#i have so much admiration for Susan!Danny

[jon-withnoh]

While I was cleaning today, I ended up listening to the 2006 Rebecca cast album for the very first time (I'd only listened to some of the songs previously). Here are some random thoughts and reactions that came up, because why not. This will probably be a long post so buckle up:

the characters feel very vivid and I love that a lot.

it's interesting to hear some of the lines they changed for the Monte Carlo scenes.

I actually love the second verse of "Zeit in einer Flasche". I wish they'd kept it. It's very sweet and creates a more satisfying lead-up to the conclusion of the song imo.

this recording is proof that "Zauberhaft natürlich" doesn't add anything to the show. Uwe Kröger already makes Maxim seem quite human in only a few minutes. Plus, I always feel like the Monte scenes could be shorter overall (Yes I know what I just said about "Zeit in einer Flasche".)

If I hadn't already been completely won over by Susan!Danny I would be now. She's so poised and brings so much nuance to the character in "Die Neue Mrs de Winter" alone. Her first "Madam" sounds so threatening, I love it.

Also... 2005 Elisabeth Franz Joseph as Frank startled me a little.

Absolutely adore Susan's "Sie ergibt sich nicht"

Kerstin Ibald as Beatrice is a delight in every single way. Also interesting to see the different choices she made between Vienna and Stuttgart.

Speaking of Beatrice... "Die Stärke einer Frau" is... so long. I listened to it on the way home from running an errand and I ended up laughing to myself in the middle of the street because it is kind of a ridiculous song. Imo the only reason not to cut it is because we love Beatrice.

Here's something I found really interesting: Favell and Danny actually have a dynamic in this recording. I fully believe that they've known each other for decades. They might not particularly like each other, but they're definitely familiar with each other. I can imagine them as a comedic duo honestly. This Favell in general is very vivid, very emotional. I like that. I feel like he has more nuance than the later depictions. Also... "Ich liebte sie genau wie du". Excuse me??? I love that line!

I'm so glad they ended up replacing "Wir sind Britisch" with "Merkwürdig". "Wir sind Britisch" did not work for me as a song and felt out of character for the show in general. It was like they were trying to be My Fair Lady for a hot second.

I didn't think I would like Uwe!Maxim that much, but actually! I might like him the best out of the three cast recordings. Jan Amman is my fave vocally, but I love how Uwe portrays Maxim as a character. Again, there's nuance here. I also love the way he says "Oh, das ist Frank Crawley der Verwalter von Manderley..."

There's a really interesting line in "Die Neue Mrs de Winter (Reprise)" where the ensemble says something about Ich being "Fast wie unsere alte Mrs de Winter". That's a really interesting callback to the book and the way the book's narration begins to draw parallels between Ich and Rebecca, in whichever way you want to interpret that.

Okay, everyone who's been telling me about how excellent Susan!Danny is was completely correct and justified. Her Mrs Danvers comes across as very controlled, but her feelings really come through as well. Her "ich Hör Dich Singen" is beautiful. I would give a lot to hear her sing it again with the new lyrics. I know I keep saying this but NUANCE. So much nuance in this character!

On a similar note, it's so refreshing to hear a Maxim played by a very passionate actor (not to say that Mark or Jan weren't passionate, just that I really enjoyed Uwe's portrayal).

This became long and quite incoherent, so if you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts if anyone wants to ramble :)

#rebecca das musical #rebecca 2006 #just rambling #i have so much admiration for Susan!Danny #holy shit she's good #it was super interesting to hear the show as it was originally written #I love what it's turned into it's just also interesting to compare #Kerstin Ibald as Beatrice has my whole heart #I love when they include the Schlussmusik and applause on cast albums #it always makes me cry

[tcm]

In Memory of Brian, Fred and Jerry by Susan King

I mourn the loss of Hollywood legends, especially those I have interviewed over the years. I broke into tears when Debbie Reynolds died four years ago, recalling our last chat together in 2016 when we did a duet of “Moses Supposes.” And I still haven’t watched TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (’62) since Gregory Peck died in 2003. I had the opportunity to interview the handsome Oscar-winner at his now torn down home in 1997 and 1999. He was everything you’d hope he would be – sweet, intelligent and funny. He also loved Bob Dylan. His last words to me as he walked me to my car were: “You are a most interesting young lady.”

In 2020 alone, I lost over 20 former interviewees including Kirk Douglas, whom I interviewed eight times between 1986-2017, and my beloved Olivia de Havilland, who I found to be delightful and a bit ribald in the two interviews I did with her. I got more than a little misty when Brian Dennehy, Fred Willard and Jerry Stiller died this year. They were supremely talented and made our lives a little brighter with their performances. And, they all were great guys and fun interviews.

Brian Dennehy

I interviewed Brian Dennehy, who died in April at the age of 81, several times in the early 1990s when I was at the L.A. Times. The former U.S. Marine and football player was intimidating at first sight. He was tall, burly and barrel-chested. He had a no-nonsense quality about him, and he spoke his mind. But he also was funny.

In 1991, discussing how hard it was for some actors to land parts after starring in a TV series, he noted “coming off a TV series is a tough deal, and you go into limbo land for a while, if not forever. Most actors go immediately to the ‘Island of Lost Actors’ and stay there. Troy Donahue is the mayor.” Dennehy never went to that island. Not with the complex and often memorable performances he gave in such films as FIRST BLOOD (’82), SILVERADO (’85), COCOON (’85), PRESUMED INNOCENT (’90) and as Big Tom in the comedy TOMMY BOY (’95).

He was nominated for five Emmys, including one for his chilling turn as serial killer John Wayne Gacy in the miniseries To Catch a Killer (’92).

I had one of the most extraordinary evenings at the theater in 2000 when Dennehy reprised his Tony Award-winning role as the tragic Willy Loman at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in the lauded revival of Arthur Miller’s masterpiece Death of a Salesman. It was a gut-wrenching performance that left me emotionally exhausted. He earned another Tony in 2003 as James Tyrone in the revival of Eugene O’Neill’s superb Long Day’s Journey into Night. And he never stopped working.

Shortly after his death, the drama DRIVEWAYS (2020) was released on streaming platforms. And it could be Dennehy’s greatest performance. He plays Del, an elderly widower and Korean War vet who sparks a warm friendship with Cody, the young boy next door. The reviews for the film (it’s at 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and Dennehy have been glowing. The L.A. Times’ Justin Chang wrote that Dennehy’s Del is as “forceful and tender a creation as any in this great actor’s body of work.” And Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times stated: “What we might remember most, perhaps appropriately, are Dennehy’s warm, weary features and rich line readings. In a lovely final monologue, Del advises Cody to avoid rushing past the experiences in life that matter, as they pass so quickly on their own. Much like the careers of beloved actors.”

Fred Willard

I first encountered Fred Willard as the clueless sidekick of sleazy talk show host Barth Gimble (Martin Mull) in the late 1970s on the syndicated comedy series Fernwood Tonight and its continuation America 2-Night. I quickly became a fan, and that admiration grew when he became a member of Christopher Guest’s stock company of zanies in such comedies as WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (’96) and BEST IN SHOW (2000). In the latter, he played the equally clueless dog show announcer Buck Laughlin who quipped in his color commentary, “And to think that in some counties these dogs are eaten.”

Willard told me in a 2012 L.A. Times interview that he didn’t think he was funny until he was an adult. “I always loved comedy growing up – Bob Hope, Red Skelton and Danny Kaye,” said Willard, who died in May at the age of 86.

Willard got a serious part in Tennessee Williams’ one-act in a summer theater group when he was in his 20s. “I was getting laughs on all the lines,” he noted. “The director got upset because the audiences were always laughing. I didn’t try to do it deliberately. Then I realized I would say things around people, and they would laugh. I didn’t mean to be funny. I have always been relaxed around comedy.”

Just as Dennehy, Willard kept working. In fact, he received an Emmy nomination posthumously for his hilarious turn as Ty Burrell’s goofball dad on ABC’s Modern Family. He told me he wished he could try to do more dramatic fare like in Clint Eastwood’s World War II drama Flags of Our Fathers (2006). Willard even called his agent to see if he could get a role in the movie. “Clint Eastwood’s people called back and said, ‘We love Fred, but we are afraid if he appeared on the screen, they might start to laugh.’’’

Jerry Stiller

Jerry Stiller was a real sweetie and also very thoughtful. He sent me a lovely thank you note when I interviewed him and his wife, Anne Meara, in the early 1990s. When I talked to him for his son Ben Stiller’s remake of THE HEARTBREAK KID (2007), Stiller sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers. Ditto in 2010 when I interviewed the couple for a Yahoo! Web series Stiller & Meara: A Show About Everything. I also received Christmas cards until Meara died in 2015.

Baby boomers remember Stiller, who died at 92 in May, and Meara for their smart and sophisticated comedy act, in which the majority of the humor came from the fact that he was Jewish and she was born Irish Catholic. They recorded albums, were popular on the nightclub circuit and did The Ed Sullivan Show three dozen times. They split up their act when musical variety series went away.

Both were terrific dramatic actors. In fact, I saw Stiller in the 1984 Broadway production of Hurlyburly, David Rabe’s scathing look at Hollywood, and he did a 1997 production of Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. Of course, Stiller garnered even more success in his Emmy-nominated role as Frank Costanza, the caustic father of George (Jason Alexander) on NBC’s Seinfeld (1993-98) and was the best reason to watch CBS’ sitcom The King of Queens (1998-2007) as Kevin James’ acerbic father-in-law

But I most remember that 2010 interview where Stiller and Meara bantered back and forth much to my enjoyment. Here they talk about Ed Sullivan:

Anne: I never liked him.

Jerry: You are out of your mind. You never liked him?

Anne: He scared stuff out of me. I am talking about Mr. Sullivan himself. I wasn’t the only one. There were international favorites throwing up in the wings—singers and tenors and guys who spin plates. It was live. We were scared.

Jerry: Ed Sullivan brought us up to the level that we knew we never could get to – him standing there on the right side of the wings laughing, tears coming out of his eyes and then calling us over and saying, ‘You know, we got a lot of mail on that last show you did.’ I said, ‘From Catholic or Jewish people?’ He said, ‘The Lutherans.’”

#Jerry Stiller #brian dennehy #in memoriam #Fred Williard #Ben Stiller #TCM Classic Film Festival #LA Times #Susan King #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #comedians #actors

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2018

My main takeaways from the past year’s reading:

Growing up is hard, whether you’re a working-class college sophomore trying to adjust to an Ivy League college, a chronically ill medieval kid trying to beat witchcraft charges, or A GHOST THE WHOLE TIME.

You can go to Kansas City or the Congo or SPACE, but you can never escape the past. 

Maybe I should be more worried about getting murdered?

Anyway:

20. East by Edith Pattou (2003)

Rose, a sixteenth-century Norwegian farm girl, loves her large family, but sometimes feels at odds with their rather staid personalities. So, when a talking polar bear offers to end her family’s poverty and her sister’s illness if she’ll stay with him for a year, she accepts not only out of desperation, but also wanderlust. This expansive retelling of “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” (already a winner because of its determined, flawed heroine) shines because of its vivid use of multiple settings and its well-developed minor characters. I initially thought it was a little slow, but I really came to appreciate Pattou’s skill over time.

