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nemesisbinxartifactseries · 4 years

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Artifact Series J

J. Allen Hynek's Telescope

J. Edgar Hoover's Tie

J. McCullough's Golf Ball

J. Templer's Wind-Up Tin Rooster *

J. C. Agajanian’s Stetson

J.T. Saylors's Overalls

J.M. Barrie’s Swiss Trychels

J.M.W. Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed-The Great Western Railway *

J.R.R. Tolken's Ring

Jack-in-the-Box

Jack's Magic Beanstalk

Jack Daniel's Original Whisky Bottle

Jack Dawson's Art Kit

Jack Duncan's Spur *

Jack Frost's Staff

Jack Kerouac's Typewriter

Jack Ketch's Axe

Jack LaLanne's Stationary Bike *

Jack London's Dog Collar

Jack Parson's Rocket Engine

Jack Sheppard's Hammer

Jack Sparrow's Compass

Jack Torrance's Croquet Mallet

Jack the Ripper's Lantern *

Jackie Robinson's Baseball

Jackson Pollock's "No. 5, 1948"

Jackson Pollock's Pack of Cigarettes

Jackson Pollock's Paint Cans

Jack's Regisword

Jack Vettriano's "The Singing Butler"

Jack's Wrench

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmarchen

Jacob "Jack" Kevorkian's Otoscope

Jacob Kurtzberg's Belt *

Jacqueline Cochran's Brooch

Jacques Aymar-Vernay’s Dowsing Rod

Jacques Cousteau's Goggles

Jacques Cousteau's Diving Suit

Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps *

Jade Butterfly

Jadeite Cabbage

Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar's Smoke Pipe

Jamaica Ginger Bottle

Jaleel White's Hosting Chair

James Abbot McNeill Whistler's Whistler's Mother *

James Allen's Memoir

James Bartley's Britches

James Ben Ali Haggin's Leaky Fountain Pen

James Bert Garner’s Gas Mask

James Bett's Cupboard Handle

James Braid's Chair *

James Brown's Shoes

James Bulger's Sweater

James Buzzanell's Painting "Grief and Pain"

James Buzzanell’s Survey Books

James C. McReynolds’ Judicial Robe

James Chadwick's Nobel Prize

James Clerk Maxwell's Camera Lens

James Colnett's Otter Pelt

James Condliff's Skeleton Clock

James Cook's Mahiole and Feather Cloak

James Craik's Spring Lancet

James Dean's 1955 Prosche 550 Spyder, aka "Little Bastard"

James Dean's UCLA Varsity Jacket

James Dinsmoor's Dinner Bell

James Eads How’s Bindle

James Earl Ray's Rifle

James Fenimore Cooper's Arrow Heads

James Gandolfini's Jukebox

James Hadfield’s Glass Bottle of Water

James Hall III’s Shopping Bags

James Henry Atkinson's Mouse Trap

James Henry Pullen’s Mannequin

James Hoban's Drawing Utensils

James Holman’s Cane

James Hutton's Overcoat

James Joyce’s Eyepatch

James M. Barrie's Grandfather Clock

James M. Barrie's Suitcase

James Murrell's Witch Bottle

James Philip’s Riata

James Prescott Joule's Thermodynamic Generator

James Smithson's Money

James Tilly Matthews’ Air Loom

James Warren and Willoughby Monzani's Piece of Wood

James Watt's Steam Condenser

James Watt's Weather Vane

James W. Marshall’s Jar

Jan Baalsrud’s Stretcher

Jan Baptist van Helmont's Willow Tree

Jane Austen's Carriage

Jane Austen's Gloves

Jane Austen's Quill

Jane Bartholomew's "Lady Columbia" Torch

Jane Pierce's Veil

Janet Leigh's Shower Curtain

Janine Charrat's Ballet Slippers

Jan Janzoon's Boomerang *

Janis Joplin's Backstage Pass from Woodstock *

Jan Karski's Passport

Janus Coin *

Jan van Eyck’s Chaperon

Jan van Speyk's Flag of the Netherlands

Jan Wnęk's Angel Figurine

Jan Žižka's Wagenburg Wagons

The Japanese Nightingale

Jar of Dust from the Mount Asama Eruption

Jar of Greek Funeral Beans

Jar of Marbles

Jar of Molasses from The Boston Molasses Disaster

Jar of Sand

Jar of Semper Augustus Bulbs

Jar of Shiva

Jar of Sugar Plums

Jascha Heifetz's Violin Bow

Jason Voorhese's Machete

Javed Iqbal's Barrel of Acid

Jay Maynard's Tron Suit

Jean II Le Maingre's Gauntlets

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau’s Cradleboard

Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Bubble Pipe

Jean Chastel's Silver Gun

Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin's Pocket Watch

Jean Fleury's Aztec Gold Coins

Jean-François Champollion’s Ideographic Dictionary

Jean Froissart's Mirror *

Jean-Frédéric Peugeot's Pepper Mill

Jean Hilliard’s Earmuffs

Jean Parisot de Valette’s Sword Sheath

Jean-Paul Marat's Bathtub

Jean Paul-Satre’s Paper Cutter

Jean-Pierre Christin's Thermometer

Jean Senebier's Bundle of Swiss Alpine Flowers

Jean Valnet's Aromatherapy Statue

Jean Vrolicq’s Scrimshaw

Jeanne Baret's Hat

Jeanne de Clisson's Black Fleet

Jeanne Villepreux-Power's Aquarium

Jeannette Piccard's Sandbag

Jeff Dunham's First Ventriloquist Box

Jefferson Davis' Boots

Jefferson Randolph Smith's Soap Bar

Jeffrey Dahmer's Handkerchief

Jeffrey Dahmer's Pick-Up Sticks

Jemmy Hirst's Carriage Wheel

Jenny Lind's Stage Makeup

Jeopardy! Contestant Podiums

Jerome Monroe Smucker's Canning Jars

Jerry Andrus’ Organ

Jerry Garcia's Blackbulb *

Jerry Siegel's Sketchbook

Jesse James' Saddle

Jesse James' Pistol

Jesse Owens' Hitler Oak

Jesse Owens' Running Shoes

Jesse Pomeroy's Ribbon and Spool

Jester's Mask

Jesus of Nazareth's Whip

Jesús García's Brake Wheel

Jet Engine from the Gimli Glider

Jet Glass Cicada Button

Jethro Tull's Hoe

Jeweled Scabbard of Sforza

Jiang Shunfu’s Mandarin Square

Jim Davis' Pet Carrier

Jim Fixx's Shorts

Jim Henson's Talking Food Muppets

Jim Jones' Sunglasses

Jim Londos' Overalls

Jim Robinson's Army Bag

Jim Thorpe's Shoulder Pads

Jim Ward's Piercing Samples

Jimi Hendrix's Bandana

Jimi Hendrix's Bong

Jimi Hendrix's Guitars *

Jimmie Rodgers Rail Brake

Jimmy Durante's Cigar

Jimmy Gibb Jr's Stock Car

Jimmy Hoffa's Comb

Jin Dynasty Chainwhip

Jingle Harness

Joan II, Duchess of Berry's Dress

Joan of Arc's Chain Mail

Joan of Arc's Helmet (canon)

