#Steve Kurtz
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A corpse emerges from the mushroom-covered midden and cries out "You cant make me leave! Never! I'll guard my home forever!" This is a reasonable reaction to being awakened suddenly. (Terry Dykstra, from Steve Kurtz' AD&D Ravenloft adventure "The Price of Revenge," Dungeon magazine 42, July/August 1993)
#D&D#Dungeons & Dragons#Terry Dykstra#Ravenloft#undead#AD&D#Dungeon magazine#dnd#zombie#mushrooms#Steve Kurtz#The Price of Revenge#AD&D 2e#D&D 2e#Dungeons and Dragons
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Panels from ‘Kultz’ by Steve Bissette (Epic Illustrated, June 1981)
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𝐏𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄𝐒
pairings ❧ steve harrington x reader
summary ❧ nancy, jonthan, and (y/n) investigate the strange events that keep occurring in their small town
warnings ❧ female!reader, shit writing, implications of sex
word count ❧ 1k
additional notes ❧ none ´･ᴗ･`
The day seems to drag on incessantly as I drown in my own pool of sorrow.
As I'm sitting at lunch, Tommy and Carol crack their typical 'humorous' remarks, triggering an unsettling feeling within me.
"I still think that creep killed him." Tommy says referring to Jonathan while spooning food into his mouth.
"He's such a freak." Carol comments, laughing.
Steve shoots his friends a look before he glances at me with a concerned expression. To my surprise, he rests his hand on my thigh and gives it a gentle squeeze, leaving it there, before returning to his food.
Steve doesn't bring up what happened last night.
|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|
"The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress. And Kurtz's life was running swiftly, too—"
I slump in my seat, absorbing this incredibly boring lecture as the day reaches its conclusion. Suddenly the office lady walk in and halts the teacher's speech.
Thank god.
"(Y/n) Henderson and Nancy Wheeler? If you would come with me, please," She says motioning for us to walk with her.
With exhaustion dragging me down, I rise from my chair and shuffle after the lady through the classroom door to the empty cafeteria - a tense scene awaiting. There, Mrs. Wheeler sits, across from two officers, who look at Nancy and I with stern expressions, which causes my heart to quicken with anticipation.
Nancy sits down next to her mom and I sit myself down next to Nancy.
"We're here to discuss the whereabouts of your friend, Barbra Holland." One of the deputies says, with a notepad in hand.
|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|
"So, this argument you and Barbra had... What exactly was it about?" The officer, Powell asks.
"It wasn't really an argument..." Nancy says hesitantly, "Barb just wanted to leave. I didn't, so, I... I told her to just go home."
"Then what?" Powell asks.
"Then I went upstairs to put on some dry clothes." Nancy continues.
"And the next day," Powell says, "You guys went back and saw, a bear, you're thinking?"
"We don't know what it was... but we think..." I pipe in, "We think maybe it took, Barb."
"You need to check behind Steve's house—" Nancy starts.
"We did. There's nothing there." The other officer, Callahan, says shaking his head, "There's no sign of a bear."
"And there's no car." Powell finishes.
"What?" I say, as Nancy and I glance at each other.
"Look, we figure that Barbra came back last night and then she took off, went somewhere else." Callahan says.
"Has she ever talked to either of you about running off?" Powell asks, "Leaving town, maybe?"
"No," Nancy says shaking her head, "No, Barb wouldn't do that, ever."
"She wasn't maybe upset about the fact that you were spending time with this boy?" Powell asks, "Uh, Steve Harrington?"
"What? No." Nancy says uncomfortably.
"Maybe she was jealous because she saw you go up to Steve's room?" Callahan presses and Mrs. Wheeler looks at Nancy pointedly.
"It wasn't like that." Nancy argues.
"Like what?" Callahan asks.
"Steve and me... We're..." Nancy's starts, "We're just friends. We just talked."
Callahan looks down at his notes and I avert my gaze to the window, hiding my jealousy.
"Now was this before or after you changed out of your clothes?"
|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|
After riding my bike home, I grab a snack from the fridge as the phone begins to ring. I walk over to the phone holding it between my shoulder and ear. Opening the wrapper for my snack, I take a bite while answering the call.
"Henderson residence." I say into the phone.
"(Y/n)?" I hear Jonathan's voice through the speaker.
"This is she," I reply.
"Uh, could you help me with something?" He says hesitantly.
"Of course, what is it?" I ask, leaning against the wall.