19. Joe College by Tom Perrotta (2000)

Danny, a working-class Yale sophomore in 1982, thinks he has a lot to worry about. His rich friends are clueless, his townie coworkers at the dining hall resent him, and his crush is dating a professor. Then he goes home for spring break, where he’s confronted with a pregnant ex and a bunch of mobsters who try to interfere with his father’s lunch-truck business. I mostly read this book for completism--I love Perrotta, but The Wishbones made me wary of his earlier work--yet this seemingly lighthearted story contains some fascinating moral and ethical dilemmas, plus a hero who is sympathetic despite his callowness. 

18. Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness (2010)

In the explosive conclusion of Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy, the protagonists find themselves in the middle of a war with an enemy they don’t understand, forcing them to wrestle with questions of right versus wrong, forgiveness versus revenge, and the possibility of redemption. This was an intense read, but there was a lot of genuine joy and love mixed in with the death and war.

17. Ashes to Ashes by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian (2014)

In the less literally but just as emotionally explosive conclusion of Han and Vivian’s Burn for Burn trilogy, former revenge-partners Lillia and Kat try to move on in the wake of a tragedy, as well as the abrupt departure of Mary, the other member of their retribution-themed trio. The future is looking bright, but then it becomes clear that Mary is neither gone nor happy with their life choices. I read the first book of this trilogy way back in 2014 and, while I enjoyed it well enough, I wasn’t blown away. This spring, though, I had the sudden urge to read the next two books, and they were both a wonderful mix of affecting human drama and ludicrously soapy plot twists.

16. The Charm School by Susan Wiggs (1999)

Isadora Peabody, the awkward scion of an otherwise graceful old Bostonian family in the 1850s, decides to take her fate in her own hands and become a translator on a merchant ship bound for Brazil. The captain, freewheeling Ryan Calhoun, isn’t too happy with this unusual arrangement, but he comes to admire and sympathize with the independent-minded and painfully self-conscious Isadora. At the same time, Isadora realizes that Ryan’s untidiness and occasional bouts of drunkenness disguise a heart and principles and a talent for making out in lush Brazilian gardens. I was absolutely delighted by this romance novel, which is an absolute romp with some terrific character development. 

15. The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (2009)

In the middle book of the Chaos Walking trilogy, the protagonists reach the end of a long journey, only to find themselves separated and caught between two warring factions. This installment does a great job of elaborating upon the world introduced in the first book, offering new perspectives on old characters, and introducing compelling new conflicts. 

14. Fire with Fire by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian (2013)

In the middle book of the Burn for Burn trilogy, classmates Kat, Lillia, and Mary deal with the fallout of their semi-successful Strangers on a Train-lite revenge scheme. Kat and Lillia want to call it quits, but their sympathy for Mary causes them to agree to one last score, so to speak. Unfortunately, FEELINGS and PAST TRAUMA and DANGEROUS PSYCHIC POWERS complicate matters. Despite my love for Ashes to Ashes, Fire with Fire has a special place in my heart because it’s the first book to explore the characters’ emotions in depth, as well as the first one to go way over the fucking top.

13. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018)

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a rash of horrifying home invasion rapes, seemingly meticulously planned, plagued the bedroom communities of Sacramento. Then a series of uncannily similar home invasion murders broke out in the Southern California. In this book published after her death in 2016, McNamara makes the case that this was the work of one person, dubbed the Golden State Killer. McNamara has a clear, humane way of describing grisly and/or convoluted events, and her portrait of the dark side of California suburbia is enthralling. 

12. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1998)

In 1960, a dangerously determined and self-righteous reverend from the American South travels to the Belgian Congo, even though his own church begged him not to go. He makes the questionable decision to take his exhausted wife and four daughters--vain Rachel, suck-up Leah, nearly mute Adah, and baby Ruth May--along with him. Their new home is a shock to all of them in various ways, and that’s before a personal tragedy and the Congo Crisis enter the picture. Kingsolver makes excellent use of her five viewpoint characters, all of whom have distinctive voices and enjoyably unpredictable (yet entirely appropriate) character arcs.

11. Lighter than My Shadow by Katie Green (2013)

As a young child, Katie has seemingly minor issues around food, but during adolescence she develops a serious eating disorder and almost starves herself to death. A diagnosis and the ensuing support of her parents seem to signal hope, but recovery is more complicated that one might expect. This graphic memoir offers a nuanced portrait of the sheer range of stuff that gets wrapped up in an eating disorder: religion, gender, sex, control, trauma, the desire for independence, and so much more. Green’s “cute” art style enhances the story, both because it makes an interesting contrast to the upsetting material and because it grounds the reader in the humanity of the characters. 

10. Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker (1995)

Throughout the 1970s, FBI agent John Douglas, along with the rest of the Investigative Support Unit, compiled information about an increasingly common type of criminal: the serial killer. Gradually, they developed the practice of criminal profiling. As gruesome as it might sound to call this an excellent beach read, that’s essentially how I experienced it (not that I went anywhere this summer, but still). The pace is fast, the style is engaging, and the authors are frank but not overly lurid in their presentation of the nasty details.

9. The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro (1977)

In this collection of connected short stories, Rose, a bright Canadian girl, grows up in a rough, deprived neighborhood with her sick, stern father and prickly but not unloving stepmother. Life in the wider world brings her mingled pride and shame at her background, a largely disastrous early marriage, and eventually a satisfying but decidedly unglamorous acting career. Munro is a master of description, and she has a sense of fun that puts her head and shoulders above most short story writers. And the title story is just the most perfectly painful exploration of why someone would stay with a partner who is deeply wrong for them.

8. Dark Places by Gillian Flynn (2009)

In 1985, seven-year-old Libby Day narrowly escaped death at the hands of her teenage brother, but her mother and two older sisters weren’t so lucky. Except that Libby doesn’t feel so lucky, either, because she’s thirty-one years old with massive trauma, dwindling funds, and few adult life skills. Then a true-crime enthusiast contacts her with an offer: cash in return for investigating whether her brother was actually the murderer. Dark Places may be the awkward middle child of Flynn’s novels, but that reputation is undeserved; it has a thrilling plot, a perversely lovable heroine, and a sly critique of the “Morning in America” view of the 1980s.

7. The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (2000)

In the confusion of the Great Chicago Fire, frontiersman Tom Silver kidnaps heiress Deborah Sinclair, hoping to force her industrialist father into compensating the victims of his negligence. He’s not prepared, though, for her dogged escape attempts, her hard-earned resilience, or the hints that something was horribly wrong in her life even before the kidnapping. I had my doubts about reading a kidnapping romance, but Susan Wiggs proved me wrong. (It helps that Tom’s motives are both understandable AND not presented as an excuse for dragging Deborah into his revenge plan.) The super-slow-burn romance pairs wonderfully with the action-packed plot, and I love Deborah so much.

6. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (2006)

Troubled reporter Camille Preaker returns to her small Missouri hometown to investigate the grisly murder of one tween girl and the ominous disappearance of another. As upsetting as the case is, it doesn’t hold a candle to what waits for her at home: a softly cruel mother, a barely there stepfather, and a teenage half-sister who alternates between adoring Camille and tormenting her. Sharp Objects entirely deserves its reputation as the best (if not most popular) Flynn novel; it has a beautifully constructed plot, descriptions so lush that you feel like you can reach out and touch Wind Gap (not that you’d want to), and a deeply flawed yet admirable heroine.

5. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008)

At nearly thirteen, Todd Hewitt is the youngest resident of Prentisstown, and nobody is ever going to take that distinction away from him. Just after his birth, a plague killed most of the humans on New World, including every woman and girl. What’s more, the same plague made it so the thoughts of men (and most other living creatures) are audible to all. And the mayor of Prentisstown is a religious fanatic who won’t let anyone watch videos or teach kids to read. It’s...not awesome. Then Todd makes a shocking discovery that forces him to flee his community and question everything he knows. This book is a fascinating sci-fi take on the frontier horror story (ala The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and, more recently, The Witch) with a read-hundreds-of-pages-a-night plot and astonishing moment of wonder.

4. After the Wedding by Courtney Milan (2018)

Lady Camilla Worth, daughter of an earl who committed suicide to avoid treason charges, has passed from home to unwelcoming home ever since, finally ending up as an unknown housemaid. Adrian Hunter, a mixed-race ceramics heir on a desperate mission to make his family happy, happens to visit the house where she’s employed. Under some very strange circumstances, they’re forced to wed at literal gunpoint. Working together to unravel the mystery and get an annulment, they grow to like each other, which complicates things. This is one of my favorite romance novels ever, with wonderful characters (especially Camilla!), an explosive plot, and masterfully explored themes of healing and being true to oneself.

3. Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy (2017)

A famous magazine writer and father of two young children, Handy expounds upon the classics of children’s literature (The Cat in the Hat, Goodnight Moon, the Little House series, Narnia, the Ramona books, etc.). As someone who frequently rereads the favorites of my youth to de-stress (House of Stairs 5eva), the subject was tailor-made for me, and Handy’s execution is impressive. He covers an amazing amount of ground, switches deftly from one mode of analysis to another, and shares plenty of funny anecdotes and moving reflections on parenthood.

2. Blankets by Craig Thompson (2003)

In this autobiographical graphic novel, Craig, a creative, devout, and deeply lonely teenager in rural Wisconsin, meets his first love, Raina, at a church retreat that otherwise would’ve been miserable. They become pen pals and are finally able to arrange for him to spend a few complicated, wonderful weeks with her and her family. Their relationship and its subsequent fallout drive him to confront his conflicted feelings about his faith, his art, and his family. This is an absolutely beautiful story, complemented perfectly by the wintry landscapes and expressive human figures.

1. Breath by Donna Jo Napoli (2003)

Salz, a twelve-year-old boy in medieval Saxony, is dismissed and sometimes even reviled by most of his community, including his own father and brothers, for the unnamed illness that stunts his growth and makes it difficult to breathe. Still, he’s got a lot going on; he helps his beloved grandmother around the house, studies for the priesthood, and belongs to a secret coven. When an abnormally wet spring drives the rats indoors and causes a strange disease to spread among the locals, Salz’s sharp intellect and thirst for knowledge are more needed than ever. This novel is a historically grounded retelling of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” where the protagonist has cystic fibrosis, and did I ever think I would type that combination of words? No, I did not, but I am so glad things worked out that way. Napoli’s treatment of disability is unusually gratifying, because she illustrates the essential things that a society loses when it dismisses the sick and disabled (as well as some other marginalized groups, such as women). At the same time, Salz’s family and neighbors aren’t cruel for the sake of cruelty; they’re just uninformed, scared, and/or bad at managing their own problems without lashing out at others, which does not absolve them but makes for a more thoughtful story than if they were just bad seeds. The portrayal of Salz’s struggles to reconcile the different sources of wisdom in his life--Church orthodoxy, pagan folk practices, and the knowledge slowly filtering in from the Arabic world--is also fascinating, plus the pathological mystery makes for a tight, exciting plot. All this in less than 300 pages! And do not get me started on how much I love Großmutter.

#books #reading #top twenty

[ladylynse]

Hi! About the writer ask game: 21, 30, 33, 40, 45 & 48.

