jwood718
Jake Ponders 'n'at
Other stuff:
Jake's Book Covers (eclectic photographs and photo illustrations) at jakesbookcovers.com // After Dreiser (following the tire tracks of the "original road trip" of 1915) at afterdreiser.com/roadtrip // AND my other tumblr Jake Rambles n'at (photographs along the roadways)
jwood719.tumblr.com
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Every so often, someone posts a photo of Tuesday Weld. I almost always then think of Donald Fagen:
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"...she's got a touch of Tuesday Weld..."
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Front comin' in?
Rachel Bradshaw, 2024
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Oh, yes, other things built and painted over the last few years, 'cause Bright Star was hardly the only show we've done.
Above, marbleized columns for Shakespeare In Love from last season; seen here during load-in and a production shot.
Also for Billy Shakes Amor, Juliet's bier:
with the fairly quick-and-dirty white marble of indeterminate origin--with incised letters. It turned out OK, but it was kinda' quick-n-dirty.
Then, while I'm not condoning military conflict, here is the second prop cannon I've built:
for Mother Courage in this instance.
Like the ship's gun I did for Around the World in 80 Days back in New Jersey (below):
They're both PVC tubing, piping, muslin, and what-ever else I considered useful, sitting on carriages fabricated of plywood. The Courage field gun had the advantage of actual steel hubs between the wheel and the axel, so it rolled pretty well.
Shakespeare In Love scene designer: Sydney Hagen (2023)
Mother Courage scene designer: Kate Cardinalli (2021)
Photos: Jake Wood & Rachel Bradshaw.
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Hmm. I like this.
What's the lyric? "All gods children got shoes" I think.
Both pretty comfy, actually.
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Oh right! Elon Musk revives The Stepford Wives for the 21st Century! 'cause that worked out so well.
what a load of shit
Also, apparently it is a load of shit, as in it's not actually a real thing story. Numerous fact-checkers have debunked it (including Politifact).
What's terrifically ironic though is that the images are AI generated!
If you've been wondering what Elon has been up to 🤣🤣🤣
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"laughs in electrician"
Nice.
"knowledge is empowering"?!
Also nice.
Knowledge is empowering
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"there is a crack in everything -- that's how the light gets in"
Hi Neil.
I know you are flooded with asks and this somehow became extremely long. Too long. “Why am I suddenly telling this poor man my life story?” too long. “I think I’d rather he work on the GO3 script than read this wild beast” too long. “He’s going to think you’re criminally dangerously insane” too long. If you never get to it, I’m good with never seeing a response from you. Maybe it’s better that way? Maybe an anon would have been nice here. But, it’s 2024, so I say “we ball.” It’s a privilege to be able to send this to you at all. You get a lot to this effect and I hope they give you good feels, so maybe what’s the harm, yeah? Because this is not an ask. This is a thank you letter.
First, thanks for reblogging my therapist post, I hope it amused you. I nearly sent you “How am i supposed to explain this to my therapist?!” But refrained. At that time.
So, therapy. What is therapy really? Well…
Things have been really rotten for as long as I can remember. Bad health, bad doctors, bad relationships, bad coping mechanisms, bad all kinds of things. (Yeah, bad is a weak and unhelpful word, my therapist reminds me, but we’re doing this.)
Well, things got even more really really rotten and BAD these last few years. Health declined further, coping mechanisms declined further and more intensely, packed up my life, applied for disability, moved back in with my parents across the country.
Then 4 years ago last week I watched my fiance die of a sudden heart attack. I was 29. Two years later my best friend died. Then last summer I sauntered vaguely into a cancer scare. Not long before an operation my cat who has been my companion through so much garbage died as well. I’m not entirely in the clear on the cancer scare front. All my attempts at going back to work, volunteering, going to grad school - they collapsed on me because I couldn’t get through this STUFF.
(Sometimes when I talk about this, when I tell people, I think “they are going to think you are a raging pathological liar.” Because I’m not sure I would believe someone if they told me all of this happened to them. In such a short time period. All before they were 35. And hell if that hasn’t been isolating. You know how it sounds? Lonely. And it is.)
I did the hypervigilant and sensation/experience chasing stage of PTSD. It got me in a lot of trouble in all kinds of ways. I had to do a lot of medical and psych advocating because things kept getting worse. That was exhausting. Then that peaked. I went into the thick of the “I feel absolutely nothing” stage for a long time. I didn’t feel fatigue or hunger or thirst. Not people, feelings, a reason. Not hope.
But of course, like seems be for a lot of us, I somehow found Good Omens at just the right time. I was a very “I’m so cool and intellectual I mostly consume non-fiction media” person for too long. Like, what? How is that even a real thing? And it wasn’t real. It was just part of this curated autism mask that I don’t think anyone really bought anyway.
I think I got to a point where I’d just had too much reality. I needed fantasy. I didn’t realize I always needed it. But I denied myself for too many odd and painful reasons. Maybe I thought it was an escape I didn’t deserve.
