#it just means so much to me: Marc getting some support both from the system and from Cap

[luxshine]

Moon Knight Primer, part 5

Punisher Annual 2, Marc Spector: Moon Knight (1989) #1-60, Spectacular Spiderman #353 – 358

Prologue

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

The PAIN people, the PAIN.

Can you imagine a Moon Knight run without ANY mention to the Alters, the System, Khonshu, or any of the supporting cast with the exception of Frenchie and Marlene? Because that’s what we got here.

The first problem is the writer. While Chuck Dixon has a long, long list of previous works that prove that the man knows how to write a comic, he is also self-described as “Slightly Right from Ghengis Khan” so in his 24 issue run? He pretty much disregards EVERYTHING about Moon Knight as a social warrior who fights for those who are left behind by society and instead puts him fighting against black terrorists, Muslims, and Latin American cartels.  Also, we never find out if he even cared to read the old issues of Moon Knight as there’s literally not a single mention of the System in any of the 24 issues. Not even a “well, I created these identities to help me and I went a bit insane”.

So I am going to do a fast run on what was good and bad of the series, especially once Dixon left and we had some more capable (And less fascist) writers on deck. Although there was not much good here.

Oh, we started with the Punisher Annual as part of a crossover named Atlantis Attack? But it was nothing to write home about as since it was a Punisher book, we don’t even get to see who fronted at the time.  I assumed Marc because, well, Marc pretty much fronted the whole time because the writers even forgot that at times Moon Knight was a separate alter.

It is THAT bad.

I mean, just for starters? Frenchie wants to kill people and think Marc  not wanting to kill people is Marc going soft.  Because there are people who deserve getting killed. Marlene is back, as Marc’s girlfriend, and her ex-husband is never ever mentioned again because Dixon didn’t read Fist of Khonshu. And we get the origin again because of course, Bushman has to be the first villain. And it took literally 19 pages of the first issue for Marlene to get back on the “BUT WHY do you have to be Moon Knight and help people?!” train. 19 pages. And here she is a gold digger who only gets placated when Marc gives her his gold card so she can buy herself whaever she wants.

Chuck Dixon, writer of great women… NOT.

We also begin the… I want to say “heroification”, of Marc Spector begins. I mean, previously, no writer shied away from the fact that yes, Marc had been a mercenary, and he had killed innocents only for money and thus, a lot of his work as Moon Knight was a sort of atonement.  But here, Marlene, of ALL PEOPLE, tell Marc that sure, he was a merc, but neither he nor Frenchie were “doing it for the money” but usually worked “for the losing side” because it was a ”more noble battle” than what Marc is doing as Moon Knight.

YES, that is how  far right Chuck Dixon is: Killing innocents for money is more noble than helping people escape gang life.  (Oh, and Black African countries were sub-civilized and black rulers decided just to kill AIDS patients because they’re evil and that was the cure )

Now, I am not going to spend more on this than what I need to for the basics so, quick points: In 60 issues? We get TWO, yes, TWO mentions of the Alters. BOTH during nightmareish moments were Moon Knight is losing his humanity and becoming a demon, both around the end of the run. Other than that? Not a single peep. And they only speak in ONE of the nightmare moments. So in the sense of representation? This is probably the worst Moon Knight run. (I mean, it IS the worst Moon Knight run in general, but at least it doesn’t go the “evil” alter controls Moon Knight route?)

At some point, because Dixon forgot he was writing Moon Knight and not Batman, he introduces Anton Mogart (Midnight)’s son, Jeff Wilde, who is obsessed with being Moon Knight’s Sidekick and Tim Drake was popular. Unfortunately, Jeff is no Tim Drake, and after being annoying for 10 issues, he gets kidnapped, experimented on and turned into a cyborg by the evil Secret Empire and…. That particular Arc gets resolved in Spectacular Spider-man 353-358 because absolutely no one who followed Dixon’s run cared any about Midnight II. Although it's funny to see Marc claiming that Moon Knight works solo… In front of Frenchie. And ignores Crawley, Gena, Gena’s kids and Marlene. Oh, and the fact that in a few issues after Dixon is gone? We’ll get introduced to the Shadow Cabinet, a group of about 10 people who now do Jake Lockley’s job of getting information for Moon Knight (which costs Marc a pretty penny when it’d be a lot cheaper to pay Crawley and get into a cab)

Dixon ignores Marc’s strength growing with the moon, and thus no writer that followed him remembered so we have NO idea how he lost that power since that came BEFORE Khonshu possessed him in West Coast Avengers.

Khonshu finally gets a mention in issue eleven, as “the Moldy Egypcian God” who resurrected Marc, and a little later Moon Knight is called Khonshu by African natives because “their priestess saw a vision” and it is very telling how Dixon only allows black people to believe in pagan gods. It isn’t until AFTER Dixon leaves when Marc starts praying to Khonshu again, and we get something interesting done with the God, even if he is still not back on Earth. Around issue 23, Marc seemed to remember his faith on Khonshu and started saying that the god found his enemies lacking but… it feels a lot like lip service after so many bad issues.

But when Dixon leaves, Howard Mackie comes in for a bit and introduces the very interesting concept of the Knights of Khonshu, a modern sect that follows the god and hates Moon Knight as they see him as a fake, an impostor and some, one who must die in the name of the True Avatar of the God. This is at first a one issue, interrupted by the very good but incredibly weird J.M. De Matteis run that deals with the now telepathic and pyrokinetic Stained Glass Scarlet, but it makes Marc start doubting if Khonshu is really a good God, given that the cult are quite extremists and tend to work with terrorists.

And here is where the ONLY interesting thing that the Marc Spector: Moon Knight series did with the character happens: On one hand we have the retcon that Marc wasn't always at odds with Rabbi Spector. In fact, we’re now told that he WANTED to be a Rabbi like his dad when he was younger (This is on the De Matteis run, that has a LOT, and I mean a LOT of images where Khonshu turns into Rabbi Spector and vice versa). On the other… Randall Spector is back, as part of the Knights of Khonshu.

Because see, the crazy Hatchet was NOT Randall, but a vagrant brainwashed and made to look like Randall, in order to test Marc since Randall HAD been at the Seti tomb at the same time as Marc because he had been at the camp where Bushman and Marc had their first fight, and was convinced that Marc wanted to kill him, as, again, they were both mercenaries because, get this, Marc was following on Randall’s footsteps! Yep, good ol’ Randall was the one who convinced Marc to become a mercenary. Once in the tomb, he saw Marc’s resurrection, and went to the statue to beg for a chance to redeem himself, but was ignored by Khonshu. Thus, he stole a papyri and hooked up with the head priestess of the cult of Khonshu who told him that, if he killed Marc, then he’d be the real Moon Knight as long as the killing was done under a full moon and a very specific star configuration. Oh, and he gets made immune to pain, and calls himself Shadow Knight. During the fight, Randall hits Marc on the chest, and thus, gives him a moon crescent scar.

Also, it is weird to see them fighting “for the power of Khonshu” as at that moment? Marc has absolutely no superpowers. Like, none at all.

Of course, Marc wins, and Randall dies, AGAIN. But here’s the really interesting part: Once he beats Randall, Marc suddenly gains the (never used again) ability to read hyerogliphics as if they were English. And so, grabbing the papyr that Randall stole, he realizes that all this time, he’s been wrong: Khonshu is not the god of Vengance. He is the god of Justice. And thus, he decides to continue fighting for his god, under a new mission.

And then everything else in the series gets into a very bad case of the nineties so it’s a pain to read. I mean, Frenchie happens to be the last descendant of a Templar family who can bring on his ancestors into his body to fight for him. Marc first gets infected by the Demogoblin (the hobgoblin most demonic face created during Inferno) and turned into a demon, then cured with mystic surgery courtesy of Reed Richards and Dr. Strange, then discovers he IS half demon, descendant from a man who happens to look just like him, but calls himself Seth the Immortal. And TEN issues after that reveal? Marc dies killing Seth, and I am convinced he committed suicide just to get out of this horrible mess of a series (I mean, the art alone? Would make even Rob Liefeld weep)

Seriously, the only worthwhile thing in 60 issues is “Khonshu is not the god of Vengance, he is the god of Justice”.

And thankfully, in 1998, a new mini would come to erase all that was said here.

But that will be Part 6 because right now, I need a drink and I don’t drink!

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Marc Spector Moon Knight #Marc Spector #Steven Grant #Jake Lockley #Frenchie #Marlene Alaraune #Khonshu

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

I posted 1,770 times in 2022

That's 1,770 more posts than 2021!

137 posts created (8%)

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I tagged 1,241 of my posts in 2022

Only 30% of my posts had no tags

#moon knight - 210 posts

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Longest Tag: 138 characters

#someone asked me a moon knight question the other day and i just stood there staring at them trying to decide how much i was going to give

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Oh no. I’m back. And I didn’t shut up for 9 pages. I’m sorry. 

Moon Knight. A commentary on mental illness and able-ism? 

I’m not going to dive into the comics because we have…..YEARS of content to unpack there with every single writer. But I am going to brush on it just a little. This is going to be mostly about the show. 

I’m going to preface this by saying that everyone’s experience in anything is going to be different. We are, after all, individuals. You can give the same diagnosis to five different people, and while they will have some overlapping similarities, they will all experience it differently. Honestly, the same goes for any type of handicap, mental illness, religion, autism, or any sort of neurodivergent person. Which is both wonderful and oftentimes frustrating. One person can point at something and scream how wrong it is and toxic, while another will point and say “I feel seen! At last!” We just have to keep in mind that maybe both perspectives are right. Which is hard to do, but all we can do is try. 

Let’s start with the abuse. Wait, let’s go further back. Let’s start with the absolute neglect that was given to Wendy. 

I am not here to apologize for her. She was monstrous and cruel and 100% a destructive force… But what was done to help her in the start? What was done to stop her from taking it out on Marc? 

A mother that just lost her child is in pain and mourning. We see a glimpse of people sitting around, but no one is actually talking to her. Where is her support network? Where are the family and friends? Where is the culture? Where is the Rabbi? If she was not Jewish, or considered a convert, let’s assume the father has his own cultural support. So where is his support? Why is he not grieving with his wife? 

She starts to scream and blame Marc for the loss of her son and the smallest effort is made to stop her. More so, no one follows Marc up the stairs to comfort him. A child that just lost his baby brother. A child that was there and witnessed the drowning of his baby brother. A child that probably just barely escaped death himself. 

There is a lack of a support system. A lack of grief counseling. A lack of spousal support. A lack of spiritual help. A lack of community. 

She sank into alcohol and while we see the father trying to give Marc a normal life of birthday parties and so on, it all feels forced. Nothing is wrong here. Why can’t you just be normal and happy? There is nothing wrong with the family. Your mother doesn’t mean those things she says. She’s just sad sometimes. 

Wendy is spiraling down and at most the husband is a small voice in the background asking her to please get over it. Please don’t do this. Don’t make a scene. 

As a child watching this, you don’t understand why it is happening. This isn’t supposed to happen. Adults are invulnerable. They have all the answers. They are supposed to make things better. The only logical conclusion that can be made is that it is your fault. If you didn’t exist they could be happier. They wouldn’t be so sad. None of this would have happened. 

Next we see a very good example of looking the other way. She starts to beat him. She would have left marks. Using a belt with that much pent up rage, she would not have been careful to only hit so it won’t show. Unless he was dissociating so hard that completely tuned it out, he would have had defensive marks that first time. Hands up, curling up in a little ball to protect himself if she had let him. She might have grabbed his wrists to prevent him from curling up. She would have left bruises there. 

Did the father not notice? Marc would have been too scared to have told him. It was ingrained too much in him that it was his fault and that he deserved this. He wouldn’t have told anyone. But someone would have seen the marks. Over and over again. 

Now we have the failure of a society to talk about or question what was happening at home. A thing that still very very much happens. Why is the kid acting out? Why are they suddenly quiet and submissive? Why are they getting into fights? Clearly they are just a bad child and nothing is going on at home except for a lack of discipline. The school calls up “Hey Marc got into another fight. He’s failing math. He needs more structure at home.” 

This leads to more beatings. 

I wish we had seen more of his interactions with his father. The one scene we got was “Why haven’t you?” as his father begs him not to leave. The one time Marc questions why his father hasn’t done anything to help him or help his mother. 

My personal head canon is that Marc has very little memories from around this time. Especially around his father. Giving his time to Steven, dissociating, and possibly the emergence of Jake all scrambled his memories. I believe that Marc reached a point where he took too much from his mother and that Jake came during a very dark time for the system. Possibly in a psychiatric ward. Possibly during a break down. Possibly in dealing with his father’s failure to properly identify the problem and further putting it on Marc instead of Wendy. I think Jake’s demons lay in facing his father and the lack of proper help and protection Marc was offered. But none of that is solid or supported by the show. Just my own two cents. 

Next we go into the military. Cause they’ve never failed to identify mental illness and give support, right? HA. 

Marc is good at hiding his problems. Scarily good. Going with the show, he’s very very good at masking his autism. Honestly, he takes things at face value, likes structure, and doesn’t understand exaggerations. Of course he thrives in the military. He’s good at it and picks it up. He makes it his drive to understand weapons and fighting. He mostly has Steven figured out at this point. Steven is a switch he can turn on when he feels overwhelmed emotionally. He isn’t going to have that in the military. He has control. He is a picture of perfect cool. 

Except when he isn’t. Marc has anger problems. He is still overwhelmed by other emotions. He has self worth problems. He probably wakes up at night cringing and defending himself from his mother. 

I’m going to go off on a small tangent for a moment, but please hang in there. I met a guy in college who wanted to be a nurse. He was so happy and bouncy and bubbly. A huge buff man that worked out with muscles for days. He was ex army and covered in tattoos. 

He had to give a presentation on something personal and he gave one on PTSD. Now, we all knew he was a former army and had seen action. We all figured “Ah, PTSD from the army guy. He must have seen some fights!” 

His presentation started with how one quiet night he was on guard duty. He got up to check on a weapons shed. He reached up to turn on the light and he was suddenly a small boy again seeing his mother’s hand come flying towards his face. He started having panic attacks, night terrors, and would freeze up in routine situations. He had blocked out the years of abuse his mother had done to him. It all came flying back to him because he got up one night and turned on a light. 

How often do you think Marc would hear someone bang on a door and kick start his fight or flight response? How many times do you think he would start to dissociate because he could hear running water?  

I believe that the only time Marc had full control of himself was in the heat of battle. He could focus on the battle. On getting through. He could feel alive and ignore anything else. He could focus his unchecked rage. He could ignore any pain in the heat of the moment. I think it was when things calmed down and were quiet and he was left to his own thoughts that things got bad for him. 

I think Marc’s own problems started to get in the way. Dissociating, losing time, wandering off because he can’t handle the clam and quiet. Moments where perhaps Steven would come to the surface for just a bit. Moments where Jake might have had to take over because Marc was too lost in his own head. Jake would have had to learn to fight just to get them through. I can imagine the first time Jake was dropped into the middle of some fire fight. The absolute sheer terror and determination to get them out of there. 

So of course Marc gets kicked out. A fugue state. They don’t want to deal with that. Forget sending him to counseling. He came in already broken. It isn’t their fault he can’t handle it like everyone else.  Marc wouldn’t talk to a counselor anyway. He’s been trained not to talk. To put on the mask and make it all fine. 

There is no fall back as a mercenary. No therapy or ‘hey you okay?’. You fight and hope you don’t fall behind and that you get paid. 

I’m not going to get into Khonshu. We all know what he did. His manipulation and using Marc’s problems against him. 

See the full post

231 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

#4

Jake meta? On MY dashboard? More likely than you think. 

Been thinking a lot lately on when and how Jake was most likely formed as an alter. 

Sure, I enjoy the idea of him coming in later. After all, Steven is the first one Marc knows. We get to see when Steven shows up. He was pretty young. He grew up with Steven and doesn’t know Jake. 

I like the idea of Jake coming in during Marc’s early teen years when he starts to have problems with his father. Perhaps when he is sent to a psychiatric hospital or dealing with a bad therapist. Jake is the protector after all. He’d step in to help Marc out with this different type of trauma and pain. 

Or perhaps Jake was formed in the military. Marc had an off day, dissociated during a bad time and needed saving. Or even during the mercenary times during a tight spot. 

