Grace
FIVE MINUTES WITH THE LEGENDARY GRACE JONES
In an early scene of the new documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, the ferocious songstress and boundary-smashing model—whose prior silver screen highlights include portraying an Eiffel Tower-scaling Bond henchwoman and a centuries-old vampire stripper—signs autographs for fans huddled behind a barricade. One of them asks if she’d ever act in another movie, to which she commandingly answers, “My own!” This sets in motion a globetrotting journey a full decade in the making, acquainting us with Jones’ loved ones while peeling away her enigmatic, larger-than-life persona.
Director Sophie Fiennes is with the avant-pop legend when she delivers powerhouse performances in a Dublin theatre, attends church with her mother and revisits her Pentecostal upbringing in Jamaica, sips Cristal in her hotel room in a fur coat and reconnects with her former co-conspirator (and father to her son) Jean-Paul Goude in Paris. Over the course of the film, the subversive 69-year-old performer—who reminds us men should be penetrated at least once “so they know what it’s like to receive”—reveals herself like she seldom has before. Judging by the outpouring of praise during a post-screening Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, audiences were relieved that the ageless diva—who once threw her baby shower at the legendary Paradise Garage dressed as a toy soldier—has lost none of her bite or risk-taking spirit.
When Interview meets her the following evening for an expeditious five-minute chat in the dining room of an opulent Yorkville hotel, Jones is feasting on a hearty meal of steak frites. “I have to eat and talk, darling, so I’m afraid you’ll hear my munching on your recorder.” And with that said, Jones proceeded, her wit unimpaired and her laughter as rip-roaring as ever.
Party At My Place This Saturday
The Rapture starts on Saturday as ‘Planet Nibiru’ collides with Earth — according to Christian numerologist
End times and Rapture (Photos: Screen capture and Pixabay)
The end is nigh, according to Christian numerologist David Meade.
Citing verses in Luke 21:25 through 26, Meade thinks that the recent events like the solar eclipse and Hurricane Harvey are signs of the apocalypse. To make matters worse, there’s been an uptick in meteors falling to Earth. But rather than look at the science behind the increase in severity of storms or focus on the fact that most calendar years see two solar eclipses somewhere in the world, Meade sees a sign, The Sun reports.
“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the Earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken,” says Luke 21:25.
“Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken,” Luke 21:26 continues.
For Meade, that translates into the end of the world and the Rapture being predicted for this Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017. Meade says he used numerological codes in the Bible to generate a “date marker” in the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Nibiru is “a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians,” according to NASA. The first time it was predicted to fly by Earth and cause troubles were May 2003. It was also linked to the end of the world prediction for 2012.
“If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye,” NASA explained.
Another passage in Revelation 12:1-2 predicts the second coming of Christ.
Schrader on The Extinction Of The Human Race
Paul Schrader on the Extinction of the Human Race and His New Film ‘First Reformed’
By Brent Lang
It’s no surprise that Paul Schrader, a filmmaker associated with such dark classics as “Taxi Driver” and “American Gigolo,” has a pessimistic streak. But it’s still bracing to hear him argue that humanity, as we know it, is unlikely to last through the next century.
In an interview at the Toronto Film Festival, Schrader said he believes that global warming is accelerating at such a rate that there’s little that can be done to arrest the ecological changes. His Cassandra-like streak informs “First Reformed,” his new drama that’s been screening to strong reviews at the fall festivals. The film grapples with issues of faith while also sounding a warning about the destruction of the natural world. It follows Ethan Hawke as a small-town priest who toys with becoming a suicide bomber in the service of a radical form of environmentalism. Schrader spoke to Variety about religion in film, working with Hawke, and why he believes the world will be well rid of the human race.
Thanks, Dad
South Park F†ckery
‘South Park’ Episode Triggers Viewers’ Amazon Alexa and Google Home
by Ryan Parker
The 21st season of South Park premiered on Wednesday and, as the show usually does, touched on multiple current topics.
