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bakerstreetbabble · 10 years

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The Straight Dope on Sherlock Holmes

The Straight Dope is a question and answers column that started in the Chicago Reader (a free weekly newspaper) in 1973. The article below is copied from the Straight Dope's website, and is a pretty good, concise "Sherlock Holmes 101." The article originally was published in 2003.

I've been a fan of The Straight Dope since the mid 1980s, when I read the first collection of articles, published in 1984 (as pictured to the left).

Enjoy!

Did Sherlock Holmes really exist? April 8, 2003

Dear Straight Dope:

An eccentric friend of mine claims to have read a book called The Seven-Per-Cent Solution about a meeting of two monumental figures in their respective fields: Sigmund Freud the famous psychologist, and Sherlock Holmes the British detective. The title referred to Holmes' alleged cocaine addiction, which he asked Freud to help him conquer. I was highly skeptical. Why would someone write a book mixing two outstanding and contrasting personalities for the sole reason of having them discuss cocaine?

My friend also claims that this encounter is based on a true story, which I doubted as well. I was previously led to believe that Sherlock Holmes was a fictitious character, possibly based on another real-life detective, but not an actual person. Internet research turned up numerous articles from both sides of the real/fictional argument, as well as several articles about clues to Holmes' coke addiction. But if I can't count on the Straight Dope to sift through the various arguments and emerge with the truth (or at least a plausible facsimile), on whom can I count?

— Julia Yeung, Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada

So, the Web seems to turn up evidence on both sides of the real/fiction argument, eh? A fine lesson in being careful about accepting information because it's "on the Internet." But this isn't the usual case of mistaking the ravings of online lunatics for fact. You've been taken in by a great game.

I'm going to break your question in two parts: (1) Who was Sherlock Holmes? and (2) What's with his cocaine addiction? Note: For any readers who are devoted Sherlockians, and who know that Sherlock was real, please skip ahead to Part 2. I wouldn't want you to be upset by any heresy that I might utter in Part 1.

Part 1. Was Sherlock real or fictional? Why are the websites confusing on this issue?

Sherlock Holmes is fictional. Let's get that straight once and for all. The book you mention, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer (1974), is also fictional.

If you've not read Sherlock Holmes in a long time, or have never had the pleasure, I heartily recommend him. I draw your attention to The Annotated Sherlock Holmes by William S. Baring-Gould (1967), which contains all the stories with ample footnotes (to explain terms no longer commonly known to us, among other things). I have used that work extensively in writing this Staff Report.

Sherlock Holmes was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Doyle was an M.D., and not unsuccessful, but he preferred writing, and eventually abandoned his medical career. He had sold a few short stories when, in 1886, he decided to write a detective story.

Detective stories were in their infancy. Edgar Allen Poe had created what was arguably the first fictional detective, Auguste Dupin, more than 40 years earlier. Robert Louis Stevenson and others had used detective characters and the mystery story format. Most are now forgotten. It was the immense popularity of Doyle's Holmes that unleashed the flood of mystery and detection stories that has persisted to this day.

Late in 1887, the brilliant but eccentric detective Sherlock Holmes made his first appearance in a 200-page novel called A Study in Scarlet. Doyle was paid £25 (about $125 at the then-current exchange rate). The second Holmes novel, The Sign of Four, appeared in February 1890.

Then quickly followed a brand new (in England) idea: a series of short stories based on one central character. The first of the series of twelve Holmes stories was "A Scandal in Bohemia," published in the July 1891 issue of The Strand magazine.

Holmes was immensely popular from the first. The public demanded more stories. By 1892, Doyle received £1,000 ($5,000) for a series of dozen Sherlock Holmes short stories in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes."

The financial success and popularity were pleasant, but Doyle began to feel that all his energies were devoted to writing Holmes stories, diverting him from writing serious fiction. At the conclusion of another series of twelve stories, Doyle decided to kill Sherlock Holmes. In "The Final Problem," published in December 1893 but set in 1891, Holmes encountered Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime, in a mutually fatal showdown at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

There was a huge public outcry--Doyle received letters from readers who wept and from men who went to work wearing black mourning bands; one letter began, "You brute!"

For the next eight years, Doyle devoted himself to his serious writings. But in 1901 he had an idea for a novel that needed a detective. Rather than invent a new character, he decided to use Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, set before Holmes perished in Switzerland. It was a tremendous success and remains among the most popular of the Holmes stories today, with a new film or TV version every few years.

In 1903, Doyle surrendered to the public demand for more Holmes stories. He resurrected Holmes in "The Empty House," set in 1894, with an explanation of how Holmes hadn't really plunged off the waterfall after all.

Doyle continued to write Holmes stories through 1927. He died three years later. All in all, Doyle wrote four novels and 56 short stories (the latter collected into five volumes) about his fictional detective.

Doyle's other writings include The Lost World, about an expedition that discovers a hidden dinosaur enclave, which has been made into many motion pictures beginning with a silent special-effects extravaganza in 1921 and a new television production earlier this year. But his serious writings, such asThe White Company, are largely forgotten. His works and name live on because of Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes was extremely popular not just in England and the U.S. but throughout Europe and Latin America. My wife's grandmother told me that, as a teenager in Poland before WWI, she eagerly awaited the appearance of each Sherlock Holmes story. A century later Holmes remains as popular as ever.

Even in the early days, Doyle received letters from readers who believed Sherlock Holmes was real and wanted to hire him. It is a tribute to Doyle's writing that he could create such a believable hero.

The original books are still best sellers and have been translated into more than fifty languages. Every year brings new Sherlock Holmes movies, TV shows, or board games. He appears in parodies and pastiches, in television ads, and in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The current (2003) Jackie Chan movie Shanghai Knights includes an homage to Holmes. The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats (1993) declares Sherlock Holmes the fictional character with the most film appearances, with over 200 as of 1993.

Parodies of Holmes have been written by people such as James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan--this one was particularly admired by Doyle himself. Burlesques have been written by the likes of Mark Twain (not a very good one, alas), Bret Harte, and O. Henry. Doyle himself wrote two parodies. There is even a Martian counterpart to Holmes, written by the science fiction giant, Poul Anderson.

In London, the rooms that Holmes and Watson shared together at 221B Baker Street are now a museum. The rooms are pure fiction, of course. Although there is a Baker Street in London, there was no 221B; it was an address Doyle made up. But tourists had been searching Baker Street for so many years, trying to find the "actual house," that the street numbers were changed so that the museum could be established. The museum reproduces the rooms shared by Watson and Holmes as described in Doyle's stories. Every item of furniture or bric-a-brac mentioned in the stories can be found in the museum rooms, from the dark-lanterns to the Turkish slipper on the mantel filled with shag tobacco. For more information, see www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk/home.htm .

Was Holmes based on another real-life detective, you ask? The answer is emphatically not. Doyle himself said that his inspiration was a former teacher, Dr. Joseph Bell, but Bell said that Holmes was a creation of Doyle's own gifts and training. Holmes scholars unanimously agree that the only resemblance between Bell and Holmes was Bell's remarkable power of deductive reasoning. In other respects Holmes is a completely original creation.

OK, so Doyle wrote these wonderful and immensely popular stories about a (fictional) detective. Most of the tales are narrated in the first person by Holmes's equally fictitious friend and companion, Dr. John H. Watson. While today's writers strive for consistency in their series characters, Doyle was always willing to ignore consistency or even facts for the sake of a good story. He wrote: "It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?"

From those inaccuracies and inconsistencies, amazingly enough, a whole new literary discipline sprouted. As early as January, 1902, an "open letter" to Dr Watson [!!] was published in the Cambridge Review, criticizing the dates mentioned in The Hound of the Baskervilles. That same year, Arthur Maurice wrote an editorial comment, "Some Inconsistencies of Sherlock Holmes." The ball really got rolling in 1911, when Father (later Monsignor) Ronald Knox read a paper at Trinity College, Oxford, and created a highly specialized and possibly unique form of literary criticism.

Let's call it the Game. The point is to pretend that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were real, that Watson wrote the stories reporting actual events, and that Conan Doyle was merely Watson's literary agent. Essentially, one applies Holmes's own methods to analyzing the stories, trying to explain the inconsistencies, fill the gaps, and identify the other characters and events.

To aficionados, the original stories are "the Canon" and "the Sacred Writings." There are volumes of writings about the Writings.

Dorothy L. Sayers, herself known for writing the Peter Wimsey mysteries, set forth the rules of the Game. "It must be played as solemnly as a county cricket match at Lord's; the slightest touch of extravagance or burlesque ruins the atmosphere."

There are journals that publish research and speculations and articles, all under the assumption that Holmes and Watson really existed. Societies of Sherlockiana have sprung up, the most famous being the Baker Street Irregulars (named after the gang of street urchins that Holmes employed for reconnaissance). There are biographies of Holmes. Authors have written "newly discovered" adventures of Holmes and Watson, including Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution--perhaps the most famous of all Holmesian pastiches, of which more later.

One of the more wonderful ideas is found in a science fiction story by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire entitled "The Return," about an isolated community which had maintained a thriving society for two centuries after an atomic war. The heart of the community was the Sacred Books, which told of the eternal conflict between Holmes and Moriarty and tutored them in the use of deductive reasoning.

Many authors bring Holmes into contact with real-life contemporary people, such as Sigmund Freud or Oscar Wilde or Jack the Ripper or Harry Flashman, or even with fictional characters such as Tarzan, the Loch Ness monster, or Dracula.

That's why, when you do a Web search, you find many, many sites that are dedicated to the Game--to the assumption that these fictional characters were real. I suppose it can be confusing if you don't know what's afoot.

OK, having answered your first question, for the rest of this Staff Report we're going to enter into that world and pretend that Holmes and Watson were real, and that Watson wrote the stories based on their actual exploits.

Part 2. The Game's afoot: What's with Holmes and his cocaine addiction?

The heart of Sherlockiana arises from the inconsistencies in the stories themselves. Perhaps Watson was sometimes just a sloppy author, but sometimes he deliberately tried to conceal identities. From these inconsistencies and evasions has sprung a great body of literature: research, speculation, and whimsy. Christopher Morley wrote, "What other body of modern literature is esteemed as much for its errors as its felicities?"

What kinds of errors or inconsistencies are we talking about? For example, Watson said that "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" occurred in 1892--but in 1892 Holmes was believed to be dead at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland.

How could such an inconsistency or error arise?

Perhaps Watson's bad handwriting caused editing errors (this is an excuse Cecil Himself uses from time to time), and the printer got the date wrong.

