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satisfy, sauce, save, saving, say, scale, scandal, scare, scatter, scenario, scene, schedule, scheme, scholar, scholarship, school, science, scientific, scientist, scope, score, scream, screen, script, sea, search, season, seat, second, secondary, secret, secretary, section, sector, secure, security, see, seed, seek, seem, segment, seize, select, selection, self, sell, Senate, senator, send, senior, sense, sensitive, sentence, separate, sequence, series, serious, seriously, servant, serve, service, session, set, setting, settle, settlement, seven, several, severe, sex, sexual, shade, shadow, shake, shall, shallow, shape, share, sharp, she, sheet, shelf, shell, shelter, shift, shine, ship, shirt, shock, shoe, shoot, shooting, shop, shopping, short, shortly, shot, should, shoulder, shout, show, shower, shrug, shut, shy, sibling, sick, side, sigh, sight, sign, signal, significant, significantly, silence, silent, silver, similar, similarly, simple, simply, sin, since, sing, singer, single, sink, sir, sister, sit, site, situation, six, size, ski, skill, skin, skirt, sky, slave, sleep, slice, slide, slight, slightly, slip, slow, slowly, small, smart, smell, smile, smoke, smooth, snap, snow, so, so-called, soccer, social, society, soft, software, soil, solar, soldier, sole, solid, solution, solve, some, somebody, somehow, someone, something, sometimes, somewhat, somewhere, son, song, soon, sophisticated, sorry, sort, soul, sound, soup, source, south, southern, Soviet, space, Spanish, speak, speaker, special, specialist, species, specific, specifically, specify, speech, speed, spend, spending, spin, spirit, spiritual, split, spoil, sponsor, sport, spot, spray, spread, spring, square, squeeze, stability, stable, staff, stage, stain, stair, stake, stand, standard, standing, star, stare, start, state, statement, station, statistical, status, stay, steady, steal, steel, steep, stem, step, stick, still, stimulate, stimulus, stir, stock, stomach, stone, stop, storage, store, storm, story, straight, strange, stranger, strategic, strategy, stream, street, strength, strengthen, stress, stretch, strike, string, strip, stroke, strong, strongly, structural, structure, struggle, student, studio, study, stuff, stupid, style, subject, submit, subsequent, substance, substantial, substitute, succeed, success, successful, successfully, such, sudden, suddenly, sue, suffer, sufficient, sugar, suggest, suggestion, suicide, suit, summer, summit, sun, super, supply, support, supporter, suppose, supposed, Supreme, sure, surely, surface, surgery, surprise, surprised, surprising, surprisingly, surround, survey, survival, survive, survivor, suspect, sustain, swear, sweep, sweet, swim, swing, switch, symbol, symptom, system, table, tactic, tail, take, tale, talent, talk, tall, tank, tap, tape, target, task, taste, tax, taxi, tea, teach, teacher, teaching, team, tear, technical, technique, technology, teen, teenager, telephone, telescope, television, tell, temperature, temporary, ten, tend, tendency, tennis, tension, tent, term, terms, terrible, territory, terror, terrorist, test, testimony, testing, text, than, thank, thanks, that, the, theater, their, them, theme, themselves, then, theory, therapy, there, therefore, these, they, thick, thin, thing, think, thinking, third, thirty, this, those, though, thought, thousand, threat, threaten, three, throat, through, throughout, throw, thus, ticket, tie, tight, time, tiny, tip, tire, tissue, title, to, tobacco, today, toe, together, toilet, token, tolerate, tomato, tomorrow, tone, tongue, tonight, too, tool, tooth, top, topic, toss, total, totally, touch, tough, tour, tourist, tournament, toward, towards, tower, town, toy, trace, track, trade, tradition, traditional, traffic, tragedy, trail, train, training, transfer, transform, transformation, transition, translate, translation, transmission, transmit, transport, transportation, travel, treat, treatment, treaty, tree, tremendous, trend, trial, tribe, trick, trip, troop, trouble, truck, true, truly, trust, truth, try, tube, tunnel, turn, TV, twelve, twenty, twice, twin, two, type, typical, typically, ugly, ultimate, ultimately, unable, uncle, undergo, understand, understanding, unfortunately, uniform, union, unique, unit, United, universal, universe, university, unknown, unless, unlike, until, unusual, up, upon, upper, urban, urge, us, use, used, useful, user, usual, usually, utility, utilize, vacation, valley, valuable, value, variable, variation, variety, various, vary, vast, vegetable, vehicle, venture, version, versus, very, vessel, veteran, via, victim, victory, video, view, viewer, village, violate, violation, violence, violent, virtually, virtue, virus, visibility, visible, vision, visit, visitor, visual, vital, voice, volume, voluntary, volunteer, vote, voter, voting, wage, wait, wake, walk, wall, wander, want, war, warm, warn, warning, wash, waste, watch, water, wave, way, we, weak, weakness, wealth, wealthy, weapon, wear, weather, web, website, wedding, week, weekend, weekly, weigh, weight, welcome, welfare, well, west, western, wet, what, whatever, wheel, when, whenever, where, whereas, whether, which, while, whisper, white, who, whole, whom, whose, why, wide, widely, widespread, wife, wild, wildlife, will, willing, win, wind, window, wine, wing, winner, winter, wipe, wire, wisdom, wise, wish, with, withdraw, within, without, witness, woman, wonder, wonderful, wood, wooden, word, work, worker, working, workout, workplace, works, workshop, world, worried, worry, worth, would, wound, wrap, write, writer, writing, wrong, yard, yeah, year, yell, yellow, yes, yesterday, yet, yield, you, young, your, yours, yourself, youth, zone.

🫖 Welcome back to the Asylum write-up. This is where you live now. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
In this installment, we finally take a closer look at how Emilie Autumn's hyper-loyal fanbase gradually started losing faith in her as, among other things, it became more and more apparent that she... wasn't exactly a reliable narrator – in her semi-autobiographical book, or in general.

HOW IT STARTED: A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Willow, weep for me Don't think I don't see This life I'm living in two But still it's something I must do I'm not unique in this Nor am I special, sweet, or kind I court a thousand smiles Yet I keep my own to hide behind (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

I've previously referred to EA as an “expert vagueposter”, and this is relevant here.
For an artist who built her brand on a pledge of raw, rats-and-all honesty, EA has always been quite guarded about the specifics of her personal life. (Until her current partner, for instance, she always danced around calling anyone a boyfriend, even when the nature of the relationship was pretty obvious.) Her whole angle is telling “the truth”, but through whimsical fantasy. As early as the fairy-themed Enchant era, she had her own world, her own vernacular; she spoke in metaphors, in-jokes, and quirky anachronisms. Taxis were carriages, her electric keyboard was a harpsichord, she always capitalized Time and Art like Shakespeare does. On the Asylum forum, automatic word filters would change “fan” to “muffin”, “fairy” to “faerie”, “bra” to “teacup holder”, and “responsibility” to “ratsponsibility”.
She's a chatterbox who loves to share memories and funny anecdotes, but she usually keeps them short and sweet, Snapple-facts style. 📝 She's great at painting by touches in her storytelling, revealing just enough to let your imagination auto-complete the rest. 🔍 Even the most banal tidbits are very artfully told, very “on brand”, often dense with symbolism and foreshadowing – but also very abstracted.
She is especially elusive when it comes to her background and formative years. See the way she catches herself in this interview 📺📝 while describing her “favorite scar”, which is from an eel bite: “My – well, someone I knew... [gasp-laugh] had it as a pet, and...” (She was about to say “my sister”.)
In short, the way EA talks about her life is often very personal, but not all that candid – and sounds more like it's meant to provide a curated, coherent backstory for Emilie Autumn the character, rather than Emilie Autumn the person.

I'll tell the truth, all my songs Are pretty much the fucking same I'm not a fairy but I need More than this life, so I became This creature representing more to you Than just another girl... (“Swallow”, 2006 🎵)

In the beginning, this guardedness naturally contributed to the mystique. It made it all the more special when, once in a while, she would briefly drop the theatrics to share something earnest and relatively unfiltered. Like this composed, but vulnerable post from 2004 📝 about her father losing his battle to cancer, and her attempts at closure over their tense relationship. Or this 2012 anti-bullying campaign thing 📺 in which she opens up about being a target of intense physical bullying in elementary school, to a point that contributed to her being homeschooled at 9.
Fans in the early years were curious about her backstory, of course – but not too prodding or invasive, to my knowledge. I think there was an understanding that EA, like many performers, wanted to come across as human and approachable, while still cultivating an “aura” and retaining some privacy. But obviously, when she announced that she was writing a Tell-All Memoir in 2007, everyone was dying to read it. TEA TIME!

HOW IT'S GOING: A WOMAN OF... MALARKEY???

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! (“Liar”, 2006 🎵)

As we've learned, the original 2009 release of EA's book was highly anticipated, but somewhat tainted by a bunch of shipping delays and unfulfilled promises. From the start of her career, EA had always cultivated a close parasocial involvement with her audience; many fans had as deep an attachment to her, personally, as they did to her art. So, for instance, when EA tweeted about all the personal dedications she was lovingly writing in overdue books, only for the books to arrive many months later and unsigned with no tangible explanation, it wasn't simply frustrating: it was betrayal amongst kin!
Really, it wasn't so much about fans not getting what they paid for – it was about the lack of clear communication or genuine accountability. This is pure speculation on my part, but the poppycock that EA tweeted about signing the books strikes me as the panic-lie of someone who hadn't realized just how many heartfelt, personalized dedications she would actually have to write when she came home from tour. And then she just couldn't do it, because she was overworked, paralyzed, distracted, depressed, procrastinating, whatever. Which... you know... is unfortunate, but probably not unforgivable. Especially for a touring performer who is open and vocal about their mental health issues.
I'm confident that most fans would have been happy to tell her that her well-being meant more to them than an autograph, or something along those lines. Instead, EA's cagey and avoidant demeanor around this issue left fans very salty – and newly suspicious of their favorite artist's word.
Which was regrettable timing for EA, because they had just received their copies of her memoir.
Here's a cursory look at some key biographical points that didn't hold up to scrutiny when more and more vexed fans, over the years, started looking into them.
Content warning until end of post: family estrangement, death by fire, worsening physical health issues, mention of disordered eating / weight loss / thinspiration, and LIES! LIES! LIIIIIES!

“EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL (BORN SEPTEMBER 22, 1979) IS AN AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER...” (Wikipedia)

Every fandom has its Holy Grail. Because a number of EA's early releases were limited pressings put out through now-defunct record labels, the EA fandom in its heyday was a collector's wonderland. 📝🦠 At the height of her popularity, the original Enchant jewelcase (the one with the puzzle-poster) could easily fetch around $500 dollars on eBay, unsigned. The handwritten lyrics of an Opheliac B-side went for $940 in 2009. Don't even ask me about the hard copies of her two poetry books: those never even popped up over the five or six years that I had various alerts set up for all EA-related listings.
But the true crown jewel of EA rarities is the untitled promo version of her (also virtually unfindable) 2001 instrumental debut On a Day... No one knows how many copies exist. The darn thing is so rare that it's not even listed on Discogs. For a while, the only picture of the elusive “Violin” promo CD that was circulated online was this one.🪞 Go ahead, click the link. Notice anything odd? That black box where one composer's birth year should be?
I'm not sure why the notorious hyper-fan who originally shared this picture on the forum in the early 2010s took it upon himself to censor it before posting. I wasn't able to pinpoint when or why people started questioning EA's age, but clearly, something had already transpired to let him know that not redacting said birth year might, uh... cause an upset. In any case: at some point, people started digging – and eventually, the unredacted version of the “Violin” tracklist (as well as public records and literal receipts from eBay auctions) would be brandished as one more piece of damning evidence that EA was indeed (gasp!) two years older than she claimed to be.
“Okay, and?” you shrug. “What's the big deal?” I'm shrugging too! What can I say? People don't like realizing they've been fooled, even about something stupid. I will note that EA's fall equinox birthday (hence her middle name “Autumn”, yes) had been somewhat significant in the fandom. Over the years, EA's birthdays had been marked by online release parties, Q&A's, community events, special merch sales... A number of fans liked donning her trademark cheek heart on September 22. It felt a bit uncanny to realize that she had been announcing a false age on those occasions. It wasn't “a big deal” so much as it was incredibly odd.
Other than being appalled that Self-Proclaimed Staunch Feminist EA would give in to the cult of youth and not cop up to her real age, many fans were just plain bewildered: who would commit so stubbornly to such an inconsequential lie? What was even the point of lying by two years only? Why did she think anyone would care that she was 28 rather than 26 when Opheliac came out? What was she possibly getting out of this...??
My completely speculative theory is that, whether it was her idea or her then-manager's, the lie originated as a marketing strategy early on in her career. The “Violin” demo was recorded in 1997, when EA was 19-going-on-20. Per the liner notes of On a Day... 📝, which came out when she was 22, the demo's purpose was to be “a sort of calling card in the classical music industry”. Evidently, that didn't work out; EA claims, in the same paragraph, to have walked out on a classical recording deal at 18 because they wouldn't give her enough creative control.
Talented and unique as she was, she was trying to break out in a notoriously elitist and innovation-resistant milieu – and unlike her, most of the 22-year-old classical violinists she was in competition with had actually graduated from their prestigious music schools. But you know what sells better than an ambitious college dropout in her early twenties? Tweaking the truth just so to market yourself as an unconventional wunderkind, barely out of her teens! Any rendition of a complex, learnèd musical piece sounds more intriguing and impressive if you think it was played by an especially young (and beautiful) person. 20 was plausible, close enough to her real age, barely a lie at all, and such a nice, round number for a debut album.
Notice how much of the On a Day... liner notes, linked above, center on her precociousness, her uniqueness, and her savant-like dedication to her craft – a focus that seems absent from the promo version (from what I can decipher in those potato-quality pictures, anyway). These talking points would provide the basis for a lot of her early self-promotion and budding stage persona in the Enchant years. Even though the EP failed to make EA a household name in the classical world, the wunderkind narrative was her “in” to grab the attention and heart of a broader audience.
And I guess she's been running with it ever since.

“MY ANCESTRY IS POSITIVELY LITTERED WITH LUNATICS AND GIRLS WHO FALL DOWN RABBIT HOLES ... MY NAME IS EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL. YES, THAT LIDDELL.”

Oh, come on. Much as a fan may want to believe, isn't that a little on the nose? The anglophile with an obsession for tea, clocks, and madness... is literally related to Alice in Wonderland? 🔍 Curiouser and curiouser indeed.
EA came out as Emilie Autumn Liddell in The Book – of course – in a passage where she describes an interaction with a nurse. 📝 Note how she stresses the authenticity of her name, and how not-chosen it is (and the Alice connection, which just comes up organically) by disclosing it in a scene where she's filling out paperwork.
I'm pointing this out, because it would be tempting to allow room for creative license (and the slightest cringe) in a work of creative fiction based on personal experience. Buuut... TAFWG was not marketed as fiction. The main narrative in TAFWG, according to EA, is an actual fac-simile of the journals she kept during a harrowing stay at a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. This is something that EA has stressed from the inception of the book (and throughout all subsequents re-issues, even as the main narrative was altered and reworked), even claiming that a legal team had advised her to redact some names to avoid potential lawsuits. So, no, she's not doing a bit there.
When, after it made the rounds a few times, it became apparent that the claim didn't really make sense 📝🔍, reactions were mixed. Some older, diplomatic fans downplayed it as a somewhat embarrassing, but harmless self-mythologizing – similar in nature to her insistence on calling her electric keyboard a “harpsichord”. Devout EA apologists (commonly referred to as “bootlickers” in an increasingly polarized fandom – oh, don't worry, we're getting to that!) invoked the “life as performance art” defense: when she said it was literally her first name, she meant it metaphorically, duh! And either way, she probably had her reasons.
But others took offense at the boldness of the lie, or simply became curious. Was Liddell even her name at all?
If you've checked the link just above, you already know the answer. Per the public California birth log (a somewhat demented invasion of privacy that could well have been avoided by... not repeatedly drawing attention to a name that someone in the book calls “right out of a movie”?) : yes, no, kind of.
EA was born Emily Autumn Fischkopf* on September 22, 1977. The name came from her father, a first-generation immigrant from Germany. Her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Liddell (but no, not that Liddell, or so remotely that it doesn't matter). EA may have had it legally changed at some point in the last decade, but as of 2012, based on the public log of foreign visitors to Brazil (where she toured that year), her passport still bore the name “Emily Autumn Fischkopf”.
*No, EA's birth name is not literally “Fischkopf”. It's a non-silly German name that begins with an F. I know that it's ridiculous to clutch my pearls about EA's peace of mind now, but triggering new and disquieting Google alerts for a name she clearly wants nothing to do with (and that you don't care about) just feels... distasteful? I don't know. That info has been floating around long enough, the point has been made; this write-up is not about EA's last name, but about the fiends we made along the way! So Fischkopf it is.
Let's track the evolution here! It appears that she went by “Autumn Fischkopf” for at least part of her formative years, if we are to believe the credits from Mark Ruffalo's middling film debut 📺 (she was the child actor's violin-playing body double) and this random article about a Nigel Kennedy performance in 1997. 🔍 (That last link – possibly her first ever mention in the press? – is a niche favorite of mine. Violin superstar Nigel Kennedy calls her a “talented fiddler”, which suggests that she did have some cred and promise in the classical milieu at a young age, and that there is at least some truth to her claims of being a wunderkind. It also cracks me up that, out of all the things she's reiterated over the years, “I was born in '79” was a lie, but “I was attacked by a pet eel” was fact-checked by Nigel Kennedy.)
At some point in her late teens, she dropped the Teutonic surname and adopted the French ending of her given name (she made it a “LIE”! how poetic) to form the moniker “Emilie Autumn”. I assume that's also when she started privately going by Emilie / EA for short.
So there you have it. The damning evidence. A performing artist... changed her name. To her grandmother's name. Riveting stuff!
And to think that her fans could have carried on naively believing “Autumn” was her last name, or assuming it was a romantic nom de scène she picked during her Ren Fair phase. Or perhaps, even, not thinking much about her name at all, like normal people.
But nooo, she just had to poke the hornet's nest by making a whole thing out of it.

“MY ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN A FIRE.”

If you've never encountered a method-acting con artist or a person who struggles with pathological lying (I'll let you decide for yourself which of these, if either, applies to EA), you probably believe that you'd spot them a mile away. And in my experience, that's exactly why you wouldn't! Whether it's compulsion or calculated strategy, successful fibbers rely on people's natural social cues (like their assumption of good faith, their confirmation bias, their empathy, their desire for validation, their fear of awkwardness, ...) to subtly direct the flow and tone of the conversation. This allows them to short-circuit potential questioning of their claims.
One such strategy, for instance, I call the “I-will-not-further-speak-about-the-incident maneuver”. Out of the blue, you drop a graphic and incisive one-liner about something horrific that happened to you, in a curt or flippant tone that throws the listener off and usually shuts them up – thus sparing you from having to back up your claim with any convincing specifics. I'm not saying that every person who does this is a liar. Horrific stuff does happen to people, and I'm not here to police how they're supposed to disclose it. I'm just saying that if you wanted to fabricate an obvious Tragic Backstory™ and smuggle it past otherwise rational, discerning and reasonably intelligent people, that would be one way to do it. Full disclosure: it does work better in person than it does over the internet, especially when you've kept a blog.
When EA curtly dropped this bomb on Twitter (in response to an innocuous fan question that mentioned her parents – the receipt has sadly been X'd out of existence), and every subsequent time a new fan found out about her family's tragic demise (“I had no idea!”), the response was typically one of shock and sadness – and, in a few heartbreaking cases, commiseration from other survivors of family-annihilating events.
Many fans already had a hunch that something was up with her family, of course. She hinted at neglect and possible abuse in her book and lyrics. A number of her fans also came from dysfunctional households, so her not wishing to elaborate on the topic would probably have been a non-issue. But now she's saying they're dead? All of them? In a FIRE?! Holy macaroni! And you know it must have been awful, because EA – the same woman who got a dozen bangers out of a three-month-long toxic relationship, and based over a decade of her work on one bad hospital stay – had never, not once, felt called to share a song or poem about how it might affect a person to... lose all of their entire immediate family to a fire. Hmm. Meanwhile, the handful of older fans who had been following her since Enchant and remembered her dad passing in 2004 gritted their teeth and rolled their eyes. “Do your research. That's all I can say.” (We'll get into the culture of censorship free speech regulation on the Asylum forum in due time.)
Before more and more embittered ex-fans started compiling and circulating the receipts in the early-mid-2010s, investigating the whole “dead family” thing was a lonely journey – a coming-of-age expedition for the critical-minded Plague Rat, trawling through free background check websites and old Wayback Machine archives, until you went “Welp, there it is, I guess” and suddenly felt older, stupider, and a little bit hollow inside.
Although I don't remember how I personally made my way to The Truth (lol) back in the day, I still have a vivid memory of the moment I found the Facebook profile of EA's Very Much Non-Deceased Mother. It was mostly posts about her costume design work. A few candid pictures with EA's siblings and their kids. Christmas, birthdays, a wedding. Just... aggressively normal stuff. It was bizarre, looking in on this family of cheerful strangers with familiar cheekbones. Knowing that, somewhere out there, was an estranged eldest daughter, who had run off years ago to become a fiddle-wielding rockstar – and was now passing them off as having all died a gruesome death, while her fans secretly stalked their family photos. (Because I know you'll be asking in the comments: yes, EA's family is aware. Her mother once posted a picture of young EA and her siblings on Pinterest, sarcastically captioned “After most of us were killed in the fire.” 📝)
Again, it's tempting to discount EA's remark as a metaphor for family estrangement, taken too literally by neurodivergent minors who just didn't understand performance art. Well. First of all, even as a metaphor... let's admit, once again, that that 2000s edginess has aged like fine milk. It's a little crass to make a “metaphor” out of a plausible, life-shattering trauma that other people actually have to live with. (Veronica lost a beloved house to a literal fire 🔍 during her tenure as a Crumpet, for instance; no one died, but that alone seemed pretty rough.)
But, more to the point, evidence suggests that EA also told this to real people in her real, off-stage life – such as her Trisol manager, who backed the claim on the official Asylum Forum in 2007. 📝 When questioned about this post on a renegade forum in 2013, he had this to say:

I was the fool in this case. EA made that up of course. It’s just one thing on a long list of things she made up. Let’s agree she’s very creative with facts if she wants people to believe a story. (...) I once had a short chat with [EA's mom] and I got the strong impression she wasn’t dead at the time. Haha.

(OK, dude, but did you or did you not sell fake EA tickets on a scammy website in 2008? Because we never did get the skinny on that.)
Fifteens years on, EA continues to insist, unprompted, that “the fire” destroyed her childhood drawings and baby pictures. 📝 This more recent Instagram post is like a Greatest Hits of her most notorious yarns, to a degree that's either premeditated trolling or a subconscious call for help. She casually, yet pointedly mentions her age in relation to a specific year... and specifically draws attention to the signature, one that she used well into the Enchant era. In doing so, she made me notice, for the first time, that the A blends into an F. As one could expect from an artsy, Renaissance-obsessed teenager, her OG signature was a freaking monogram for Emily Autumn Fischkopf. It's like “The Tell-Tale Heart” for the digital age! AM I THE ONLY ONE SEEING THIS?? 🦠

A BIT O' THIS & THAT: MISCELLANEOUS CLAIMS

Just for fun, here are other sundry “citation needed” facts that EA has claimed over the years. All are originally from the book unless sourced otherwise. Some of them may have been jokes, some of them might even be true! Whatever that word still means!

• She suffered near-fatal leukemia at age 2, but miraculously recovered. Doctors were baffled.
• She has perfect pitch and tone-color synesthesia. 🔍
• She also had a photographic memory before Ativan ruined it. That's how she remembers what the sky looked like on the day she came out of the hospital leukemia-free.
• It is well-known and well-established, among the bipolar community, that bipolar people all over the world will regularly and inexplicably wake up at 4 in the morning. 🎵 On the dot. No one knows why, but they do. Doctors are baffled.
• She can play the violin on horseback!
• The traumatic hospital stay happened before Opheliac until it happened after. 🔍 Doctors are time lords.
• TAFWVG “has been cited in text-books used as part of the psychology curriculum at Oxford University in London.” 📝 I would have intuited Oxford University to be in Oxford, but then again, I didn't go to Oxford.

ELECTRIC VIOLIN: UNPLUGGED

You know how whenever a musician starts behaving obnoxiously, old sages will come down from Mount Wisdom to advise disgruntled fans to “simply ignore [behavior]” and “just focus on the music”? Well, in the Asylum, “just focusing on the music” won't always preserve you from EA's shenanigans. This “claim” is a little different, but I've decided to include it because it is so odd, emblematic, and ultimately tragic. I also count it as “biographical”, because it involves a key tenet of EA's character sheet: the violin.
Being a kickass fiddler is one of EA's trademarks, and has always been central to her narrative; as of 2024, “world-class violinist” is still the first claim to fame she lists in the “Story” section of her official website. Which beggars the question: why won't she play it? And why won't she acknowledge that she's not playing it?
We got our hopes up in 2020, with that one post 📝 about her iconic 1885 Gand & Bernardel getting refurbished by a luthier – a thoughtful birthday surprise from her boyfriend – but despite the promising “More to come...” at the end of the caption, that turned out to be a false alarm. In truth, it may well have been over a decade since anyone has witnessed EA draw a single note from her cherished instrument.
The fact that Lord Autumn was able to sneak it out during lockdown without the Lady noticing tends to confirm that she hadn't been playing much behind the scenes. She seems to be under the impression that e-violin manufacturer Zeta is no longer in business (they did close down in 2010 🔍, but reopened under new management in 2012), which suggests that she hasn't been keeping up with the violin scene for a while. Besides, the fingernails don't lie. 🐀
As the live shows veered more theatrical with the release of Opheliac, the extended violin features from the Enchant era were cut to two main appearances per concert: “Face the Wall”, a seven-minute-short, Hendrixesque take on Arcangelo Corelli's “La Folia” – and “Unlaced”, an arpeggio-ed frenzy that was originally paired with a stilt-walking and ballet performance by the Crumpets. These two instrumental tracks remained a fixture on four successive tours. And on four successive tours, “Unlaced” was... well... clearly dubbed. 📺 She was holding her e-violin, her hands were playing the notes, but what was coming out of the speakers was indubitably the studio version.
There were possible explanations, of course. Some sound buffs pointed out that “Unlaced” has multiple violin layers, and that a live violin solo would have sounded harsh and unbalanced over the supporting tracks 🔍 – but then, why pick an unplayable song as a staple of the show?
The violin-miming wasn't even very hush-hush, she didn't try that hard to hide it – it was just never addressed or acknowledged. On “Unlaced”, Veronica was usually summoned to “play” the keyboard – and we knew that was make-believe, they had a whole skit about it. 📺 Ditto when EA would play the intro to a song, then get up from the keyboard as she started singing, and the harpsichord track just kept going. It was part of the theatrics, the suspension of disbelief; live playing just wasn't the focus.
Still, because playing two songs should have been in her wheelhouse, EA's choice to stand on stage and mime along with her own world-class violin skills was puzzling. We knew EA was capable of playing “Unlaced”: “Face the Wall” was proof enough that she could still shred like nobody's business, and some lucky fans got to hear her nerd out about pitch standards and rock some Bach at VIP showcases in 2011 (though it was always the same piece, and reportedly not always on point: “she made beginner mistakes, like weird jaw, wrist, elbow placement and tension...” 🐀). And sure, “Face the Wall” was an intense piece, but... it was one of two in the show. The same two, always. She was supposed to be classically trained...!
As EA's fabrications became more common knowledge among the fanbase, people took increasing issue with this odd staging choice – particularly after “Face the Wall” was retired partway through the 2011 tour, leaving only the pantomime, with nothing else happening on stage to distract from it. 📺 People started fixating on her constant and inexplicable tweaking of the truth. Fake name, fake age, fake promises, and now she was fake-fiddling and making a grand show of it? Was she outright mocking her audience, daring them to call her out? Milking a skill she had grown bored with, in the lowest-effort way possible, knowing that goo-goo-eyed fans would still pay to see it? Playing them the world's saddest song on the world's quietest e-violin?
The release of new album Fight Like a Girl in 2012 did little to soothe the Plague Rats' fiddle blues. The violin was much less prominent on FLAG than it had been on Opheliac and Enchant. There were almost no solos, which provided fewer opportunities for playing or miming on stage. “Unlaced” was retired from the touring setlist. One night in Texas during the 2012 tour, due to being on vocal rest, EA played the melody line of “Liar” on the violin. 📺 And that was pretty much the last time world-class violinist Emilie Autumn was heard playing her instrument, on stage or in recording – to the dismay of many fans who had loved her for it.