But judging from Jake’s gloves showing up in Cairo, the fact that I really think Jake was playing a part in the alps while fighting the village, and Jake’s Jakeness… Jake has been around for a while. He isn’t a ‘new’ alter that was formed during the show’s run. 

I want to propose a different option, just to explore it a little. I don’t know if anyone else has tossed this out there yet, but here it is. 

Jake was formed in the cave. 

DID is caused by intense trauma. Trauma that they could not handle and needed a different way to deal with. A way to protect themselves. 

So let’s look at their unique positions. Marc is a trauma holder. Possibly other positions too, but he holds the most traumatic memories. He remembers going into the cave. He remembers his mother beating him. He remembers bad things in the military/mercenary days. But he also admits that his memory is pretty fractured up. 

We don’t know how much Steven remembers of their childhood or growing up. We don’t know how much of what he remembers is real. We also don’t know if Steven was always active. There’s a good chance Steven went dormant during the military/mercenary years.   

What we do know is that Steven was formed a few years (1 or 2 judging from the birthday scenes) after his brother died. 

Marc was already sensitive. He was already traumatized. He had been belittled and emotionally abused for some time. Steven isn’t formed until Marc breaks down at the dichotomy of a mother he wants and a mother he has that wants to hurt him and needs someone there to take care of him. He needs someone to be hopeful and happy. He is always aware of Steven. He looks to Steven as an emotional protector. Someone to remind him why he lives. 

But what about the trauma that set it all off? The trauma of being in charge of protecting his little brother and failing? The trauma of telling him that it would be alright and then having to watch him die? The trauma of almost dying himself? 

A protector that failed. A protector that lost his only charge. 

Steven is there to guard Marc emotionally. We see this strongest when he breaks down in the street and can’t handle everything that comes with his mother’s death. Steven is there when Marc can’t be. He’s there to guide Marc and comfort him. To protect him when he’s vulnerable. To challenge bad claims and step up when Marc can’t. 

Jake is there to protect Marc. To save him. To save them. To do what Marc could not do in the cave. 

So, what if Jake was the first? What if Marc went into the cave with Roro and Jake came out? Does Marc remember what happened? In the flashback he sees them go in. Then suddenly they are standing in the living room. Marc comes down the stairs dressed up and ready to join the Shiva. He seems unsure of himself but he’s there. And then he’s surprised when it goes bad. When his mother screams at him. Maybe at that point he didn’t really know what happened. He only understood that his brother was gone. His mother is the one that puts a false memory into him that it is all his fault. He can’t remember what happened, after all, so he fills in the gaps and thinks she’s right. 

And Jake is there with the memory of what happened after. Of how Marc almost died too. Of how he got out. Of them pulling his dead brother out. Of Jake swearing he would never fail again. 

So why doesn’t Jake step in when their mother starts to beat them? Why Steven? 

Because what is a little boy going to do against his mother? There is nothing Jake could do. This was Marc’s pain. This was emotional trauma that Steven could help distract Marc from. If it had gone too far, if the body had been too badly broken, there is a chance Jake would have taken over and tried to get them out. 

It’s also possible that since Jake was the first, this is why he can hide so well from Marc. He holds the biggest trauma and he does not talk to Marc. He stays in the back. He doesn’t want to front at this point. He’s the type of alter that just likes to stay in the back unless really needed. And maybe in their teenage years Jake starts to peek out more and more. He becomes highly active in the military/mercenary years because he’s needed. He watches Marc become more and more destructive and he has to start protecting Marc from himself. 

When he failed in the desert and Marc almost died and then almost killed himself, Jake must have taken that very hard. He starts to slip in more often. He can’t just hide anymore. He starts to take missions. He starts to leave out hints of his presence. (See the gloves in episode two). He starts stepping in when Marc goes on a bender of self destruction. Jake will not lose another one, even if he has to protect him from himself. 

He watches Marc and Steven bond and he swears now he will protect them both. 

So when Harrow threatens them, Jake has had enough. He comes back from the Duaat pissed off to high hell and all he can think about is the damn cave. Being locked in the Sarcophagus and HEARING them in the cave. Marc could hear what Steven heard. He remembered as Steven went in and witnessed the flood. You know Jake could too. Trapped in that tight and dark coffin as he heard the screams and water rushing in. 

When Jake comes back, he is emotional. He is pent up. He is rage and refuses to fail. He can’t fail. 

And that’s why the final fight scene looked like a bomb went off. 

287 notes - Posted September 21, 2022

#3

351 notes - Posted October 29, 2022

#2

Let’s Gooooooo. 

STEVEN! 

This bucket of sunshine isn’t so innocent as people keep proclaiming. Sure, comics Steven isn’t a fan of violence, but he knows how to throw a punch as much as the other two. Perhaps a bit more refined in his fighting than Marc and Jake, but he knows how to wear the cowl. 

Comic Steven aside, let’s have a look at everyone’s favorite MCU big eyed derpy smile heart and soul. I cannot stand the babyfiers. “Little sweet baby girl meow meow.” Sure. terms of endearment. Why not. Whatever gets your rocks off I guess. 

But he is so much more. He is wicked smart. He is observant. He picks things up that peak his interest or that he finds useful and he runs with them. 

He is Marc’s emotional and spiritual protector. Who knows how long he has been pulling Marc out of strange situations. Talking his way out of bad situations. 

There’s contention on who was driving the body when Marc was fighting the Arab gang. The first switch when Marc finds himself in the taxi cab, I believe that was Steven. Steven wanted to go home. He didn’t understand why they were there because Marc did not communicate. He thought Marc was a violent loving murderer and if he could get Marc away from all this, then no one would get violently murdered. 

But where did we leave Marc in that fight? Holding a knife to a man’s neck. When Steven took over, he had to backtrack. He would have had to assure three guys that wanted to kill him that “Nawh, it’s alright Mate. Just a misunderstanding.” 

When Marc meets back up with them, they are confused. A man that just ran them down and tried to kill them suddenly changed his mind. “You let us go.” What an interesting phrase. Steven “Let them go”. 

I like to imagine Steven smiled, helped them back up, straightened their ruffled collars, all while apologizing and muttering about how horrid all this was. I’d probably look confused and a little afraid too. What power play is this? 

The thing is, Steven casually walked away from that and got in a taxi with directions to go to the airport. He is in a foreign country and does not speak the language. I don’t know about you, but I’d be absolutely terrified. I have a hard enough time dealing with being lost in my own country. 

Steven screams and cries and is afraid of a lot of things. He’s easily stressed, but he knows how to handle himself. He gets them through those things with CONVICTION. Scary dead bird god chasing him down the hall demanding that he give back the bag? Steven clutches the bad tighter and RUNS. 

He’s just been kidnapped by a group that he has seen murder someone and that has tried to murder him more than once, and he is ready to talk his way out of it. He listens to their side patiently. He thinks it all over. 

He assesses how much immediate danger he is in and takes the needed approach to survive. If he listens to Harrow, Harrow won’t kill him right away. So he listens. Harrow acts friendly towards him so he can relax a little and look around. What information is supplied and what information can he pick up by just observing? Steven soaks it all in and picks out the pieces that he can use. 

When Harrow emotionally attacks Marc, Steven steps up. He pokes holes in Harrow’s arguments and takes his own stand. He isn’t afraid to question things. He isn’t afraid to voice where he finds them morally reprehensible. 

If given the chance, he would have argued with them for hours. If he thought it would change the mind of one person there, he would have sat down and talked to them for days. 

When it comes to fighting, Steven is hesitant at first. He isn’t used to it and probably has never needed to fight before, thanks to Marc. He’s seen people fight. He’s seen people box and probably even read a little about it at some point. He mimics what he thinks a fighter would look like and throws his first punch. 

The thing about Steven is that he is easy to build up. His punch lands and he gains faith in himself so easily because he is HOPE. He’s got this. On the boat he knows he can save Marc and he does. 

In the final battle, Marc opens conversation with Steven and when he fights, I believe Marc is in there acting as cheerleader and calling out moves to guide him. “Throw it! I’ll be there to catch it!” and he is. Steven learns so quickly and has his own ideas and you see how his fighting style not only blends with Marc’s, but turns into a graceful and calculated dance. He sees what Marc might miss and he acts. He knows he can’t fly but if someone is on his cape, he can take it off and Marc will be there to catch him again. 

Steven is about trust. Never once does he think Layla can’t do something because he has to protect her. He sees immediately that Layla knows what she is doing and can handle herself. He trusts that she can help him get out of a situation if it overwhelms him. 

When he understands Marc, he trusts that Marc will make the right call. In the final scene with Harrow, Steven stays out of the way. He doesn’t step in and plead with Marc not to kill him. This is Marc’s call. 

What gives Steven that innocent charm is that he is so filled with the desire to do good. To be noticed. To connect. He is starved for attention and love. He is a lonely man who wants love. His whole life has been about not seeing the bad. Not seeing when people are cruel to him. Marc designed their childhood so that Steven would never see the horrible moments. 

But where did that leave Steven? It made Steven look harder at everything else. It made him able to spot when things weren’t fair. It made him stand up against injustice and cruel people. He puts up with Donna’s treatment, but that is part of keeping his job. He is constantly talking back to her. He is voicing his opinion at every opportunity. 

“You weren’t meant to see that.” But Marc is short sighted. Steven sees everything else. Steven understands when people are overlooking him. When people write him off. He knows that sometimes he tries too hard and makes people uncomfortable, but he is going to keep trying. He wants to get things right and he wants people to understand him. 

He is Autistic and struggles with interaction, but that doesn’t stop him from seeking it out. He is excited to share what he knows. He wants other people to be excited with him. He wants to connect to someone and just talk about his special interests with them. 

The first time someone truly sees Steven is Layla when he is building the star map. It catches him off guard so much that he practically has to reboot and dives right into something he understands and can talk about. When she doesn’t reject him or push him away, his desire to connect focuses on her so much that she could be his special interest. Seeing her smile, making her happy, just staring at her. And she lets him (I’ll post about Layla and her love language later, don’t you worry). This is absolutely what Steven needs to further build his confidence and let him know that he is doing the right thing. 

The next time someone really sees Steven is on the boat when Steven rushes in and saves Marc. Marc originally told Steven to hide and Steven instead protected him. Steven has been given his place now. His ability to connect with Marc makes him that much stronger. Someone that can understand him. Someone that he can finally just exist with. 

Moon Knight is about being SEEN. But what does that mean for Steven? It means being seen for who you are. What you are capable of. Not just being put in the corner because you are a cute little precious that needs protection. But about being seen for your own strengths! Give Steven the acknowledgement he deserves. See Steven for the absolute unit that he is. 

441 notes - Posted July 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

At the end of episode 6 when Marc wakes up in the bed and says good morning to Steven then gets up and promptly falls flat on his face from the ankle restraint. I have a couple of head cannons about that and I need to get them out! 

1. Steven is so ingrained in routine that he gets home from Cairo and is exhausted and puts on the usual tether and Marc either forgets it is there or thinks Steven wouldn’t need it anymore since now Steven knows about Marc. Whoopse, sorry Marc. 

2. Steven is not as in denial as Marc and after the stunt with fighting Harrow, he knows someone else is there and he goes back to routine in an effort to try and stop them from just wandering off. But this idea means that either: Steven thinks it will work even though it didn’t work on Marc at all... Or Steven is using it as a way to let Marc and the mystery person know that he knows something is up and he will find them just like he found Marc. 

3. Marc is a dumb ass and did it himself. He gets back from a mission. He goes into auto drive and resets all of Steven’s traps just like he has time and time before and then forgets. ...possible. Sorry Marc. 

4. JAKE IS A TROUBLE MAKER. Jake is the one that did it. Jake gets up and is pissed about being left out. Pissed about the sarcophagus and being ignored. He made a HUGE show. More than a couple of times. Marc is STILL refusing to see him. So he resets it all and is sitting in the back laughing as Marc eats shit. “IGNORE ME NOW PENDEJO!” 

5. Jake is the idiot and reset all of Steven’s traps because at this point it’s just second nature to all of them and he didn’t realize the traps were there for MARC and not just in general. Whoopse. Sorry Marc. 

Thoughts? Cause any one of those send me flying (option 4 makes me laugh and love Jake even more though because I bet he does have a sense of humor like that, even if he isn’t mad about it, I could still see him acting like the sibling and pulling that on them). 

657 notes - Posted August 27, 2022

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#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I...might have a problem #just a small obsession #Considering I made this blog years ago then turned it into a moon knight blog when stalking other blogs wasn't enough #Of course that's the number one post #still bitter about that one post I put time and effort into and thought was funny and no one liked

[jadelotusflower]

Roundup: August 2021

This month: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Don’t Call it a Cult, The Secret Garden, Showbiz Kids, Masters of the Universe: Revelation, Lucifer.

Reading Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) - I’ve been meaning to read the Wide Sargasso Sea for a long, long time, but first I thought I’d revisit the source material. I find my opinion hasn’t much changed - I still love the prose, still love Jane as a character, and still find Rochester extremely unappealing. The section with Jane at school is the most engaging for me, and her early time as a governess at Thornfield, but as soon as Rochester shows up I just find him so irritating I have no idea why Jane loves him so much (other than he was the first man to ever show her a scrap of attention). I mean, I know to an extent - I've read the Takes, and part of fiction is accepting what you want for the character as a reader and what they want for themselves can be two different things, and that's not the fault of the text. I can be satisfied by the ending because Jane gets what she wants, I just can’t help but wonder about a Jane who was found by John Eyre before she went to Thornfield, or who took her inheritance and made her own way after Moor House. Byronic heroes just aren't my thing I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys) - The first Mrs Rochester of Jane Eyre strikes an uneasy tone to a modern reader; she does not utter a word in the novel, is depicted as animalistic and almost demonic, her story only told in a self-serving manner by Rochester, and conveniently disposed of so Jane can return to claim him. Rhys reimagines Bertha as Antoinette, a “white Creole” of Jamaica in a postcolonial take on the racial/social prejudices and hierarchy only hinted at in Eyre, where Bertha being Creole primarily an aspect of her Otherness, and in which Rochester describes himself as being desired as a husband because he was "of good race" . In Sea, although Antoinette is white (passing, perhaps), he sees her "not English or European either" and this contributes to his rejection of her (and perhaps his willingness to believe she is mad). The novel is surprisingly short - it skips over the meeting and courtship of Antoinette and Rochester (tellingly unnamed in the novel) entirely, jumping directly from her childhood/coming of age to the couple already married, and over much of Bertha's (renamed by Rochester) sad life in the attic. Still, there's a density to the writing, much is implied beyond the sparse use of words and recurring imagery - subjugation, reflection, and of course, fire - when freed slaves (Rhys changes the timeframe to after the passing of the Emancipation Act of 1833) set fire to Antoinette's family plantation, a pet parrot whose wings have been clipped by her English step-father Mason, cannot flee and falls to a fiery doom, in a grim omen of Bertha's fate. It did, however, leave me wanting more - I understand Rhys' stylistic choices and restraint, but in her effort to give voice to the voiceless, Antoinette/Bertha remains somewhat an enigma. Don’t Call it a Cult: Keith Raniere and the women of NXIVM (Sarah Berman) - I continue to be disturbed but intrigued by the NXIVM case, not only because of my abhorrence of MLMs/pyramid schemes, but my bafflement as to how this thoroughly unremarkable man was able to hold sway over so many women. My mild criticism of the two documentaries on this subject was that they tended to jump around in time so you never really got a good idea of what happened when. This book provides a well researched, detailed summary of events and linear chronology of Raniere’s perverse pathology reaching all the way back to childhood, and so is both an excellent supplement to the already informed, and broad overview to those new to the case. Berman is a Vancouver-based journalist who was present at Raniere’s trial and gives insight into witness testimony, supported by her own interviews and extensive research. There's less of a focus on the sensationalised celebrity members, with greater emphasis on the lesser known victims - including the three Mexican sisters who were all abused by Raniere, one of whom was kept confined to a room for years. It's difficult reading, consolation being the