Joan Feynman's Ski Pole

Joanna of Castile's Vase

Joan Rivers' Carpet Steamer

Joan Rivers' Red Carpet

Joe Ades's Potato Peeler

Joe Girard’s Keys

Joe Rosenthal's Camera Lens

Joel Brand's Playing Cards

Joséphine de Beauharnais' Engagement Ring

Johan Alfred Ander’s Piece of Porcelain

Johann Baptist Isenring’s Acacia Tree

Johann Bartholomaeus Adam Beringer's Lying Stones

Johann Blumhardt's Rosary

Johann Dzierzon’s Beehive Frame

Johann Georg Elser's Postcard

Johann Maelzel's Metronome *

Johann Rall's Poker Cards

Johann Tetzel's Indulgence

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Prism

Johannes Brahms' Coffee Creamer

Johannes Diderik van der Waals' Gloves

Johannes Fabricius' Camera Obscura

Johannes Gutenburg's Memory Paper *

Johannes Gutenburg's Printing Press *

Johannes Gutenberg's Printing Press Keys

Johannes Kepler's Planetary Model

Johannes Kepler's Telescope Lense

Johannes Kjarval’s Landscape Painting

John A. Macready's Ray-Bans *

John A. Roebling's Steel Cable

John A.F. Maitland's Musical Brainnumber *

John André’s Stocking

John Anthony Walker's Minox

John Axon's Footplate

John Babbacombe Lee’s Trapdoor

John Bardeen's Radio

John Bodkin Adams’ Stethoscope

John Brown's Body *

John Brown's Machete

John C. Koss SP3 Stereophones

John C. Lilly's Isolation Tank Valve

John Cabot's Map

John Carl Wilcke's Rug *

John Crawley's Painting

John Croghan's Limestone Brick

John Dalton's Weather Vane

John Dee's Golden Talisman

John Dee's Obsidian Crystal Ball

John Dee’s Seal of God

John DeLorean's Drawing Table

John Dickson Carr's Driving Gloves

John Dillinger's Pistol *

John D. Grady’s Satchel

John D. Rockefeller's Bible

John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and Jr.'s Top Hats

John Dwight's Hammer

John F. Kennedy's Coconut

John F. Kennedy's Presidental Limousine

John F. Kennedy's Tie Clip *

John Flaxman's Casting Molds

Sir John Franklin's Scarf

John Gay's Shilling

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.'s Pen

John H. Kellogg's Bowl

John H. Kellogg's Corn Flakes

John H. Lawrence's Pacifier

John Hancock's Quill

John Harrison’s Longcase Clock

John Hawkwood’s Lance

John Hendrix's Bible

John Henry Moore's White Banner

John Henry's Sledge Hammer

John Hetherington's Top Hat

John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter's Torture Rack

John Holmes Pump *

John Hopoate's Cleats

John Howard Griffin's Bus Fare

John Hunter's Stitching Wire

John Hunter's Surgical Sutures

John J. Pershing's Boots

John Jacob Astor's Beaver Pelt

John Jervis’ Ship

John Joshua Webb’s Rock Chippings

John Kay's Needle

John Keat's Grecian Urn *

John, King of England's Throne

John L. Sullivan's Boots

John Langdon Down's Stencils

John Lawson's Mannequin Legs

John Lennon's Glasses

John "Liver-Eating" Johnson's Axe

John Logie Baird's Scanning Disk *

John M. Allegro's Fly Amanita

John Macpherson's Ladle

John Malcolm's Chunk of Skin

John Malcolm's Skin Wallet

John McEnroe's Tennis Racket *

John Milner's Yellow '32 Ford Deuce Coupe

John Moore-Brabazon’s Waste Basket

John Morales' McGruff Suit

John Mytton’s Carriage

John Pasche's Rolling Stones Poster Design

John Paul Jones's Sword

John Pemberton's Tasting Spoon

John Philip Sousa's Sousaphone

John Rambo's Composite Bow

John Rykener's Ring

John Shore's Tuning Fork

John Simon's Mouthwash

John Simon Ritchie's Padlock Necklace

John Smith of Jamestown's Sword

John Snow's Dot Map

John Snow’s Pump Handle

John Stapp’s Rocket Sled

John Steinbeck's Luger

John Sutcliffe's Camera

John Sutter's Pickaxe

John Tunstall's Horse Saddle

John Trumbull's "Painting of George Washington"