Watson's memory was often faulty. In "The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger," Watson professes to have no recollection of an adventure that he shared with Holmes. So we have internal evidence that Watson may have misremembered the date.

Watson seems to have had a complete disregard for the calendar. This happens time and again in the Writings. As another example, in "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist," Watson writes, "On referring to my notebook for the year 1895, I find that it was upon Saturday, April 23, that we first heard of Miss Violet Smith." The plot hinges upon the correctness of that recollection, because Miss Smith came into town every Saturday. But April 23, 1895 was a Tuesday.

Then there's Watson's "Victorian discretion and delicacy." Watson would deliberately conceal a name, a place, a date, or the exact nature of an event, to protect the innocent or to avert scandal. So perhaps he misdated "Wisteria Lodge" to hide the true events and spare the family embarrassment.

One further fact: Watson leaves us tantalizing references to cases that he never published, such as the Giant Rat of Sumatra or Wilson, the notorious canary trainer. The ground here is ripe for speculation, from the mundane to the outrageous.

Baring-Gould comments, "Half the fun in reading and rereading the Saga is that of catching [Watson] out as generations of his admirers have been discovering" for a century.

I said this lead to research, deduction, speculation and whimsy; let me provide an example of each.

RESEARCH

In "A Case of Identity," Holmes mentions he is doing some chemical experiments with "bisulphate of baryta." A sulphate (or sulfate) is a salt or ester of sulfuric acid, and "baryta" or barite is barium sulfate occurring as a mineral, but what is barium bisulfate? There is controversy, with some authorities saying here is no such thing and that Watson has misremembered. Other authorities conclude that barium hydrogen sulfate or hexasulphide of barium might have been called "bisulphate of baryta." Professional chemists who are also Sherlockians have leapt into debate.

Or, again from "A Case of Identity," Holmes remarks that "a single lady can get on very nicely upon an [annual] income of about sixty pounds." This has led to considerable investigation into the cost of living in London. Similarly there has been enormous research into the train schedules and the streets of London, trying to find locales mentioned in the Canon.

DEDUCTION

Sherlockians often apply Holmes's own reasoning and deductive techniques when trying to date an adventure.

Sticking with "A Case of Identity," we learn that Mr. Hosmer Angel disappeared "last Friday," "the 14th." So we look for a month, between March 1881 (when Holmes and Watson met) and September 1891 (when the case was published), when Friday was the 14th. The possibilities are October 1881, September 1883, October 1887, and September 1888. Baring-Gould eliminates 1881, 1883, and 1888 because Holmes was engaged on another case on the relevant days, and concludes that the disappearance was Friday, October 14, 1887. Next, Watson mentions that he opened the morning paper, so the date was not a Sunday; thus the case must have begun the next Monday through Thursday. The description of clothing implies mild weather, so he looks for two sequential warm clear days between Monday, October 17 and Thursday, October 20, 1887. Baring-Gould thus concludes that the case occurred Tuesday and Wednesday, October 18 and 19, 1887.

Other chronologies derive other dates for the story. We cite the reasoning as an example of the type of deduction, supported by research, employed in Holmesian analysis.

Your reaction might be: These people need a life. But you'd be missing the point. If that's your attitude, stop reading and go back to baseball statistics or Civil War trivia or whatever.

SPECULATION AND WHIMSY

Watson's inconsistencies have invited conjectures ranging from the logical and reasonable to the completely wacky. For example, his name is clearly John H. Watson except once when his wife called him "James." Dorothy Sayers speculated that the middle initial "H" must stand for "Hamish," the Scottish form of James--a neat resolution of the inconsistency. Others, of course, make other suggestions, ranging from two Watson brothers (John and James) to a prior love affair on Mrs. Watson's part and an unfortunate lapse. (Baring-Gould notes that "Conan Doyle named Watson for his friend James Watson, [so] the slip of the pen is understandable.")

Other subjects of continuing speculation include: Who were the Baskervilles and where is their hall? Did Holmes attend Oxford or Cambridge? What did Holmes do during the three years that Watson thought him dead?

Finally we reach your question: How was Holmes cured of his cocaine addiction?

In the late 1800s, there was neither popular prejudice nor laws against drugs as there are today. Laudanum and cocaine, among others, were readily available. Watson suspects but dismisses the idea of cocaine use by Holmes in A Study in Scarlet, his first published work. By The Sign of Four, Watson reports that when Holmes was bored and his mind not challenged, he took cocaine in a "seven-per-cent solution." This was not a heavy dose, but it was clearly enough to be habit-forming. Again in "The Yellow Face," Watson says that Holmes had no vices, "save for the occasional use of cocaine."

Michael Harrison notes, "that Holmes had a serious addiction, all Watson's descriptions of Holmes nervous activity makes clear: the restlessness, the ability to work for days without adequate sleep, and even without rest at all; the abrupt changes of mood; and the equally abrupt collapse into a somnolence not far (if at all) removed from a torpor bordering on coma: these are the unmistakable evidence of heavy and prolonged indulgence in some powerful narcotic.""

And yet, after Holmes's encounter with Moriarty and supposed death at Reichenbach Falls, he never again uses cocaine. Or at least Watson doesn't mention it.

And so the question: how did he break the habit?

In 1974, Nicholas Meyer published The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. The forward describes how he found an unpublished, unedited manuscript of John H. Watson. The book jacket, in fact, says "Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. as edited by Nicholas Meyer."

I shan't give away too much of the plot. Watson tricks Holmes into visiting Sigmund Freud and submitting himself to treatment. Freud cures him of the cocaine habit, and of a few paranoid cocaine-induced delusions along the way. This all happened (according to Meyer, according to Watson) during the period when Holmes was believed dead, 1891-1893. Watson simply invented the stories of Holmes' death and return to cover the fact that Holmes was in seclusion for medical treatment.

Holmes reciprocates, helping Dr. Freud solve a mystery regarding one of his patients. So Meyer's book is more than two great personalities getting together to "talk about cocaine"--it's a mystery story.

Many authorities, of course, doubt the authenticity of Meyer's manuscript, and proclaim it pure fiction.

Does that answer your question?

I'd like to conclude with another question: why does Sherlock Holmes endure?

Obviously, part of the answer is that Doyle--or Watson if you prefer--was a marvelous story-teller. The tales today have lost none of their charm or intrigue.

But there's more to it than that. From the introduction to the first volume (1998) of The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library: "The Sherlock Holmes stories fascinate. They transport readers of all ages, nationalities, and cultures into a world of their own. They challenge our imaginations."

In the 1940s Edgar W. Smith wrote, "We love the times in which he lived, of course, the half-remembered, half-forgotten times of snug Victorian illusion, of gaslit comfort and contentment, of perfect dignity and grace. And we love the place: the England of those times, fat with the fruits of her achievements, but strong and daring still with the spirit of imperial adventure. But there is more than time and space and the yearning of things gone by to account for what we feel toward Sherlock Holmes. Not only there and then, but here and now, he stands as a symbol, if you please, of all that we are not, but ever would be. We see him as the fine expression of our urge to trample evil and to set aright the wrongs with which the world is plagued. He is Galahad and Socrates, bringing high adventure to our dull existences and calm, judicial logic to our biased minds."

Vincent Starrett wrote of Holmes and Watson:

they still live for all that love them well: in a romantic chamber of the heart: in a nostalgic country of the mind: where it is always 1895.

RESOURCES:

Baring-Gould, William S.; The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Clarkson N. Potter, Inc, New York, 1967.

Harrison, Michael, In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes, Cassel & Co. Ltd, London, 1958

Klinger, Leslie S. (editor), The Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, Gasogene Books, Indianapolis, currently being published in separate volumes, beginning in 1998

Starrett, Vincent, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (revised), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1960

and, of course, the Canon:

A Study in Scarlet The Sign of Four The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes The Hound of the Baskervilles The Return of Sherlock Holmes His Last Bow The Valley of Fear The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes

— Dex

STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED.

#Sherlock Holmes #The Straight Dope #Chicago Reader

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hegglespeggles · 4 years

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How to write an essay you could not care less about in 10 steps

Hello. I have an essay to write.

I am also, (unfortunately) the kind of lazy, apathetic burnout who will only do my FUCKING work if I get really worked up. Usually that ends up meaning all of my papers are spite-fuelled tirades but my profs seem to like them so fine. I hope you find this particular raging tirade useful.

Today, I would like to educate the 4 of you that will actually see this on a fine art I have perfected over the years. Writing a paper, about which, you do not give a single, solitary, crumb of a fuck about. This is (you may have guessed) and excellent way for me to procrastinate doing a paper that *I* do not give a single solitary crumb of a fuck about. For best results, I recommend doing this NIGHT-BEFORE-PANIC like, a week in advance so you can fix all the NONSENSE that your more reasonable brain will undoubtedly find. But if it’s the night before and you are shit outta luck, this will get ‘er done. And with practice, you can even pull good grades outta these bitches.

Dissociating? I gotchu. Woke up the day of the deadline to feel like absolute utter garbage? Search no more friends.

FAILING GRADES ARE BETTER THAN ZEROS JUST FUCKIN DOOOOOO ITTTT

1. Go get the prompt.

I fucking mean it. Even if you are like 1000% sure you know what the prompt is asking, go to the FUCKING assignment, and copy that shit into your word document. Got the assignment on paper? TYPE THAT SHIT UP MOTHERFUCKER.

(Do you see what I fucking have to deal with)

Boom?

BOOM.

Congratulations, you now have a document, and whats more, there are WORDS in it!! You aren’t starting from scratch anymore kiddo. Fringe benefit, you always know EXACTLY what the assignment wants because its fucking Staring You Down. Not saying you have to do exactly as it says, mama didn’t raise no BITCH and I aint scared of fuckin CALLING PROFS OUT but if you wanna break the rules you gotta know what they are first

(Disclaimer: I have also been kicked out of class on numerous occasions for fighting with the prof and had full classes where the lecture WAS me arguing so maybe take my opinions of conformity with a grain of salt.)

2. Math THE FIRST

I know, this is an essay and not a fucking calculus test. But some of this shit is USEFUL OKAY

Take the paper in question. How long does it have to be? Mine is 5 pages. A page is generally accepted to be 250 words (double spaced because we FUCKING LOVE OURSELVES) so 5 x 250 = 1250 wds. That’s the goal. That’s the pinnacle. That’s your new holy grail.

Time to split this bitch up

3. Yarrrrrr, CONTENT

And finally, we get to the part that is the reason why you are being an absolute bitch baby about this essay (maybe. I might be projecting. Your life is your life and im sure youre doing your best.) I Hate this part, but now with our magic number we don’t need to pull 5 pages out of the ether.