"I need to organize Will's funeral and I just can't do it alone." He responds solemnly.
"Oh..."
"You don't have to, I just—"
"No, no, it's okay Jonathan," I say, reassuring the boy, "Pick me up in ten minutes?"
"Okay."
|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|
Jonathan arrives at my house approximately ten minutes later. As he drives us to the funeral home, my thoughts wander to the difference between riding with him and sitting in Steve's car. Jonathan's car is cold and bleak while Steve's car is warm and causes my emotions to buzz with excitement.
Jonathan pulls up outside the funeral home and we both head inside. An old man greets us with a sad smile and guides us over to view the available caskets.
"It's made of soft wood with a crepe interior," The old man says gently, "Uh, now, I don't know what your budget is but over there, we have copper and bronze." He says leading us over to more caskets.
Nancy walks in through the entrance, her steps slow and hesitant. Jonathan and I notice her arrival, prompting her to offer us a wave that mirrors her anxious demeanor.
"Can you just give us a second?" Jonathan stammers before we walk over to Nancy.
"Of course." The man says kindly.
"Hey." Jonathan greets.
"Hey, Nance." I say.
"Hey..." She says, "Your mom, um... she said you'd be here."
"I just... can we talk for a second?" Nancy continues nervously.
|☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆|
"It looks like it could be some kind of perspective distortion, but I wasn't using the wide angle." Jonathan says looking at the taped picture Nancy hands him after we sit down on a bench.
"I don't know. It's weird" He continues handing the picture back to Nancy.
"And you're sure you didn't see anyone else out there?" Nancy asks.
"No." Jonathan replies, "She was there one second and then, um... gone. I figured she bolted."
"The cops think that she ran away." Nancy says sadly, "But they don't know Barb."
"And we went back to Steve's... and we thought we saw something..." I say.
Some weird man or...I don't know what it was." Nancy finishes with a sigh before looking at Jonathan.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here today." She stands, "I'm so sorry."
"What did he look like?" Jonathan says abruptly.
"What?" Nancy asks turning back around.
"This man you guys saw in the woods." Jonathan says, "What'd he look like?" He repeats.
"I don't know," Nancy stammers, "It was almost like he... he didn't have—"
"Didn't have a face?"
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#my works#masterlist#steve harrington#stranger things#wattpad#steve harrington fluff#steve harrington x reader#steve harrington imagines#steve x reader#stranger things steve#steve harrington x you#steve harrington fanfic#steve harrington x y/n#stranger things s1
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Cities of Bone (1994) is Steve Kurtz’s second Al-Qadim box (elements of which, like Ruined Kingdoms, reappear in the Necromancer’s Guide). I don’t really like Ruined Kingdoms or Corsairs of the Great Sea much, but Cities of Bone put the brakes on Al-Qadim’s decline.
Up until now, all these skinny boxes have included source material about the world and a set of adventures that explores them. At this point, the source material is dispensed with, allowing for the box to return to familiar environs, detailing dead cities that have already been touched upon in other sets. The adventures aren’t really connected. Five of them are short dungeon dives. The sixth is more developed and is a favorite of mine because is so clearly draws inspiration from Clark Ashton Smith’s “Empire of the Necromancers” (the whole box feels Smithy, honestly, particularly his Zothique stories). This scenario features Kazerabet, a powerful necromancer who Kurtz liked so much, he brought her to the Necromancer’s Handbook.
As ever, nice illustrations from Karl Waller. He’s quite good at skulls and wizened visages. I don’t know cover artist Roger Loveless, but I like this cover. It’s nicely evocative and reminds me a bit of Hickman’s Deserts of Desolation modules. ¶
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Christine Baranski in Caricature
Left: "Christine Baranski" in Coming Attractions (1/9/81) | Right: "Christine Baranski" in Rumors (1988) - Al Hirschfeld
Christine Baranski has not one, not two, not three, but six Hirschfeld drawings in the span of ten years. She can be seen individually, or alongside her show cast. However, the full cast drawing of Coming Attractions remains ever-elusive.
"Rumors," Published November 13, 1988 - Al Hirschfeld
L to R: Ron Leibman, Jessica Walter, Lisa Banes, Ken Howard, Andre Gregory, Joyce Van Patten, Christine Baranski, Mark Nelson. The first four actors pictures have since passed away.