knowledge that Raniere is rotting in prison and that his crimes finally caught up with him. Watching The Secret Garden (dir. Marc Munden) - Spoilers, if one needs a spoiler warning for a 110 year old novel. One of those stories that is adapted every generation, and generally I have no problem with this, since new adaptations can often bring something new or be a different take on old material (see Little Women 2019). But a part of me can’t help feel why bother with this when the perfect 1993 version exists. There is an Attempt at something new with this film, moving the setting forward to 1947 (Mary’s parents having died during the Partition), and turning the garden from a small walled secret to a mystical, huge wonderland full of ferns and flowers and endless sun. But in doing so, the central metaphor is lost - rather than Mary discovering something abandoned and run wild, gently bringing it back to life with love and care, she merely discovers a magical place that requires no effort on her part. There’s also less of a character arc for Mary, remaining unpleasant far into the proceedings, forcing Colin to visit the garden instead of it being his true wish, and generally succeeding by imposing her will on everyone else. In many ways she’s more like Burnett's other child heroine Sarah Crewe - the film opens I’m with her telling stories to her doll including Ramayana, which is eerily reminiscent of Alfonso Cuaron's (also perfect) 1995 adaptation of A Little Princess. But I suppose a sliver of credit where it's due - Julie Walters' Mrs Medlock is less of an antagonist, with Colin Firth's Lord Craven being Mary's primary obstacle. There's also a subplot with Mary's mother's depression following the death of her sister being the reason for her neglect (and Merlin alum Rupert Young shows up briefly as Mary's father) but like shifting the time period, there just doesn't seem to be a point to it. The climax of the film involves the Manor burning down (writer Jack Thorne stealing from Rebecca too, lol), with Mary and Craven have a very calm conversation as fire and smoke surrounds them. It’s all very bizarre, but also…rather dull? Don't bother with this, just watch the 1993 film again. Showbiz Kids (dir. Alex Winter) - a really interesting documentary on the titular subject - Winter was himself a child actor on Broadway before his film career kicked off in The Lost Boys and Bill and Ted, and has been able to assemble a broad range of interview subjects - Mara Wilson, Evan Rachel Wood, Wil Wheaton, Jada Pinkett Smith among others - former child actors, those still in the business, and some up and comers like Disney star Cameron Boyce (who I was sad to see in the coda has passed away). We also follow two young hopefuls - Marc, attending acting classes and auditioning in pilot season, yet to book a job but his parents are invested in "his" dream, and Demi, already established on Broadway but having to start to make choices between a career and a childhood. There's no voiceover, no expert opinions in this, letting the actors speak for themselves, but there is a telling juxtaposition of Marc returning home, jobless but having fun in the pool with his friends, while Demi has to cancel the summer camp she had been so looking forward to because she has booked a new role. The film is fairly even handed, but ultimately I took away that there just seems to be more harm than not in this industry, and abuses of many kinds. It does make you wonder about the ethics of child acting, at least in the current system where the cautionary tales are plentiful. Masters of the Universe: Revelation (episodes 1-5) - Mild spoilers I guess? I was never really into He-Man as a kid, other than the Secret of the Sword movie, so most of the in jokes and references in this went over my head. I have to admit, it was actually seeing all the outrage that made me want to check this out and see what all the complaining was about. I actually…really enjoyed it?!? I’m sympathetic to the complaints of a bait and switch (creators really need to learn to say

“just wait and see”), but other than that in my view the rest seemed completely unfounded. Adam/He-Man being killed in the first episode and the impact that has on Eternia and those left behind is actually a really interesting premise. This isn’t a TLJ situation; in contrast everyone (except Evil-Lyn) is always going on about how much they miss Adam, and the whole point of the first arc is him coming back. There’s also a nice little detail of Adam in Preternia (heroes heaven) choosing to remain as he is rather than as He-Man where all his predecessors have chosen their “ultimate” forms. I love him and his Magical Girl transformation. As for Teela - female characters can’t win, it seems. If they are perfect, they’re Mary Sues, if they have flaws, they’re unlikeable. Teela is Going Through things and is on a journey, but I often feel (and it seems the case here) that people confuse a character arc with author intent. No! Just because a character says/does something it doesn't mean you're supposed to agree with them! Some of Teela's actions may be petty and her demeanor less than sweet, but people make bad choices as a response to grief, and I actually thought her anger over Adam never telling her his secret and how that manifested was a pretty interesting take. I'll be interested to see the next half of the season, and ignore the ragebait youtube commentary. One more thing - Evil-Lyn (perfectly voiced by Lena Headey) was an absolute delight. Lucifer (season 5 part 2): They’ve basically given up on the procedural side of things by now and are leaning heavily into the mythology, which works for me since the case of the week is always the least interesting part of any show. It also struck me this season that there’s gender parity in the main cast (Lucifer, Amenadiel, Dan and then Chloe, Maze, Ella, Linda) - and actually, that’s more women than men. How often does that happen?!? I can’t say I’m particularly engaged with the Lucifer/Chloe pairing, but am happy to go along with it since that’s where the whole plot revolves. The best scenes for me this season were with God’s Dysfunctional Family, even if the lead up to the finale felt rushed (I understand the need to wrap things up in case of cancellation but still). I would have liked to see more of the sibling dynamics between the angels and less romantic drama, but hey. The character death got me, as well. I didn't see it coming and I didn't realise how much I had enjoyed that character until they were gone and well...it got me. I see the last season is coming soon, I'm not exactly sure where they can go from here, but looking forward to it nonetheless. Writing I was actually quite sick this month with a throat infection, so wasn't in the best frame of mind to get anything finished like I had planned to. I'm going to hold off posting the word count this month and roll it over to September when hopefully I've actually posted things.

#roundup #reading watching writing #august roundup

[utilitycaster]

yeah one plan I really wanna work on is an archive of tumblr metas for crit role campaign 3, to keep all the debunked theories remembered!

My only fear is whether it can be publicly accessible :(

Not sure about public screenshots of other peoples content (with links to the original post) without their consent, but an archive of just links is so much drier to click through.

How would you do it?

Hi anon,

You seem like a nice person, from this ask, who does not deserve the tirade I am about to unleash below so my answers in short are:

1. I think a fandom theory on a social media is a thing that most people will recognize might get cross posted so I would just summarize and link, were I to take on this project, which I will not be doing.

2. No idea how I'd make it publicly accessible; I'd probably either make a website, or a Google doc under an anonymous email address, neither of which are ideal, but no better options come to mind.

Anyway welcome to the consequences of entering my inbox. While writing this I enjoyed myself a lot but I was also like 'tbh this is probably why I don't get as many anons any more; it is because I am Gotdamn Annoying.'

So this was like, maybe 75% a shitpost, not in that I don’t genuinely believe it would be useful, but in that a comprehensive list is nearly impossible to do. Even if you limited yourself to Tumblr (ie, no Twitter or Reddit or god knows what else), you would necessarily be limiting yourself also to things that were tagged and/or got a decent amount of traction within the fandom as a whole.

I think there are a number of problems though. The first one is that while some theories can be debunked immediately upon their arrival into the primordial soup that is fandom, some may always remain technically possible, just vanishingly improbable, including some of my least favorites (cough secret dragons cough) because you cannot logically prove a negative unless you just outright ask the creators. And still others may be debunked - or proven - only after a very long time (eg: The Traveler is Artagan) and personally I want to only use this for debunked theories, so you'd necessarily need to keep a separate list of theories that are neither proven nor debunked, otherwise you just become a rehash of the, well, hash, that is the Wild Mass Guessing page on TVTropes rather than what I was specifically envisioning, namely, "this is a list of theories that were proven to be wrong, and here is why."

The second problem, which you may have guessed from my previous line, is that I come to bury these theories, not praise them*. I think some theories are good but ultimately incorrect and it's worth having them on display! I also think a lot of theories are bad, and that a good deal of theories aren't even really theories. You used the word meta, which I actually think of more as analysis than theories although the line between those two things is blurrier than most. But also, a lot of things people call theories or meta are, well, Wild Mass Guessing, headcanons/personal opinions, wishful thinking that has a tenuous relation to canon at best, and/or pure unadulterated nonsense. And I would include some of that, but not all, even though I often use the word 'theory' in a similarly loose way to kind of refer to anything that people are saying might be true in the story even if I think it's the ravings of a madman, even though my 'proper' definition of a theory would be an explanation that both answers an existing question and is supported by the existing text.

My point here is that I think some theories are best forgotten and my motivation is more accentuating the positive, pointing and laughing really hard at the negative, and ignoring a lot of the neutral headcanon-type stuff on the grounds that a neutral headcanon is your own private business and I respect that.

The third problem is curation. I have run into a similar issue with kind of shitpost projects that I did sort of take on and now languish and glare at me from the back of my mind when I am doing nothing on a weekend (specifically my attempt to make a personally useable Exandria timeline). Wiki-style editing has its benefits, but also significant drawbacks, because the same people who make pure unadulterated nonsense theories have the same editing power as people who are excellent at literary analysis, if not more. In an ideal world I would recommend putting something like this on the wiki, and there might even be a page now intended to serve a purpose akin to the WMG page on TVTropes (I did not bother to check), but in practice the CR wiki is currently under the thumb of someone who I will sum up briefly in Figure 1:

Fig 1: A Venn diagram.

Anyway, the fact is, the TVTropes WMG page has had things like "when the Mighty Nein fight Trent, Veth will get the HDYWTDT" even though that's not a theory and in fact by the nature of D&D is impossible to predict by any means. That's just a thing that would be kind of cool to happen. I worry that any true wiki format would fall to a similar fate. It would not actually be a list of debunked theories, telling the story both of interesting and genuinely good ideas from fandom that ultimately just did not turn out to be true, as well as some real clownshoes bullshit, but rather a bathroom wall on which to scrawl vague ideas.

So I think the only way to feasibly do this is to just spend time in the fandom and collect theories, like an anthropologist, and accept that you're going to miss some, and maybe have a Google Form for submission thereof that requires things like a post with a certain threshold of notes such that you can easily collect theories from others but are under no obligation to include every one. Even then this will be subject to personal bias, and while I personally love having executive control of things I also recognize the flaws of such a system. I would definitely include some kind of disclaimer along the lines of "This has opinions in it about theories; while the debunking is objective, whether or not it was a good theory prior to being debunked has some subjectivity involved."

*I know in the context of this line actually the speaker was in fact coming to praise the thing he said he was just going to bury; RIP to Marc Antony but I’m different.

#Anonymous #i have literally no idea how to tag this #other than #long post

[lockdownuk]

Lockdown Diary Part 2

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day 31: I went to Tesco’s at Hampton at @8pm. It was weird. But I made it less weird by buying (amongst all the legit stuff I needed and some stuff for Karen’s mum) more booze. I have, atm about 30 assorted cans and 60 assorted bottles. I’m gonna stop buying booze now until I’m down to the last dozen. I don’t want owt to happen and I leave many behind!

Day 32: More than a calender month! I was rung up by a recruitment agent today about a contract with DHL as a remote support engineer to their aviation section. €400 a day! I’ve applied. Few beers tonight, watching a new Netflix release (Extraction) and catching up with Fog, Ham, Andy and Rog later at 10:30pm - yikes, might be pissed.

Day 33: Typing this on day 34. Dossed around during the day, few beers and another video call with fog, Ham and Rig plus I invited John Monk along. He was his usual self and signed off from the call with a moonie! Later on I had the pleasure of Scottish Louise video calling me! She was pissed, in her shed drinking den at her home with some neighbour called Ronnie and her daughter Ellie. She was her usual outrageous self who imaprted such gems as “Tim, you look old” and “Roger on coke is the only time I’ve taken it up the arse”. Nice.

Day 34: Today I skyped Laurie and ‘met’ Matthew and Nicholas for the first time. It was bloody fantatsic. Janine was there as well.I cannot believe it takes lockdown (plus an idea to get Laurie to add me to his regular Monday skype chat with Dad) that managed to get us doing something that should have happened years ago! It was so great to talk to them all face-to-face. Janine hasn’t changed a bit, Matthew is very quiet with Nicholas being the more gregorious twin. And Laurie is still Laurie. I’m reminded of how much I sort of miss him! It was all so comfortable. I loved it! Tomorrow is Dad’s 85th hence the 3-way chat idea. I hope it comes off!

Day 35: So dad and Laurie and I skyped. It was OK but my video feed was very dark, (still dunno why) and Lauire’s kept freezing. I dropped out so as to leave them to it, my thinking being the extra person takes up bandwidth, with the promise I’d call dad later. Before I could, Rita called me and suggested Dad and I skype, which we did. So, all in all, a good day of comms! And Dad seems his happy usual self - 85 years old! Amazing.

Day 36: I am really struggling to motivate myself this week. Today, I’ve done fuck all of note. That is all.

Day 37: A similar day to yesterday. All I have really managed to do is lay down audio from Pink Floyd (Absolutely Curtains) to a video I shot of a cow on yesterday’s walk. I am having a downer of a week without any good reason why, ld aside. I have worn my new walking boots today (’cos my old ones are leaking, I found out yesterday) and they fucking hurt, despite having tried to wear them in for months, albeit pathetically. Also, a few days ago (Friday 24th April), I got notification from HM Revenue & Customs that I’m getting tax rebate (from 2018-19) of £392. Yay!

Day 38: I received notification today that I’ve got a speeding ticket…last Thursday back from Tesco’s - 87mph somewhere between the A1 and Elton. I am hoping it’s a fixed penalty. I dunno whether it is yet, I just have to send the form off confirming it’s my car and I was driving. I spoke with Lynda from Woodfords asking her to ask for a rent reduction before I sign for another year. Plus, I let her know that I will be Howard and Sue’s eyes as the look at rental properties in Oundle - I do hope they return although it would be a shame for them that their plans have been scuppered (she’s lost her job in Oz due to Covid-19)

Day 39: Today I started another piece of exercise - up and down the stairs 26 times. Not sure why 26 - it was some thing online to do with the London Marathon, I think. It fucking killed. I used 13 clothes pegs for a counting system. I asked Karen to pick up some stuff when she was shopping (burgers, radishes) - Dan dropped them off, He was with Shaggy (driving his van) and going to see Jonah. That pisses me off - they should be social distancing, ffs.

Discoevered, today, that Cornershop, post-Brinful are fucking excellent. listening to the album ‘England is a Garden’ as I type.

Day 40: That 26 times up and down the stairs is fucking hard. I did videos about it today. My legs are aching like fuck right now.

Day 41: Just done Young Sam’s (Sam Clews) quiz. 3rd week running and it’s now become a habit and something I look forward to. Out of all the internet driven socialising I’m undertaking in ld, this is the weirdest - I feel totally detatched from all others taking part but, now, would feel pissed off if I didn’t or couldn’t join in. I got 47/70 this week. My best score and only about 8 off the winning score  -  most others aren’t doing it on their own!

Today’s walk was a cloudy one - I captured some fine, dramatic pics of the clouds. I am getting into this photography lark, albeit very amateurish. But, when I post any pics online (mostly FB), they seem to be widely appreciated, which is nice.

Day 42: Applied for a remote service delivery job with a firm called TTEC. £60k. Finished watching The Outsider. The creepiest TV show I have seen in years. Really great use of background music.

Day 43: Finished Mindhunter S2 last night. It’s so good but I cannot quite put my finger on why. Today has been a nothing day apart from day 2 of me not typing the letter ‘e’ in any post or comments on FB for a week. It’s hard.

Day 44: Watch Anna last night. A Luc Besson film that starts a kick-ass suprermodel. It’s right down my street. Today I have been lazy af. I need to pick up my online learning again…tomorrow, maybe! I watched Andy Murray Resurfacing. A documentary on Amazon. Fantastic. What a top man he is. Completely human and completely inhuman!

Day 45: Much talk in the news of possible lockdown relaxation. I am off the opinion we should stay the course until we are completely assured of beathing this thing i.e. a working, widely available vaccine. Dad and I Skyped - he is doing well, as usual. So is Rita. They both seem very happy in lockdown! Today has been a glorious day, weather wise. I had my walkk at 10ish this morming and it was very warm. Hottest day of the year so far I reckon.

Day 46: Bank holiday Friday (75th anniversary of VE day). Nice walk. Chat with Karen letting her know about being caught speeding just in case I am banned and need some out of town shopping. Watched second episode of DEVS by Alex Garland. It’s good and intriguing. Now, @7pm, gonna eat and hit the beers and smokes.