This part really requires you to know your vibe. Is this something that you have a lot of little opinions (read: evidence) about or like, only 2 or 3 big bois? Look deep into your soul and figure out which is the easiest for you to shit out, a rant or a list. a great way to do this is to WRITE ANYTHING YOU GOT OUT

Here you can see I’ve put all of the thoughts I have about the question into a list, slapped some standard “opening” and “closing” shit around it so I can FUCKING FIND IT AGAIN and given it a good hard look. Whats the common thread in all of my opinions? That the prompt is fucking stupid and makes no sense is asking 2 different questions. Congratulations: you found your thesis. This essay, like many of my essays, bears the thesis “this is a weird question to be asking” (which falls under my broader category of “bitches aint shit” essays.)

Congratulations you have the bare bones of your skeleton.

4. MATH THE SECOND

The magic number returns. All hail our glorious leader. 1250 right?

So heres how I break this down. Break off a small chunk at the beginning. For this essay im gonna split off the 250. Split that baby in half. Congratulations, now you have a word count on your opening and closing. Personally, I know I like a lil extra space at the end to get all ranty, so Imma split this puppy up 100 for my opening and 150 for the closing. WARNING: You will think that you will be able to write enough in your opening and closing to take up lots of space. You will feel the urge to give them both the same amount of words that you give your points. This is misguided and foolish. Not only will you 1) not be able to do it but 2) even if you did, that’s like getting a sandwich which is all bread. No one wants that. Don’t be that dude. Fight the urge.

RIGHT SO. We’re still left on the other 1000 words.

If you have an idea that like, is bigger than the others, go ahead and give that puppy more of the word count than the others, fractions are your friend here and you wanna think about how much of your final product each of these babies will be. If you, like me, are an utter buffoon with no clue what youre doing, open your calculator up. Divide the remaining word count by the number of points you have. Congratulations. Youre doing the essaying.

If this is enough to get you started, GREAT! See you at step seven. BEFORE YOU GO I would like to give you this tip

5. CITE YOUR INFORMATION AS YOU ADD IT IN.

It doesn’t need to be a full citation, just literally a footnote with something that will help you remember where its from and for the love of god WHAT PAGE IT IS ON. The you of 3 hours from now will thank you.

6. Filling in the skeleton

I don’t know about you, but I cant exactly riff off of a single sentence. Like, I know what the VIBE of my point is, but like, I cant pull it out of a hat. The name of the game here is whittling down your arguments into thinner and thinner chunks that are easier and easier to bullshit. This is how you avoid that “burning building found in flames during Brooklyn fire” bullshit that memes. You don’t wanna meme. You wanna pass. So, figure out what the things you are gonna say and in each bit, keep track of how many words you are gonna write. EITHER

a) You put how many words you think you can write on any point beside the point as you go and just keep developing points and shuffling word counts around until it matches the total for that section

b) You evenly breakup the word count between all the points and keep breaking them down until you look at a subject and a word count and go “yeah that’s doable. I can do that.”

I prefer the second so LEGGO.

Ta-Da!

7. Write ‘er up

Ahhh glad to see we’re all back together again. Try-hards who can ACTUALLY bullshit papers, glad to see you’ve rejoined us! This is the part where you take all that shit you’ve broken up into nice little chunks and you turn it into something worth reading. You can do it. I believe in you. Try and keep your citations in place.

I like to do this as a question answer thingy, like an exam, so halfway through writing mine is gonna look like this

The handy part about the numbers is that it gives you a frame of reference for how your bullshit is going. Realized you had a lot more to say here than you thought? Dope! Less bullshit somewhere else, take it out of a weaker point. This point didn’t give as much as you thought it would? Split the difference elsewhere! This way you have checkpoints and you can see how your essay is going

And then you can go ahead and delete your skeleton work. Its time. Its served you well. For extra drama, whisper menacing nothings to it as you send it into the darkness. Personal favourites include “no one will mourn you,” “your fate belongs to me,” and “so this is what you have come to”

8. Citations

Theres like a million ways out there to find out how to do your citations and its gonna depend on what kind of a paper you are writing. I use Chicago most of the time, including here. My advice? Use a site like, bib.me or something to do your bibliography, and then plaster that in the bottom of your document. Use that as the building blocks to do your footnotes. Let Purdue Owl be your guide. Purdue Owl Style Guide Is A Mighty Friend Indeed.

Also your welcome for that, “putting the page numbers in as you put the info in” shit. That took me alarmingly long to figure out. It’s a wonder theyre giving me a degree.

9. Proofread that shit, ya bougie bitch.

If you wanna be time effective, getting a friend to proofread while you do your citations is a great way to go. If you have a few days, put your paper away and come back to it. If you are out of friends and time then https://www.paperrater.com/ is your last hope.

10. Slap a title page on that shit and GET IT SUBMITTED

No joke, I have been using the same template for a coverpage all through highschool and my undergrad. There is only one title page and every time I write an essay I take the title page from the last paper I wrote. There is no beginning. Only title page. Title? Topic of paper: point of paper. For example, If I had to title this screed I’d call it Essay Writing: An exploration of mediocrity. slap the date and your name and the course and instructor on there and BAM. YA DONE.

Anyway submit that shit an go to bed youre done goodnight

EPILOGUE

I’ve gotten this essay back, and when I wrote it, I was barely a human being. Barely capable of human speech let alone a coherent argument. I would forget the end of the sentence by the time I typed out the beginning. But I still for a 70%! is it the best mark I’ve ever gotten? no! but it is a hell of a lot better than the 0% I would have gotten if i hadnt done this. I get it. And i hope this helps.

#mine #my stuff #studyblr #essaywriting #musicblr #game of thrones #study motivation #study #academic

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theliberaltony · 4 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

After a stint as the Democratic primary front-runner, Sen. Bernie Sanders’s revolution is rapidly stalling. After a series of surprising losses on Super Tuesday, he lost again in Michigan earlier this week, despite spending days campaigning across the state.

In contest after contest, Sanders has struggled to make inroads with key Democratic constituencies — in particular, black voters and older voters. But there’s another trend that’s plagued him throughout the primary: He does poorly with women. According to aggregated exit polls from the states that have voted so far,1 Sanders’s support is 8 points lower among women than his support among men.

Sanders consistently gets less support from women

Vote share by gender in entrance and exit polls from completed state primaries and caucuses, by candidate

Sanders Biden State Men Women Diff. Men Women Diff. Iowa 26% 20% -6 16% 16% 0 New Hampshire 31 23 -8 8 8 0 Nevada 38 30 -8 18 17 -1 South Carolina 24 17 -7 48 49 +1 California 38 32 -6 19 28 +9 Texas 34 27 -7 33 33 0 North Carolina 27 21 -6 42 42 0 Virginia 29 19 -10 49 57 +8 Massachusetts 31 26 -5 34 34 0 Minnesota 37 25 -12 39 41 +2 Tennessee 27 23 -4 38 44 +6 Alabama 20 14 -6 61 65 +4 Oklahoma 30 21 -9 40 37 -3 Maine 38 29 -9 29 37 +8 Vermont 53 51 -2 24 20 -4 Washington 41 27 -14 28 36 +8 Missouri 38 32 -6 56 64 +8 Mississippi 18 12 -6 78 83 +5

Source: Edison Research

Sanders has consistently been at a disadvantage among women in this year’s primary. And that’s not a deficit that a Democratic primary candidate can simply ignore, since women make up a majority of the party’s electorate this year — 57 percent of primary voters so far.

“Consistently having lower support among women is a problem of optics because it makes it look like there’s something going on that prevents women from backing you,” said Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers University–Camden who studies gender and politics. “But it’s also an actual numbers issue because men are just a smaller proportion of the Democratic electorate. You need to do well among women in order to win the nomination.”

It’s hard to pin down a single reason why men seem to be more attracted to Sanders’s candidacy than women. There isn’t really evidence, for example, that Sanders is especially likely to attract supporters who display hostile feelings toward women. In a recent analysis, researchers for Data for Progress did find that gender bias kept some voters from supporting Warren — but Sanders’s supporters didn’t hold more sexist views than Biden’s. But there is evidence, according to an analysis by Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, that while support for Biden increases among voters with more sexist views, those with the most sexist views were disproportionately likely to favor Sanders. And sexism was higher, in general, among men.

“Educated Democrats who are quite sexist are disproportionately likely to be Sanders supporters,” said Cassino. “To be clear, there aren’t a lot of those people in the Democratic Party. But because of their education and social capital, they’re probably more inclined to tell people about their views and express them online.”

This doesn’t explain all of Sanders’s struggles with women. But his lopsided support among this group provides a window into some of the divisions that are roiling the Democratic primary electorate this year — particularly the limits of Sanders’s lefty, anti-establishment message and the aggression of his supporters at a moment when many Democratic voters are laser-focused on finding a candidate who can beat Trump.

At a Biden rally in Detroit last week, Mary Mckenney, 69, said that she hadn’t made up her mind about which candidate to support until the race narrowed to Biden and Sanders. Then, she said, her choice became very clear. “It’s not even that I don’t like Bernie’s ideas, I just think they can’t happen,” she said. “And I think if he’s the nominee there will just be more fighting and conflict. We need someone who can bring Democrats together.”

Views like Mckenney’s aren’t universal among Democratic women. Plenty of women are enthusiastic about Sanders — including Mckenney’s daughter Carrie, 43, who was standing next to her at the rally. But older women like Mckenney make up a much bigger share of the Democratic electorate, which makes them a disproportionately important group. So far, women over the age of 45 have made up 38 percent of Democratic primary voters, while women under the age of 45 only made up 19 percent. And the age gap that has emerged across the primary is almost certainly shaping women’s support for Sanders too: older women tend to be more moderate than younger women, which means they may be less likely to see Sanders’s calls to upend the status quo as feasible or appealing.

But generational fissures aren’t the whole story. Women of all ages told us they liked Sanders’s ideas but found aspects of his candidacy alienating. “I don’t have the same aversion to the DNC and the Democratic establishment that a lot of Bernie supporters seem to have,” said Tiffany Keane Schaefer, 31, who lives in Chicago and volunteered for Warren but is now undecided about who she’ll support. Schaefer told me she’s disturbed by some of the criticism Sanders allies levied against Warren for not endorsing Sanders after she dropped out. “Right now it feels like I am getting blasted every single day on social media about why Warren isn’t doing enough to help Sanders.” That antagonism makes Schaefer feel uncomfortable about the prospect of supporting Sanders, even though she’s closer to him on the issues than to Biden.