John von Neumann's Abacus

John Walker's Walking Stick

John Wayne Gacy's Clown Painting *

John Wayne Gacy's Facepaint

John Wesley Hardin's Rosewood Grip Pistol

John Wesley Powell's Canoe

John Wesley Powell’s Canteen

John Wilkes Booth's Boot *

John Wilkes Booth Wanted Poster

John William Polidori's Bookcase

Johnny Ace's Gun

Johnny Appleseed's Tin Pot *

Johnny Campbell's University of Minnesota Sweater

Johnny Depp's Scissor Gloves

Johnny Smith's Steering Wheel

Johnny Weismuller's Loincloth *

Joker's BANG! Revolver

Jon Stewart's Tie

Jonathan Coulton's Guitar

Jonathan R. Davis' Bowie Knife

Jonathan Shay's Copy of Iliad/Odyssey

Jonestown Water Cooler

Jorge Luis Borges' Scrapbook

José Abad Santos' Pebble

José Delgado’s Transmitter

Jose Enrique de la Pena's Chest Piece

Jōsei Toda’s Gohonzon Butsudan

Josef Frings’ Ferraiolo

Josef Mengele's Scalpel

Josef Stefan's Light Bulbs

Joseph of Arimathea's Tomb Rock

Joseph of Cupertino's Medallion *

Joseph Day's Sickle

Joseph Ducreux's Cane

Joseph Dunninger's Pocket Watch

Joseph Dunningers’ Props

Joseph E. Johnston Confederate Flag

Joseph Force Crater's Briefcases

Joseph Fourier's Pocket Knife

Joseph Glidden’s Barbed Wire

Joseph Goebbels' Radio *

Joseph Jacquard's Analytical Loom

Joseph Bolitho Johns’ Axe

Joseph Kittinger's Parachute

Joseph Lister's Padding

Joseph McCarthy's List of Communists

Joseph Merrick's Hood

Joseph-Michel Montgolfier's Wicker Basket

Joseph Moir’s Token

Joseph Pilate's Resistance Bands *

Joseph Polchinski’s Billiard Ball

Joseph Stalin's Gold Star Medal *

Joseph Stalin's Sleep Mask *

Joseph Swan's Electric Light

Joseph Vacher's Accordion

Joseph Vacher's Dog Skull

Joseph Valachi's '58 Chevrolet Impala

Josephus' Papyrus

Joseph Wolpe's Glasses

Josephine Cochrane's Dishwasher

Joshua's Trumpet *

Josiah S. Carberry's Cracked Pot

Joshua Vicks' Original Batch of Vicks Vapor Rub

Josiah Wedgewood's Medallion

Jost Burgi's Armillary Sphere *

Jovan Vladimir's Cross

Juana the Mad of Castiles' Crown

Juan Luis Vives' Quill Set

Juan Moreira’s Facón

Juan Pounce de Leon's Chalice

Juan Ponce de León's Helmet

Juan Seguin's Bandolier

Jubilee Grand Poker Chip *

Judah Loew ben Belazel's Amulet *

Judas Iscariot’s Thirty Silver Coins

Judson Laipply's Shoes

Jules Baillarger's Decanter

Jules Leotard's Trapeze Net

Jules Verne's Original Manuscripts

Julia Agrippa's Chalice

Julia Child's Apron *

Julia Child's Whisk

Julian Assange’s Flash Drive

Julie d’Aubigny's Sabre

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's Wedding Rings

Julius Asclepiodotus’ Shield Boss

Julius Caesar's Wreath

Julius Wilbrand's Lab Coat Buttons *

Jumanji

Jumper Cables

Junji Koyama’s Vegetables

Jure Sterk's Ballpoint Pen

Jürgen Wattenberg's Leather Provision Bag

Justa Grata Honoria’s Engagement Ring

Justin Bieber's Guitar

Justinian I's Chariot Wheel

Justin O. Schmidt's Wasp Mask

Justus von Liebig's Fertilizer Sack

Justus von Liebig's Mirror

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wrecursion · 3 years

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should i get a pet rat. I've only had cats before And a hamster his name was Fenimore Cooper one time he ran away from his cage and sat in a flower pot. his cage had a second level and he liked to take his bowl and slide in it down the ladder. i don't know if a hamster cage will be suitable for a rat i mean rats are pretty big. i don't know how big rats can get actually an d i don't remmere how small my hamster was and i have grown since then so maybe the cage is even smaller than how i remembered it. what do rats even eat like they're onminvires should i feed them meat? prepare meat for my rat? cook a balanced meal for a rat? share my meal with my rat? sit my rat on the table beside me and let it eat from my plate? one of my coworkers pet rats gave birth to seven ratlings and now she has to give them out and that's what made me think of adopting a rat by the way. i think she might be bisexual

#wranght

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ayellowbirds · 7 years

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Speaking of kiwi birds, here’s a character i really hope shows up in DuckTales 2017: Angus Fangus, from the Italian Paperinik comics (which finally got a partial translation as Duck Avenger by IDW just last year!). Fangus is a shrewd and highly experienced investigative journalist who is perfectly happy to lie, muckrake, and edit or even outright falsify footage to ruin people he thinks deserve it. He’s often compared to J. Jonah Jameson, longtime thorn in Spider-Man‘s side.

Fangus is explicitly a Maori bird, and it seems that his unscrupulous behavior got its start in trying to protect his ancestral lands from pollution by the evil businessman Fenimore Cook. A sly journo with sympathetic reasons to distrust the wealthy seems like he’d make a great addition to the cast.

#PKNA #Disney ducks #Angus Fangus

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/lifestyle/im-over-open-concept-design/

I’m Over Open-Concept Design

Design shows are all about tearing down walls and opening up spaces, but what’s wrong with a little more privacy and a little less togetherness? (Trisha Krauss/The New York Times)

(Right at Home)

At some point, the previous owners of my house decided to take down the wall separating the living room from the dining room, creating an open space that, in theory, was a good idea. But in reality, it seemed to me, it didn’t make any sense.

The dining room felt like an awkward, disjointed extension of the living room, not quite private enough to be its own space, but not fully integrated, either. And with the living room missing a key wall, figuring out how to logically furnish it was no easy feat.

And so, about a month ago, I hired a carpenter to restore part of the wall. By partially closing off the space, I aimed to create a separate dining area with its own mood, and to restore the original dimensions of the living room.

When I told the carpenter what I wanted, he stared at me blankly, like he’d heard me wrong. “But people like the walls open,” he said.

In the weeks before the work was done, I avoided telling friends, worried that they, too, might think I was nuts. The few I did tell mostly seemed confused. In the age of open-concept design, who builds a wall?

The trend toward an open-concept floor plan — where few, if any, walls separate the spaces where we eat from those where we lounge — has become so commonplace it’s hard to imagine an alternative.

The idea of togetherness drives the design, creating a setup where a parent can simultaneously make an omelet and watch the children play in the living room because, apparently, no one wants to be alone. Or guests can move freely from the giant kitchen island to the living room sofa, unencumbered by obstacles like doorways. The design style has become the liturgy of home-improvement shows, with HGTV stars like Joanna Gaines catapulting to fame largely because of her uncanny ability to transform rundown farmhouses into loftlike showrooms.

In the city, that ethos translates easily because space is tight and lofts are a genuine home style. Remove the walls in a galley kitchen and suddenly a tiny cooking space can feel larger and lighter. With an island instead of a wall, you might actually have a place to sit. New developments are invariably designed with open floor plans, a trend that’s reinforced by ever-shrinking apartments. Without any walls, a prospective tenant might not realize how small the space really is.

Developers claim the tenants like it. “Many new renters and buyers are embracing the open concept,” said Chris Schmidt, a senior vice president for Related Companies who oversees the developer’s rental portfolio. “It allows, certainly, the flexibility for entertaining and cooking.”

Schmidt pointed to millennials in particular as a “generation who crave that social interaction,” and so “are going to crave that open concept versus walling everything off.”

Owners of older apartments also see the potential in a sledgehammer, with an enthusiasm fueled not only by HGTV, but by home-improvement design websites like Houzz, which features endless images of Instagram-ready open living spaces.

“People walk into every space, regardless of the condition, and want to make an adjustment,” said Sydney Blumstein, an associate broker with Corcoran. People “feel like they must personalize a space to make it theirs, and that goes beyond home décor.”

And what better way to personalize than to make yours look like everyone else’s?

The fixation with openness extends to the suburbs, where buyers eagerly take down walls in the kitchen and living room, and widen doorways. “People are definitely looking at the floor plans,” said Judith Daniels, a sales associate with Prominent Properties Sotheby’s International Realty, who works frequently with first-time buyers moving from the city to Summit, Short Hills, Maplewood and South Orange — New Jersey towns with large, colonial homes that weren’t originally designed to look like lofts. “They’re looking for openness that’s already there or the ability to do it, just by opening the wall.”

But do we really need so much togetherness? That fabulous dinner party where guests wander endlessly from the kitchen to the living room feels far less glamorous with everyone staring at a sink full of dirty pots, or smelling the burned soufflé in the oven. Sure, the idea of watching your children play while you make dinner sounds great, but only until you’re trying to listen to Terry Gross on NPR while an episode of “Peppa Pig” blasts from the other side of what used to be a wall.

Then, of course, there are all those Houzz pictures. None of them show what it’s like when you haven’t tidied up in a week and you’re left staring at the living room clutter while you eat breakfast. With no walls, there’s nowhere to hide.

“It went so far about opening everything up,” said Jade Joyner, the chief creative officer of Metal + Petal, an interior design firm in Athens, Georgia. “There’s something nice about privacy and having your own space.” In the last year, she’s noticed the beginnings of a pushback against the doctrine of openness. Clients have been asking for media rooms, libraries and playrooms set off from the main living area. A quiet den means you can come home from work and not immediately join the family, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It’s been indoctrinated that walls are bad, but they’re not,” Joyner said.

A home designed for entertaining does not necessarily take into account that most of the time you’re not entertaining. Mostly, you’re just living there, trying to read a book while your son practices the piano.

It also can be difficult to decorate an endless expanse of space. “My biggest issue with an open floor plan is lack of wall space. Where do you hang things?” said Abbe Fenimore, a Dallas-based interior designer who otherwise embraces open concept.

After the carpenter rebuilt my wall, I painted the dining room a deep teal, and the living room white. The two spaces, which once felt like they competed with each other for attention, now seem more defined. If the children’s homework is spread out on the dining table, I don’t have to look at it from the sofa anymore and wonder when it will get finished.

As for my friends, when I had a few of them over for dinner to celebrate the redecorated space, no one even noticed the wall. It was like it had always been there.

#beautiful interior designs #dining room designs #interior designing #interior designs #living room designs #open concept designs #open concept homes #open concept living rooms

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togachipblog · 5 years

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You Say Potato and I Say Potato

A lot of people ask me what type of potatoes are used for potato chips. The answer is that there are many types of potatoes depending upon the season. Attached is a chart that shows the different types of potatoes that are used.

The Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY held an exhibit entitled New York's Good Eats back in 2011. Below is the text regarding potato types.

Chipping Potatoes

Not all potatoes make good chips!

Potatoes were mostly considered animal food until large numbers of German and northern European immigrants arrived in North America during the mid-nineteenth century. Central New York and Long Island became important potato growing areas. Today, about half of the potatoes grown in the United States are consumed as “table stock” but more and more potatoes are being processed into French fries and potato chips.

The best potatoes for crisp chips have a high starch content and absorb less oil during cooking. Varieties that yield standard shapes and sizes are also better for commercial production. They fit the automatic peelers and slicers, and are less likely to roll off conveyor belts.

Potatoes are easy to store, but fresh potatoes make the best potato chips. Large manufacturers have potato chip production and distribution facilities all over the country. New York grown potatoes can be found in national and local brands such as Herr, Wise and Terrell’s.

Is it possible that the one potato company that doesn't get any respect is Dangerfield Potato Co.? See their ad. Speaking of "No Respect'" Enjoy the Greatest Stand Up Comic, Rodney Dangerfield.

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Back in the 1970s and 1980s, General Mills introduced Chipos and proctor & Gamble introduced Pringles (the New Fangled Potato Chips." The snack food trade association brought suit claiming that these new products were not "potato chips" since they were not made from white potatoes, but instead from dehydrated potatoes.

However, a Federal judge ruled that these new items could use the term "potato chips" as long as it was disclosed that they were made from dehydrated potatoes. See the article from the November 1969 edition of the Potato Chipper as well as the cover and the article from the June 1972 edition that includes a chart on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Pingles.

Enjoy Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing the Gershwin classic, "Let's Call the Whole Thing off."

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The Toga Chip Guy

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peterguralnick · 7 years

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Reading, Writing & Real Life

Sometimes I get asked who or what influenced me most in my deep-seated (and very early) desire to write.

I’ve named books and writers: Tristram Shandy (don’t miss the book, but don’t miss the movie either), Norse mythology, and Henry Green, Alice Munro, Grace Paley and Hubert Selby Jr., Ralph Ellison, Italo Svevo, Sigrid Undset and Zora Neale Hurston. For the last few years I’ve been working on a series of loosely connected short stories suggested by Dawn Powell’s novel My Home Is Far Away, a book that I can best describe as suggesting the tone of Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander transplanted to the world of Winesburg, Ohio. Which could lead me to Hemingway, or Hemingway’s Boat, or – well, I’m sure you get the point.

There were teachers, certainly. Omar Pound (Omar Shakespear Pound, son of Ezra) is the one who stands out the most. He came to Roxbury Latin when I was in the ninth grade and was greeted with almost universal rejection bordering on scorn by my classmates – for his oddity, for his self-determined eccentricities, for his stubborn scruffiness, both personal and intellectual. But for me, and a few others, he provided a wonderful opportunity for self-expression in the two or three extended writing exercises he assigned each week, suggested by a phrase or saying that he provided, of which the only one that comes immediately to mind is, “Only a fool learns from experience.” True? Untrue? I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. But as I recall, I wrote a short story that I hope was as open-ended in a fifteen-year-old way and lent itself as much to individual interpretation as I have intended in my biographies of Elvis, Sam Cooke, and Sam Phillips, or any of the other books that I’ve written.

But there’s still that lingering question: what in the world would lead an eight or nine-year-old kid to want to be a writer – if he couldn’t be a be a Major League baseball player, that is. It was my grandfather, Philip Marson, who taught English for over thirty years at Boston Latin (no, not the same Latin School – it’s complicated), founded and ran Camp Alton (which I would later run) in what he conceived of as a fresh-air expansion of the educational experience, dreamed of having the time one day to finish Finnegans Wake (he finally did at seventy-eight, over his customary breakfast of shredded wheat), and explored the second-hand bookstores of Boston’s Cornhill for $.25 masterpieces like Jean Toomer’s Cane, without necessarily passing up a sidetrip to the Old Howard burlesque show in adjacent Scollay Square, where he pulled his hat down over his face for fear of running into one of his students. I wasn’t around for the Old Howard, which closed in 1953, but by the time I was ten or eleven I started accompanying him on his foraging trips to Cornhill (now the site of Government Center), which always included a mid-morning hot fudge sundae at Bailey’s, where the fudge sauce was so thick it could have been a meal by itself.

It was his enthusiasm, I think, that inspired me most of all, his enthusiasm and his unfettered appreciation for life, literature, sports (he was a three-sport athlete at Tufts – Tris Speaker, the Grey Eagle, he said, had praised him for his play in a college game at Fenway Park), grammatical niceties, and democratic ideals. More than just appreciation, it was his undisguised avidity for experience and people of every sort. “Hey, Pete,” he would shout out in his high-pitched voice, to my pre-adolescent, adolescent, and post-adolescent (does that count as adult?) embarrassment, “Will you look at that?” And I’m not going to tell you what that was – because it’s still embarrassing. But, you know, it was always interesting.

But none of that would have counted for anywhere near as much if he were not such an unrestrained fan of me – it just seemed like whatever I did was all right with him. He came to all my baseball games, naturally, but when I took up tennis, which he had always scorned as an artificially encumbered (don’t ask me why), pointless kind of sport, he embraced it wholeheartedly, coming to all my tournaments and swiftly learning the finer points of the game. If I recommended a book, he was quick to embrace it. And when at the age of eleven and twelve and into early adolescence, I suffered from fears that so crippled me that I found it difficult even to go to school, his belief in me never wavered. Or more to the point perhaps, he never seemed to see me as any less, or any different, a person.

I grew up in my grandparents’ house off and on from the time I was born. My father, whom I could cite as an equally inspiring influence in terms of both character and commitment, landed in England the day I was born and didn’t return from the War until I was more than two years old, nearly a year after V-E Day. So my mother and I camped out with my grandparents, very comfortably for me, though I’m not so sure about my mother. (One of the short stories I’ve written lately tries to imagine what it must have been like for her, twenty-three, twenty-four-years old, with no certainty of the future, an only child living with her only child in her parents’ house.) Then, when my father finally came home, we remained for another three years, until we could finally afford a place of our own, moving into the garden apartments that had recently opened up near-by as affordable housing for returning veterans. A year or two after that, my grandparents gave my parents the house and moved to a roomy old apartment in Coolidge Corner, not far away.

Staying with my grandparents on weekends in their new apartment, even more book-crammed than the house because it was crammed with the same books, was always a treat. We went to theater together, my grandmother, my grandfather, and I – I can remember seeing Charles Laughton in Don Juan in Hell, the stand-alone third act of George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman when I was nine or ten years old. (Shaw was always a great favorite of my grandfather’s, along with such native-born contrarians as H.L. Mencken.) We went to serious plays, musicals, Broadway try-outs, and revivals. Along with Shaw, Eugene O’Neill undoubtedly loomed largest in my grandfather’s theatrical cosmos, and it was as exciting to listen to my grandparents talk about seeing Paul Robeson make his Broadway debut in The Emperor Jones or attending O’Neill’s marathon nine-act Strange Interlude, which included a break for dinner, as it was to hear my grandfather tell the story of how he lost his hat when he stood up to cheer Franklin Roosevelt at the Boston Garden.