Can someone please grab this woman by her hand, lead her across her livingroom/bedroom/study, and point at that lonely forgotten dusty violin in a corner of hers so she remembers that she actually owns it? (🐀)

It was yet another bizarre, glaring inconsistency in EA's narrative that fans seemed expected to ignore. Another elephant in the padded room. (Personal anecdote that I don't have a receipt for: in early 2012, when I asked if there was a possibility of EA playing another baroque set for the VIP events on the upcoming tour, her then-manager responded that that wouldn't be possible because venues didn't have the proper acoustics.)
Through some her posts over the years , attentive fans pieced together the likely truth of EA's effective retirement as a violinist. It's actually quite sad, and may cast a different light on EA's artistic shift.
The 2011 tour was initially scheduled for late 2010. It was postponed because EA had been neglecting a jaw injury for years, and needed emergency surgery to avoid “serious and irreversible damage” to her one violin-holding jaw. 📝 She had the surgery early in September; in late November, she performed all over Latin America for six nights straight, and by January, she was back on tour. The same tour during which she made “beginner's mistakes” on the Bach partita, and retired “Face the Wall” for good after a few shows.
She underwent jaw surgery again in 2018, after three years of orthodontic treatment which she said had “prevented [her] from performing”. It was the first anyone was hearing of this (she said she hadn't been touring because she was writing the musical!), and it's as far as EA ever got in terms of half-addressing the obvious: that after dedicating a third of her time on Earth to her craft, after years of pushing through the pain night after night, rushing through recovery periods, and making compromises so the show could go on... she may not be physically able to play concert-level violin anymore.
Once again, something that should (and would) have elicited empathy and support from most fans turned into a point of frustration, speculation and mockery, for years – because EA continued to favor pretend-play and fantasy over the sobering, unglamorous truth. Well, at least everyone's unhappy.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

Hello. I have been a Dylan fan for many years. However, I have always listened to his discography in a piecemeal fashion - sometimes I'd listen to an album from the 60s, sometimes one from the 80s, etc. This meant that there were quite a few albums I completely neglected, and there were considerable gaps in between the albums I did listen to. This is probably the case for many of you, as Dylan's discography is extremely large. Last year, however, I decided I wanted to change this.
I decided to go through Dylan's catalog chronologically, giving each album multiple attentive listens while trying to fully appreciate it. To avoid burnout, I took breaks between the decades. This also only included the studio albums - I have left the singles, outtakes and live albums for another time. (Though I am already familiar with a fair amount of these, and I love records like Budokan and Hard Rain)
I began this excursion with Dylan's debut album on April 2, 2023. I finished my fifth or sixth listen of Shadow Kingdom the evening of January 28, 2024. I will now briefly summarize my thoughts on each album. For the sake of fairness, I will try not to factor in my personal history with certain albums that may change my view of them emotionally.
(Link to Part 2 at the bottom of this post)
Bob Dylan (Or Dylan '62)
While uneven, this is a strong first showing that can help remind us of Dylan's strengths besides songwriting. In My Time Of Dyin' and House Of The Risin' Sun are A-class covers because of his singing. What he lacks in technical skill he more than makes up for in raw emotional power. Something about the way it's recorded really does make you feel like you're alone with Bob in a tiny room as he belts these numbers out. I won't say it's a great album the whole way through, but its highs are very high. Dylan's promise was shown here, and it shouldn't have been a commercial flop.
The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
For a fair amount of these records, there's not much I can say that hasn't already been said. This is the first of that group. This album, while not "masterful" in the way later entries would be, has an inimitable magic that sucks you in every time you hear it. It is filled with songs of rage, regret and sorrow and yet comes off as totally pure and almost uplifting. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall and Masters Of War shouldn't work... they are droning two* chord ballads performed by a man who can barely sing. And yet, they are as resonant and gripping as any of the best recordings in popular music. Girl From The North Country is astonishingly poignant, and Bob Dylan's Dream is not much less so. I will admit that the record falls off a bit in the second half, with the material on Side 1 being noticeably stronger. Like I said, it has a few rough edges, but no one can deny that this is an LP for the ages. I do not believe it would be controversial to declare this his best acoustic album.
(* I know Hard Rain is more three chords, but you get the point)
The Times They Are A-Changin'
Here we come to my first opinion that may upset the apple cart. I am not terribly impressed with this record. It lacks the scrappy, forthright atmosphere of the first album and the ineffable dynamism of the second. Dylan settles into a groove here, and it's a little bit preachy, a little too direct, and dare I say a little too focused. The title track is a classic, I freely concede, and The Ballad Of Hollis Brown is quietly powerful. The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll is almost perfect both in writing and performance. But the rest of the album leaves me underwhelmed. It is good music, to be sure, and I am not motivated to degrade it, but I am likewise not very motivated to praise it. It is acceptable. It is certainly historically significant, and With God On Our Side almost makes me nostalgic for a time I never lived through. But Dylan is capable of so much more than this, as his previous work showed. I am happy to report that he soon returned to form...
Another Side Of Bob Dylan
While Dylan's restlessness and creative wanderlust can sometimes get away from him, it manifested very positively here. The changes made in regards to the previous album are entirely good. Rather than adhering to a single area of exploration, Dylan saunters around wherever he pleases. He blends humor, social commentary and his trademark surrealism so deftly that none ever feel overbearing or out of place. This is showcased most prominently in Motorpsycho Nightmare, one of his most effortlessly charming songs. However, perhaps more notably, it manifests also in My Back Pages, which is not only one of Dylan's greatest compositions, but also one of the greatest songs of all time. The rest of the album is mostly excellent, with tracks like the beautiful Chimes Of Freedom and characteristically indignant It Ain't Me Babe. It is not without fault, however... To Ramona, while sweet, comes off as cloying, and is one of the few Dylan songs that tries too hard. Ballad In Plain D also deserves a dishonorable mention, with an ending verse so comically dumb that it could pass as a parody of Dylan. Were it not for those two songs, this LP would be better than Freewheelin'. As it stands, though, it is superb, and is well worth every listen.
Bringing It All Back Home
This is even more true here than it was for Freewheelin'... there really isn't much new I can say. This album isn't perfect, but it's probably as close as we'll ever get. Every song is incredible, and Dylan and his band are in top form on every front. Bob Dylan's 115th Dream is my personal favorite of the bunch, but Mr. Tambourine Man gives it some remarkably fierce competition. If you are a Dylan fan, you know how good this record is. I agree with the consensus.
Highway 61 Revisited
The same is true here as it was with the previous album. Highway 61 Revisited is neck-and-neck with Bringing It All Back Home. My instinct is to say that I like Bringing It All Back Home a little more, but I admit that this is a question I will probably vacillate on forever. Every song on Highway 61 is amazing. Desolation Row is worthy of deep study and contemplation. I listen to Like A Rolling Stone every year on my birthday. And you should try listening to Like A Buick 6 while working out. It's got power behind it. Yes, this album is nearly perfect.
Blonde On Blonde
The last entry in the Electric Trilogy deserves a bit more elaboration. Like its two predecessors, this album is extraordinarily good. However, by virtue of it being a double album, Dylan spreads himself a little thinner here than he was previously required to. While there are no bad tracks on this album, songs like Absolutely Sweet Marie and Temporary Like Achilles don't quite reach the consistent glory that every song on the previous two LPs did.
This is a pretty feeble criticism, of course, but I have to voice it to illustrate my point that Blonde On Blonde is just (by a teensy margin) the weakest of the Electric Trilogy. However, if we were to judge them solely based on their production, Blonde On Blonde has an inventive and forward-facing sound that probably trumps the more straight-faced style of the other two records. Much has already been said about that, though, so there isn't really a need for me to get into it. If I were to pick some of the best cuts here, I'd say Stuck Inside A Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again is an amazing triumph of pure songwriting, but One Of Us Must Know is probably the best performance on the album. Dylan really explores new emotional depths with I Want You and Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands... shoot, I could talk about any of these songs all day. Like I said, you can't go wrong with any of them. As much as I love them, though, I will have to maintain that Blonde On Blonde stands on a lower podium than its brothers.
John Wesley Harding
My feelings regarding this album are actually somewhat similar to those regarding The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. I feel as though the first half of this album is nearly perfect, while there is a noticeable decline in quality during the second half. We all know how great All Along The Watchtower is, but the songs surrounding it are actually even better. The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest is descended from the same fanciful and imaginative power as Bob Dylan's 115th Dream, which, as I indicated in my thoughts on Bringing It All Back Home, is very high praise indeed. And furthermore, while I am likely almost entirely alone in this view, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine is a masterpiece in the same vein as My Back Pages - which is to say, it is one of the greatest songs ever written. Dylan's performance, accordingly, is astoundingly moving, and it can very nearly bring me to tears.
I will not be harsh on Side 2, as it is enjoyable and competently made. (I Pity The Poor Immigrant is the best of its six songs) But, at the end of the day, I can't help but feel underwhelmed by it in comparison to Side 1. I suspect that, at some level, Dylan knows which of his songs are the best, and perhaps likes to frontload his LPs with the work he is proudest of. (This suspicion will be reinforced by other albums later)
Overall, I do quite enjoy this record. But the division between the sides casts a pretty large shadow.
Nashville Skyline
At a paltry 26 minutes, I barely consider this to be an album. It's really more of an EP. Sort of a teaser trailer for Self Portrait. Contrary to popular belief, that's not a bad thing. Nevertheless, I can't say this LP makes a big impression on me. It's fine. Pleasant enough! Peggy Day and Country Pie are good fun. I appreciate Dylan's incursions into instrumental music, so I enjoy Nashville Skyline Rag. Conversely, I'm still a little bitter that Lay Lady Lay became a standard and not... well, any number of other Dylan songs. Logically, I understand why it happened, but... well, I'll just say it. It's mid. Sorry.
The Girl From The North Country re-recording was completely unnecessary, which should be needless to say, but I suppose it isn't. I love Johnny Cash, and seeing him collaborate with Dylan is always welcome, but his inclusion adds very little to this particular track. The original recording was immediately definitive anyway - why bother with this only some six years later? I don't know. If there's a story behind this, I haven't heard it.
This album is fine. Very atmospheric for spring days. But I can't say I love it.
Self Portrait
Greil Marcus would have you believe this album is terrible. Robert Christgau would have you believe it more or less isn't worth listening to. It goes to show that you can't trust their opinions, nor the opinions of most music critics. The irony of me saying that in a series of reviews is not lost on me, however, you're presumably reading this because you are interested in my opinion, not because you particularly trust it. I don't expect you to. If you take anything at all from this post, let it be that you should form your own opinions about music and not trust what "authorities" on the matter have to say.
I'm getting off topic, though... anyway...
Yes, this album is far from perfect. In many places, it's downright boring. Considering how wildly different it is from the mid-60s output, it is almost believable that it was conceived as some sort of elaborate joke. However! By my count, nearly half the tracks on here are actually pretty good. Not Electric Trilogy good, but good nonetheless. That means that if this album was properly slimmed down to a single disc, it would be a really solid record. In light of that, I don't see how Self Portrait could honestly be called "terrible." Mediocre? Sure. But it's criminal how much mud has been flung at this thing. Especially considering that it's basically the same kind of music as Nashville Skyline! If you like that album but don't like at least some of this, you might just be schizophrenic.
Days Of '49 is a blissful recording, and an excellent choice of poem by Dylan. His rendition of Early Mornin' Rain is better than Gordon Lightfoot's original. The dual set of Little Sadie covers works way better than it has any right to. You could argue that Let It Be Me is the best usage of his soft crooning voice ever put to tape... and I think we can all agree that Wigwam is an absolute gem.
If you have spurned this album, I urge you to give it another shot. It's much better than they would have you believe.
New Morning
If I had to describe this LP in a single word, it would be "warm." Just thinking about this one puts a smile on my face. The production is clean, the performances are jovial, and, as you might expect, Dylan sounds like he's genuinely having a good time. Everything here clicks so effortlessly. The emotional power is just brilliant.
Day Of The Locusts and Went To See The Gypsy are proud flexings of Dylan's songwriting muscle, last seen on John Wesley Harding. The rest of this record doesn't really aspire to that, but it doesn't have to. It's honey dripping out of a comb. It's walking under the summer sun. It can't be described in words, but it doesn't matter. I love this album. And it sounds like it loves me!
Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid
These songs actually work quite well without even seeing the film they were written for - knowing the real life story behind it might help, though. As I said before, I appreciate Dylan's instrumental pieces, so while this material isn't mind-blowing, it's a nice little cookie to enjoy. Billy 4 (the most substantive iteration of the song) is remarkably affecting, regardless of the context you have for its lyrics. I do wish Dylan had done more soundtrack work, especially if it wouldn't have come at the expense of any of the albums we currently have. Him soundtracking an 80s movie would have completed my life.
The elephant in the room, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, is truly as good as people say it is. Dylan's minimalist writing can be just as masterful as his surrealist work, as this track proves. Bob has a specific weight in his tone here that isn't really replicated anywhere else in the discography. Had this track not been made for a film, it would probably be longer, and though I can't say for certain, I have enough trust in Dylan to say that it would have been a little better.
This is a good record.
Dylan '73
I wish I could wrap my crypt keeper hands around the fat little baby neck of whoever first hated this album and strangle the lights out. This LP is not merely good. It is great.
There's not much point in me ranting about people over-hating again, so I won't. But suffice to say, I love every track here. Is Dylan performing Can't Help Falling In Love unintentionally hilarious? Yes, somewhat. But that doesn't cancel out the fact that it's a genuinely progressive cover that challenges what people think the song can be. We're all so used to the glossy and smooth Elvis version that we've all heard a million times... I won't deny that it's a beautiful recording, but innovation should be welcomed. Dylan's rendition is scrappy, a little dingy, but aching and sincere. It's not Hollywood love. It's messy and personal ordinary love. It says (via subtext) "I'm not a superhero, I'm not a model, and I'm not an action hero. I'm just a regular man, and I'm giving myself to you." It's so beautiful. Why doesn't this get more recognition?!
Lily Of The West is a perfectly measured recording. Dylan's pained choruses on The Ballad Of Ira Hayes sublimely punctuate the narrative. He does so much with so little. And then he goes and does it again on Mr. Bojangles! Him holding out "dance" on the final refrain has no right to be as moving as it is. And Big Yellow Taxi is catchy as hell.
Once again, I urge those who have spurned this album to give it another shot. It's such an inspired collection of covers. In fact, it's his best collection of covers.
Planet Waves
I have noticed this album become something of a cult hit with Dylan fans as of late. That's a bit odd to say, as it implies there is a "cult" within the Dylan fanbase itself, but I guess that does actually happen. In any case, I approve of this new appraisal, as this record is extremely solid. Bob and The Band go together like peanut butter and jelly, and both give stellar performances here. I would particularly like to single out Levon Helm's drumming... I don't know if I can call him the best drummer Dylan ever worked with (Sly Dunbar and Jim Keltner are stiff competition) but he might just be the most distinctive. His laidback groove gives this album a huge part of its identity.
The best track here, as I'm sure many of you would agree, is far and away Something There Is About You. This is our best glimpse into Dylan's childhood. This song immediately transports you to a sunny day in a paddleboat drifting by the wooded shore of Lake Superior... it makes you long for it in the same way Dylan does, as if we're all looking at it through a car window as it slowly falls behind the horizon. It's ethereal, yet grounded; wilting inside, yet content. It hits every mark.
I also quite enjoy Hazel. The theme of this album is concealing deeper feelings under simple facades, and I feel as though this song does this best. The lyrics themselves are nondescript and fairly happy, but the way the track is sung and played hints at a sorrow and yearning far beyond itself. In that way, it is the most subtle of the bunch. Dirge is probably the least subtle, but it's just as great. "I hate myself for loving you..." I always liked that line.
And what about Forever Young? Well... it's OK. I don't hate it. The melody isn't bad. I'm just tepid about it, I guess. I think including it twice was kind of gratuitous. It really pales in comparison to the towering other tracks on this LP, but it's fine. There's a lot less to say about it than you might initially think.
Blood On The Tracks
Contra my reviews of the Electric Trilogy, I will take this opportunity to push back (a little bit) against the consensus. That is, the consensus regarding Blood On The Tracks. I can't deny that it's special. I can't deny that it's phenomenal. I can't deny the importance it has on so many levels. But... the way this album is worshipped has always irked me.
Look, I get it. It's the perfect breakup album. Dylan lets us peer into his heart here in a way he hadn't done before and probably hasn't done since. It strikes a chord. It was a black swan event. This album is unique in so many ways and deserves to be celebrated. But let's be brutally honest. The Electric Trilogy is better. Desire (spoiler alert) is at least comparable, if not also better. Love And Theft is better. I could also see a few other albums being arguably better. Blood On The Tracks is brilliant, and it is indeed a masterpiece. But it would be wrong to praise it to the neglect of his other efforts. It is not Bob's best work. It might not even be in the top five albums.
Now, let me do some damage control. Tangled Up In Blue is a breathtaking song that lets you live another life for some six minutes. Like much of Dylan's finest writing, its substance is worldly, but the things it points to are supernatural. I imagine every scene in blurry and washed out watercolors.
You're A Big Girl Now has such an endearing melody. That vocal flourish in the pre-chorus(?) is top shelf. Then we have Meet Me In The Morning with that buzzing guitar in the distance that I can never get out of my head... such a simple little production trick, but it makes the song a thousand times more memorable. I wish he experimented with stuff like that more often. In addition, once I started really paying attention to Buckets Of Rain, I found that it's absolutely superb. That last verse especially punches me right in the gut. A man who speaks in riddles can really knock you down when he lays it out so plain.
I won't beat around the bush, though. The album's centerpiece - its thesis statement, even - is A Simple Twist Of Fate. As you might expect, it's the best song here. I am tempted to call it one of the best songs ever written, but I can't really decide whether it's the song on the page or the recording itself that I find so impressive... I kind of lean towards the latter. The sound just doesn't seem real. Those opening chords with slight reverb make the world fade away and turn Dylan into the center of existence. You're watching him perform solo in a packed stadium and everyone is dead quiet. The story he tells floods your senses. Everyone has felt this feeling he is conveying, and no one has ever really conveyed it quite like this. The memory is right in front of you, and you feel like you could clutch it to your chest. But what happened is already locked in the past, and will be forever, and you are doomed to always be a spectator looking back to the day you wish you could have done something just a little differently, or said something that was truly important... that day is now part of the imaginary summer we all swear we lived through. Dylan helps us come to grips with the way we are imprisoned in ourselves.
Like I said, this album is a masterpiece. It hones in on this aspect of the interior life - the loneliness of love - and elucidates it so shockingly well that it seems like Dylan may be the most acquainted with it of any living person. But, at the end of the day, Dylan's other titanic works explore multiple themes each, and I think that counts for just a little more in the long run.
The Basement Tapes
This album suffers from the same issue as Self Portrait. It's just too long. I know the double LP aspect sort of contributes to its "party" atmosphere, but that doesn't excuse half of these songs for being boring. If this was slimmed down to a single record, it would be really excellent. But as it stands, it's a very bloated end product.
As it should be noted, though, what's good here is very good. The Band again bring praiseworthy performances. When a good melody comes along to join the homestyle production, we get unforgettable tracks like Million Dollar Bash and Please, Mrs. Henry. Clothes Line Saga is cut from a different cloth, but is perhaps even more memorable. It is one of Dylan's most mutedly brilliant songs. Then we have Yazoo Street Scandal, which seems to come out of nowhere and leave just as mysteriously. The production is almost mystical. It makes you feel like you're in the middle of a dust storm. I've truly never heard anything else like it.
When this album works, it's really fun. But this tracklist should have been scrutinized more.
Desire
Desire, my beloved. Where to begin? Well, I'm actually over halfway through the character limit, so I'll be brief. But I could go on and on about this album.
This LP is almost perfect. It is nearly at the level of the Electric Trilogy. Every track is amazing and they fit together like puzzle pieces. Dylan with a violinist is so obvious it seems strange it didn't really happen earlier. The performances are A-grade.
I can picture the events of Isis clearer than any other Dylan song. It has carved out a permanent place in my brain. I get cravings to hear Mozambique all the time. It's so fucking good. Black Diamond Bay is one of the best episodes of television ever made, and it might be a great movie, too.
I don't think I'd call Sara the best track on the album, but it continues to grow on me and work its way through my thoughts in a way that the other ones don't. It really does feel like the bookend to that period of his life. It makes me wish they'd stayed together. I don't even know them, man. Maybe they were wrong for each other. I really don't know. But the way he sings "sweet virgin angel, sweet love of my life" drives a knife through my heart. It's so raw. I wish Dylan could have settled down and gave his kids a normal childhood. I'll never get over this. "I can still hear the sound of those Methodist bells..." I feel like this.
I love this album so much. I always will. There's nothing quite like it.
Street Legal
Hm. I'm still troubled by this one. I don't like it nearly as much as I should. This album should be near and dear to me. I love Dylan. I think the instrument of the saxophone improves basically every song it's in. Horns and horn sections are like the secret sauce of music. They make everything better. I love glossy and smooth production guided by pop craftsmanship. Every element of Street Legal is something I absolutely love, so why don't they come together to form something incredible? I think it's basically because of two things...
The first is the lyrics. They aren't really "bad," per se. But they have a darkness to them that is fairly uncharacteristic of Dylan. They are teeming with lust and excess. They crudely conceal misery with vanity. I understand that was probably the point, and that they probably depict accurately Bob's life and mental state at the time... but I feel grimy listening to it. This style of songwriting is a delicate balancing act - you want to show the dizzying highs and pathetic lows of the hedonistic lifestyle, but you don't want the negative emotions engendered in the audience to be focused on you. You want to intuitively guide what the listener thinks, and you really need a good sense of humor about it, too. It can help if you make the listener question whether or not the whole thing is just an act. The master of this style of songwriting is the Pepsi to Dylan's Coke - Leonard Cohen. His contemporary album Death Of A Ladies Man is basically just Street Legal, but better. It's a horn-laden LP with songs containing similar subject matter, but they are written in a far funnier and more self-conscious way. The arrangements on it are also absolutely sublime... I really recommend you listen to it if you haven't.
The second thing that breaks Street Legal for me is the melodies. They're decent. But I'd say they're a little worse than Dylan's standard, and that quality just doesn't cut it for what is supposed to be a "pop-adjacent" album. The second Side is where it really comes apart, I feel. I'm sorry, but I really think Tales Of Yankee Power and Journey Through Dark Heat are just dull. I want to stop listening to this record too long before it actually ends.
I'll finish off with my praises. Changing Of The Guards is fantastic and is the only song that is exempt from all my prior criticisms. I am always willing to listen to this song. It sets the bar so high that the rest of the album seems worse in comparison. Next up... Baby, Stop Crying has really grown on me as of late. It's very open about its pathos in a way the rest of the LP isn't. I'm starting to think it's catchy. And finally, Is Your Love In Vain is elevated by that trumpet. The idea it puts in your head - Dylan demanding some woman to attend to his every need after his messy divorce from Sara - makes me scowl, but the track itself is pleasant.
Overall, I do consider this album a disappointment. I hope someday I may come around to it, though.
Slow Train Coming
This needed to happen. The foreshadowing was there - way back on John Wesley Harding, you'll recall - and Dylan's life wasn't going to progress until he came down this avenue and made this album. It's cathartic in that way, and even empowering. The reigning in of Bob's iconoclasm allows him to breathe and look at the world in a fresh way. Being humbled gave Dylan a chance to move on (especially from Street Legal) in a manner that nothing else would have.
Every song on this album is stellar. I think more highly of it every time I listen. As you'll have noticed by now, I usually don't feel excessively compelled to thank the producers of these records, but I really must hand it to Jerry Wexler. He was an excellent choice on Dylan's part. Wexler made this record like butter melting on a pancake. Harrison Calloway's arrangements are also superb, and are debatably the best in Dylan's whole catalog. I really wish he had done more with these guys.
Gotta Serve Somebody seems like a song that's existed forever. If there's any Dylan song that deserves to be a standard, it's this one. (I'm still mad about Lay Lady Lay) Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking is insanely captivating. I know it's not exactly famous for these, but this really is popular music's greatest homily. That last verse combined with the blaring horns is so badass I have to give it my full attention whenever I hear it. I may actually crash my car someday while listening to it. That's not a bad thing.
OK, now it's time for the best song. Which one is it? Easy. Precious Angel. It is undoubtedly in Bob's top 20 greatest tracks. If that sounds audacious to you, it really shouldn't. Just listen to this song again. George Harrison can eat his heart out; no rockstar ever made a declaration of faith so moving or filled with conviction as this one. Bob keeps one-upping himself over and over within the same song! "Men will beg God to kill them, and they won't be able to die!" OK, that goes hard. What next? "You were telling him about Buddha... you were telling him 'bout Muhammed in one breath... you never mentioned one time the Man who came and died a criminal's death!" If I had been standing next to Bob the first time he sang that, I would have started jumping up and down. "We are covered in blood, girl... you know both our forefathers were slaves..." So not only is he spitting fire with this crazy sermon, but he's courting a Black woman at the same time? This is the most epic fucking scenario ever conceived. I can't accurately convey my tone through text, but if you think I am joking, you can tie yourself to a firework and explode ten thousand feet in the air. This song makes me levitate.
Slow Train Coming is marvelous. End of story.
Saved
Christian Bob comes back with some more goods, but there's a few caveats here. Saved is indeed solid as a rock from tracks one through six, but the last three songs falter and bring down what would otherwise be an excellent LP. As Meat Loaf taught us, two out of three ain't bad, but it does probably make Saved the weakest of the Gospel Trilogy.
I think everybody who's heard this record knows that Pressing On is the best track here, so I won't harp on it too much. It can genuinely make life more bearable on some days. It can give your soul a push when it's chained down by something. It's true gospel music. Those opening chords of What Can I Do For You are so ethereal that I feel like I'm standing in a canyon on Mars in the dead of night. They take you somewhere you have no chance of really understanding. It's a spiritual contact high. And then there's Solid Rock, which makes for a really good cruising song. A lot of the tracks from the Gospel Trilogy are really great for driving, I've found. Queue it up on your next road trip.
Those last three songs, though... hm. I just find those melodies to be uninspired. It's kinda tough to look past that. But I don't hate them or anything.
You got some good eating with this LP. The lion's share of these tracks have made it into my rotation.
Shot Of Love
It hurts me to condense these reviews so heavily. As Donald Fagen said, Dylan is a "culture unto himself" and all of these albums deserve hours of conversation. But this post is getting so long. Anyway...
The Gospel Trilogy finishes strong! Better than Saved, but not quite as serendipitous as Slow Train Coming. Shot Of Love mixes up the formula - what else would we expect from Bob? - with an ironically simpler sound than the previous two LPs. Simple is often charming, and that's exactly the case here. Shot Of Love is down-to-earth in a way Bob wouldn't be again until Under The Red Sky. It's got some of that warmth from New Morning. It's a special confluence of things.
Watered-Down Love has the best groove out of any Dylan song. It's not Levon's brand of groove, of course, but it makes me want to dance. I want to move to this song. It's magnificent and demands repeated listens. Here's a funny thought... I don't really understand my own feelings on this, but I can envision Larry The Cucumber singing Heart Of Mine on VeggieTales. To be clear, I love VeggieTales, and I unironically listen to some of the music from it sometimes, so this isn't a slight at all. Heart Of Mine is relatable, and not in a vapid "social media post" way, but a classic and emotionally resonant way.
Honestly, every song on this album is great except In The Summertime and Trouble. Like most of Bob's forgettable works, they just have boring melodies. Surprisingly, I actually have come around to the Lenny Bruce tribute, even though I think Lenny Bruce himself was terribly unfunny. Bob putting a tribute to Lenny on a Christian rock album is a million times funnier than any joke Lenny himself actually made.
Should I talk about Every Grain Of Sand? I don't really think so. It's just as extraordinary as everybody says it is, so I really have nothing to add other than agreeing with the consensus. It reflects truth and beauty. However! If I may be so bold, I think I may actually argue it isn't the best song on the album. That award, I feel, must go to Property Of Jesus. It's not as poetic, I know. It has none of the subtleties. I am defying conventional wisdom... but I can't help it. This song is pure conviction. And what's more, it's a bona fide headbanger. For most other artists, that wouldn't be that notable, but Zimmerman himself making something you can thrash to just can't be ignored. It's got the same audacity as Precious Angel and Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking. Both of its solos are expertly timed. (Though one of them should have been a sax) It carries you on a wave and makes you want to shout in someone's face. Simply put, it's faith plus works. The margin between it and Every Grain Of Sand isn't big, I admit, but I put Property Of Jesus a little higher.
Thus ends the Gospel Trilogy. As is so often the case, it's much better than most give it credit for. The contemporary reception was a bunch of bunk. It's a phenomenal period of Bob's history. If you dislike it for its messaging, I say this: you're a Dylan fan. Open your mind, my friend.
Infidels
Gah. Another victim of the Side 1 bias. I'll make it plain: Side 1 of this album is immaculate, while Side 2 is just... pretty good. If Side 1 was an EP by itself, I'd rank it next to the Electric Trilogy. But that blasted second half has to bring the score down.
Jokerman can go toe-to-toe with any of the all-time classic tracks from, say, Blonde On Blonde. In fact, it's better than a fair amount of them. Bob starts cutting onions on License To Kill, and it's underpinned by one of his best basslines. I also find its anti-space travel themes to be extremely charming (I do not mean that condescendingly) and I'd probably internalize them if he spoke out on more songs that are this good. Neighborhood Bully is either a poetic declaration of solidarity or one of the greatest troll songs ever written - I don't see why it can't be both, actually. I don't endorse this particular message, but I'll rock out to this track any day.
Side 2, man. Argh. Union Sundown is lovable, and Don't Fall Apart On Me Tonight is a great effort, but nothing here measures up to the glorious highs of the first half. Man Of Peace is decent. I And I is pretty milquetoast, to be honest, and it's not hard to single it out as the weakest on this LP.
You've come to expect this part by now. The top song... Yes, I am head-over-heels for Sweetheart Like You, and I would probably rank it in his top twenty best tracks. In addition, it's easily in my top five personal favorite Dylan songs. The recording is so precise and yet viscerally emotional. It's like surgery. Mark Knopfler's sparse and stripped-down production fits like a glove here, and it makes me feel like I can see the darkness hanging over Bob as he sings. On the other hand, though, I think this song is written so well that it could work just as beautifully in any number of other styles and arrangements. I have always desperately wanted to hear it performed with a horn section. I imagine it punctuating the spaces between Bob's lines. Oh, I should probably add that the lyrics here are elite and (similar to Jokerman) can go toe-to-toe with much of the Electric Trilogy. The angry longing of Sweetheart Like You doesn't exactly make me tear up, but it imprints itself upon me and puts the same emotion in my head. It makes me emotional, in a word.
I will probably still be listening to Side 1 of Infidels when I am 80 years old. I will also probably listen to Side 2, because it's a bit weird to stop listening to an album halfway through. But I will briefly consider it each time.
Empire Burlesque
IT'S AMAZING. IT'S AWESOME. DO NOT LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE.
If someone insulted this album in front of me, I would lunge at them like Foxy in Five Nights At Freddy's 2. Empire Burlesque is undoubtedly my personal favorite Dylan record, although I do not consider it to be the best objectively. It's comparable in quality to Desire, I'd say, but probably is a smidge lower on the chart. Indeed, this LP is essentially the archetype of what Street Legal should have been... It combines multiple things of beauty (Bob Dylan, dated synthesizers, lavish and pop-oriented production) and the end result finds them cohered into the perfectly-chiseled sculpture we all knew they should make.
I'm running out of ways to say "every song here is great," so I won't bother with innovation. Every song here is great. Bob strikes gold everywhere he digs. Tight Connection To My Heart is a killer opener. The lyrics are effortlessly mesmerizing. I'll Remember You is pretty close to a Bob Dylan power ballad, and I am inexpressibly grateful that I live in a world where that is a thing. Man, it really gets me in my feelings, too. And what about When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky? Are any words necessary to convey that that song is as cool as Rambo riding a T-Rex? This album's third act is impeccable! Something's Burning, Baby followed by the masterful Dark Eyes is an absolute knockout blow. There's barely anything to criticize here.
If you don't like this album because of its production (as I think many people do) you should probably think hard and try to remember when the last time you smiled was. Actually, has anyone ever smiled at you?
Yeah, yeah, I get it. That 80s sound is so cheesy! Even though no one can really explain why, it just is! I'll trust you, my friend! And you know what else is cheesy? Birthday parties! Stupid sentimental dreck. What's the logic in celebrating a rotation of a rock around the sun? It's so old and weird! Wretched birthday cakes with pink frosting... how horrifyingly garish! Etc., etc.
Don't be one of those people. Admit that Empire Burlesque is awesome. You'll be much happier for it.
End Of Part 1
This post is now almost too long for Reddit's text limit, so I will continue it in a separate post. Here is the link. If you actually read this far, you deserve a hundred dollar gift card to a really nice restaurant. Thank you for considering my thoughts.
See the end of the next post for my closing remarks.