"Lips Together Teeth Apart," Published June 27, 1991 - Al Hirschfeld
Pictured: Nathan Lane, Christine Baranski, Swoosie Kurtz, Anthony Held
"Nick And Nora With Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Christine Baranski, And Asta" (11/3/91) - Al Hirschfeld
It is with heavy heart and distress that I report to you Christine Baranski does not have a Sardis portrait.
"Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration" (2020) - Squigs
Here, Christine is instantly recognizable along the right-hand side two faces above Steve himself. For a full list of stars, click here. See if you can identify the other Divas in this lineup.
"Christine Baranski" The Lights of Broadway (TM), 2022 - Squigs
#christine baranski#al hirschfeld#squigs#caricature#what are we doing to get christine a proper sardis caricature and how does she not have one already?
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Mike Luckovich
* * * * *
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
August 10, 2023
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
“Good Lord, Who Among Us Hasn’t Paid For A Clarence Thomas Vacation?” David Kurtz of Talking Points Memo asked this morning. Kurtz was reacting to a new piece by Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski in ProPublica detailing Justice Thomas’s leisure activities and the benefactors who underwrote them.
Those activities include “[a]t least 38 destination vacations, including a previously unreported voyage on a yacht around the Bahamas; 26 private jet flights, plus an additional eight by helicopter; a dozen VIP passes to professional and college sporting events, typically perched in the skybox; two stays at luxury resorts in Florida and Jamaica; and one standing invitation to an uber-exclusive golf club overlooking the Atlantic coast.” The authors add that this “is almost certainly an undercount.”
Thomas did not disclose these gifts, as ethics specialists say he should have done. House Democrats Ted Lieu (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), Gerry Connolly (D-VA), and Hank Johnson (D-GA) have said Thomas must resign. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has led the effort to extricate the Supreme Court from very wealthy interests for years, commented: “I said it would get worse; it will keep getting worse.”
Thomas’s benefactors, Murphy and Mierjeski noted, “share the ideology that drives his jurisprudence.” That ideology made Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who has been in the news for the release of his December 6, 2020, memo outlining how to steal the 2020 presidential election, speculate that Thomas was the Supreme Court justice the plotters could count on to back their coup. “Realistically,” Chesebro wrote to lawyer John Eastman, “our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress, is from Thomas—do you agree, Prof. Eastman?”
Last Saturday, Republican leaders in Alabama illustrated that their ideology means they reject democracy. After the Supreme Court agreed that the congressional districting map lawmakers put in place after the 2020 census probably violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a lower court ruling that required a new map went into effect. But Alabama Republican lawmakers simply refused.
Alexander Willis of the Alabama Daily News reported that at a meeting of the Alabama state Republican Party on Saturday, the party’s legal counsel David Bowsher applauded the lawmakers, saying, “House Speaker [Kevin] McCarthy doesn’t have that big a margin, that costs him one seat right there. I can’t tell you we’re going to win in this fight; we’ve got a Supreme Court that surprised the living daylights out of me when they handed down this decision, but I can guarantee you, if the Legislature hadn’t done that, we lose.”
Paul Reynolds, the national committeeman of the party, went on: “Let me scare you a little bit more; Texas has between five and ten congressmen that are Republicans that could shift the other way,” he continued. “How could we win the House back ever again if we’re talking about losing two in Louisiana, and losing five to ten in Texas? The answer’s simple: It’s never.”
Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall added: “Let’s make it clear, we elect a Legislature to reflect the values of the people that they represent, and I don’t think anybody in this room wanted this Legislature to adopt two districts that were going to guarantee that two Democrats would be elected…. What we believe fully is that we just live in a red state with conservative people, and that’s who the candidates of Alabama want to be able to elect going forward.”
The determination of Republican officials to hold onto power even though they appear to know they are in a minority is part of what drove even Republican voters in Ohio to reject their proposal to require 60% of voters, rather than a simple majority, to approve changes in the state constitution.
Meanwhile, today’s July consumer price index report showed that annual inflation has fallen by about two thirds since last summer, a better-than-expected number suggesting that measures to cool the economy are working without hurting the economy. Real wages have outpaced inflation for the last five months, and unemployment is at a low the U.S. hasn’t seen since 1969.
At the same time, the country is ending one of the last pieces of the social safety net put in place during Covid: the rule that people on Medicaid could remain covered without renewing their coverage each year. That rule ended in April, and states are purging their Medicaid rolls of those who they say no longer qualify. In the last three months, 4 million people have lost their Medicaid coverage, mostly because of paperwork problems. (Texas dropped an eye-popping 52% of beneficiaries due for renewal in May.)