But it was books in the end that were the instigators of the most passionate discussions, books that inspired me to want to write books of my own, books that would always provide an impetus for dinner-time conversation and home décor. My grandfather introduced me to Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe, to James Joyce and Knut Hamsun, Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford (he loved to discourse on what he called the shuttle-and-weave of their narrative technique), and Sigrid Undset. I’ll admit, I might well have been better off if I had stuck a little longer with the Landmark series of biographies that continued to excite me or the Scribner Classics editions of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson and James Fenimore Cooper, with those wonderful N.C. Wyeth illustrations, or any of the other children’s classics that I had indiscriminately devoured. But I was so bereft of self-awareness (while at the same time so consumed by self-consciousness) that I started to record my impressions of each of the books that I read in little tablet notebooks, earnest summaries not just of the books but of my own judgments of them. I could only express my “wonderment at, and admiration for, the author’s scope and ability,” I declared, writing about Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter when I was fifteen. And struggled for six handwritten pages to express more specifically my admiration for this 1000-page trilogy that takes place in fourteenth-century Norway, with its rare combination of epic sweep and unexpected intimacy. My grandfather considered it the greatest novel ever written, a judgment with which, as you can see, I struggled mightily to concur – and in fact still do. But I also knew, as my grandfather’s own omnivorous passion for discovery suggested, that all such judgments were nonsense. In the end, like the question of who was the greatest baseball player of all time, an early and abiding conversation of ours, it was a provisional title only, waiting for the next great thing to come along.

And yet, and yet, well, you know, when it comes right down to it, it wasn’t books or writing or epistemological fervor that were my primary inspiration. They would have meant nothing if it hadn’t been for everything else. What my grandfather communicated to me most of all was a hunger for life, for the raw stuff of life that served as the underpinning for every great book that either of us admired. I’m oversimplifying, I know, but it just seemed like, in the greater scheme of things, with my grandfather there was no exclusionary gene. There was no sense of high and low (no one appreciated a “dirty joke” more shamelessly than he) and, save for the inviolable principles of grammar and the strict standards of a “good education,” everything was in play, everything existed on the same human plane.

In many ways, I think that was what opened me up to the blues – not just the music but the experience of the music, the many different implications of the music – which turned out to be the single greatest revelation of my life. So many of the places where I started out are still the places where I am. Books, writing, playing sports (sadly, no more baseball), the blues. As my grandfather got older, his enthusiasm never diminished. When $100 Misunderstanding, an alternating dialogue between a fourteen-year-old black prostitute and her clueless white college john, came out in 1962, my grandfather got the idea that he and I could write a novel in the same manner about the generation gap, which was very much in the news then. We would write alternate chapters – well, you get the picture – and he was so excited about the idea that I couldn’t say no, though we never advanced to the point where we put anything down on paper. When the draft briefly threatened, he decided he would buy land in Canada and we could start a commune there, and while the threat went away before he was ever able to put his idea into practice, I had no doubt it would have been a very interesting (and well-ordered) commune.

A few years later, in 1970, he asked if I would help him run camp the following year. I’m not sure I need to explain, but this came like a bolt out of the blue. Alexandra and I had been working at camp for the last few years, and I was running the tennis program and coaching baseball. “No speculation,” I told my twelve-year-old charges, taking my cue, as always, from William Carlos Williams. It was a wonderful way to spend the summer, and it was certainly rewarding from any number of points of view, not least of which was being close to my grandparents. But not for one moment had the thought of running camp crossed my mind. I was twenty-six-years-old, working on my first full-length published book, Feel Like Going Home, and my fifth unpublished novel, Mister Downchild, and I thought I knew where my future lay.

At the same time, the idea of turning my grandfather down never crossed my mind. He was seventy-eight years old and had never asked for my help before – in fact, I couldn’t remember him ever asking anybody’s help. So, sure, yes, unequivocally. And yet I found it impossible to imagine how this could ever work. How exactly was I going to help? And if his idea was to defer to me, to withdraw and leave the day-to-day running of camp to me, well, this would require a lot more conviction, self-belief, and, above all, knowledge (since no one knew anything about the running of camp except for him) than I possessed. The question was, did I have it in me to be the person that I needed, that I wanted, for my grandfather’s sake, to be?

As it turned out, I never had to answer that question. My grandfather got sick – it appeared at first to be a stroke, it turned out to be a brain tumor – almost immediately after asking for my help. I kept things going over the winter in hopes that he would recover, and when he didn’t, it was like being thrown into the water and discovering, much to your surprise, that you actually knew how to swim. I ended up running camp by myself that summer, and I ran it for twenty-one years after that, and whatever my grandfather intended (and I suspect it was a great deal more than just providing me with an income to support my writing), it turned out to be one of the most rewarding, existentially engaging experiences of my life. And not just in the ways you might expect – camp was a thriving, self-sustaining community of 300 people that continued to grow and evolve, as did my own views of democratic institutions and possibilities – but because it inescapably exposed me to real life, it forced me out into a world in which my feelings were not the center of everything. A world of building things and balancing books, where you dealt of necessity (and to your own incalculable experiential benefit) with all kinds of different people, benefited from the wisdom and experience of others (could that have been what Omar Pound meant?), and learned not just to stand up for yourself but for everyone else, because no matter how much inner turmoil you might feel (and I think back to my ten- and –eleven-year-old self, curled up in a ball reading a book, afraid to leave the comforting familiarity of my room), you don’t have the luxury of dwelling on your own emotions. Because – why? Everyone is depending on you. It forced me, in other words, to grow up, in a way that deeply affected not only my writing but my ability to understand all the different personalities and perspectives that I wanted to portray in both my fiction and my nonfiction, in my biographies and profiles of such multifarious personalities as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Waylon Jennings, Sam Phillips, and Solomon Burke. It forced me, when it came right down to it, to embrace the world.

My grandfather used to come see me in my dreams sometimes. He always wore his tan windbreaker and stood by the tree on the right field line at camp, where he used to watch my games, both as a kid and as an adult. It was always good to see him – there was never a time I didn’t wish he would stay longer. But even though I rarely see him nowadays, I carry with me always the conviction that he communicated so unhesitantly: that everything is just out there waiting to be discovered. And I try to keep that belief in the forefront – well, maybe the backfront – of my mind. I continue to be drawn on by the prospect, I continue to struggle for its discovery.

#writing #memoir

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ghosty-schnibibit · 7 years

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live blogged taz thoughts under the cut, it’s becoming a new tradition for me to do this every new episode lol

i am already super fucking worried about this episode just based on the narrator and the description

travis already layin on the sex jokes

well this is creepy as shit

cap’n port not taking a scorched earth approach for once lol

OH NO HOLY SHIT

what the fuck is this crucible bs

MAGNUS YOU SHIT HEAD DON'T ANTAGONIZE THE DUDE

NOT MY BABY NO NO NO NO NO GRIFFIN YOU BETTER NOT HURT LUCRETIA FUCK NO

i know this is a serious ass scene but the link in my mind between the seven deadly sins and fma is making me laugh

okay that little thirty second top of the head speech right there is why magnus is my favorite, holy shit that was amazing

that was a funky ass way to pronounce bluejeans... and then like two seconds later clint comments on the same thing lol

barry you done fucked up

OF COURSE MERLE GETS LUST, I'M FUCKING DYING

“ARBOR ARDOR” M E R L E

i'm beginning to legit worry that only magnus is making it out of this alive

lup my baby i love you but omg this is not the time

"wrath? don't forget wrath" "oh hella, hella wrath" THESE TWO OMG

LUP WHAT THE FUCK, Y'ALL DUMB ASSES STOP PLEADING GUILTY

i could have called wrath for davenport tbh :/

TAAKO OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU FUCKING IDIOT I LOVE YOU

i'm drawing them all as homunculi later, mark my words

i'm really glad that they’re being honest about the situation with the weird god judge thingies, hopefully this will help earn them some credit for the main trial