Day 47: Typing this at 15:45 on day 48. I had lots of beers and a good old chat with Rog…

Day 48: Today’s daily press conference was eagerly anticipated today with rumours of a relaxation in lockdown. It seems it was a fuss about nothing with no clear instructions - I didn’t watch it but, skimming the BBC news site, I shan’t be doing anything different over the next few weeks, not that I would anyway - furlough and self isolation are the order of the day and I won’t change that until I am sure it’s safe. Meanwhile people, including Danny flaunt the rules, it’s been pointed out to me plus I know he spends time with Jonah and Marc. It really fucks me off. So, the actions of the few mean I will lock myself down for as long, if not longer, as it takes. Attended Sam Clews quiz again. It passes the time. Also, I had half a scotch bonnet chilli with tea tonight (roasted veg, cous cous and sausages). Ridiculously hot!

Day 49: Received the speaker I ordered a few days ago (from eBay). It’s an AudioPro Addon T10. I got it for a very reasonable price from a German shop. As a result, the power lead isn;t three pin and that has seriously fucked me right off!

Meanwhile, I did my 26 stair climb before my daily walk today. It was easier than usual (surprise surprise) and I did 7km - but that was tough! ‘Cos I am on (yet another) free trial of Amazon Prime, I am ramping up watching stuff available. Last night I watched Booksmart - really nice little film with a great soundtrack. I am listening to Dan the Automater as I type. Today I watched half (3 eps) of The Night Manager and the film ‘The Founder’. The former is a superb series, the latter an OK film about Ray Kroc - the supposed founder of McDonald’s. Except he wasn’t; he was the wrong side of ambitious and a cunt.

Day 50: Stripped the 2 pin cable from the speaker I received yesterday and wired up a 3 pin plug and it worked. Win. And it sounds great. Win-win. Went to go shopping in Hampton but the car wouldn’t start. Loss. But it was the battery so I managed to borrow Karen’s jump starter which worked. Win.

Spent £107. Loss. But just under £40 was booze plus £10 for two big pizzas, two sides (dirty fries) and some dips. Win. Didn’t do any online learning - seriously fucking letting myself down. Loss.

Did my usual walking and 26 stair climb. The latter is hard but defo getting easier. Win. Day 51: Sam’s 51st birthday on day 51 - coincidence! Today I received my face mask from Lou - House of Stewart tartan. I’m pleased with it and that I have got a mask now. I managed to get up at a reasonable hour, just left 09:00, and revisit my web design course. Module 1, lesson 5 and I am fucking stuck. Trying to code an online CV with a side nav bar and I cannot get it to fucking work. Grrrrrr. Later, i got into a FB dispute (easily distracted due to the above) with someone over his statement of fact (Tim Martin’s treatment of Whetherspoons’ employees) when he doesn’t know it’s fact. It probably is, but that is not the fucking point.  I wish I could leave these sort of spats alone. I am drinking, at 20:45, peppermint tea as I type. Jeez, what’s happened to me?

Day 52: Well, last night took a swift chnage. Rog message me and, to cut a long story short, I hit the beers, also called Foggy later, got trashed. I got up today at gone 1pm. Sam posted on fb that Paul had forgort her birthday yesterday. Oh dear! The 26 stair climb and walking each day is noticeable for how knackered my legs feel all the time, I noticed today!

Day 53: My birthday! Nice comments and banter of FB. Rachael brought round a bottle of whisky; gobsmacked. Karen popped round some beers and sausage rolls. Sam sent a card, as did dad with a £50 cheque. Dan’s ordering me a pizza later.

Chuffed! Day 54: I went to bed late after a lot of beers, huge pizza and chips, a few smokes and a long call with WWJ and video chats with Fog then Rog. Got up around 1pm and dossed with my usual exercises and I made fish pie with a scotch bonnet. Day 55: Late one last night but up early today (11ish). Really fretting about hospital tomorrow. Nervous anyway but the safety aspect, in terms of Covid-19, isn’t helping.

Day 56: Hospital appointment was just for an eye scan so the consultant can review it. I was very surprised to see how few people were wearing face masks! I did two lots of washing today. (After the hospital) I went to Morrsions, Asda (queue too long though), B&M (queue too long though) then Tesco’s. All to buy a baseball cap ‘cos I’m fucked if I’m going to wet my hair each time I go out and want it to look presentable! In Morrsions (no mens’ clothing apart from underwear!) I stocked up of 10 cans of sugarfree apple Caraboa….I was only thinking of this drink just the other day. Yesterday I finished The Night Manager on Amazon. I liked it a lot but, also, expected much, much more from it consdiering the hype. Hugh Laurie has come a long way from comedy sketches with Stephen Fry!

Day 57:Received an email from Sueanne yesterday asking ( as designated spokesperson for everyone) how I am. The most interestring piece of news in a rather uninformative email was that the US has started to open resorts!

Day 58: I am writing this on Day 59. I started a two walk a day regime. The first walk I do is shorter, around 4km. my aim is to be ready for 1,000,000 steps Diabetic UK challenge (throughout July, August and September). I need to do just under 11,000 steps a day. The relaxation in ld rules makes this achievable. On that score, I am allowed to visit a friend’s house, as long as it’s just the two of us, outside, 2m apart. I went round Karen’s last night. I was desperate to have a Happy Hour (I allow myself a midweek beer - today (well, yesterday) is/was Wednesday!) of sorts with another human (rather than a video chat). I was there for about 2 hours, very enjoyable, and then came home. Then I had usual roasted veg with rice and sausages but I couldn’t eat it. I used half a scotch bonnet rather than the usual birdeye chillis. It was too hot, had to sling it! Had a few more beers and, hence, neglected my diary duties!

Day 59: It’s 01:20am. I don’t know why I am still awake and up, but I am. But, also, I am now going to bed. Nothing else to report, really.

Day 60: Half way through 12 weeks furlough. I was discussing this with Dad and Rita earlier - I am expecting that, at the end of 12 weeks, I’ll be laid off. I hope I’m wrong but I reckon it’s well on the cards. Off to have a beer round Karen’s in a sec which will be pleasant. Just a hour or so. It’s fucking windy today so I shall wrap up!

#diary #Tumblr diary #lockdown #COVID19 #lockdownuk

[221brownstone]

TheWrap: Elementary Star Lucy Liu on Sherlock and Joan’s Final Run, Saying Goodbye to the CBS Procedural, and What Comes Next

"I felt accomplished. I didn’t feel sad, necessarily. I didn’t shed a tear, because the joys that came out of this show were kind that I don’t know that I would’ve thought possible doing other shows and other movies. I just felt so happy. Is that strange? I felt joyous."

TheWrap: How did it feel coming into this season knowing this would be the end?

Liu: I felt accomplished. I didn’t feel sad, necessarily. I know that sounds strange, but this was a such big endeavor. I’ve said before that working on this kind of a show is not a race, you have to pace yourself, and I was really impressed at how we survived. How we were able to group together and become stronger as a family throughout the last seven seasons. I always look on the bright side of things — I didn’t shed a tear, because the joys that came out of this show were kind that I don’t know that I would’ve thought possible doing other shows and other movies. I just felt so happy. Is that strange? I felt joyous.

Is there anything in particular that you’ll miss the most about “Elementary” as you move on to other projects?

I’ll miss seeing my friends. With a show like this, you know, you have the opportunity to see people rain or shine. You kind of have to be there, and you’re excited to be there, so you can always see each other and catch up. That’s not something that we’re going to have anymore, because we’re not reporting for duty. So that I’ll miss. But I’m still in touch with everybody. We still text, we still get together, but it’s not the same. You have other jobs and that tears you apart, in terms of location and time, and now we’re not as much of a unit as we were before. So that’s tough.

Knowing that you were going to be wrapping up Joan’s story, was there something specific you wanted to see happen? Or that you were really hoping to get to do?

I really wanted to make sure that she didn’t lose her personal life. You know, in the time that the show’s been on, she’s had a partner and then he was killed. There were so many different ways that we could go, but I just felt like I wanted to see more of the relationship end on her part. I had talked to Rob [Doherty, showrunner] about it, too. That was something that I was sad about not having developed [earlier], because I didn’t want it to seem like you can have a career but you can’t also have a personal life. And that sort of changes in Season 7, so I was happy for that. Because I didn’t want it to seem like it’s impossible to have both.

There was the storyline last season about her trying to start a family, and that’s obviously been back-burnered a little bit after everything that happened in the last couple of episodes. Is that something that we’ll see come back for her?

I think she definitely continues to struggle with it. It’s something that I know a lot of women friends of mine also struggle with. That sense of “I’m so in the flow right now, is it a good time for me to stop and go into this?” It’s a very modern sort of thing to be concerned about. So it’s something that comes up in Season 7, and I was glad for it. Because like I was saying, it was important to me to delve into her personal life more and not give up on that, or say that [starting a family] was out of the picture just because she made a choice about it before. I’m glad Rob was able to continue that story and not just let her turn into somebody who doesn’t even think about it. Because I’ve had friends who decided not to have children, but they did at some point think about it, you know? So I think that’s an honest assessment of what it means to prioritize your career.

I also wanted to ask about Joan’s hair. There was a line in the premiere about her going blonde, was that a creative decision or something that happened in your personal life that got written into the show?

That was something that happened in my life but it worked out well for the story [Laughs]. I was doing a movie in Canada, and I’d been wanting to change my hair color anyway, so it was kind of a great opportunity to do that. And then in the same week, we also got picked up [for Season 7]. So it was sort of happenstance, but Rob was totally cool with it. He was like, “Well, if Sherlock can shave his head, Joan can have blonde hair.” He didn’t even flinch, it was great.

It plays into this sense that at the beginning of the season, Joan’s feeling a little bit like a fish out of water in London, where Sherlock is obviously very at home. How would you describe the state of their relationship after the time jump?

I think it’s in a place where they’re able to move forward in their relationship knowing that they’re for each other, regardless of the fact that he committed this terrible crime, essentially. The main thing that Rob always stressed from the very beginning was that he wanted to maintain the relationship — the friendship — between these two characters. A lot of people were asking when it was going to become romantic, but he never strayed from that idea. It’s remarkable the way that he honored that. But that was one of the reasons I was really excited about working on the show. He was able to say, I want the depth of their relationship to constantly be up for discovery.

Love doesn’t necessarily have to be a romantic, but the word can be dangerous to use, especially when there’s two different genders involved. Everyone assumes that we’re going to get together or that when we say it, it means that we’re in love with each other. That’s not necessarily the case. [Sherlock and Joan have] almost like a heightened type of love because they’ve been through so much. They have this deep understanding of each other because their relationship started with her as his sober companion, as a support system. And then it changed and sort of metamorphosed over the course of the series.

At the end of last season she followed him to London, and then in episode two of this season, he ends up following her back, even going as far as to turn himself into the FBI. Was there ever a moment in that process where these two characters considered just going their separate ways? What’s at the root of those decisions to cross oceans for each other?

I can’t remember which season it was, but there was a point where Joan moved out because she really needed to discover who she was on her own and she was really disappointed in him [at the time]. But they moved past that and discovered they were better together than they were apart. And I think in this season, they really start to see each other outside of just their partnership. They see each other more in terms of their friendship. That’s also really clear even with Sherlock’s relationship with Captain Gregson. At the start of the season, he’s disappointed and really angry, and their personal relationship is really coming apart. To me, those are the more interesting aspects of the show. Even more so than who’s gonna be the antagonist for that season.

Can you talk a little bit about your working relationship with Jonny? What’s it been like to play these characters who are so tightly bound together for the better part of a decade?

There’s a sense of professionalism that we’ve been able to maintain over the course of the show. Because we both work in the same way. And we’ve both grown a lot throughout that time. He started directing on the show, I started directing on the show. So we’ve also gotten to see each other outside of being actors. We’re peers, but we’ve also been able to hoist each other up and kind of encourage each other. And I don’t know that everyone works in the same way when they’re doing a show like this. And, I have to say, I’ve learned a lot from him, so I’m really glad we’ve been able to be partners in this. I’d even include in that mix Aidan [Quinn] and Jon Michael [Hill], who have really also been our framework for the show. The high points to me are when we were all together. I know that’s not often the case, but I don’t see it just as Jonny and I, necessarily. It’s all four of us. That’s not really a big cast, when you consider seven seasons, but in this case it really was the four of us holding up the show. And I credit Rob as the person who really kept that foundation as strong as it was.

That being said, Jonny and I work really well together. I’m going to go see him in his play tomorrow. So we try to support each other as much as we can, and I hope that will continue as time progresses. Because you do lose contact, that happens when you move on to other projects. But hopefully we’ll keep those family ties.

I also want to ask you about “Why Women Kill.” How did you choose that as your next project? What kinds of things were you looking for?

To me, Marc Cherry is somebody who can really connect drama with comedy. And I’ve spoken about it before, but my passion is comedy. I love it, I live for it. It’s something that makes me feel connected to my best self, when I’m laughing and making other people laugh. And I don’t always know that that’s a possibility, but Marc really is able to play with that line, much like David Kelley did on “Ally McBeal.” So I was offered the part, and Marc said he’d been wanting to work with me and that I’d be playing a character in the 1980’s, it was already like, “I’m in.” Shoulder pads and big hair? Come on. We just finished two episodes and the character couldn’t be more different from Joan Watson. Plus, it’s still within the CBS family, and they really have been such a great supporter of mine. It was kind of a no-brainer. I love the opportunity to really reach out and stretch those acting chops, the discovery and the exploration of different kinds of parts.

#lucy liu #joan watson #sherlock holmes #elementary #elementasquee #the final season #my dear watson #i'm gonna miss this #read more

[kanerboo]

okay so... i’m just kind of needing to work out my thoughts about the blackhawks in writing for a bit, so everyone can ignore this or choose to disagree or whatever, I just need to kinda get things out of my head and get my thoughts down in some order.

1) our recent performances: the thing about this, which is something i’ve kept reiterating, is that apart from that horrid game against the flyers, we have actually NOT BEEN PLAYING AS BADLY AS OUR SCORESHEETS SUGGEST. this is the main thing that’s so baffling to me. on paper, this team is not a bad team. on ice, this team is not playing like a bad team either. and YET!!

an example below, from the carolina game yesterday, after 2 periods of play. all of our possession metrics were positive (from this tweet). and yes I know corsi is not a great stat, but it also kinda lined up with my eye test where we actually weren’t playing badly, at least for the last half of the first and throughout the whole of the second.

and yet we couldn’t buy a goal to save our life. we came close a number of times. kirby hit iron. saad came close a few times. we had a flurry of chances from the top line, and during a PP, and from nylander. and through it all mrazek, who is, let’s put it that way, not such a great goalie, was making himself look like fucking brodeur or roy with some crazy saves. when carolina was up just 1-0 through a PP goal, we literally could have pulled even or gone ahead any number of times. and the puck just was NOT GOING IN.

I DO. NOT. UNDERSTAND.

and how many times have I seen this story happen already in fewer than 10 games? it happened against the caps where we played really well and lost because we were up against a goalie standing on his head. it happened against vegas where we played our best game of the season, possibly the best game i’ve seen them play in a whole year, and still lost because of a goalie standing on his head, and to me it’s just like, how long can this go on before the players start getting demoralised that they’re doing everything right and they’re working hard and nothing is going their way? and the worst part is, that point might be happening NOW, especially based on what patrick said in his postgame last night.

2) our special teams: ok it makes absolutely zero sense to me why our special teams are so terrible this year, when we shored up our PK in the offseason and we had the league’s best PP from like what, mid-january? I know we couldn’t continue the way our PP had and eventually it’d regress towards the mean, but this isn’t even their “mean”, it’s back to the putrid days of Q. there are times it shows signs of life, like a couple of sequences against carolina, but again, when that happens, we can’t find a goal. I still don’t understand the rationale between putting nylander up on PP1 and demoting dylan to PP2 - I feel like if we had success with that particular PP1 unit last season with 19-88-17-12 then maybe we should try that? I do get maybe they’re trying to create some balance across both PP units since saad and kubalik are firing now and putting dylan there gives them some additional firepower, plus the PP1 unit had such a huge chunk of TOI during last season’s PPs and it was getting pretty unbalanced there, but come on. at this point something HAS to be done already.

as for our PK - stanbo made some really good moves in the offseason, and acquiring carpenter has been one of them. he has been great on our PK - and we know this PK can be amazing, we’ve seen them kill four minute minors and we’ve seen them score shorties - and then there are times they just completely seem to collapse. I DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND.