Biden officials have tried to pressure states quietly to fix the errors—including long waits to get phone calls answered and slow processing of applications, as well as paperwork errors—but yesterday released letters it had sent to individual states to warn them they might be violating federal law. Thirty-six states did not meet federal requirements.
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
HEATHER COX RICHARDSON
#Heather Cox Richardson#Clarence Thomas#SCOTUS#corrupt scotus#Slow rolling coup#Civil War#Deep South#Letters From An American#Rule of Law#medicaid#coup#coup attempt
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The Best Picture Oscar My Way (1980-1999)
Here’s Part 2 of Best Picture My Way (as started here). All information about my approach with this category can be found on that linked first part.
For convenience sake, I’ll relay this message. Only the films I add onto here as nominees will have listed nominated producers next to the movie’s title. (Here’s the Wikipedia page for the rest.)
1980
The Empire Strikes Back - Gary Kurtz
Raging Bull
The Elephant Man
Coal Miner’s Daughter
Ordinary People
1981
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Das Boot - Gunter Rohrbach; Michael Bittins
Reds
On the Golden Pond
Chariots of Fire
1982
Tootsie
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
Fitzcarraldo - Werner Herzog; Willi Segler; Lucki Stipetic
Missing
Gandhi
1983
Fanny and Alexander - Jorn Donner
Terms of Endearment
Scarface - Martin Bregman
Mender Mercies
The Right Stuff
1984
Amadeus (still)
The Terminator - Gale Anne Hurd
Love Streams - Yoram Globus; Menahem Golan
Ghostbusters - Ivan Reitman
A Passage to India
1985
Back to the Future - Neil Canton; Bob Gale
The Color Purple
After Hours - Robert F. Colesberry; Griffin Dunne; Amy Robinson
Ran - Masato Hara; Serge Silberman
Witness
1986
Platoon (still)
Misery - Rob Reiner; Andrew Scheinman
Hannah and Her Sisters
A Room with a View
Blue Velvet - Fred C. Caruso
1987
The Last Emperor (still)
The Princess Bride - Rob Reiner; Andrew Scheinman
Broadcast News
Moonstruck
Fatal Attraction
1988
Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Frank Marshall; Robert Watts
Rain Man
Dangerous Liaisons
Mississippi Burning
The Last Temptation of Christ - Barbara De Fina
1989
Do The Right Thing - Spike Lee
Driving Miss Daisy
Dead Poets Society
My Left Foot
Cinema Paradiso - Giovanna Romagnoli
1990
Goodfellas
Dances with Wolves
Edward Scissorhands - Tim Burton; Denise Di Novi
Ghost
The Godfather Part III
1991
The Silence of the Lambs (still)
Thelma & Louise - Ridley Scott
Beauty and the Beast
Boyz in the Hood - Steve Nicolaides
JFK
1992
Unforgiven (still)
A Few Good Men
Malcolm X - Spike Lee; Marvin Worth
Reservoir Dogs - Lawrence Bender; Harvey Keitel
Aladdin - Ron Clements; John Musker
1993
Schindler’s List (still)
The Piano
Philadelphia - Jonathan Demme; Edward Saxon
In The Name of the Father
The Fugitive
1994
The Lion King - Don Hahn
Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption
Eat Drink Man Woman - Kong Hsu; Li-Kong Hsu
1995
Toy Story - Bonnie Arnold; Ralph Guggenheim
Se7en - Phyllis Carlyle; Arnold Kopelson
The Postman (Il Postino)
Before Sunrise - Anne Walker-McBay
Braveheart
1996
Fargo
Trainspotting - Andrew Macdonald
Secrets & Lies
Jerry Maguire
The English Patient
1997
Titanic (still)
Good Will Hunting
L.A. Confidential
Princess Mononoke - Toshio Suzuki
Boogie Nights - Paul Thomas Anderson; Lloyd Levin; John S. Lyons; JoAnne Sellar
Lost Highway - Deepak Nayar; Tom Sternberg; Mary Sweeney
As Good as It Gets
The Full Monty
1998
Saving Private Ryan
Life is Beautiful
The Thin Red Line
The Big Lebowski - Joel and Ethan Coen
Mulan - Pam Coats
Central Station - Arthur Cohn; Martine de Clermont-Tonnerre; Robert Redford; Walter Salles
The Truman Show - Edward S. Feldman; Andrew Niccol; Scott Rudin; Adam Schroeder
Rushmore - Barry Mendel; Paul Schiff
Shakespeare in Love
1999
The Matrix - Joel Silver
American Beauty
The Green Mile
The Sixth Sense
Magnolia - Paul Thomas Anderson; JoAnne Sellar
The Straight Story - Neal Edelstein; Mary Sweeney
Man on the Moon - Danny DeVito; Michael Shamberg; Stacey Sher
Being John Malkovich - Steve Golin; Vincent Landay; Sandy Stern; Michael Stipe
#cinema#academy award#oscars#award show#alternative#animation#film#movies#I'm officially insane#international cinema#hollywood#the matrix#coen brothers#steven spielberg#disney#martin scorsese#robert zemeckis
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By Asher Lehrer-Small
The Guardian
May 1, 2023
The defining experience of Jordan Zamora-Garcia’s high school career – a hands-on group project in civics class that spurred a new city ordinance in his Austin suburb – would now violate Texas law.