The episode, “White People Renovating Houses,” mostly skewered the white nationalist movement, poking fun at members’ obsession with waving the Confederate flag.
But it was another aspect of the storyline that was messing with some viewers’ smart speakers.
Both Alexa and Google Home were featured in “White People Renovating Houses,” and the cartoon characters yelling commands at their cartoon models for 30 minutes played havoc on some actual Alexa and Home models.
Harry Dean Stanton Gone
Harry Dean Stanton dead at 91
Character actor Harry Dean Stanton, who appeared in such films as “Cool Hand Luke,” “Kelly’s Heroes,” “The Godfather Part II” and “Alien,” has died at age 91, Fox News confirmed Friday.
Stanton passed away from natural causes at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.
Before finding fame in Hollywood, the Kentucky native previously served in the Navy during World War II and fought in the Battle of Okinawa. After his service, Stanton pursued acting on-stage in a University of Kentucky production of “Pygmalion.”
Once Stanton moved to Los Angeles to further pursue his craft, he appeared in his first film, “Tomahawk Trail,” in 1957.
Stanton later landed roles in numerous hit films, including “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Godfather: Part II,” and “The Missouri Breaks,” which featured his lifelong friend Jack Nicholson.
Stanton’s film career continued to flourish in the ‘80s with classics, such as “Escape from New York,” “Paris, Texas,” and “Pretty in Pink.”
In 1990, he played an ill-fated private investigator in “Wild at Heart,” which was directed by David Lynch. The filmmaker went on to cast Stanton again in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” in 1992 and “The Straight Story” in 1999.
Trigonometry Revisited
Mathematical mystery of ancient Babylonian clay tablet solved
UNSW Sydney scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3700-year old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, possibly used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces and temples and build canals.
The new research shows the Babylonians beat the Greeks to the invention of trigonometry – the study of triangles – by more than 1000 years, and reveals an ancient mathematical sophistication that had been hidden until now.
Known as Plimpton 322, the small tablet was discovered in the early 1900s in what is now southern Iraq by archaeologist, academic, diplomat and antiquities dealer Edgar Banks, the person on whom the fictional character Indiana Jones was based.
It has four columns and 15 rows of numbers written on it in the cuneiform script of the time using a base 60, or sexagesimal, system.
“Plimpton 322 has puzzled mathematicians for more than 70 years, since it was realised it contains a special pattern of numbers called Pythagorean triples,” says Dr Daniel Mansfield of the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the UNSW Faculty of Science.
“The huge mystery, until now, was its purpose – why the ancient scribes carried out the complex task of generating and sorting the numbers on the tablet.
“Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius.
“The tablet not only contains the world’s oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry.
Jim Carrey Awesome
The What?
The 5, the 101, the 405: Why Southern Californians Love Saying ‘the’ Before Freeway Numbers
This 1939 plan, developed by the city of Los Angeles, refers to its proposed freeways by name rather than number. Priority parkways are highlighted in color in this 1943 reprinting of the plan from “Freeways for the Region.” Courtesy of the Metro Transportation Library and Archive.
Southern Californians have a distinctive – “Saturday Night Live’s” Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig might say funny – way of giving directions. To get from Santa Monica to Hollywood, take the 10 to the 110 to the 101. Burbank to San Diego? The 134 to the 5. And, if you can, always avoid the 405.
Why the definite articles? After all, a resident of the Bay Area enjoys coastal drives along “101” or takes “80 east” to Sacramento. Most of North America, in fact, omits the “the” before route numbers.
The answer begins with the region’s early embrace of the freeway. Long before the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 gave most U.S. cities their first freeways, Los Angeles had built several. These weren’t simply extensions of federal interstate highways through the city; they were local routes, engineered to carry local traffic and (partly) paid for by local funds. It only made sense that, as they opened one by one, they’d get local names, ones that succinctly denoted their route or destination. The freeway through the Cahuenga Pass thus became the Cahuenga Pass Freeway, and Angelenos knew the freeway to San Bernardino as the San Bernardino Freeway.