Hello to everyone, hope you have a great time. Before I get into the subject I want to say some things and I apologize for the whole essay in advance.
I've been here for a while and I didn't expect to stick around, replying to peoples posts and what not. What I want to say is that it's so refreshing seeing people still caring for the show and the characters so many years after it left us. My friends don't watch TB so I never shared my passion for it with anyone other than my bud who sticked around for some episodes while I watched S2 and it found the show compelling and funny but didn't care enough to keep on watching. I recently finished watching it for a third time since 2015 and it still left me with a bittersweet feeling. The last season wasn't the best but that last scene with the camera zooming out from the dinner table at Sookie's house...oh I cried so f much something I didn't back then.
I've also listened to the awesome podcast "Truest Blood" and all the episodes they did; Deborah and Kristin did an outstanding job and their chemistry was unreal both between them and the actors, not to mention that these two women are just a grace by themselves. It's so important that the show left such legacy and I have only fond memories of it.
So, rewatching TB was nothing short of interesting as I noticed things I have never noticed before. Things that directors and writers put there as a way to weave the characters and storytelling. You can't notice them right away but you do later and you get to know how these people really loved it and cared for it, well, at least the first few seasons. Not to mention that as a Greek myself I've noticed that Alan Ball, Charlaine Harris and the writers had an evident passion for our mythology.
Having said all that, what really picked my attention though was a specific scene in the first season that really made me want to watch more so I can find little things, easter eggs and references. As soon as I saw that I connected the dots and it is such an exciting research so far to the point that I went back watching the show again.
The scene is Sookie sticking herself into the oven to clean it while Tara rushes in assuming she tries to unalive herself. This is a clear reference to Sylvia Plath's death in 1963 which popped up the idea in my head that Alan and the director or writers were conscious in their choice of choosing Sylvia as a reference. It may sound far-fetched but here I go.
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A direct reference to the poetess's untimely demise.
ABOUT SYLVIA PLATH
In 1960, 3 years before her demise, Sylvia Plath wrote a very important poem that chronicles the transformation from childhood to adulthood and the fear of being an individual in the grip of a demanding, pressuring world; a transformative exploration of her experience some years earlier recovering from a suicide attempt. Poem is called "Maenad" and is part of "Poem for a birthday", a collection of poems that explore the mythic patterns of alchemical transformation, death, rebirth and transcendence; archetypes that are fulfilled in Plath's late poetry and work as a self-reflection of the poet.
Alan Ball and the writers pulled a somewhat insignificant character from the books, Callisto, and wrote an expanded version of her mythology and genealogy based on Plath's poem "Maenad". Maryann Forrester was based off on Sylvia Plath's poem and Aristophane's "Birds" and below I submit a few of my thoughts as to how this may be true with the poem itself and the references given in the show. Writers didn't explain much on how supernatural creatures in Truebloodverse came to be, especially maenads, and left it ambiguous to say the least but the clues are there.
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FROM HUMAN TO SUPERNATURAL
Here is the analysis of the poem and how it connects as a whole with the character and the show as a whole
Once I was ordinary: Sat by my father's bean tree Eating the fingers of wisdom. The birds made milk. When it thundered I hid under a flat stone.
The poem chronicles a woman's transformation from childhood to adolesence using the mythic figure of maenads, who were Greek handmaidens and followers of Dionysus and referencing nature and Earth motifs to lay out her concepts, much as like Maryann was connected to Earth herself. The person who narrates this in the poem could be any woman, especially one born into the social pressures of America in the 50s but it's all an allegory. As the show suggested through Sophie-Ann's "hand-me-down folklore" Maryann was once a human like vampires were but she went through a transformation at some point, one that's never explained but only suggested since her kin is so obscure and rare that no one really knows how they came to be. The Queen hints at a "wild young girl who's married to a jerk that treats you like property" referencing both the poem and Maryann's origin in an obscure, primitive era before civilization dawned where people hid under rocks and caves when the weather was bad.
The mother of mouths didn't love me. The old man shrank to a doll. O I am too big to go backward: Birdmilk is feathers, The bean leaves are dumb as hands.
Here yet again we see the pattern of the fear of growing older. The wild young girl that grows old and must unflinchingly confront the world and her own kin. She is too big to hide under a flat stone anymore and her parents, once large and primary are now just a shadow of their former selves. The "birdmilk" or "bird's milk" is an obscure ancient Greek proverb suggesting something so rare that doesn't even exist and those few who have it is indicated to have everything any mortal would want. But in the poem's case bird's milk has to do with what childhood represented for the poet. A small era of innocence that proves to be nothing more than a gateway to the horrors of reality.
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AN ALCHEMICAL METAMORPHOSIS: FROM CHILD TO ADOLESCENT
This month is fit for little. The dead ripen in the grapeleaves. A red tongue is among us. Mother, keep out of my barnyard, I am becoming another.
Red tongue is referenced in Witch Burning which was written alongside the other 6 poems of the same collection. The poetess narrates the imminent death of a witch in the burning stake and allegorizes the flames with red tongues aka flametongues. Red was the favorite color of Plath and she used it at least 22 times towards the end of her life. The years of domestic's alluring repose and utopia are now gone and she comes to the realization of death. There is a flame among them, a conflict, discord and general disruption, whether it's a family or social one and she understands that now that she's getting old. She is calls her mother to keep away from her, she is becoming another; an adolescent. But in the context of the poem it sounds like a warning. She becomes someone else, a monster of sorts.
Dog-head, devourer: Feed me the berries of dark. The lids won't shut. Time Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun Its endless glitter.
Well, not quite a dog-head reference but devourer non the less. Maryann wore a bull-helmet to represent the qualities of her God. The helmet had special facial-expression effects produced as Micheal Cuesta claimed. It took life on its own during Maryann's ritual which indicates that Dionysus was pretty much a real thing. The concept of eyelids once again is referenced in another poem Tulips. The eyes will not close now that she has grown older cause she must be aware of the incoming horrors that come with growing older. In the case of Maryann's context she can see clearly all about everything and time means nothing to her anymore cause she is immortal; it is meaningless to think about it.
I must swallow it all.
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Maryann eating the \"berries of dark\" as referenced in the poem.
And strawberries as it seems. What a connoisseur!
She has to accept this new era of transformation. She is now an adolescent and she has to swallow the responsibilities or to overcome them.
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THE OTHERS, MAREBITO AND NUMEN
Lady, who are these others in the moon's vat — Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds? In this light the bloοd is black. Tell me my name
She is questioning humanity and the savagery and weirdness of the world while questioning her own identity in a plea to be given a name as it will quench her horror she is now facing. In the True Blood context "the others" is an important motif in the 2nd season. Not only Dionysus is considered an alien god in real life, but Maryann was a foreigner who came out of nowhere to bring gifts and happiness. In the last episode of the season gossip folk called her an "alien" fugitive; a martian foreigner that came to Bon Temps to manipulate the inhabitants. Drew Marshall, the antagonist from the 1st season was also a character that alludes to the concept of "other" and "foreigner" as he was a serial killer who adopted a new identity and travelled to Bon Temp to stay hidden from the law but no one knew.
A similar concept exists in ancient Japanese myth where supernatural beings known as "marebito" which translates to "rare being". These entities cames from beyond the mountains and distant forests to visit towns and villages and brought gifts of knowledge, wisdom and happiness to the common folk who initiated rituals and festivals to welcome them even building giant pillars for them to land to. Pretty much how Maryann built "Themeattree" to give birth to the corporeal form of her god and how she nurtured Tara and uttered new age guru mantras to her and anyone mortal. Ironically when Maryann unalived Miss Jeanette she literally says:
She had to try every option, you know?
The choice of using the metaphor of the otherworld could be a coincidence but given the hints it could be deliberate.
Numen is another familiar, not far-fetched concept of a term about a divine mind that pervades the minds of men and makes the birds cry in augury. According to British scholar H. J. Rose etymologically, the word means "a nod of the head", referring to a supernatural being making its will or its presence known, more accurately simply a "nod" or "that which is produced by blowing" like a gust of wind, pretty much how Maryann raised flows of wind when she enacted rituals or got angry.
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MARYANN'S MYTHOLOGY
The origins of Maryann were never outright explored. Where was she born, where did she come from or what she did in a backstory like they did with Russell Edgington. But there are hints and telltales which you either hit or miss in various episodes and scenes. Specifically when Sookie met Maryann the first time she started reading into her thoughts and even though she couldn't quite comprehend what she heard what Maryann uttered in her mind is an actual ritual in real-life that dates back to the Mycenaean era that was coincidentally or not got referenced in the show.
"Lo lo Bromios, lo lo Bacchus, lo lo Bacchus. Hekas, o hekas, este bebeloi!” with the second line starting with hekas being a phrase originating from the Eleusinian mysteries; a set of secret religious rites of considerable antiquity in ancient Greece. The phrase translates to "Away, o away be the profanes" and it was the opening line before beginning the ceremony of initiating an aspirant into the mysteries of Bacchus and was uttered by a priestess who had received all the levels of initiation by which had the ability to look into the soul of those who were enlightened. Given Maryann's abilities of channeling energy, feeding off human emotions, intuition and foreseeing future events it'd be safe to assume that she was a mystagogue herself in those rituals. At the episode commentary for Timebomb, director John Dahl calls Maryann "the priestess" which somewhat cements the notion above and gives a small picture as to how the writers envisioned the character and her background.
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BIRD SYMBOLISM AND ARISTOPHANES
Maryann's possessed servants are also showing signs of "otherness", a concept I addressed adove. The zombie-like husks become other people, or more like Maryann's spell supresses their superego and makes the inner desire to run wild so they express their innermost thoughts in the most excessive of ways. When Maryann's possession fully took over and manifested they turned Sookie's house into a bird nest and started cawing aggressively when they noticed her there.
As Sookie said to what happened in Tara's head when she was under maenadic influence:
"Like there was no limit, like anything could happen and it probably will. And you can feel your insides expanding, but there's also this... this emptying out of everything right at the very center of your being, and you don't want that to ever stop. Ever."
Seems Maryann was more than meets the eye and had definitely something to do with birds or became a bird-like god herself. God cause she couldn't die by any means other than convincing herself to die or letting her faith die out. To the way she raised her arms when enacting her Dionysian rituals to the way she fluttered her hands when she took a 17 yo Sam in bed and how she unhinged physically when manifesting her spells, oftentimes in extremely erratic ways when she was enraged. Need I say how she invaded Sookie's home and made it her own? There are bird species who express the exact same behaviour like the cowbird and the indigobird native to North America and South Africa respectively.
The whole Maryann mythology is heavily hinting and familiar to birds and how they are connected to devilish forces in various mythologies around the world. Another relation to birds comes through the way Maryann moved around from place to place. There are many birds of nomadic and migrant species, nomadic are the ones who travel from place to place without regard to season and migrant are the ones making seasonal movements usually to warmer climates. Maryann seemed to be a migrant one given she hated the cold and like hot showers and warm coffee and environments in general. Tara calling Eggs and Maryann nomads is a telltale of the inspiration behind birds. Need I remind you of Maryann calling "Karl, Ka-Ka-Ka-Karl" and how that sounded so weird to Tara? Yes, it's weird cause she is not a human after all but a supernatural enacting bird-like abilities.
The show has also presented and emphasized on a lot of flightless birds throughout Season 1 and Season 2 with the first foreshadowing Maryann's arrival. From owls, ravens, pelicans, chickens and references to ostriches and hens True Blood was full of it even at later seasons.
Aristophane's comedy "Birds" is heavily alluded to the final episode. The story follows Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian who is fed up with the people in the city arguing over laws and living caged lives and persuades the world’s birds to create a new city in the sky, thereby gaining control over all communications between men and gods and is himself eventually miraculously transformed into a bird-like god figure himself, a hoopoe that replaces Zeus as the pre-eminent power in the cosmos. Maryann seemed to be based or on the hoopoe as well, a bird of myth appearing in many tales as messenger of Solomon and a bird of paradise.
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This dress is amazing!
On the first party Maryann threw at her mansion she wears a dress and a hairstyle that has a striking resemblance to the colors and patterns of a hoopoe. The bird's reputation in myth however got lost into oblivion during Christian Middle Ages as people had the superstition and considered it a stenchful and unclean infernal bird that brought bad luck; a despicable eater of garbage who fluttered maddeningly on crosses while emitting a cacophony and a filthy mournful sob. The similarities between the maenad and the hoopoe are a lot.
Ironically, the Christian middle ages are referenced in the Character Perspectives of the BlueRay release where Karl claims that the origin of Maryann's sacrificial dagger dates back to the Byzantine era, specifically around the time of Theodosius' dynasty who banned the pagan rituals of Ancient Greece. The dagger then got traded between various secret groups who practiced ritual sacrifices and at some point in history ended at the hands of Maryann, probably as a gift like many of her possessions. Karl also suggests that the dagger's longevity is attributed to tremendous power and it is said it can cut the veil between worlds.
This paints a whole new picture to the show's continous allusions to religion and blind faith and superstition and the running themes
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THE CONCEPT OF LIFE CYCLE, PROGRESS AND REBIRTH
Maryann was presented as a maenad, an exceptionally rare species in the world of True Blood but there are subtle hints here and there that she may as well went through various alchemical transformations through her lifetime and that other maenads may not had the same affinities and powers Maryann had, pretty much how older vampires gained more power but burnt quicker.
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A little technique she learnt in Ibiza.
The two times Maryann spoke about progression in life was through Karl's character, a mysterious manservant that was attached to Maryann and seemed immune to her maenadic hypnosis due to a "childhood freak accident". She claimed that Karl knows that if he wants to find real fulfillment in life, he needs to learn to be of service, so everything he does for her is really a selfish act. Much later, when she deflected Lafayette's bullet unaliving Karl in the process she claimed that he didn't advance much in this lifetime bringing again into the spotlight the concepts of transformation that Plath written about so much into her poetry and how it correlates with possibly Maryann continuously advancing from a supernatural state and into another acquiring multiple feral powers to her array ending up being a natural force herself.
This was somewhat addressed when Alcide was unalived and how people suggested Bill to turn him which Sookie declined remembering how this negatively affected Tara. But the case with Alcide is different cause he was already a supernatural being and somehow they still suggested that he could turn into a vampire nonetheless shining a new light on how supernaturals came to be. This brings me back to Maryann and how she owned a vast array of different powers. Limited shape-shifting powers, summoning natural elements, harnessing psionic powers and owning advanced intuition of things that haven't happened yet.
These, were possibly acquired through multiple alchemical transformations and changes to achieve god-like status the older they got and that's why Maryann spoke so fondly of advancing and fullfilment in one's lifetime. In the light of Alcide's suggested transformation to a vampire even though he was a werewolf we can speculate that other species can undergo the same "metamorphosis" or "rebirth" much like how we humans change and become...another in the same lifetime. In the context of True Blood, Maryann possibly was a shape-shifter herself, a were-bird, a hoopoe as I mentioned above that acquired maenadic powers and becoming immortal made her partially lose the shifting capabilities. During the epochs she acquired more and more powers until her untimely demise.
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GODDESS OF EARTH, LIFE AND DEATH
People who met Maryann called her various names that allude to real-life goddesses and important concepts such as healing, time, creation, transformation and nature. Daphne claimed that people called Maryann Kali, Isis, Lilith, Gaia. That's not an overstatement; Karl's character reveals that Maryann has travelled the whole world and has mastered the culinary arts. As a result it's possible that a lot of people like Karl have met Maryann and were fascinated with her powers or even worshipped her as a goddess.
Maryann's black blοοd that's referenced from Sylvia Plath could be an indication of obscure antiquity or hint at the geneaology of maenads as species that transcended death and became god-like. Bill got poisoned as if he would vomit when trying to eat a human food, like a vegetable soup for example. It seems that in the Truebloodverse maenads turned into literal natural forces themselves. When Maryann attacked Sookie in the final episode, Micheal Cuesta commented that the scene where Maryann plunges her hands into the soil to transform is in reverse to make it look like the Earth itself is attracted to her.
Earth is literally coming into her service.
The wind is also another element that Maryann partially had the power to manifest especially when she was enraged. That was showcased full-force when she literally brought strong winds into Merlotte's demanding the folk her sacrifice which was Sam. And lastly and most evidently Maryann, when she got unalived she immediatelly turned into an earthy husk that once got its heart destroyed it popped vein-like roots all over her skin that later bloomed flowers out of her body. A beautiful allusion to the earthly traits that she possessed. Maryann was a breathing, living force and embodied nature herself quite literally.
All natural, feral references in Sylvia Plath's Maenad poem and the rest of her collections before she died; the element of earth, leaves, birds, feathers, devouring things, fingers, black blood, witchcraft. The madness that comes when someone grows older and the struggle to get out of the social cage embracing our wild selves. This is all what Plath's work was the last few years of her life, a path to self-realization and the need to be someone else other than what her biology demanded.
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REJECTION OF MODERNITY, EMBRACING THE WILD SELF
In 1949 Sylvia writes:
"I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day. Spare me the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free…I want, I think, to be omniscient…I think I would like to call myself ‘The girl who wanted to be God.’
This is what Maryann is made of and what she is. A wild young girl who became God. It's Sylvia Plath's beliefs, yearnings, poetry and essence transformed into television material through the outstanding performance of Michelle Forbes who really felt Maryann into her skin. It's what any modern woman, even man, thinks and reflects to from time to time in this modern age and what Maryann rants about in the scene with Tara and Eggs where she passively-aggressively replies to a distraught and bruised Tara:
Same Maryann, same!
And this correlates well with the real-life maenads from my country's mythology. There are indications that maenads were not just myth; wild women unconstricted from the rules of society but well-respected citizen women who were socially sanctioned to perform the important rites of Dionysos and bring frenetic behaviour to the citizens, more like, a way to celebrate out of the domestic oppressive space. Maenadic behaviour and maenad mythology warned about the dangers of over-domestication and it is a timeless concept as we see today with so many issues going on. It's the “undoing” of the ritual of marriage and the negation of the role as a wife who abandons her domestic space.
It's not a coincidence that Plath chose this title to her poem and not a coincidence thereof that Alan Ball probably, loosely based Maryann on that one adding Greek Aristophanian comedy into play. Having said all of these, I don't quite agree with the actions of the character and I quite felt bad when she died the third time I watched cause hey, she died so the patriarchal jerks of Bon Temps could live. Maryann ignited a light under Tara's skin as Sookie implied and made her happy, something her mom didn't even remotely did ever.
She brought out hidden talents out of people and made them flourish. She fed, nurtured and took care of others until she sadly didn't. She was earth itself, quite literally as seen when her unalived body lied on the ground full of leaves and blossoms, an entity destructive and peaceful at the same time. Maryann represented chaos and harmony both at once. Cause even when she did good, she did it as means to an end. Maryann is a new age cultist and that's how she evolved throughout the season with the apogee of her grasp to the people of Bon Temps being total and utter disorder of things. She represents the dangers of blind faith and the violence that comes with it all.
And I see this as an antithesis to Godric, one of my favorite characters in the show, who in his advanced age haven't let his humanity fade and died a dignified, peaceful death. He understood that living for so long is insane and while he died he opened his arms embracing the sun which was means to his true death.
Maryann on the other hand, probably much older than any of the characters, has become insane living so long and trying to appease a god when she was god herself, having servants running errands for her and throwing tantrums when she couldn't get what she wanted.
That boundless terrifying freedom didn't flinch her and there was no moral construct at all. She stood for no one other than herself, total abandon, chaos and a god that she probably would never see but still believed he would come and render the world, that as she believed was "fake civilization", into utter disorder. Maryann died with open hands like Godric did, welcoming her god to ravish her so he would come unto her. But Godric died in peace and found his resolution in front of the endless glitter of the sun. Maryann was fooled into it and died distraught, surprised and unceremoniously under the moon's vat; dim road lights with no one to cry or care for her, a stark contrast between the two and yet so similar in nature.
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Time unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun its endless glitter.
In this light the blood is black.
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CONCLUSION
The concept of life and death, rebirth and transformation, the divine and the ordinary is an integral part of what True Blood was and it defined it. The second season is a wonderful critical response to Plath's writing and poetry and was beautifully done. The blending of her poetry, Greek mythology and comedy and Alan's personal vision made a wonderful season. Not only the second one but the first and the third which is my favorite.
This is something I only realized by watching the show years later and that's why I believe that the show was beautiful even in its campiness. They made an outstanding show that somehow lost its identity when they threw the source material out of the window and made a disservice to the books. I personally did this research out of love for the first 4 seasons and in the span of two months. It was actually meant to be a smaller post but some friend of mine encouraged me to make an essay out of it cause he liked my ideas and thought I should share them.
I hope you like it too please don't judge me too harshly. Thinking of posting it somewhere else at some point but I don't trust my English skills at all.
Cheers!

