. They said to the headlines web site that the exact treatment for dealing with such a mistake was actually not known since such inaccuracies had actually never ever been actually made in the Oscars' 88-year record. Don't trump yourself up. Return to the initial step where you examine the mistake. If you lied to your spouse, spent a lot of on the visa or mastercard, or carried out everything which inevitably brought about the break-up, you need to profit from your mistakes. Through staying away from these mistakes you can rapidly alter your below communication and thus change the technique people respond to you. The first payment from the twelve part Merryll Mysteries produced its United States debut in the springtime of 2008. Much older flicks that you could possess viewed just before, today you obtain the opportunity to see them in High Definition for the first time. If you have not made any sort of mistakes for a while, you may not be actually providing your own self options to take the chance of, to know, or to increase. Writers, Bloggers, Podcasters & Artists: Aiding you certainly not merely build & support a committed viewers, however how you can leverage your errors so you turn them into your largest endorsers yet. Self-Care: Popular massage oversights counselors make are actually that they do not deal with on their own as much as they should. Blunder # 7 - Settling your case ahead of time, or even appearing also excited to resolve your claim soon. Keep supplying your kids with discovering adventures, yet concurrently structure their setting so they can not help make excessive errors (having pricey glasses around your house where little ones may break this is certainly not their error). For more wisdom, be sure to explore Funny Quotes Regarding Lifestyle There our experts discuss a number of the funnier points folks have pointed out about family, marital relationship, and life. Aesthetic performers bios is truly a widely known motif within the movie earth. Misjudging the business is another typical mistake and folks have to recognize that this is actually obligatory to perform some quick research study on the net just before resorting to a certain company, since typically they may discover on their own in the place from spending technique too much for the services they were actually provided along with. Blunder # 5) Tunnel Vision: This is actually when a male EXPERIENCES and also PRESUMES he has to make that work out along with ANY one particular girl. As well as the commonplace is do not create the very same error two times, profit from your mistakes. You have got to approve the idea that you are human as well as competent of helping make oversights. As you may find, having a view, that failings and also blunders are bad, is not doing you any kind of great. Try to find the feeble places in your lifestyle like confining beliefs that induce you to create errors and after that aim to alter these restricting actions, behaviors, as well as ideas. . V. USA, 66 C. If you have any thoughts regarding in which and how to use yellow pages advert party (aiutodiproteinepervoi.info), you can get hold of us at the site. C.P.A. 113, 118, C.A.D. 1231, 603 F. 2d 850, 853 (1979) (An error of reality is actually any oversight apart from an oversight of regulation." Id. at 855) Hynix, 414 F. Supp. Any sort of armed forces commander that is actually straightforward along with herself, or even along with those he's speaking with, are going to acknowledge that he has made oversights in the application from military electrical power. You as a human being cannot steer clear of making errors so long as you deal and function with people. But when I make the very same error two times (and also I acknowledge, it happens more often compared to I would certainly like), that is actually when I am actually definitely tough on myself. However since, in practice, nobody is infallible, that is actually often essential to reposition previous events so as to present that this or that error was actually certainly not made, or that this or that imaginary conquest really took place. Do not create the oversight from waiting for someone or one thing ahead throughout as well as make you happy. Simply puts, the blunders that occur in small accounts and also goods profiles are the events that have an effect on the internet income. Very most importantly, he profited from the blunder and started to have a much more regimented technique to cash flow. BLUNDER 5: Poor inner connecting- Hyper-links are the connections between web sites as well as are essential in boosting the web traffic. David Slepkow has been actually practicing Regulation Because 1997 as well as is actually authorizeded in Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and Federal Courtroom. For a reciprocal error to be vacant, at that point the item the parties are actually incorrect regarding must be actually product (importance added). In this short article I am going to explain a number of the best common oversights individuals make when that relates to this vital area from individual advancement. The number one blunder managers make-and because that is essentially unconscious this is vital to become compassionate with ourselves and also each other-is to not become aware of, include, allow, and have your personal authority. Nevertheless, this is merely compounding the mistake you've made in increasing up on a dropping trade through promoting you carry out the same trait next time you remain in this posture. Ironically, a number of the oversights that papas as well as mommies produce are oversights made in an effort to obtain an unjust benefit. You may require take into consideration the kind of blunder that has actually happened and the time needed to locate the solution to these questions and also the attributes of your job. One straightforward method to steer clear of the popular membership web site oversights is actually to have an appearance and go at the a variety of other subscription sites. Significant Rhode Island Household Rule idea: Many people use the phrase full custodianship" This is not a legal condition. If you haven't made any sort of errors for a while, you may not be offering yourself opportunities to take the chance of, to learn, or even to increase. Writers, Bloggers, Podcasters & Artists: Aiding you not simply create & nourish a committed audience, but ways to take advantage of your errors so you transform them in to your most significant endorsers however. Self-Care: Common massage errors specialists bring in are actually that they carry out not handle on their own as high as they should. Blunder # 7 - Resolving your insurance claim ahead of time, or even showing up also excited to settle your insurance claim very soon. Yet irrespective of the workplace environment, you should determine how you could translate the error coming from a liability into a resource," Gergen claims. Regularly creating the very same mistake will definitely cause inquiries to be talked to - bad questions either! When you have actually created a mistake and relocate on, the key is to acknowledge. Viewpoint this as an experiment that generated valuable details. The correct approach to a blunder is to acknowledge that, improve that, and gain from this. Blunders need to not be used as an endorsement aspect that are going to frequently advise you from how things could fail. Helping make a. blunder could injure you for time, but you have got to removal past that as well as learn from these oversights, so you may avoid all of them later on. Authorities sergeant Merryll Manning performs vacation on an isle in the Fla Keys for a Homicide Enigma weekend. Also, the oversight must be one that would certainly show up realistic to a judge or even jury system.