One of the central messages of Sanders’s campaign is the need to take on the political establishment — including the party whose nomination he is seeking. On the day before he won the Nevada caucuses, Sanders tweeted, “I’ve got news for the Republican establishment. I’ve got news for the Democratic establishment. They can’t stop us.”

That kind of message obviously appeals to people who are disaffected with the Democratic Party — but to people who don’t have a problem with the party, it can seem like an unnecessary risk. “I understand why the young people love Sanders — student debt, it’s a real problem,” said Grace Andrews, 79, who was waiting outside the Biden rally in Detroit with her grandson. “I just have a concern that he is not willing to make the compromises that are necessary in our political system, or work with people in the party who may not share his views.”

Women are especially likely to say that being a Democrat is an important part of who they are. According to our analysis of a Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape survey of likely primary voters administered from Feb. 20 to Feb 26, 63 percent of Democratic women say that their party affiliation is somewhat or very important to their identity, compared to 58 percent of Democratic men. That’s not an enormous difference, but it is statistically significant — it also lines up with other research that finds partisanship functions as a more important social identity for women than it does for men. Women over the age of 45 are especially likely (67 percent) to say being a Democrat is an important part of their identity.

Of course, not all women are turned off by the idea of radical changes to the system — including radical change to their own party. “It just feels like the Democratic Party has forgotten what it means to be the party of the working class,” said Diana Post, 30, who lives in Detroit and said she was torn between Warren and Sanders until Warren dropped out of the race. She now describes herself as a “big Sanders fan.” “We need someone more radical than what the establishment is putting forward, a candidate who can shake things up.”

Over the course of the primary, voters have been asked if they would prefer a candidate who agrees with them on the issues or a candidate who can beat Trump. According to the exit polls so far, women are likelier to be in the latter category: 65 percent of women say they would prefer a candidate who can defeat Trump, compared to 59 percent of men. That isn’t an overwhelming gap, to be sure, but it’s still noteworthy given that women make up a disproportionate share of the Democratic electorate. And in the primaries so far, voters who prioritize a candidate who can defeat Trump are disproportionately likely to support Biden.

That was where Ruth Vail, 77, said she had landed. She was standing on the University of Michigan quad, waiting with her 15-year-old grandson Leo to hear Sanders speak. But even though she was curious to hear what Sanders had to say, she said she’d probably be voting for Biden. “I think unfortunately it’s just going to be very easy to paint Sanders as an extremist, someone who’s a scary person who wants to change everything,” she said. “And I really just want a president who won’t keep me up at night, thinking about what he’s going to do next, thinking about who he’s going to appoint to the Supreme Court. The most important thing to me in this election is just ensuring that Donald Trump is no longer our president.”

Laura Bronner contributed research.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux and Meredith Conroy

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 13: Off the Path (Transcript) - 24th August 2015

tw: death, WWII

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

Before we begin today’s episode, I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve added two new pages to the Lore website. First, I’ve posted a couple of upcoming live shows to a new live show page – the first show is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on October 11th, followed by an afternoon show in New Haven, Connecticut on October 25th. I cannot tell you how excited I am to finally meet some of you, so, please, mark the date and come and see me. I also get asked a lot about show transcripts. My transcripts are full of historical references and footnotes, as well as links to relevant web pages and books. You can find out how to get the transcripts by visiting lorepodcast.com/transcripts. And one last thing – I’m also producing smaller, extra episodes of Lore. These are released on off-weeks, the weeks that Lore isn’t released through the podcast feed, and I post them to the Lore Patreon page. Supporters at the $5 or more level will have access to all of them – I’m just saying. And now, on with the show.

I’ve spent most of my life in the presence of troubled sports teams. Growing up in the Chicago area, I was always aware of how long the Cubs had gone without winning a World Series title. It was less a point of pain, and more a numb spot in the collective conscience of everyone around me. When I moved to Boston in the late 90s, I discovered a similar culture, this time centred around the Red Sox. Again, here was a team that had spent decades waiting; year after year, hope would be manufactured, and piled high in the cart of expectations, only to have that cart dumped on its side at the end of each season. Until 2004, that is – that was the year things changed. That was the year that brought the tower of hopelessness and doubt, a tower that took 86 years to construct – brick by brick, year after year – and brought it all crashing down. The wait was over. No, I don’t plan to talk about baseball today, but I do think the story of these teams, like the Cubs and the Red Sox, have something valuable to teach us about how our minds work, our ability to justify, to explain, to make sense of what seems so often to not make any sense at all; that’s what I find fascinating. Humans are so very good at finding reasons. Lurking behind the Red Sox’ 86 year wait like a shadow, and still hovering over the Cubs after 107 long years, are the excuses - more specifically, the curses. I mean, how else are we to explain such droughts, such logic-defying gaps in their score cards. Of course, both of these teams had to be cursed… right? But the bambino and billy-goat weren’t the first curses in history, and they were far from the last, and while some curses have been entertaining or even laughable, others have defied explanation long enough to make people wonder. In fact, some have even been deadly. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

The word “curse” comes from the Old English word curs - just drop the “e” and you’ll have the root. The meaning isn’t actually very clear, but one of the uses of the Old English word is to denote a path or a route. Now, I’m not etymologist, but I think the word picture here is actually pretty clear: life is like a journey, sometimes we walk along the path of our choosing, and sometimes we’re pushed off and into the woods. It’s in those moments of chaos, of the unexpected and the unfortunate, that we feel like we’ve lost control. It’s as if someone, or something, has knocked us off the path we were travelling. In those moments, it might be appropriate to say that we’ve been cursed. The curse as a concept, though, has been around since the beginning of humanity. In the earliest examples, a curse was a punishment, handed out by a deity to misbehaving or devious human beings. The story of Adam and Eve in the Christian Bible is full of curses, dolled out after their disobedience to God’s instructions: hard physical work, painful childbirth, and expulsion from paradise are all described as curses. The Irish speak of curses as if they were something like birds. Once a curse is spoken aloud, they say it can float around a place until it finds its intended target. If the receiver wasn’t in the room, a curse could drift around for up to seven years. Not aimlessly, though – the curse was like a heat-seeking missile, waiting until the moment when the person would arrive. In Scandinavia, curses were more like bullets. A person might utter a curse at an enemy, but it could be turned back or returned to the speaker, where it would deal the effects of the curse on the speaker instead. Think Harry Potter wand duels, if you will. The Moors of the middle ages also had a very interesting tradition involving curses: it was said that if a man followed a prescribed set of rules and requirements, he was allowed to ask others to help him with something important. If, after jumping through all of the correct hoops, his request was still refused, a curse was said to descend upon all who refused him. Not a specific curse that he made up himself, but a general, social curse, as if tradition itself were punishing the unhelpful people. According to legend, the Celtic people of Europe used curses in a powerful way. If a tenant farmer was fired and evicted from the land that he had been working, he would quickly go and gather stones from all over the property. Then, he would put those stones in a lit fireplace, fall on his knees, and pray. What did he pray for, exactly? Well, they prayed that for as long as the stones remained unburnt, every possible curse would descend upon their landlords, his children, and all the generations after them. Then, rather than leaving the stones in the fireplace, where they could eventually become burnt, thus ending the curses, they would gather them up and scatter them all across the countryside. Curses have been there since the beginning, it seems, but over time, they have evolved to be more than just something you do to another person, as if they were weapons. Many of the stories that we tell on dark nights around campfires have more to do with the implications. You see, sometimes the horrible tragedies of life refuse to be explained away without the mention of a deadly curse.

When Prince Amedeo of Savoy told his father in 1867 that he planned to marry Maria Vittoria dal Pozzo, his father was enraged. Sure, she was of noble birth, but she was no princess, and she certainly wasn’t worthy of the son of a king. He was said to have cursed their union. On the morning of their wedding, Maria’s dressmaker committed suicide. Maria took the hint and found a different dress to wear. Later, as the bridal party made their way to the palace church in a grand procession, one of the military leaders fell of his horse and died right there, in the street. The wedding procession continued on, though, and finally reached the palace gates, only to find them shut. A quick inspection revealed the reason why: the gatekeeper was found in the gatehouse, lying in a pool of his own blood. The death toll continued, though. Immediately after the wedding, the best man shot himself in the head. The wedding party headed to the train station, perhaps in an effort to outrun the curse, but when they arrived, the man who had drafted their marriage contract had a brain haemorrhage and died on the spot. He was soon followed by the station master, who somehow got pulled under the royal train carriage, and was crushed to death. The king apparently saw a pattern and recalled the entire party to the palace. While they were leaving the train, though, one of the nobleman fell beneath the same train car. A medallion on his chest, most likely a gift from the king, was pushed through his skin, stabbing him in the heart. Maria was the final victim of the curse, they say. She died in childbirth at the age of 29.

Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane as he was known, was the great-great-grandson of Genghis Khan, taking the throne in 1369. He was a vicious Mongol warlord and was known for his bloody military campaigns. He often built pyramids after his victories – not with stone, mind you. No, he preferred to use the heads of the defeated army, sometimes tens of thousands of them. He died in 1405, and I imagine more than a few people were elated at the news. He was buried in an area that we now know as Uzbekistan, and a large, jade slab was placed over his tomb as a safeguard. The stone was inscribed with a word of warning: “When I arise from the grave”, it said, “the world will tremble”. Some reports say that another message referred to a great battle that would be unleashed should his grave ever be disturbed. You see where this is going, right? In 1941, Joseph Stalin sent a team of Soviet archaeologists to look for Timur’s tomb. When the local Uzbek elders heard of the search and planned excavation, they spoke out in protest. They made reference to an old book that made it clear just how bad of an idea it was to open the tomb. They spoke of a curse. They spoke, but no one listened. On June 21st, 1941, the tomb of Tamerlane was opened, and his skull was removed. The very next day, Hitler’s forces crossed into the Soviet Union, beginning the largest German military operation of World War II. In fact, if the Second World War had a great battle, this was it, hands down. The body of Tamerlane was studied for over a year while the Soviet Union was torn apart and destroyed by Hitler’s army. All told, the Soviet Union lost 26.6 million men and women to the invasion, more than any country in human history. It’s unclear why, but in November of 1942, the Soviets decided to return Timur’s body to the tomb, complete with a proper, Islamic burial. Days later, the German invasion was repelled at Stalingrad, finally pushing them back to the West, and marking a turning point in the war. A turning point, some say, that was caused by the curse.