State highway officials did affix route numbers to these freeways. But clarity dictated that Southern Californians continue to use their descriptive names. In their early years, most Los Angeles-area freeways bore signs for multiple numbered highway routes. The Pasadena Freeway, for example, was Route 6, 66, and 99, all at once. The Harbor Freeway carried both Route 6 and Route 11. The Hollywood, Route 66 and 101. Who wouldn’t prefer the simplicity of a name over a confusing array of numbers?
Puppies Or Kitties?
Creepy.
‘Inspirational’ robots to begin replacing teachers within 10 years
by Henry Bodkin
Robots will begin replacing teachers in the classroom within the next ten years as part of a revolution in one-to-one learning, a leading educationalist has predicted.
Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said intelligent machines that adapt to suit the learning styles of individual children will soon render traditional academic teaching all but redundant.
The former Master of Wellington College said programmes currently being developed in Silicon Valley will learn to read the brains and facial expressions of pupils, adapting the method of communication to what works best for them.
Automated teaching machines would be “extraordinarily inspirational”, Sir Anthony said.
“You’ll still have the humans there walking around during school time, but in fact the inspiration in terms of intellectual excitement will come from the lighting-up of the brain which the machines will be superbly well-geared for.
“The machines will know what it is that most excites you and gives you a natural level of challenge that is not too hard or too easy, but just right for you.”
He expected the National Union of Teachers to be “very alarmed” by the prospect.
[ click to read full article at The Telegraph ]
Still Unbelievable To Know This Day Actually Happened
Don Ohlmeyer Gone
Don Ohlmeyer Dies: ‘Monday Night Football’ Producer, Former NBC West Coast President Was 72
Don Ohlmeyer, former NBC West Coast president and the man who transformed Monday Night Football into a pop culture phenomenon, died today at age 72. Sportscaster Al Michaels announced the news during the telecast of the Giants-Cowboys game on NBC’s Sunday Night Football.
Ohlmeyer was born in New Orleans on February 3, 1945 and grew up in Chicago. He began his career with ABC Sports, working on Wide World Of Sports, and was the first producer of Monday Night Football. He also produced Olympics broadcasts.
In 1977, he went to NBC where he worked as the executive producer of the network’s sports division through 1982. He served as EP of NBC’s coverage of the Super Bowl and World Series and created many series including SportsWorld, Games People Play, and produced the made-for-television movie The Golden Moment: An Olympic Love Story. He expanded sports coverage, introduced innovative production techniques including a 1980 NFL telecast with no announcers.
Despicable.
‘Uncontacted’ Amazon Tribe Members Reported Killed in Brazil
By
Members of an uncontacted tribe in Brazil in 2008. Indigenous groups in the Amazon are under increasing threat. CreditFunai/Associated Press
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — They were members of an uncontacted tribe gathering eggs along the river in a remote part of the Amazon. Then, it appears, they had the bad luck of running into gold miners.
Now, federal prosecutors in Brazil have opened an investigation into the reported massacre of about 10 members of the tribe, the latest evidence that threats to endangered indigenous groups are on the rise in the country.
The Brazilian agency on indigenous affairs, Funai, said it had lodged a complaint with the prosecutor’s office in the state of Amazonas after the gold miners went to a bar near the border with Colombia, and bragged about the killings. They brandished a hand-carved paddle that they said had come from the tribe, the agency said.
“It was crude bar talk,” said Leila Silvia Burger Sotto-Maior, Funai’s coordinator for uncontacted and recently contacted tribes. “They even bragged about cutting up the bodies and throwing them in the river.”
The miners, she said, claimed that “they had to kill them or be killed.”
Pierre Bergé Gone
Remembering Pierre Bergé
The multitalented creative died today at age 86
Pierre Bergé at his retreat in Normandy. / Photo: Pascal Chevalier
Pierre Bergé had no nickname that I know of, but the pugnacious industrialist—a cofounder and longtime pilot, professional and personal, of fashion god Yves Saint Laurent—could have been dubbed Il Magnifico.