The reason I used to love Germany
Several days (I wrote it on Aug 14th) have gone by and I still care that this comment https://www.reddit.com/polandball/comments/15b8ff7/comment/jtqrb3u/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 (written on July 27) (I want to comment on the original post, but couldn’t) got some downvotes and almost got folded, which does hurt me. I swear to Jesus I'm not a Nazi nor a neo-Nazi, all these songs were released before Nazi Germany's rule period and even Die Gedanken sind frei(Thoughts are Free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Gedanken_sind_frei) was banned by the Nazi authorities, and I wonder if people are thinking of Hitler because of the heil and the seig in Heil dir im Siegerkranz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heil_dir_im_Siegerkranz, but actually the heil was a salute to Emperor Wilhelm II, and of course that doesn't mean I support the restoration of Hohenzollern, I just like Germany in any era especially Brandenburg and Prussia except the Nazi era and the East German era. I must confess that I may not have a single drop of German blood in me, and if my comments come across as Nazi that has nothing to do with any German.
Originally I was not a fan of Germany and thought the country was militaristic and evil. Imagine that I am a woman born in 2000 in an distant country, China (and my birthday is October 2nd, which is close to German Unification Day, October 3, what a coincidence), I started to get in touch with the Internet in 2008 or 2009, at that time, out of my natural love for the occult, I searched for some of the religions and myths of various countries, and then I only cared about the history and the entertainment industry of the range of my continent, for the Europe I do not know much, except for Christianity, Michelangelo, Die Lore-Ley https://www.reddit.com/Poetry/comments/16nlxgj/poem_die_loreley_the_loreley_by_heinrich_heine_t by Heinrich Heine, English songs, foreign literary and artistic works and scientists which mentioned in textbooks and my encyclopedia, etc.
And as for Germany, I was even more aware only at best of Arminius, Heine, and a poem by Coleridge called Cologne Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe, and to make matters even worse, Alphonse Daudet‘s Last Class https://xpressenglish.com/last-class/ appeared in our middle high school literature textbook, which gave me a very bad impression of Germany, It's obviously that the article's appearance was selected for literature textbooks with a political purpose，designing to stir up patriotism, but if we follow this logic of the Education Bureau, what about the land that them once lost to other countries? Other than that, our history textbooks mentioned Heinrich IV's walk to Canossa, German Peasants War,The Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther, Silesian weavers' uprising of 1844, the bad things Nazis have done, the Potsdam Declaration, the founding of the German II Reich and so on, and beyond that, I had no additional, let alone motivated knowledge of Germany.
Then in the summer after high school ended in 2017, I started to pay more attention to some Western things, actually European and American movies and other things in the entertainment world, and at that time it was the first time that I watched two things related to World War II - Hacksaw Ridge and a Harry Potter Fanfiction using World War II as a parody theme (not AU) named The Peacock Era (There's very sparse mention of Germany in this novel, and I only remember a good-natured soldier named Friedrich, who seems to be a pilot. I don't remember it clearly and I don't want to verify, cause I'm afraid of read this twice.).
After that I had a dream that I was a German woman in WWII and pregnant, and my husband was a German officer who was going to war tomorrow. He took me to the department store to buy some milk and promised that when he came back he would never go to war again (which of course didn't happen). He never returned and his life ended that year forever. I seemed to love him so much that I would have gone after him if I had not been pregnant with the posthumous child who was the continuation of our bloodline. After that I was widowed for life. More than twenty years later, I was sitting at a table , the setting sun shone through the window and lighted the room, and there was a young man with blonde hair standing beside me and that was my son. I called him Friedrich and looked at a picture of my husband while he was young (actually, he was always young and had no chance of aging). The son's name was given in memory of his father.
This dream was really a film-like scenario, maybe one day I will draw this dream in the form of Polandball (Of course, the Nazi ball will be drawn with black-white-red flag and the time background will be faded so as not to be seen as promoting Nazism. Edit: it's a idea on Aug 14th, I no longer have the stupid mind since Aug 22th, for I realized that if I did a comic about this dream,then I'm actually whitewashing and disrespecting the people who lost their lives in the clutches of the Nazis. I feel so ashamed.). Because of this dream (I must emphasize that's because I love myself. To be honest, I dreamed a German soldier (Solid blonde hair, dressed in a sky-green or gray-green, bean green shirt, in fact like what Wilhelm Winter wore in Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter in a scene, his face was not my favorite type of very handsome without a hint of softness, and I was a bit disappointed to find that his features were rather soft, how can I say it, it seemed as if his face was a blend of half very masculine and half very feminine, the feminine part of his face reminded me of Casper von Bülow, an actor in the German TV series Druck, who I didn't like his face anyway. He sits in a grassy meadow in a forest by a mist-strewn watery swamp, looking up at the sky and into the distance, wondering about the future of Germany.) on May 4, 2021, and I almost forget it cause I know it's may during an unspeakable era and maybe it's him who I erased from my mind out of fear of condemnation. I only found out that dream in 2021 because of the electronic notes on my old phone.) I started to learn about Germany, its history, music, philosophy and all its glories, and then I started to love Germany and have viewed it as a habit. I admit that I used to think that I liked Germany whenever it was, but then I realised that the Nazis were very evil and I couldn't love Germany without distinguishing between right and wrong. A few days ago I said that I love Germany more than anything, at this moment in time I just put Jesus and the Archangel Uriel before Germany.
This dream is the reason why I like Germany, and if it didn't really happen to me but someone else telling me about it would also be quite speechless for me, I see it as liking Germany because I think I was German myself (at the time I thought maybe it was a past life or a parallel universe haha). But that's a point that can't be specifically mentioned to strangers, and it's bad enough to say that I dreamt I was a German woman during WWII and had a husband who was a Nazi officer, and even if removing the man, just saying that it was a woman who was born in the last century, is probably a bit suspicious as well. I'd have to lie and say I suddenly started learning about Germany and slowly fell in love with it as I was exposed to it, haha. And actually I remember a lot of stuff about the dream, his looks and that he probably went to the Eastern Front, so since then I've hated Russia, which I didn't originally hate at least not that much (I've rather disliked the UK since I was a kid as I felt like it was a coward didn't good at wars but always creating conflicts everywhere). Also in that dream I was maybe from Cologne or Münster, I don't remember, I feel like I was seeing tombstones or something in the dreams. So when I mention the places I like and want to visit the most, I'll mention those two, and the rest are Hamburg and Karlsruhe, Hamburg because of its interesting name, and Karlsruhe because I think it's quite an elegant name in Chinese.
Furthermore, I have to say that whether this so-called husband was in a past life or a past life in some other universe or my brain weaved a dream based on the information it received, Nazism has nothing to do with me. And this so-called widowhood to death behaviour may have something to do with the way the me of the time viewed the idea of relationships, for example the 17 years old me thought that I needed to be widowed to death if my loving husband died, whereas the sometimes radical feminist me thought that I didn't need any man, or even when I wasn't a radical feminist (and now I'm probably a liberal feminist) I felt that when not in love with my husband, I could quickly choose to divorce, so why must I be widowed until I die, and also there are times when I am nearly 100% lesbian and have been a lesbian (Of course, the percentages vary at different times, which does not mean that I am all purely lesbian throughout the 3 years) for perhaps a cumulative 3 years of my nearly 23 years of life so far, my thoughts are very fluid.
I've had a few plans for my English name such as Patricia (the Christian name I wished for because I think pronunciation of this name is beautiful when I was leaning towards Catholicism in 2017-2019, now I haven't figured out which denomination of Christianity I should follow. In fact, I've recently returned to Christianity because I admire Archangel Uriel so much and I'm afraid of going down some not-quite-right path because of it.
And for Catholicism, which for the longest time I've considered to be very corrupting, for example, in ancient times Germany was seen as the cow of the Papacy, in the documentary Die Deutschen there was an episode(Die Deutschen II (05) - Thomas Müntzer und der Krieg der Bauern https://youtu.be/DPuD1gGE5S8?t=1006) in which the peasants were smashing up a church and one person said don't do it because it's consecrated to God and the other personn replied it's done with your money too（16:46—17:09 Müntzers Anhänger verweigern Abagaben an ein katolisches Kloster. Sie stürmen eine Kapelle und plündern sie aus. Mit Gewalt holen sie zurück, was sie als ihr Eigentum betrachten. “Halt, das ist doch Gott geweiht. ” “Ja, und dir im Schweiße deines Angesichts abgepresst.”, which means Müntzer's followers refuse to make contributions to a Catholic monastery. They storm a chapel and loot it. By force they take back what they consider to be their property."Wait, this is dedicated to God. " "Yes, and extorted from you by the sweat of your brow."）.
I deeply appreciate Thomas Müntzer who in my eyes was far greater than Luther in the palace of the princes, but that doesn't mean that I'm an Anabaptist, and it's fair to say that I appreciate a lot of the idealistic socialists, but a society similar to communism is something I am a little worried about, I fear that there may be authoritarianism in it and a stricter censorship of books and newspapers than in Prussia, and I also wonder once in touch with the powers that will they really distribute the wealth equally.
Digressing back to Christianity, I believe that a person is justified not only by faith but also by good works, and I like a few of the saints like Mary Magdalene, the apostle to the apostles, Saint Joseph the Christ's adoptive father and the angels especially Uriel. Saluting the saints again seems to be intolerable in Protestantism, and I prefer the Catholic version of the Bible, so I'll have to learn more about each denomination before I become a believer in any of them), Samantha (the feminine form of Samuel Winchester's name, which I like, but now my favorite SPN characters can be Sam, Samandriel and Adam Milligan), Friederike/Friederike/Friederika (feminine form of Friedrich/Frederick, which means peaceful ruler).
And for me from now on, there will be no more Friedrike, I just want to take names I like and appreciate, like Patricia, Mathilde (a tribute to Mathilde de la Mole in The Red and the Black, (also I like Mathilde's meaning, very sounds like Feminist or at least independent woman, which is a combination of "maht" (meaning might and strength") and "hild" (meaning "battle"), \ she is my favorite woman in literary portrayal, and I am quite fond of Wilde's Salome, I love that she is smart and multi-intelligent, and her father regrets that she is not a man to revitalize their family, and the recent musical Le Rouge et le Noir l'Opéra Rock is my favorite version of it, and my two favorite scenarios are when Mathilde sings Le temps passé avec vous during the musical and when she holds the decapitated head of Julien. I saw in an encyclopedia when I was eight years old that Mathilde held the condemned, decapitated head of Julien as Queen Margot did when she kissed the head of Mathilde's ancestor, Joseph Boniface de La Mole, and laid it to rest. This could be the beginning of a hopelessly fatal-like adore of romance in my life. The romantic part of the story is that Mathilde doesn't love Julien Sorel, she is just acting out her sincerity and romanticism. She puts her love for her great ancestor Joseph Boniface de La Môle in him, and she intends to compose another elegy-like love melody between Queen Margaret Of Valois and Joseph Boniface de La Môle, and if she did love Julien, it would be a vulgar story of a lady of nobility who falls in love with a poor boy to me. ), Uriella/Eurielle or Orielle (Uriel is an Angel with justice, regarded as a master of knowledge and archangel of wisdom and spreads the occult, very cool for me who loves the occult, and I pay homage to him by the name, and Uriel means "God is my light" or "flame of God.")), Valerie (meaning strength), Mary(show my respect to Mary Magdalene), Luise (a salute to Luise von Mecklenburg-Strelitz, admire her as a patriotic queen), Liselotte (I appreciate Elisabeth Charlotte "Liselotte" von der Pfalz. Edit: I have now changed my mind because she believes that the cruel treatment suffered by Sophia Dorothea of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Celle is the result of a morganatic marriage. Nevertheless, the name can still be a good name), Eleonora (I kinda like Maria Eleonora von Brandenburg, for her tempestuous and neurotic love to her husband King Gustav II Adolph, and their marriage was even against the will of her elder brother George William, Elector of Brandenburg," For more than a year Maria Eleonora condemned Christina to a mourning seclusion in rooms draped with black and lit by candles day and night, from which every ray of light was excluded. She made her daughter sleep with her in a bed over which her father's heart was hung in a golden casket. Things were made worse by Maria Eleonora's continual weeping." I love this insane love story except for Eleonora's dismiss and cruelty to her daughter.) and so on.
That's the reason why I called myself Mathilde Urielle Sternbach. I pay tribute to Mathilde and Archangel Urie (paying my attribute to the Archangel Uriel, and Uriel means "God is my light" or "flame of God."). And for Sternbach, at first I just combined "Stern" ( Stern was one of the first German words I knew, and in middle and high school I changed my dad's username to Sternbild, haha) and "Bach" for "Stern" means "star" and "Bach" is a German word that means stream, creek, or brook, and view it as my last name in my mind (Forgive me for behaving in such a way that I feel I am free to think how I am called in my heart, as Anne of Green Gables called herself Cordelia. ), but later I was surprised to find out that the family name actually exists.
PS: I don't know whether Sternbach is a place name or not so that's the reason why I surprised when I googled someone who indeed had that last name out of curiosity. Actually, I'm just combining two sceneries like the Germans of the old days might have done when they were given their surname. (Sorry it's also possible that I misunderstood and didn't know enough because I just checked that Rosenburg for example is a place too).
I was a bit surprised a few months ago when I heard about Mönchengladbach and other ”Bachs“. And it seemed to be that I also have seen places called Neue Neustadt and Alte Neustadt in memes recently and thought that's kind of funny.
Edit: My thoughts were corrected, it's actually place names that are a combination of two sceneries, and then German people's names were taken from the place names.
***Edit:The follwing text in [ ] is copied from my another post https://www.reddit.com/Mathilde_Soliloquy/comments/175upkq/the_love_stories_which_i_love/
[ And I am quite fond of Wilde's Salome, I love these sentences,
”How pale the Princess is! Never have I seen her so pale. She is like the shadow of a white rose in a mirror of silver.”,
”She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind . . . . She is like a silver flower.”,
”He is like a thin ivory statue. He is like an image of silver. I am sure he is chaste as the moon is. He is like a moon-beam, like a shaft of silver.”,
“I am amorous of thy body, Iokanaan! Thy body is white like the lilies of a field that the mower hath never mowed. Thy body is white like the snows that lie on the mountains of Judaea, and come down into the valleys. The roses in the garden of the Queen of Arabia are not so white as thy body. Neither the roses of the garden of the Queen of Arabia, the garden of spices of the Queen of Arabia, nor the feet of the dawn when they light on the leaves, nor the breast of the moon when she lies on the breast of the sea. . . . There is nothing in the world so white as thy body. Suffer me to touch thy body.”,
“It is thy hair that I am enamoured of, Iokanaan. Thy hair is like clusters of grapes, like the clusters of black grapes that hang from the vine-trees of Edom in the land of the Edomites. Thy hair is like the cedars of Lebanon, like the great cedars of Lebanon that give their shade to the lions and to the robbers who would hide them by day. The long black nights, when the moon hides her face, when the stars are afraid, are not so black as thy hair. The silence that dwells in the forest is not so black. There is nothing in the world that is so black as thy hair. . . . Suffer me to touch thy hair.”,
“ It is thy mouth that I desire Iokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory. It is like a pomegranate cut in twain with a knife of ivory. The pomegranate-flowers that blossom in the gardens of Tyre, and are redder than roses, are not so red. The red blasts of trumpets that herald the approach of kings, and make afraid the enemy, are not so red. Thy mouth is redder than the feet of the doves who inhabit the temples and are fed by the priests. It is redder than the feet of him who cometh from a forest where he hath slain a lion, and seen gilded tigers. Thy mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings! . . . It is like the vermilion that the Moabites find in the mines of Moab, the vermilion that the kings take from them. It is like the bow of the King of the Persians, that is painted with vermilion, and is tipped with coral. There is nothing in the world so red as thy mouth. . . . Suffer me to kiss thy mouth.”,
“In that day the sun shall become black like sackcloth of hair, and the moon shall become like blood, and the stars of the heaven shall fall upon the earth like unripe figs that fall from the fig-tree, and the kings of the earth shall be afraid.”,
“It were better to say that stains of blood are as lovely as rose petals.”,
“They will follow thee whithersoever thou goest, and in the midst of them thou wilt be like unto the moon in the midst of a great white cloud. . . . ”.
The best parts of Salome are “Ah! thou wouldst not suffer me to kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. Well! I will kiss it now. I will bite it with my teeth as one bites a ripe fruit. Yes, I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I said it; did I not say it? I said it. Ah! I will kiss it now. . . . But, wherefore dost thou not look at me Iokanaan? Thine eyes that were so terrible, so full of rage and scorn, are shut now. Wherefore are they shut? Open thine eyes! Lift up thine eyelids, Iokanaan! Wherefore dost thou not look at me? Art thou afraid of me, Iokanaan, that thou wilt not look at me? . . . And thy tongue, that was like a red snake darting poison, it moves no more, it speaks no words, Iokanaan, that scarlet viper that spat its venom upon me. It is strange, is it not? How is it that the red viper stirs no longer? . . . Thou wouldst have none of me, Iokanaan. Thou rejectedst me. Thou didst speak evil words against me. Thou didst bear thyself toward me as to a harlot, as to a woman that is a wanton, to me, Salomé, daughter of Herodias, Princess of Judæa! Well, I still live, but thou art dead, and thy head belongs to me. I can do with it what I will. I can throw it to the dogs and to the birds of the air. That which the dogs leave, the birds of the air shall devour. . . . Ah, Iokanaan, thou wert the man that I loved alone among men. All other men were hateful to me. But thou wert beautiful! Thy body was a column of ivory set upon feet of silver. It was a garden full of doves and lilies of silver. It was a tower of silver decked with shields of ivory. There was nothing in the world so white as thy body. There was nothing in the world so black as thy hair. In the whole world there was nothing so red as thy mouth. Thy voice was a censer that scattered strange perfumes, and when I looked on thee I heard a strange music. Ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me, Iokanaan? With the cloak of thine hands, and with the cloak of thy blasphemies thou didst hide thy face. Thou didst put upon thine eyes the covering of him who would see his God. Well, thou hast seen thy God, Iokanaan, but me, me, thou didst never see. If thou hadst seen me thou hadst loved me. I saw thee, and I loved thee. Oh, how I loved thee! I love thee yet, Iokanaan, I love only thee. . . . I am athirst for thy beauty; I am hungry for thy body; and neither wine nor apples can appease my desire. What shall I do now, Iokanaan? Neither the floods nor the great waters can quench my passion. I was a princess, and thou didst scorn me. I was a virgin, and thou didst take my virginity from me. I was chaste, and thou didst fill my veins with fire. . . Ah! ah! wherefore didst thou not look at me? If thou hadst looked at me thou hadst loved me. Well I know that thou wouldst have loved me, and the mystery of love is greater that the mystery of death.” ,
and “Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokanaan, I have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on my lips. Was it the taste of blood ? . . . Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love. . . . They say that love hath a bitter taste. . . . But what matter? what matter? I have kissed thy mouth.”
I love them so much, and I often chant this in my heart “Wherefore didst thou not look at me, Iokanaan?” (or the German version “Warum hast du mich nicht angesehen, Jokanaan?”)
By the way, I must say, I got to know Salome because of a fantastic fanvideo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyuuThuZtVo by a girl, I even made a transcription and post https://www.reddit.com/Mathilde_Soliloquy/comments/17af92m/salome_wherefore_didst_thou_not_look_at_me/ about it. (Let me emphasize, I am not quite a shipping fan of Watson and Sherlock Holmes (the video maker she shipped that). Because my thoughts are relatively fluid. For example, sometimes I may not like a certain couple because of the concept of gender politics such as Duryodhana and Karna, but I need to say, the Pandavas are much more evil and vicious than Dhritarashtra (Duryodhana is the eldest among Dhritarashtra) in Mahabharata. Or I just convert my emotions to other couples.)
As for Maria Eleonora von Brandenburg, I kinda like her, for her tempestuous and neurotic love to her husband King Gustav II Adolph, and their marriage was even against the will of her elder brother George William, Elector of Brandenburg," For more than a year Maria Eleonora condemned Christina to a mourning seclusion in rooms draped with black and lit by candles day and night, from which every ray of light was excluded. She made her daughter sleep with her in a bed over which her father's heart was hung in a golden casket. Things were made worse by Maria Eleonora's continual weeping." I love this insane love story except for Eleonora's dismiss and cruelty to her daughter.
But rencently I’ve learned that she was seriously missunderstood, her cruelty to her daughter and the disharmony between the mother and the daughter may be due to the smear campaign by male historians.]
​
I almost forgot to talk about the German political parties, uhm, it can be said that none of the six or seven main parties is satisfying. When I was a kid I considered myself an anarchist, but when I grew up I felt that anarchy brings disorder. First of all, I'm an anti-drugs advocate, and not only It's not just the anti-drug propaganda in the country, where I grew up, but also I think that drugs are mentally debilitating and is one of the destabilizing factors in society,which is very dangerous and can be regarded as ruin country and people. In this case, only CDU and AFD are anti-drugs among the main parties, but I'm quite speechless about these two parties, I don't have a good opinion of CDU because of the refugee crisis, and I can never forget the trauma that Cologne, a holy Christian city also the first German city I got to know or had an impression has experienced.
As for AFD, so to speak, may be loved by quite a few people in the China where authoritarianism and nationalism are on the rise. A person has posted in forums that she/he has met Alice Weidel in person and said she stated that refugees were welcome to come to Germany as long as they obeyed the law. This party supposedly does not support LGBT people, personally I would support LGBT people if they weren't involved in breaking the law, I think it's outrageous for someone pretends to be transgender to commit rape and then say that it's a same-sex act that doesn't violate the crime of rape. It's well known that Alice Weidel is a lesbian(does she have some stuff with Reichsbürge? I've heard this scandal), and I think it's also possible that the AFD is using this as a way to quell the controversy and reflect their diversity and inclusiveness.
For the past few years polandball's world map section has often featured right-wing activism in the eastern part of Germany and I remember one year there was a Saxonyball shouting"Raus!Raus!" https://www.reddit.com/polandball/comments/7hgur3/official_polandball_world_map_2017/, which, in my opinion, if some Ausländer can be viewed as poisonous do not abide by German law such as who commit rape then should be strictly punished and get out, if they are harmless and do good to German society it can be welcomed. I really do not understand why EU countries that do not accept refugees have to pay for this in euros, in China there is a proverb goes"who develops, who solves; who pollutes, who protects," at least the European citizens do not owe the refugees it, why is there a shameless official （Clements Ladenburger）when his daughter was raped and killed by refugee can still call for non-discrimination against refugees and support the refugee policy?
But all in all, I think that even though the media does directly label the AFD as far right-wing, there are indeed right-wingers within the party such as Höcke, the AFD shouldn't be taken lightly, because it could buy people's hearts and minds with moderates, and then come to power and purge out the dissidents with heavy-handed tactics, and besides, even if it's the poisonous Ausländer I'm talking about that need to raus, the definitions of what's poisonous can be changed at that point like homosexuals, feminists... Take me as an example, the lesbian part can be hidden quite well, who will know I loved (I was once attacked by haters of two very nice girls of theirs back in 2018 because I spoke up for them online, and it was another girl two years older than me who stood up for and protected me from this internet violence, and I loved her for it) a girl if I don't tell anyone? But when talks about feminism, I cannot hide unless I pretend to be not aware of the patriarchal society. As for Die Grünen(The Greens)，I have nothing but bad impression of it for dismantling nuclear power, forcefully pushing veganism, and the expensive new building heating law.
PS: Texting such a long comment is giving me a headache, I need to listen to my favorite song Jeg Vil to relieve myself

Every black home I’ve been in has some sort of shrine to the ages. There’s a table or corner of prime wall real estate that has the rendering of someone we hold dear. In the most traditional homes, where Big Mama the matriarch resides, the space is a snapshot in time with some rendering of Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, or both. In my mother’s home, there are four: A poem given at my grandmother’s funeral entitled When I Must Leave You (hand calligraphy by my mom in 1983.), A corner curio cabinet with Poet laureate, author Maya Angelou from her figurine collection, the light we carry a photo of our forever first couple, Barack and Michelle Obama (Kwaku Alston, 2007©), and her 75th Covid-19 Birthday Bouquet of unique flowers selected by each individual family member or friend. The femininity and feminism in this loving display are transcendent.
My mind was a whirlwind as I noticed that The Light We Carry (Obama, M., 2022) is a perfect case study in The Top Shelf Wife as a guide. In the following paragraphs, you’ll see what I mean!
Within the pages is woven the tapestry of support and nurturing from Mother Robinson towards her cubs in childhood through the concrete sidewalks of Chicago, IL, into the people they were Becoming (2021). We got to feel glued to each syllable and story as Michelle and the young Barack ran through their dating paces. We turn over each stone as the light we carry she observes and imagines how their pieces fit together. We feel the consistency of his purpose in service to others. We listen to each thought and practice vetting a future president as a husband and father.
As a reader, I enjoyed with a smirk every twist and turn of the downhome romance. As a writer, I felt venerated in seeing the themes and nuances of both titles collide. So much so that, I included a synopsis of my findings in The Top Shelf Wife, Chapter 12: What Type is the Best Man to Enjoy the Value of My Gifts? The story of a top shelf wife is in their story; ideas of scalability, hypergamy, male involvement, and reciprocity are all present and accounted for. They wave, hand held high to be called upon. Chapters 6: Partnering Well and 7: Meet My Mom is relationship gold.
Don’t turn to TMZ, Instagram accounts, or The View. if you wonder how they did it. Although they’re all excellent content, our first family began with a large helping of: mothers who were nurturing and supportive, the understanding that it’s all practice, and hours of observation. Yes, even Barack was practicing until he wasn’t. The light we carry felt the rich texture of every page. Focus on the Family, a Christian based organization founded by James Dodson that has been sharing their views regarding family and Christ since 1977, posted an article, Defining the Four Pillars of Nurturing Children that candidly admits, “Nurturing is a complex process that is hard to describe. But with your inborn nature to nurture, your awareness of each of these four pillars, and God to guide you, you can use your gifts to nurture your children well. A nurturing mom provides thorough care that goes deeper than just meeting a child’s physical needs. Defining nurturing in all of its aspects can help parents provide nurturing care that will help their child’s growth and development.” Healthy nurturing by sustained parental relationships makes for a neat and tidy package. However, we are not all wrapped in a neat and tidy package.
Combining as a couple is most effective if a woman is comfortable in the markers of nurturing and support of the soul, spouse, family, a family’s plan, and the networks that a couple builds. The light we carry Typically, the environment starts with the couple’s family (ex., Mom and Pop Obama and Mr. & Mrs. Robinson). As the pyramid shows (Figure 2), foundationally, one nurtures herself. That love and light then can permeate and grow through the expansion of self into other relationships.
Combining as a partnership is most comfortable if the Essence of the Family remains intact, is intentionally learned through reading (The Top Shelf Wife, bing the light we carry among other books), and is passed generationally as loving intention and wise counsel. The curio cabinet corner, although sometimes dusty, is a beautiful honor of love in light in our lives. Each parcel (the ode to grandmother, Lady Angelou, the Obamas, and the Warren Family bouquet) is unique and placed with care as a reminder of The Light we Carry and as The Top Shelf Wife Book on Amazon
​