(fanfic asks post)

Thanks for these, Anon!

21) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

I really admire people like lembas7 who can write a huge, multi-universe crossover and do it so, so well--even when elements from fandoms you’re not familiar with are included. I admire people like Riddell Lee who can keep a huge story going over years without the quality flagging in the slightest. But other people I admire for their ability to inject humour into a story (like Wooster), or their dedication to a particular fandom/crossover despite passing years (like sapphireswimming), or the way they can continue a story long after canon content has finished (like MyAibou). I have my favourite tropes, of course, but I’m drawn to people who can write the stuff I enjoy very well, and I especially admire the people who excel at the areas I’m terrible in. That being said, on the whole, I spend more time writing than reading fic. Every once in a while I’ll go on a fic binge, looking for something specific, but I can almost guarantee you it’s not in a fandom I’m currently writing for. I’m weird like that.

30) In contrast to 29 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

To be perfectly honest, I was surprised by the response I got to Sacrifice and Ghosts, but the one I kinda eye roll at? I’ve got a three sentence fic with Jazz and Dani that got 44 notes. I mean. Three sentences. Three. Sentences. In contrast to actual fics, which don’t even have half that. Something I wrote in, I dunno, five minutes is far more popular than something I spent two months working on. I just. I don’t understand.

33) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

That’s a hard one.I...I don’t know if I can pick very easily. I was honoured when someone told me they figured I’d reached a milestone I didn’t think I’d ever achieve:

“Oh my god. You sneaky sneaky author you! I was bamboosled. And I opened up the comments to see if anyone else had been tricked like me and when I saw your username responding to the other tricked readers I realized why this story was so good. Of course YOU wrote it. Youre one of the classic big name Danny fanfic people. A star.

Well you're a star to me anyway. Good story!! As usual!! Thank you for writing it!” (Moth on Shift)

and a few people have mentioned that they think I should write a novel or would buy it if I did, which was quite flattering (TheDoctor on Intentions, an anon on Mirrored, Elvaro on Patchwork, and the odd person in PMs), but what stands out to me the most? Something like this:

“I realize that this has been written for almost five years but I just read and loved it. I deal with depression and anxiety on a nearly daily basis. Reading your story helped me get out of a rather deep hole that I have been in. One that has caused me to lose quite a bit of work at the factory. I don't know what I will be doing next but I have a feeling that my time at the factory may be limited. Thanks again and Blessed Be.“ (Anon, on Wrong Number)

and

“Make me cry why don't ya? I've always loved the Narnia series, and it always made me sad the Susan let herself forget. But this series reminded me of a fic I read, called 'Not Ready to be Found.' And it helped me, because my sister is, well, she's my Susan. So when I read stories like these, it gives me hope. That one day, she will be ready, and she will be found. She knows the way. Sorry, I just, thank you. Is all I'm trying to say. It makes me hope, stories like these.” (5Chaos_Babe3 on Peace)

40) Do people know you write fanfiction?

Some! My mother used to write it a lot, so I kinda followed in her footsteps. My immediate family knows, and a cousin, but only like...two friends that I talk to on a regular basis. I’ve mentioned it to a few others and either had to explain what it was or just saw the judgement on their faces, so I don’t volunteer that information as readily as I did in the past.

45) What spurs you on during the writing process?

I probably get stuck as often as the next person, but a lot of the time, I want to see where the story goes--or at least how it gets there--as much as anyone else. I usually have an idea of where a story is going (the exceptions are typically oneshots turned chaptered fics or a story that really, really got away on me), and I just.... I like the story. So I want to keep writing it. And when I get stuck on a fic, I now just work on a different one, because I finally caved and started multiple fics at once. Plus writing is a stress reliever for me, which makes a big difference. And when I doubt myself and my meagre writing ability, which is probably more often than I should admit? I look back at some of the reviews people have left me. That is more encouragement than anything else. You can bet that if I get a review on a fic I haven’t worked on in a while, I’m going to go back to it for a time, even if it’s not a long enough time for me to finish the next chapter. And people’s comments are the only reason The Trouble with Ghosts got resurrected, so.... Anyone who says writers don’t like comments (particularly long or multiple comments) on their fics is a liar.

48) What’s your favourite trope to write?

I’m a sucker for reveal fics and crossovers.

#ladylynse #asks #my writing #ask game #thanks! #long post #text #Anonymous

[the-desolated-quill]

The Caretaker - Doctor Who blog (More Like The Piss-taker)

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

An episode co-written by a sexist moron and a transmisogynistic arsehole? What could possibly go wrong?

It’s present day Earth and the Doctor needs to go undercover and pretend he’s human in order to lure out and defeat an alien threat. No it’s okay. You haven’t stumbled onto my review of The Lodger by mistake. This is actually believe it or not a completely different episode. Seriously, is this the only idea Gareth Roberts has got? It wasn’t even very good the first time around. I might as well keep this review short because I’ve basically already talked about this. If you want to know what I think of the premise, read my review of The Lodger again.

It all feels so half-arsed this time around too. I mean The Lodger stopped being scary after about five minutes, but the idea had potential. This is just pathetic. The Skovox Blitzer. What a truly rubbish monster. It’s so generic and completely non-threatening, spouting silly catchphrases and possessing worse aim than a drunken Star Wars stormtrooper. The humour too is incredibly painful. Mind you, The Lodger wasn’t very funny neither. It took Eleven’s goofy eccentricities and magnified them to such unbearable levels of obnoxiousness that by the end I just wanted to hit him on the head with a chair. But in The Caretaker, the humour is actually worse because it makes the same mistake Robot Of Sherwood made. This type of humour just doesn’t suit the Twelfth Doctor at all. I admire Peter Capaldi as a performer and he does the best he can with what he’s been given, but he simply can’t do this kind of comedy. But it would be unfair to lay all the blame at Capaldi’s feet because I honestly can’t imagine anyone making these jokes work. The scene where Clara tries to convince Danny that his encounter with the Blitzer was part of a surprise play was just cringeworthy to sit through because nobody would ever talk like that in real life. And some of the jokes don’t even make sense. Why is the Doctor insistent that Danny is a PE teacher? What makes him think he can’t do Maths just because he’s a soldier?

Which brings me to the main problems with the episode. Once again this is yet another episode that focuses entirely on the Doctor, which is not only starting to become incredibly boring, they don’t even do it very well. Moffat and Roberts want to convey that the Doctor is a trustworthy leader who may need to rely on his companions sometimes for moral guidance, but always cares deeply about their welfare. How do they go about showing us? By having the characters just flat out telling us this. This is writing at its most amateurish. If you want to define a character, let them actually do stuff and then let the audience work it out for themselves. Show, don’t tell. And why do we even need an episode reiterating shit about the character we already bloody know? Here’s an idea. The episode is set in Coal Hill School. You know? The school his granddaughter went to? Maybe this would be a good opportunity to dwell on that. The Doctor hasn’t seen Susan in centuries. How does he feel about that? Has he ever thought about going back to the 22nd century and paying her a visit? (assuming she’s still alive). What about her teachers Ian and Barbara? Did they ever make it back? What happened to them? Oh but that would require some original thinking on Moffat and Roberts’ part and they’re clearly not fucking capable of that. It’s much easier to just rehash the same old ideas and use references to Who’s past as lazy fanservice rather than actually doing anything with them.

And why for fuck’s sake are we going down the love triangle route again? No doubt Moffat thinks the lack of romantic interest on the Doctor’s part puts a new spin on it, but it actually doesn’t. How is Twelve/Clara/Danny any different from Ten/Rose/Mickey or Eleven/Amy/Rory? (Don’t forget before this series aired, Moffat said this was going to represent a brave new direction for the show. What? Doing the exact same shit over and over again constitutes a brave new direction, does it? Fuck off!) This doesn’t work for three reasons. 1) We’ve done this many times before; 2) I don’t give a shit about Clara or Danny; and 3) the writing is fucking atrocious. Remind me, why does the Doctor hate Danny again? Because he’s a soldier? (and part time circus acrobat judging by the way he flips over the Blitzer). What is with Twelve’s one note hatred against soldiers? We’re back to the same problem we had in Into The Dalek. Yes the Doctor has always felt slightly uncomfortable around the military, and Nine and Ten’s anger toward soldiers and guns could at a push be justified by their PTSD after the events of the Time War, but Twelve doesn’t seem to have any justification for his extreme hatred toward them whatsoever. The two soldiers he’s met (Journey Blue and Danny Pink) have given him no reason to hate soldiers at all as far as I can see. He just hates soldiers because the script says he does, and that’s just not good enough.

But what angers me the most about this whole love triangle is the underlying sexism to it. (Brace yourselves @prettycanarynoir and @thealmightytwittytwat because this is probably the one and only time you’ll ever hear me defending Clara). When Clara has finished explaining to Danny all about the Doctor and the TARDIS and everything, the Doctor then angrily says that she needs to explain to him why she’s going out with a soldier (because all soldiers are inherently evil just because). I’m sorry, why the fuck does Clara need to justify who she’s dating to the Doctor? Who the fuck does he think he is? And it gets worse when it’s revealed that the reasons behind the Doctor’s mistrust of Danny is because he wants to make sure Danny is good enough for her, which just comes off as really patronising. Clara doesn’t need the Doctor to vet her boyfriends. I’m sure she’s fully capable of making her own decisions, thank you vey much. Not that this lets Danny off the hook. In fact in this episode Danny goes from being a gormless nobody that I couldn’t give a shit about to being quite possibly one of the most hateful figures I think I’ve ever comes across in New Who. The scene in the TARDIS where he effectively throws his toys out of the pram and starts mocking the Doctor for his soldier-ness really soured my views toward him as a character. The episode tries to present it as Danny making these deep observations about the Doctor, except he’s only just met the Doctor, so he can’t really judge, and he comes across as a spoilt little shit having a temper tantrum because he’s suddenly not the centre of Clara’s life anymore. And then there’s the scene at the end when Danny and Clara talk about her continuing to travel with the Doctor. Not only does he threaten to dump her if she doesn’t tell him every single aspect of her life, he then goes on to say this:

“If you don’t tell me the truth, I can’t help you. And I could never stand not being able to help you."

Um... who the fuck asked you to Danny boy?

It’s disturbing because Moffat and Roberts clearly don’t see this the same way I’d like to think most sensible people would. They think this shows two fiercely protective men looking out for the woman they care for, whereas in reality it looks more like two selfish arseholes trying to assert control over ‘their’ woman as though she’s their property rather than a person in her own right. It’s legitimately disgusting to watch, and the sad thing is I’m not even shocked by this. I mean what did you expect? Gareth Roberts has already displayed his sexist side in The Lodger with Craig Owens. A character presented as a romantic everyman, but who is actually a hideous embodiment of male entitlement who throws a hissy fit every time his girlfriend shows even the slightest bit of independence because her plans don’t coincide with what he wants. And we all know by now how much of a sexist twat Moffat is, despite his repeated claims to the contrary. Put them together and you create a misogynistic neutron bomb.

As you can probably tell, I don’t like this episode very much. It’s unoriginal, uninspired, boring as fuck, painfully unfunny, and the sexism is just gross, end of. Can it get any worse than this?...

