"[M]ost often the figure representing the impersonal logic of protocol is Andy’s deputy, Barney Fife. Played by the immensely talented Don Knotts, Barney is both the comedic relief and bureaucratic foil to Andy’s localism. Running gags are built upon Barney’s trigger-happy nervousness and open love of the Law, with all its binding rules and jargon. He often urges Andy to modernize, to embrace the latest crime-fighting methods and gadgets. Barney’s flaw — and what makes him hilarious — is that he tries too hard to be a serious police officer in a rural town untouched by hard crime. He quotes legal codes to Andy, who either doesn’t know or has forgotten them. Andy doesn’t need to remember the technical name for a minor offense. He understands that townspeople, not codes, are the governing factor, even if that logic sometimes backfires on him.

Watching this show as an older viewer, I came to realize that Andy and Barney symbolize two competing ways of life that struggled against one another in the 20th century and continue to do so today.

...

Though Andy exhibits strength and virtue, he is not hotheaded. Nor is he the brawny hero that busts in at the last minute with guns blazing to vanquish the villain, who almost pulls off the caper. It may take him until the last minute to carry out his plan, but he does not represent the kind of heroic machismo so prevalent in superhero films today. More often than not Andy fights with his mind, inasmuch as he fights at all. He is strong in a silent way, a stoic fortitude without the sturm und drang of Brando or the social Darwinism of late-career John Wayne. Barney, on the other hand, is loud and quick to flashes of emotion. His wiry frame and nervous energy make him a wreck of a deputy, and it’s hilarious to watch him and Andy at odds, however low the stakes. Barney is a ludicrous figure, a clown, blissfully unaware of his arrogance, insecure and egotistical, and desirous of the kind of rules designed to control situations without thought. He exemplifies the neoliberal manager, the one that assumed control in the late 20th century. And though this figure was initially lampooned in American media, it came to be accepted as the only one to rule over a complex world.

¤ When several American television networks dropped most of the country-themed programming in the early 1970s — a move referred to as the “rural purge” — the likelihood that another Andy Taylor or Mayberry might be seen on TV was slimmed. In an attempt to market to suburban and urban audiences, major television networks mostly forgot about aging and rural populations. Suddenly there were fewer shows reflecting their lives. The kneejerk reaction is to consider rural audiences and their shows hillbilly, retrograde, simple-minded, or even racist. But it would also be callous to ignore other audiences altogether just to have around-the-clock Westerns and episodes of Red Skelton. I began to wonder what my parents would have watched without reruns of The Andy Griffith Show. Could it be, like some have said, that people enjoy the series because it presents a whitewashed utopia, a conservative paradise before Soul Train, MTV, and BET? In her article “Remembering Mayberry in White and Black,” memory studies scholar Kathleen McElroy writes about African Americans like herself who identify with The Andy Griffith Show even though only one episode in the entire series features a black actor with a speaking part (“a Chopin-playing football coach in Season 7,” McElroy notes). She cites several black writers who watch the series because it reflects their own experiences living in the rural South and who were not alienated by the paucity of black cast members. But even though some African-American viewers like McElroy conjure these “extra-memories,” as she calls them, to “complement […] Mayberry’s narrative,” what about the white viewers who voted for Donald Trump because they believed him to be a white, wealthy savior who could return the country to the conservative 1950s — in other words, to a time before civil rights? Why should anyone have to fill in the gaps of a television series with extra-memories to enjoy it? A site of both memory and oblivion, The Andy Griffith Show can be pleasing to some and uncomfortable to others. It’s a show that some might enjoy because it presents a white utopia and one that others can identify with because of its themes of doing good, serving communities, and reducing one’s ego. And viewers like McElroy and the writers she cites in her essay manage this tension by conjuring extra-memories to account for the erasure. It is possible that some people see in Donald Trump’s nativist message a return to Mayberry. But those who may suppose that miss the entire point of the series and equally misunderstand the philosophy of the character Andy Taylor. Writing for The Awl, Shani O. Hilton mentions that Griffith was often called “white trash” as a kid. When he created his series, Griffith didn’t “take a crack at edgier storylines involving race or gender,” which other series of the time did and usually failed offensively. Instead, he crafted a show about life in a small, working-class town where a given day’s itinerary might include little more than napping and watching the evening’s program on television. Mayberry is obviously utopian and overwhelmingly white, but Sheriff Andy Taylor not only believes society can always be made better but also understands no social project grand or local could usher in some kind of everlasting peace. The best you could do in Mayberry is good enough, and doing good is a daily job."