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odelltoosey65-blog · 7 years

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Philippines.

And also Coleman wasn't the only Everton celebrity who created it the trip of a life time for seven-year-old Daire Flanagan. Benedict is deft at the ideal turn of phrase at the ideal time, with every tale taking the reader on a terrific and also untamed journey. There is lots of sensible dramatization Magic Boy as well as Other Stories is a slim manual, yet this took me an even though to review. If you don't think me, simply take a look at the recommendations page where almost every tale succeeded some sort of award, including the Pushcart Prize, New Stories southern, and theHenry Honors. The political manipulation that borders the account from the Three Wise Men, the demographics and also the massacre from the innocents is not consistently consisted of in a Christmas play. In case you beloved this post and you would want to acquire more info relating to mountains in wales list (noparalaobesidad.es) generously stop by our web site. The majority of people today give up the form from either amount of money or contributions of non-perishable meals items for the local area food items bank, yet that had not been always therefore. Several of you may possess listened to accounts regarding how in past years pastors were paid in the form of livestock, reward or even vegetables. Usually in these tales there are pets present, and also frequently these animals substitute for people that may not be deserving from their bipedal skin layers. They are available in many forms, but a lot of remarkable is the back-to-the-future kind displayed in Zog 19." As I claimed before, I will read this story recently, possibly might have skipped this since that was actually therefore instilled in my mind, however I failed to, was really very most thrilled to ultimately reach this. Pinckney Benedict's foreign language is metrical and also so accurate that when Zog 19 slits his hands apart in a blade crash and can simply wail his native tongue Proclaim! Many excellence stories have been written about the natural penis enlargement workouts and the following miracle account could be your own. However, I had the right, after hearing the simple facts when, to increase as well as show the account in my personal style. A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD wonder kid is actually readied to come back home to Scotland after lead-in procedure in Mexico began to kill his tumour. If you do certainly not perform the finest time to possess sex, you will not be able to obtain magic pregnancy after 40 rapidly. One more miracle involves a shepherd that was actually out in the woods, tending his flock. He after that did work in repertory theater, off-Broadway and guided two from his personal cinema companies, accumulating lots of television and movie credit reports. The story is actually of a little woman who heads to a park and constitutes a relationship along with yet another small girl. The observing infant names are certainly not just special, however they possess exclusive significances ideal for your miracle infant. To successfully hash out maternity magic testimonial, getting a specific meaning of some sort of magic is necessary. Nonetheless, Miracle Child negates all of them, telling all of them that there are miracles around all individuals daily. Jesse is a Hebrew title, meaning 'blessing.' You can use this title as a short kind for Jessica, among the classic names. Anticipate a wonder every single time you really feel wonderful and motivated, pure and thrilled about life. This tale is actually especially prominent along with kids, as well as often children comprise the majority of the actors for X-mas participates in. They allege the assailant and also a 14-year-old young boy likewise presumably associated with the attack later on made admissions to authorities. Tension is actually of no conveniences to either the mum to be or even her child so to prevent this prepare early and after that enjoy this fantastic miracle that is about to if this is your second, 3rd, fourth or even more child this is actually distinct every single time, just like unique and genuinely a wonder. Publishers Weekly Benedict's first selection from tales given that his encouraging if irregular debut (Community Smokes, 1987) is actually a far more achieved job, developing him one of the most ideal younger southern writers - packed with enthusiasm as well as fully grown sufficient to maintain it in control. Many of these names are actually unisex, suggesting you might utilize it for either a woman or even