Yes. Yes it can.

#the caretaker #gareth roberts #steven moffat #doctor who #twelfth doctor #peter capaldi #clara oswald #jenna coleman #bbc #review #spoilers

[junker-town]

5 winners from the final week of the NFL season

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

In the final week of the regular season, Jaire Alexander’s meaningful penalties and rushing god Ryan Fitzpatrick: both great.

The 2019 NFL regular season is officially over. This means the march to Super Bowl 54 has officially begun. It also means, mercifully, there will be no more Bengals, Jets, or Washington games to muddy our national broadcasts.

In honor of their selfless decision to leave January to the good teams, the NFL’s contenders spent much of Week 17 playing like losers. The Patriots, needing a win to clinch a first-round bye in the playoffs, collapsed in upon themselves against the Dolphins. The Chiefs, in place to leapfrog New England, traded the lead with the Chargers before finally putting away their division rival and securing the conference’s second seed.

The Packers, firmly in the race for the NFC’s top seed, got roasted early by a David Blough receiving touchdown — especially notable because Blough isn’t a receiver (and is, barely, a quarterback). They needed a furious comeback and a game-winning field goal from Mason Crosby as time expired just to escape with a win. The 49ers and Seahawks went down to the wire, and a literal inch of field, to complete the NFC postseason picture.

In the middle of that chaos, the Titans and Eagles claimed the league’s final playoff spots in what turned out to be comfortable wins. And while they may have gained the most from Sunday’s action, they weren’t necessarily Week 17’s biggest winners. Instead, those honors go to ...

It wasn’t: the Browns, who finished 2019 with their worst loss yet

Cleveland didn’t have much to play for in Week 17. The playoffs, once a shining beacon of hope in the preseason, were officially out of reach. All that was left for the Browns was pride and a potential resume-building point in favor of embattled first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens.

This was not nearly enough to carry the team to victory over the previously one-win Bengals. Cleveland squandered an early 7-0 lead and gave up 162 rushing yards to Joe Mixon en route to a 33-23 loss.

Baker Mayfield, who ended 2018 as one of the league’s hottest quarterbacks, finished his season with 21 interceptions and would have led the NFL in picks if not for the continued existence of Jameis Winston. Kitchens lasted exactly 16 games as a head coach before getting fired.

Conversely, Andy Dalton went from getting benched on his birthday to staking the Bengals’ claim as Ohio state champions in what will likely be his final appearance in tiger stripes. An often toothless pass rush got to Mayfield for six sacks. Mixon also deserves credit, not just for a career-best performance, but for innovating this “accidentally assault a ref” postgame celebration.

@Joe_MainMixon bowling down the ref for the W @EvilAndyDalton @CincyProblems pic.twitter.com/X6Uz67nJxS

— chase. (@ChaseLaub1) December 29, 2019

and now, on to ...

Week 17’s actual winners

5. The Bears, who might as well give this rugby thing a shot

Chicago and Minnesota — the latter locked into the NFC’s sixth seed and thus starting a handful of backups — put together a stirring throwback to 1920 with their meaningless Week 17 showdown. The first 30 minutes of play saw the Bears take a 11-6 lead into halftime despite neither team scoring a touchdown.

The Bears broke that streak in the third quarter, but they kept up the “dawn of football” cosplay in the process. David Montgomery scored his team’s only touchdown in a play that wouldn’t have been out of place in the New Zealand All Blacks’ highlight reel.

smh pic.twitter.com/L5TvTzKPp8

— Arif Hasan, nondenominational holiday supporter ⛄ (@ArifHasanNFL) December 29, 2019

Chicago held off a Kirk Cousins-less Vikings team 21-19 to even its record at 8-8 on the season. Mitchell Trubisky, in a performance endemic of his disappointing third year as a pro, needed 37 passes to throw for 207 yards without finding the end zone once.

4. Jaire Alexander, whose mistakes somehow sparked a Packers comeback

Danny Amendola has always been one of the league’s more underrated pot-stirrers. The journeyman wideout is a chippy presence on the field. A first-quarter touchdown throw to quarterback David Blough only increased his volume.

Amendola’s flexing was nearing all-time non-Patriot highs in Week 17 ... until Alexander sent him to Suplex City.

yes, it was a penalty. but i still admire the form on the Jaire Alexander belly-to-back suplex pic.twitter.com/xp5QCG7lkk

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 29, 2019

That suplex drew a flag and gifted the Lions seven yards, but Alexander earned every one of those yards with his perfect form. While Detroit would go on to score a touchdown at the end of the drive, Amendola wouldn’t have another catch for the rest of the game. The next time he’d have his name called on the broadcast would be after getting flagged for a late hit on another Packers defensive back he’d been jawing with — this time, safety Kevin King.

This, somehow, wasn’t the only penalty on Alexander that seemed to have a net benefit for the Packers. Alexander was shadowing Chris Lacy in man coverage without any safety help when he tripped while tracking down a Blough deep ball. Rather than let Lacy get away for what would have certainly been a breakaway touchdown, the second-year corner grabbed the Lions wideout and intentionally drew a pass interference penalty.

Jaire Alexander with the "welp, i'm screwed" PI here. saved a touchdown, too pic.twitter.com/CvqcS0HD6l

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) December 29, 2019

Detroit’s drive would stall out soon after, ending with a 56-yard Matt Prater field goal instead of a touchdown.

Those points were crucial for Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers, on a day when he struggled to connect with his wideouts downfield, found his rhythm in time to lead the Packers back from a 17-3 deficit with 19 minutes to play. Mason Crosby’s 33-yard field goal as time expired sealed a 23-20 win for the visitors and a first-round bye in the postseason.

More importantly, it made Green Bay 2-0 against the Lions in 2019 when the Packers led, technically, for zero seconds of game time.

3. Shaquil Barrett, officially better than Warren Sapp (in one specific way)

The Buccaneers ended 2019 in the most Jameis Winston way possible: on a pick-six. Bruce Arians summed up the finale in the most Bruce Arians way possible.

#GoBucs coach Bruce Arians on Jameis Winston throwing a pick six to end the game and the season with a loss in OT. “It smells as bad as it could possible smell and it’ll smell that way for a long time.''

— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) December 29, 2019

In the midst of that lesser Lynyrd Skynyrd song were other reasons for optimism. Mike Evans and Chris Godwin emerged as the league’s top wideout tandem, and Breshad Perriman balled out once injuries took each of them off the field. Young cornerbacks Carlton Davis and Sean Murphy-Bunting took the first steps necessary to repair one of the league’s worst secondaries.

But no Buccaneer had a better year than Barrett, who came to Florida on a one-year, $4 million contract and gave Tampa Bay roughly $20 million of value as a pass rusher. The former Broncos rotational piece — he had just 15 starts in 61 games in Denver — went from afterthought to Defensive Player of the Year candidate as the keystone of Arians’ defense.

He had so many sacks in his first four games (nine) it prompted SB Nation’s own Stephen White to write about how absurd he was three different times in the first month of the season. On Sunday, he passed Sapp as the Buccaneers’ all-time single-season sack leader by bringing down Matt Ryan in the second quarter.

Your NEW franchise leader! That's 1️⃣7️⃣.5️⃣ sacks on the season for @MOOCHIE048. pic.twitter.com/80ofRPvJon

— Tampa Bay Buccaneers (@Buccaneers) December 29, 2019

That wasn’t enough for Barrett. He’d add two more sacks to bring his season total to 19.5. That’s 5.5 more than he’d had in five total seasons as a Bronco. It’s also enough to tie for 13th-most in a single season in league history, joining names like Bruce Smith, Robert Mathis, and Mark Gastineau among players with at least 19 sacks in a season.

Barrett may have come to Tampa on a prove-it deal. Keeping him there is going to cost the club significantly more.

2. Christian McCaffrey, the NFL’s third-ever 1,000/1,000 man

Unlike the Buccaneers, there haven’t been many moral victories for the Panthers this fall. Cam Newton played in just two games, and while Kyle Allen was able to rally Carolina to a 4-2 start, that lack of talent manifested in a 5-11 season that led to longtime coach Ron Rivera getting fired.

There was one bright shining star in the Panthers’ dim constellation, however. McCaffrey claimed his place as one of the league’s best dual-threat tailbacks by rushing for 1,387 yards and hauling in 1,005 receiving yards from Carolina’s depressing lazy Susan of underwhelming QBs. This 17-yard reception — buried in the latter half of a 42-10 loss to the Saints — launched him into the eight-digit stratosphere.

This is the play where CMC makes HISTORY ⤵️@CMC_22 | #KeepPounding pic.twitter.com/06EwirDDUI

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) December 29, 2019

Only two other players in NFL history have matched that feat: Roger Craig and Marshall Faulk. The former was an All-Pro on a team that won three Super Bowls. The latter won 2000’s MVP award and is now a Hall of Famer.

Pretty good company to keep!

Carolina stands on the precipice of a rebuild. Team owner David Tepper will have to hire a new coach and make a choice when it comes to retaining former MVP Cam Newton or letting him go. Other expensive veterans like Dontari Poe and Greg Olsen could be on the chopping block as well.

McCaffrey will be the sun around which the rest of the Panthers’ solar system rotates, though.

1. Ryan Fitzpatrick, officially the Dolphins’ 2019 rushing leader

The Patriots’ problem isn’t that they missed out on a first-round bye because they lost as a 17-point favorite Sunday afternoon. Their problem is that they lost to a team whose top runner was a 37-year-old quarterback.

Trades, injuries, arrests, and general ineptitude left Miami’s year-end rushing stats look like this:

Holy crap.

That ground game FitzMagic was on full display Sunday. His scramble on first-and-goal in the third quarter pushed the Dolphins out to a 17-10 lead.

Grit, determination, and a great beard #MIAvsNE #FinsUp pic.twitter.com/bXhlWW2QLZ

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) December 29, 2019

His ability to keep plays alive — he was only sacked twice against a defense that came into Week 17 ranked fifth in the NFL in sack rate (8.4 percent) — gave the Dolphins just enough latitude to hold off the Patriots’ comeback efforts and drive a final nail into the AFC East champion’s bye week hopes. New England will play in the Wild Card Round for the first time since 2009, and it’s at least partially thanks to a Miami team whose top running threat was an aging dropback passer.

[theladyjojogrant]

Twelfth Doctor Rewatch: Listen

An episode that I completely forgot the magnificence of.

And here we have the first time where Twelve displays one of my favourite things about him: his role as a narrator. It’s even more potent at the beginning of this episode because while he’s talking to himself, it seems like he’s talking to you. 

(Just gotta note though, the Doctor totally has that weird professor handwriting where he capitalises most letters but not all of them.)

Nooooooo more second hand embarrassment with Danny and Clara! Excuse me while I put a pillow over my face 

Okay. Danny and Clara. I don’t know if y’all were snoozing during orientation or what, but you do not talk about your students (ESPECIALLY not by name) in public!!!!! Sorry. Teacher pet peeve. That’s like the biggest no no ever. 

One of my favourite storytelling devices is starting from the future and flashing back to the past. Therefore, I think the beginning of the episode is brilliantly done. It’s contrasting confident, snippy Clara with subdued, quiet, and guilty Clara. 