3) brings me to my third point. the coaches. specifically, marc crawford.

i’ve always liked jeremy colliton. I was a supporter of him when he first came onboard. he proved me right by leading us to the league best PP and league best points total from january onwards? something like that, I don’t remember exactly. anyway it was clear to me that by the end of last season the players had bought in to his system, they were settling into it and learning to play it well, and he’d earned their respect. and the hope was that with a full training camp he’d be able to get the team doing a lot more.

then they brought in crawford and i’m gonna be honest I hated that appointment from the start because he didn’t have a good rep with players and teams. there was an article I read about him, I can’t remember where and I can’t find it to link now, but he apparently used to treat players really badly, had shitty player management. and I didn’t like that.

and ever since he came in our lines have been fucked, our players look demoralised (but in all fairness this could be from that pattern of playing-well-and-not-winning - although if the lines and systems are instituted by crawford then fuck yeah he IS demoralising them anyway), and our special teams have gone down the drain. and from what I’ve learned, crawford is in charge of the PP and PK, so you know. you do the math.

you could argue colliton is still the head coach and therefore he should have the final say over his lines and systems. you wouldn’t be wrong either. but I personally find it hard to believe that a guy who managed to get us those PP and points in the second half of last season, who has shown serious hockey smarts and good leadership while managing the team during that time, someone usually intelligent and thoughtful when it came to his pressers and systems, is behind ALL of this bullshit.

HOWEVER. I will add that I don’t like the way he’s conducting pressers nowadays. it makes me feel like he’s throwing the team under the bus and I don’t like that AT ALL. and like I said it really surprises me because I find it hard to believe there’s such a difference from last season and this year. and I still really don’t think it’s a coincidence this season is fucking up with crawford behind the bench.

4) they need to play 91-19-88, they should have played 1988 together since at least three games ago, stop fucking experimenting with the top lines. we have two perfect, ready-made chemistry pairs that can feed off each other easy and play with almost anyone on the other wing. put them back together especially when this got us so much success last season.

I appreciate that with the emergence of kirby as a center, possibly a second or third line centre, and that solid third line of ours, dylan has been kind of moved down the pecking order. but dylan has something no one else seems to have, and that’s chemistry with alex. I mean if I could I wouldn’t want to touch the third line either, and putting kirby on the fourth line is stupid when he’s so good and he’s not a grinder and he’s actually been holding up well even when centering patrick, but it’s just. i’m never the doom and gloom type when it comes to my team, but this, this I feel is dire. maybe because of the way we play hard and play well and can’t seem to score. but just throw 1988 and 1712 back together for a few games and see what happens. it’s also not a coincidence that once 1988 got put back together they started generating offence and SOGs - which they both weren’t in previous games.

5) just to end my word vomit: I hate all the stupid fucks who are saying to “trade toews” or “fire bowman” lbr here stanbo brought in some really good trades last season and in the offseason, and like I saw one of the beats say, one of the worst parts of this whole situation is that the people he’s brought in have actually been playing well and made a difference, but the team as a whole just can’t pull out a win. and the people saying to trade jonny? lmao yeah of course because the troubles of the whole team lie on ONE MAN’S shoulders, i.e. our captain who has been actually working his ass off? i’m tired of all the shit being thrown at jonny all the time. people expect him to score 100 points when he’s not that kind of player. he’s not patrick, never has been, never should be, they’re two completely different types of players, and people NEVER seem to get that. it’s like they think oh 88 gets 100 points so 19 should too. but 88 also doesn’t play on the PK or have to forecheck and backcheck and play a hard-wearing defensive shutdown game in addition to his offensive responsibilities. the fuck? sometimes I wonder if these people actually WATCH hockey, because they don’t seem to get this and haven’t for years.

ugh, needed to get that off my chest. sorry if you actually bothered reading the whole way through ig! i’m just sad and angry and really really want my blackhawks to do well. i’m still holding out hope - i’m not giving up on this team - but I really need them to show some results. oh, and maybe for marc crawford to get fired. 

#hockey #chicago blackhawks #I have thoughts and feelings so let me spew them at you #pls ignore this if you have to #It literally is just my stream of consciousness word vomit

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🎶 GODSHEADANGEL.POSTHAVEN.COM 🎶 🎶 THROWBACK THURSDAY ANGEL JAM 🎶 THURSDAY FEBRUARY 20TH 2020 1130HRS ▶NEXT FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS MARCH 13TH

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🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅🌅FRIDAY FEBRUARY 21ST 2020 0530HRS PST BLESSINGS4MYSEXYASS💕ANGELWIVES👑 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓

MIKA BRZEZSINSKI👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣👣 ⬆BEAUTIFULINMESMERIZINGANGELBLACK⬆ SOSEXY🔥WEARING THATANGELICLOOK💫

THURSDAY NIGHT🌌AROUND 2115HRS THEY DID SO SHOW UP IN MY ANGEL DADDY MIND AND CONNECTED HARD TOGETHER [BOTH] MOVING LIKE A POWER WAVE🌊UNDER THE COVERS [THEY PLAYED TENT] AND HAD SO MUCH FUN [PROVING THEY CAN] BE AS ONE POWER [PLAYING OR WORKING TOGETHER] [WHAT A JOY IT WAS TO SEE] OUR LITTLE POWERFUL BATTLE ANGEL TWIN PRINCE👑 SONS NOAH💪 AND NIKKO💪 SO HAPPY TOO SHOW THEY ARE BLESSED✝ ANGELMAMI👑MIKA💕WILL BE VERY PROUD I KNOW I AM!!!

EARLY THURSDAY AFTERNOON BEFORE MY SHOOT'EM UP GUNSMOKE CAME ON THEY [DID COME FOURTH] IN HEAVENLY💫LIVE REALITY [PLAYING HARD AND ROUGH] AS ONE UNIT THESE VERY POWERFUL ANGELS UNDER THE COVERS [PLAYING ⛺ TENT] THEY LAUGHED AND ENJOYED EACH OTHER [ONE CONTROLLED AS THE LEADER] THEN SO DID THE OTHER AND THAT'S WHAT OUR THREE BATTLE ANGEL😇PRINCE SONS👑 STEVEN💪MARC💪AND CHAD💪DID ON A BEAUTIFUL THURSDAY INSIDE MY MIND AND MYANGELWIFE💕VANESSA👑SHOULD KNOW THEY DIDN'T HESITATE TO SHARE!!! NO DOUBT WE'RE BLESSED TO HAVE THEM WATCHING OVER US FROM HOLY💫HEAVEN

THE [HARD REAL REALITY] OF HAVING SUCH A BEAUTIFUL 💜ANGELQUEENWIFE💜LIKE PRISCILLASWEETZ💗[IS TRULY KNOWING] THAT WHEN OUR VERY POWERFUL LITTLE BABYANGELS😇COME THROUGH IN SPIRIT THEY COME THROUGH [VERY DETERMINED] LIKE THURSDAY AFTERNOON WHEN MY GUNSMOKE WAS ON, OUR VERY BEAUTIFUL ROYAL💜ANGEL PRINCESS DAUGHTERS👑 CHRISTINE💗AND MADDIE💗MADE SURE THAT GUNSMOKE WAS NOT A OPTION FOR ME, AS THEY PLAYED TOGETHER [AS ONE] TEAM MAKING ME FEEL EXTREMELY GOOD KNOWING THEY WILL ALWAYS GET ALONG VERY WELL TOGETHER! DON'T EVER THINK THAT OUR BLESSED✝ GIRLS💗DON'T LIKE TOO SET UP A COVER AND [PLAY TENT⛺] EVEN THOUGH [THEIRS WAS SEPARATE] FROM OUR BATTLE ANGEL SONS💪 THEIRS WAS JUST AS BIG AND ENJOYABLE!!! MY SEXYASS💕ANGELMAMI💕PRISCILLA👑 SHOULD KNOWS [THEY INHERITED] NOT ONLY HER💕ANGELIC💫BEAUTY BUT ALSO HER💕GIFT🎁 TO COMMUNICATE VERY WELL!!!

AT 2:57AM🌌EARLY THIS MORNING! THEY DID SO COME THROUGH [HARD] IN SPIRIT✝ CONNECTING INSIDE MY ANGELPAPPI👑MIND FOR SURELY I AM HARD TO REACH BY ANYONE WHEN I AM DEEP IN HOLY💫SPIRIT BUT [DESIRING TO COMMUNICATE] THEIR [HEAVENLY💫POWER] AND SHOW WHAT THEY COULD DO [TOGETHER AS ONE] ALL 3 OF OUR VERY BEAUTIFUL ROYAL💜ANGEL PRINCESS TRIPLET DAUGHTERS💜💜💜SANDIA💗SELINA💗AND SEARRA💗TRULY DISPLAYED LOVE💕AND AFFECTION💕 FOR EACH OTHER AS THEY REPRESENTED THEIR ANGELMAMI💕SANDRA💗VERY, VERY WELL TRULY, THEY'VE INHERITED HER💕BEAUTY HER💕SMILE AND AWESOME ABILITY TO ALWAYS FOCUS!!!

IT WAS 4:11AM🌌AND I THOUGHT AS USUAL A NICE HOT🔥 CUP OF COFFEE☕WOULD SO [START MY DAY] OF RIGHT BUT OUR VERY POWERFUL LITTLE ROYAL💜ANGEL TWIN PRINCESS💗💗DAUGHTERS👑 SO NAMED LONG AGO GIGI💗AND GNORRA💗 CAME THROUGH WITH A VERY [HARD] SPIRITUAL CONNECTION SHOWING ME, THEIR CRAZY ANGELPAPPI👑THAT THEY CAN MAKE A [BEAUTIFUL COVER TENT⛺] TO MOVE AROUND IN!!! THEY BOTH MADE ME A TRUE [DADDY BELIEVER] IN FEMALE POWER AS THEY [DANCED STRONGLY] AND SHOWED MOVES THAT WOULD THEIR MESMERIZING ANGELMAMI💕GABBY💗 AND ME PROUD!!! SURELY, I'M [BEYOND VERY BLESSED✝] TO HAVE ANGELPRINCESS😇DAUGHTERS💜 SMART, STRONG AND BEAUTIFUL A GIFT🎁 FROM MY BLESSED✝ ANGELQUEENWIFE👑

😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇😇

WHEN THE HOLY💫SPIRIT✝ [MOVES DEEPLY] AND [PROVIDES LIVE HEAVENLY REALITY] IT IS TRULY [A PLEASURE TO BEHOLD] SEEING AND FEELING THE THINGS WE DO AS OUR ANGEL😇CHILDREN PROVIDE SO MUCH JOY WE ARE SO GRATEFUL TO OUR👁GOD💫FOR ALLOWING OUR BABYANGELS😇TO COME FORWARD! [I DO NOT EVER] CALL OUT TOO THEM THEY CHOOSE TOO COME FORWARD AND HE✝ LETS THEM! I DO NOT DICTATE WHO COMES THROUGH AND MYQUEENS💜KNOW THIS, SOME OF OUR BABYANGELS😇ARE EARLY RISERS!!! MANY OF THEM ARE SLEEPYHEADS💤

THE WORLD CAN TELL BY NOW THAT SOME OF MYANGELWIVES👑SHALL SO BIRTH👣BABYANGEL😇EARLY RISERS BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN MENTIONED MANY TIMES

JENNIFER LOPEZ👑 ROBIN MEADE👑

NIKI MINAJ👑 RIHANNA👑 OPRAH👑

HARRIS FAULKNER👑MYA HARRISON👑

JENNIFER WESTHOVEN👑 GAYLE KING👑

AINSLEY EARHARDT👑HADLEY GAMBLE👑

HADLEY GAMBLE👑 KAREN TSO👑

LOUISA BOJESEN👑 SUE HERERA👑

JULIA BOORSTIN👑 MORGAN BRENNAN👑

SEEMA MODY👑STEPHANIE RUHLE👑

STEPHANIE SANTIAGO👑BRITTANYA187👑

LALOVETHEBOSS👑 BRITTANY RENNER👑

KRISTENLIVE👑 KISSEDBYKENDRA👑

SANDRA SMITH👑 KELLITA SMITH👑

DAGEN MCDOWELL👑CHERYL CASCONE👑

MARIA BARTIROMO👑SHARON TAY👑

REBECCA QUICK👑 CYNTHIAAMARTELL👑

LALA VASQUEZ👑 YOLLIE MONROE👑

LESLIE SYKES👑 PAT HARVEY👑

KHLOE KARDASHIAN👑 HALLIE JACKSON👑

LIBERTE CHAN👑KIMI EVANS👑

JULIE BANDERAS👑 NICOLE CONTRERAS👑

LISA SALTERS👑 PAM OLIVER👑

JOSINA ANDERSON👑 JAIME MAGGIO👑

BEYONCE👑 ANITRIA D. GLASS👑

LU PARKER👑 COURTNEY FRIEL👑

ROSIE PEREZ👑 MSLUPERAMOS👑

MELISSA FRANCIS👑 ROMI CHASE👑

DEMITERIA OBILOR👑CAROLINECAKES👑

MSBAILEYE👑 XOMISSCECI👑MYAHSKYE👑

SOPHIESSELFIES224👑XBELLAOX👑

VALERIA_ORSINI👑 VANESSAMFIT👑

VANESSA WILLIAMS👑JARAH MARIANO👑

JESSICAKILLINGS👑💕CHRIS JANSING👑💕

KELLI TENNANT👑💕HALLIE JACKSON👑💕

LAURADAMORE👑💕CAROLINEZALOG👑💕

👉👉👉👉JUST TO NAME A FEW👈👈👈👈 ALL MYWIVES WEAR THATANGELICLOOK💫

WHEN OUR BABYANGELS😇DECIDE TOO COME FORWARD THEY DO!!! THE ENTIRE WORLD🌍 HAS SEEN BABYANGEL NAMES OF MY QUEENS👑LISTED ABOVE!!! THEY, OUR BLESSED✝ LITTLE ONES COME INSIDE MY MIND JUST LIKE WHEN THEY ARE BORN THEY ARRIVE WHEN THEY WANT TOO!!!👣

[braindamageforbeginners]

Self-doubt

If there's one little takeaway from these dark little lullabies of mine, it's that having cancer is unimaginably isolating (especially if you're under 40 - while everyone else is establishing their career and starting families, my ambitions are significantly lower, and much, much harder to achieve). Case in point, I was at dinner with some family friends, and I mentioned my newly-modified diet to the waitress (lots of fruits and vegetables and protein)(again, if you're enjoying it, you need another helping of carrots). She wanted to know if I had any dangerous dietary restrictions or chemo interactions. She did it out of concern and compassion, but it's still a reminder that I'm now a member of The Others, no matter where I am. I guess I should be happy I have passing privileges, but I do kind of wonder how many of us just get so dejected and discouraged that we give up. Or get tired and screw up when organizing prescriptions and appointments.

Also, I was recently contacted by another friend whose father got a glioma. Like me, both of these friends have enough of a clinical background to know that are good and bad decisions, even with the relatively limited options for brain cancer. Both of them wanted to know if I had any insight onto how to deal with that new found sense of maddening self-doubt.

Because I’m me, I have no fool-proof way of dealing that, but I will offer the following advice: do whatever it takes to stop that from allowing you to make decisions, even bad ones. Again, I'm on some interesting psychiatric drugs these days, or, if a hip-flask is more your thing, go for it. We make all sorts of noise about pill-shaming, I've talked about it at length, you're not going to be useful-much less survive, if you're curled into the fetal position sobbing (I know that's unhelpful because that was my first approach). Same goes for family members or caretakers. And if you're not okay with Prozac, that's fine, too, just do whatever it takes to jolt yourself out of panic or numbness and back to somewhat effective decision-making, because you're you're now on the clock Second, to use the old Yiddish expression, "If your grandmother had balls, she'd be your grandfather," you'll drive yourself crazy with hypotheticals (I know I still do). That's also counterproductive, and you are going to need to be at your most productive and intelligent. To keep stealing from pop culture, I'm playing this like Matt Damon from The Martian - I've got a list of things that will kill me tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year, subdivided into things I can and can't solve. I'm not usually too bothered about things I can't solve because, if I've been careful, logical, and observant, it's going to take every bit of my energy and time just getting to next month. As previously-mentioned, it’s not a great way to live, but the operative word in that sentence is “live.”