a young boy. Recently I read through a tale created by a priest in the United States about his experiences in a church in a Third World country. I helped Johan do this; Rogerilio was actually by the way standing at the other side from the room and could possibly not see some of the created titles. For the label, you can keep Marva, which was actually also among the top labels for women. Or even have the assortment's label story, an after-effects story which follows a younger child after he loses both his feet in an addict wheat or grain silage collision. Today, I have actually summarized all of them in 3 very easy measures for you, and also by complying with these by means of preparing as well as communication you can change your body to conceive a child from your aspiration. Tito Attorney: Oldmaid, yes it was actually an embarassment for our family members that the only younger child in our future generation is a sissy, yet according to Legislation, every man has his civil rights to be actually and live valued adequately as a human being. This account makes use of the Wonder Boy to discover the spitefulness from younger boys, particularly the three that remove him bare to view his marks. The little bit of child was harmful as well as the only suitable treatment for his really uncommon sickness was actually to become located in a health center in Germany. It is a hilarious flick that truly possesses a a great deal from little laughs making it optimal for that Xmas little bit of cheer. His father said Thursday that in 2013, when Lucas was 5 years old, the child brokened 6.5 metres off a home window at the loved ones's home in Brazil while playing with his infant sis, Eduarda. Magic petitions are actually phrases of electrical power that condense the force of the miraculous in to the form from a phrase or group from expressions. His papa pointed out Thursday that in 2013, when Lucas was 5 years of ages, the child fell 21 feet coming from a home window at the family members's house in South america while enjoying with his child sister, Eduarda. Listed below is actually a tiny listing of strong pointers that has aided many women to achieve miracle pregnancy after 40. There are a ton of couples out there who prefer to become able to opt for the gender of their little one and also to recognize ways to possess a woman or even a boy. The best sparkling character this dramatization is actually a hampered young boy participated in by Leonardo DiCaprio, Arnie. Probably most particularly, the assortment showcased all the thematic weight from a story without abandoning the standalone energy of an account. This self-proclaimed magic workers hails from poor African area referred to as Kenyan. In the overdue eighties I would know that a kid brilliant in California discovered how to make hydrogen from water properly with a twelve volt battery and common car power body, throughout the 1970s. In accordance with the web, a wonder could be an affair that could appears mysterious by the methods connected with nature and so appears to be mythological by resource or even a process associated with Lord. This tale is actually specifically prominent with little ones, and also commonly kids comprise a lot of the actors for X-mas participates in. They allege the attacker and also a 14-year-old kid likewise presumably engageded in the attack later created admittances to cops. Anxiety is of no perk to either the mum to be or her child so to avoid this ready early then enjoy this fantastic wonder that is about to if this is your 2nd, third, fourth or even more child that is unique whenever, equally as special and genuinely a miracle. His father brown mentioned on Thursday that in 2013, when Lucas was 5 years old, the kid fell 6.5 gauges (21 feet) from a window at the loved ones's house in South america while having fun with his little one sibling, Eduarda. Around the year 2007, the UK push transferred tales entailing artificial wonder infant creator in the identification from somebody named Diocesan Deya. The young boy spent thirteen times on lifestyle help at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. All of us must begin respecting one another, without that small amount from respect, he would certainly never have actually made the effort to enjoy me and without that small amount of regard, our team are going to certainly never observe a miracle occur again. Perceiving a child young boy could show up to be a typical end result yet there is actually something that could be done to enhance the likelihood of obtaining a young boy. Our team will perform X-mas carols and daddy will read the Xmas story coming from the Holy Bible.