The idea of the curse is common throughout folklore, and many popular stories use it as a plot device: the cursed spinning wheel of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White’s cursed apple, and the cursed brothers of the seven ravens all come to mind. But there’s another example in Irish tradition that tops them all, however obscure it might be. There’s an ancient Norse work called the King’s Mirror that tells a fascinating story about St. Patrick. Patrick, of course, was known for his work spreading Christianity throughout Ireland in the 5th century, but he apparently did not always meet with success on his travels. According to the account, St. Patrick once visited a clan that lived in the southern kingdom of Ireland called Ossory. Like any other visit, Patrick’s mission was to bring his message of Christianity to the people there, but it appears that he struck out. The King’s Mirror goes on to describe how the people of the clan made every effort they could to insult both Patrick and the God he represented. Patrick, to his credit, carried on and tried his best. He preached the same message he always did, and followed the same protocol, meeting with the clan in their place of assembly, but the people wouldn’t hear him out. Instead, they did something that might seem incredibly odd to our modern ears: they howled like wolves. It’s not that they laughed at him, and it happened to sound like howling; these people literally howled at St. Patrick. The reason was incredibly logical. The totem, or spirit animal for this clan, happened to be the wolf. To them, they were just responding to the message of an outside deity with the sounds of their own. Now, this was pretty unheard of for St. Patrick, and the fact that this event was recorded in a Norse history book highlights just how unusual it was. But even more unusual was Patrick’s response to this stubborn, insulting clan. Clearly upset, Patrick stopped speaking, and began to pray. It was said that he asked God to punish the people of the village for their stubbornness. He wasn’t specific, but he asked for some form of affliction that would be communal, that would carry on, through the generations, as a constant reminder of their disobedience. According to the story, God actually listened. It was said that the people of Ossory were forever cursed to become the very thing they worshipped - wolves. But this curse followed a very specific set of rules: every seven years, one couple from the village of Ossory would be transformed into a wolf. They would be stuck in this form day and night, year after year, until the next couple would take over, transforming into wolves themselves. Part of the curse was said to be how the people of Ossory maintained their human minds while in the form of a wolf. But although they thought and spoke as humans, they were equally bound to the cravings of their new form; specifically, the craving for human flesh. In this way, the curse affected everyone, from the man and woman transformed, to the people around them who lived in constant fear of being attacked. Ever since that day, so the legend goes, the people of Ossory have been cursed.

There’s media hype, and then there’s grasping at straws. For some people, declaring someone or something to be cursed adds an air of mystery and drama. It’s the sexy bit, and sex sells, right? For example, the Kennedy family story is sad and tragic, but when we add a dash of curse, we elevate it to near mythic proportions. Other people, though, really do believe. Either they’ve experienced the sting of unexplainable misfortune, or they’ve watched the lives of people around them crumble for no discernible reason. The human mind wants answers, it demands them, it seeks them out. People love story, but only the ones with closure, and that’s what curses offer us. At the end of the day, curses help us make sense of a thing, or person, or place, that seems to be haunted by misfortune. They act like a walking stick for people having a difficult time staying on the path. They help us make sense of life. I can imagine life in the 6th century in Ireland was incredibly difficult, and it would make sense that, eventually, someone would begin to tell stories that tried to explain the harshness of that life, stories about a curse, perhaps. When someone failed to return from battle or a hunting trip, or even travel between two villages, it was hard to not have all the answers. Stories about attacks from local werewolves certainly did their part in explaining these disappearances. But they were just stories, right? Gerald of Wales was a 12th century historian who recorded something interesting. He had been sent to Ireland by King Henry II to record the local history there. According to him, a local priest requested his company while he was visiting. This priest sat down and told Gerald an amazing tale. According to the report, he had been travelling near the western border of county Meath, close to what would have been ancient Ossory, and had camped for the night in the woods. That night, with his fire burning low, someone approached him from the darkness beyond the firelight, and spoke. Obviously, the priest was frightened – he thought that he had been alone, but the voice of a man called out to him with great urgency. The man spoke of his wife, who was sick at home. He was worried, and wondered if this man of God might come, and at least perform last rights for her. Reluctantly, the priest agreed. He gathered up his belongings and followed the voice into the woods. They travelled a short distance, until they came to a large, hollow tree. There, the priest noticed two frightening things. First, there was something, or someone, lying inside the tree, presumably the sick wife. Second, though, he realised that the voice was not coming from a man at all, but a wolf. He was taken aback. How, he asked the wolf, was he able to speak like a man? The wolf’s answer was simple: centuries before, he said, his people had been cursed by a travelling priest, forever doomed to become wolves. The priest prayed over the man’s wife, he tended her illness, and the couple was gone by morning, never to be seen again.

This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can learn more about me and this show over at lorepodcast.com, and be sure to follow along at Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram @lorepodcast. This episode of Lore was made possible by you, listeners who deserve no curses. [Insert sponsor break]. Thanks for listening.

#lore podcast #podcasts #aaron mahnke #curses #werewolves #amedeo of savoy #stalin #tamerlane #timur the lame #the werewolves of ossory #folklore #ireland #italy #russia #transcripts #13

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charterhunter529 · 3 years

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Family Sketch

Helen Schatvet Ullmann, CG, FASG [adapted from the author’s article in New England Ancestors 8:3 (Summer 2007):41–42, 45]

Do you have a thick file or a notebook full of information you’d like to write up for your family? Or even boxes and boxes of it? Maybe your data is in Family Tree Maker or some other program. Or maybe you’re just in the beginning stages of your research. In any case, whether you just want to write about your grandparents or compile a whole book, the basic building block is the family sketch, treating a couple and their children in an organized and interesting way. Word processing, extremely flexible, is a wonderful tool for genealogists. Remember the old days when we had to cut and paste and retype, perhaps introducing new errors as we went along? About twenty years ago, NEHGS sponsored a seminar held at the Museum of Science here in Boston. My only memory of the whole day is Alicia Crane Williams saying, “As soon as you get a little information, put it in Register style. This is part of the research process.” So I went home and on my quaint little Apple IIe began transcribing old family group sheets crammed with information. My descendants might just take them to the dump! What is a family sketch? It’s just a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is the first paragraph that contains the vital information about the parents — all of it. So, if the reader later wants to check back to see just when your great-grandmother married her second husband, it’s easy to find. The middle is whatever you want, usually a biography in chronological order. It could include funny stories or a serious analysis distinguishing between your grandfather and another fellow who bore the same name. At the end is a list of children with their vital data. You may have mentioned each child as he or she joined the family, married, or died, in the biography above, but it’s still important to have a straightforward list of children at the end. Children for whom there is a lot of information may be continued in their own sketches. You can begin with just shreds of information. I started one sketch with my mother’s memories, her grandparents’ names and the recollection that she would sit on her grandfather’s lap and braid his side whiskers — plus the fact that he was a Congregational minister. Then I listed her mother, her aunt, and her uncles, using “Conversation with . . . ” and her name and relationship in footnotes. On the other hand, I have many folders of notes gleaned in the ’70s and ’80s, b.c. (before computers). It’s fun to open one, outline the family structure, and start adding information almost at random as I go through the file. As I work, I can see where I need to bolster a statement with pertinent analysis or where I could undertake more research. Before starting to write, you might read some sections in Genealogical Writing in the 21st Century,[1] especially the pages that diagram the different elements of the parents’ and children’s paragraphs. There isn’t space here to discuss all the fine points, including numbering systems.[2] Many other matters, such as whether to use abbreviations, are really your own personal preference. Generally the fewer the abbreviations, the smoother the reading. Complete sentences, rather than lots of semicolons, also make reading easier. Now you can just start writing. But here’s a suggestion: if you are going to start from scratch (as opposed to creating a “report” from your genealogy database), go to AmericanAncestors.org. Click on the Publication tab, then on theRegister, and then under Side Links, on “Download a Register Style Template for Microsoft Word.” Then “Download the Template!” If you have Microsoft Word on your computer, a document that can function as a template will open. I won’t repeat all that the template says, but it will help you format your sketch, especially those pesky children who appear in hanging paragraphs. This template contains all the “styles” that we use in the Register, everything from title to footnotes. The word “style” here does not refer to Register “style.” It is a word-processing term that refers to the format of each paragraph. When you open Word, you will be in “normal” style, but this paragraph is being written in “body text indent.” The only difference is that the first line is indented. Hanging paragraphs for children are more complicated. These paragraphs line up roman numerals on a “right tab.” There are even styles for quotations and grandchildren. If you’ve already arranged some material and want to use that template, simply copy your work into the blank template. First select your whole document and make sure it’s in normal style. Go to “Format,” then “Style,” and select “normal.” Delete all tabs and spaces you added to format the children. After pasting your work into the new document, save it under the name you want to use. Then review the text and select the “style” for each paragraph by placing your cursor in the paragraph and choosing the style from the Format menu. There should be a little window on your toolbar that lists the styles and offers a quicker route. You can select many paragraphs at once. (A technical detail: if you want to edit the style in any way, say choosing a different font or left-justified text, go to the Format menu, choose “Style,” and click on “Modify.”) In the Register we generally use “normal” style for the first paragraph where the parents’ vital data appear. Then we switch to “body text indent” for the biography. We introduce the children with a “kid’s intro” style and then choose “kids.” When you use that style, hit tab, then the first Roman numeral and a period, then hit tab again. Both tabs will then appear, and you can start typing the child’s name. Small caps are very elegant here. Notice that we include the surname for each child. Then there’s no doubt about the surname and indexing is easier. If you want to list grandchildren, you’ll find the “grandkids” style works a little differently. No tabs needed. Just type the arabic numeral and a period. Then two hard spaces help the names line up nicely [use Control-Shift-Space]. In the Register we use italics for grandchildren’s names. Even the footnotes and footnote references have their own styles. We encourage you to cite your sources for everything. Footnotes are much handier if your readers will really use them, but endnotes may seem less intimidating. The basics of citation format are not difficult. Look at issues of the Register for examples. A current guide is Evidence!,[3] good to have at hand, but the Register often uses simpler formats. The Chicago Manual of Style is also helpful.[4] It saves time to enter the notes correctly the first time. (By the way, the footnote reference number goes after the punctuation.) A further hint about writing style: try reading your work out loud. Are you using empty phrases you would never use when talking? Can you say something more concisely? Are your sentences really sentences? Passive voice — “The ball was hit by the boy,” rather than “The boy hit the ball” — deadens the tone. And proofread, proofread, proofread. You’ll improve your sketch every time.