HE NICKNAMED THE VOIDFISH FISHER I'M DYING

i was most worried about taako and he ended up being the best off lol

TRAVIS HOW DID YOU FUCK UP THAT BAD, CLINT ROLLED BETTER THAN YOU

aaand magnus is dead crystal kingdom style, wonderful :T

oh this is creepy as shit

"THERE WILL BE A NECESSARY BETRAYAL" LUCRETIA

i'm trying to write out all the things griffin is saying overlaid with the other voices and wow there is so much shit, i might post what i get later just so others can have the transcript if no one else has done it already

OH MY GOD ITS ALL THE BAD SHIT THE BOYS DID

THE LINE ABOUT ANGUS I'M... I'M CRYING, MY POOR BABY ; n ;

WAIT SO... LUCRETIA WAS THE ONLY ONE LEFT ALIVE, LEFT ALONE FOR A WHOLE YEAR BY HERSELF? OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD GRIFFIN WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO MY DAUGHTER HOLY FUCKING SHIT

"this is when lucretia became madam director" I AM DEAD INSIDE

"that's alright old man, just take every bit of joy i have" travis plz

thank you trav for the extra development, i love the idea of papa magnus and his wee voidfish baby ^u^

oh holy shit what is this new development

i feel like this may be where we get lich barry and possibly lich lup

yay, taako centric arc :D

travis what the fuck is going on with your voice r/n

this is one cool setting omg

okay now i really wanna know why justin hates nathaniel hawthorne and james fenimore cooper

DAVENPORT CREATED THE OCULUS, CONFIRMED

well now i know the difference between an autobiography and a memoir, thank you travis

"i've learned from taako to build my brand" merle omg

damn clint, bangin out the good roles this arc

"it really focuses on my teen years, cause i went through a lot of shit" merle with that relatable feel

EXTREME TEEN MERLE

THIS IS THE PROTECTION SPELL FROM REUNION TOUR AAAAA

every interaction between merle and lucretia make everything in the main story so fuckin sad and i just... kill me griffin, just kill me

CRAVABILITY

taako what the actual fuck, fucking voice acting

I'M CALLING IT RIGHT NOW, THIS IS WHERE LUP TURNS INTO A LICH, THIS IS WHERE SHE GETS A POSITIVE MEMORY THAT FUELS HER LICH FORM AND ALLOWS HER TO POSSESS THE UMBRA STAFF LATER ON

FUCKING CALLED IT

i really want to know what this song is called, can't wait for it to go up on soundcloud

is it bad i am like... LEGIT worried that taako will fuck this up somehow even though i know that griffin has a narrative he wants to create and probs won’t let that happen?

"oh shit, is it today?" so can we assume taako just cooks huge ass breakfast spreads of insanely high quality on the reg then

"there are people who are enjoying the day-" "there's nobody alive on this planet but the seven of you." "... well, we're the people" PFFF

are they going to fuck with davenport??? justin what the fuck have you got in mind for this

"ILLUSIONS" I'M FUCKING DYING OH MY GOD

TAAKO WHAT THE FLYING FUCK

lup my beautiful destructive daughter i love you so so so much

AAAW TAAKO OH MY FUCKING GOD YOU SWEET, SWEET BABY BOY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

“you are my heart“ I A M D E S T R O Y E D

“his legs are trembling in absolute panic“ T A A K O

“yeah, i got this“ yeeeah gimme that good blupjeans shit

LUP FUCKIN DABBED OH MY GOD

YEEEAH BABY, YOU LIGHT UP THOSE NIHILISM DEMONS!!!

“we’re real fucking close” *cries*

so that was a really damn intense episode full of moments that made me want to cry a lot, and i loved it. can’t wait for two weeks from now when we get to see the shit that went down to create the BoB and cry some more :’)

#taz #the adventure zone #taz spoilers #all under the cut #as per usual

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uncaaj · 7 months

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Scanlation: PKNA #7 - Invasion! Part 1

part 1 | PART 2 | PART 3

Writer: Francesco Artibani Artist: Paolo Mottura INDUCKS Code: I PKNA 7-1

DOWNLOAD THE PDF HERE!

#scanlation #donald duck #duck avenger #pkna #disney ducks #disney comics #duckverse #invasion #ducktales #paperinik #one #uno #angus fangus #nebula faraday #fenimore cook

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fajar78 · 5 years

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Deep Kitchen Sinks

This undated photo shows an burghal farmhouse appearance kitchen in a Manhattan Beach, Calif., home advised by Betsy Burnham, area the kitchen island offers abounding accumulator and an added basic bore for use while cooking.

Deep Sinks | Deep Kitchen Sinks | Deep Bowl Sinks | Deep Kitchen Sinks

Interior artist Abbe Fenimore knew that abacus a kitchen island was one of the best important…

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#deep kitchen sinks #deep kitchen sinks australia #deep kitchen sinks for sale #deep kitchen sinks home depot #deep kitchen sinks india #deep kitchen sinks lowes #deep kitchen sinks south africa #deep kitchen sinks top mount #deep kitchen sinks uk #deep kitchen sinks undermount

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duckapus · 2 years

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I have 2 questions. Why is Rhoda Bushroot instead of Reginald Bushroot? And what is the relationship between Liquidator and Bushroot like?

I made Rhoda Bushroot instead of Reginald since I was giving all the Fearsome Four members a different secret identity and origin story from the originals due to their actual backstories being implied to be what the show-within-a-show versions had, and figured pulling a Spiderverse Doc Ock while still using someone connected to the original Bushroot would be interesting.

And the relationship between them varies based on how feral or lucid she is at any given time. Full Bushroot is loyal to Liquidator in the same way a guard dog is to its handler, Full Rhoda(or as close as she can get) despises and somewhat fears him, to the point where she'll often try to help Darkwing capture the both of them. Anything in-between is varying degrees of dangerously volatile, usually turning her into a third party in a fight if both sides aren't careful.

#ducktales #darkwing duck #liquidator #bushroot #rhoda dendron #fenimore cook #she is very much not okay #I think this might actually be worse than the zombie bushroot we ended up with

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agoodflyting · 7 years

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He That Fights With Monsters - 1/5 (monster!Kylo/Hux historical AU)

3100 words / Mature (for violence and gore, this chapter). This is basically a Kylux AU of the movie ‘Ravenous’.

W E N D I G O: a powerful creature from native american folklore. a man who consumes the flesh of another and is transformed into a monster with a fierce, insatiable hunger

1842 Fort Spencer, California

The so-called fort is a ramshackle affair, barely deserving of the title. Little more than a cluster of rough-hewn wood and mud buildings- leaning, crumbling- huddled against each other inside a tall fence like children hiding behind their mother’s skirt. Fort Spencer cowered, at if frightened of the distant peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains which loomed on the horizon.

The place seemed thrown together thoughtlessly, additions tacked on without skill and as need arose. Piles of discarded lumber propped up the dirty thatch to make haphazard work shelters. Posts leaned like drunks. A few scrawny chickens wandered the yard freely, pecking at twigs on the frozen ground.

It was a neglected place. Unkempt and uncared-for.

The military brat in him, the part that- even now- folded his sheets neatly and polished all the buttons on his uniform every morning, had taken it all in with a faint sense of rising horror. There was no order. Pots and tools and washing lines hung from whatever was available. There was no sense of purpose to anything. It was hardly fit to be called an outpost of the U.S. Military.