Since Texas lawmakers in 2021 passed a ban on lessons teaching that any one group is “inherently racist, sexist or oppressive”, a little-noticed provision of that legislation has triggered a massive fallout for civics education across the state.
Tucked into page 8 is a stipulation outlawing all assignments involving “direct communication” between students and their federal, state or local officials – short-circuiting the training young Texans receive to participate in democracy itself.
Zamora-Garcia’s 2017 project to add student advisers to the city council, and others like it involving research and meetings with elected representatives, would stand in direct violation.
Since 2021, 18 states have passed laws restricting teachings on race and gender. But Texas is the only one nationwide to suppress students’ interactions with elected officials in class projects, according to researchers at the free expression advocacy group Pen America.
Practically overnight, a growing movement to engage Texas students in real-world civics lessons evaporated. Teachers canceled time-honored assignments, districts reversed expansion plans with a celebrated civics education provider and a bill promoting student civics projects that received bipartisan support in 2019 was suddenly dead in the water.
“By the time we got to 2021, civics was the latest weapon in the culture wars,” state representative James Talarico, sponsor of that now defunct bill, said.
Texas does require high schoolers to take a semester of government and a semester of economics, and is one of 38 states nationwide that mandates at least a semester of civics. But students told the 74 the courses typically rely on book learning and memorization, without hands-on lessons in civic participation.
“Students are now banned from advocating for something like a stop sign in front of their school,” Talarico said.
Civics in retreat
The sections of the 2021 law limiting civic engagement pull directly from model legislation authored by the conservative scholar Stanley Kurtz, whose extensive writings seek to link an approach called “action civics” – what he calls “woke civics” – with leftist activism.
Kurtz argues the practice is a form of political “indoctrination” under the “deceptively soothing” heading of “civics”, a cause long celebrated on both the right andthe left.
The action civics model was popularized by the nonprofit Generation Citizen and is used in more than a thousand classrooms across at least eight states. It teaches students about government by having them pick a local issue, research it and present their findings to officials.
The central philosophy is that “students learn civics best by doing civics”, Generation Citizen policy director Andrew Wilkes said.
Generation Citizen’s method has been studied by several academic researchers who found participants experienced boosted civic knowledge and improvements in related academic areas like history and English.
Kurtz, however, contends the projects “tilt overwhelmingly to the left”.
“Political protest and lobbying ought to be done by students outside of school hours, independently of any class projects or grades,” he said in an email to the 74.
Civics experts, however, argued otherwise.
Representative Steve Toth and Senator Bryan Hughes, the GOP lawmakers who sponsored the 2021 Texas classroom censorship legislation, did not respond to requests for comment.
The 74 reviewed more than three dozen action civics projects in Texas from before the 2021 legislation and found that the vast majority dealt with hyperlocal, nonpartisan issues.
Students most often took up causes like bullying, youth vaping, movie nights in the park or bringing back student newspapers. A handful in Austin and nearby Elgin could be considered progressive, including projects dealing with gun control or school admissions prioritizing diversity, topics educators said students selected based on their own interests.
Under the 2021 law, student participants in all of those projects now must avoid contact with elected officials. The restrictions have resulted in initiatives more contained to schools themselves like advocacy for less-crowded hallways or longer lunch periods, educators said.