Few people juggled so much so well (give or a take a few upsets) as Bergé, who died today, age 86, at his home in Provence. He was a magazine publisher and a restaurateur (I can’t resist his Caviar Prunier outlets). A dynamo since his adventuresome youth—when he was the lover and successful promoter of French artist Bernard Buffet before defecting to Saint Laurent in a coup-de-foudre passion—he founded museums, ran opera houses, chaired foundations, and agitated French politics as an unrepentant Socialist with about as much tact as a hand grenade. He was a literary lion, had his own publishing company, and launched an auction house. He was a pioneering force in AIDS research and treatment in France, and a major figure in combating racism and discrimination. In short, Bergé was a whirlwind, a magician, a man who built mountains as easily as he moved or demolished them.
Don’t Mess With The Bell
Police: Taco Bell Employees Fatally Shoot Armed Robber
Stock image (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (AP) – Police say three employees of a Cleveland Taco Bell opened fire on two armed robbers, killing one.
Police have said two masked robbers entered the restaurant early Wednesday and ordered three employees to lie on the floor. Police say three other employees pulled out handguns and opened fire, shooting one of the suspects six times. The other suspect ran off.
The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office on Thursday said the man killed was 24-year-old De’Carlo Jackson.
Oral Marley
from the Los Angeles Post-Examiner
Safeguarding Bob Marley with “So Much Things to Say”
In reviewing Roger Steffens’s latest book, So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley, Hua Hsu asserts in The New Yorker that Steffens’s contribution to the Marley canon is his “nerdish monomania.” But Steffens, who invited me to tour his overstuffed “Reggae Archives” in L.A., epitomizes cool – as does his magnum opus on Marley – right down to its subtle red, green, and gold binding. Moreover, it is Steffens’s avidity and accuracy that allow readers to “really know the man” as Steffens did when he toured with Marley, subsequently devoting his life to safeguarding his legacy. Jamaican poet laureate Linton Kwesi Johnson writes in his introduction to Steffens’s oeuvre, that Steffens shows “how serious Marley was about his art: his single-mindedness and his consummate professionalism.” Steffens’s book exudes those same qualities.
On July 29, 2017, Steffens blessed me with a return invitation to the Reggae Archives to interview him. The topics we discussed included what got him interested in reggae; how his passion for the music developed; The New Yorker’sreview of his new book; the book’s main dramas and themes; and finally, Steffens’s hopes for “So Much Things to Say”’s enduring legacy. What follows is a transcription of our discussion modified only slightly for clarity and space considerations.
The Most Revolting Recipe Ever
Ass-smoke
“Blowing Smoke Up Your Ass” Used to Be Literal
by Terynn Boulton
When someone is “blowing smoke up your arse” today, it is a figure of speech that means that one person is complimenting another, insincerely most of the time, in order to inflate the ego of the individual being flattered.
Back in the late 1700s, however, doctors literally blew smoke up people’s rectums. Believe it or not, it was a general mainstream medical procedure used to, among many other things, resuscitate people who were otherwise presumed dead. In fact, it was such a commonly used resuscitation method for drowning victims particularly, that the equipment used in this procedure was hung alongside certain major waterways, such as along the River Thames (equipment courtesy of the Royal Humane Society). People frequenting waterways were expected to know the location of this equipment similar to modern times concerning the location of defibrillators.
Smoke was blown up the rectum by inserting a tube. This tube was connected to a fumigator and a bellows which when compressed forced smoke into the rectum. Sometimes a more direct route to the lungs was taken by forcing the smoke into the nose and mouth, but most physicians felt the rectal method was more effective. The nicotine in the tobacco was thought to stimulate the heart to beat stronger and faster, thus encouraging respiration. The smoke was also thought to warm the victim and dry out the person’s insides, removing excessive moisture.
Blainef†ckery
Money Moon
The Moon Is Full of Money
Capitalism in space.