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cocuzzo · 7 years

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A man does not always need eyes to see, or sight to have vision. At the age of thirty, Nantucket summer resident Gordon Gund was rendered completely blind by a degenerative eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa. This loss would have derailed most, but Gund’s condition actually set him on a course of discovery that is now having profound effects in the fight to cure blindness. The story of Gordon Gund, which is powerfully told in an award-winning film by The Nantucket Project screening at the Nantucket Film Festival this month, not only illustrates how a person learned to live with adversity, but also how he turned weakness into a strength that’s now changing the future of mankind.

“I think that everybody has a lot more capacity in all of their senses than we use,” says Gund, now seventy-seven. “Sight is probably the one we use the most — it’s a very visual world. But we have much more capacity to listen in different dimensions.” With his wife Lulie of fifty-one years by his side, Gund has turned his other senses into superpowers that have propelled him to astounding heights as a businessman, sports team owner, philanthropist, and artist. “Gordon is so determined,” Lulie Gund says. “It’s not like you have to push him — if anything you have to hold him down.”

Determination runs deep in Gund’s family. When Prohibition shut down his father’s family brewery, Gund’s father purchased a coffee company that he later sold to Kellogg’s for $10 million in stock. After a number of savvy investments during the Great Depression, George Gund II eventually became the director of the Cleveland Trust Company and turned it into the largest bank in Ohio. He and his wife, Jessica, had six children, and, despite their growing fortune, they raised them to be self-reliant and carve out their own course in life. That was especially the case for their middle son, Gordon.

Gund studied at Harvard before entering the Navy, where he served as an officer on two destroyers in the Pacific. After his service in the Navy, he went into banking and began amassing his own career accomplishments in corporate finance. He learned how to fly a plane and navigated his own private jet up and down the East Coast. With a beautiful wife and two healthy children, Gund’s life seemed set. But in the 1960s, his sight began to fail. First he started losing his peripheral vision, then his ability to see at night. An optometrist diagnosed him with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that usually claims people’s vision in their sixties. Gund had a particularly aggressive case, and by the age of thirty, he was completely blind.

Yet instead of succumbing to his handicap, Gordon and Lulie Gund committed themselves to finding a cure. “We were naive,” says Gund. “The US had just put a man on the moon eighteen months before, so we thought it would take five to ten years to have the answers. Well it doesn’t work that way.”

A year after he went blind, the Gunds founded the Retinitis Pigmentosa Foundation, what is today the Foundation Fighting Blindness. “It was like working with a blank canvas at the time,” says Gund. “We had to build up the knowledge base about the retina, about this family of diseases, and of the visual process. It was a monumental job.”

Gund became fluent in the complex medical language of blindness, a feat made all the more astounding by the fact that he relied on the material being read to him. Finding braille too slow and tedious, he taped conversations and meetings and played them at high-speed over and over to commit the information to memory. “If I go to a board meeting, I can’t just look at a piece of paper in front of me and follow along,” Gund says. “I have to gather that info ahead of time, lock it in, and think about it so it’s not just words or numbers, but that I really understand it.” In time, Gund’s memory multiplied in capacity.