I also realize that I have a bit of an advantage with the Warlocks invested in keeping me alive long enough to figure my disease out. Original Research Coordinator mentioned that they're always recruiting for trials for recurrences and metastasis (even though I'm sticking with the "dark wizard" origin story for Senior Warlock, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that he was a billionaire who was orphaned at a young age when brain cancer gunned down his parents in an alley in Gotham), in that I might get a few extra OODA Loop cycles than the average brain cancer patient, but the principles still stand - indecisiveness is going to be more harshly punished than moderately bad decisions (I’ll admit that’s just commentary; I haven’t done any analysis to back it up). Once you've committed to a treatment plan, don't do it in halves; stick to it, learn as much useful stuff as you can along the way, and stay as healthy as you can for as long as you can (how well patients tolerate treatment is correlated with better outcomes). And when you do beat it, you're going to want to be in prime condition, because neurological recovery is a difficult problem unto itself; and, even though treatments are safer and better than ever, there are a lot of long-term side effects that are dangerous.

And, despite it all, don't give up hope. A big problem with developing effective brain cancer treatment is that the patient pool has always been small. Now that the Boomers are entering their 60's, cancer rates across the board will swell, meaning more interest and funding for cancer research and treatment, including brain cancer.

And, in that light, take the Harvey Milk approach and come out of the cancer closet. He knew that people would be disinclined to support regressive policies if they knew those policies would hurt friends and family members. I'd say the same idea applies doubly - people won't vote for yahoos who want to cut NIH funding or medical access if they know it will shorten the life expectancy of someone they care about.

Final bit of advice about that nagging self-doubt we all share, figure out some way to get reinvested in your story. It is beyond unfair that, on top of all the other troubles we have, we get a disease as horrible as brain cancer. And it sucks to realize that, even if everything goes perfectly, the future you wanted and planned for is irretrievably gone. It's a horrifying realization that your life is no longer "Leave It to Cleaver," it's John Carpenter's "The Thing." But, at the same time, you finally get to figure out if Childs was an alien imposter (that reference will only make sense to a tiny-but-cool segment of the populace). In my case, I got to write about how weird and awful my life had become, but simply in doing that, I came back to what I'd previously considered a hobby, writing. And I really love writing, in case you haven't noticed (again, readers, I really hope you will love anything half as much as I like babbling on in print). And the responses I've gotten made me think of the line in Wrath of Kahn, "Commanding a star ship is your first, best destiny; anything else is a waste of materiel." (I stole that idea from Marc Bernardin). Which, in turn, gave me the strength to eat that ninth helping of lettuce, go to the gym, and get nuked. Your old life is gone, and you're in a much darker, scarier place, but if you're smart and lucky, you might get a shot at reimagining and reinventing your life. That's a little more positive than I feel, but it's easy to be positive after a clean scan (of course, it’s also quite possible I’ll be singing a dramatically different tune after the next round of bills)(which might actually kill me - again, it’s a shocker if you’re healthy, but hospitals actually do throw people out on the street if they run out of money). My life will never look the way I thought it might look like at age 18 or 25, but it might - again with a helluva lot of luck - eventually look more like what I thought it might at age 4 or 5. Again, though, that's easy to write when there's no chemo in the system, and that's just me. Everyone's going to have to find their own way to glow in the gloomy depths.

At the end of the day, you don’t have enough time to devote to questioning decisions you can’t reverse; I suppose that’s true for healthy people, but it’s even more applicable to life on the abyssal plains. At the start of this thing, I was horrified that there wasn’t a dramatic difference between the best-case, long-term GBM outcomes and the average outcomes, so I went with what was recommended by my doctors (which was basically to aggressively and immediately go after it, with some extra chemo on the side). Maybe it’ll work. Again, I’m only a third of the way through the year-long chemo course, so I’m not exactly a model for success, but that’s all I’ve got.

Anyway, I’m back in the chemo chair tomorrow (and starting Temodar again tomorrow night); and I wrote this over the last 48 sleep-deprived hours, so I realize it’s not my greatest work (and I’m not going to get sharper in the next few days, thanks to the double-dose of Temodar and experimental infusions). But, assuming all of that goes well, you can look forward to reefer madness, a visit from Junior Warlock, and the garden gnome saga. No, that’s not some sort of word salad (I don’t think so, anyway), just my very-cluttered, aggressively stupid calendar of appointments for the week..

#stupidcancer

[dippedanddripped]

Marc Jacobs and Ava Nirui met because of a sweatshirt. The hoodie – a plain pull-over with ‘Mark Jacobes’ in a childlike scrawl across the front, saw Nirui cross the line from viral fashion bootlegger (known as @avanope) to bonafide collaborator, and resulted in her being offered a full-time role at the brand.

For Jacobs, hiring Nirui was, as everything else in his world, the result of pure instinct. So far, it’s more than paid off – collaborations under her direction have included the likes of Cactus Plant Flea Market and Stay Rats (which even saw the elusive Frank Ocean model). At their heart, such partnerships are current expressions of the things that the brand has stood for since its earliest days in 80s New York: community, inclusivity, creativity, self-expression – and being a little bit of an outsider. “It’s been so amazing to have the keys to do all of that,” Nirui acknowledges, referencing the trust that exists between them. “Marc is like a mentor to me.”

ADVERTISING

Now, Jacobs and Nirui are ready to unveil their latest project: Heaven.

What is Heaven? It’s a series of clothes, from baby tees to sweater vests, combat trousers to hoodies. But it’s also a double-headed Teddy bear (originally held by a naked Katie Grand in the pages of a 1994 copy of Dazed). It’s young musicians like Dazed 100 star Beabadoobee and the green-haired Vegyn. It’s your teenage bedroom. It’s Gregg Araki, whose apocalyptic typography features on t-shirts. It’s legendary Japanese street style mag FRUiTS, whose founder Shoichi Aoki has shot the lookbook. And it’s so, so much more than that.

With a jaw-dropping list of collaborators who have contributed their talents to the project – from curating books, to making art, or shooting films – it’s a reflection of Marc Jacobs’ obsession with pop culture heroes, creative weirdos, and a new generation of icons. And it’s proof that the feeling is more than mutual. (The resulting projects will be revealed over the coming weeks on a newly-created Instagram page, @heavn.)

Heaven will not replace any current lines, but join the existing planets in the Marc Jacobs solar system – like The Marc Jacobs and the (as for now, unscheduled) runway shows. “There is space for a younger audience; there is space for a runway show; there is space for an online shopper,” Jacobs affirms. “So, it’s not about saying: ’Oh, that’s dead’ or jumping on a bandwagon, it’s just going back to our roots and saying we allow space for things to happen. And Heaven is one of those things that is happening now.”

Below, Jacobs and Nirui talk Heaven, creativity, and why New York will never die – despite what you may have heard.

Ava Nirui: Marc, where did the name Heaven come from? What does the name Heaven mean to you?

Marc Jacobs: It goes way back. There’s a group of people who are all my friends and almost like my chosen family – Anna Sui, Steven Meisel, Louie Chaban. We always used to use the word ‘heaven’ to describe something we loved. If something was perfect or if someone looked amazing, you’d be like, she’s heaven. They’re heaven. It’s heaven. Heaven was it. It’s done, perfect. Heaven, I love it.

When you were conceiving the collection there was a Dazed image of Katie Grand holding a two-headed teddy bear on the moodboard – why was that particularly inspirational?

Ava Nirui: Obviously, Katie is someone who is so linked with Marc’s history and one of Marc’s muses. We felt that the double-headed teddy bear was something that really symbolised Marc Jacobs in the way that it’s classic but demented, the two heads being the duality, the two genders and everything in between. We just thought it was a really playful thing that fit into the Marc Jacobs world really seamlessly.

Marc Jacobs: When Ava showed me this symbol of the two-headed bear, it just organically started to feel like a very natural and urgent thing to do and say. My big contribution (was) to say, ‘Ava, I love it. Go for it.’

Ava Nirui: Also, all of these collaborators and community members that I brought to Marc for Heaven – it’s funny to me because Marc’s world, and the people who are contained within Marc’s world, like the Sofias and the Courtneys, Harmony, Marilyn Manson and all of those people, are people I’m drawn to and obsessed with.

A lot of them are kind of outsiders, rebellious in their own ways.

Ava Nirui: The way Marc works and has always worked, has been anti-establishment and very rebellious and very subversive. I think that this project was just such a natural, organic progression (from that). Marc also being so incredibly trusting, allowed for it to be what it is now – which is so many collaborations with friends and people who are relevant to his brand, to his label and people who really authentically slot into this world.

Marc Jacobs: I think that’s really the only way for something to have soul, to not study it, not calculate it and I loved that from Ava’s first sweatshirt that she did, there is that kind of guerilla attitude. It’s instinctive: I had an idea, I went out and did it. I do have complete trust in Ava and if I didn’t I’d be trying to micromanage and that goes completely against anything with soul. I’m very much someone who believes in collaboration in the true sense of the word. I know that that’s what it takes for something to have authenticity and credibility, to allow different people their voice and their vision. I act in some way as a director or an editor or just as a collaborator.

“The way Marc works and has always worked, has been anti-establishment and very rebellious and very subversive. I think that this project was just such a natural, organic progression” – Ava Nirui

Why was Gregg Araki’s work something that felt relevant to bring into the collection?

Marc Jacobs: Ava brought the idea to collaborate with Gregg Araki to me and I sprung to life because he has always been one of my favourite filmmakers. When I brought Stephen Sprouse to Paris to collaborate with me on the Vuitton show we did together, Stephen and I both had this huge crush on (actor) James Duval. (Stephen) would come over to my apartment in Paris and we would watch and rewatch The Doom Generation and all of the Araki films and that was just something we bonded over and something we loved. So when Ava presented this idea of Gregg Araki, it almost made me feel like, Why haven’t I done this before? I’ve always been a fan and his work has always been so inspirational to me.

Ava Nirui: I just knew Marc would love Gregg Araki, even though it was not something he had explicitly said to me before. The collaboration was conceived before the quarantine but some of those title cards that we used (on the clothing) are so relevant to now. ‘The alienation generation’, and it feeling so rebellious and angsty. I just feel like it’s kind of perfect for the time.

Marc Jacobs Heaven lookbook13

When I watched Euphoria, I was like, this is just Gregg Araki with an HBO budget.

Marc Jacobs: Definitely. There are definitely ties. Sometimes there are just people who are so sensitive and have this instinctive connection to storytelling. I felt the connection we had to these Araki films was like, here is someone who is telling a story in a way that we understand. You just related so primitively to the content and the visual, the angst, the sexuality and everything about it.

Ava Nirui: Obviously I think everyone knows some of the most iconic fashion collaborations came from Marc and you’ve also always been so supportive of up and coming people, designers and artists. So Marc, why do you think it’s so important to be so trusting in supporting these up and coming talents?

Marc Jacobs: I think I’m just a genuine fan, I went into fashion because I loved it. One of the things I didn’t love about fashion before I got started was this idea of an ivory tower designer, a designer who takes credit for everything. It’s funny, I was with Kanye last week and he said to me people in music play music for other fellow musicians and artists when they do work they share with other artists to get their input and feedback. One of the places where that’s not the case is in fashion.

Fashion is so about ownership about something and I find that so many designers put so much energy into trying to protect and own an idea and it’s just beyond me. That’s a system I’ve never understood, I’ve always felt like creativity and being artistic is a community. I think it’s the only reason why with all the frustrations and difficulties of being in business and being a designer for so long, that I feel like I still want to do this job because I still feel there are so many interesting and great stories out there.

Obviously things like the Louis Vuitton Murakami collaboration are being discovered by a whole new generation – what’s it like to see people discover these things for the first time?

Marc Jacobs: I think it’s wonderful. It’s interesting because, and I’m saying this because we’re talking about Murakami, Virgil sent me DM saying: ‘You’ve set the stage for this’. I don’t need credit but I just think it’s really nice that some people recognise it. What’s funny is that there is a whole younger generation that doesn’t know anything about me and they don’t know anything about these collaborations and where they came from and that’s okay. I’m not fighting for ownership of these ideas. I love that they meant something so substantial that people relook at them. That’s the greatest reward to me. I’m going to totally screw up this quote but Chanel used to say, ‘He who insists on his own creativity has no memory.’ It’s not important to insist you were the one who invented something or created it because let’s face it – everything comes from somewhere.

What you were just saying about ideas of ownership Marc, Ava that reminds me of the bootleg work you were doing originally on Instagram. Do you feel like you have a similar mentality there?

Ava Nirui: I think the biggest similarity between the bootleg stuff and the way Marc works is truly doing your own thing and being satisfied with your own work. Also, not really caring about the repercussions. Something Marc was giving me advice on was ways to navigate working for a corporation and how you can get away with being rebellious. Marc actually had really amazing words there...

Marc Jacobs: Karl Lagerfeld once said – and again, I’ll probably misquote this – you need to disrespect something to move forward. When I collaborated with Stephen Sprouse, one of my challenges was to make the monogram fresh again. I felt the only way we could do that was by disrespecting it and defacing it, very much like Duchamp did with the Mona Lisa when he painted the moustache. I think that’s something that you can’t check with people on, you just have to do it and let the chips fall if they may. Apologise afterwards if necessary or just accept responsibility for it afterwards. I think that’s how you make something genuine. For a good, healthy amount of disrespect, there has to be admiration.

I remember when I was doing certain things at Vuitton and I was getting my hands slapped by the president of Vuitton or by the head of communications, Mr Arnault would be like ’Look, you’re not here for a popularity contest. I hired you to make a difference. I hired you to make young people look at this brand differently. So you may not win friends along the way but that’s what you’re here to do.’

In fashion, that line between creative freedom and keeping certain people happy is hard to strike. How do you manage it?

Marc Jacobs: My experience is at the end of the day if you want to sleep well you have to trust your instincts and your gut. You can’t please everyone. I think there’s always a balance though, every action has a reaction. How important is the integrity of your idea and where can you conform or compromise, so that your idea can be heard? This is something everybody in life has to straddle. We all have to balance what allows us to be creative and get our voice out there with the integrity of our voice. How we navigate that is part of what happens when you want to share what your work is with others. If you want it to be out there, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you but you also can’t be so respectful that you get nowhere and say nothing.

“If you want your work to be out there, you can’t bite the hand that feeds you but you also can’t be so respectful that you get nowhere and say nothing” – Marc Jacobs

The pandemic obviously made a lot of people reconsider their relationship to New York. Some people have been proclaiming that the city is dead...

Marc Jacobs: New York is not dead and New York is never going to die. The city will grow from what it’s gone through and people who are artistic within the city will thrive in a different way. Creativity is essential. If there was no art, no fashion, no music, no poetry, what would everyone be doing in quarantine? They’d be Zooming each other naked and they would have no documentaries or movies to discuss. Art is essential, it’s just the way it is. We need water, we need food, we need shelter. Everything else is superfluous but we wouldn’t want to live a life without art. I think it was Nietzsche who said we have art so we don’t die of reality. I think it’s kind of true, creativity of all forms is essential and New York in all forms is one of the most creative and vital places in the world.

Ava Nirui: I just feel like the people who are always here are still here. I think New York, like everywhere else, will recover. I think that creative talent is certainly still here and I feel like I’m discovering people every single day who live in New York, who are incredible.

Marc Jacobs: I think also when we speak about New York in this sense, it’s not about New York City as a geographical zone, it’s about a concept. Why do young people dream about coming to New York from other places? I think New York represents a spirit that will never die. It’s a place of dreams, it’s a place that you look towards as a place to be free. If you’ve come from these other places which aren’t as accepting and you can’t belong. No one comes to New York to fit in, they come to belong. It’s like an embracing entity, there is space for anything and anyone here. With the drive, ambition, creativity and imagination, anyone can be a presence. That idea and that essence will never die.