It’s an effort to “tamp down the next generation of leaders”, said Armando Orduña, the Houston executive director of Latinos for Education.
Though some project-based civics lessons in Texas continue with a paired-down scope, others have disappeared altogether.
One school district north of Dallas decided “out of an abundance of caution” to reverse years of precedent and stop offering course credit to students involved in a well-regarded national civic engagement program, the Texas Tribune first reported.
And Generation Citizen, too, has seen its footprint in Texas dwindle.
After a 2017 launch in the state, the organization underwent several years of steady growth, with more than a half-dozen districts using its programming or curricula.
Austin schools expanded their contract with the nonprofit to $58,000, according to records the 74 obtained from the district through a freedom of information request. And Dallas said it wanted to bring Generation Citizen programming to every high schooler in its 153,000-student district, former regional director Meredith Stefos Norris said.
Then came the 2021 legislative session and “everything got turned upside down”, said Megan Brandon, Generation Citizen’s current Texas program director. It thwarted their organization’s efforts and districts backed out of partnerships.
The organization now primarily works with just three Texas districts, including an updated contract with Austin schools for $3,000 – a tiny sliver of the sum from a few years prior.
Brandon, a former social studies teacher herself, grieves for the youth in her state. Her students in Bastrop outside Austin, most of whom did not have parents who attended college, never had access to civic engagement opportunities before her class, she said.
“Students in Texas need civics more than students in many other states,” she said. “It feels like we’re going backwards in time.”
‘It made me feel important’
Zamora-Garcia, Brandon’s former student whose youth representation quest changed a city ordinance, said the experience, now inaccessible to Texas students, had a profound impact on his academic career.
Mabel Zhu, who took the same class two years later, said the experience was “life-changing”, igniting her passion for civic engagement for years to come.
After the class, she began working with local nonprofits and served as the youth adviser on the Bastrop city council. She collaborated with the Cultural Arts Board to put up a mural that will define her city’s downtown space for years to come. A waving flag on the painting proclaims: “The future is ours!”
“Without [the class], I wouldn’t have been able to make such an impact within my community,” Zhu said.
But now, Tufts’s Kawashima-Ginsberg says, the new law may result in a generation of Texans growing up with a stunted sense of citizenship.
“It’s going to really damage their idea of what democracy is,” she said.
This report was first published by the 74, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news site covering education in America
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On his Christmas day program, Kurtz aired an interview with Fox News host Steve Hilton about OpenAI's ChatGPT experiment that allows internet users to converse with artificial intelligence.
Hilton explained that he had used the system to write a monologue for his show.
"Both exciting and unnerving," Kurtz said. "It's also opinionated. If you ask it a question about Nazis, it denounces the Nazis! So where is AI going?"
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Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994)
Cast: Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofolo, Steve Zahn, Ben Stiller, Swoosie Kurtz, Joe Don Baker, John Mahoney, Harry O'Reilly, Susan Norfleet. Screenplay: Helen Childress. Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki. Production design: Sharon Seymour. Film editing: Lisa Zeno Churgin, John Spence.
Every generation seems to have a film that speaks to its disaffection with the older generation, which is accused of incomprehension of the needs of the young for self-fulfillment and identity. For my own generation it was Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955). For the Baby Boomers it was The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967). In Reality Bites, Ben Stiller seems to have set out to make the definitive film for Generation X, who find themselves underemployed after having expected, as Winona Ryder's Lelaina Pierce puts it, "to be somebody by the time I was 23." Instead, they're bitten by reality: held back by people like Lelaina's boss, a Houston morning-show host played with the grin and dead eyes of a shark by John Mahoney, or with their real lives neatly packaged (in "reality bites") for the MTV generation, as her documentary footage is by the producers of the company for which Ben Stiller's Michael Grates works. Some give up and go along, as Vickie (Janeane Garofolo) does when she accepts a job as manager of an outlet of The Gap, attending jeans-folding seminars. Others, like Ethan Hawke's Troy Dyer, accept their slackerhood: "I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt." I think it's revealing that the meet-cute of Lelaina and Michael is brought about by a cigarette she throws into his convertible, causing their cars to collide. The amount of cigarette smoking in Reality Bites is of an excess we will probably not see again, but then this is a generation marked by AIDS and the threat of early death, so there's a kind of fatalism that pervades the lives of these characters. Reality Bites is not, I think, quite as distinguished a film as either Rebel Without a Cause or The Graduate. It spends too much time on the Troy-Lelaina-Michael triangle, with its predictable and rather sappy resolution, and not enough on Vickie and the closeted Sammy (Steve Zahn), whose stories -- her HIV test, his coming out -- are given perfunctory treatment. But there are enough bright lines and good performances to make it a movie worth revisiting.