Ah yes, “I haven’t actually said yes,” you say as you follow the Doctor into the TARDIS and shut the door behind you. That’s not saying yes to a trip at all, Clara. Not at all. 

I know people talk about this a lot but the way Twelve so gently places his hands over Clara’s when she’s connecting with the telepathic circuit. It’s so sweet because it’s such a delicate touch for a man who’s been calling her ugly and fat for the past couple episodes. 

After the Doctor tells Clara not to think anything rude because it might show up all over the screens, I feel like Clara very seriously considers doing just that because of her smirk right then. 

Okay I know this was important to the plot and all, but it would’ve actually been really cool for them to run into little Clara as opposed to little Danny. 

Clara’s complaining shouts of “Doctor!” 

I never really thought about this before, but little Danny meeting Clara in this episode is probably the reason why older Danny is immediately attracted to her in Into the Dalek. I mean, besides the fact that Clara is a gorgeous human being. He didn’t remember meeting her because the Doctor confused his memory, but when Danny saw Clara there at Coal Hill, his mind probably connected her face with security, comfort, and love, because that’s all his mind could hold onto that night after Clara met him as a child. I dunno, just a little headcanon I have now. I also wonder if Clara ever told Danny that she met him as a child? Probably not, but you never know. 

I love Clara’s babysitter mode where she loves kids and does everything she can to comfort them. This is the first time in Series 8 that she acts like this, and it’s cool to see a little piece of the Clara from Series 7 coming back, even after all the changes her character has gone through already. 

The “scared is a superpower” speech. Of course I love the way it’s delivered, and I also love how Clara is admiring him in the background. She has a smile on her face, and I think for one of the first times so far she’s seeing that he really is the same man he was before he regenerated. Comforting a kid is such a Doctor thing to do, though Twelve does it in a much different way than Eleven. 

“Loser.” One of the best things Twelve has ever said. Just. The accent. 

“The deep and lovely dark. We’d never see the stars without it.” <3

Clara shutting the Doctor up after the thing under the blanket leaves is one of my favourite scenes ever. First there’s the head slap and the Doctor’s injured and surprised look in response, then “People don’t need to be scared by a big grey-haired stick insect, but here you are. Stay still, shut up,” and then of course “Sit!” and the Doctor actually listening to her the whole time. 

“Once upon a time, the end. Dad skills.” You know...I can honestly see him doing that to Susan. 

After they leave little Danny and go back into the TARDIS, somehow I never realised, after all the times I’ve seen this episode, that as they’re talking to each other they keep looking on opposite sides of the console and just missing each other. That’s a wonderfully hilarious little touch!

The fact that the Doctor actually takes her back to the restaurant for a second chance on her date. I’m sure he complained all the way there, but still. 

Clara’s theme as she walks back into the restaurant! Gosh, I really think it’s one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created. :D 

See, sometimes Danny and Clara are really adorable. AND THEN THEY BOTH HAVE TO GO AND RUIN IT AND MAKE IT TOO AWKWARD TO WATCH AGAIN. 

The look on Clara’s face when she gets up from the dinner table to go to the TARDIS. She looks like she’s going to murder the Doctor. 

Orson: “You didn’t look like you believed him.” Clara: “That’s just what my face looks like when he talks.” 

All right. So I know that the whole Orson Pink thing was a red herring, but this still means that his family time traveled and it still seems like he knows Clara. So headcanon that Danny had some sort of close family member that Clara ends up hanging out with after Hell Bent (with Ashildr too, of course). 

Clara: “Do I have to bring him to you for approval?” Doctor: “Well I would like to know about his prospects.” Is this granddad Doctor poking his head out a couple seasons early? Really though, he looks so serious when he says that. 

I love how even though this whole night has been about Danny and his timeline, by the end of it Clara becomes so focused on the Doctor that the TARDIS took her to him instead of Danny or someone related to him. 

Side note, I love the lighting in the barn. 

This scene is so important. I mean, when else do we get to see the Doctor’s childhood? Ever???? And the fact that Clara actually gets to experience it is incredible. She really is the one who knows him best. And it’s such a great idea. No one really expected it. 

Clara’s face when she realises that the boy is the Doctor. Twelve would say that her eyes were taking up her entire face. 

I LOVE the irony of Clara sort of creating the scary dream and fostering the Doctor’s obsession with that nightmare. Have I talked about how much I love this episode yet? It just has so many good elements. That’s why this post is super duper long. 

I wonder if Clara ever told the Doctor that she saw him as a child? I feel like it’s something that might have been said at one point. Maybe in the cloisters in Hell Bent (among other things)? I dunno. 

Seriously this is so adorable, Clara just stroking little Doctor’s hair and lulling him to sleep. 

“Fear can make you kind.” Just beautiful. Thank you, Moffat. 

The hug at the end! I could watch a gif of it for hours. Because first she just looks at him in a new way; she looks at him and knows that once he was that crying child sleeping all alone in the dark. And then she rushes at him and hugs him, and the way he just flails and protests as Clara keeps smiling. 

All in all, I forgot how much I loved this episode. It’s brilliant. 

#dw #doctor who #listen #dw listen #listen dw #twelfth doctor #12th doctor #peter capaldi #clara oswald #jenna coleman #danny pink #rupert pink #samuel anderson #orson pink #steven moffat #dw series 8 #12th doctor rewatch #tardis #whouffaldi

[alchemine]

Dear Yuletide Author

Hello, author, and thank you in advance for writing for me! (And sorry again that it’s taken so long to get this letter posted.) Here’s some additional detail about my requests:

Party Animals Danny Foster, Jo Porter

I’m fascinated by the sort-of-mentorship, sort-of-friendship between Jo and Danny, how they got to where they are at the beginning of the series, and where they might be headed afterward. I think the dynamic between them shifted through all the events that happened, so even though he still admires her and looks up to her, now he knows she’s human, and she’s had to admit to herself how much she actually needs him and values his loyalty. They both have their flaws--he can be an annoying cross between white knight and moral police, and she can be harsh bordering on cruel--but somehow they complement each other anyway. Btw, the actual political stuff is all background to me, so if you choose this one, I absolutely will not notice or care if you handwave or barely mention that aspect of it. 

The Worst Witch (2017) Hecate Hardbroom

I’m a great fan of intense platonic relationships for Miss Hardbroom (especially the Constance version of her, but also this version), so I’d like to see her serving as a mentor to one of the girls, being mentored herself by Miss Cackle, or forming a friendship with someone either inside or outside the school. I’d also like anything that goes into her past, as a child or adolescent or even the earlier parts of her teaching career at Cackle’s. How long has she been there? How did she and Miss Cackle become so close? What did she think upon finding out that her employer had an evil twin? How does she get on with the other teachers at the academy? I am really interested in the actual practice of magic in this universe--how it works, what the rules are, etc.--so if there’s a way to include any of that/show Hecate being the mistress of her craft, I’d love that too. 

Teachers (UK TV) Susan Gately

I love Susan’s character, but don’t have a lot of preconceived ideas about her, so there’s plenty of leeway here. Some things I wonder about Susan: Why does she put up with all the obnoxious boys around her? Does she have younger siblings that make it easy for her to slip into that elder-sister role with them? Why did she go into teaching, and especially at the secondary school level, rather than becoming an actual psychologist? Does she hate Jenny’s boyfriend just because he’s awful, or because she’d secretly like to date Jenny herself? (Speaking of awful men, what led her to get married to her horrible husband in the first place, was he not as horrible then or...?) Where does she go when she just disappears at the end of series 2? 

Thanks again, and feel free to send an anon ask if you have any other questions!

#yuletide 2017

[northpaw78]

Ursa Minor

He stood there, in front of the full length mirror, staring at his reflection. He could almost hear the clock ticking in concert with his racing pulse. He was in the best shape of his life. The cut of his charcoal gray suit was impeccable, the pattern of his tie subtle, yet striking. He had a full head of hair, his big brown eyes were sincere, and his grin, infectious. He looked good. He knew he looked good. And yet he was completely paralyzed, unable to break contact with the image in the glass before him. He was running out of time.

“Honey? What are you doing? Are you ready yet?” His wife called out from the hallway. The sound of her voice broke through his paralysis and he quickly turned his back on the mirror, at the same time grabbing the ends of the subtle yet striking tie and yanking it from his neck in frustration. He needed a different tie.

“I’m almost ready. I just have to try one more…” He rushed past his wife in the threshold where she stood gazing bemusedly at the shirts and pants and ties and jackets strewn across the floor and tossed haphazardly all over the bed.

“Honey,” she began, “you really don’t have time for this. Your audition is at 11am. You don’t want to be late.”

“I know, I know,” he called out from inside the closet. He reemerged with his hands full of ties. “Which one do you think? The red or the blue? Or what about the yellow stripes? Wait. Have you seen that paisley one you gave me for Christmas last year?”

“Sweetie.” She walked over to him and selected a random tie from the castaway collection on the bed. It was the same one he had been wearing. Gently, she wound it under his collar, and around his neck, securing it in a perfect Windsor. She had done this so many times before. She then placed both hands on his cheeks, cradling his face. “Look at me. Take a deep breath and stop fussing. This one is perfect. You look perfect. This part is a breeze. We both know you could act your way in and out of this paper bag with your eyes closed and your hands tied behind your back. You will get this role.”

He looked down into the loving eyes of the woman he had married at the height of his acting career. When he was a star. She loved him then and she loved him now when he couldn’t even land a gig hocking hemorrhoid cream. He’d been on hundreds of auditions since moving to this soulless town. And it was the same thing every time. Great job, great job. You look fantastic, really slimmed down, eh? We all loved you in that jungle movie. But, uh, unfortunately you’re just not right for this part. Better luck next time. And then there was always the final insult the Wait, before you go, do you think you could… He forced the humiliating images from his mind and focused on the beautiful woman looking up at him with nothing but love and support.

“God, I love you, woman. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Her eyes lit up and she snickered, “I suspect you’d just have to go tie-less.” She stood on tip toes and kissed the end of his nose.

“I really need this to happen.”

“I know.”

“No. I mean, I know you know, but I don’t know if I can keep doing this. I really need….”

“You’ve got this,” she interrupted, “You can do this. This is your movie already. But you have to actually get there on time to get it. I love you, always. No matter what. Now, get the heck outta here. You don’t want them waiting for you.”

He thought about it on his drive to the studio. She was right. It really was a paper bag worthy role – a paper bag shaped like a giant uterus wrapped in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. The story of a single guy raising his sister’s son after she dies tragically of cancer, the script actively made him cringe. It was contrived and sappy, the very best of what Lifetime Television drama for women had to offer. What could have been an utterly human, simple, raw portrayal of pain and love was none of those things. But the fact was, he needed the work. He needed to get his name back out there. It may have been a B movie, but at this point in his career his was almost certain that he had fallen off the letter scale entirely. He could do this. He would do this.

​He waited nervously in the hallway outside the audition room, pacing and mumbling lines under his breath. They’d sent him several scenes to look over and he’d memorized them all. After what seemed like forever, the door opened and a woman holding a clip board popped her head out.