#ava nirui #marc jacobs #heaven #fashion blog

[daresplaining]

Do you think Matt is better suited as a prosecutor, or a defence attorney, as he seems to have been most of the time? Which, in your opinion, does he seem to prefer?

    This actually doesn’t come up as much as you might think, so it’s hard to point to a specific panel and say “Hah! Yes, Matt prefers ____”. There’s also not a ton of consistency, and he will occasionally jump from defense to prosecution from one case to another without explanation. But his general trend is toward defense, and since that’s the type of law he’s practiced for most of his career, we can assume that’s what he’s most comfortable with. He hasn’t shown a particular talent for one over the other either. He’s a good lawyer no matter which side he’s on, but overall, he’d rather spend his professional life keeping innocents from going to jail than throwing bad guys in jail– which is part of the reason why he does the Daredevil thing in his off-hours. That way, he is able to balance out the occasional instance of defending people he knows are guilty. And that leads right into your other question, so we hope you don’t mind if we go ahead and answer that here too…

    All the time. There’s a reason he’s been disbarred so many times. (Actually, there are two reasons, but we’ll leave the Kingpin out of this for now. The problem is mostly Matt.)

Judge: “Our issue is less with your sabotage of the Ogilvy case than with Nelson & Murdock’s now-disclosed history of ethics violations. Your past activities as a vigilante, as well as the questionable actions you and your partner have taken to preserve that identity, leave us no flexibility. With a heavy heart, this court hereby disbars Matthew M. Murdock and Franklin P. Nelson.”

Daredevil vol. 3 #36 by Mark Waid, Chris Samnee, and Javier Rodriguez 

    Matt is a moral guy but a very unethical lawyer, simply because he does operate on both sides of the law. Every single case he takes on is tainted in this way, because he nearly always uses his Daredevil identity and powers to gather evidence and determine guilt. At this late point in the Marvel universe (and with the exception of the period when the Superhero Registration Act was being enforced), being a vigilante doesn’t seem to be quite as illegal as it is in our world, simply because there have been so many dang superheroes around for so long. However, Matt is put on trial for vigilante activity– which we’ll be talking about later in the post– and it’s still a clear breach of legal protocol, and not what a lawyer should be doing. There’s also the factor of his powers, which he uses on a regular basis to give himself an edge, and on which he relies to an unwise degree. He hates defending guilty clients, and has gotten himself into trouble before by trying to determine guilt via heartbeat. All of this isn’t just a Matt problem, by the way– though it does tend to come up more with him than with other superhero lawyers. There’s a great issue of She-Hulk, for example, (She-Hulk (2004) #1, to be specific) where Jen loses a winning verdict because she saves the world while the trial is going on, and the judge rules that this biased the jury in her favor.    

   But Matt is the Unethical Lawyer poster child when it comes to this sort of thing, and this conflict has been a major theme in Daredevil comics, particularly within the last decade-or-so. With this in mind, we’re going to be providing just a few examples, rather than a comprehensive list of offenses.  

   The “Worlds Collide” story from volume 4 #15.1 focuses specifically on this dichotomy of legal work versus superhero work. Early in both his legal and… extralegal careers, Matt is assigned to defend a man who he apprehended as Daredevil. While spending his nights trying to ascertain whether his client is actually guilty, in court he is put in the position of arguing against the concept of superheroes.  

Matt: “What are his motives? What does he want? I want to know who this man, this ‘Daredevil’– who is, essentially, accusing my client of murder– I want to know who he is. Other than a criminal. We know he’s at least guilty of assault… and, in the case of the defendant, involuntary imprisonment. Consider the facts… An unknown man in a disguise attacks someone… tackles him to the ground… and yet it’s the person who was assaulted who gets arrested? This isn’t justice. And it’s not how the justice system is supposed to work.”

Daredevil vol. 4 #15.1, “Worlds Collide” by Marc Guggenheim, Peter Krause, and Matt Wilson  

   Matt is fully aware of the irony of making this argument and yet continuing to try and determine his client’s guilt as Daredevil. He knows what he’s doing is wrong, and he cares deeply about his career as a lawyer. That’s an important point that we want to make clear. It’s not just a cover/source of intel for his secret life, as jobs occasionally are for superheroes– he genuinely loves being a lawyer and cares about the legal system. But even in this story, at this early point in his career, he feels justified in taking massive liberties with the law for the sake of ensuring that justice is actually done. He’s a self-assured enough person to believe that he knows best, and that his interventions as Daredevil are fair and necessary. That doesn’t mean they are– but that’s his mindset, and it always has been.

Matt: “A man murders. He leaves clues. He did it. He’s guilty. He’ll pay for the crime. Simple. That’s the beauty of justice. Daredevil tracks him, Matt Murdock makes him pay. Simple, gorgeous justice. When I’m poor, blind Matt Murdock, it’s easy to believe in the law, in the courts. Why is it, soon as I put on this suit– I feel that belief cracking? Doesn’t matter. Tonight will be different. I’ll reel the killer in, and the courts’ll get him locked up for life. Pure, beautiful justice.”

Daredevil vol. 1 #251 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita, Jr., and Christie Scheele

    (By the way, this is a good example of what we were referring to in response to your first question. Matt is thinking like a prosecutor here.)

    To explain his willingness to cross these lines– if not to necessarily justify it– we need to look back at his origin story. A key part of his decision to become Daredevil in the first places was the fact that his father’s killers didn’t go to jail for their crime– and I’m partial to renditions of his origin that make clear that he only goes after the Fixer and friends himself after they’ve been put on trial.

Matt: “We did it all by the book. The police weren’t surprised that Sweeney and Slade were involved and it wasn’t long before they were arrested. But, on the day of the bail hearing, suddenly, they had some Park Avenue attorney. His hair gel cost more than what Foggy and I were wearing.”

Daredevil: Yellow #1 by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale   

   He sees justice fail, and so steps in to pick up the slack. Whether this was a good move on his part is up for debate. He unintentionally causes the Fixer to die of a heart attack long before he has a chance to go to jail, for instance, which is a moral issue all on its own. But with this inciting, highly personal incident always in the back of his mind, and as his legal career continues to show him the gaps and weaknesses in the system, he feels continually justified in filling in the cracks with his own brand of crimefighting.

    But credit where credit is due– right now, at this very moment in the current run (spoiler alert!), Matt is taking steps to address this issue. He and the D.A.’s office are attempting to set precedent for allowing superheroes to legally contribute their skills and testimony to criminal investigations, without being forced to reveal their identities.  

Matt: “Slug’s gang escaped, but we got him, and I picked up plenty of evidence with my super-senses. If the judge lets me testify, I can put him away, and maybe get him to turn over on his crew. It is legal. I’m sure of it. And if I can pull this off… if I can testify without taking off my mask, then we all can. Any secret identity hero. Spider-Man… even Blindspot. […] It could change everything. Our powers let us gather evidence the cops just can’t. If we can present it in court, legally… no more tying up bad guys, leaving them for the police and praying the system can get a conviction. We can be part of the process from start to finish.”

Daredevil vol. 5 #22 by Charles Soule, Goran Sudzuka, and Matt Milla

    This still doesn’t seem to address the fact that Matt is both a superhero and a lawyer, and is still free and willing to interfere in questionable ways in his own cases with no oversight– but hey, it’s still a big deal.  

    Generally, the instances of Matt behaving unethically that are emphasized within the narrative specially for being unethical, involve Matt trying to protect his life as Daredevil. His identity has been leaked to the press twice. The first time, fortunately, the journalist was discredited before the story got too far or Matt had to make any big moves. But the second time, when his secret identity is printed on the front page of the Daily Globe (not to be confused with the Daily Bugle) during Bendis’s run, he is forced to choose between accepting the charges or lying, both in public and in court. He opts for lying (with Foggy’s full-if-uncomfortable support), and the two of them even go so far as to sue the Globe for libel.

Foggy: “Working either side of the law? This means Matt Murdock defrauded the American justice system by faking a trial against Daredevil. And that’s just the most recent example. Matt– you can’t. You can’t come clean. You can’t come out. First? You’ll get disbarred. And then… then you go to jail. You know I’m right, pal. So the thing we do? We fight this. […] We get up on the highest tree and we scream: liars! We sue everyone in sight until their heads spin off their bodies.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #33 by Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev, and Matt Hollingsworth

    When he is put on trial for operating as a vigilante, Matt contemplates fighting his way out of the courtroom and just running away, before deciding to plead not guilty. He does, notably, feel bad about all this later, and reflects on it in volume 3 #36 when he finally decides to out himself as Daredevil. But that certainly hasn’t stopped him from lying and playing with the law since.

    Arguably the most egregious– and certainly the most memorable– example of Matt’s shaky legal ethics (which Foggy references in the excerpt above) is the “Playing to the Camera” arc (DD vol. 2 #20-25). This plotline centers around Matt and Foggy getting hired to sue Daredevil, allegedly for causing some major property damage. Matt knows he didn’t do it, and is affronted that his honor is being impinged by some troublemaker pretending to be Daredevil. Despite the obvious immorality such a thing would involve, and Foggy’s protestations, Matt takes the case to keep control of it and prevent other lawyers from snooping around in Daredevil’s business.    

Matt: “Foggy, if we don’t take the case, Griggs’ll keep at it until he finds someone who will. Like Claude Unger. And the last thing Daredevil needs is Claude Unger poking around in his life.”

Foggy: “We can’t do it, Matt! It’s insane! To say nothing of the ethics! Allowing yourself to be hired to sue yourself– it’s illegal! You could be disbarred!”

Matt: “It’ll die on the vine. Remember, the case has no merit. Once we investigate and I find this imposter, it falls apart, end of story. It’ll be over inside of a week.”

Daredevil vol. 2 #20 by Bob Gale, Phil Winslade, James Hodgkins, et al.

   Surprise– it’s not over inside of a week, and it does go to court, and Matt finds himself in the position of having to sue himself. He manages to be in two places at once by convincing Peter Parker to pretend to be Daredevil, going behind his (DD’s) lawyer’s back in the process. It’s a hilarious, utterly unethical mess– and one Matt is perfectly willing to undertake for the sake of protecting his identity.  

    In short: lawbreaking is inherent in the superhero genre, and Matt’s position as a lawyer and devotion to the proper functioning of the justice system in no way prevents him from bending legal ethics to their absolute limit.   

#queenmorganlafay #Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Foggy Nelson #Asks #Commentary

[marcringelmd]

What Is Telehealth?

What is “telemedicine” and “telehealth?”

Here’s what people imagine telehealth to be, an interactive real-time video consultation between a doctor and a remote patient.

Telehealth is that, of course.

It’s even better when the consultation is enhanced with instruments that let a doctor (or other provider like a nurse practitioner or physician assistant), examine a patient’s eardrum or listen to their heart from afar.

Access to a shared electronic medical record makes the encounter that much more powerful.

Phrase trends of "telehealth" vs. "telemedicine"

View Graph on Ngram Viewer

As a rural family doctor, I did telemedicine many times every day, a decade before I owned a computer, let alone a smartphone. In the days when there were only landlines, I gave medical advice to patients and sought advice on challenging cases from colleagues over the phone.

That was telemedicine.

I was practicing medicine from a distance. Likewise, when I called a prescription to the pharmacy or an order to the laboratory. After a few years, I was faxing some of those prescriptions and orders.

That was telemedicine too.

You may have noticed that I’ve used both words, “telemedicine” and “telehealth.” The word “telehealth” came along in the 1980s, about 15 years after “telemedicine” first appears in Ngram.

The word “health” is meant to convey a broader scope of practice than “medicine,” which implies just a physician-based medical practice. “Telehealth” includes for example: consultations with therapists or dietitians; support groups; and lately, self-monitoring and uploading of everything, from steps taken to blood sugar to mood.

Truth is, most everybody, including me, uses “telemedicine” and “telehealth” interchangeably.

How Modern Telehealth Has Influenced Healthcare

In 1999 McGraw-Hill released a book I co-wrote with healthcare futurist Jeff Bauer, Telemedicine and the Reinvention of Healthcare. Jeff and I came up with this definition for our book:

“Telemedicine is the combined use of telecommunications and computer technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services by liberating caregivers from the traditional constraints of place and time and by empowering consumers to make informed choices in a competitive marketplace.”

That’s a mouthful. But it holds up pretty well, I think, considering it’s 190 tech-years (19 people-years) old.

What Is Telemedicine and Digital Healing?

For my book, Digital Healing: People, Information and Healthcare, published last year by Taylor&Francis and released in audio version by Audible, I wrote this streamlined definition, “Telemedicine is the use of electronic information and communication technology to overcome barriers of distance and time when delivering healthcare.”

It’s about using technology to subdue distance and time. Period. Which means that the questions and pictures about a rash that you send to me electronically or that I forward on to a dermatologist are telemedicine.

The care doesn’t have to happen in real time—it can be based on information that is stored-and-forwarded.

Whether you called me with your initial query or contacted me with pictures and questions via my practice’s patient portal, it’s all telemedicine. It’s all care at a distance.

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BUY ON AMAZON

What is Telehealth?

Once we grasp that telemedicine is based on a broad set of communication tools, we can begin to solve real problems and meet real needs, usually at reasonable cost. The technology itself gets cheaper, more reliable and easier to use every day.  

“Let’s get a cool interactive video system. Now, what’s the problem?” describes a process that is 180 degrees from what it ought to be.

It should go more like this, “We see patients with acute strokes at our rural emergency room. The sooner we get clot buster drugs into their system, the more stroke patients we could save from a lifetime of disability. But if we give this potent medication to the wrong patient, such as one whose brain event is the result of a bleed, not a clot, we could make things catastrophically worse. We need a neurologist to interpret the acute brain CT scan and advise us how to proceed; and we need them right away, because time is neurons. The longer the delay in administering anti-coagulation, the worse the outcome.”

Fortunately, I have in my rural ER a CT scanner and a stock of anticoagulant. I am present myself to interview and examine the patient. As a family doctor, what I need most of all is for a neurologist or a radiologist to interpret the radiology image. The hospital’s CT scanner must have a broadband connection so it can send the digital “films” STAT for expert interpretation.

Crucially, there has to be a protocol on the receiving end for a consultant to look at the images immediately and call me back with the results. We need a system. That’s the challenge. These days the technology is pretty standard.

Parenthetically, what we don’t need is for the consulting doctor and me to be able to see each other on a video monitor nor, for that matter, for the patient and distant doc to be in visual contact. That’s how one big hospital organization in my state sold their acute stroke management system, by featuring their fancy, new video system.

“Let us do a telemedicine consult,” they said. And people bought it.

Telehealth Isn’t a Magic Solution

The real-time video just made the whole interaction more cumbersome, especially in the old days of telemedicine when you had to wheel a cart bearing a big monitor and a heavy codec (the video equivalent of a modem) up to the patient bedside and hook it up to hard wiring that had been installed in the room.

Fortunately, this medical center does have excellent stroke doctors who give good advice and a well-oiled system for communicating with referrers. But it was the sizzle of *T*E*L*E*M*E*D*I*C*I*N*E* more than the steak of immediate expert consultation that made their program go, and also made it more expensive.

Telemedicine Should Enhance Healthcare, Not Replace It

Whether you’re a provider or a patient, located in the city or in the country, try to think of telemedicine as a set of tools, no different than what you have in your shop. Sometimes you need a table saw to make a cut. Sometimes all you need is a razor blade.

Choosing the right tool for the job is critical. But first you have to understand what that job is.

In healthcare that means that sometimes you may need a high-end video system for talking a distant surgeon through a hairy procedure and sometimes you’ll just need the telephone to reassure a worried parent.

It’s all communication. And it’s all telehealth.

The post What Is Telehealth? appeared first on Marc Ringel | Author & Healthcare Professional.

source https://marcringelmd.com/digital-healing/what-is-telehealth/

#digitalhealing #marcringel #marcringelmd #health #medical technology

[funface2]

Chris Morris Finds the FBI, Sadly, Very Funny – Vulture

The Brass Eye creator reinvented himself as a movie director with Four Lions. It only took him nine years to give us a second film. Photo: Courtesy of IFC Films

Chris Morris, the 57-year-old English writer, comedian, and director, is both revered and reviled. He came up angering the masses with his breakneck parodies of news media, The Day Today (co-created by Armando Iannucci) and Brass Eye, programs that predated Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Arguably more radical and surreal than their various spawn, the satirical shows allowed for Morris to, for example, trick members of Parliament into somberly weighing in on a nonexistent Czechoslovakian drug called Cake. On an infamous one-off edition of Brass Eye, 2001’s “Paedogeddon!” special, he tackled moral panic around pedophilia by duping Phil Collins, among other celebrities, into supporting a fake charity, Nonce Sense. (If you’re familiar with British slang, you get it.) Channel 4 reportedly received 2,000 complaints after it aired.