BY POPE BROCK / ILLUSTRATIONS BY VEDANTI SIKKA
I was slung in my favorite deck chair, drink in hand, having a gawk at the night sky. Andromeda, Pisces … I trawled the constellations, mind abandoned, still aware in some curve at the back of my brain that the world is coming apart at the seams and we’re all fucked, and enjoying the gentle paradox of it, the clink of the ice in my glass and the slumber of the dog.
By and by I found my gaze resting on the moon. There it was, the great provider: breeder of wonder, werewolves, and all those songs. The place where beauty meets philosophy, where hope and despair alike are lost.
Gnawing through the romance though was a little something I’d read not long before. An astrophysicist had claimed that the moon could save our planet. Not immediately: This would be in about 4.5 billion years when the sun explodes and roasts us in wrath and fire unless we get out of the way.
Frankly, the notion of Earth making a break for it seemed implausible to me, but this Canadian professor said we could do it by shooting off an army of rockets on the far side of the moon. Slammed out of its orbit by the collective blast, the moon would sail off with Earth, yoked by gravity, trailing behind it. A thousand years’ travel and we’re out of harm’s way—albeit dark and freezing unless we initiate phase two of the plan. As the sun receded in the distance, we would replace its rays with a trillion lunar argon arc lamps. A flip of the switch and the moon would become the sun: blue sky, puffy clouds, everything just as before.
Help me, Obi X Kenobi. You’re my only hope.
Why Generation X Might Be Our Last, Best Hope
Caught between vast, self-regarding waves of boomers and millennials, Generation X is steeped in irony, detachment, and a sense of dread. One of their rank argues that this attitude makes it the best suited to preserve American tradition in these dark new days.
by RICH COHEN
Demographics are destiny. We grew up in the world and mind of the baby-boomers simply because there were so many of them. They were the biggest, easiest, most free-spending market the planet had ever known. What they wanted filled the shelves and what fills the shelves is our history. They wanted to dance so we had rock ‘n’ roll. They wanted to open their minds so we had LSD. They did not want to go to war so that was it for the draft. We will grow old in the world and mind of the millennials because there are even more of them. Because they don’t know what they want, the culture will be scrambled and the screens a never-ending scroll. They are not literally the children of the baby-boomers but might as well be—because here you have two vast generations, linking arms over our heads, akin in the certainty that what they want they will have, and that what they have is right and good.
The members of the in-between generation have moved through life squeezed fore and aft, with these tremendous populations pressing on either side, demanding we grow up and move away, or grow old and die—get out, delete your account, kill yourself. But it’s become clear to me that if this nation has any chance of survival, of carrying its traditions deep into the 21st century, it will in no small part depend on members of my generation, Generation X, the last Americans schooled in the old manner, the last Americans that know how to fold a newspaper, take a joke, and listen to a dirty story without losing their minds.
Hyatt’s Gone
40-year-old East Rochester video store to close its doors
by Carlet Cleare
East Rochester, N.Y. – One of the largest and last local video stores in this digital era is closing.
Walking into Hyatt’s Classic Video on West Commercial Street feels a bit nostalgic, with its extensive collection of VHS tapes, DVDs, cassette tapes and VCRs.
Technology has run through Bob Hyatt’s veins since the 1960s, when he started selling home theater equipment out of his house.
“When a lot of the chain stores like Norman Brothers and Century started selling components through catalogs,” Hyatt said, “we saw the handwriting on the wall and we went into video.”
The 85-year-old owned and operated the family video store in East Rochester for 40 years. His four children were also raised in the business.
“We moved into this building on the night of the Ice Storm in 1991,” he said.
Hyatt worked through the struggles of big box competitors and, now, streaming, keeping afloat through converting content on VHS tapes onto DVDs.
At one time, they had 35,000 titles. Now, the Hyatts are closing.
The Biggest In A Century
Largest asteroid in a century to whiz by Sept 1
The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said
The largest asteroid in more than a century will whiz safely past Earth on September 1 at a safe but unusually close distance of about 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers), NASA said.
The asteroid was discovered in 1981, and is named Florence after the famed 19th century founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale.