But as it turns out, it wasn’t an escape. I watched both seasons last fall, and then this light came on. I watched it again and again.
I came to tumblr because I needed more. I found this fandom. I stepped into this beautiful world of fanart and fanfiction and brain flexing meta writing and a sense of community and wonder that you and Terry created - that everyone involved in the show inflated - exploded in the right way - like fireworks if fireworks were some kind of autocatalytic reaction - a self perpetuating force.
It’s not a “saved my life” feeling. Not a “getting my life back” feeling. It’s been a “maybe it’s time for you to have the life you’ve always been denied - that you’ve denied yourself” feeling.
I’m creating. I’m not “great” yet. Not terribly “good” at all. Maybe “behind” as far as the “proper” timeline for starting. I know there isn’t one, not really, but boy does that society machine make ya feel like there is. And sure, I started and stopped a lot in the past. But the second it got hard I always gave up. I felt like if I didn’t get it “right” to begin with, then I just didn’t have it in me at all. But for once I’m really in it. I’m writing and trying to draw things that look less like fever dream five year old drawings. (Not that there’s anything wrong with those, is there? 🙃) I’m eating better. I’m sleeping better. I reach out to old friends more. I’ve made new friends who share this love of Good Omens.
My therapist has been floored by the change in me. After that first funny mini flop, he has been so encouraging about it. I saw him this week and I said “Maybe this is helping me get prepared to start living again. Maybe it’s a springboard.” And he honest to god said “But You ARE living. This is YOU LIVING. Why does it have to be a springboard? Why do you have to turn this into ‘work?’ Just let yourself have this for once in your life.”
But there were two more added elements that made it all work. And I can’t help but think this whole brainrot thing wouldn’t have happened without them. So many things just happened all at just the right time - a proper coincidence.
In all of the madness of the last few years I finally got the memo that I'm autistic. i figured I was for a while. But it finally sunk in for me and my docs and my people. So I’d been working on unpacking that. Grieving the life that could have been entirely different, shedding the mask. I let myself hyperfixate openly instead of hiding it and hating myself for “spiralling” or “obsessing” like others -!like ‘I’ always punished myself for before we knew that it was a trait and not a personality flaw.
Then over the last few months my therapist and I started trying this new exercise. One session he stopped me and said “in the last 20 minutes you have responded to what I’ve said with 9 ‘I knows.’” My response to that? “Ugh, I know.” So we started this “I know” swear jar type situation. Really, I’ve been afraid of not knowing. I couldn’t let myself “not know.” Because it meant I was “dumb.” I was just drowning for so long in guilt and self loathing for the “I knew better and screwed up anyway.” Or “I should’ve known better - I should know that by now.”
As it turns out, there’s a lot of things I don’t know. That I didn’t know. Things I will never know. And refusing to admit all of that kept me from learning a damn thing. Kept me from asking questions. Kept me from trying new things because it was scary to do something new - something unknown - and I "knew" how it would all turn out anyway. Kept me from connecting with people because it was painful or embarrassing when they knew things I didn’t and it seemed like I already should have. Kept me from getting better at making art, music, writing. Kept me from forgiving myself. Kept me from growing. And kept me from moving forward. Maybe not on. I don’t know if we ever “move on” from things. But we can move forward as we carry them. And as we do, the weight gets less. We’re able to carry it better. But only if we can admit that we don’t know how. Only if we don’t treat ourselves like this is something we do know or should know and we’re just failing because we’re less than. Not good enough. Not strong enough. Not deserving. We have to be able to say “I don’t know how to do this.” And then we can start looking for the answers. We can ask. We can learn.
I thought about the apple. Being able to tell the difference between good and evil. Aziraphale’s years and years of watching what he “knows” to be true be proven wrong. Crowley’s need to ask questions…
The simple and enormous gift of “Knowledge.” The “Knowledge” of the difference between Good and Evil. The “Knowledge” that can only be gained by realizing, accepting, admitting that there are things we don’t know. Asking the questions. Sometimes we get answers we don’t like. Sometimes the consequences of asking hurt us. And unless you want to stay in that painful place that painful knowledge got you, well, you’ve got to let yourself learn how to get out.
So all of this good? I never expected this. I never thought I deserved it. Joy and belonging and this sense that “Yeah, maybe things can get better. Maybe things can be good.” Because I said those things, not truly believing them, to the people I thought needed to hear it. But it couldn’t save them. It was hollow. The proof for us wasn’t really in our orbit or on our radar at the time. And now they’re gone.
People always say “it’s never too late.”
One of the people I lost said “it’s later than you think.”
I jokingly would respond “it’s already too late.”
It was for him in the end. For them. For some people I guess it really is. But maybe a lot of the “too late” people are there because they think “they know” that things will never be good for them. So they stop looking, they stop asking, stop finding. And eventually they just stop.
Then there came Crowley’s “It’s always too late.” The first time I heard it I thought “For sure, Crowley-cakes, I KNOW.”