September 29
Climate Cocoon: A Live Journalism Show
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/climate-cocoon-a-live-journalism-show-tickets-725481844727
Practice English w/Woodgreen
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/woodgreen-woodgreen-english-conversation-circles-online-via-microsoft-teams-next-one-sept-25-2487256/
The Overwatch League 2023 Grand Finals presented by Toronto Defiant @ Mattamy
https://www.mattamyathleticcentre.ca/events/detail/the-overwatch-league-2023-grand-finals-presented-by-toronto-defiant
Fall Home Show @ Enercare Centre
https://torontohomeshows.com/sl/
TORONTO COIN EXPO - Canada's Coin Show & Auction
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/toronto-coin-expo-canadas-coin-show-auction-september-29-30-2023-tickets-705030163197
Play pool in the Annex! [Social] [Beginners Welcome]
https://www.meetup.com/torontobilliardsclub/events/295566828/
Play Jackbox w/Meetup
https://www.meetup.com/eventsonline/events/296166629/
Soccerplex Drop In (New Time!!!!! Friday Nights) 8PM-10PM
https://www.meetup.com/toronto-soccer-meetup/events/296007165/
ULTIMATE FRISBEE All Genders Welcome! No Experience Necessary!
https://www.meetup.com/mracx-multisport/events/296274084/
The BIG Moonrise [ III ] Meditation + Dance for Mental Health
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-big-moonrise-iii-meditation-dance-for-mental-health-tor-tickets-709533452657
Jays vs Rays @ SkyDome.
https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/schedule/2023-09
Horse racing @ Woodbine. Free parking and admission
https://woodbine.com/
Men's Basketball Exhibition Game Humber vs TMU @ Mattamy
Casino bus to Niagara Falls
https://safewaytours.net/en/casino-tours/
Casino bus to Casino Rama
https://www.casinorama.com/vip-coach/
MOCA. Free admission after 5PM
https://moca.ca/visit/
Bad Education. Free screening @ Innis Town Hall
https://twitter.com/CINSSU/status/1702413471848050726
84 Charing Cross Road. Free screening @ Lillian H Smith Library
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/september-fall-movies-tickets-708736368557
The Sun At Midnight. Free screening @ BlooGladstone Library
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/movie-nights-at-bloorgladstone-tickets-707498937367
The Tourist. Free screening
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-tourist-by-gary-zhexi-zhang-screening-conversation-with-zach-jama-tickets-719931363087
There Will Be Blood. Online watch party
https://www.meetup.com/historydiscussion/events/296006258/
Toronto Dingos AFL Grand Final Party
https://www.reddit.com/Torontoevents/comments/16t5ndf/toronto_dingos_afl_grand_final_party/
Kensington Market Jazz Festival
https://www.kensingtonjazz.com/
Christian French @ Velvet Underground
http://thevelvet.ca/events/
Mexican Independence @ Rebel
https://rebeltoronto.com/events/
Vancestock @ TD Music Hall
https://tdmusichall.mhrth.com/
Dax @ Danforth Music Hall
https://thedanforth.com/
Black Button @ The Baby G
http://thebabyg.com/
Fefe Dobson @ El Mocambo
https://elmocambo.com/events-new/
Lakecia Benjamin and Phoenix @ Meridian Arts Centre
https://tolive.com/Event-Details-Page/reference/Lakecia-Benjamin-2023
Seong-Jin Cho Returns + The Poem of Ecstasy @ Roy Thomson Hall
https://www.tso.ca/concerts-and-events/events/seong-jin-cho-returns-poem-of-ecstasy/
Rough Trade @ The Phoenix
https://thephoenixconcerttheatre.com/
Steven Page with Craig Northey, Kevin Fox, and special guest Tom Wilson
https://www.rcmusic.com/events-and-performances/steven-page
Barcelona Gipsy Balkan Orchestra @ Opera House
https://theoperahousetoronto.com/
Commemorate Truth & Reconciliation: Andrew Balfour, Marie Gaudet, Jimmy Dick, Julian Taylor, Zoey Roy and more
https://www.rcmusic.com/events-and-performances/commemorate-truth-and-reconciliation-(1))
Ryan Driver Sextet @ Tranzac Club
https://www.tranzac.org/events/
Cuban Friday @ Lula Lounge
https://www.lula.ca/calendar
Union Duke @ Horseshoe Tavern
https://www.horseshoetavern.com/events
Bent Neck & The Joints @ Dakota Tavern
https://www.dakotatavern.ca/
Queens & Kings @ Bovine Sex Club
https://www.bovinesexclub.com/
MONSTROSA's Album Release Party - w/ La Clem & Shiv and the Carvers
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/monstrosas-album-release-party-w-la-clem-shiv-and-the-carvers-tickets-703662452337
Official Electric Circus party @ Lavelle. Monica Deol in attendance
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/official-electric-circus-lavelle-retro-90s-party-tickets-708753128687
K Pop party @ Club 693 (formerly Clinton's)
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/k-pop-in-your-area-the-ultimate-k-pop-dance-party-toronto-tickets-705721190077
Saddle Up. Classic country party @ Owls Club
https://www.instagram.com/saddleupto/?hl=en
Legacy Cabaret: Conjuring
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/legacy-cabaret-conjuring-tickets-706056743727
Music Bingo @ Shoeless Joe's, The Esplanade
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/music-bingo-shoeless-joes-the-esplanade-tickets-394518805367
Live band karaoke @ Rec Room
https://www.goodenoughlivekaraoke.com/upcoming-shows.html
Karaoke @ Alice's Place
https://www.instagram.com/alicesplace_554parliament/
Karaoke @ On The Rocks
https://www.myontherocks.com/
Karaoke @ Mimico Pub and Grill
https://www.facebook.com/mimicopubandgrill/
Karaoke Fridays Scruffy Murphy’s Irish Pub Hosted by KJ Sharon
https://www.meetup.com/toronto-karaoke-meetup-group/events/296007779/
Just For Laughs festival. Until Sept 30
https://toronto.hahaha.com/
Six the Musical . On until Dec 17. $39 rush tickets may be available
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/mirvish-toronto-39-rush-tickets-new-mirvish-musical-six-2641388/
Toronto International Festival of Authors. Until Oct 1
https://festivalofauthors.ca/
Free mini golf @ Downsview. Until Oct 15
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tee-up-downsview-art-inspired-mini-golf-in-the-hangar-district-tickets-707974078527
Downtown Toronto Free Tour
https://www.meetup.com/downtowntorontofreetours/events/
Family Feud Canada. Free tapings until Oct 9
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/family-feud-canada-studio-audience-tickets-season-5-2023-tickets-664411481627
Sea Wall by Simon Stephens. Until Oct 8
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/sea-wall-by-simon-stephens-tickets-709340004047
Disney Animation: Immersive Experience Toronto
https://tickets.lighthouseimmersive.com/toronto/?#/
Registration continues for JAM sports leagues
https://toronto.jamsports.com/index.php
Indoor swimming pools
https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/recreation/swimming/
YMCA free 7-day trial pass
https://trythey.ymcagta.org
GoodLife Fitness free 7-day trial pass
https://try.goodlifefitness.com/raptors?utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=MSLE-Partnership&utm_source=Partner
TSA tours. Various dates
https://www.eventbrite.ca/o/toronto-society-of-architects-159299344
Ontario Legislature. Free tours (M-F)
https://www.ola.org/en/visit-learn/tours
MOCA. Free admission after 5PM
https://moca.ca/visit/
Toronto History Museums free admission
https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/history-art-culture/museums/
Self guided Discovery Tours
https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/sidewalk-tours-wayfinding/self-guided-tours/discovery-tours/
Seeing the Invisible An Outdoor Augmented Reality Exhibition. Until Sept 30
https://moca.ca/exhibitions/seeing-the-invisible/
Volunteer w/Bike Brigade
https://www.bikebrigade.ca/
The Funktion Live Band Burlesque
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-funktion-live-band-burlesque-tickets-690348891117
Live comedy night @ Oasis
https://members.oasisaqualounge.com/sessions/new
Chatters night @ M4
https://clubm4.com/events/
Andrew Schulz @ Scotiabank Arena
https://www.scotiabankarena.com/
Ryan Horwood @ Absolute Comedy
https://www.absolutecomedy.ca/toronto
Fred Pellerin @ Paradise Theatre
https://paradiseonbloor.com/calendar
Your Hood's A Joke @ Yuk Yuks
https://www.yukyuks.com/toronto
Friday Nights @ Backroom Comedy Club
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/friday-nights-backroom-comedy-club-torontos-funniest-comedy-show-tickets-694505934947
F*ckin’ Funny Fridays
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/fckin-funny-fridays-tickets-469426817247
$25 tix for new Second City show
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/second-city-toronto-toronto-25-second-city-tickets-new-show-2642203/#p38088594
$1 coffee/$2 latte @ A&W. Until Oct 1
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/a-and-w-1-coffee-back-all-w-locations-so-2-latte-w-brew-bar-near-you-2641283/
50% off Dominos Pizza. Online only. Until Oct 1
https://www.dominos.ca/
$25 Endless AYCE Shrimp @ Red Lobster
https://www.redlobster.ca/menu/specials
Birthday freebies. Denny's , Marble Slab, and more
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/birthday-freebies-version-2017-2022-1719925/
​
September 30
Toronto Zoo. Complimentary Admission Offered to all Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, and Metis) Peoples.
https://www.torontozoo.com/events/ndtr#evt
Fall Home Show @ Enercare Centre
https://torontohomeshows.com/sl/
TORONTO COIN EXPO - Canada's Coin Show & Auction
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/toronto-coin-expo-canadas-coin-show-auction-september-29-30-2023-tickets-705030163197
Kensington Market Jazz Festival
https://www.kensingtonjazz.com/
The Overwatch League 2023 Grand Finals presented by Toronto Defiant @ Mattamy
https://www.mattamyathleticcentre.ca/events/detail/the-overwatch-league-2023-grand-finals-presented-by-toronto-defiant
Horse racing @ Woodbine. Free parking and admission
https://woodbine.com/
TFC VS FC Cincinnati @ BMO Field
https://www.bmofield.com/
Toronto Wolfpack vs Copperheads @ Lamport Stadium
https://www.tixr.com/groups/torontowolfpack/events/toronto-wolfpack-vs-copperheads-74771
Jays vs Rays @ SkyDome.
https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/schedule/2023-09
U of T vs McMaster. Mens football @ Varsity Stadium
https://varsityblues.ca/feature/tickets
$10/$15 unlimited GO Transit.
https://www.gotransit.com/en/travelling-with-us/promotions-and-events/weekend-passes-with-go
Casino bus to Niagara Falls
https://safewaytours.net/en/casino-tours/
Casino bus to Casino Rama
https://www.casinorama.com/vip-coach/
Free tour of Aga Khan Park
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tours-at-the-aga-khan-park-tickets-615397599787
Beans. Free screening @ Revue Cinema
https://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=823333
Cafe Musikku: A Vocaloid Maid Cafe
https://events.eventzilla.net/e/cafe-musikku-a-vocaloid-maid-cafe-2138617537
De Yun She @ Massey Hall
https://masseyhall.mhrth.com/
Mac Ayres @ Danforth Music Hall
https://thedanforth.com/
Rival Consoles @ Velvet Underground
http://thevelvet.ca/events/
Royksopp @ History
https://www.historytoronto.com/
KOTD Blackout 8 @ Axis Club
https://theaxisclub.com/venue/the-axis-club/
Mahani Teave, piano
https://www.rcmusic.com/events-and-performances/mahani-teave
Manuel Turizo @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
https://www.queenelizabeththeatre.ca/
Michael Pagliaro @ The Phoenix
https://thephoenixconcerttheatre.com/
Andrew Schulz @ Scotiabank Arena
https://www.scotiabankarena.com/
Ryan Horwood @ Absolute Comedy
https://www.absolutecomedy.ca/toronto
Martha Chaves @ Yuk Yuks
https://www.yukyuks.com/toronto
Off The Clock comedy @ Tallboys
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/off-the-clock-comedy-part-of-just-for-laughs-toronto-tickets-718668796717
$25 tix for new Second City show
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/second-city-toronto-toronto-25-second-city-tickets-new-show-2642203/#p38088594
$5/$8 burritos @ BarBurrito
https://forums.redflagdeals.com/barburrito-5-bean-burritos-7-protein-burritos-sept-30-2642885/
October 1
Fall Home Show @ Enercare Centre
https://torontohomeshows.com/sl/
Free ROM Walk. Riverdale
https://www.rom.on.ca/en/whats-on/free-walk-riverdale-oct-123
Kensington Market Jazz Festival
https://www.kensingtonjazz.com/
The Overwatch League 2023 Grand Finals presented by Toronto Defiant @ Mattamy
https://www.mattamyathleticcentre.ca/events/detail/the-overwatch-league-2023-grand-finals-presented-by-toronto-defiant
Jays vs Rays @ SkyDome.
https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/schedule/2023-09
Jays garage sale @ SkyDome
https://twitter.com/JaysCare/status/1706750626514743740?s=19
Horse racing @ Woodbine. Free parking and admission
https://woodbine.com/
Cafe Musikku: A Vocaloid Maid Cafe
https://events.eventzilla.net/e/cafe-musikku-a-vocaloid-maid-cafe-2138617537
$10/$15 unlimited GO Transit.
https://www.gotransit.com/en/travelling-with-us/promotions-and-events/weekend-passes-with-go
Casino bus to Niagara Falls
https://safewaytours.net/en/casino-tours/
Casino bus to Casino Rama
https://www.casinorama.com/vip-coach/
Scarborough Civic Centre – 50th Anniversary Celebration
https://www.toronto.ca/explore-enjoy/festivals-events/scarborough-civic-centre-50th-anniversary-celebration/
Free tour of Aga Khan Park
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/tours-at-the-aga-khan-park-tickets-615397599787
Humber River + James Gardens history walk
https://www.meetup.com/the-history-of-parkdale/events/296378155/
Bata Shoe Museum free admission
https://batashoemuseum.ca/visit-us/
Trivia Sunday Afternoons at 99 Bottles
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/trivia-sunday-afternoons-at-99-bottles-tickets-558319066357
Free drop-in kickball @ Alexandra Park. Beginners welcome
https://www.facebook.com/TorontoKickball/
Soccer. All genders/skills welcome
https://www.meetup.com/mracx-multisport/events/296267114/
Wu-Tang Clan and Nas @ Scotiabank Arena
https://www.scotiabankarena.com/
Kneecap @ Velvet Underground
http://thevelvet.ca/events/
Kiana Lede @ Danforth Music Hall
https://thedanforth.com/
The Devil Wears Prada + Fit For A King @ History
https://www.historytoronto.com/
KOTD Blackout 8 @ Adelaide Hall
https://www.adelaidehallto.com/events

There is one thing that would always be prevalent in my life. Bullying. I tell myself that it could be worse and that there are others in worse condition. But does that mean I should be neglected? Ever since I was born, I was unfortunate. My dog died when I was 1 and I didn’t even know about it till I was in secondary school. It died because it was protecting me. Knowing that was just painful. It explained why I loved animals. Throughout nursery and up to year 1, I had selective Mutism and a therapist had to get me to speak. I also had hearing problems which prevented me from being able to learn. I lived in a flat and although, people told me they weren’t real. I know I saw something in the kitchen and I became fearful of a ‘dark nunu’. The dreams would never go away and they developed into an idea of a dark world where there would be parallel versions of us, that wanted to eat the real version of us. All the time, it would be my brother being eaten and I was left there watching. Everyday it became vivid until I finally got my teddy bear(which was a lion). It protected me from the dreams and I felt safe. They were enough for me but one day, they went missing and the dreams restarted. This time, I was being hunted. It wasn’t pleasant but again, it could’ve been worse. In school, I was bullied. It wasn’t that bad since was strong and popular. I tried using fear to make people stop but there were two persistent culprits. They would always make a comment on my weight even though I wasn’t that fat. Sometimes, they would call me ugly. My closest friend protected me but I felt like I deserved it because I was used to bullying this particular girl as the whole class did it and , the pressure to gain laughs by insulting people overwhelm me. But things got worse from year 5. My friend got a girlfriend and I felt lonely so I planned to break them up. I wrote a poem to her and asked him to give it to her. They broke up the next week and at the time, I was filled with joy but looking back at it, I was selfish. Especially since this girl was regarded as the best looking in the class by everyone. And, she was out to ruin my life as soon as she realised it was me. When I asked her friend to go prom with me, she said no and my confidence dropped. I was just at an all time low. But, I remember one of the football coaches asking me if I had a girl for prom and I said it’s a secret. He said, you probably do because look at you. I was so happy but then again, he couldn’t really say I was ugly, could he?
secondary school. I think the people I met at secondary school influenced me a lot, especially the type of people. Before i start, there were multiple times that I was involved in fraud. The stress and the worry just wasn’t worth it. I was more like a victim of fraud rather than a perpetrator. Pressure got to me and the wrong decisions were made. Year 7, it began. This year, I hung out with one particular person who himself was very closeted and we shared a good bond. I went to the school with two close friends of mine from primary but departed from them. The new person I was with was extremely intelligent and if I had stuck with him, then the later years would not have been so hard. Unfortunately, in the middle of the year, I started to depart towards the black people. My popularity began to rise but with it, jealousy. One of the key reasons, I got bullied in secondary was because one of my closest friends from primary started to mock me and I admittedly reacted which probably prompted him. This caused other people to start to bully me and soon, I was a victim. My confidence dropped completely and I just felt like killing myself. In class, I would make jokes about it and the people around me would laugh and make fun of me. I remember getting rushed all the time and at first I wanted it. I just liked getting rushed and would even lie to get beat up. I just felt like that was my only purpose. It was inhumane and I just felt like a demon. In church, it was worse. I was labelled the problem child and I played my role. One time I prank called the police and when they arrived, my mouth was shut but everyone knew it was me. My parents repeatedly asked me and I denied vehemently. They obviously didn’t believe me. They also liked to label me a monster and I remember one time my younger brother called me it. I cried when I heard him say that. In another case, we were meant to go sleep at church and I was talking to someone and I got hit. I wanted to kill the woman and if it happened a few years later it probably would’ve happened. It really didn’t help at all and I just started to become depressed . Year 8 was the one of the best years in my life. It was the year, I met one of the most controversial person in my life. A girl who I saw regularly on the bus and who I liked sincerely. First I started acting like a gentleman to her but then I realised, I don’t have the money for that and that is how my bad boy persona came about. She blocked me. I made a fake account and got her to unblock me so I acted different. I put on different personalities to please her but when I saw her in real life, I melted. I just couldn’t speak to her and compared to every other boy who hit her up, I knew I was nobody but I just liked talking. Maybe, it was the fact that I was talking to a girl but there were other girls that I just didn’t want to talk to. I remember telling some I had a girlfriend just to avoid conversation. However, with this girl, she didn’t actually pop up to me once. It was a continuous cycle of blocking and unblocking until I finally gave up. She was never mentioned by me so I always wondered how people knew about me talking to her. They knew everything and with everything said, people were given new information to mock me for. She became the person connected to me for many years and even though I tried to forget her, people tried to force her into my mind and it worked. I just couldn’t forget her no matter how much I tried. Friends couldn’t be trusted anymore and even though I spent 6 months talking to this girl, she found pressing the block button easier than saying bye. But something changed in Year 9. I was still getting rushed but there was this one boy who was nice to me and mean at the same time. He thought I was funny and he changed my life when he said this ‘don’t hang around people who want to hurt you’ He might not remember saying that but those words resounded in my mind 24/7 and they became the pinnacle of my growth. I started to hang out with different people and started to play minecraft. Minecraft was a great escape from reality and it allowed me to feel a confidence I had never felt before. I made many new friends but there was this one girl who was 3 years younger than me. She was a nice girl who I had no interest in but she told me everywhere I went wrong with the previous girl. It turns out I was actually rude and the reason that stuck with me was because the final words the previous girl said to me was’ you’re rude , bye’. I was confused by this but it was made clear. I had chose to prioritise games over her and I just felt everything was my fault even though, I had tried my best. Minecraft also taught me about how others think, having met people of different backgrounds. It was hammered into me that minecraft was a game for nerds but as I got deeper into it, I found interesting people. It was a great experience but I got lost in it. I depended on minecraft and I found my friends their treated me better than in real life. It was an escape and it helped me mentally. Also in Year 9, I got into the Beths football A team. A lot of people were sceptical about this and felt that was incapable of playing at that level. I honestly didn’t believe in myself too as there was a person who was much more skilled than me playing in my position. But one person came up to me and told me’ have more confidence in yourself’ He was a great guy and he didn’t need to do it. He went out of his way to make me feel more welcome. I played 2 matches and then quit to join the rugby team. I was quickly promoted to the A team and you would think that was good but I wouldn’t know what would come next. In Year 10, we won a televised national rugby tournament. I played every single match except the match that was televised, the finals. I was replaced by a year 9 and this wasn’t the problem. It was the fact that I had also worked hard to get there and to be made the bench warmer for someone a year younger who had worse attributes than me. It was vexing but soon, that converted to sadness when people started to mock me for it. I got a worthless medal. I ate ice cream everyday after school and that is when I started to gain weight again. It was also this year when I did my first GCSEs. I got 2 Bs but next year was looking bad. I was cheating in most papers and still managing to fail. Maths I couldn’t even get double digits in total. But I changed up and year 11 was a breeze. GCSE was easy. But the bullying still persisted. Year 10 and 11, were the more violent years. In classrooms, chairs, pencil cases and scissors would be thrown at me. I would randomly get slapped for no reason and get a black eye. I was never the aggressor in any situation. Every lunchtime I stayed inside by myself. I spent most of the time alone but people still pursued me. One time I was forced to put my face in mud. The girls name was still brought up and I was caught by the school for involvement in fraud as a victim. My source of happiness was gone and minecraft took over as well as a new found love for anime. I loved being alone. In school, I started to disassociate myself with people as a whole and everything improved. My grades looked better and i was sleeping on time. I wouldn’t be rushed anymore and I tried avoiding all conflicts. All the time, I didn’t want to actually hurt anyone. I despised hurting people and my self defence was hurting myself. People wouldn’t mock me if I mocked myself. People wouldn’t want to embarrass me if I embarrassed myself. It was smart thinking and that was how I got away from things but there was always going to be a comment on anything. I think if I could change anything, it would be the people I hung out with. I would rather have hung out with the less ‘popular’ kids and felt a sense of freedom instead of continuously being judged. I’d say that my experience in Beths changed my view of life completely. I can’t trust people. I can’t make the effort to talk to people. I can’t speak to some people. I can’t do a lot.
NCS changed me. For the first time in my life, a girl was interested In me but not just one, three. They all thought I was funny and my confidence boosted. I recieved my first hug from a girl then. It’s sad but I enjoyed it. The other took interest in my book, that I was writing. She was intrigued in what it was about and she was a vegan so I was interested in her lifestyle unfortunately we don’t speak anymore but she was a very nice person. The other girl boosted my confidence in talking to girls. She taught me how and encouraged me. One of the girls I blocked out of my life as she just continuously aired me. The other two, I haven’t connected with in a long time. But there was proof that my confidence increased. At the NCS graduation, for the first time in my life I walked up to a girl and introduced myself. She was very receptive and I was finally happy. I didn’t view myself as ugly anymore and all the positives came out. The girl who blocked me, I started to think that she was a very popular girl and yet she talked to me daily. Everything in my life taught me lessons. There were so many key figures in my life that changed my way of thinking. One of my favourite quotes is’ If you were to write a story with me in the lead role, it would certainly be... a tragedy’ This is how I felt most of my life like my life had no purpose like I was nothing. Expendable. It was just really bad and yet, a couple people who don’t even know the impact they had on my life, just helped me . I always tell myself if no one else is going to give me confidence then I’ll have to do it myself. And I have done it myself. I love everyone in my life and even though, people have done me wrong, I feel like what’s happened has happened. I forgive everyone and wish them a good future. I’ve met so many good people since then who have been extremely protective of me and showed me love. It is amazing how we would be strangers a year ago.
Update - End of uni - 22/08/2023
During sixth form, I became more socially aware and less awkward around people especially women. I became more confident in myself and started to think more positively of my appearance. It was a good time for me. I finally got my first iPhone and was able to FaceTime people and do all the stuff apple people do albeit not having anyone to actually FaceTime or message. Sixth form I met one of the most beautiful people in my life inside and outside. We started off as friends and she introduced me to so many things that I was so isolated from due to not really having a social life prior to sixth form. I was introduced to music, hair care, skin care and a lot more things. She became my girlfriend in January. This was my first relationship and I can accept accountability for it failing. My problem was lack of communication. I kept everything in and tried to deal with it myself. I felt bad for commenting on things that I didn’t want her to do and felt insecure for asking her to stop doing things that she did prior to relationships but when people were coming to me telling me stuff it was hard. It got to the point where when she said something that triggered me, I reacted extremely harshly. But I didn’t mean it and it led me to me breaking up with. I loved her and trusted her. I couldn’t handle my emotions and couldn’t understand anything. We still hung out after the breakup and as friends got closer together. Covid 2020. The best summer of my life to this day. Lockdown. Everyday speaking to her. When lockdown restrictions allowed, hung out with her all the time. I’d go far enough to say it was a soul tie. She thought of me so highly because of my work ethic and the way I brought myself to be. We also helped each other financially going on multiple ventures like writing a book and reselling. I asked her again prior to going to University if we can try again and she agreed.
During University, I forgot God. I'll start with that. I was religious in the sense that I believed God was there and had faith but apart from that, I wasn't inhabiting the actions of a true christian. I was lusting, alcohol and drugs, not going church and so much more. When it became more of a choice not to go to church, I didn't go. Now entering University, I had a girlfriend. I loved her. I hold her to the highest regards as she helped me through so much in secondary school and opened my eyes to many things. She was the first girl I had ever did anything with or even FaceTimed. Having been so secluded my whole life, University was going to be my chance to be expressive and to start going outside my comfort zone. However, my girl wasn't allowing me as she'd be messaging me, calling me every second of the day so every time I went out, I came back to many notifications. During study, I was being called. I felt very smothered. I was expected to see her at least once every month and we were at different universities which were 2 hours apart by train which was around £20-30 trip. I couldn't make these trips monthly as I was invested in reselling so all my capital was spent but I still managed to travel. It was manageable. But then I started getting cheating rumours which I do admit were well-founded due to pictures that lacked context. I couldn't handle all of it and needed some space to breathe. There were other major reasons that led to it but I broke up with her and kept in contact as 'friends’. It’s notable that during this time was when I started to smoke weed almost everyday too. After this I did get with the girl she accused me of cheating with as a fling. She became my smoking buddy and to be honest, I mostly saw it as a friends with benefit and so did she. When she was kissing another boy in the room next to me I didn’t make an issue of it nor did I care. However, the friends that I had made at university who I had hung out with regularly lied to me about it so when I went to kiss a girl the next week, there was a problem with it. Every one of them cut me off and then I was lonely again and felt betrayed. So I just stayed inside smoking weed on most days by myself. In this period of my life, I was felt very lonely even though I wasn’t alone in the sense, I could play with friends on ps5 or I could arrange to meet with friends at Uni. However, it wasn’t in my character to organise social meetings and wasn’t used to it. Even now, I struggle with most people unless they’re very close to me. Also during this time I tried going for counselling but the university ignored me and I wasn’t chasing up on it. I think my trust with my Ex is the most I’ve trusted someone outside of my family as she’s only 1 out of 2 people I’ve broken down in-front of and cried. This is when another girl introduced herself to me and I’ll call her jade(not her real name). She wasn’t someone I was initially attracted to but we started hanging out more and an attraction grew. During this time, I was still talking to my ex. Fast forward. I have sex with jade and ask her on date after which she declines so I assume she don’t like me. During summer, we are still talking A LOT and getting closer. I go to Yam Carnival and sleep in my own hotel room by myself and my ex assumes that I’m sleeping with someone else so she blocks me. Fast forward again. It’s the start of university. 2nd year of university was the worst year of my life. We’ll start with my ex unblocks me and starts getting close to me again. While Jade is continuously starting problems and I’m just apologising for everything as if it were my fault. I’m being gaslit heavily and start thinking of myself as narcissistic and doing drugs again but smart whip now. During November she decides to do stuff with another boy in my vicinity and I catch her. She then goes around telling people we haven’t done anything in a month so I shouldn’t have problems with it including telling my friends. Like always I just delete social media and spend my time alone to get over it and then go to my ex during that period and we hit it off. At this point in time, My ex and jade have met each other and Jade has an understanding about my relationship with my ex and so does my ex. I emphasise after that event that I don’t like jade to my ex and they starting trauma dumping each other and becoming friends. I asked my ex was thing if she were to become friends with Jade and that was to not talk about me. I said it very harshly and bluntly to the point we argued about how she should be trusting her more and that shouldn’t even be an ask. Fast forward to December, She tells Jade that we’ve had sex and I get blocked by jade. Now I didn’t really care about her blocking me and just thought okay she’s gone for life. I even thought that my ex and jade were going to be friends. But I was so hurt by my Ex betraying me. All that trust gone just like that and she lied to me in the process saying she didn’t say anything but jade sent me proof. I blocked my ex. That started a peak downfall for me. I was not only doing drugs by myself, I was drinking too. If I hadn’t done my course in sixth form, I would’ve failed. I spent no time studying. Me and Jade became friends again but it was apparent I was just in a cycle of her doing wrong and blaming me for it. I finally had enough in April when she just felt the need to act weird for no reason. I told her everything she did and why I REACTED to every situation that she caused. It led to an argument which ended up in me blocking her. It only lasts for a month and she gets me to unblock her and apologise. She continues violating me in front of my face and I’m just so unfazed by it to the point she tried move to my friend in front of me and gets mad at me for apparent cockblocking when I was encouraging my friend to go for it and instead she just got rejected. As if this wasn’t enough for me to cut her off. The week directly after this she asks for me to get together with her and I accept it. We have a ‘break’ 2 weeks after officially break 2 weeks after that. My ex is still blocked during summer but as university starts I ask her how she thinks I should’ve handled that situation better. She then uses my breakdown against me (I don’t know if she did it purposely or not but the time I broke down with her, I was spamming that I’m trying to be a better person and don’t like being known as a bad person), saying that the only reason that I’m asking is because I want to feel good about my conscious. That conversation ends with me getting blocked and us parting ways again until I see her in person 2 weeks later at a Club. We start talking and I sleep over at hers. I apologise and I’m still cautious of her but I’m working my life around her but because Year 2 was so bad in terms of education, there’s a lot of catching up to do especially with applying for jobs and so forth, meaning I don’t have time to be travelling cities to visit her. At the same time, jade has now came back into my life after meeting me at the club and we start talking as friends but we only hang out when doing drugs or drinking. However, she’s convinced me to start taking harder drugs like Ket and I moved up to Coke by myself. My ex then tells me it’s to her benefit that we don’t remain as friends which I don’t react to. I let her go and don’t ask why. I do ask if she’s sure about this decision and like that she’s gone. A month later, jade asks me to give her a second chance and I agree. It only takes a week for her to being texting someone which I politely suggest she shouldn’t for the sake of our relationship but she says the more I stress her, the more distant she will be. At this point, I’ve given up on her. I’m just letting her do her and not doing anything. Unsurprisingly she breaks up with me 2 weeks later. She has the audacity to break up with me drunk, then call in morning to break up again while sober then ask to go clubbing with her and friends in 3 days. I just said no. I didn’t speak to her until our mutual friends birthday which was a month after. She has gotten a man which doesn’t phase me as she done that every time in our off and on relation. But she wants to be stressed about it for some reason. That night ends with me HARD blocking her. She embarrasses me publicly and plays victim for the last time. I wasn’t going to hear anything from her and wasn’t going back to her. I made a deal with myself to do better. I stopped drugs. I stopped masturbation. I started turning more to God and started to spend my tine doing things that I like to do. Less drinking and more creativity. Focusing my time on expressing myself through music and my brand. I found peace in being by myself and realised all the mistakes I made. Admittedly, I did try to rekindle with my Ex but she ultimately ignored my advances. I don’t blame her though. I still think about my Ex a lot because of how much she meant to me but Jade I completely forgot.
​
p.s I have tried to get therapy multiple times but I wasn't suicidal enough to be applicable and I don't know have enough money to pay for one

Today's anniversaries are:
2002

• C-Jeff - Still Flying (rock, chiptune)

2013

• Abstract Deviation - Layers (progressive metal) Read our review.

2015

• Acédia - Les Supplices de l'apathie (progressive black metal) Read our review.
  
• Mr. Fastfinger - Spirit Rising (progressive rock)
  
• Té - 其れは、繙かれた『結晶』の断片。或いは赫奕たる日輪の残照。 (Sore wa, himotoka reta “kesshō” no danpen. Aruiwa kakuyakutaru nichirin no zanshō.) (post-rock)
  

2016

• 65 Days of Static - No Man's Sky: Music for an Infinite Universe (post-rock)
  
• Doom Salad - Further, Unafraid, into the Light (experimental math rock) Read our review.
  
• Equipoise - Birthing Homunculi (technical death metal) Read our review.
  
• Gilded Lily - Mongrel's Light (experimental black metal) Read our review.
  

2017

• Cryptic Ruse - ASMR (drone)
  
• John Elmquist's Hard Art Groop - Expeditionary Twitch (contemporary classical)
  
• Warrior Pope - Anchorite (post-doom)
  

2019

• Les Penning & Robert Reed - The Floral Dance (folk, progressive rock)
  
• Wędrowcy-Tułacze-Zbiegi - Marynistyka suchego lądu (experimental black metal, post-punk)
  
• 正∞胞体 (Sei mugen hōtai / SMHT) - ちっちゃなきょうふ (Chitchna kyōfu / Petite Terror) (experimental metal, soundtrack)
  

2020

• Absolute Safety Council - Central Dogma (free improvisation, noise)
  
• Stop Motion Orchestra - Hydnora (progressive rock)
  
• פיי שפירו (P̄yy Šp̄yrw / Faye Shapiro) - שערעש (Šʿrʿš / Sharash) (world fusion, pop)
  
• 岡聡志 (Oka Satoshi) - Zephyr (progressive metal, jazz fusion)
  

2021

• Agorṓn - Beneath the Blackened Sun (deathcore)
  
• Christian Lovers & Patrick Shiroishi - 40 oz of Shame (free jazz, noise)
  
• Flat Earth Agenda - Slagheaps and Stars (progressive rock)
  
• Gergely Ittzés & Szilárd Mezei - Jungle (avant-garde jazz)
  
• István Grencsó & Szilárd Mezei - Hot (avant-garde jazz)
  
• Khadavra - Hologram (psychedelic rock)
  
• Subnuba - Venēficus aeternus (progressive death metal)
  
• Súl ad astral - Heritage (blackgaze)
  
• Ted Byrnes - Moving My Body through Space (free improvisation)
  

2022

• A Wall - Vector (experimental black metal)
  
• Abaddon Incarnate - The Wretched Sermon (deathgrind)
  
• Andy Loebs - Flexuous Vertex (vapor fusion)
  
• Bakakaï - Vous êtes ici (indie rock)
  
• Bloodz Boi, Claire Rousay, and More Eaze - A Crying Poem (experimental electro)
  
• Body Void - Burn the Homes of Those who Seek to Control Our Bodies (blackened hardcore)
  
• Bong-Ra - Meditations (stoner doom metal)
  
• Chainsaw for Birthday - Living with Ghosts (post-rock)
  
• Cosmic Collective - Exfoliate (nu jazz)
  
• Dear Messenger - Hiraeth (post-rock)
  
• Ether Coven - The Relationship between the Hammer and the Nail (post-sludge metal)
  
• Golden Hymns Sing "Hurrah" - To the Partisan, Now amd Forever & Tape Reel Burnout (post-rock)
  
• Keefe Jackson, Oscar Jan Hoogland, Joshua Abrams, and Mikel Patrick Avery - These Things Happen (modern jazz)
  
• Kokoroko - Could We Be More (nu jazz)
  
• Leptyss - Fever Dreams (progressive death metal)
  
• Lifeguard - Crowd Can Talk (noise rock)
  
• Liminal Shroud - All Virtues Ablaze (post-black metal)
  
• Lunaea - The Lacuna Thesis (blackened deathcore)
  
• Nōn serviam - We Are Nothing but Your Krill (experimental black metal)
  
• Odd Circus - Deus (progressive metal)
  
• Pablo Moser - Lenguaje secreto (jazz fusion)
  
• Psycroptic - Divine Council (death metal)
  
• Reminiscencia - Ilusión tetradimensional (technical death metal)
  
• Scumbag - Blood Drinker (progressive death metal)
  
• Sevish - Morphable (experimental IDM) Read our review.
  