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Illuminated by dragon fire, adventurers and Githyanki battle for a stolen vorpal silver sword (Peter Clark cover art, Dungeon 43, September/October 1993, featuring Steve Kurtz' plane-travelling adventure "Into the Silver Realm")
#Dungeons & Dragons#D&D#Peter Clark#dragon#dnd#Dungeon magazine#dragon breath#Steve Kurtz#Into the Silver Realm#fantasy castle#Dungeons and Dragons#TSR#1990s
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Trysting and Resolved
Crying pistols at dawn down the dual carriageway
Finger heavy with a jewel conferred marriageways
Your strange ways vex me and these are strange days
Blocks of sun-stealing flats where the bowler used to be
Bowling for every birthday, arcade games when we’re sixteen
Two quid pops at House of the Dead, to reload point gun offscreen
Now hawkhead CCTV your private life on a cabinet screen
Outside I’m clean and smiling but my defiled church inside choired by screams
Think yourself cream of your crop, queen of the plot, that I see your ways in every rorschach blot
That I see you in my unseen like futures brittle as lures of fiends.
Kurtz’s snail rides a razorblade, its whetted underside hard as fused rock
Meanwhile my cage is locked, bouncing a ball, mulling it all, like Steve McQueen
Unlikely we’ll see any great escape, my life is your greatest estate, efficacious asset
My God, my guard I could sock him to what end? Double-masted or single-poled, boats careen
You cannot sit in wait for signs, you cannot outwait marriage, you cannot escape career
I feel almost as if I am carried, one last tour of my once great north, since harried
You deliver your words like a harrier dropping its payload, in swift and out the wind carries you
Other times your beauty entices shock, shock of curls like genetic spaghetti, your words gold confetti gild the razed land between us
Rare green eyes like Bastet’s prized, like emerald pried from tombs to haunt the halls of far-off shires.
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Artbook Collection: Item I
"Windows to Worlds: The Art of Devin Elle Kurtz"
“Ever since I was a child, I have believed that art can be a portal to another dimension, a window into the vibrant and magical worlds that exist inside the mind of each artist. In my first art book, I hope to offer you just that: a window into the world of my imagination.”
– Devin Elle Kurtz
THANK YOU
I couldn’t have completed this project without the support and encouragement of my parents Susan and Steve Kurtz, who were with me every step of the way. Thank you to Chloe for making me laugh every day, and quite literally mailing me food to ensure I don’t forget to eat! Thank you to John and Eevee for listening to my every complaint, no matter how incoherent, and supporting me through all the ups and downs. Thanks to Elain and Xander for helping me sort through the unbelievable amount of art I produces as an embarrassing pre-teen, and for being a miniature focus group for almost everything I paint. A huge thank you to my editor, Sophie, the lead designer, Fiona and the entire team at 3dtotal.
Last but definitely not least, thank you to every single person who has supported me online and off for my entire life as an artist. That support is the only reason you’re holding this book right now. There will never be a day in my life that I’m not grateful to each and every one of you! Thank you for allowing me to pursue my dreams and spend my life doing what I love. You’ve given me the greatest gift imaginable.
Although I still think I’m quite young and certain of very little, I’m going to leave you with some parting advice. Be kind to yourself, and care about the people around you. Remember to take care of yourself, not just for the “you” of today but for the “you” of the future as well. Remember that your value as a person has nothing to do with your productivity, the work you do, or the things you make. You are valuable just for being. Remember that creating art is opening a window for the world to see inside your imagination; that alone is a worthy cause for creation.
– Devin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To try and make the world a more pleasant place for everyone,
I’ve decided to share my artbook collection.
Interested in the artbook? Snag it real quick here!
To see the list of books I’ve already shared, click here!
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The Five Scariest Words I've Heard This Week...
New Post has been published on https://www.ebvs.blog/2023/01/25/the-five-scariest-words-ive-heard-this-week/
The Five Scariest Words I've Heard This Week...
Here’s a phrase that should send shivers down just about anyone’s spine: Vice-President Marjorie Taylor Green.
Don’t laugh. Well, not too much, anyway. She’s serious about this.