Meanwhile his blindness seemed to pour gasoline on the fire of his life, and he began to flourish in unexpected arenas. Gund took up skiing and braved steep slopes with an aid calling out each turn and obstacle. After a friend on Nantucket introduced him to wood carving, he dove headlong into sculpture. Today his towering bronze pieces not only dot his lawn on Nantucket, but they have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. Stripped of visual distraction and tuned into the nuances of each negotiation, Gund thrived as a businessman. Along with serving as a director of the Kellogg Company and Corning, Gund’s investment group amassed a portfolio that includes vast real estate holdings, advertising agencies, and ingenious medical innovations such as Invisalign. In partnership with his brother, George, Gund bought and sold three sports teams, including the Cleveland Cavaliers during the first Lebron James era. In 2016, Gund helped hoist a title banner in the arena formerly named after his family and with it raised up the entire city of Cleveland.

But Gund’s crowning achievements still appear to be on the immediate horizon. After forty-six years of painstaking fundraising, intense research, and exhaustive trials, the Gunds’ foundation is finally finding cures to the kind of diseases that robbed him of his sight. Nine years ago, an eight-year-old boy from Belgium named Yannick Duwe became the first person to have his sight restored through a form of gene therapy backed by Gund and his foundation. “Now there are more than a hundred children and young adults who have been through that clinical trial and all of whom have had significant amounts of sight restored,” Gund says.

The gene therapy has since been submitted for FDA approval. “If it’s approved — and we have every expectation that it will — it will be the very first gene therapy ever approved by the FDA for any genetic disease in the United States,” Gund explains. This watershed approval could then open the doors for other genetic therapies that treat a host of diseases beyond those that cause blindness.

This triumph is one the many powerful stories captured in The Illumination, an award-winning short film about Gordon and Lulie Gund created by The Nantucket Project. The eighteen-minute film debuted at last year’s Nantucket Project and has since won audience choice awards at both the Cleveland International Film Festival and San Francisco International Film Festival. This June, The Illumination will be screened as part of the Nantucket Film Festival, and the Gunds will be in attendance. “The movie shows that if you’re blind, it’s not the end of the line,” says Lulie. “There’s a lot you can do.”

The Illumination also captures the heartwarming relationship between Gordon and Lulie Gund. “I wouldn’t have done anything like what I have without Lulie,” Gund says of his wife. “It’s hard for me to think of how it would be without her, because fortunately that has not been the case.” But Lulie insists that her husband would have achieved the same heights without her, only “doing it together made it much more fun than onerous.”

Of the ten million people living with diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa in the United States, Gund himself will never regain his vision. His condition is too far gone. But in his mind’s eye, he sees a future where no one else will carry the burden he has for the last forty-seven years. Indeed, he and Lulie have set a legacy in place that will continue to illuminate eyes and minds for generations to come.

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seekmagazine2000 · 4 years

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Sonic The Hedgehog Film Review (2020) - Everything you need to know

#2020 #film #Movie #plot #review #sonic #sonicthehedghog

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kawaiitidalwavekitten · 7 years

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Words are the new pixels: Why designers must become storytellers

Screens are disappearing.

There’s a delicious irony in that sentence, right? I mean, you’re probably reading this article on a screen right now, (unless you make a habit of printing out your morning reading). But look around: human-computer interactions no longer exclusively occur through the keyholes of our smartphones, smartwatches and TV screens – something that Bill Gates predicted would happen back in 2002:

“…computers themselves will gradually “disappear” into the fabric of our lives. We are still a long way from a world full of disembodied intelligent machines, but the computing experience of the coming decade will be so seamless and intuitive that–increasingly–we will barely notice it.” ~ Bill Gates, The Disappearing Computer

Granted, he guessed this transition would happen by 2010 – but he was only off by a few years, so give the guy some credit.

As voice recognition and chatbot technology improves, these “invisible” user interfaces will replace screens as the default medium of interaction. Just as many modern websites & applications today tout themselves as “Mobile-First”, it won’t be long before those same innovators are applying the “Voice-First” label to their new offerings. Indeed there’s a non-zero chance that the next killer app may launch with no visual UI at all! Thus, today’s UX designers face a stark choice – evolve beyond the pixel, or look for a new career.