“Florence is the largest asteroid to pass this close to our planet since the first near-Earth asteroid was discovered over a century ago,” said a US space agency statement.
It is one of the biggest asteroids in the Earth’s vicinity, and measures about 2.7 miles (4.4 kilometers) wide—or about the size of 30 Egyptian pyramids stuck together.
“While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies.
Party At The Tower!
Devil’s Tower UFO Rendezvous aims to attract all the UFO enthusiasts
HULETT, WYO. (KOTA TV) – Something out of this world is coming to Hulett, Wyo., and the Devil’s Tower Area, so if you’re a UFO enthusiast you better save the dates.
September 14-16th, 2017, will be the 1st Annual Devil’s Tower UFO Rendezvous.
The convention will last all three days and does require registration fees for activities like field investigation training and attending any of the featured keynote speakers.
On the last day there will be a festival with many free activities throughout Hulett, including a UFO alien themed parade, costume contest with a small fee, a close encounters tower building contest, a barbecue cook-off and live music. Cash prizes will be awarded to the best parade float and costume.
Lost Languages Found
Scientists discover lost languages at Egyptian monastery
by Tom Whipple, Science Editor
The library at Saint Catherine’s monastery has been in continuous use for 1,500 years / KHALED ELFIQI
Ancient works not read by humans since the Dark Ages have been found at an Egyptian monastery, using a technique that allows researchers to reconstruct documents long ago scrubbed off parchment.
The finds at Saint Catherine’s monastery on the Sinai peninsula hailed a “new golden age of discovery”, according to the scientists behind the research, who believe that the methods could reveal many other lost texts.
They have been chronicling the monastery’s library, which has been in continuous use for 1,500 years, but which is today threatened by growing Islamic fundamentalism and attacks on Christians in the region.
Among the discoveries were three ancient Greek medical texts that were previously unknown to scholars, as well as the earliest copies of some from Hippocrates.
Tobe Hooper Gone
‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Director Tobe Hooper Dies At 74
Tobe Hooper, one of the pioneers of the horror genre, died Saturday at age 74. He passed in Sherman Oaks. Hooper made two of the most distinguished films in the fright genre. His low budget 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which gave a glimpse of the frightful potential of a power tool, and became a favorite on the drive in theater circuit. Made at a cost of $300,000, the film grossed over $30 million at the domestic box office. He also directed Poltergeist.
Tobe Hooper, one of the pioneers of the horror genre, died Saturday at age 74. He passed in Sherman Oaks. Hooper made two of the most distinguished films in the fright genre. His low budget 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which gave a glimpse of the frightful potential of a power tool, and became a favorite on the drive in theater circuit. Made at a cost of $300,000, the film grossed over $30 million at the domestic box office. He also directed Poltergeist.
Trans-Thrillers
Why Men Pretend to Be Women to Sell Thrillers
Over the last decade, female writers have come to dominate crime fiction, a genre traditionally associated with men. But their appeal goes beyond the byline.
Rafael Marchante / Reuters
Almost 10 years ago, Martyn Waites, a British crime writer, was having coffee with his editor. Waites, who was at something of a loose end project-wise, was looking for new ideas. His editor, though, was looking for a woman. Or, more specifically, a high-concept female thriller writer who could be the U.K.’s Karin Slaughter or Tess Gerritsen.
“I said I could do it,” Waites recalls. His editor was skeptical. But then Waites outlined an idea for a book based on a news story he’d once read, about a serial killer targeting pregnant women and cutting out their fetuses. The concept, he admits somewhat bashfully, was a gruesome one.
“That’s exactly what we’re looking for,” was his editor’s response.
That idea became The Surrogate, a crime thriller published in 2009, and Waites simultaneously became Tania Carver, his female alter ego. Before he started writing, he embarked on a period of research, reading novels by popular female crime writers, and made “copious notes” about their various heroes and villains. Waites was an actor before he was a writer, and “Martyn” and “Tania” soon became different personas in his head, almost like characters. He’d sit down to write as Tania and then realize the concept was much better suited to Martyn. Martyn books, he explains, “were more complex, more metaphorical. The kind of things I like in writing.” Tania books were simpler: mainstream commercial thrillers aimed at a female audience. And they rapidly became more successful than any of Waites’s previous books had been.