NBC News says, MTG wants to be Trump’s running mate in 2024.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., is angling to be Donald Trump’s running mate in 2024, according to two people who have spoken to the firebrand second-term congresswoman about her ambitions.
“This is no shrinking violet, she’s ambitious — she’s not shy about that, nor should she be,” said Steve Bannon, the former top Trump aide who hosts the War Room podcast, where Greene has been a guest.
“She sees herself on the short list for Trump’s VP. Paraphrasing Cokie Roberts, when MTG looks in the mirror she sees a potential president smiling back,” he added, referencing Roberts, the late political reporter who worked for NPR, ABC News and other outlets.
A second source who has advised Greene said her “whole vision is to be vice president.” The source, who has ties to Trump but spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations, said he also believes Greene would be on Trump’s short list.
This ambition explains a few things she’s said and done lately, such as distancing herself from the “Q-Anon” conspiracy. Speaking to Howard Kurtz on FOX News, she claimed that “like a lot of people” she “had easily gotten sucked into some things I had seen on the internet.”
Greene: Like a lot of people today, I had easily gotten sucked into some things I had seen on the internet.. pic.twitter.com/IwK3gf191J
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 8, 2023
Snopes notes that this is similar to an earlier remark she’d made about her following Q-Anon.
Back in 2021 when she was stripped of her House committee assignments, she said her past comments about QAnon “do not represent me” and she was “was allowed to believe things that weren’t true […].” She added that she regretted that she “would ask questions about them and talk about them.”
[She was “allowed” to? Who do you go to to get permission to believe in crazy conspiracy theories?]
She has also bound herself tightly to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is rewarding her help in recruiting representatives to vote for his Speakership by giving her a place on two choice committee seats. “I will never leave that woman,” McCarthy told a friend, according to the New York Times. “I will always take care of her.” And taking care of her means assignments to high-profile, powerful committees – the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and the House Committee on Homeland Security.
Two years is a long time, and loyalty among Republicans is highly volatile, but if McCarthy, trump and Green can maintain their bonds until the election, don’t be surprised if you hear Greene’s name floated for the Vice Presidency.
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Liked on YouTube: Mel Blanc Associates Presents Superfun
Mel Blanc Associates Presents Superfun
SUPERFUN The Radio Comedy Service SUPERFUN, What It Is A comedy void has existed on radio since Jack Benny, Fred Allen, and the other comedy shows left the air. Comedy albums, the only produced humor available to today's radio, have never become a major factor in programming because too few of them are suitable for airing, due to the nature and length of the sketches. As important, no one station in a market has their exclusive usage and the one or two really funny albums released each year become overexposed. SUPERFUIN fills this existing void. It is the most ambitious radio comedy project ever undertaken. Each subscribing station becomes, at once, the prime source of humor in its market...whether the market is Los Angeles, California or East Liverpool, Ohio. One reason for this is SUPERFUN'S scope; the initial service alone fills nine twelve-inch discs. Equally important, by virtue of its unique design and execution, SUPERFUN belongs to you alone in your market, not to us. The writers, producers and performers are to your listeners, anonymous. Creative Supervision... Mel Blanc Produced & Directed by Noel Blanc Head Writer... Richard Clorfene Exec. Producer... Harry O'Connor PERFORMERS: Mel Blanc, Len Weinrib, Byron Kane, Joan Gerber, Arte Johnson, Howard Morris, Joe Sirola, Gary Owens, Lee Zimmer, Rudy Hoffman, Jesse White, Dave Ketchum, Henry Corden, Hazel Shermut, Ed Prentiss, Pat Carroll, Naomi Lewis, Leo De Lyon, Sid Melton, John Stephenson, Diane Hale. WRITING STAFF: John Rappaport, David Pollack, Elias Davis, Red Baker, Bob Ridolfi, Bob Arbogast, Jack Margolis, Judy Corrigan, Robert Biheller, Bill Schwartz. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Vance Colvig, John Gentri, Robert Einstein, Nick Bennion, Frank Barron, Albert Einstein, Bill Lutz, Robert Kurtz, Steve Clark, Paul Pumpian, Mal Sharpe, Bob Goodwin, Jim Ashton, Jonathan Socher. SOUND EFFECTS: Eugene Twombly AUDIO ENGINEERS: Paul Ryan and Mike Cerone COVER DESIGN: Nick Bennion
via YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMnKuZWraNI
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