​“Mr. Baloo? They’re ready for you.” He followed her in. The room was bare except for a long table at one end. Two men and another woman sat behind the table with piles of papers and multiple grande coffees spread out before them. The woman with the clipboard shut the door behind him and took her place with the others.

​“Hello. I’m Jeanine, the casting director. To my left is Michael Sims, our producer, Christopher Moss, the writer, and Susan Duran, our director. Today we would like you to read for us the flashback scene of Mark returning from work and Lisa telling him she needs him to take Danny because she isn’t going to make it. Here.” She gestured at some papers in front of her.

​“That’s ok. I’ve memorized it.”

​“Excellent. When you’re ready.”

​He turned his back on them and closed his eyes. He inhaled.

Exhaled.

Inhaled.

Exhaled.

He turned around and opened his eyes.

“Lisa, no. I’m not taking, Danny. I’m saying no and no and no again. Not because I don’t love you and not because I don’t love Danny. There are no words for how much I love the two of you. You are my little sister. I’ve looked after you our whole lives. I will never, ever stop looking after you. But I’m not taking him. I’m saying no because you are not going to die. You can’t die. You can’t leave me and Danny here alone. We need you. You are the only thing that keeps us together. You’re the glue, Lis. You’re the glue. We can’t do this without you. So you have to fight. You have to fight this. Please, Lis, please. Don’t give up.” He didn’t realize it, but he had fallen to his knees and he was crying. “Please,” he whispered, “please.”

For several long moments, the room was silent except for the sounds of his choppy breathing. He gathered himself, stood up and dried his tears.

“Thank you,” he addressed the panel. “I really appreciate this opportunity.”

“A moment please.” The fours heads leaned towards each other and began whispering frantically behind hands raised to cover their mouths.

Baloo stood before them awaiting their verdict. He had nailed it. He knew it. He had just given what was probably the best audition of his life. His heart was thumping so hard and fast he was certain they could hear it from across the room. This was his moment. This was it. Finally, this was it. He couldn’t wait to tell his wife. God, he loved that woman.

Jeanine stood up.

“Mr. Baloo, that was wonderful, absolutely wonderful! We are very impressed and knew we would be as we’ve all seen your previous work. You were fantastic in that jungle movie. You really are very talented. Unfortunately,” she paused and Baloo felt his heart contract, “you’re just not right for this role. Thank you so much for your time and we will certainly keep you in mind if anything suitable comes up.”

“Thank you,” he said with great calm and composure, “it was a pleasure.” He turned towards the door. He was numb. He could no longer feel his heart beating in his chest. He could no longer feel anything. The world narrowed down to the ten steps between himself and the exit. Ten steps. He could do that. He could nail those ten steps. He could act as though none of this mattered, as though this was just another day in the life of a Hollywood actor for ten more steps.

“Oh, Mr. Baloo! One more thing…” Jeanine called out. “As I said, we’ve all seen and admired your previous work. Do you think, before you go, you could do that dance for us? The one from the movie?”

Baloo looked back at them for long seconds.

“Sure. Why not.” He grabbed the ends of the subtle yet striking tie his loving wife had knotted in a perfect Windsor and slowly pulled it free of his collar as he began humming.

“Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. Forget about your worries and your strife. I mean, the bare necessities, old Mother Nature’s recipes, that bring the bare necessities of life…”

#iwrotethis #career #failure #everythingieverwanted #hopes and dreams #life goals

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/14-ways-to-make-journaling-one-of-the-best-things-you-do-in-2018/

14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018

@MagdalenaRikanovic

The list of successful and wise and brilliant people who made time to journal is almost unbelievable: Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, John Quincy Adams, Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Joan Didion. And those are just the people we know about, who talked about it, who didn’t ask that their journals be burned upon their death. Why were they so dedicated to this daily exercise? It was because, to paraphrase Susan Sontag, in a journal they were able not simply to express themselves openly, but in those pages, they were able to create themselves. I like Kafka’s observation about his own practice:

“In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance.”

But of course, there is often a big difference between doing something and doing something well. If you’ve struggled to journal, or had trouble seeing much in the way of results, don’t despair. It’s a habit that many have trouble getting to stick. The following tips and best practices should help. They certainly have for me.

***

[*] Set a Time — The Stoics believed that the two best times for reflection were in the morning and evening: Prepare for the day ahead; Review the day that just passed. Marcus Aurelius likely wrote his famous Meditations in the morning, while Seneca seems to have preferred the evening. As he put it, “When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent…I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.” The lesson there is not that one or the other is better but that you need to set a time and make a practice of it. If you just do it whenever you feel like it, too often you will find that you don’t feel like it and it will not become a habit.

[*] Make Time — Tony Robbins once said, describing his morning routine, that there was no excuse for him not to find ten minutes each morning to meditate and prepare himself for the day ahead. “If you don’t have 10 minutes, you don’t have a life,” was how he put it. The issue is not whether you have time or not to journal, it’s whether you are willing to make time for journaling. Is there anything more important than taking time each day to clearly define what you want to accomplish, how you want to act, clear your mind and prepare yourself for the day ahead? Maybe you don’t have 10 minutes today. But surely you have five. Or one minute. Can you start with journaling for one minute tomorrow morning?

[*] No Pressure. Just Write. — The great General George C. Marshall refused to keep a diary during World War II despite the requests of historians and friends. He worried that it would turn his quiet, reflective time into a sort of performance and self-deception. That he might second-guess difficult decisions out of concern for his reputation and future readers and warp his thinking based on how they would look. This was admirable, but most of us are not George Marshall. Don’t put the burden of history on yourself—safely assume that nobody will ever read what you are writing. Not even you. It’s about getting your thoughts on pages. As Tim Ferriss has described it, journaling is really about trapping your worries and fears on a page so you can get on with your day. To see things clearly and so that your worries don’t “bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.”

[*] Have Easy Things You Put In Each Entry — Another way to make journaling more fun is to jot down little things each day which are easy to do. I would write down each morning how far I walked, how far I swam or ran, one thing I am grateful for as well as how many hours of deep work I have done the previous day. There are like little throat clearers. It helps get me started. I never look at the blank page and think, “What should I say?” because I have a bunch of go-tos that I start almost without thinking. For instance, writer James Clear records his pushups and reading habits, Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman suggests keeping track of the decisions you’ve made in your journal, and the Quantified Self community uses all sorts of gizmos and gadgets to keep track of different metrics in their everyday life.

[*] Keep a Logbook — Bestselling author and artist Austin Kleon has talked about keeping a logbook—writing down each day a simple list of things that have occured. Who did he meet, what did he do, etc. Why? For the same reason many of us struggle with keeping a journal: “For one thing, I’m lazy. It’s easier to just list the events of the day than to craft them into a prose narrative. Any time I’ve tried to keep a journal, I ran out of steam pretty quick.” But this still has the effect of recording what he has done and paint a portrait of each day that he can flip back years later and see what his days were like. It’s easy enough to combine this strategy with the one above. If you’re having trouble starting a journal, don’t. Start with a logbook.

[*] Start Your Private Idea Book — Thomas Edison would keep a notebook titled “Private Idea Book” in which he kept different ideas that popped into his head, such as ‘artificial silk’ or ‘ink for the blind.’ This is similar to what bestselling author James Altucher does to exercise his “idea muscle.” He carries with him a waiter’s pad and forces himself to come up with at least ten ideas per day. Personally, I keep a separate journal I call a “commonplace book” that is a collection of quotes, ideas, stories and facts that I want to keep for later. I’m not the only one who does this. You can even look at the commonplace books of people like Lewis Carroll, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Jefferson.  

[*] Don’t Break The Chain — “I’ve tried journaling before but after a couple days I just stopped doing it.” The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once gave a young comic named Brad Isaac some advice about how to write and create material. Keep a calendar, he told him, and each day that you write jokes, put an X. Soon enough, you get a chain going— and then your job is to simply not break the chain. Success becomes a matter of momentum. Once you get a little, it’s easier to keep it going. Start journaling every day, build a chain and then work not to break it. Don’t ruin your streak.

[*] Be Grateful—For The Good and The Bad — One common journaling practice is to write down the things you are grateful for. And the candidates are usually pretty obvious: We should be grateful for our families, for our health, that we live in a time of peace. But what I’ve come to do is that now in the mornings, when I journal, I try to find ways to express gratitude not for the things that are easy to be grateful for, but for what is hard. The Stoics saw gratitude as a kind of medicine, that saying “Thank you” for every experience was the key to mental health. “Convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods,” Marcus Aurelius said, “that things are good and always will be.” No matter how poorly a situation went, or how a person treated you, find the good within them and what you can be grateful for.

[*] Develop a Shorthand — One trick that I’ve come to adopt is using little acronyms that only I know what they mean and that makes the practice more fun and efficient. For example, I’d write TAF (tired as fuck) when I am running myself ragged. This is something I saw bestselling author Robert Greene do—whenever he would encounter in a book an example that illustrates the Stoic concept of amor fati, he would write AF in the margins. I’ve come to use this both in my notecard system and now in my journaling practice. It helps speed the process up. Depending on how elaborate your shorthand becomes, you might accidentally end up like author Charles Wesley whose diary took nine years to be cracked by scholars because of its elaborate shorthand script.

[*] Unleash Your Creativity With Morning Pages — Back to the timing thing: Author Julia Cameron has become known in creative circles for her practice of Morning Pages. That is, writing three longhand stream-of-consciousness A4 pages early in the morning. Writer and producer Brian Koppelman (Billions, Rounders) has been one of the most vocal proponents of this practice and swears by it, saying he does it each morning, to get himself going creatively, “priming the pump, …getting the creative juices flowing in a very free way.” Other proponents include bestselling authors Oliver Burkeman and Tim Ferriss.

[*] Give Your Thoughts Room to Marinate — But evening pages work just as good. For instance, the founder of Linkedin, Reid Hoffman, jots down in his notebook things that he likes his mind to work on overnight. Similarly, chess prodigy and martial arts phenom Josh Waitzkin, has a similar process: “My journaling system is based around studying complexity. Reducing the complexity down to what is the most important question. Sleeping on it, and then waking up in the morning first thing and pre-input brainstorming on it. So I’m feeding my unconscious material to work on, releasing it completely, and then opening my mind and riffing on it.” By journaling questions and problems during the day, you can let your unconscious do the work and then you revisit first thing in the morning.

[*] Practice The Art of The Unsent Angry Letter — Whenever Abraham Lincoln felt a pang of anger towards someone, he would write them a letter…which he would then never send. He would “put it aside until his emotions cooled down,” as one historian explained. Your journal can similarly become an outlet for your emotions and feelings towards someone so you can then approach them in person in a calm and rational manner. Say the things, process the things that you would love to be able to say out loud but can’t or won’t. You’ll feel better—and you’ll always have something to say.

[*] Ask Yourself the Tough Questions — Journaling isn’t just about patting yourself on the back and listing all your accomplishments. I also think it’s important to wrestle with big questions and to hold yourself to account. When we created The Daily Stoic Journal, we added for each day a helpful prompt to provide guidance for the day’s reflection. These can sometimes be the tough but necessary questions you need to reflect and meditate upon. Some helpful examples: Where am I standing in my own way? What’s the smallest step I can take toward a big thing today? What blessings can I count right now? Why do I care so much about impressing people? What is the harder choice I’m avoiding? Do I rule my fears, or do they rule me? How will today’s difficulties show my character?  