It was the sort of place where you shoved the things you wanted to forget about.

That was, of course, why he had been sent there.

“You’re no hero, Hux.”

General Tarkin had taken him aside after Hux had disgraced himself at his own promotion ceremony, his first act as Captain being to sneak out and hide behind the building, shaking and vomiting like an addict when the sight of a too-rare steak at his own celebratory dinner had unexpectedly brought back the memory of his commanding officer’s half shot-off head.

The words rang like a condemnation. All of his flaws so neatly rolled into one. You’re no hero. When he was a boy, he used to sit at his father’s knee and beg for stories from the elder Hux’s time as a commander during Madison’s War of 1812. Sitting by the fire listening to the soft lilt of his father’s voice over a cup of tea or a game of chess were some of his fondest memories, and by the time he was ten he could recite the story of each battle as well as if he’d been there himself. There had never been a time when he hadn’t pictured himself earning his own glory on the battlefield someday. All of the men in his family had been soldiers.

Naturally, Hux had been top of his class at West Point. A promising young officer. A rising star. He developed a reputation for his intelligence, his skill with battleground tactics – moving lines of men in his mind, like chess pieces – and his tenacity. Sharp-edged ambition ensured that these traits were noticed by the right people, and he was quickly promoted to first lieutenant without ever having seen battle.

Hux had loved everything about military life, from the brutish camaraderie of his men to the bright gold braiding on his uniform.

The day he got word that he was being deployed against Santa Anna with the rest of his platoon, he had never been happier. He hoped, only, that the fighting wouldn’t be over too soon. Not before he could distinguish himself. He excelled at everything- it had never occurred to him that battle would be any different.

That younger Hux seems like a character from a book to him now. Someone he has only read about, and even then, didn’t much like.

The first time a ball had whizzed past his head close enough to ruffle his hair, Hux had frozen. Simply frozen, his knees locking up, limbs turning gelatinous with fear, as cannonshot exploded around him. The sound was deafening. A rolling boom like thunder inside his very bones. His ears rang and he tried to cover them with numb hands, but his limbs were liquid, useless- why had father never told him how loud it was-

Everything was screaming, exploding. The crack of gunshot and men dying all around him. Dirt and mud and blood- and someone is yanking on his arm, shouting at him to get his rifle- "Stop!"

He can’t tell which are his men and which are Santa Anna’s. Everything is moving too fast. He just needed to get his bearings, if everything would only stop-

“Move, lieutenant- Hux, come on!“

A cannonball bursts close enough that Hux’s teeth rattle, and he feels a little bit of shameful wetness seeping into the front of his wool trousers. Then he is on the ground on his knees. Scrabbling around in the muck. How did he get here-

There's a butcher's sound. The hand yanking on his arm goes slack, limp fingers clutching briefly on the woolen sleeve of his coat before the arm slithers heavily to the ground- severed. The man- his man- it had so recently been attached to is still alive. Staring up at Hux with wide, frightened eyes. His shoulder is nothing but meat, shattered by canon-shot, and the blood- there was so much, too much, how- turns the dirt under his hands and knees to warm mud-

Blue. They were blue eyes, and they remained open, staring at Hux, even after the man died.

“You’re no hero, Hux. I want you as far from my company as possible.” In private, General Tarkin’s voice was wry with scorn. The same voice which, mere hours before, had commended him in front of his father and all of his peers for ‘heroism above and beyond the call of duty’.

“I’m sending you to California- Fort Spencer.”

“Yes, sir.” Hux stood at attention, his sweat-slick hand gripping his new papers tightly. He feels that he may be sick again.

It was officially a reward. With his promotion, Hux will be second-in-command at Fort Spencer, the last military outpost west of the mountains. The papers clutched in his hand, which he had read and re-read dutifully, explain that it is a minor waypoint for travelers on their way to California, which sees little-to-no traffic in the winter, when the mountains become impassable.

“My first choice was a firing squad, you know. But seeing as how you did manage to capture the enemy post, I thought it might set a bad precedent.”

A compromise. A post where he can do no harm, and General Tarkin’s old friend Commander Hux need never know that his son is an abject coward.

“Thank you, sir.”

It is not the praise and commendation he had dreamed of as a boy, but he has proven that he isn’t fit for anything better.

“Do you have a hobby, Hux?” There was a knife’s edge of satisfaction in the twist of the General’s mouth.

“I… Swimming, sir.” He swam sometimes in the summer, for exercise. It was close enough to a hobby. His career has always consumed the majority of his life.

“Swimming,” General Tarkin echoed, amused. “I suggest you pack a book. It gets tedious out there.”

Hux had dutifully packed three books in his case. Aristotle, his father’s dog-eared copy of ‘The Federalist’, and a James Fenimore-Cooper novel he had grabbed last-minute at the final trading post before they crossed the Nevadas.

He rations them. Doling himself out words in careful measure, the way a starving man might his last meal.

Fort Spencer thrives on tedium, Hux discovers quickly. Once the cold sets in there is little to do.

Fewer than a dozen men occupy the fort during the winter- there for seemingly no other purpose than to allow the U.S. government to state that the place is occupied year-round. His command, Hux learns quickly, consists of other men like himself- disgraces. Drunks and cowards and madmen. Human detritus that the army has swept under the rug. His commanding officer is a greying, temperamental Major named Krennic. The name is vaguely familiar from some bit of fuss involving a saboteur when Hux was a cadet.

“The Spanish built this place as a mission. We inherited it,” Krennic had informed Hux when he first arrived, tipping a few fingers of cheap bourbon into a pair of antique crystal glasses that seemed, to Hux, far too fine for the use to which they were being put. He sat gingerly in the chair across from Krennic’s sturdy desk. “Along with Phasma. She’s local. Or raised by them, anyway. I can’t imagine you got a word out of her,” he added, referring to the tall, stoic woman who had guided Hux from San Miguel to the fort.

“It’s just us until the thaw clears in April. The only enemy out here is the boredom,” he flashed a thin smile at his own joke. “Mitaka does all the cooking. Rodinon used to be a veterinarian, so he plays doctor.” Krennic drained his glass in one swallow and cleared his throat, seemingly bored already with the task of briefing his newest officer. “I would suggest you don’t get sick. I’d say don’t eat, but then most of us have to.”

“Yes, sir,” Hux said, for lack of anything better to say.

Krennic slouched indolently in his chair, one hand toying listlessly with the gold braiding at his collar, which Hux could see was frayed in several places.

“With your promotion, you’re second in command. Lucky you.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment, and so Hux did not take it as one.

Krennic poured himself a second glass of bourbon and drank it more slowly. “Can I ask what you did to earn the honor of a Fort Spencer commission?”

Hux considered lying. He sipped at his bourbon, felt the cheap sting of it in his throat. “I captured an enemy fort single-handedly, after the rest of my unit was killed,” he said finally. It was the truth. Rather than being impressed, Krennic half-smiled, like Hux had reminded him of something fond. Or perhaps told a joke without realizing it. “Ambitious. Well don’t worry, this place will soon break you of that.”

After that first day, Hux rarely sees Krennic unless the man has some onerous task to assign him, or else he has run out of bourbon. Hux cannot complain overmuch. Assuming control over the daily running of the fort provides him with some sense of purpose, however flimsy. He wastes no time in assuming the brunt of command at Fort Spencer, merely because no one else seems to want it.

While whipping a sense of order into the motley assortment of men there does not make him popular, it at least occupies his time.