In this post, I’m going to explore some of the reasons behind the sunset of visual-first design, and explain why designers must learn to wield their prose and stories as fluently as they do their imagery, in order to remain relevant in the age of invisible computing.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

Why visual-first design will soon decline

Words are the new pixels

What designers can do to keep their jobs

Why visual-first design will soon decline

If we’re to understand why designers must learn to tell stories without relying on visual aids, we must first grasp the drivers behind the decline of visual-first design.

It’s getting old

In short, predominantly visual design as a source of innovation is approaching the maturity phase of its life-cycle.

Just like any product or service, visual-first design is reaching its maturity

Take a look around – aren’t websites all starting to look kind of samey these days? This is no accident. As new design best practices have been shared, and higher conversion rates achieved, this standardized knowledge has propagated to businesses and website owners all across the web. But this wasn’t always the case.

In its heyday in the early 2000’s, flashy web design was THE competitive differentiator for any business that wanted to make waves online. The arrival of Macromedia Flash (that’s Adobe Flash, to you kids), brought rich interactivity and visuals to the previously dull and static World Wide Web, and boutique rich media design studios like 2Advanced and Big Spaceship blew people’s minds by pushing the envelope of what we all thought was possible with web design and motion graphics. And fancy pre-loaders (ugh).

With unique and eye-catching design prioritized over everything else, it used to be a generally accepted workflow to have your web designer simply create visual “buckets”, (stuffed with Lorem Ipsum, of course), for the copywriter/client to fill with content after the fact.

We now know this is no longer an appropriate workflow for truly effective web design – in such circumstances, the actual content becomes subservient to the design, which diminishes the effectiveness of both.

It’s being commoditized by economic pressures

Visual design is cheaper, more accessible and more standardized than at any time in the history of the internet. Sites like Upwork, 99Designs and Envato have democratized (some might say commoditized) visual design, while free access to blog tutorials, website themes, and drag & drop tools like Canva, mean that anyone can invest a little time or money, and walk away with a presentable design.

Automated design is coming

Meanwhile, procedural design engines like The Grid and Act-On, can automatically generate entire layouts based solely on the content you feed them, and simultaneously A/B test like 8 gajillion different page variations to find the ultimate killer converting layout. While the output of these tools may not currently match human visual designers at the top of their game, there’s been more than enough interest around them to validate the existence of significant demand for cheaper, automated delivery of good visual design. It’s only a matter of time before the technology catches up – and it’s a problem that need only be solved successfully once to greatly reduce the need for human involvement in the visual design process.

“In 2010 only 2 per cent of Americans worked in agriculture and 20 per cent worked in industry, while 78 per cent worked as teachers, doctors, webpage designers and so forth. When mindless algorithms are able to teach, diagnose and design better than humans, what will we do?” ~ Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Voice & text recognition technology has reached a tipping point

Following a powerhouse showing at CES2017, Amazon’s Alexa is the first application of voice interaction to have reached mainstream adoption, with almost 8 million Echo units sold since it debuted in 2015 – and more than two thirds of those sales happened last year.

One stunning stat in particular is that Echo owners have also increased their spending on Amazon by 10% in the last year. Consider all the effort that’s gone into optimizing Amazon to be the best-converting e-commerce store on the internet – and now consider that one of its biggest leaps forward came from removing the visual interface altogether!

It’s also worth noting that voice and chat interfaces are only just getting started, and haptic, gesture-driven interactions aren’t far behind.

The video above was posted in 2015, so who knows how far this technology has come since then?

Visual design is struggling to keep up with consumers’ needs

How many screens exist in the average urban-dweller’s life? Smartphone, TV, laptop, tablet, car, (maybe even the fridge, if they’re painfully early adopter). Effective visual designs today must solve for an ever-growing variety of contexts & circumstances – but the kicker is that each time there’s a new breakthrough in our display technologies and devices, we’re having to almost completely rethink our approach to creating visual interfaces that effectively capitalize on these new capabilities.