All the best Family Sketch Images 38+ collected on this page. Feel free to explore, study and enjoy paintings with PaintingValley.com. As I look toward shifting to a different family line in my own research, I think I’m going to take the time to write a bio sketch for the main ancestor I’ve been researching, George Washington Adams (1845-1938) before I say goodby to him for a little while. I think it should be a fun exercise. 93,432 family sketch stock photos, vectors, and illustrations are available royalty-free. See family sketch stock video clips. Family future plan group of sketch family people walking in the garden building a family sketches of future family design interior family sketch color family and money family with money thinking wall.

Finally, for the “icing on the cake,” dress up your sketch with illustrations! Insert photos, autographs, pictures of houses and gravestones, the ship on which your ancestors crossed the ocean, maps — whatever you can find. Your final product should be elegant and attractive, not just to your children but to their grandchildren and beyond.

Sidebar:

A few little tips

Commas and periods go inside a closing quote; semicolons outside.

Footnote reference numbers come after the punctuation.

Titles of published books should be italicized.

Titles of articles and unpublished materials need quotation marks.

Titles of sources such as land, probate, and vital records do not need italics or quotes unless they are published.

Proofread on another day.

Try reading your prose out loud!

Sidebar 2:

Polishing that database reports

In word processing you can discuss all sorts of nuances of dates, places, and identities wherever they seem to fit. Such additions are not so easy when working with a genealogy database. There are quite a few differences between what we consider Register style and the quasi-Register-style report generated by most genealogy programs. If you are using one of these programs, here are some things to consider.

Once you have generated a report, it will carry its own set of word-processing “styles.” You can just accept them, or eliminate all of them by selecting the whole document and putting it in “normal” style as described above, then copying it into a blank Register template. If you do so, eliminate any sex designations for the children first. (You can easily comment on any unusual name in the text or a footnote.)

Family Sketch Clipart Black And White

You should make some other changes as well. First, consider the order of the information. Do the wife’s name and vital data appear after the husband’s notes, with notes on her following? Move information on the wife into the husband’s paragraph and integrate her notes with his. Next, did you document those notes with citations in parentheses? All citations need to be moved into footnotes (or endnotes if you prefer). Multiple footnotes for the same piece of data should be combined into one note, with semicolons between the different sources. You must also consider the format of names, dates, and places. Small caps are good for names, but your report will probably have a mixture of lower and upper case. Capitalizing names of the parents of husband and wife would be distracting. Place names don’t require a county or state after first use in each sketch, but it’s helpful to the reader to add “County” where appropriate. Postal codes are also distracting. In the Register we spell out the names of months and states in the main text and abbreviate them (except those with five letters or less), with periods, in the children’s paragraph

Family Sketch Picture

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1Michael J. Leclerc and Henry B. Hoff, ed., Genealogical Writing in the 21st Century, 2nd ed. (Boston: NEHGS, 2006). 2See Joan Ferris Curran, Madilyn Coen Crane, and John H. Wray, Numbering Your Genealogy: Basic Systems, Complex Families, and International Kin, National Genealogical Society Special Publication No. 64 (Arlington, Va.: National Genealogical Society, 1999). 3Elizabeth Shown Mills, Evidence! Citation & Analysis for the Family Historian (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1997). The introductory sections of this book are especially valuable. 4The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

Cartoon Drawing Of A Family

This book publishes, for the first time in full, the two most revealing of Mark Twain’s private writings. Here he turns his mind to the daily life he shared with his wife Livy, their three daughters, a great many servants, and an imposing array of pets. These first-hand accounts display this gifted and loving family in the period of its flourishing. Mark Twain began to write “A Family Sketch” in response to the early death of his eldest daughter, Susy, but the manuscript grew under his hands to become an exuberant account of the entire household. His record of the childrens’ sayings—“Small Foolishnesses”—is next, followed by the related manuscript “At the Farm.” Also included are selections from Livy’s 1885 diary and an authoritative edition of Susy’s biography of her father, written when she was a teenager. Newly edited from the original manuscripts, this anthology is a unique record of a fascinating family.

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accuplaceressaypractice816 · 4 years

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bloggloriousbouquetcherrybl-blog · 6 years

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spacing for an academic paper Spacing for an academic paper, Yahoo Answers

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skerbango-blog · 6 years

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Song Covers: When the cover is better than the famous original?

By Paolo

So you have been to the bars, clubs, parties, squares, and wedding receptions and heard countless of them. And you’ve surfed YouTube and elsewhere. And wow are so many so bad!

But does that stop you from hearing out song covers and cover bands? Fool! Oh hell naw!

It’s become a hobby of mine over the years to seek out various song and instrumental covers. Often the singer and lyrics make the hit. Overlooked is many a famous song that often has a lead instrument or instruments that go well beyond the voice to make it catch on and all the more of a hit.

Of course the bojack sheeple and a few others know merely perhaps the lyrics and melody of the voice and miss out on all the other action.

This edition of a possible series covers a sample of the very small few of song covers that could be argued as better than the original.

“Ah c'mon Paolo really?” you say? Well you just stop right there - there’s more!

So there I have been surfing around YouTube over the years listening to the original and various cuts and versions based on the original, and then sometimes I like to hear a bass, guitar, or drum cover.

So many covers are anywhere from off-key to terrible. Some folks have instrumental skills but poor production skills such that they tarnish their own fine work. It’s not as easy to put on a solid production from your bedroom or garage as it would appear to those who have not tried that or know a friend who has done so. And not everybody should be on video right?

But there are the elite - so damn good that they have me thinking, “Holy shit! This is better than the original!” and then thinking in disbelief, “It can’t be! Wait, let me hear it again!”

Well YOU listen and YOU decide for yourselves from these in no particular order.

“California Dreamin’” by Jose Feliciano plus footnote for his version of “The National Anthem”

We are warming up here with this older classic plus some bonus content. You can read up on the original, which was a hit, on your own time. This cover is better than the original. Hear it out.

My only challenge is that the best edition of this cover by Feliciano is old and lacking the HQ sound, but he covered the song best in a somewhat higher-pitched voice in his youth.

Feliciano has performed his cover many times over worldwide and there are a number of clips, and globally his cover is more famous than the original as well:

youtube

I bet most of you did not know that Feliciano has been blind from birth too.

Bonus Content: On 7 October 1968, Feliciano played the National Anthem at Game 5 of the World Series in 1968. He was booed for reasons that are all too clearer nowadays given also his excellence for that version, and some were critical also because it was a rendition of the song when renditions were not “approved” by … well …you know much of the rest and that’s perhaps another post. Give it a listen separately. Such a performance took HUEVOS GRANDES to do in those times too muchachos.

Bass Cover of “Take on Me” by Viaceslav Svedov aka Slava

I remember I saw the headline the first time and thought, okay, wait, I don’t remember a real bass guitar in that song and WTF is this? It sounds like he’s from Russia too so what’s he know about …so …what? Shame on me for stereotyping so I retro-assess myself -0.5 Paolo Points, -15 Yards, and an Unfavourable Spot for Objectionable Conduct. Still First Down.

So I still had to click to hear how horrible it was going to be too of course! Right? WRONG!

If this cover does not make you feel happier, please go home tonight and ask your family or a loved one, “Okay, what else is wrong with me!?” Then perhaps turn around and allow any children present to kick you in the ass with preferably a running start too. You deserve it you fool!

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Now a big “What if …”? Imagine the original performed with a singer and a bass guitar minus those popular ‘80s synthesizers! Maybe someone will make it happen with Slava.

“Street Player” by Leonid and Friends featuring Arturo Sandoval

Okay, okay, wait a minute now what the heck! “Paolo are you insane?” Don’t answer that yet. Yes, I did have to ask myself. How in the world can you match Chicago’s version? How can that be even remotely possible?!

How many of you have even heard the original versions of “Street Player” anyway? If not, give ‘em a listen FIRST. Chicago’s version is far more known, and Rufus’ is one of the top lost RnB classics in my opinion (which likely will be the subject of another post for me, so they’ll be back).

These arguably are the two originals of the song. Rufus performed the song first in 1978, so they were first right? Chicago’s version was a year later. The song for each version was co-written by Chicago’s drummer Danny Seraphine, so there’s the rub and the source of argument.

You seldom would hear either version on radio when radio was a thing in recently bygone ancient times.

So after all that, how does some band that appears to have emerged from an abandoned garage, with perhaps also much of its fashion procured at prestigious garage and yard sales, even enter into anywhere near such discussion?

Grab your popcorn folks.

And oh by the way, said band managed to obtain the services of legendary jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval to cover Maynard Ferguson’s infamous trumpet solo. Sandoval, mind you, was a friend and protege of Dizzy Gillespie! As if he’s so easy to reach! Say whuuuuut!?

You will have a hard time guessing where they are from, but the first correct answer will receive +2.0 Limited Edition Commemorative Platinum Paolo Points and a First Down.

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“Crazy” by CeeLo Green featuring Prince on guitar

“Paolo’s gone bat-shit crazy now everybody!”

Yeah really how does this choice make any sense at all? Well I will tell you how it makes sense. And then you will thank me again too.

This is one of those times when something does not make sense and because it does not make sense, well, there’s your sense.

Sometimes folks what you don’t know that you don’t know, well, now you know.

Behold ye the inexplicable that will explain itself.

The first apparent contradiction is that this is CeeLo Green’s original content from the global hit of his duo Gnarls Barkley, so how can an artist cover his own song?

I’ll tell you a bit how, but you’ll have to watch yourself to get the answer for yourself.

The second problem is this is not prime video, and unless a superior copy exists, we are left only to imagine that much more how much grander was this performance in person.

So CeeLo Green is apparently a guest artist on Prince’s stage in this clip. Oh okay, we’re going to hear him perform his mega-hit, that’s nice, right?

Then after the first refrain Prince appears on stage. Then Prince asks for one of his guitars. Right there in this video is perhaps now one of the most valuable guitars on the planet folks.

Then during Prince’s first solo CeeLo disappears from camera and at about 2 minutes returns. You can’t see his face, but you can sense he’s feeling, “Wait. Is this really happening? Prince is on stage with ME covering my own song!”

Then CeeLo continues and is noticeably pumped and the next level performance sequence is initiated.

Enjoy and go get yourself another cold drink after this one.

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comiconverse · 7 years

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Transformers: The Last Knight Review

Transformers (2007) came out 10 years ago and spawned a billion-dollar franchise but failed to impress critically. Paramount Pictures are banking on a shared universe with the iconic characters, but does it survive yet another new outing? Our Film Critic Jordan Samuel reviews Transformers: The Last Knight (2017).