***

The last tip is the most obvious one:

[*] Just Do It. — People tend to intimidate themselves about it: What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best journal? What time? How much? Forget all that. There’s no right way to do it. Just do it. You can use The Daily Stoic Journal or The 5 Minute Journal or The Bullet Journal or Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist Journal. Or the One Line A Day Journal. Or a blank notebook or an Evernote file or an email on your iPhone. Or use a combination of these things. It doesn’t matter. Just start. Refine and improve as you go. You’ll get into a rhythm and find what works best for you. You can only optimize if you actually start.

I remember visiting the filmmaker Casey Neistat’s studio and seeing shelves and shelves of notebooks on one wall. They dated back to the very beginning of his career. I felt an instant pang of regret—why hadn’t I been doing this?—and then reminded myself that although the best time to start journaling would have been years ago, the second best time would be right then. So I did. If you want to get a chain going, start to day.

Good luck and happy journaling!

And if you want to try The Daily Stoic Journal (which is built around these principles), it’s available on Amazon in the US and the UK.

#Happiness

[foursprout-blog]

14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/14-ways-to-make-journaling-one-of-the-best-things-you-do-in-2018/

14 Ways To Make Journaling One Of The Best Things You Do In 2018

@MagdalenaRikanovic

The list of successful and wise and brilliant people who made time to journal is almost unbelievable: Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, John Quincy Adams, Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Joan Didion. And those are just the people we know about, who talked about it, who didn’t ask that their journals be burned upon their death. Why were they so dedicated to this daily exercise? It was because, to paraphrase Susan Sontag, in a journal they were able not simply to express themselves openly, but in those pages, they were able to create themselves. I like Kafka’s observation about his own practice:

“In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance.”

But of course, there is often a big difference between doing something and doing something well. If you’ve struggled to journal, or had trouble seeing much in the way of results, don’t despair. It’s a habit that many have trouble getting to stick. The following tips and best practices should help. They certainly have for me.

***

[*] Set a Time — The Stoics believed that the two best times for reflection were in the morning and evening: Prepare for the day ahead; Review the day that just passed. Marcus Aurelius likely wrote his famous Meditations in the morning, while Seneca seems to have preferred the evening. As he put it, “When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent…I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.” The lesson there is not that one or the other is better but that you need to set a time and make a practice of it. If you just do it whenever you feel like it, too often you will find that you don’t feel like it and it will not become a habit.

[*] Make Time — Tony Robbins once said, describing his morning routine, that there was no excuse for him not to find ten minutes each morning to meditate and prepare himself for the day ahead. “If you don’t have 10 minutes, you don’t have a life,” was how he put it. The issue is not whether you have time or not to journal, it’s whether you are willing to make time for journaling. Is there anything more important than taking time each day to clearly define what you want to accomplish, how you want to act, clear your mind and prepare yourself for the day ahead? Maybe you don’t have 10 minutes today. But surely you have five. Or one minute. Can you start with journaling for one minute tomorrow morning?

[*] No Pressure. Just Write. — The great General George C. Marshall refused to keep a diary during World War II despite the requests of historians and friends. He worried that it would turn his quiet, reflective time into a sort of performance and self-deception. That he might second-guess difficult decisions out of concern for his reputation and future readers and warp his thinking based on how they would look. This was admirable, but most of us are not George Marshall. Don’t put the burden of history on yourself—safely assume that nobody will ever read what you are writing. Not even you. It’s about getting your thoughts on pages. As Tim Ferriss has described it, journaling is really about trapping your worries and fears on a page so you can get on with your day. To see things clearly and so that your worries don’t “bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.”

[*] Have Easy Things You Put In Each Entry — Another way to make journaling more fun is to jot down little things each day which are easy to do. I would write down each morning how far I walked, how far I swam or ran, one thing I am grateful for as well as how many hours of deep work I have done the previous day. There are like little throat clearers. It helps get me started. I never look at the blank page and think, “What should I say?” because I have a bunch of go-tos that I start almost without thinking. For instance, writer James Clear records his pushups and reading habits, Nobel Prize winner Danny Kahneman suggests keeping track of the decisions you’ve made in your journal, and the Quantified Self community uses all sorts of gizmos and gadgets to keep track of different metrics in their everyday life.

[*] Keep a Logbook — Bestselling author and artist Austin Kleon has talked about keeping a logbook—writing down each day a simple list of things that have occured. Who did he meet, what did he do, etc. Why? For the same reason many of us struggle with keeping a journal: “For one thing, I’m lazy. It’s easier to just list the events of the day than to craft them into a prose narrative. Any time I’ve tried to keep a journal, I ran out of steam pretty quick.” But this still has the effect of recording what he has done and paint a portrait of each day that he can flip back years later and see what his days were like. It’s easy enough to combine this strategy with the one above. If you’re having trouble starting a journal, don’t. Start with a logbook.

[*] Start Your Private Idea Book — Thomas Edison would keep a notebook titled “Private Idea Book” in which he kept different ideas that popped into his head, such as ‘artificial silk’ or ‘ink for the blind.’ This is similar to what bestselling author James Altucher does to exercise his “idea muscle.” He carries with him a waiter’s pad and forces himself to come up with at least ten ideas per day. Personally, I keep a separate journal I call a “commonplace book” that is a collection of quotes, ideas, stories and facts that I want to keep for later. I’m not the only one who does this. You can even look at the commonplace books of people like Lewis Carroll, Walt Whitman, and Thomas Jefferson.  

[*] Don’t Break The Chain — “I’ve tried journaling before but after a couple days I just stopped doing it.” The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once gave a young comic named Brad Isaac some advice about how to write and create material. Keep a calendar, he told him, and each day that you write jokes, put an X. Soon enough, you get a chain going— and then your job is to simply not break the chain. Success becomes a matter of momentum. Once you get a little, it’s easier to keep it going. Start journaling every day, build a chain and then work not to break it. Don’t ruin your streak.

[*] Be Grateful—For The Good and The Bad — One common journaling practice is to write down the things you are grateful for. And the candidates are usually pretty obvious: We should be grateful for our families, for our health, that we live in a time of peace. But what I’ve come to do is that now in the mornings, when I journal, I try to find ways to express gratitude not for the things that are easy to be grateful for, but for what is hard. The Stoics saw gratitude as a kind of medicine, that saying “Thank you” for every experience was the key to mental health. “Convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods,” Marcus Aurelius said, “that things are good and always will be.” No matter how poorly a situation went, or how a person treated you, find the good within them and what you can be grateful for.

[*] Develop a Shorthand — One trick that I’ve come to adopt is using little acronyms that only I know what they mean and that makes the practice more fun and efficient. For example, I’d write TAF (tired as fuck) when I am running myself ragged. This is something I saw bestselling author Robert Greene do—whenever he would encounter in a book an example that illustrates the Stoic concept of amor fati, he would write AF in the margins. I’ve come to use this both in my notecard system and now in my journaling practice. It helps speed the process up. Depending on how elaborate your shorthand becomes, you might accidentally end up like author Charles Wesley whose diary took nine years to be cracked by scholars because of its elaborate shorthand script.

[*] Unleash Your Creativity With Morning Pages — Back to the timing thing: Author Julia Cameron has become known in creative circles for her practice of Morning Pages. That is, writing three longhand stream-of-consciousness A4 pages early in the morning. Writer and producer Brian Koppelman (Billions, Rounders) has been one of the most vocal proponents of this practice and swears by it, saying he does it each morning, to get himself going creatively, “priming the pump, …getting the creative juices flowing in a very free way.” Other proponents include bestselling authors Oliver Burkeman and Tim Ferriss.

[*] Give Your Thoughts Room to Marinate — But evening pages work just as good. For instance, the founder of Linkedin, Reid Hoffman, jots down in his notebook things that he likes his mind to work on overnight. Similarly, chess prodigy and martial arts phenom Josh Waitzkin, has a similar process: “My journaling system is based around studying complexity. Reducing the complexity down to what is the most important question. Sleeping on it, and then waking up in the morning first thing and pre-input brainstorming on it. So I’m feeding my unconscious material to work on, releasing it completely, and then opening my mind and riffing on it.” By journaling questions and problems during the day, you can let your unconscious do the work and then you revisit first thing in the morning.

[*] Practice The Art of The Unsent Angry Letter — Whenever Abraham Lincoln felt a pang of anger towards someone, he would write them a letter…which he would then never send. He would “put it aside until his emotions cooled down,” as one historian explained. Your journal can similarly become an outlet for your emotions and feelings towards someone so you can then approach them in person in a calm and rational manner. Say the things, process the things that you would love to be able to say out loud but can’t or won’t. You’ll feel better—and you’ll always have something to say.

[*] Ask Yourself the Tough Questions — Journaling isn’t just about patting yourself on the back and listing all your accomplishments. I also think it’s important to wrestle with big questions and to hold yourself to account. When we created The Daily Stoic Journal, we added for each day a helpful prompt to provide guidance for the day’s reflection. These can sometimes be the tough but necessary questions you need to reflect and meditate upon. Some helpful examples: Where am I standing in my own way? What’s the smallest step I can take toward a big thing today? What blessings can I count right now? Why do I care so much about impressing people? What is the harder choice I’m avoiding? Do I rule my fears, or do they rule me? How will today’s difficulties show my character?  

***

The last tip is the most obvious one:

[*] Just Do It. — People tend to intimidate themselves about it: What’s the best way to do it? What’s the best journal? What time? How much? Forget all that. There’s no right way to do it. Just do it. You can use The Daily Stoic Journal or The 5 Minute Journal or The Bullet Journal or Austin Kleon’s Steal Like an Artist Journal. Or the One Line A Day Journal. Or a blank notebook or an Evernote file or an email on your iPhone. Or use a combination of these things. It doesn’t matter. Just start. Refine and improve as you go. You’ll get into a rhythm and find what works best for you. You can only optimize if you actually start.

I remember visiting the filmmaker Casey Neistat’s studio and seeing shelves and shelves of notebooks on one wall. They dated back to the very beginning of his career. I felt an instant pang of regret—why hadn’t I been doing this?—and then reminded myself that although the best time to start journaling would have been years ago, the second best time would be right then. So I did. If you want to get a chain going, start to day.

Good luck and happy journaling!

And if you want to try The Daily Stoic Journal (which is built around these principles), it’s available on Amazon in the US and the UK.

#Happiness

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/cate-blanchetts-manifesto-new-radical-burning-sands-intensify-day-6-sundance/

Cate Blanchett's 'Manifesto,' 'New Radical,' 'Burning Sands' intensify day 6 Sundance

The word ‘truth’ has suddenly taken on a new meaning in today’s America, and this has made many of the films shown at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival feel very timely. Of course, they were filmed before President Donald Trump brought in ‘fake news’ and ‘alternate facts,’ but the choices made for screening feel so on track with today, nonetheless.

Al Gore couldn’t have timed his sequel to An Inconvenient Truth better now that we have a president who feels that climate change is a hoax created by China and Adama Bhala Lough’s The New Radical hits the mark with the internet becoming such a political minefield. Day 6 at Sundance continues to bring out some great and conversation worthy films.