• Skyler Parker - Madam Tiger (technical death metal)
  
• Soften the Glare - Ⅱ (progressive rock)
  
• Stephen Barber, played by Eric Hübner - Earth: Music for Solo Piano (contemporary classical)
  
• The Number Pi - Four Corners (jazz fusion)
  
• Togo All Stars - Fa (Afrobeat)
  
• Tumeurs - Lose Everything (hardcore)
  
• Turian - No Longer Human (noise rock, hardcore)
  
• U/nu - Teknovortex Club: Sound Pictures from Professor Bad Trip’s Comics (electroacoustic)
  
• Беговые маршруты (Begovye maršruty) - 663 319 (progressive post-hardcore, jazz fusion)
  

"On the afternoon of December 4, 1972, 7-year-old Steven Stayner was walking home from school in Merced, California, when he was approached by a man passing out religious pamphlets. As reported by The Famous People, the man, who was later identified as Ervin Edward Murphy, said he was a representative of a local church and was seeking donations for his parish.
According to The Famous People, Murphy offered to walk Stayner home, as he wanted to ask his mother for a donation. The boy agreed and gave the man his address. However, as they were walking toward Stayner's home, they were approached by another man, who was driving a white Buick.
The second man, who was later identified as Kenneth Parnell, offered to give Murphy and Stayner a ride. ABC News reports it was a "sleety, wintery day," and Stayner willingly followed Murphy into Parnell's car, as he expected the man to take him home. Unfortunately, the entire incident was part of an elaborate plan to kidnap the boy.
Prior to his kidnapping of Stayner, The Famous People reports Parnell had at least two criminal convictions, including armed robbery and the sexual abuse of a young boy. However, he was convicted in Utah and was not known as a criminal in California. At the time of Stayner's kidnapping, Parnell was employed at the Yosemite Lodge, which according to ABC News, was approximately two hours away from Merced.
While working at the Yosemite Lodge, Kenneth Parnell befriended his coworker Ervin Murphy.
According to ABC News, Parnell stopped to make a call from a payphone shortly after Murphy and Steven Stayner got into his car. When he returned, he told the boy that he called his parents and they said they did not want him anymore. The Famous People reports Parnell then took the boy to a remote cabin near Catheys Valley, California.
As Steven Stayner got older, Kenneth Parnell began planning to kidnap another, younger, boy. As reported by The Famous People, Parnell for a period of time. In addition to participating in the abuse of Stayner, she attempted to help Parnell kidnap a boy who was a member of the Santa Rosa Boys' Club. Thankfully, they were unable to follow through with the kidnapping attempt.
On several occasions, Parnell encouraged Stayner to help him lure another boy into the home. However, Crime Investigation reports Stayner sabotaged Parnell's efforts, as he did not want another boy to suffer through the abuse he had endured. Unfortunately, Parnell eventually convinced another teenage boy, named Randall Sean Poorman, to help him kidnap 5-year-old Timothy White.
Stayner was terribly concerned about White's welfare and immediately began planning to get the 5-year-old away from Parnell and return him home to his parents. As Parnell was working the night shift, Stayner fled the home with White in the middle of the night.
According to Crime Investigation, the boys hitchhiked more than 40 miles to reach Ukiah, California, where White was abducted from. However, Timothy could not remember his address, so Stayner took him to a police station instead. Although Stayner told the younger boy to go inside by himself and tell the officers he had been kidnapped, White refused to leave Stayner's side.
The Famous People reports Stayner had a difficult time adjusting to returning to his parents' home. As he never had any rules, he rebelled when his parents forbade him from drinking alcohol and smoking. It was also difficult for his parents to adjust to having a teenager after remembering their son as a 7-year-old boy. Stayner eventually began drinking more heavily, dropped out of high school, and left his parents' home.
In 1985, at the age of 20, Stayner married 17-year-old Jody Edmondson. According to The Famous People, the couple eventually had two children, named Ashley and Steven, Jr. In addition to assisting in the production of a miniseries based on his experience, Stayner became an advocate for preventing child abduction and helping victims of abuse. He also joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
On September 16, 1989, Steven Stayner was riding his motorcycle home from work when a car suddenly pulled out of a driveway onto the highway. As reported by People, Stayner struck the driver's side of the car at a high rate of speed. As he was not wearing a helmet, he suffered massive head trauma, which led to his death less than one hour after the accident occurred.
Following his brother's death, History reports Cary worked as a handyman at a lodge near Yosemite National Park. According to SFGate, his friends and coworkers described him as being impulsive and prone to seemingly abrupt and violent fits of rage. On July 24, 1999, Cary confessed to killing four women, who had all been guests at the lodge where he was employed. Cary's defense team argued that he suffered from mental illness, in part from the trauma he suffered when Steven was kidnapped. However, he was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death."
Source: https://www.grunge.com/785686/the-truth-about-the-kidnapping-of-steven-stayne
So I posted above parts of the article that I think are very important. Does anyone else find it strange that both Steven's abductoabuser worked in the Yosemite area? One was a victim and the other became a serial killer.
I have noticed on missing posters for kids if you go through them the one single reoccurring thing you can see between them is the overwhelming lack of details. Researching the national pedo child trafficking stories you find that more often than not it is the parents who put their children into it.
They claim Cary became a serial killer due to the trauma of having his brother go missing and his parents not giving him enough attention. But lack of attention does not create a serial killer. So what was really going on in the Staynor house? And isn't it interesting that Steven became an advocate for preventing child abduction and helping victims and then boom he is killed in a hit and run?
Steven probably knew a lot and if he was starting to put stuff together that would make him a huge liability. His escape and rescue of White was a big deal at the time and he was a hero. There was the potential there for him to have a massive amount of influence in any statements he may have given. Noone would have questioned him if he came out and stated anything about abducted kids. So was Steven getting too close to something so that they murdered him? His brother becoming a serial killer at the very least implies there was serious abuse taking place in the Staynor's household. Who were these people and isn't it just a little too much coincidence that there is this Yosemite connection?
"Parnell served five years in prison
for the Stayner and White kidnappings and was paroled to Berkeley in 1985. He
was arrested in January 2003 after a woman told police he had promised her $500
if she would bring him a young boy.
Parnell is charged with solicitation
to commit a crime, trying to buy a human being and attempted child stealing."
Source: Parnell victims testify (recordnet.com)
Why would a man who had kidnapped and repeatedly sexually abused Steven and then went on to kidnap White only be given a 5 year sentence?
But it gets even more weird: Innocent Steven was molested on the first night of his abduction by the oleaginous pederast. He had no idea that his grandfather lived within cooee distance from the shack Parnell had taken him to.
Little Timmy White was saved from a childhood-ruining fate like Steven’s but would also later die tragically at the untimely age of 35. Timothy James White was a Los Angeles, CA Deputy Sherriff (and a married dad with two children) when he died way before his time on April 1st, 2010 of a blood clot (pulmonary embolism).
Mike Echols (whose birthday was also on April Fool’s Day (1944), the day Tim White died in 2010) also died of a pulmonary embolism at the age of 58 on January 10th, 2003 while in jail. He was the author of the manuscript for the 1989 infamous TV movie about Steven’s hellish plight (“I Know My First Name Is Steven”) which was later published as a book in 1991. Echols was distrusted by some because he worked to expose paedos but many people believed he himself was a closet one. He infiltrated “NAMBLA” (North American Man-Boy Love Association) and started “Better A Millstone” an anti-paedophile organization.
Steven died tragically on September 17th, 1989 when his Kawasaki motorcycle collided (he wasn’t wearing a helmet as someone stole his in July or August of 1989) into a stalled vehicle driven by an illegal alien from Mexico, 28-YO migrant worker Antonio Loera. Kenneth Parnell only served 5 of the paltry 8 years he was sentenced to for the abduction and seven-year molestation of Steven Stayner (his cohort in the illegal act, Ervin Murphy served only 2 years of a 5-year sentence) and Antonio Loera only served 90 days in jail with 1 year of probation (and a measly $100. fine) for killing Steven.
Why wasn’t the disgusting woman named Barbara Mathias ever brought in for crimes of child rape and aiding and abetting a filthy, paedo kidnapper? She lived with the freak Parnell and Steven Stayner for 18 months and had sex with Parnell and under-aged Steven while Parnell was raping Steven. Her own abused and neglected children were raped by Paedo Parnell. I know hardly anyone paid a steep price for killing the soul of the young Steven Stayner but this pervy and down-low pig of a chick got off scot-free.
Parnell, ever the recidivist, died on January 21st, 2008 while in a Vacaville Prison. He was an inmate because in November of 2002 he tried to “buy” a 4-YO boy in Berkeley, CA, thanks to scant justice for his evil and wicked deeds. With Steven Stayner dead and gone and justice never properly served to him for all he had lost, the next True Crime tragedy to happen to the Stayner family was to befall Steven Stayner’s Uncle Jerry, Jesse Jerrold Stayner (42) who was mysteriously killed in his own home on Brantley Street in Merced, CA on December 26th, 1990 with his own .22. His murder has never been solved. At the time Jerry lived with his nephew Cary Stayner (more on him later…), Steven’s older brother.
Vietnam Vet Jerry was a dispatcher at “Leavitts Trucking” and went home that day for lunch only to be ambushed and killed with his own gun. He was shot 3 times…once in the chest and twice in the head. Not only was his killer never found but there is much high-strangeness in this perplexing cold case. Jerry had the company dog “Digger” (a schnauzer) with him that day and “Digger” was found the next day in Jerry’s company truck behind “Beacon Gas Station” on Jean Street and Yosemite Way…the very same streets little Steven Stayner was abducted from 18 years prior on 12/4/1972. “Digger” was found alive and safe and the truck’s keys were in the ignition. The abandoned vehicle crime scene was so odd on its own it reminded me of another cold case that happened 10 years later in Asheville, NC where the still-to-this-day-missing Zebb Wayne Quinn’s (18) car was found two weeks after his equally bizarre January 2nd, 2000 vanishing. His abandoned car was found January 16th in the “Three Little Pigs” restaurant parking lot and near the Mission St. Joseph’s Hospital his mother, a nurse, worked at. Inside the planted vehicle was a 3-month old baby girl puppy (not his), a plastic hotel key, empty beverage bottles and a jacket also not Quinn’s. Orangey-pink lips and exclamation points were also drawn on the car’s rear window with lipstick! I had never heard of dogs being eerily placed and found alive in cars after a terrible crime had transpired until these two very creepy unsolved cases, but I digress.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see why so many believe that Cary Stayner, now a convicted Serial Killer (of 4 women) residing on Death Row in San Quentin Prison in CA was perhaps his Uncle Jerry’s killer on the day after Christmas 1990. Cary was arrested on July 24th, 1999 at the Laguna Del Sol Nudist Camp for the July 21st, 1999 murder of 26-YO German-born, “Yosemite Institute” naturalist Joie Ruth Armstrong who lived with two roommates on Foresta Road in Yosemite National Park. Joie was alone that Wednesday as her boyfriend and her other roommate were out of town. She was packing up to head to Sausalito and Santa Rosa to visit friends and eventually her grandmother the day she was slaughtered and decapitated. If one has read David Paulides’ creepy “Missing 411” tomes about the mysterious vanishings and deaths that happen in National Parks and Forests and is privy to what a secretive killing floor Yosemite National Park is especially, it’s understandable why Joie didn’t want to be alone in that cabin home that summer. Still, it didn’t save her and she was brutally attacked and killed before she had a chance to begin her cheery sojourn towards northern California.
Joie was found on July 22nd, 1999, decapitated and half of what remained of her ravaged body was submerged in a creek’s drainage ditch. Her hands and mouth had been bound by duct tape. Her head was found less than 50 feet from her body. It was a ghastly end for such a peaceful and loving woman who never harmed anybody. But this was his fourth kill as a Serial Killer.
On President’s Day February 15th, 1999 Cary Stayner, a maintenance employee at the Cedar Lodge Motel in Yosemite Valley killed all 3 female occupants in Room #509. Carole Sund (42) had come to El Portal, CA for a mini-vacation with her 15-YO daughter Juli Sund and their family friend from Argentina 16-YO Silvina Pelosso. The Sunds were from Eureka, CA and planned to kick around Yosemite, where Carole honeymooned with her Danish husband Jens in 1978, until February 16th.
All three were slaughtered the day before they were to leave to meet up with the rest of the Sund family. The successful triple murder, the first for the Serial Killer, was probably aided by the fact that occupancy of the motel was down that winter and there were no other guests in their building. Cary knocked on the door claiming a multi-room plumbing issue was at hand and brandished a .22 caliber gun and bound and gagged the three frightened females with duct tape. He then forced the two young girls into the bathroom and then strangled Carole on the bed with the rope he brought along and shot her as well.
He placed the dead body of Carole into the trunk of the red rental car the family picked up in Modesto, CA and then strangled the young Argentinian girl Silvina in the bathtub and shot her as he did Carole. He placed her dead body in the trunk with Carole’s cadaver. He didn’t kill 15-YO Juli right away and the story goes that he moved her to another room and tried to rape her and forced her to perform sexual acts (as Stayner was impotent and suffered from OCD which manifested itself in various forms such as trichotillomania and obsessive cleanliness) until he left the hotel with her around 4 AM, naked and ensconced in a blanket, still bound by duct tape.
In the rental car he drove 90 miles with Juli Sund to Lake Don Pedro in Tuolumne County. There, he virtually decapitated her as he would completely do to Joie Armstrong 5 months later. He dumped her blanket wrapped body, with only the duct tape still on it under a poison oak bush and posed her arms in a pious position crossed neatly on her chest. He then abandoned the red rental vehicle on an old logging road on Highway 108 and torched it with Carole’s and Silvina’s moribund bodies in the trunk. With no way to get back to Cedar Lodge, Cary made his way to the Sierra Village Market and called a cab.
I would call where he had the cab driver drop him off as very strange but the complete Stayner tragedies in totality are extremely strange…he requested to be driven to Yosemite Lodge where his younger brother Steven’s pervo kidnapper worked when he snatched Steven in 1972!
From there he still had to find his way back to Cedar Lodge but before that, he made his way back to Tuolumne County and torched the red rental car entombing the dead bodies of Carole Sund and Silvina Pelosso. He took Carole’s wallet and ponderously dumped it at an intersection in Modesto, CA at Tully & Briggsmore. The wallet was found on 2/19/1999 by a shady and crooked couple (Rachel Lou Campbell & Alexis Paiz) from the notoriously seedy and meth-riddled area aka “the airplane district” of Modesto, CA. They were well-known forgers so they stole Carole’s credit cards.
Two of the trio were not found until Jim Powers, a 40-YO carpenter came upon the torched rental car between tree stumps on March 18th, 1999 on an old, dirt logging road (Wheeler Road) along Highway 108 in Long Barn, CA (“Stanislaus National Forest”). A roll of undeveloped film was found nearby the grisly scene. This roll had photographs of the happy vacationing triad in their last carefree days on Earth before their holiday turned needlessly wicked and homicidal.
With the charred car being found the fate of the mysterious vanishings of the Sunds and Silvina Pelosso was solved but what monster committed the heinous triple homicide? On March 24th, 1999 the Modesto FBI received an anonymous and taunting letter with a map that explained where Juli Sund’s body could be found. They found Juli’s dead body on a remote and steep incline near a reservoir above Lake Don Pedro. Just as the map illustrated.
On March 25th, 1999 Juli’s body was found with black duct tape around her ankles and her head almost extracted from her nude body. The menacing and taunting note exclaimed “we had fun with this one” but why the use of the royal “we”? In the end Cary Stayner confessed to all 4 murders but in digging deep in the case one will see that many, even to this day are left with reasonable doubt that he committed all 4 murders alone. His first entrance into his Serial Killing career produced an almost expert execution with 3 victims and the second expedition with one victim was exceedingly sloppy with trace evidence left all about and his own vehicle was seen in the area at the time of the Joie Armstrong murder.
• Cary Stayner tells the FBI in vivid detail how he raped and denigrated victims Juli Sund & Silvina Pelosso. He denies such things during his candid interviews with KNTV’s Ted Rowlands. There were also major discrepancies in how he described the state of Juli’s discarded body and how it actually appeared when found.
• Referred to the killings using the pronoun “we”. Claimed to have learned many cover-up tricks and tactics from true crime TV.
• His DNA was NOT on the anonymous letter envelope sent to the Modesto FBI. Stayner claims he paid someone $5. to lick the envelope for him and the DNA came up of Hispanic origin.
• Tuolumne County Sheriff Dick Roger~“There was not one shred of evidence or link to him as a suspect in the Sund/Pelosso homicides until he became a suspect in the homicide of Joie Ruth Armstrong”.
• Law Enforcement authorities believed Cary Stayner killed Joie but not the Sunds & Silvina Pelosso.
• Everyone agreed that Cary Stayner was odd and a little weird, but hardly anybody said that he creeped them out or was overly weird. Strange, but in a very likable and friendly way. A little off, but not so much in the way one would avoid him or stay away from him. A bit weird but always friendly and helpful, too nice and quiet. How does someone like that become a homicidal maniac one half of a Californian year?
• When he was a teen and would hang out with his friends and shoot his BB gun he would not shoot animals. A sociopath or psychopath would never have an issue with that and most of them start by hurting and killing small animals.
• Sarah Cox, a friend of Cary Stayner who described him as kind, gentle and easy-going claimed in May of 1999 Cary Stayner bragged to her that “he was already famous but no one knew it yet”. She had no idea what he meant by that and after all was said and done she said she always liked him and when she had to believe all he confessed to she had trouble accepting it. She couldn’t believe the Cary she knew would be so heartless and brutal. She couldn’t bridge those two divergent personas. So many had a hard time believing he was capable of murder and believed all he admitted to just didn’t add up.
• Francis Carrington (father of victim Carole Sund)~“It’s almost like someone else was directing everything in February of 1999 and Stayner just did what he was told”. Cary Stayner’s mother “Kay” Stayner thought this as well.
• Delbert Stayner (Cary Stayner’s father)~“I just hope and pray all the time that he didn’t actually do it and that he is hiding something (taking the fall) for somebody else.” His long suffering family never believed he was capable of bloody murder.
• Jens Sund (husband to Carole Sund and father of Juli Sund) and his lawyer Zachary Zwerdling believed Stayner was not the lone killer. Cary’s sister Jody Stayner also believes a cult was involved with the 4 killings.
• Cary Stayner~“I didn’t feel good about it. I say it’s like matter-of-factly I was doing this, you know. It’s like I’m a split personality.” But Cary Stayner, riddled with affective disorders pertaining to anxiety did NOT suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. He had deep psychological issues but they seemed mostly rooted in high-anxiety and low self-esteem. Psychopaths think they are the bee’s knees, Cary Stayner never had that kind of chutzpah.
• During the second trial, Cary Stayner was emotional and broke down and blocked his eyes and ears when he had to look at the grisly crime scene photos of Juli Sund. When his FBI confession was played back in court, he blocked his ears. If he readily confessed, and was an abject psychopath, why would he even flinch at either scenario played back to him? He would either revel in it or not care a lick. That’s how sociopaths roll. Instead he rocked back and forth with high anxiety. He was always averting his eyes and cradling his face in his hands.
• US Senator from Iowa Charles Grassley was very vocal at the time with how bumbling he thought the FBI was and initially did not believe Stayner was the killer.
The final oddity that is loosely connected to the Stayner Family Tragedies is the allusion to Steven Stayner’s personal hell in a possible micro-pattern in the infamous but never completely understood “Smiley Face Killings” RE: a 2002 cluster that consisted of drowned and/or missing college-aged men in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
One private detective whose site is long defunct found a series of micro-patterns in the proximity of the hot-bed area of the “Smiley Face Killer” cases. He claimed to have found a series of deaths that spelled out a name. The name spelled was NEMEC and that word was used because the child actor who played Steven Stayner in the TV Movie “I Know My First Name Is Steven” was Corin Nemec. The name “NEMEC” spells out the towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota where the inebriated college men vanished from or ended up dead in a body of water. It always struck me as very weird and a bit absurd because I could never figure out who would remember Corin Nemec except another child who was perhaps a fan at the time the tv movie was making headlines and why would someone orchestrate killings to spell out his last name? It is indeed a strange tie to the already strange and tragic tale of the Family Stayner. Here is what the acronym “NEMEC” stood for RE: the 2002 “SFK” crimes…
New London, MN-8/1/2002—Daniel Lee Newville (18)
Eau Claire, WI-9/29/2002—Craig Burrows (23)
Minneapolis, MN-10/31/2002—Christopher Jenkins (21)
Eau Claire, WI-11/6/2002—Michael Noll (22)
Collegeville, MN-11/9/2002—Joshua Cheney Guimond (21) NEVER FOUND!
Cary Stayner was actively on trial at the time of these 5 vanishings in MN and WI. All ended up dead in a lake except the still missing Joshua Guimond.
Famed San Francisco lawyer Melvin Mouron Belli was being hired by Steven Stayner’s widowed wife to sue Merced, CA after his death in 1989. ZODIAC taunted Belli and wrote letters to him during his active killing season in CA in 1968 and 1969. This same detective who found the “SFK” micro-patterns also found a ZODIAC link (My own find of the common word “Tuolumne” will be familiar to ZODIAC enthusiasts who know ZODIAC made a pay-phone call at the cross of Spring Road & Tuolumne Street in Vallejo, CA on the 4th of July in 1969 after he murdered 22-YO Darlene Ferrin. Tuolumne County was where Cary Stayner dumped the bodies in the Sund/Pelosso murders).
In 2001, University of MN student Ken Christiansen (19) died after drinking with his college buddies in Duluth, MN on April 13th, 2001 which happened to be a “Friday The 13th” as well as “Good Friday”. His last name has “Christian” in it and near where his body was found in Chester Creek three days later, there was graffiti of a blue cross that read “Jesus Saves” and next to it was a smiley face, hence the moniker “The Smiley Face Killer”.
Other graffiti in the area that ties this “SFK” clue to ZODIAC, at least in a loose way is also the placement of a Gary Snyder poem under the Chester Creek Bridge about the death of young, white males that was originally published in August of 1969 in San Francisco, CA where the area was deeply concerned with both Vietnam and The ZODIAC Killer at the time.
A line in the poem states “The Christian has long been dead”. Ken Christiansen? I’m not sure but when I was deeply researching “SFK” I knew next to nothing about ZODIAC and now I am pretty fluent with the case so it makes me wonder if that detective who had that fascinating website on “The Smiley Face Killer” and discovered all the micro patterns knew far more than he ever let on. The micro-patterns were so extraordinarily clever and canny I had always wondered if the detective was hella smart or if HE was “The Smiley Face Killer”. In 2012 I went back to dig into my own “SFK” research and using his acronym model I tried to find hidden clues and micro-patterns but none were found and instead of spelling out certain words it was just an amalgamation of alphabet soup. Sometime after 2012 the website ceased to exist but I never forgot the clues it purported
Source: THE STAYNER FAMILY TRAGEDIES (serialkillercalendar.com)

Essay on Christmas festival – Christmas is a famous festival for Christians. It is celebrated on 25th December every year. Jesus Christ was born on this day. He was the founder of Christianity. On this day all the Christians decorate their houses. They bring a Christmas tree to their houses. It is decorated with bells, lights, balloons, and stars. On this day, special prayers are conducted in churches. The children wait for Santa Clause and he brings gifts and sweets for the children. Christmas gives a message of love, harmony, peace, and brotherhood.
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Essay on Christmas for Students In 150 Words

Christmas is the main festival of Christians. This festival is celebrated every year on December 25th. People believed that Jesus Christ was the son of god. On this day, people remember Jesus Christ and his lesson in life.
All houses, churches, and shops are cleaned on Christmas. They are beautifully decorated with lights and flowers. People also have a Christmas tree in their homes with colorful balls, ribbons, balloons, candles, etc.
They visit the church and light candles to worship Jesus Christ. They distribute gifts, exchange Christmas cards, organize feasts, and sing Christmas carols on this day. On this day, people tell each other stories and anecdotes related to Christmas.
It is believed that Jesus Christ, the son of God, came to the Earth on this day to end people’s sufferings and miseries. His visit is symbolic of goodwill and happiness and it is depicted through the visit of the wise men and the shepherds.
Christmas is, indeed, a magical festival that is all about sharing joy and happiness. For this reason, it is also my favorite festival.

Why Christmas day is celebrated?

This festival is celebrated as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Jesus was considered a founder of Christianity. People of Christianity thought of Jesus as the Son of God. Jesus Christ was a messenger of God and an impressive man. He appeared in the world to remove the grief of unhappy people and to reveal the form of God to the people.
At first, Jesus had to face a lot of problems, but gradually his companions started growing. He tried to eliminate sorrow, ignorance, superstition, etc. in the world through his teachings.
Christmas Day celebrated in his memory is the most popular festival of the people of Christianity today. Therefore, it is also called the big day. This day is as essential for Christians as Diwali and Dussehra are essential for people of the Hindu religion.