The case of a male author using a female pseudonym to write fiction was relatively unheard of when Tania Carver emerged, but the explosion of female-oriented crime fiction in the last five years has led to an increasing number of male authors adopting gender-neutral names to publish their work. Last month, The Wall Street Journal’s Ellen Gamerman considered the phenomenon, interviewing a number of writers who fessed up to being men: Riley Sager (Todd Ritter), A.J. Finn (Daniel Mallory), S.J. Watson (Steve Watson), J.P. Delaney (Tony Strong), S.K. Tremayne (Sean Thomas). The trend is ironic, Gamerman pointed out, because the history of fiction is littered with women writers adopting male or gender-neutral pseudonyms to get their work published, from the Brontë sisters to J.K. Rowling.
Aphex Technical Equipment Supply
How A Small Town Record Store Quietly Released An Exclusive Aphex Twin Record
Working away from a cultural capital comes with significant upsides.
by SCOTT STERLING
Well beyond the obvious tropes of Motown, techno and hip-hop icons, evidence of metropolitan Detroit’s reputation as a music city could historically be found within the confines of its record stores. Legendary and sadly long-gone record shops in and around the city were often nearly as important and influential as the music sold in them.
Today, a new crop of budding independent record stores is taking the torch for new and innovative music in southeastern Michigan, none more interestingly than Technical Equipment Supply, which recently made its home in an unlikely place.
Ypsilanti, Mich., is a small Midwestern town of less than 23,000 residents, 36 miles from Detroit and situated just a few miles east of Ann Arbor. “Ypsi” still retains much of it’s mid-20th century charm, and has yet to get caught up in the waves of gentrification sweeping cities across America, primarily in what’s known — both positively and derisively, depending on who’s doing the talking — as “New” Detroit.
James Cameron – Disturbing
“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” Is Still a Deeply Upsetting Blockbuster
“It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves”
by BILGE EBIRI
Say what you will about James Cameron, but the man commits. Stories of the director’s perfectionism, his control-freak mania, and his sheer drive are legion, but I’m talking about something more fundamental to the work itself. Whereas most action filmmakers are content to let emotion and morality play second fiddle to the more immediate, commercial elements of their movies, Cameron refuses to relegate such things to the background. The love story in Titanic isn’t just an excuse to stage an extravagant disaster flick; it becomes the picture’s raison d’être (and, not coincidentally, a key factor in its success). The environmental and anti-colonial overtones of Avatar aren’t there merely to provide some character shading; they practically take over. And now, back in theaters and converted to 3-D, is Cameron’s classic sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day — not just a movie about fighting to prevent nuclear apocalypse, but a movie obsessed with nuclear apocalypse.
Maybe that wasn’t so clear back in 1991, when it originally came out. The Iron Curtain had recently fallen, effectively ending the Cold War and seemingly lifting the nuclear threat. I distinctly remember Sarah Connor’s occasional ruminations on the fate of the human race eliciting chuckles in my theater at the time. Today, however, the overwhelming despair of T2 is impossible to ignore. This is one of the most upsetting blockbusters ever.
In 1984, Cameron’s original Terminator played a key role in turning Arnold Schwarzenegger into a massive global star, and it was a nasty, brutish little beast of a movie — an R-rated horror flick posing as a sci-fi thriller. But it worked (and became a hit) because, playing a killer super-robot sent from the future by our machine overlords to murder the young woman (Linda Hamilton) who would give birth to the leader of the human resistance, Schwarzenegger used his considerable limitations as an actor to his advantage. Thus did Arnold become an icon of Reaganite, muscles-and-guns spectacle: a terse, emotionless robot racking up an insane body count with an assortment of heavy weaponry.