MANIFESTO

In her latest film, Cate Blanchett plays a choreographer. And also a puppeteer. And also a schoolteacher, a scientist, a newscaster, a punk rocker, a day trader — and shall we go on? Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto demands 13 different parts from virtuoso Blanchett, who takes on different accents, costumes, and makeup for each. It’s a remarkable feat of acting, but equally remarkable is the text that she’s serving. Each of the 13 characters represents and recites a distinct and canny collage of 20th-century art manifestos, from pop art to Fluxus, Dadaism to film, and each episode is set against a unique and provocative Berlin environment. After appearing as an art installation, most recently at the Armory in New York City, Rosefeldt refashioned the project as a feature film, which debuted at the Festival on Monday afternoon at the Library Theatre.

“I didn’t cast Cate Blanchett for this project,” Rosefeldt said during the post-screening Q&A. “We ran into each other six years ago at an art opening of my work, and we started to talk. She said, ‘Why don’t we do something together?’ You can imagine my reaction. It took me another two and a half years until we finally started to talk about Manifesto. The only thing I told Cate is that she would do many characters. We bargained — she said, ‘Can we do six or seven?’ And I said, ‘Can you do twenty?’ We ended up with thirteen. We had two weeks to shoot this — it was a fantastic trip. And now I believe she could do Mike Tyson.”

Rosefeldt spoke of the verve and passion of the manifestos chosen for the script and offered up an interesting context for texts from artists and thinkers such as John Reed, Dziga Vertov, Paul Eluard, André Breton, and Lars von Trier. “I’m an artist myself, and I know that what we say, we don’t always mean it that seriously,” he said. “Keep in mind that these texts were written when the artists had hardly left their parents’ house — they were 21, 22. And at that time of your life, you’re very insecure. You’re trying to tell yourself who you are and what you stand for. And because you’re insecure you shout very loudly, and with all this anger. You pretend to have a lot of security, but you actually don’t.”

The director talked about the various ways in which he matched text with character and location. Sometimes it was about finding a contemporary analogue — the hyperspeed of online trading with futurism, for example. And sometimes it was pairing opposites, with a traditional nuclear family reciting Claes Oldenburg’s funny and profane “I Am for an Art …” at dinnertime prayer. “You put two elements together that aren’t necessarily friends and then you see what the chemistry does,” he said. Rosefeldt admitted that of all of the texts, he felt most closely aligned with Jim Jarmusch’s ironically titled “Golden Rules of Filmmaking.” Jarmusch’s slogan “Nothing Is Original,” as well as the notion that all art borrows from other art, is a useful guide to “the basic spirit of the entire thing,” he said of Manifesto, “and of life itself.”

THE NEW RADICAL: EXPLORING THE WORLD OF INTERNET ANARCHISTS

As could be expected, one of the most incendiary films of the Festival made for a fascinating piece of post-screening theater. U.S. Documentary Competition candidate The New Radical surveys a new generation of internet vanguards, particularly the savvy, now-28 year-old provocateur Cody Wilson, notorious for making plans for “The Liberator” 3D printable gun available for download, as well as for co-founding Dark Wallet, a bank-skirting Bitcoin app that allows users to make transactions out of sight.

After the screening, director Adam Bhala Lough was joined by co-editor Alex Lee Moyer and Cody Wilson himself, who effortlessly seized the spotlight and expounded upon views of the internet that alternated between idealistic and apocalyptic. After bizarrely fielding questions about his favorite books and recommended places to visit in the Washington, D.C., area, he was finally outright asked what he’s trying to accomplish with his government-goading libertarian initiatives.

“With 3D-printed guns, we really believe that the internet means that one day you’re going to be able to download a gun,” he said. “It was like a proof of concept. So the materials are inadequate — so what? Give us a little time. I never wanted to be just the guy that put the gun online; I just believe in this alternative method of politics.

I believe that in order to create right now we must destroy.”

Lough said it’s a question he posed many, many times throughout the making of the film. “What’s the end goal? They were never able to succinctly illustrate it for me,” he said, which he attributed to the youth of Wilson and his associates. “When we started, Cody was like 24. He’s still figuring his shit out. So to a certain degree, he created this monster, The Liberator specifically, and had to figure out along the way, what is the goal?”

Wilson was asked a series of hypothetical questions, such as his comfort with disseminating nuclear plans and making guns downloadable for children, each resulting in a kind of Socratic exchange regarding access, freedom, and inevitability.

“Isn’t it the purpose of government to protect its citizens?” one woman from the audience asked.

“I think the purpose of this government is to secure the liberties of those governed,” Wilson responded.

“That sounds the same to me,” the woman said.

“We can disagree,” he said.

“You have to stick to your principles,” Lough said. “Freedom of information, free speech, is so vital that in this case, no matter how ugly it sounds — and I don’t want my kids going onto the Internet printing guns, and I won’t let them — but I still think we need the right to be able to make those choices for ourselves. I’ll stand by that, and I stood by that in making this film.”

REBEL IN THE RYE: INSIDE THE LIFE OF J.D. SALINGER

The story of how mythic writer J. D. Salinger came to create The Catcher in the Rye, considered by many to be the great American novel, gets a glossy cinematic telling in Rebel in the Rye, the feature debut from Danny Strong. The director-screenwriter draws parallels between Salinger’s life and how it shaped the creation of Holden Caulfield, his iconic outspoken character who continues to cast his spell on readers to this day.

We’re introduced to Jerome David Salinger (Nicholas Hoult) as a young man at odds with his privileged life in New York City. Despite pressure from his father (Victor Garber) to go into the family business and become “the king of bacon,” his mother (Hope Davis) is more sympathetic to nurturing her son’s burgeoning writing talent. Jerry, as he’s called, enrolls in a writing program at Columbia University, where his smart mouth draws both the ire and admiration of instructor Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey, wringing every ounce of humor, and later pathos, he can find in the character). Burnett, the editor of Story magazine, which launched many iconic 20th-century writers, becomes a mentor to Salinger and encourages him to create a novel around Holden Caulfield, a character in one of his unpublished short stories.

Before this can happen, Salinger is sent to Europe to fight during World War II. He’s deeply affect by the atrocities he witnesses there and returns to the states at the end of the war with PTSD, which makes simple social activities a challenge for the war vet. Salinger funnels all of his frustrations with life and love into the creation of Caulfield, a new protagonist for post-war America. When Catcher is published, it becomes a sensation and Salinger’s life becomes challenging.

Since Salinger became perhaps literature’s most notorious recluse, Hoult doesn’t have to compete with video memories of the author. The photogenic actor offers a compelling turn that helps anchor the movie and hold viewer interest even when the film falls prey to some biopic conventions.

During the post-screening Q&A, Hoult told the audience he didn’t know much about Salinger prior to the project. “But speaking with Danny and reading his script, I was blown away by everything he experienced and the work he created,” he shared. “Reading more about it, I was blown away by how autobiographical his work was when you line it up with his life.”

Strong said he wanted to make this film partly because he was intrigued by the fact that Salinger “created a masterpiece that changed the world” out of the most extreme trauma a person could suffer: fighting in World War II and witnessing the atrocities of the Holocaust.

If you’re a Salinger fan, take note that this film is likely as close as you’ll ever get to seeing Caulfield on screen. Salinger thought his writing was unfilmable, and he was likely correct. An early short story was turned into a teary Susan Hayward melodrama that the writer reportedly loathed.

BURNING SANDS: FRATERNITY PLEDGING COMES AT A HIGH COST

A group of students at a historically black university learn that pledging a fraternity comes at too high a cost in Burning Sands, from new director Gerard McMurray. With a producing credit on the 2013 Sundance Film Festival breakout Fruitvale Station, McMurray makes his feature directorial debut with a screenplay he co-wrote with Christine Berg, and he dives right into the vicious hazing rituals during the opening scenes.

At fictional Frederick Douglass University, freshman Zurich (charismatic newcomer Trevor Jackson) has the respect of his teachers, including Professor Hughes (Alfre Woodard, in basically a cameo), but his studies and his relationship with his girlfriend (Imani Hakim) take a hit after he pledges Lambda Phi. It’s the fraternity his father had sought to join as a student before dropping out before Hell Week, so Z’s determination to succeed is strong enough to endure an almost incapacitating injury and make it through Hell Week at any cost.

If you’ve seen other fraternity-set dramas, such as last year’s much more brutal Goat, you can likely guess where this will go. Still, McMurray’s direction builds sufficient tension and he injects welcome comedic relief, particularly with the introduction of female characters.

Speaking at the Q&A that followed the premiere, McMurray revealed he’d pledged a fraternity at an all-black university, and the idea for the film came because he wanted to explore the culture of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) and the various subcultures within that world.

Rap artist Common, who has a producing credit on the film, was effusive in praising McMurray. “Gerard showed the diversity of who we are as black people, because each character represented different things,” he said, adding, “that brotherhood is something we don’t usually see in films.”

THE FORCE: ‘THE WIRE’ OF DOCUMENTARIES

Inspired in part by the hit series The Wire, director Peter Nicks began a series of documentaries exploring the institutions of the city of Oakland, California, back in 2012 with The Waiting Room, which tackled the issue of health care. He brought his second film in the series to the Sundance Film Festival this year, this time covering the city’s notorious police department.

Nicks and his team followed the police department for two years beginning in 2014, getting more than 250 hours of footage to make this complex vérité documentary. When they started, the Oakland force had already been under federal oversight for more than 10 years because of abuses and misconduct, and it still hadn’t fulfilled the requirements to regain full control.

At the outset of the project, the director knew that this was a topic on many people’s minds, but he had no idea how much the issue would explode across the nation over the course of filming.

“This was a really challenging project and process for myself personally and for my team, as we were jumping into maybe one of the most divisive issues of this city in quite some time. We began the project really wanting to understand who the men and women were on the front lines of an institution that was really being called to task, and start a national conversation. But we began the project before Black Lives Matter was even a hashtag. So the ground shifted significantly as we approached the film.”

Nicks wanted to show both the officers and activists as more than simple “two-dimensional portraits without context.” The film team aimed to “[frame] the city in a new way that brings people together” instead of encouraging divisiveness.

As we watch a new chief making a commitment to true reform, the audience feels hope for change. After new disheartening scandals, we watch Mayor Libby Schaaf ruthlessly oust those who have violated the public’s trust, attempting to squash out all the misconduct. But eventually we see that the problems run deep, and they’re embedded into the super-macho culture of the profession. In fact, when the film team already had an initial cut of the film, yet another scandal broke in 2016, this time allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor, and the team had to rethink what their story was going to look like.

At a screening during the Festival, the filmmakers gave some updates on what has happened since they wrapped. Most notable was the news that Oakland had hired a new police chief, the first female chief in the history of the department. With a slew of other women leading the city — including the mayor, her chief of staff, the city administrator, and the fire chief — many are looking forward to seeing whether the deep-seated macho culture of the police department can truly be reformed.

Nicks hinted at a third film in the series, and though he didn’t give any details, he revealed that we could look forward to seeing some of the same subjects from the second installment returning to the screen.

Movie TV Tech Geeks News

#Al Gore #Burning Sands #Featured #Manifesto #New Radical #Sundance Film Festival