Transformers: The Last Knight Review

Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager, Bumblebee, an English Lord, and an Oxford Professor.

Credit Paramount

I grew up with the Transformers toys, leading me to adore the classic 80’s animated series; the one that brought those awesome robots to life. It was a huge part of my childhood as the make-believe war between the Autobots and Deceptions brought joyous waterworks and high adventure to the table.

Back when rumblings about a live-action adaptation were going around in the mid-2000s, many minds (including mine) literally exploded with the idea of a big-screen adaptation. Michael Bay was chosen to direct Transformers (2007) which was set to modernize the iconic robot war. It revived the series, but failed in pleasing critics and disappointed hardcore fans.

I remember being excited about the project, but those hopes were squashed with a 2-hour product advert that didn’t focus on what made each of those TV episodes so great.

The attempt to bring a gritty reimagining to the screen with the story of one boy and his car brought in the perfect footnote for a cinema juggernaut. The Transformers sequels Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon forgot this idea; over-relying on human counterparts, losing all the potential steam seen in the original series

Ten years later, 2017 delivers us another franchise iteration with Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), that is set to retell the origins of the cybertronic knights and their connection with the earth. But does it work in refreshing a tired old movie series?

Credit: Paramount

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) is a mixed attempt to revive the iconic franchise with a darker tone and new plot twists, but ends up being more of the same. Failing to paint a fresh coat over the aging robots Transformers: The Last Knight still depends on boring human characters and messy action.

Michael Bay attempts to create his best installment since Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), bringing in needed development to the autobot and retelling elements of their respected origins. But this all ends up being bogged-down in a convoluted story structure which, again, focuses too much on the human side. At points Bay sidelines the entire robot cast.

This is due to a large emphasis on the new female lead, Isabela Moner, who teams up with a bunch of other teenage survivors of the ongoing robot war. Michael Bay tries to mimic The Goonies (1985), with modern teenage stereotypes that don't fit in well with the post-apocalyptic tone of the picture. At points, there are a ton of underdeveloped stories on the screen.

Credit: Paramount

Transformers: The Last Knight is a story full of ideas, but they aren't executed to their potential, as the script juggles too many sub-plots at once. Set several years after Transformers: Age of Extinction, Optimus Prime has gone rogue to find his creators and the Transformers are now in all-out war with Earth.

Planetary survival lies embedded in the roots of Earth and Cybertron, as we are finally told the reasons Transformers came to Earth.

Michael Bay expands the series to give room for a potential Hasbro Cinematic Universe, fusing both real-life events and the car-shifting robots with bizarre results that feel at odds with the film's comedic elements. Transformers: The Last Knight is the most unnecessary and darkest film in the series; turning against the down to earth tone seen before and moving prime characters into different and strange directions.

Bay uses this latest outing to explain the cybertronian origins with his signature blending of English legends and sci-fi. The new writer's room techniques are reflected in Transformers: The Last Knight, as overcomplex storytelling is thrown out for a more streamlined adventure - at points setting up for sequels.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager, a struggling inventor who helped the Autobots in the last film. This time forming a stronger bond with Bumblebee and astronomer Sir Edmund Burton (Antony Hopkins), who wants to learn the secrets of why the Transformers keep returning to Earth.

Mark Wahlberg does a decent job, providing a more grounded Cade Yeager who has seen the war begin. The script allows Wahlberg to bring some laughs and other serious scenes with his co-stars. Sadly, I could tell that Wahlberg wanted to part ways from the film series, as his performance feels like a finale goodbye.

I would have preferred less Cade Yeager moments and more Autobot and Decepticon fights, but it did not pull me away from the screen.

Isabela Moner (100 Things to Do Before High School) plays Izabella a young girl who was orphaned from the Chicago Battle in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. She lives with her Autobot friend Sqweeks and teams up with Cade Yeager.

Moner is a great addition to the franchise, adding-in hope and joy into a dissolute world and bringing in a loveable aroma to the screen. The character needed more development, but steps-up from the other infamous cliché female roles in this franchise: I personally wouldn’t mind seeing her in potential sequels. She is a needed change for a fresh picture.

Credit: Paramount

The Autobots (Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, and Crosshairs) all return and are given a good bit of character development, breaking them apart for various sequences and pushing them to fight their own leader Optimus Prime who has gone rogue.

Peter Cullen, as always, is Optimus Prime, away in the cosmos searching for his maker and delivers the darkest take on Prime yet. Micheal Bay sets up the villainous twist in a way that hardcore fans will recognize, it’s a move needed to shake-up Transformers: The Last Knight from prior entries.

Cullen gives fans another solid voice performance, channeling the 80’s cartoon with effect and, at points, frightening the audience. His screen-time (15 minutes max) is embarrassingly short and will annoy fans after the intense marketing campaign.

The series is known for crazy action scenes, and Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) isn't a slouch in that regard; with the IMAX 3D technology used popping out on the screen. Michael Bay's love for explosives is tamer here, not getting in the way of those groundbreaking fights and car chases.

Transformers: The Last Knight is a return to mediocrity, which is still much better than another Transformers: Age of Extinction. It tries to returns to series' beginnings, with new twists and beautiful action moments but ends up squandering potential with boring human characters. It's messy pace and awful human subplots limit The Last Knight from being remembered.

Micheal Bay’s final Transformers outing isn’t his worst, but ends up proving that the franchise has finally run its course.

The post Transformers: The Last Knight Review appeared first on ComiConverse.

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Graphics by Yutong Yuan

The 2020 Democratic primary field has been touted as far more liberal than that of previous years. Candidates have proposed a number of progressive policies that were not even under consideration in the last presidential election, such as decriminalizing border crossings, levying higher taxes on the wealthy and offering reparations to descendants of enslaved men and women. What’s more, two of the field’s most liberal candidates, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, still sit atop the national polls. Is this apparent leftward shift in the Democratic Party real? And if so, what’s driving it?

To answer this, we looked at data from the General Social Survey1 that tracks public opinion on the role of government in a variety of different policy areas between 1986 and 2018. And while that means we can’t track opinions on specific policies that have dominated the 2020 race, like Medicare for All, we can look at how public opinion more broadly has changed in the last 30 years.

First, the data shows that Democrats have indeed become more liberal over time, particularly on questions related to race and immigration. For instance, the share of Democrats who think the government has a special obligation to help improve black people’s standard of living due to past discrimination increased by over 20 percentage points between 1986 and 2018, while the share who think the number of immigrants to the U.S. should increase rose from 10 percent in 2004 to 35 percent in 2018.2 Democrats also moved to the left on health care, but as you can see in the charts below, Democrats have long been supportive of the government taking a more active role in health care, whereas support for issues of race and immigration have experienced a sharp uptick in recent years. (Of course, it’s not just Democrats moving to the left on these issues. There’s evidence that the general electorate is becoming more liberal, too.)3

So who in the Democratic Party is driving this leftward shift we’re seeing?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in recent years, the share of Democrats who identify as liberal and support more liberal positions is greater than the overall share of the Democratic Party who support those positions — meaning that liberals seem to be responsible for much of the broader leftward shift.4

But this shift isn’t present in just the party’s more liberal members. We also saw movement from other demographic groups, depending on which question we looked at.

For instance, on the question of whether the government has a special obligation to help black people as a result of past discrimination, we saw a distinct gap in opinion when breaking down respondents by race. Far more black Democrats were in favor. White Democrats, on the other hand, have historically been less liberal on this question. The majority of the movement we saw in recent years was among white Democrats, who got closer to black Democrats on issues of race, as well as liberal Democrats, who broke away from conservative and moderate Democrats.

By contrast, on the question of whether the government should increase immigration to the U.S., we saw no racial divide. Instead, this movement seems to be driven largely by more educated Democrats and again, by liberal Democrats.

The first thing to understand about this leftward shift is that although there is evidence that more people — especially white people — are shifting parties based on how their views on race fit into the party, this change is not just driven by more conservative voters leaving the Democratic Party.

One way we know this is through research that has tracked public opinion among the same group of Democratic voters over time. Andrew Engelhardt, a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University, found in a forthcoming paper that while Democrats’ movement on race in the 1990s was largely driven by more socially conservative Democrats leaving the party, the Democrats surveyed in the 2000s were updating their opinions to become increasingly liberal.

And this trend has held up in other research as well. Dan Hopkins, a FiveThirtyEight contributor and professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania who studies racial politics and political behavior, interviewed the same group of 500 Americans multiple times from 2007 to 2018 and found that racial prejudice has decreased among white Americans, particularly among white Democrats.

This means that the recent uptick in the share of voters holding liberal beliefs is driven not just by the departure of conservative voters, but also by Democrats themselves becoming more liberal. It is, of course, hard to identify just one reason the Democratic Party has shifted leftward in recent years, but in my conversations with experts, they all pointed to party elites (both politicians and influential liberal voices online). Now, some research has found that cues from the parties and party elites are even shaping voters’ personal beliefs, particularly on issues of race and immigration.

But why have so many Democrats moved to the left on these issues? On the one hand, the fact that race and immigration played such a central role in the 2016 election was certainly a contributing factor. A 2018 study by Peter Enns at Cornell University found that rather than voters choosing a candidate who matched their views on controversies like the Black Lives Matter movement, they actually changed their own views to match those of their preferred candidates. And there is evidence that Trump is continuing to drive some of this — although, perhaps not in the way one might expect. There isn’t evidence, for instance, that his rhetoric has contributed to an uptick in racist and sexist attitudes among white voters; instead, as FiveThirtyEight contributor Matt Grossmann has written, “the evidence shows that liberal-leaning voters moved away from [Trump’s] views faster than conservatives moved toward them.”

On the other hand, it’s also true that on questions of discrimination and immigration, there was plenty of room for Democrats to adopt more liberal stances. In our analysis, we found that as late as 2004, roughly the same share of Democrats and Republicans (10 percent and 8 percent, respectively) were in favor of increasing immigration. But by 2018, the share of Democrats in favor of increasing immigration had more than tripled to 35 percent, while the share of Republicans had only ticked up by four points. This marks a stark contrast from issues like economic redistribution, where the Democrats had already staked out pretty liberal stances. Thirty-nine percent of Democrats thought the government had a responsibility to reduce income differences in 1986. That number sits at 44 percent today.