Grafton Tanner, "Make America Mayberry Again" for the Los Angeles Review of Books

I finally found the screenshot of the latest shred of movie news we got from Jess, from 4/1/23, soon before she deactivated. Here’s to hoping we maybe get another shred of news before this tweet hits the one year mark? 😅

sometimes looking at like Self Help Strategies lists for the symptoms I'm having is always just like:

thing that I already do

thing I have tried 10 times

thing I already do

thing that I don't have the money to do

thing I already do

thing I've been doing since I was 10yrs old to no avail

thing that is impossible given my situation

thing that doesn't apply to me

thing that I already do

thing I have already tried

hrmm, oh wait, maybe finally- OH, yeah.. okay. thing that I already do but it was just phrased slightly differently

thing I have already done

forgive any incomprehensibility but the notion that the world can be cleanly split between the two immutable categories of 'the neurotypical' and 'the neurodiverse' ignores the reality that any person can at any point for any reason be arbitrarily 'diagnosed' by a 'professional' and shuttled between categories with no regard for the notions of 'accurate traits' or 'specific symptoms'. nice dichotomy what lies outside of it? you understand me?

As a model for Brinker Hadley I used Gore Vidal.

jay parini and gore vidal respectively, the united states of amnesia / john knowles, a separate peace

id in alt.

wow this is just like patterns of seeking treatment in people with npd

repeat after me: if you are the descendent of colonizers living on stolen land, you do not get to judge the methods of decolonial resistance movements.

Peter Fonda being interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show (1970) / For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield (released 1966)

.

I think s2 is a really beautiful and overall quite good expansion and deepening of the themes and arcs of season 1! however, as for my dumb little romantic heart feelings, there is just nothing like the way carmy looked at sydney when she first showed up at the restaurant and looked again. straining the stock after she tells him her history. her eyes watching him as he tries her food. him looking through her notebook. family style? two tops, booths.

something a lot of band fanbases on tumblr do that really irritates me is that they'll post a photo no ones ever seen before with no context and then caption it with a woefully unfunny one liner and then when you ask them the context of the photo 6 times out of 10 they will not answer or not give you a source for the photo. and like they assume everyone knows waht the photo is from already. andif you dont then youre just an idiot i guess. info sharing in band fandoms in general has always been kind of an enemy to me. like am i crazy or do so many fans leave other fans in the dark about stuff and gatekeep things like photos or interviews or information in general. its so odd. maybe i am crazy. i have insecurity issues so maybe im imagining things. maybe im just projecting or something. i dont know. not sure

Nothing can make a bitch more hateful than a SINGLE hour —the FIRST HOUR OF A DAY—at a job where everyone pretends they can do her job better than she’s been doing it because they read something in the news recently

"This extra space next to me belongs to you. I know where I end now. I won't get lost." -- shoot me (metaphorically) and leave me for dead (metaphorically) why won't you. To make this about Dylan and maybe it's about Connor, maybe it's about Brinksy, maybe it's about any journeyman in the NHL. My brain screamed Chris Driedger and his memorable (to me) Players' Tribune article:

And how can you mention Dylan and Zach (Za-ach, the way Dylan says it) without me having a breakdown about them? You simply can't. And for the younger dudes, maybe it's a little Bords/Briss, not yet steady in The Show, a little bit of distance, a summer that tries to erase and make up all the memories they've made separately... and then a blurry insta story in Vegas. Just like old times but somewhere else. Maybe it's not the same bed, maybe it's not the same set of forks, but maybe it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway, goodbye. Sorry for this, your tag walls make me break out in imagined scenarios.