Christmas Quiz and answers for kids

Q.1 On which date is Christmas celebrated every year? Answer- 25th December
Q.2 Where does Santa Clause live? Answer- The North Pole
Q.3 In which city was baby Jesus born? Answer- Bethlehem
Q.4 Which was the first broadcast of a Christmas Carol in space? Answer- Jingle Bells
Q.5 What day is Christmas Eve? Answer- 24th December
Q.6 What is the short version of Christmas known as? Answer- Xmas
Q.7 What three small words of laughter did Father Christmas say? Answer- HO! HO! HO!
Q.8 What is the color of Santa’s Belt? Answer- Black
Q.9 Which is the most famous reindeer of all? Answer- Rudolph
Q.10 Which are the 2 main colors of Christmas? Answer- Red and Green
Q.11 What is Santa Clause also known as? Answer- Saint Nicholas
Q.12 What is traditionally hidden inside a Christmas pudding? Answer- Coin
Q.14 When do the 12 days of Christmas start? Answer- On Christmas day
Q.15 According to tradition, when should you have your Christmas decorations down by? Answer- January 5th
Q.16 Which ocean can Christmas Island be found in? Answer- The Indian Ocean
Q.17 What do people traditionally put on top of a Christmas tree? Answer- A star or an angel
Q.18 What color is Santa’s suit? Answer- Red
Q.19 When were the first commercial Christmas Cards made? Answer- 1843, England
Q.20 How many reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh? Answer- Nine

Poem on Christmas Day

MERRY CHRISTMAS I Have A List Of Folks I Know. All Written In A Book, and Every Year When Christmas Comes, I Go & Take A Look and That is When I Realize That These Names are a Part of. Not Of The Book They are Write In, But Really F My Heart Each Name Stands 4 Someone Who Has Crossed My Path Sometimes. and in The Meeting They’ve Become The Rhythm in Each Rhyme While it Sounds Fantastic For Me to Make This Claim. I Really Feel That I’m Composed Of Each Remembered Name and White and May Not B Aware Of Any Special Link. Just Meeting you Has Changed My Life a Lot More Than U Think For Once I’ve Met Somebody. The Years Cannot Erase, The Memory Of A Pleasant Word Or Of a Friendly Face So Never Think My Christmas Cards R Just A Mere Routine Of Names Upon a Christmas List. Forgotten in Between. For When I Send a Christmas Card That is Addressed to you. It is Because U’re On The List That I’m indebted to For I Am But A Total Of The Many Folks I’ve Met. and you Happen to Be One Of Those I Prefer Not to Forget Whether I Have Known you For Many Years Or Few. In Some ways, you Have A Part In Shaping Things I D Do And Every Year When Christmas Comes, I Realize a New, Best Gifts Life Can Offer Is Meeting Folks Like you. and May The Spirit Of Christmas That Forever Endures. Leave Its Richest Blessings In The Hearts Of you & Urs…!!!
Read More Essay

I had originally posted this essay a couple years ago on asoiaf, to seemingly little interest. A friend over the past weekend suggested that I cross-post onto this sub. It is an exploration of the Grateful Dead's/Robert Hunter's influence on George R. R. Martin, and specifically the A Song of Ice and Fire series, which the HBO show Game of Thrones was based off of. This essay was originally written for an audience who are more familiar with these works than perhaps those of GD/Hunter, and so much of the background information given on the band and their songs may be thoroughly well-trodden information on this sub. I'm not exactly an expert on either the Dead or Martin's collection of works, so I may have gotten some information incorrect. Slight spoiler warning for the series, in case you intend on reading it.
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It’s a pretty well established fact that GRRM has been a fan of the Grateful Dead for decades. Fan’s of both the Dead and ASOIAF have picked up on many sly (and less so) references that George has thrown in to pay tribute.
Let's begin with Franklin's Tower. There is a very small joke about this song hiding in the names of two minor characters who begin appearing in A Feast For Crows. I think both the characters Franklyn Fowler and Franklin Flowers are a nod to the song Franklin’s Tower- music written by Jerry Garcia, and the lyrics by Jerry’s long time collaborator, Robert Hunter. Remember this name, this is who we will be focusing in the next section. Anyhoo, back to the Franklyns. Not only was George almost certainly thinking of the song while creating their names (they both sound strikingly similar and rhyme with Franklin’s Tower), but both of these characters are associated with towers as well. Franklyn Fowler is the Lord of Skyreach, which got its name,

"for its lofty perch and soaring stone towers" (The World of Ice and Fire, Dorne)

Franklyn Flowers’s association with a tower is a little more ambiguous. Flowers, a Captain in the Golden Company, was one of the soldiers who landed along with Jon Connington and helped in the taking of Griffin’s Roost. As the short-lived battle outside the castle came to a close, one of the remaining loose-ends to tie up was the maester in his tower who was continuing to send out ravens. And of course, who better to deal with a tower situation than good ol’ Franklyn,

“‘No more messages,’ he told Ser Franklyn Flowers in the yard. The next thing to come flying from the maester's tower was the maester. The way his arms were flapping, he might have been mistaken for another bird.” (A Dance With Dragons, The Griffin Reborn)

It’s almost as if GRRM made this joke in A Feast For Crows with Fowler, and either forgot about it or thought it was funny enough to do again in A Dance With Dragons with Flowers.
It's worth mentioning that Flowers and Fowler are the only two Franklyns that appear in the series proper. There is a third Franklyn who appears in The Mystery Knight. This Ser Franklyn comes from house Frey, who are collectively most famous for their twin towers.
What’s interesting is that these references to the Grateful Dead are all over the place. As has been pointed out many times before, there are the Dire Wolves, a reference to the song Dire Wolf. Gerold “Dark Star” Dayne is a nod to the explorative jam-vehicle Dark Star. The Weirwoods are likely at least in part a reference to Bob Weir, the Dead’s rhythm guitarist and another songwriter as well. The Mountains of the Moon in the Vail are a call-out to the song- you guessed it- Mountains Of The Moon. Martin even nicknamed his home after a Dead song and album, Terrapin Station. So why do we keep seeing these little jokes and references popping up all over the place? Just because he’s a really big fan?
Well, sort of. Really, I think that George is as much of a fan of Robert Hunter’s words as he is of Jerry Garcia’s music. I specify Garcia here, because generally speaking, Hunter wrote lyrics for Jerry while a man named John Perry Barlow wrote lyrics for Bob (although there are a number of notable exceptions, like one of my personal favorites, Jack Straw, which was jointly written by Hunter and Weir). In fact, if we look at all the references that have been spotted so far (excepting Bob Weir’s last name being found in Weirwood), all of them are songs with lyrics written by Robert Hunter.
I think, however, that GRRM’s appreciation of Hunter and the Dead goes beyond making a couple nods and hints-at. I think if we look extensively at Hunter’s words, we can see a lot of similarities in themes as opposed to just cleverly used song names. I don’t think there’s a whole bunch of intention here by GRRM, and I don’t even know if he realizes he’s doing it. Moreover, I think this is happening because Hunter’s poetic lyrics continue to be a large influence on George, and I think they sit around his subconscious. As George himself put it, “I have Grateful Dead lyrics rattling around in my head all the time.” And so what I’m asserting is that he pulls from this catalog of stunning imagery and poetic verse all the time, whether or not Martin realizes it’s occurring.
Let's go back to Franklin's Tower for a moment.
From: Franklin's Tower:

I'll tell you where the four winds dwell
In Franklin's Tower there hangs a bell,
It can ring, turn night to day,
It can ring like fire when you lose your way
...
Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day
Whichever way your pleasure tends
If you plant ice you're gonna harvest the wind

This description of the titular tower in the song which lights your way, ice and fire, etc. sounds a lot like the Hightower in Oldtown. There are tons of large towers in classic literature and mythology, sure, but I'd be willing to bet that Martin had these lyrics "rattling around in hid head" when coming up with this concept. At least, if I had to make a guess as to which house from the Reach that Franklyn Flowers claims to be a descendent of, it would most definitely be House Hightower.
From: Uncle John's Band

It's a buck dancer's choice my friend better take my advice
You know all the rules by now and the fire from the ice
Will you come with me won't you come with me
Woah-oh, what I want to know, will you come with me?...
It's the same story the crow told me; it's the only one he knows
Like the morning sun you come and like the wind you go
Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait
Woah-oh, what I want to know, where does the time go?

Above are a few lines from the song Uncle John’s Band. There are a couple things that might stand out on first glance. The first thing which pops out is the “fire from the ice” bit, which it should. Hunter is likely referencing the same Robert Frost poem, Fire and Ice, which George is alluding to in the title of the series. The next line which may have caught your eye is “It’s the same story the crow told me; it’s the only one he knows”. This sounds to me like the three-eyed crow telling Bran the same “story” that the previous greenseers told him, through the Weirwoods. And this is very much what I’m saying when asserting that GRRM has these songs playing around in his head all the time. These themes have penetrated GRRM’s consciousness, and eventually made their way onto the page in some distorted form or another.
It has been noted before that the song Eyes Of The World sounds a lot like what the God’s Eye lake in the Riverlands would look like, an eye of the world. Furthermore, the beginning line of the chorus, “Wake up to find out, that you are the eyes of the world”, once again brings to mind Bran in the cave, dreaming and seeing through the Weirwood net, literally becoming the “eyes of the world”. Which reminds me of another line from a different song called Crazy Fingers- “Gone are the broken eyes we saw through in dreams gone, both dream and lie.”
Let’s next take a look at Dark Star, who’s name George borrowed for Discount Arthur Dayne:
Dark Star

Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes
Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis
Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?
Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter
Glass hand dissolving in ice, petal flowers revolving
Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of good-bye
Shall we go, you and I while we can
Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

One of Hunter's shortest works, Dark Star was the first set of lyrics that he wrote for Jerry's music. This song became became infamous throughout the Dead's fan base due to it's tendency to lead into a very long, experimental, often avant-garde jazz style improvisations. Though short, there's some cool stuff happening here that George is likely pulling from.
Every line in this song conveys a moment of action, a moment of transition, from existence into non-existence. The dark star crashes with its light becoming noting but ash. Reason tatters. Mirror shatters. Glass hand dissolving in ice. A searchlight casts, but into cloud, doomed to disappear. You get the picture. It's the perfect instant at which the thing we know and are familiar with becomes nothing. The term dark star has been used to describe various stages of dwarf stars, or more literally, stars which are dying. If this doesn’t sound like a long night type apocalypse, I don’t know what does. Get out while you have the chance! “Shall we go, you and I while we can, through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?”
Speaking of this line, in his book The Aesthetics Of The Dead, author David Womak points out that Hunter is likely referencing the opening lines of T.S.Eliot's poem The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock:
From The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock:

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table

Interestingly, it's been pointed out (by more intelligent people than myself) this Eliot poem seems to pop back up in another Grateful Dead song with Hunter's lyrics. Even more interestingly, that song happens to be titled Stella Blue. Since "Stella" is the Latin word for "Star", we can read this as "Blue Star", quite similar to a dark star.
Compare this line from Stella Blue:

I've stayed in every blue-light cheap hotel,
can't win for trying
Dust off those rusty strings just one more time

To this line from The Lovesong Of J. Alfred Prufrock:

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells

The blue stars make one last appearance, in the song Built To Last.
From: Built To Last

Two blue stars, shine o'er the hill.
Plead no more, now just be still.
Through the night, now safely there.

From the burning, blue star eyes of the Others, to Symeon Star-Eyes blue sapphire eyes, this imagery is all over A Song of Ice and Fire.
Now, in reality there are large notable differences between 'Dark Stars" and 'Blue Stars'. And George was a pretty strict science fiction author for decades before starting A Song of Ice and Fire, who would likely have a good understanding of this difference. Yet we often see this symbolism used interchangeably (dark, inverted stars and blue stars). Yes, in literature and public knowledge these terms and symbols are often used as one and the same, with little regard to the difference between the two. However, I think there's a good chance that Martin is drawing off this connection in part because of this T.S. Eliot connection which is deeply rooted in both Dark Star and Stella Blue. It might sound like a stretch at first, but an emerging dead head listening to these songs while working on a degree in literature would actually have a pretty good chance of putting this connection together for themselves. Is there any evidence that Martin is at least familiar with this poem, if not fond of it?
Well, yes. On Martin's 73rd birthday he made a short post on his blog, where all that's written is a passage from A Lovesong For J. Alfred Prufrock:

I grow old… I grow old…I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
((with thanks to T.S. Eliot))
(Geroge R.R. Martin's notablog, 9/20/2021, link below)

Another song that reminds me of long night descriptions is Dire Wolf, with which of course George is making an allusion to in the pets of the Stark family.
From: Dire Wolf

In the timbers of Fennario, the wolves are running round
The winter was so hard and cold, froze ten feet 'neath the ground
Don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me
Please, don't murder meI sat down to my supper,
'twas a bottle of red whisky
I said my prayers and went to bed, that's the last they saw of me
Don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me
Please, don't murder me

This reminds me quite a bit of this passage:

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.""You mean the Others," Bran said querulously."The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?" (Bran IV, A Game Of Thrones)

The last verse of this song:
From: Dire Wolf

In the backwash of Fennario,
the black and bloody mire
The Dire Wolf collects his dues, while the boys sing 'round the fire
Don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me
Please, don't murder me

I love the appearance of the "black and bloody" description that George frequently employs.
But we really should talk about Ripple.
Written by Hunter in London while traveling with the band on their 1970 tour in Europe, Ripple was penned on the same afternoon as two other Grateful Dead classics, Brokedown Palace and To Lay Me Down, all with the help of a half-bottle of retsina wine. I bring the song Ripple up, however, because in the interview with George where he says that he’s got Dead lyrics 'rattling around' in his head, the very next line was, “ ‘Ripple’ is one of my favorite songs of all time.” He then went on to quote the tune’s lyrics, “There is a road, no simple highway.” (me too George, me too…)
Ripple

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?
It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow
Reach out your hand if your cup be empty
If your cup is full may it be again
Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men
There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night
And if you go no one may follow
That path is for your steps alone
Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow
You who choose to lead must
follow
But if you fall you fall alone
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home

There’s a lot of meaning packed into these words, but let's try to get our heads around the gist of it. In a lot of ways, this song is about an idea, a thought, and how that thought is transcendent from the individual who thought it. In the first verse, we see Hunter relate personally to this with the (very appropriate) metaphor of a song, and the meaning and feeling that the writer of a song puts into it.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung
Would you hear my voice come through the music
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

Hunter questions here whether the meaning or idea he puts behind a song gets translated with any accuracy to the person listening to it, or playing it on their own. If someone listens to a song you wrote, do they relate it to your life, or their own life and experiences? If they take their own meaning from it, what does the song really mean at all?
David Dodd, a researcher in the music department at University of California, Santa Cruz, creator of the Annotated Grateful Dead, states in an essay about Ripple:

“The poet expresses concern that the song be sung by other people, opening up a discussion of the relationship between the singer and the listener, who will also, it is hoped, come to be the singer, in turn.So the relationship between poet and reader is unity; they are both the poet. In this way, the original poet breaks out of mortality, since his thoughts will continue to generate new thoughts.The next verse continues this theme, but points out that the identification between singer and listener can never be total, since it is questionable whether any of the original poet's thoughts will actually occur to the person who is now singing the song.”

Hunter is questioning the purpose of passing an idea from one person to another by saying it becomes a "hand-me-down", broken and remade from its original form by the receiver, in a way which creates new meaning. He wonders if therefore the song is “better left unsung”. But, in many ways, the purpose of a song isn’t to dictate others, and it isn’t even about conveying information. Songs are created for the purpose of the creation itself. Art is created so art can exist. “I don’t know, don’t really care. Let there be songs to fill the air.”
So then the riddle of the chorus becomes clear. What is the ripple in still water? It is the idea, forever expanding outwards, away from its origin and filling the pond with motion.
After establishing that whether or not the singer understands the intent of the poet, or the singer after that, or the listener, and so on; it doesn't matter, the song takes on it’s own journey. So without contempt, and almost a sense of, as Dodd puts it, “optimistic hopelessness”, Hunter wishes the singers and listeners well on their own way down the “road between the dawn and the dark of night”, and says to “Reach out your hand, if your cup be empty, if your cup is full, may it be again” from the cosmic, divine fountain. Hunter then ultimately leaves us with a message of both love and uncertainty “if you fall you fall alone, If you should stand then who's to guide you? If I knew the way I would take you home.”.
More so than any song title George has thrown into the canon this has, to me, become the strongest correlation between Hunter’s and Martin’s writing. Right in the title of A Song Of Ice And Fire, George is also making a direct connection between song, story, thought and creation. George fully resonates with the concept that Hunter is conveying, and then actively participates in it himself. There is a funny bit of irony here, I am certainly claiming that GRRM deeply understands the meaning of a song all about how impossible is it to fully translate meaning through art. Of course, it’s not just Dead references. Within A Song of Ice and Fire, GRRM has retold the stories of Christian, Greek/ Roman, Celtic, East Asian, and Norse mythology, of his favorite comic book heroes, of King Arthur and countless other fantasy or science-fiction novels that he loves, and of films that left his jaw hanging. As George loves pointing out, you can find the three stooges lurking around in A Game Of Thrones if you keep your eye out. George seems to be in full agreement that art and creation begets more art and creation, and he is tuned in to how an artist should use all their influences to create something that is uniquely their own, yet a culmination of everything they’ve experienced. It’s a hand-me-down, and the thoughts are broken. But they're undeniably there.
So I think the appropriate conclusion to draw is the idea that if you find something while reading A Song of Ice and Fire that sounds like it came straight from a Dead tune, it probably in some small way did. If you’re listening to the Dead and think “man that sounds like Bran in the Weirwood cave” or something, well, you’re probably right. George listened to those same songs too, and definitely has those thoughts in his head. And when an influence (HunteGD) is so ubiquitously present within the themes spanning throughout the work of another artist (in this case George and A Song of Ice and Fire), I think no higher form of tribute can be paid.
Again, thanks for reading!
Tl;dr- I think that the characters Franklyn Fowler and Franklyn Flowers are both a nod to the Grateful Dead song “Franklin’s Tower”, both because of the rhyming names and the fact that both are associated with towers. Furthermore, I think Robert Hunter (Jerry Garcia’s lyricist) was a huge influence on GRRM, and we can see many themes from Hunter’s songs appearing throughout ASOIAF.
Edit: Formatting
Edit 2: The Dire Wolf bit
Edit 3: Formatting
Edit 4: Some more Dark Star stuff
NEW EDIT 2022: Bit about Lovesong for J. Alfred Prufrock appearing on George's notablog. Post appeared one year after I initially wrote this essay.
Edit 6: Formatting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yJmBC7cMTM -My favorite version of Ripple, from Halloween 1980 at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ripple.html -The Annotated Grateful Dead page for Ripple, including essay by David Dodd
https://relix.com/news/detail/george_rr_martin_confirms_grateful_dead_references_in_game_of_thrones/ -Article in Relix magazine discussing GRRM’s Grateful Dead fandom.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock- "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock", by T.S. Eliot
https://www.reddit.com/asoiaf/comments/iykudk/spoilers_published_franklyns_tower_and_the/ - The original post made on asoiaf
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2021/09/20/three-and-seventy/ Blog post quoting T.S. Eliot Poem

The Restitution of all things is not a new idea.
The following are a few of the ladies in the past few hundred years who have grasped the Hope of all hope.
Sharon Baker
https://www.nomadpodcast.co.uk/nomad...d-razing-hell/
Madeleine L'Engle
L'Engle was Episcopalian and believed in Christian universalism, which insisted that everyone will ultimately be saved by God. She meditated on religious issues in such books as And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings (1983). L'Engle also worked at St. John the Divine in New York City as a librarian and writer-in-residence for more than three decades.
Anne Bronte
One of the three famous Bronte sisters, Anne is remembered for being the most pious. Before she died from tuberculosis at the tender age of 29, Anne admitted to a faith in universalism, as the following poem and letter testify.
A Word to The 'Elect'
You may rejoice to think yourselves secure; You may be grateful for the gift divine - That grace unsought, which made your black hearts pure, And fits your earth-born souls in Heaven to shine.
But, is it sweet to look around, and view Thousands excluded from that happiness Which they deserved, at least, as much as you, - Their faults not greater, nor their virtues less?
And, wherefore should you love your God the more, Because to you alone his smiles are given; Because he chose to pass the many o'er, And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?
And, wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove, Because for ALL the Saviour did not die? Is yours the God of justice and of love? And are your bosoms warm with charity?
Say, does your heart expand to all mankind? And, would you ever to your neighbor do - The weak, the strong, the enlightened, and the blind - As you would have your neighbor do to you?
And, when you, looking on your fellow-men, Behold them doomed to endless misery, How can you talk of joy and rapture then? - May God withhold such cruel joy from me!
That none deserve eternal bliss I know; Unmerited the grace in mercy given: But, none shall sink to everlasting woe, That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.
And, oh! there lives within my heart A hope, long nursed by me; (And, should its cheering ray depart, How dark my soul would be!)
That as in Adam all have died, In Christ shall all men live; And ever round his throne abide, Eternal praise to give.
That even the wicked shall at last Be fitted for the skies; And, when their dreadful doom is past, To life and light arise.
I ask not, how remote the day, Nor what the sinners' woe, Before their dross is purged away; Enough for me, to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained, The metal purified, They'll cling to what they once disdained, And live by Him that died.
--Anne Bronte (1843)
Florence Nightingdale
Nightingale was a Christian universalist.
On 7 February 1837 – not long before her 17th birthday – something happened that would change her life: "God spoke to me", she wrote, "and called me to His service."
Hannah W. Smith
The Unselfishness of God and How I Discovered It (the missing chapters)
"Nothing can separate you from His love, absolutely nothing, neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature... We do not need to beg Him to bless us, He simply cannot help it. Therefore God is enough! God is enough for time, God is enough for eternity. God is enough!" -Hannah Whitall Smith-
Clara Barton (Founder Red Cross)
Although not formally a member of the Universalist Church of America in a 1905 letter to the widow of Carl Norman Thrasher, she identified herself with her parents' church as a "Universalist".
My dear friend and sister:
Your belief that I am a Universalist is as correct as your greater belief that you are one yourself, a belief in which all who are privileged to possess it rejoice. In my case, it was a great gift, like St. Paul, I "was born free", and saved the pain of reaching it through years of struggle and doubt.
My father was a leader in the building of the church in which Hosea Ballow preached his first dedication sermon. Your historic records will show that the old Huguenot town of Oxford, Mass. erected one of, if not the first Universalist Church in America. In this town I was born; in this church I was reared. In all its reconstructions and remodelings I have taken a part, and I look anxiously for a time in the near future when the busy world will let me once more become a living part of its people, praising God for the advance in the liberal faith of the religions of the world today, so largely due to the teachings of this belief.
Give, I pray you, dear sister, my warmest congratulations to the members of your society. My best wishes for the success of your annual meeting, and accept my thanks most sincerely for having written me.
Fraternally yours, (Signed) Clara Barton.

Artist: Kanye West Album: Donda
Alternate cover art he has tweeted:
Alternate cover 1
Alternate cover 2
Listen: SPOTIFY APPLE MUSIC TIDAL YOUTUBE
Background by Kitchen_Ur_Lies
The culturally ubiquitous Kanye West, now legally just “Ye”, seemed to be working on everything besides music after releasing his latest solo effort, ‘Jesus Is King.’ A post-Jesus spin-cycle rendition of his cancelled album ‘Yandhi’, it gave listeners what was to be the first of his exclusively non-secular gospel releases “from here on out.” After the uniquely mixed reception to a West effort, Kanye embarked on many ventures outside of music, including helming a creative director role at Gap and casually running for president of the United States. As Kanye’s Gap and very successful Yeezy ventures seemed to make him a billionaire by April 2020, music appeared to be an afterthought for the next iteration of his artistic catalogue.
During an interview with Michèle Lamy in May 2020, cinematographer Arthur Jafa, whose work includes Jay-Z’s 4:44 music video, announced he was collaborating with West on a single off his previously unannounced record, God’s Country. This was our first tease at a new West album since announcing Jesus is King II with Dr. Dre just one month after the former’s release. Stems from these sessions have made their way to the public, including on the aforementioned single and video Jafa worked on, Wash Us In The Blood. A collaboration between Kanye, Travis Scott, Ronny J, and mixing by Dre, the industrial underpinnings of the track still met the laundry cycle of Jesus himself with censored lyrics and heavily reinforcing his reinvigorated faith. Excitement in the project was replenished by fans of the old Kanye just two weeks later, as he dropped a teaser to a track called DONDA, in memory of his late mother on what would have been her 71st birthday. The snippet begins with Donda West reciting lyrics to KRS-One’s Sound of the Police, with Kanye rapping about police brutality and racism over a soulful beat reminiscent of his earlier production techniques. The anticipation seemed to climax as Kanye quickly tweeted and deleted a 20-track album now called DONDA to be released on July 24, which included track names from the Yandhi era. In typical Ye fashion, this was changed 2 days later to a shortened 12 track album and seemingly focused on a gospel tone. July 24th came and went with not a peep from Kanye, until July 26th when he posted the official artwork at the time for DONDA, personally one of my favorite covers he’s ever had made. Not much was said about the album for two months while fully submerging into his presidential candidacy, until late September when he gave us the poorly named snippet for his recent tweets, Believe What I Say. As the 2020 election grew closer, Kanye West released the official theme song for his campaign called Nah Nah Nah, complete with verses by DaBaby and 2 Chainz. When he announced he’d be running for president in 2020 before Pablo, the former sentence didn’t seem like it’d become reality. After his concession, it appeared DONDA was completely shelved as no new developments came towards the turn of the year, soon to be followed by family turmoil resonating with his name online at the start of 2021, as news broke that Kim Kardashian filed from divorce from Kanye. While some fans at the time turned this into hope for new music, CyHi the Prynce ended up confirming this by early March that Kanye had indeed gone back to working on DONDA. Months later, this turned into concrete evidence as posted by Consequence on Instgram video of Tyler, The Creator and a masked Kanye working on music with a tracklist in the background.. A day later, in the most respectful manner, full confirmation that DONDA exists came from Justin LaBoy after a listening session in Las Vegas with “production light years ahead of it’s time, and the bars sound like he’s broke & hungry trying to get signed again.” And if that wasn’t direct confirmation that something was to come soon, Pusha T posted on his Instagram the day after that a listening event was coming to Atlanta Thursday July 22nd. The hype train was fully set in motion by a Beats commercial premiered during game 6 of the NBA finals, confirming a DONDA release date of July 23rd, lining up for just after the listening party.
Donning a red suit and army face mask, Kanye sold out Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz stadium to premiere rough versions of 15 tracks that would make the album. The two hour delay for the entire event didn’t help, but when Ye finally emerged, he came to the center to drop to his knees in prayer-like form, under a spotlight. This performance was not his most involved, as Ye never carried a microphone nor addressed the crowd, only playing formless stems of what was assumed to be a completed project to drop that same night. He repeatedly dropped to his knees, seemingly to look up to God for answers at questions he never conveyed directly, only briefly through some of the more somber songs such as Never Abandon Your Family. The most notable positive reactions came from Hurricane and Praise God, ending with the long awaited reunion of Kanye and Jay-Z on wax, with Jail.
Of course, the album never dropped that night. Instead, Kanye lived out the Phantom of the Opera, living out of Mercedes-Benz stadium, affirming his ties to the city of Atlanta which is his actual birthplace, not Chicago. Another Beats commercial, and another album listening event/release date pairing were set for the evening of August 5th. The flare was kicked up a notch for the second showing, with most participants of the show and Kanye himself wearing DONDA fitted vests that were seen in clips of his stay the 2 weeks between listening parties. Kanye loves his bed and his mama, and they together took center stage to start the show. This second showing was lauded for having upgraded the sonic quality of the music, with clear bass and smooth high frequencies resonating through the stadium and the crowd. This listening party seemed to be a medley of high points throughout his career, blending notes and sequences from 808s and Heartbreaks, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, The Life of Pablo, and elements of Jesus is King. The breadth of range in the tracks and standout performances from new collaborators such as Fivio Foreign, Roddy Ricch, and Griselda displayed the growth from the first listening session. With an overall gospel feel, yet hip hop in spirit, Kanye ended the show by seemingly floating to the heavens to the tune of No Child Left Behind. Overall a great show, but still no album after.
As speculative album release dates were tweeted and posted and changed by streaming services, the only certainty was that Kanye was now going to bring the spectacle back to Chicago, and this time putting even more effort into the stage and show aesthetics. Kanye rebuilt his childhood home, which has now become a tourist attraction in Chicago, and had several special guests stand and sit upon his porch. He derived the most scrutiny from the choice of guests, including DaBaby who recently brought upon himself backlash from the LGBT community for an on stage outlash against gays, as well as Marilyn Manson who is facing a series of rape and sexual assault allegations, both of whom were now associated with the album release and his childhood home. The erratic decisions coincided with some of his inclusions and removals from the songs heard before, such as seemingly kicking off Jay-Z, Kid cudi, The LOX, and Conway entirely off the project. The dark, brooding vibes continued the whole show with black masks and clothes covering most of the guests and those marching around his home. By the time Kanye got to Pure Souls and raps “this the new me, so get used to me,” his childhood home engulfs in flames with him inside. By the time Come To Life cues, Kanye is fully on fire and begging not to die alone. As he slowly walks off the flames, No Child Left Behind’s church organs bellow the stadium as the spotlight shines on a white-hooded figure, Kim Kardashian in a Balenciaga wedding dress. As she walks, she meets a maskless Kanye, who we hadn’t seen in months at this point, re-enacting their wedding, in what seemingly was both a rebirth of his life and marriage.
At this stage, the album was set to release on September 3rd, 2021, coinciding with the release of Drake’s Certified Lover Boy. However, the album seemed to finally come sooner than the announced date, as it suddenly appeared on streaming services the Sunday morning after the last listening event, and the world could finally listen to what was meant to be the official release of DONDA, despite claims from Kanye that it was released without his permission.
Review by Kitchen_Ur_Lies
Coming in at 1 hour and 48 minutes, 27 tracks, 30+ features, and 3 listening parties, the original album entered Kanye’s discography as his longest studio album to date. This was eclipsed on November 14th when the deluxe was released with an additional 5 tracks, and a new runtime of 2 hours and 11 minutes. Both the original and the deluxe contain several “part 2s” which are the same titled songs but with inclusions or swaps of featured guests, bloating the runtime and track list, yet with purpose. I viewed this as Kanye creating his most “customizable” album to date, allowing the listener to pick what the best version of a track is, and the lack of a proper cover art lends itself to that theory. Listeners are given the option to add their favorite version of a track to their playlists, whether it’s minute adjustments to production on a track like on Come to Life (Deluxe), or entire feature changes like on Jail pt 2. Most conventional deluxe albums will add the extra songs to the end of the project, but the deluxe also scrambles the track sequencing of the originally released album, even adding in “part 2s” to the middle of the project instead of at the end. The livestreaming of each listening party also made it very easy for avid fans (real ones like me) to snip and keep previous versions of the songs to use towards their personal library. This is further supported by Kanye simultaneously releasing an interactive stem player to control the vocals, drums, bass, and samples used in the album. A lot of high quality edits and blends (plugging this BEAUTIFUL Heaven & Hell edit here) have come about as a result of this, possibly to the greatest extent of any Kanye release yet, and amazing ones can be found at /Yedits. Since I did most of my listening to the original sequencing of the album, I’ll write in that order, but insert words about “part 2s” with the original tracks.
DONDA opens with Donda Chant, a meditative chant spoken by Syleena Johnson, whose history working with Ye dates back to All Falls Down. Repetitive mantras and prayers are common in several religions as a form of meditation, and using Donda’s name as the centerpiece to invoke this state lends to this album being dedicated to Donda. The ebbs and flows in how Donda is repeated resemble a drum or heartbeat, but unfounded claims that this was mimicking Donda’s final heartbeats have no substantial evidence.
Jail is the loud and abrasive opener to the themes of Donda, crisis and Christ. Backed by a blaring guitar riff reminiscent of “dad-rock,” Kanye uses the repetitive nature of the instrumentation and the hook to mirror the echoing thoughts he’s having at this point in life, complete with their grit. Having a highly publicized divorce from Kim Kardashian, Kanye is left in a frenzy as she breaks away and asks her to just take everything she wants. These lyrics are also an allegory for God to strip Kanye of possessions including wealth and family, similar to the Old Testament tale of Satan stripping those from Job. Themes of stripping and starting anew are explored many times throughout the project, with Kanye leaning on God for the rebirth portion of this cycle.