But then…I just needed to rewatch the whole thing. And lines like that…familiar things…familiar themes…I was suddenly identifying with these characters. I suddenly saw myself. And the realization hit - I connected with something! Something new. And I FELT THAT. And that tiny little crack that made in the wall was just enough to start breaking it down. Yeah, when you start letting yourself feel after not feeling for so long, opening up to the good feelings means opening up to feelings and then the bad ones come out too. But when there IS good … it helps you balance. You can deal with the bad a little better because you’ve got the good thing to lean against when it gets too much. And now you’ve got feelings. You’ve got good and bad. You’ve got sticky foggy grey. You’ve got life.
Whew.
So, TLDR, thank you. From the bottom of my slowly healing heart, thank you.
And to sign off with some shits and giggles… I couldn’t find this in existence as a sticker so I had to custom order. Perhaps this will spread misery and panic among the humans of my city - or at least a malignant and creepy sense of unease.
Or maybe they’ll say “wtf” and go home and google it and they’ll fall into the Good Omens hole they never knew they needed too.
Thank you for this. I never quite know what to say to messages like this apart from I am really glad that it helps. (It becomes the weird extra piece that I worry about when writing season 3 -- hoping that it will be that thing again. Not just a story, but something that helps people feel and helps with healing and helps with love.)
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R. Jake Wood, 2024.
Complete series on Jake’s Book Covers
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George Takei has a book! And it's his birthday!
Crown Books for Young Readers via NPR
Speaking on Weekend Edition Saturday's broadcast this morning, Takei and illustrator Michelle Lee discuss what it was like to be forced into a camp at age 4, and the details looked for to properly show life behind the wire.
"'The horse stalls were pungent,' Takei remembers, 'overwhelming with the stench of horse manure. The air was full of flies, buzzing. My mother, I remember, kept mumbling "So humiliating. So humiliating."'
He says, 'Michelle's drawing really captured the degradation our family was reduced to.'"
"You drew the home that my mother made out of that raw space, Takei tells Lee. "That was wonderful."
"'These themes of displacement and uprooting of communities from one place to another — these are things that are constantly happening,' says Lee. 'Because of war and because of political decisions ... those themes aren't uncommon. They're universal.'"
Full story with audio button (so you can listen to Takei and Lee talk about the project!) produced by Samantha Balaban. Includes link to order the book.
Happy birthday Mr. Takei.
#george takei#george takei's birthday!#michelle lee#books#human rights#japanese-american incarceration WWII
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"S...stop!"
Yep, sounds right.
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And let's not forget that people in the U.S. were sterilized 'cause some judge or other deemed them to be "feeble minded." The outrage train just keeps on looking for someone to tie to the tracks.
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The local political round-up is discussing candidates raising money.
1984.
Damn, 40 years ago.
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Jan A. Zalasiewicz, Scott L. Wing and the Anthropocene Working Group writing for The Smithsonian:
"What Myths About the Anthropocene Get Wrong"
"It is hard to accept that we as a society have gained so much power to change the Earth and have thought so little about how to use that power. Scientific knowledge can transform our perspectives (think of heliocentrism and evolution)—so it’s not surprising that the Anthropocene is hard to accept."
The authors address what they view as ten common myths, or counter-talking points, that are thrown-up at the idea that homo sapiens sapiens has made a massive difference in the climate of Earth. From geologic data differentiating our current day from the recently (geologically speaking) deceased Holocene epoch, the Working Group states that they can reasonably point to 1952 as the best year to count from, the year when things were notably different.
Among the myths:
No 2. "The Anthropocene is too short to be a geological epoch—just one human lifetime -- The Anthropocene’s duration is short, true—so far...[but] the Anthropocene represents far more significant and enduring change to the planet than does the Holocene."
No 4. "Anthropocene strata are “minimal” or “negligible" -- That’s a very geological objection—but it’s wrong. Humans have, since the mid-20th century, been prodigious reshapers of the landscape and movers of rock and sediment...To define a time period formally, geologists must identify distinctive signals in sediments or rocks that can be correlated around the globe, and the presence of such markers is ubiquitous. The geology is real."
No 6. "Other animals have affected the environment and caused geological change, so there’s nothing special about the Anthropocene -- Other animals have indeed changed the environment, but that can help rather than hinder the recognition of geological time intervals. For instance, the rise of mobile, muscular animals that could burrow through sediment serves as the basis for defining the Cambrian Period. But none of those previous changes has swept across all environments on the planet so quickly—or been triggered by an animal conscious of the changes it was making [emphasis added]. This consciousness, we note, is yet to be effectively translated into action to ward off the worst consequences of these changes. Too many still pursue economic and industrial development without considering the long-term cost to planetary health."
Full story
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"...on a good day."
Ha! nice.
Women of America scream "it's none of you GD business
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The NY Times review(s) are, indeed, interesting.
Awhile back, I was doing some research that led me to Neil Gaiman's online journal. But as I was looking through old posts for it, I got very distracted by an entry from 2008.
https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/02/102-pages-so-far.html
I’m going to need you all to scroll down to the bottom of that entry. Please.
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