Much love. xxx

please never be sorry for sending me messages <3 i love reading them i love getting them i think they’re beautiful and i love them i’m!!!!! [🥹💕🦋🫧✨💘😭 <- the best approximation of what my heart is doing]

ok NOW i am taking this step by step because every narrative here kicked me straight in the knees (metaphorically) i am w e e p i n g (literally): i knew tangentially about chris driedger going to seattle but i had never read his players’ tribune love letter to seattle & all i can say is oh. oh. and with the part about trains delayed but still being right on time—

sometimes a dream is a truth your heart knows long before you do. the space that the city and the team made for him (“you’d be the only guy on the team”)🗣️🗣️🗣️ !!! but the way that chris talks about needing to put in the work & leo not letting him quit,,, that’s chris filling up the teakettle with twice as much water, crowding one side of the bed (falling asleep against a bus window dreaming), becoming unburdened by the idea of not being their guy, not having the fallback being their draft pick to content and settle himself with. that’s chris betting on a future. that’s the train coming down the tracks, right on time.

(i am feeling unhinged about it)

SECOND. i know i was the one that said zach and dylan to start so technically i brought this on myself but also i have been ktfo by the mere mention of the way that dylan says zach’s name different from everyone else, stealing an extra breath, stealing as much time as he can get with him, which reminded me of a poem i just read:

The Need Is So Great, Jim Moore

^^^dylan still in love with zach even as he’s leaving, can feel himself losing him, and taking every sliver of the love in his smile that he can get. even if he knows zach doesn’t still feel the same way he’s drawing out the long goodbye & saying i love you in a thousand ways without ever saying it out loud (“i have been asking for a time but in ways that have no words” because he doesn’t want to ask too much, to ask for love) in the hope that zach will say it back OKAY I’M LEAVING i can’t do this

that was a lie because THREE. “maybe it’s the principle of the thing” please insert the most ungodly screech how could you just (lovingly) come in straight with the steel chair and bean me upside the head with that l i n e i think this story has the potential for such tragedy in it but also the most tender domestic longing because bords & briss have known each other for a long time (i think) and guys do sometimes lose themselves when they first get to the nhl.

it’s a big scene, you’re with big name guys, you’re finally doing the thing you always dreamed about, you’re no longer necessarily the best because everyone’s the best, you’re not sure how you fit in, you can get lost in the glitz and the glamor of it but you can also literally get lost in it, the slog of the season and getting caught up and down between teams and leagues and endless airports and buses and travel and ice rinks, losing your phone (accidental) and having new people hound you for quotes and fame and connection so you lose your phone (on purpose) and i think where i’m trying to go is: this could play out as the tragedy of borde going to the california coastline and briss shipping off to the vegas strip and both of them getting a little lost.

maybe there’s someone else, maybe i am steadfastly not thinking about “a summer that tries to erase and make up all the memories they've made separately” as either a summer of them pretending things are ok after a year of barely speaking and now being completely different people they never were before OR a summer of them trying to pretend like they can forget about each other because maybe they didn’t think their relationship was the same thing, is all, when they were or weren’t together. maybe it’s nobody’s fault but for the fact that they were scared and tired and lonely trying to make it in the big times and didn’t know how to show it. and then borde shows up with takeout and plastic forks in vegas and it’s december and nothing like winter in ann arbor and still they fill up all the empty spaces in each other with the things they didn’t know they’d miss until they were gone and this is the real thing, not whatever they were trying too hard to be, to recreate their own nostalgia for the love in their memories. it’s the principle of the thing, is all, to always be true to the love they have right now & not what they think it should be.

sorry that i wrote you kind of an essay of an answer but i had so so so many thoughts because your ask was so lovely so thank you for sending it to me (you are always welcome to!! i love your imagined scenarios!!! cannot even explain how much!!!) & thank you for taking the time to read my walls of tags :))) <3

the way my nitw obsessed teen self obsessively edited nitw wiki pages to the point that u can see I'm one of the top contributors for several pages even still to this day

Find yourself an adult older than you who asks respectful questions about your identity from the perspective of legitimately wanting to learn more about you and who you are

(And who also tells you, every time, that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to)

Cale makar is one of the most generic white men ive ever seen but he’s so generic in every way it’s charming