This is becoming unsustainable – we can’t keep redesigning our entire visual methodologies with each new innovation, so there’s an immediate need for an intuitive interface medium that works in almost any context, and has enough future-proofing built into it to stick around for a while.

Words are the new pixels

So, I’m just gonna throw this out there: humans have been communicating with words for about 70,000 years. We all know how to use them and interpret them, and I’d argue that words are the only truly responsive UI element for all computing devices, past, present and future.

Words: they worked back then, and they still work now

Words work at all screen resolutions, on all devices, across all global cultures, and in almost any context. This is an indispensable trait, since your responsibility as a designer is to guide users as they hop between individual interfaces within an overall guided experience.

Words are built for sharing experiences, ideas & stories

No matter how well-designed your website & mobile app are individually, if the transition between them is disjointed, it’s still a bad experience for the user.

As a result, customer preferences are shifting from favoring individually well-designed interfaces – Brand X’s mobile app, Brand Y’s website, and so on – to expecting a seamless overall experience within a single brand, regardless of the context. Businesses are discovering that this seamlessness is essential for driving repeat purchases from customers in a recurring cycle, nicknamed the Loyalty Loop.

In short, users need compelling narratives to guide them through the entire experience – not more infinitely-reconfigurable visual interfaces.

Wall-E is a masterclass in visual storytelling – but few can reach that bar consistently

Thing is though, unless you’re Pixar, it’s really hard to tell a compelling, understandable story without words. Thus, the shift towards designing cohesive narratives for customers across multiple channels is opening the door to competition with visual designers on their own turf. Copywriters, authors, linguists, voice actors, casting directors, screenwriters, hell even songwriters – are all about to get into the user experience game.

These folks are already familiar with creating engaging non-visual content – and demand for their expertise is about to explode. Although voice interaction has penetrated the mainstream, there’s still a dire need to build & maintain customer engagement. Alexa’s total library of almost 7,000 Skills (that’s Amazon-lish for “Apps”) currently averages only 3% retention after 2 weeks – ouch!

What designers can do to keep their jobs

LUKE: “With the blast shield down, I can’t even see! How am I supposed to fight?” OBI WAN: “Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them.”

Effective storytelling is as big a differentiator for today’s UX designers as the “unicorn” status of designers who could also code in the ‘00’s and early ‘10’s – so here’s what visual designers should be doing to prepare for this shift.

Lorem Ipsum must die – Content IS the design, so it should be factored into your workflow from the outset of the project. No more punting consideration of content down the road (although Samuel L Ipsum is always welcome entertainment

Understand the structure of a good story – There are tons of ways to do this – learn from storytelling masters like Pixar, read a “Choose your own adventure” book, study Joseph Campbell’s timeless classic “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, or even play a text-based adventure game like Zork.

Tease apart and deconstruct these examples to learn how words alone can guide and compel users through an experience.

Learn the art of persuasive writing – Don’t fear the encroachment of writers on “your design turf” – embrace them, learn from them. They may know this new, invisible medium better than you do, but you know how to incorporate their work, and harness it to create compelling user experiences.

The legendary Zig Ziglar’s “5 obstacles to a sale”, and the Persuasive Triangle are great frameworks with which to start learning how to write persuasive, compelling copy.

In summary: Learn to use your words

Visual-first design is in decline, so designers must become familiar with telling stories via the invisible media of voice and text. There are a number of drivers behind this decline:

Good visual design is no longer a competitive advantage for online businesses – it’s expected

Economic competition & automation are making visual design cheaper and more accessible

Voice and text recognition technology are enabling viable alternatives to traditional visual interfaces

Visual design can’t keep up with the pace of innovations in consumer devices

Words are the ideal medium for accommodating this next phase of human-computer interaction. They’re universally used and understood globally, and are easily woven into stories that can fit into any user context.

Designers who embrace the power of storytelling will be better positioned to navigate the transition from visible to invisible computing – and I, for one, can’t wait to see what kinds of stories you guys start telling.

#UX #UX News #Writing #Copy #uxwriter

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