But although the Democratic Party has moved to the left in recent years, a continued leftward trend is not inevitable. Some of the big, progressive ideas in the primary have been criticized for being too liberal. And while the share of liberals in the Democratic Party is certainly growing, 53 percent of Democrats still identify as moderate or conservative, according to data from Pew. It’s also important to keep in mind that some of the movement we’re seeing on race and immigration is a reaction to the Trump presidency, meaning we might expect it to wane moving forward (especially if he does not win reelection). At the same time, it’s hard to imagine Democrats making a dramatic departure on issues of discrimination and immigration, so if Democratic Party elites continue to direct voters’ attention toward these issues, Democratic voters may move even more to the left.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Maddie Sach

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bloggerblagger · 7 years

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78) A lifetime’s secret revealed at last.

I have a confession to make. Something I have bottled up for 50 years and more. One of those dirty secrets that dare not speak its name. Stand by to be shocked.

I. Like. Musicals.

There. I’ve said it. Phew..blimey….you just don’t know what a relief that is.

And now that I’ve finally got that much out, I’d better get it all off my chest.

When I was seventeen, the film of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, ‘The Sound of Music’ came out - to coin a phrase - and I went to see it about five times. At least.

I remember going on my own to the Regent Cinema by the Clock Tower in Brighton to revel in my guilty pleasure. I had a crush on Charmian Carr, who played the eldest Von Trapp daughter, Lisl - as in ‘I am sixteen, going on seventeen’.

It was the beginning of the end of the era of the musical and people of my generation were definitely not supposed to like them. They represented everything that the baby boomers were determined to reject.

It was 1965, and the Beatles and Stones and Dylan were all up and running - and I with them. In 1964, my last year at Brighton Grammar School, I used to sit next to a chap called Phil Sutton for GCE history and most ‘lessons’ were spent arguing about whether the Stones or the Beatles were better. He was an early Stones fan, I was with the Beatles. At the time it seemed impossible, but I was living proof it was possible to like both ‘she was just seventeen, well, you know what I mean’ AND ‘you are sixteen going on seventeen’.

Not that I would ever had admitted that to Phil.

The wilderness years.

At best, musicals were thought us of camp and quaint. At worst, as silly and saccharine and hopelessly out of date, and, damned to hell by that most scathing of put-downs - uncool.

Although fast withering on the vinyl, it wasn’t quite the end of the musical. At least two of the very best came after - ‘Oliver’, 1968, and ‘Cabaret’ 1972. And every so often, there was an exception to the rule that musicals were cinematic history - ‘Chicago’, ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’, ‘Sweeney Todd’, ‘Mama Mia’ come to mind. (Though ‘Mama Mia’, because it was a juke-box musical, doesn’t really count for me.)

There were, too, Milos Forman’s version of ‘Hair’, a film that seems to have been largely forgotten but which I remember as liking a lot; and ‘Fame’ and ‘Evita’ which had their moments; and ‘Grease’ which was a million times repeated joy for my daughter if not for me; and, more recently, ’Les Miserables’ which, with its silly operatic pretensions and monotonous dirgey music proved there is always an an exception to every rule - it was the one musical I really, really didn’t take to.

But when you consider the vast number of films pumped out in the nearly half a century since the sixties, the musical as a Hollywood species, if not exactly endangered, was rarely spotted, and, during that long winter, those of us who secretly loved them have had to be very, very careful not to be caught saying so for fear of being thought of as crazy or weird or worse, gay. (For a bloke, admitting to liking musicals has been particularly difficult. They have been seen not just as unfashionable, but almost unmanly.)

Click here to drop jaw.

But adore them I secretly did. My absolute favourite piece of film ever is Donald O’Connor singing ‘Make ‘Em Laugh’ from ‘Singin’ In The Rain’. Pure untrammelled genius. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SND3v0i9uhE I defy you to watch this and not be awestruck. I have counted only nine ‘cuts’ in this piece of film of well over four minutes of the most complicated, intricate dancing and slapstick comedy. I wonder what it must have been like to have been there on the set to witness, ‘live’, such astonishing virtuosity.

Watch too, the movement of the camera - panning along, tracking in and out, jibbing up and over. Each movement must have involved several people working on camera equipment much cruder than we have today; everything and everyone as perfectly and painstakingly rehearsed as the performance they were shooting. And then these two halves - performers on one side of the camera and crew on the other - fitting together to make a seamless, stunning whole.

‘My Fair Lady’, ‘West Side Story, ‘Damned Yankees’, and all those Fred and Ginger musicals on telly, I lapped them all up. And I always loved almost any Rodgers and Hammerstein musical - ‘Oklahoma’, ‘Carousel’, ‘South Pacific’. At the heart of any musical has to be the music and the music was magical. ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’, ‘June is Busting Out All Over’, ‘Surrey with the Fringe on Top’, ‘A Cockeyed Optimist’…To me, they are all gems, wonderful hummable tunes with with witty, tricky lyrics that fit that them so perfectly they feel as though there could never have been any alternative.

And every so often the songs in musicals are are more than just hummable and witty; they can, occasionally, be truly profound. Not for the first time in BloggerBlagger I refer you to the scarily stirring and simultaneously horrifying ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’ from Cabaret. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29Mg6Gfh9Co

La La Land to the rescue.

Despite all this great stuff, for all these years it simply hasn’t been okay to admit to being a fan of the musical.

I remember going to the NFT not so long ago to see a screening of ‘Kiss Me Kate’, Cole Porter’s 1953 work of wonder. (If you think I am exaggerating check out ‘Brush up your Shakespeare’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPduoU826ew) Post modern irony was all the rage and I got really hacked off at a couple of smart-arses sitting behind me who were clearly of the mind that it was okay to laugh at the film but not with it. Twats, I thought, pathetic.

But the truth is I was no better than the rest. That I have framed this piece as a confession, albeit supposedly ironically, is proof of that.

And, of course, what gives me permission to now confess is ‘La La Land’. Suddenly it seems post-modern irony is dead and in post-post-modernism it is okay to admit to liking a musical. The musical is, believe it or not, almost cool.

I say ‘almost’ because I think some of the supposed backlash to the critical enthusiasm for ‘La La Land’ has been the reaction of people who can’t quite get their heads around the idea that, after decades of being programmed to dismiss musicals as being embarrassingly passé, they are now supposed to embrace them.

Not that I am without the odd nagging doubt myself. Although, broadly speaking, I liked ‘La La Land’, and grateful as I am for its crucial role in bringing the musical back into the zeitgeist, I do have some issues with it. The singing and dancing are manifestly not in the same league as in the good old days, and the music, though pretty enough, is unlikely to make into the great American songbook.

I have read that the flaws in technique - Ryan Gosling is very obviously no Fred Astaire - were deliberate, or, at least, that perfection was never the intention. In a sense, or so I believe the theory goes, the amateurishness is an essential part of the updating of the form; that a Marni Nixon would never have been asked to redub Emma Stone’s singing (à la Natalie Wood in West Side Story) because in 2017 the authenticity is what makes it work. I have to say it is a theory that I don’t quite understand and that, personally, I would have preferred it if Ryan’s dancing had looked a little more fluid.

However I refuse to countenance any criticism of Emma Stone, no matter how tremulous her voice. I fell for her completely and utterly.

*Charmian Carr, move over.

*(A possibly inappropriate expression since she died last year.)

POST SCRIPT

Since I wrote this, a couple of readers (Dawn Culmer and Allan Gold) have pointed out a couple of glaring omissions of mine from the pre-sixties period, ‘Guys and Dolls’ and ‘High Society’. Click here to see what I missed,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6Umq4dK95c

And

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kq1JQUhwVQ

Footnote on the rest of the Oscars

In 2014, ’12 Years a Slave’, you will remember, won the best picture Oscar. There was never any doubt that it would. It had built up a critical head of steam through the year, told a story - the horrendous capture and re-enslavement of a previously freed black man - that was bound to engage the sympathy of any awards voter, and was directed not by some tainted-by-trade ex-commercials director like J C Chandor but by Steve McQueen, not just a movie director but an actual bone fide artist who had won the Turner Prize. It ticked every box.

I saw it at the London Film Festival in late 2013 and privately had my doubts - very impressive in parts, but some wooden dialogue, an unconvincing cameo by producer Brad Pitt as the only good white guy in it, and an oddly sanitised version of New York in the early 19th century.

Still the awards tide was running in its favour and it was never going to be denied. ‘All is Lost’ the brilliant and effectively word-free Robert Redford one- hander about a lone yachtsman in crisis, a truly original piece, which was written and directed by the aforementioned JC Chandor in the same year, didn’t make it on to any Oscar awards shortlist at all except for 'sound editing'. Talk about being damned by faint praise.

The next year came Ava du Vernay’s ‘Selma’, another film about black issues and for my money a far superior one. I hate it when audiences clap at the end of films - seems absurd when there’s no-one to take a bow - but when John Legend’s closing song ‘Glory’ played I was so moved I really wanted to applaud. If you haven’t seen ‘Selma’ you should. David Oleweyo does a fantastic turn as Martin Luther King. But it didn’t win and I never thought it would. Two ‘black ‘ films were never going to carry off the Oscar in successive years. (The chorus of the song goes, ‘One day when the glory comes, it will be ours.’ Sadly not for Ava, not just a black director but a black woman director.)

Then last year came the furore over the 2015 Oscars being almost exclusively white. And this year, at least partly as a reaction to that, the pendulum predictably swung back the other way and no few than four films dealing with American racial issues were in the running in one category or another - ‘Moonlight’, ‘Loving’, ‘Hidden Figures’ and ‘Fences’.

Of these, the one that received the least attention, ‘Loving’ - a best actress nomination for Ruth Negga was all it got - impressed me the most. Fascinating story, superb, restrained acting and noticeably fine photography. ‘Moonlight’, on the other hand, which famously received the Oscar for Best Picture after the great presentation debacle, left me pretty cold - as I saw it, a thin story that took a painfully long time to tell. As a tale of a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality, I thought ‘Brokeback Mountain’ beat it into a cocked hat. (To coin another phrase.) Without all the Oscar fuss, I doubt more than three people outside London would have seen 'Moonlight’ in the Ukay. Now there will be a few thousand more, most of whom will leave the cinema scratching their heads.

Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote and directed ‘Manchester By The Sea’ looked to me distinctly unimpressed that his effort hadn’t won the big prize. Can’t say I blame him. It most definitely should have.

(If your life is so impoverished that you really have nothing better to do you, you can listen to a podcast of two of my erstwhile colleagues from Colourful Radio and I discussing the Oscars at length. The level of debate will probably go a long way to explaining why we got chucked off. https://soundcloud.com/jammiemedia/sets/the-oggscars-2017 )

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