In 2010, Morris reinvented himself as a movie director with Four Lions, a tightrope act of a comedy about a pack of bungling would-be jihadists, starring a young Riz Ahmed. The film prompted critic Andrew Pulven to declare in the Guardian, “Chris Morris is still the most incendiary figure working in the British entertainment industry.” Nearly a decade later, Morris is back with his follow-up, The Day Shall Come, a movie he once again co-wrote with Succession creator Jesse Armstrong. Like Four Lions, it’s a tricky attempt at getting laughs out of impossibly dark subject matter. The topic is ginned-up FBI stings in which hapless nobodies get reinvented as terror masterminds. The stories are manifold and depressingly familiar: an FBI informant finds a susceptible target with extreme leanings and offers money, encouragement, and weapons — and, eventually, the FBI has an alleged massive terror-plot bust to crow about. In The Day Shall Come, newcomer Marchánt Davis plays Moses Al Shabaz, a lovable dummy and would-be revolutionary who gets manipulated by Anna Kendrick’s ambitious, conflicted FBI agent. (Her read on Moses: “He’s got the threat signature of a hot dog.”) As Morris explained in our conversation ahead of the film’s release, “You have the Department of Justice behaving like gods — like rather paranoid gods. They’re playing with people that they don’t understand but that they can manipulate.”

The Day Shall Come is billed as being based on “a hundred true stories.” Was there one, in particular, that inspired you?  Very much so, yes. I was just watching the news on British TV, and the story came up that the FBI had arrested an army launching a full-scale ground war from a warehouse in Miami. I didn’t realize then it was the origin of a film, but three years later I ran into [former CIA operations officer and terror expert] Marc Sageman, who was a witness at the trial. He said, “Remember that full-scale ground war in Miami? It was actually going to be seven guys on horses. But they didn’t even have horses.” It turned out an FBI informant was offering $50,000 for them to come up with a plan against the government. Their first plan was to lead a protest to the governor’s house in Miami against conditions in the projects. And the informant said, “Well, you’re not gonna get much money for that, so you need to think bigger.” And they basically riffed their way into a ludicrous plot to knock over the Sears Tower, which they claimed they could do even though they had no idea how, and which they claimed would cause a tidal wave which would swamp Chicago. Then they said that the waters would subside and they would ride into town on horses because they said people respect a man on a horse.

So this was what was presented through a news bulletin as a bigger threat to the United States than 9/11. By the [former] attorney general, by the way! [Alberto] Gonzales. That’s how he described it. I just thought, “Right, that’s some great lie. And I now want to get to the bottom of this.” I was further drawn in by the fact that this was a pattern by which the FBI comes up with a terrorist plot and then tries to get someone to try and carry it out.

Before making Four Lions, you spent years researching jihadism. Was it a similar research process this time? Only in that you’re following something to find out more. But in all other respects, there were very few similarities. This is a story about law enforcement setting up a fake world and leading someone into it, creating a sort of Truman Show–type environment. The research then took me to a lot of places that were strange to me. I’ve never been in an FBI building before, I’ve never spoken to people in the Department of Justice or been around any American city police stations. I hadn’t been to Detroit, Dearborn, Chicago, where some of these cases had been perpetrated on people. It was a series of very interesting, exciting acquaintances with the unknown.

If you’re trying to write a character like Moses, you’re trying to create a fringe preacher, someone who has come up with their own ideology which represents a transcendent narrative to people who are living in an area which is pretty downtrodden. And in order to do that you have to understand the still-ongoing segregation that happens. We came across a bridge across a canal in Miami which separated two neighborhoods. The kids in the poorer neighborhood went to school in the better-off neighborhood across this bridge on the canal, but there was a dirty, great big steel door in the middle of the bridge and these kids were only allowed to walk to school with a police escort. Then at the end of the school day they were sort of ushered through back to the poorer neighborhood, and the steel door was slammed shut. You see that, and then you can start to write within the confines that the real world has set out for you.

Chris Morris in Brass Eye. Photo: Channel 4 Television Corporation

What was it like seeing things from the FBI’s perspective? There are on-the-record conversations where a glimmer of conscience appears. There’s an agent who [accidentally] left their recording on after when they’d been to visit a target, and once that recording is left on it has to be available to the court in a trial. So there was a brief moment, before the judge overruled [it as evidence], when this recording was around, and you can hear the agent coming back to the office saying, “Great, this guy is such an idiot, and is so poor, we’re not even going to need to offer him $50 to do something! We’re definitely on to something here!” And somebody else, another voice, says, “Yeah, but should we really be targeting this kind of person?” And there’s a bit of a pause and then somebody else says, “Yeah, we should.”

The FBI has been historically known to open files on musicians, writers, and all sorts of private citizens. Do you think they might have a file open on you now? If I say no, it’ll give someone who has got a file open on me a laugh. Who knows.

What kind of sway does being a U.K. comedy legend get you in the U.S. moviemaking system? [Dry British chuckle] Well, it varies. It’s certainly not the first part of the conversation.

I’m curious about your development over the years. Your movies — while impressively lacking any glint of a happy ending — very much are trying to tell empathetic human stories. Brass Eye, though, was almost nihilistic. It was, like, punk.  Oh, you prefer the happy ending of a punk attack?! Well, you know, those things are reactions. They’re glorified spasms, aren’t they? If you’re doing satirical commentary on the fabric of news presentations, or on how politics is mediated through the news, or on how celebrities stand for things they don’t understand, you’re just trying to detonate the same membrane that’s giving you this crap. You’re just trying to ruin the fabric. It’s like a grenade attack. It is a series of spasms which you make as jokes.

When you’re doing it, you’re basically setting yourself impossible tasks. You go, “Right, there’s no way we can get away with this, it’s impossible … so let’s try it.” And then you discover, “Oh my God, we got away with that.” There’s an internal logic. It’s not just the end that’s driving you forward. It’s your personal investment. Your testing of your own presumptions and basic discoveries of human psychology. Once you’ve discovered that, you’d be mad to carry on doing it. God, it would be so dispiriting. You’d be going [clicks into quiet, jaded voice], “Yeah, yeah, I go into this situation, I write this, I get that person to say this, and we’d end up with [long harrumph] another funny thing.” It would be awful!

Moses Al Shabaz in The Day Shall Come. Photo: IFC Films

A common observation about the pretty insane Brass Eye is that it wouldn’t look all that insane held up next to something like current-day Fox News. That, in a way, your fake news predicted the tenor of today’s real news. I’m … I’m pretty skeptical. I think it’s a quite superficial. In the time when I was satirizing the fabric of the media, the media took itself seriously, in that sort of universal voice. And since that time, that universal voice, and indeed the degree that people feel the news has a right to take itself seriously, has diminished. So there’s not an authority to undermine. People, you could say, they go around undermining their own authority now.

And politicians, if you are going to get them to campaign for something that doesn’t exist, you have to get them to talk unbelievable rubbish. I mean, really. I don’t mean just something you can’t believe but mind-blowingly stupid rubbish in order for it to be funny enough to put in a program.

It does feel like politicians lean into the shameless these days. You have to go so much farther for something to feel ridiculous.  The shamelessness is a strongman political tactic now. But I don’t think it’s a very good long-term game, do you? It’s disorientating because someone is offending the social codes. And in those circumstances, whether it’s amongst your own social group or amongst what is perceived to be the right way for politicians to behave, you can steal a certain amount of territory by doing that. You disarm the room, or the country, or the opposition by doing that, by simply not owning it as a problem. And [Trump] does just sort of drop a turd and move on and drop a turd and move on. It’s a disruptive tactic until people realize quite how basic the tactic is.

You and Charlie Brooker together came up with the idea for the the Black Mirror episode “The Waldo Moment,” in which a comedian playing a CGI bear becomes a rising political star. Waldo’s success comes from just being funny and awful, all the time. That’s another bit of content that could be said to foreshadow our current moment.  I’m not suuure. It’s the idea of being in character. As long as you’re in character, you can get away with anything. So as an evasion tactic, it’s pretty good. But I don’t think we thought, “Errhmm, the way things are going, there’s gonna be a populist uprising and an appeal to the lowest common denominator, and an appeal to people’s gut feelings without bothering about arguments or rigor or any of those processes which you expect from politicians” — I don’t think we saw all that. We probably just saw that childishness worked.

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[michaelfallcon]

Sara Frinak: The Sprudge Twenty Interview

Photo by Tony Abbott

Our coverage of the Sprudge Twenty interviews presented by Pacific Barista Series continues this week on Sprudge. Read more about the Sprudge Twenty and see all of our interviews here.

Nominated by Diana Mnatsakanyan-Sapp

Sara Frinak is well-known to a generation of American coffee professionals as a tireless volunteer and supporter of coffee events, both regional in the American Southeast, and nationally through the Specialty Coffee Association’s USA competitions circuit. In addition, Frinak is an Accounts Manager with Ally Coffee, a green coffee trading company based in Greenville, SC. From the nominating essay by Sprudge Editorial Advisory Board member Diana Mnatsakanyan-Sapp:

Sara is someone who exemplifies kindness and support in the coffee industry. She never hesitates to help her coffee community, volunteering countless hours with the SCA and local organizations, spending her time and resources to empower young coffee professionals in the southeast and beyond. She is a community cheerleader, relentlessly positive and enthusiastic, treating the victories of others as her own.

What issue in coffee do you care about most?

If I had to pick one issue, it would be resource distribution, which isn’t even a coffee-specific issue, and is both delightfully large and daunting. I’ve noticed in my time there are rarely issues of true lack of information or lack of finances or lack of support, but instead clogs in the system that prevent these things from being shared with equity. So, I suppose I care most about finding and supporting ways for information to be distributed as respectfully and responsibly as possible. I’d like to see investing and sponsorship extended to underrepresented markets. I’d even settle for witnessing folks taking their free time and using it to support coworkers and community members. I suppose this isn’t a very neat or concise issue, but most conflicts I encounter could be avoided with better systems of sharing and of support.

What cause or element in coffee drives you?

I’m not sure if I have a larger cause that motivates me that I could articulate well, so I suppose I’d have to simply say it’s the people of this industry that drive me. It’s so cliche, isn’t it? It’s just I’ve found most of the people I enjoy in this industry are the people working too hard to ask for help or for recognition, and few things light a faster fire under you than that.

What issue in coffee do you think is critically overlooked?

Something overlooked or grossly misrepresented? The autonomy of the supply side of the supply chain. Producers and exporters and “at-origin operations” are businesses, and often businesses maintained by folks with plenty of experience and understanding. The philanthropic side of the industry is beautiful, but often distracts from the personhood of supply-side participants. There is an incredible amount of respect in treating representatives of these businesses as capable and informed, not as helpless, uneducated people. Often times the best way to ‘honor the producer’ is to commit to the prices they name, pay them on time, and roast their coffee well.

What is the quality you like best about coffee?

I love the connectivity of this industry. We can maintain active partnerships with people all the way across the world because of the nature of the supply chains with which we work. There’s so much to be gained from the type of exchange of information across consumer markets and producing markets.

Did you experience a “god shot” or life-changing moment of coffee revelation early in your career?

Is it bad to say no? I certainly had moments in which I was impressed by a coffee, or surprised by what I tasted, but never anything that could be categorized as a “god shot.” My life changing moment came as a volunteer at Expo, when I realized people thought less of me because I worked for an ambiguous specialty coffee shop in Alabama. We roasted the coffee dark and weren’t afraid to mix more than two flavors in a latte; we were from the South, and for some reason that meant we mattered less. The lack of compassion really stunned me. But I’ve always been told, if someone says they’re hungry, the best way to know they eat is to cook them something and feed them. For every dismissive person I met, there was someone being dismissed, so being an attentive presence became very important to me.

I don’t work in coffee because I tried an amazing coffee that changed my life. I work in coffee because enough people were mean to me about things that didn’t seem to matter all that much, and I decided that needed to change, even in a small way.

What is your idea of coffee happiness?

One shift way back when at my first coffee job immediately comes to mind. We had just successfully implemented a “Hawaiian shirt Friday discount” where folks could get $0.25 off their drink if they wore a Hawaiian shirt into the store. I had a regular sitting at the counter, drinking his coffee, and telling us about the time he hitchhiked from South Florida to Alabama. I was dialing in the espresso for the day, and we had found the perfect Pandora station to play for our shift (I don’t even remember the station). It was a perfect combination of being with good people, drinking and thinking about coffee, and having a good time. It’s not a concise idea, but it’s what I think of.

If you could have any job in the coffee industry, what would it be and why?

As predictable as it sounds, I already have the only job I’ve ever wanted in this industry. I’ve always wanted to work with green coffee and supply-side logistics. Coming from a background of small, independent businesses means I am very aware of the things we could never afford. Now I get to help businesses access great coffees, sustainable partnerships, and whatever information they need—no matter the budget, no matter the business size. I don’t know if I’d do anything else in this industry besides what I do now.

Who are your coffee heroes?

Can I list them? I’m going to list them:

– Carllee Curran: because I have never witnessed someone maintain such fierce compassion, empathy, and fairness than her, especially in the face of the nightmare of coffee competitions in the US. She works so hard, and maintains such patience. She represents the type of character I want to have as a member of this industry: forward thinking, practical, fair, and compassionate.

– Sarah Barnett Gill: There are few people I respect more than this woman. She not only put up with me when I was an irritating little shithead, but also empowered me to learn about the industry and develop skill sets. She taught me how to roast coffee and taught me how to manage a cafe. She built a business out of thin air and entrusted me with a piece of it. Sarah is the leader I aspire to be, and our industry could learn so much from how she serves her staff and her customers.

– Ildi Revi: I feel like I only have to say her name and everyone will just sigh and say “oh yes, well of course.” Ildi is perseverance and endurance. No one supports people the way she does. She is one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet, and she uses that intelligence to empower other people to have a better understanding of their role in our industry. We owe so much to the hard work she’s put in.

If you could drink coffee with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?

I know I’m supposed to name someone famous to impress people, but I really would only want to sit down and have a coffee with my friends Harry, Joey, and Trevi. We all used to work together in Alabama and have moved away from each other, but talk on the phone all the time. If I could pick anyone to share that kind of a moment with, it’d definitely be them.

If you didn’t get bit by the coffee bug, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

There was a time in my life where I thought I’d be a professional swimmer, so maybe that. If I ever leave coffee it’d be to work for or run an urban farm, because people have to eat and they should eat good food.

Do you have any coffee mentors?

They’re my coffee heroes (listed above). I might argue with them, but I’d do just about anything they told me to do

What do you wish someone would’ve told you when you were first starting out in coffee?

Success is not one-size-fits-all. Hospitality is more about meeting people where they’re at than it is about serving espressos with sparkling water on the side. You should fight for equity and not equality, even if one is harder to defend than the other.

Name three coffee apparatuses you’d take into space with you.

I would honestly probably just bring an auto-drip machine, a cup, and pre-ground coffee. I’d be in space! I’d probably be too busy eating astronaut ice cream to make a pour-over.

Best song to brew coffee to:

“Africa” by Toto or “Tu Amor Hace Bien” by Marc Anthony. I don’t make the rules, that’s just what I’d choose.

Look into the crystal ball—where do you see yourself in 20 years?

Hopefully outside in the sunshine.

What’d you eat for breakfast this morning?

Noodle soup.

When did you last drink coffee?

This morning.

What was it?

House coffee at Waffle House.

Thank you. 

The Sprudge Twenty is presented by Pacific Barista Series. For a complete list of 2019 Sprudge Twenty honorees please visit sprudge.com/twenty

Zachary Carlsen is a co-founder and editor at Sprudge Media Network. Read more Zachary Carlsen on Sprudge. 

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