There is a running joke at Fort Spencer. It’s, “Did you do anything today?”

He rises at dawn, polishes his boots in the pale light and pushes aside the floating chunks of ice in his wash basin to shave. Drags the rest of the men under his command, protesting, cursing, and half-dressed, out of their beds, and endures muttered comments and hateful glares from all save a stammery little lieutenant named Mitaka, who seems to fairly worship the ground Hux walks on.

It is far from how he imagined his first command.

It would be easy- too easy- to allow the seeping entropy that permeates this place to take hold of him. So Hux deploys his men to whatever petty, tedious little tasks he can find that need doing. Fortifying the main gate, gathering firewood, re-stringing the washing lines- anything he can find to give some sort of shape and purpose to the endless parade of identical days.

Save Mitaka, the men seem to think he’s a senseless little tit for trying to fight the inevitable.

They have all been here longer than he has. Sometimes, when he lies awake in the depths of the pitch-dark night, unable to sleep without dreaming, he wonders if they’re right.

Nights like that he drags himself out of his chilly, narrow bed. With a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he pads to the window and draws up the oilcloth covering so that he can look out at the distant mountains. Moonlight reflects off their snow-covered peaks, leaving them nearly luminescent. They sit crouched on the horizon, and nights like this he cannot but feel that the mountains living things and that they are watching him back.

Cold frosts his breath. Hux draws the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

“How did you take the fort?” The man had asked at his debriefing. Hux had hated him and his smooth, calm, nonjudgmental voice. He wanted to be judged.

“When the fighting started, I panicked. I froze.”

“You froze?”

“I was...” Scared. “I laid down on the ground. I played dead.” He remembers the dirt in his mouth, warm, tinged with his comrade’s blood. Closing his eyes, like a child who thinks that doing so will somehow make him invisible.

“You played dead while the rest of your unit fought and died.”

“Yes.”

“But you made it behind enemy lines.”

The words had stuck in his throat. “I was buried.”

A mass grave. His commanding officer’s half shot-off head inches from his face. The crushing weight of dead men piled on top of him. Blood and other filth covering him. The taste of lukewarm blood in his mouth, choking him, running down his throat-

“I climbed out once it got dark.” Pushing aside the dead weight of men twice his size like they weighed nothing. Covered in muck and gore as he climbed from an open grave, the first guard who had seen Hux had simply dropped his rifle in fear and bolted.

“And how did you take the post?”

How to describe that rush of power? The sudden influx of energy, like being possessed, and yet more in control of himself than he had ever been before. Predatory. Fierce.

It had been the adrenaline, surely.

Time passes in a listless trickle of days. Hux oversees the fort, dodging Mitaka’s earnest attempts to get underfoot, and the baleful curses of the rest of his men, who, never the cream of the crop in the first place, had grown lazy and indolent under Krennic’s lax hand. “No side trips. Go straight to San Miguel and back,” Hux refuses to relinquish his hold on the supply list until their errand boy, a particularly addle-brained young private named Cleeves, meets his stare. The man shifts and slouches on the back of his horse- one of their two broken down old nags, the other currently being ridden by Phasma- rolling his eyes like a teenager being lectured by his father and trying halfheartedly to twist the paper out of Hux’s hand. “I know what I’m supposed to be doing, goddamn-” he complains, in a thick southern accent. “Get exactly what’s on the list, nothing more, nothing less, you hear me? No dawdling. No drinking. No women,” Hux adds firmly, releasing the paper. He tempers the urge to smack the man off his horse, knowing it would only make him more enemies. “Aww, come on-“ “I’ll watch him,” Phasma says in her low, calm voice. She is swaddled up in grey furs, looking infinitely more comfortable in the frigid winter air than he is in his woolen greatcoat. Rumor around the fort was that they came from a wolf which she had killed bare-handed. Looking at her, it was not a difficult story to believe. “Thank you, Phasma.” Hux lifts the crossbeam off of the main gate and pulls open the doors just enough for their horses to pass through. Ironic, the woman had proven herself to be the only one of them worth a damn. Hux would have gladly traded his entire command for another of Phasma. The next week without her will be torment, but Hux doesn’t trust Cleeves to find his own prick with both hands, let alone make it two days overland with all their shopping intact, and this will be the last supply run they have time for before the winter snow well and truly cuts them off. On top of that, he had asked Phasma to pick him up another book. Hux reads by light of a single candle in the frozen evening hours, always with a blanket pulled up over his shoulders to ward off the chill that seeps into every corner no matter how much straw he stuffs into the cracks in his walls. He has finished the Aristotle and the Fenimore-Cooper and is dawdling over a re-read of The Federalist, hoping to make it last until Phasma returns with reinforcements, when the cold finally chases him out of his solitary room and into the warmer mess building, where the men stay up late in the evenings conversing, smoking, and warming themselves besides the big fireplace. If there is an epicenter of culture at Fort Spencer, it is the mess hut. He’s made a habit of absenting himself, aware of his own unpopularity, but even he isn’t stubborn enough to lose his toes just to avoid a bit of social awkwardness. Hux bundles himself up in his greatcoat, book under his arm, and crosses the frozen ground at a quick clip. His leather boots are unlined- made for the much warmer climate of New Mexico. There should be a new pair coming back with Phasma and Cleeves.

It has started to snow again, and flecks of it land in his copper hair and on the shoulders of his coat like stars. When he opens the mess door, the wind picks up, forcing a burst of flurries inside with him before he forces it shut.

To Hux’s surprise, his arrival barely stirs a grumble out of the half-dozen men lounging around the fireplace. There are a couple of amused mutters, Private Reich drawls, “Well look who decided to join us,” and that is the end of it.

Major Krennic is the only one who isn’t in the mess, but Hux isn’t surprised. Hux had seen the low light burning in his window as he crossed the square. Considering the hour, he was probably drunk.

Mitaka, who seems to be losing badly at chess with Rodinon, lights up when he notices Hux and he offers a breathless, “Evening, Captain-“ Rodinon takes advantage of his distraction to nudge Mitaka’s rook a few squares to the side.

Hux nods to them, but says nothing, holding his book in his hands like a shield against unwelcome questions. He finds a chair close enough to the fire that he can warm his frozen toes and sinks into it. The book is held open in his lap, but he only gazes at the page, unseeing. He only has a few dozen pages left of The Federalist, and it needs to last him the remainder of the week... In the quiet dark up here in the mountains, reading is the only defense he has to keep the memories at bay.

It’s a balancing act- reading a few sentences at a time, considering them as he watches the snowstorm pick up through the mess hut’s single low window, and returning to his pages before his mind can wander all the way back to New Mexico, and the pit of his comrades bodies that is waiting for him every night when he closes his eyes.

In between pages, he watches the men around him, surreptitiously, idly wondering what sins they committed to earn a sentence in this purgatory.

Rodinon was a cheat and a liar. The absent Cleeves was a fool. Mitaka had dropped his entire life story at Hux’s feet at the first prompting- he had been General Tarkin’s aide de camp until he spilled tea all over the man’s desk. The others Hux doesn’t know, but can guess.

How many of them had tried to escape the world, only to turn back around and try to escape this bleak, awful place?

Outside the window, the snow had begun to fall in thick drifts, and so Hux gazes aimlessly out into the night for long moments before he realizes, with a sudden jolt of fear, that something is gazing back.

#kylux #kylux au #monster!kylo #historical au #armitage hux #monster kylo #wendigos #tw:gore #tw: blood #look i wrote a monster kylo #my fanfiction

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