Guess who’s goin’ to jail tonight?
Guess who’s goin’ to jail tonight?
Guess who’s goin’ to jail tonight?
God gon’ post my bail tonight

Whatever metaphorical jail Kanye finds himself in, he leans on God to save him, including the fragile mental state a divorce would likely put him through. Having changed his phone number to avoid hearing Kim’s sides of things to preserve personal well-being, to looking at the bright side thinking “single life ain’t so bad,” Kanye reinforces that he’ll be alright as long as he’s with God. Kanye employs one of the most lauded rappers ever and his big brother, Jay-Z, to confirm his affirmations.

God in my cells, that’s my celly
Made in the image of God, that’s a selfie
Pray five times a day, so many felonies

Jay paints the picture of the jail cell more vividly, and Kanye took this a step further in the second listening party livestream by showing his living quarters. Continuing the themes of despoiling oneself, they’re both left to nothing more than their image others and God have given them. In Jay’s terms, that’s a selfie. Some of my favorite wordplay in the album comes with the simple line of “pray five times a day, so many felonies.” Jay is clearly referencing the Muslim practice of Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha throughout the day, but is exchanging his sins as felonies that must be made right before God. As Muslims fall to their knees in each prayer, Jay hopes to cleanse his “fell on knees.” He also takes this time to tease the return of The Throne, since Kanye has “stopped all of that red cap”, signaling another new beginning. Jail pt 2 enlists Marilyn Manson and DaBaby, both fresh off controversy themselves. Marilyn Manson’s inclusions are reciting the hook along with Kanye, and in my opinion have no place on the album, as his heinous allegations plus the fact Kanye did fine on the hook alone with the choir was ample already. As the track is echoing Kanye’s thoughts on starting anew, his original chorus already lent itself well to that. DaBaby took the golden opportunity to speak for himself as he felt the full backlash of unsavory homophobic comments at Rolling Loud this August. The money lost after being dropped from three upcoming festivals equated to food being taken off his daughters’ tables, and he reminds us of his harrowing past and upbringing that would lend to him being nothing more than a product of his environment, yet he still managed to rise out of it. As he took the fall for his remarks, he stands on his position and says if he’s “guilty, guess they gon’ have to take me” to jail tonight. Soon after this verse came out, Kirk ended up meeting with HIV-Awareness organizations to learn about the impact HIV has on both the black and LGBT communities. Both versions of Jail end with a raucous drum medley akin to some of the drums on Love Lockdown, leading us out of the monotony of recurrent thoughts and sounds felt throughout the track.
For God Breathed, Kanye continues themes of repetitive nature in calling on God to cleanse his actions and provide guidance for the future. The title likely references 2 Timothy 3:16, which states,

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness

As the last track divested Kanye, he’s taken a new turn and admits he may not know everything, all he knows is that God breathed on this. By telling the listener that God’s doing more than he himself can put into words, he reminds us to look at what he has done long before there were sons and daughters and sun and water. He cues his divorce once more, saying that putting besides the lawyer fees and loyalties, God will solve it all for him. The entire time he recites these chants, the soundscape built around the track is reminiscent of I Am A God, with a thunderous bass backing harsh bellows after every other bar, mirroring the menacing drums in the former track. Vory acts as a conduit for Kanye’s renewed thinking

Devil on my shoulders, I can’t let em breathe
Brush ‘em off my sleeve, I’m filled with memories…
Their hearts are filled with greed
Okay, now they want the old me…
I know that you’d be proud if you was here today
But it’s okay ‘cause I’m okay

Reflecting on his past relationship with God on wax, such as telling God he’ll “be back in a minute” on Can’t Tell Me Nothing, to featuring him on the previously mentioned I Am A God, to how he reveres him once more. As people ask for the old Kanye, and a lot did ask for secular music after Jesus Is King, he recites how greedy that is considering he’s now doing what he feels is best for him. The last lines are certainly talking to the eponymous Donda, who Kanye’s well-documented grief from losing her has transformed him since late 2007. As of this track he’s now a billionaire with four kids he’s proud of, giving him the solace that he’s made her proud by now. He allows the track to literally breathe for 2 more minutes after these last lines are said, staying faithful to the song’s name.
Off The Grid explains Kanye’s actions for everything he’s done in his life so far. Everything had purpose, and is the perfect leadup to God Breathed, since he’s not doing everything just for his four kids, but for their grandkids, and when they have kids. Going off the grid means being divisive, separating yourself, and otherwise not being complacent. In the literal sense, Kanye moving to Wyoming in 2018, the least populous state in the United States is the contra to living in Los Angeles the past few years. In addition, people have either ostracized or praised his behavior throughout his career. Kanye finds himself to be heaven sent, and while he may not speak exactly what he meant, he doesn’t hide his intent. He’s done divisive actions ranging from calling out George Bush for his Katrina efforts or lack thereof, stopping an award winner from giving her thank you speech, calling out the fashion industry for blackballing him, or endorsing Trump and verbally saying “400 years of slavery sounds like a choice to me.” His intent was unmistakable with each action, and even after the backlash of each, he never faltered in changing the stance. And through this outlook, he was able to bring his life in a direction he couldn’t have reached without it. Someone else who tends to be on novel trends in music and fashion is Playboi Carti, whose contribution does bring light to an artistic direction made throughout the album; no cursing. In a Drink Champs interview, he revealed this was because his eldest daughter North wanted no cussing on the album. Many guest verses on this album including the Carti one detract a bit due to the decision, but it doesn’t seem like something that will be updated in the future even though an explicit version does exist. Carti’s verse is fun and a bit of an ode to his lifestyle, tatts, his new kid, and more fashion. The apex of this track (and first half of the album for that matter) is subtly introduced as the track’s heavy, brooding 808s are exchanged for a higher pitched 808 with fast kicking drum pattern evocative of Brooklyn drill. Keen listeners would notice the drill instrumental taking over, and are met with the voice of Fivio Foreign, who arguably gave his standout performance of his career, akin to something Kanye has done for other artists, such as Nicki Minaj on Monster and Rick Ross on Devil in a New Dress early in their careers. Fresh off a 3 month stint in jail on gun charges, Fivio entered a cell once more, though this time with Kanye and a microphone. And in there, they found fire. Carrying Kanye’s Christian themes further, Fivio describes how his sentence didn’t make him lose faith once, as he prayed and felt God carry both feet, and now he stands as a God-like figure. He decisively pronounces his mental fortitude after his jail stint and now feels marvelous, almost like they let the monster loose. Contrasting DaBaby’s claims of being a product of his environment, Fivio emphatically says he’s “what God produced.” Praying is central to Fivio’s MO just like Kanye as well as he knows his old friends pray they settle their differences, while he prays they lower his current friends’ sentences. The main draw of Fivio’s verse is how he decides to enunciate certain words or play around with ad libs, stating “and my car quicker” and delivering one of his signature SKRRRT ad libs. As he rises through the industry, having battled demons and rapping on Demons with Drake, the word of advice he has for newcomers is

If you got a voice then you gotta project it
If you got a wrong, then you gotta correct it
If you got a name, then you gotta protect it
If you give me shock, then you gotta electric (Woo)

Protecting your name and your figure are central to him, as he’s one of the two main Woo rappers that blew up in 2019, the other being his deceased collaborator and friend, Pop Smoke who was killed in February 2020. The release of Fivio’s verse came out to rave reviews in early August 2021, exactly a year after unfounded reports that Fivio himself was killed in Atlanta. Even after that, and especially the rave reviews, the previously undisturbed instrumental after his verse now came with a new Kanye verse at LP3 and on the album. He delves further into how his actions affect the grid, including his viral moments, and how he won’t do an interview to explain himself after the criticism takes place. He gets into why he wears a mask on his face to hide his next move, and his constant moving to get away from miserable people, something in his Drink Champs interview he revealed is because all he carries is a bag of his belongings and calls that “home.” Emphasizing his leverages in life are his God power, and the only beverages he drinks is Holy Water, this is perhaps the most effort in a Kanye rapping verse since the closer of TLOP, Saint Pablo.
Hurricane has been one of the most fluid tracks on this project, dating back to its inception in a Yandhi teaser from 2018 and several reworks since, including three distinctively different versions played at each listening party. The Yandhi leaks floating around have verses from Ant Clemons, Big Sean, Ty Dolla $ign, Young Thug, and 6ix9ine, but the two features on the final version didn’t come until years later. In a very erratic tweet storm around the time of DONDA’s original announcement, Kanye announced Meek is getting between him and Kim, Kris Jenner is Kris Jon-Un, but most importantly that Lil Baby is his favorite rapper but can’t get him on a song. Thankfully this was a false alarm as Baby just didn’t know, and so he was flown out to Cody, Wyoming to record his verse the next day. A year later, this verse surfaced at the first listening party along with a Kanye verse and hook on Hurricane, only for the week after that The Weeknd revealing in a GQ interview that he’d love to work with Kanye again. Calls were promptly made, and The Weeknd’s lyric tenor is risen to belt high resonant notes within the fifth octave for the same picturesque hook we’ve heard many renditions of. The beauty in this version is how the choir compliments The Weeknd’s voice, appearing intermittently with harsh distortion on the production, simulating the wash of a wave, like in a hurricane. Surfing on that wave comes Lil Baby, delivering some humble bars showing how his hunger drove him to success. With each hook, The Weeknd delivers exceedingly piercing vocals to punctuate the point that God is looking over all of us as the rain falls. Kanye takes over the weather report, recounting God making it rain, while the devil makes it hail, and above all how he prevailed. The gem of this track is the progression of the simple trap drums we get in the intro, to the organs throughout the track melding trap with the gospel tone of the album. The closed hat panning across the stereo range mimics debris being kicked around in a hurricane, and they vanish as a break in the storm happens, with the best way I can describe this as Hurricane seems to be the inspiration for this cover art.
In the released track sequencing, Praise God is the first track to include vocal excerpts from Donda herself. In late October 2007, Dr. West gave her last public speech as an honored guest at a poetry conference hosted by her alma mater, Chicago State University. In this, she talks about the writing process of her book on raising Kanye, and how social consciousness, racial injustice, and black youth empowerment influenced her relationship with him. The first excerpt appearing on Praise God is her reciting a poem from Gwendolyn Brooks, which effectively is about perseverance through hardship in the context of the next generation of blacks, but it could also be interpreted as Kanye pushing through the grief of losing his mother among other tribulations that have come now. The transition from Donda’s speech to Travis and Kanye shaking off the devil over thunderous bass claps is such a moment on the album, that it’s become viral on Tiktok since release and has catapulted this song to the best performing on the album to date. The eerie hums from Travis, evocative of his transitory hums on 90210, mark the transition all three are taking from forgotten faith or “spiritual death”, to becoming spiritually alive and reborn by praising God, using direct imagery from the Valley of Dry Bones in the Old Testament. This sets the stage for Baby Keem to start his Tame Impala shoutout habit and even delivering a clever bar about how most believers of God only use him like renter’s insurance, only in their time of need, and not revering Him when things are going well.
Jonah is dedicated in namesake to Jonah Ware, a 19-year-old musician and advocate against gun violence who was killed in Louisville, KY. Knowing this context, the melancholic instrumental and hook that drives the track is reserved for a sulking mood.

Like who’s here when I need a shoulder to lean on?
I hope you’re here when I need the demons to be gone
And it’s not fair that I had to fight ‘em all on my own

Vory reflects on the feelings of loneliness and solitude as he’s left to fight his mental despair or “demons” on his own without his significant other. This could be applied to Kanye’s current state, both in losing his mother and having to figure his tribulations on his own, or his current divorce and the betrayal that sets in his mind. Durk’s contribution signifies this as a tribute to victims of gun violence and their loved ones, as Durk himself lost one of his signed artists and close associates King Von in November 2020, closely followed by his own blood brother Dontay Banks Jr. in June 2021. While Kanye and Jay as brothers were able to keep their bond until they both became billionaires, Durk’s brothers were stopped at just millionaires. Kanye also tries to dead the “smoke an opp pack” slang that’s proliferated the internet and gang cultures in recent years for its blatant disrespect of the dead.
Ok Ok is honestly the most ok ok song on the project, as its about backstabbing and betrayal in the music industry from the perspectives of Kanye, Lil Yachty, Rooga, and Fivio Foreign through his aggressive ad libs. Kanye is taking pretty direct jabs at Drake, with probably his most Drake sounding melodies in the project for both his verse and the hook. Lil Yachty’s portion has hums that seem to build up to something but fizzle out by the end of his verse. Rooga hops on to claim they closed the door on him, after just reminding us they done let the GDs in the door. Ok Ok pt 2 swaps Yachty for Shenseea, who has the most interesting contribution by playing with her Patois tongue on the beat more playfully than everyone else.
An ode to their passion for fashion, Kanye and Playboi Carti reunite to give a tribute to Junya Watanbe, a Japanese designer closely associated with Comme des Garçons. The most bass distorting 808s are found on this track to compliment the braggadocious themes Carti and Kanye rap on. Kanye can’t seem to find any misses in his discography, while Carti recounts having hits the past 5 summers. The prominent organ makes a reappearance here and gives the track a fun flair in addition to the clap, but this also makes the reappearance of Drake shots which watered down both their projects. He warns Drake to stay off his release, even though Kanye is the one that’s instigated for months he wants to dorp the same day as Drake.
Believe What I Say is an ironic title coming from a guy who always delays the work to his fans, so it’s the perfect track to sample another amazing artist who also gives their fans the constant bait and switch for her shows, Lauryn Hill. He originally wanted to sample her back on The College Dropout for All Falls Down, but ended up going with Syleena Johnson to re-sing the vocal portions for sample clearance issues. This time he samples her biggest solo hit, Doo Wop (That Thing)) with ease, and far more involved than last time. The bounce of the track gives an idea of how much fun Kanye had playing with it on an MPC. Playing on his speech, he recites that most people don’t agree with his method of delivering his message, that he now feels he needs to get across and past his point to be satisfied. The beautiful melody pairs well with Kanye showing some improvement in his vocal performing during the hook.
24 might be the most heartfelt track on the album, dedicated to the late and great Kobe Bean Bryant, who was tragically killed with his daughter and seven others in a helicopter crash January 26th, 2020. The shock was felt around the world and as tributes poured out, it did inspire art in some musical minds. He enlists his Sunday Service Choir to invoke the pain and enlightenment of the mourning victims. As they wallow over the same 24 hours we’re all given and how there’s never a right time to go, Kobe’s memory is left to 24 candles found in tributes across the world. Kanye has used God to talk to his mother throughout music since her passing, and the choir uses Him as a conduit once again, speaking to Kobe saying that he’s still alive because God’s never finished. Not allowing the grief to consume anymore, optimism shines and the choir chants that we’ll be ok as the organ resolves into the refrain. It’s also worth noting this is one of the few tracks with a video on the album, giving us perspective on where Kanye went after floating out of Mercedes-Benz stadium. As the song transitions from cries of salvation to personal content, Kanye wanders towards images of his late mother and finally reaches peace once he makes it to Heaven and sees everything will be alright.
At this point I need to break up the review into the comments due to reddit’s character limit per post, but I’ll give my final thoughts here. Overall, Donda is the most refreshing entry to Kanye’s legendary discography almost 20 years after its inception, and easily the best since The Life Of Pablo. Elements of his entire discography come into play, sampling different notes and flavors of tracks to produce a sonically diverse, yet thematically focused project. At a point in his career and life filled with his highest peaks of financial success, and familial woes and lows, Donda acts as a therapeutic channel for Kanye to grieve, mourn, and rejoice all at the same time. The listening parties added to the hype for me, with each version successively improving or altering my expectations of the final product, while also giving me and the internet creative freedom over the versions to listen to.
Favorite Lyrics by Kitchen_Ur_Lies

All this smoke got a scent
All that smoke heaven sent (Scent)
Everything I spoke, what I meant (Ah)
Never disguise my intent, lines outside the event
Brought my life out the trench

• “Off The Grid”

God made it rain, the devil made it hail
Dropped out of school, but I’m the one at Yale
Made the best tracks and still went off the rail

• “Hurricane”

You want dreams to come true? But I had nightmares
Cause if that come to life, then I might not be right here
Been in the dark so long, don’t know if the light here
But I’m just reaching for the stars like Buzz Lightyear

• “Jesus Lord”

Talking Points

• Where does this rank in his discography?
  
• Did the wait substantiate the work, or were you left expecting more?
  
• Favorite verse on this project? There’s many standouts, and I still have trouble picking one based off replays versus sheer lyrical display.
  
• Does something as non cohesive as Donda function better in the streaming era where we can curate our own sequencing?
  
• Do you want Donda 2?
  
• CLB or Donda?
  

Hello Reddit, decided to try to give meaning to all the server names. This is part 1,I had to split it because it was over 40k altogether.
Disclaimer / this is just little old me doing my lazy, basic ass googling, so feel free to help fill out what I left out cuz if i didnt find it relatively quickly i skipped, and correct me if I was wrong or refering to the wrong meaning. Ill try my best to update, mb add links and stuff. Also shoutout to the devs if they ever see this, thanks for the journey through history and mythology !

NA EAST

Aarnivalkea = in Finnish mythology, a will o' the wisp that burns over a hidden treasure. Generally will o' the wisp is an atmospheric ghost light seen by travelers at night, especially over bogs, swamps or marshes. The phenomenon is know in much of European folklore by a variety of names, including jack-o'-lantern, friar's lantern, hinkypunk and hobby lantern and is said to mislead travelers by resembling a flickering lamp or lantern. Adlivun = the spirits of the departed who reside in the underworld , in the Inuit religion. Roughly translated as "those beneath us". Inuit are indigenous peoples of the Arctic region. Argadnel = in Celtic mythology, meaning "plain of silver cloud", one of the Islands of the Earthly Paradise that were visited by Bran the Blessed, "Blessed Crow", a giant and king of Britain Atvatabar = The Goddess of Atvatabar, novel written by William Richard Bradshaw, an Irish-born American author. The premise is by entering the interior of the hollow Earth via a Symmes Hole, the protagonists from the world above find an advanced civilization who use spiritual power to do everything from maintain youth to resurrect the dead. It gets heated from there. Aztlan = name of the mythical homeland of the Aztecs, the ancient Mesoamerican civilization also known as the Mexica. According to their origin myth, they left Aztlan at the behest of their god/ruler Huitzilopochtli, to find a new home in the Valley of Mexico. In the Nahua language, Aztlan means “the Place of Whiteness” or “the Place of the Heron.” Babilary = Barataria = a fictional island awarded by noblemen to Sancho Panza as a prank in Don Quixote, a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labeled as the first modern novel and is considered one of the greatest works ever written Calnogor = a royal city in the science fiction novel The Goddess of Atvatabar Candahar = Kandahar, Afghanistan.The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. A major fortified city existed at area, probably as early as c. 1000–750 BC and it became an important outpost of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia. Plot twist, they are still fighting. Dominora = could be refering to the name for the British Isles in Herman Melvilles third book, Mardi and a Voyage Thither, who is famous for writing Moby Dick. Duguang = in Chinese mythology, a legendary mountain. There were two different kinds of ladders to heaven: the mountains and the trees, both of which were natural things. It was said that a place named Duguang in the southwest was the center of both heaven and the earth. Eden = in Abrahamic religions the Garden of Eden or Garden of God, is the biblical paradise. Ensipe = Falias = in the mythological Irish literature, one of the four islands from which the mythological Tuatha Dé Danann aka The Tribe of God, are supposed to have brought the four treasures (or jewels) aka magical items, when they arrived in Ireland. Frislandia = is a phantom island that appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from the 1560s through the 1660s , born out of the confusion between an imaginary island and the actual southern part of Greenland. Due to incorrect charting appeared that way on maps for the next 100 years until the myth of Frisland was gradually dispensed Heliopolis = one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt , perhaps more importan as a religious rather than a political centre. It was the seat of worship of the sun god Ra, the creator god. He was believed to travel across the sky in his solar bark and, during the night, to make his passage in another bark through the underworld, where, in order to be born again for the new day, he had to vanquish the evil serpent Apopis (Apepi). Hanan Pacha = in Incan mythology, one of the 3 realms of cosmos, meaning "world above" . Overall the realms are not solely spatial, but were simultaneously spatial and temporal. Although the universe was considered a unified system within Incan cosmology, the division between the worlds was part of the dualism prominent in Incan beliefs, known as Yanantin. This dualism found that everything which existed had both features of any feature , both hot and cold, positive and negative, dark and light, etc. Kay Pacha = in Incan mythology, one of the 3 realms of cosmos, meaning "this world" Krocylea = Ancient Greek name of an island in the Ionean Sea near Ithaca. In Homer's Illiad , its part of Odysseus's kingdom. Some researchers believe its todays Greek island Atokos or Meganisi Locuta = could refer to the Voyage to Locuta; a fragment; with etchings illustrating Mercury introducing a Youth to the Island of Locuta, by Lemuel Gulliver, the fictional protagonist and narrator of Gulliver's Travels, a novel written by Jonathan Swift, first published in 1726 Loloi = in the Lugbara mythology, God created Gborogboro (‘the person coming from the sky’) and a woman named Meme (‘the person who came alone’). Meme bore a boy and girl and all this took place at a place called Loloi. Now you know how ancient memes are. The Lugbara are a Central Sudanic ethnic group who live mainly in regions of Congo and Uganda. Maramma = Goddess Maramma is a manifestation of mother goddess that is worshipped in South India. She is mother to those who follow the path of Dharma and nemesis to all those who indulge in Adharmic activities. She protects from epidemic diseases, lol. Mictlan = the underworld of Aztec mythology. When someone died, they had to go through a journey of nine levels to arrive at Mictlán. The process, which lasted for four years, was full of obstacles.The objective was to arrive at the underworld, with the two gods of death. In this way, the soul of the departed would achieve eternal rest. Minda = could be referring to The Myth of Mindanao , at the end of which Prince Maranao and Prin- cess Minda, named their kingdom Mindanao. Of course Mindanao is the second-largest island in the Philippines. Moriai = in ancient Greece, the moriai aka olive trees were considered to be the property of the state because of their religious significance. In Greek mythology the creation of the olive tree was the result of a contest between Athena and Poseidon, as to who would become the protector of a newly built city in Attica (the historical region of Greece). MoIRai has a slightly different spelling and represents the Fates, the incarnations of destiny, Morrow = aka Moros, is the God of doom in Greek mythology. He was the only force that Zeus dreaded and was considered to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent He is also referred to as "the all-destroying god, who, even in the realm of Death, does not set his victim free". But ever since he was concealed from the perception of humanity, he was hardly mentioned in mythology, Norumbega = a legendary settlement in northeastern North America which was featured on many early maps from the 1500s until European colonization of the region. It was alleged that the houses had pillars of gold and the inhabitants carried quarts of pearls on their heads. Nunne Chaha = in Creek Native American mythology is the great mountain in the Creation Legend. It is believed that the world was originally entirely underwater. The only land was a hill aka Nunne Chaha on which is the home of Hesaketvmese (meaning "master of breath), a solar deity also called Ibofanga ("the one who is sitting above (us)"). He created humanity from the clay on the hill Oceana = Ogygia = an island mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, as the home of the nymph Calypso, the daughter of the Titan Atlas. Calypso detained Odysseus on Ogygia for seven years and kept him from returning to his home of Ithaca, wanting to marry him. Olympus = in Greek mythology known as the home of the gods and the site of the throne of Zeus Orofena = a fictional island from When the World Shook is a novel by British writer H. Rider Haggard. It deals with the adventures of Bastin, Bickley, and Arbuthnot as they travel to the south sea island of Orofena. They meet the sleeping god Oro and his daughter Yva. Oro claims they have been unconscious for 250,000 years. But with the help of remote viewing, he sees what is happening in other parts of the world, and not being too impressed (WWI is going on), he comes up with a plan to deal with it. It gets heated from there. Orun = in the Yoruba religion , The Supreme God or Supreme Being. The Yoruba people are an ethnic group that inhabits western Africa. Pahruli = in Tamil literature, a mythical ancient river located in the sunken landmass of Kumari Kandam, a mythical continent, believed to be lost with an ancient Tamil civilization, supposedly located south of present-day India in the Indian Ocean Pleroma = in Gnosticism generally refers to the totality, literally the fullness of divine power Pyrallis = Pyrausta also called Pyrallis is a creature with origins in ancient Greek and Roman mythology. They are of a dual nature, combining the form of an insect and a tiny dragon. Royllo = a legendary phantom island that was once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean, the island is usually depicted in many 15th-century maps and is often found in the group insulae de novo repertae, or "newly discovered islands" along with other legendary islands. Ruach = the Hebrew ruach means “wind,” “breath,” or “spirit.” The corresponding Greek word is pneuma. Both words are commonly used in passages referring to the Holy Spirit. The word’s first use in the Bible appears in the second verse: “The Spirit of God [Ruach Elohim] was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). Altogether, the word ruach is found almost 400 times in the Old Testament. Scheria = a region in Greek mythology, mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as the home of the Phaeacians and the last destination of Odysseus in his 10-year journey before returning home to Ithaca. It is one of the earliest descriptions of an Utopia Silha = an island describet in The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a travel memoir which despite the fantastical nature of the travels, heavily influenced people like Christopher Columbus. "From this land men go to another isle that is clept Silha. In that land is full much waste, for it is full of serpents, of dragons and of cockodrills, that no man dare dwell there." Sitara = Takamagahara = in Japanese mythology,"High Plain of Heaven", the abode of the heavenly gods. Often depicted as located up in the sky, it is believed to be connected to the Earth by the bridge Ama-no-ukihash, the "Floating Bridge of Heaven" Themiscyra = capital city of the Amazonians, Diana of Themiscira aka Wonder Woman Tlalocan = described in several Aztec codices as a paradise, ruled over by the rain deity Tlaloc. It absorbed those who died through drowning or lightning, or as a consequence of diseases associated with the rain deity Tritonis = a large lake in northern Africa that was described in many ancient texts, said to be named after Triton, a Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite Topan = the Nahua people such as the Aztecs believed that the heavens were constructed and separated into 13 levels , usually called Topan. The Thirteen Heavens were formed out of Cipactlis, a primeval sea monster, part crocodilian, part fish, and part toad or frog. The deity Tezcatlipoca sacrificed a foot when he used it as bait to draw the monster nearer. He and Quetzalcoatl created the earth from its body. Ute yomigo = in mythology of the Miwok Native American, the dead jumped into the ocean and followed a string leading west beyond the breaker waves, that took them to the setting sun. There they remained with Coyote in an afterworld "ute-yomigo", "dead home." Coyote in many tales figures as their ancestor, creator god, and a trickster god. Valhalla = In Norse mythology, the majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard and ruled over by Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those who die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr. UNTIL VALHALLA ! Valgrind = the main entrance to Valhalla in Norse mythology Vingolf = in Norse mythology, its one of the buildings of the gods. Its described as the hall or altar of the goddesses and also as a place where righteous men and those slain in battle go after death Xibalba = roughly translated as "place of fright", its the name of the underworld in Maya mythology. It is depicted as a court below the surface of the Earth associated with death and with twelve gods or powerful rulers known as the Lords of Xibalba. The first among the Maya death gods ruling Xibalba were Hun-Came ("One Death") and Vucub-Came ("Seven Death") . The remaining ten Lords are often referred to as demons and are given commission and domain over various forms of human suffering: to cause sickness, starvation, fear, destitution, pain, and ultimately death. Yaxche = the World Tree in the Maya mythology, represented by the Ceiba pentandra, known as the Kapok tree in English, that is native to the southern Mexico region. The Gods planted four Ceiba trees in each corner of the world, in the east a red Ceiba; in the west a black Ceiba; in the south a yellow Ceiba; and in the north a white Ceiba, so that they could hold up the heavens. The fifth Yaxche was planted in the center of the four trees so that its roots could reach Xibalba, the underworld, and its branches reached the heavens. The fifth tree Yaxche was viewed as the sacred connector of the three realms; the Underworld, the Middle world, and the Heavens, The World Tree. Ys = is a mythical city on the coast of Brittany but later swallowed by the ocean and submerged under the Bay of Douarnenez. Breton tradition.Different versions exist tho each portrays at least three characters: Gradlon Meur, a pious, saintly king who has protected his city by building a protective dike; Dahut, his wilful and wayward daughter; and Guénolé, founder of the first monastery in Brittany. In the oldest version Dahut secretly entertains her lover, and the two of them, excited by wine, steal Gradlon's key to open the dike, flooding the city. Zuvendis = a lost kingdom in the neighborhood of East Africa depicted in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It was discovered by an aging Allan Quatermain and his companion. It gets heated from here. Tldr, Quatermain was ill for the next 6 months due to a wound to his left chest in the battle. He supposedly passed away in bed, in his cottage on the outskirts of the captial city of the ZuVendis. A manuscript of his adventures made its way back to England at the hand of Alphonse, who was the only one from the group to return to Europe.

NA WEST

Aukumea = in Maori mythology, symbolizes the eighth highest heaven or division of the sky, where spirits live for a while. It is ruled over by the god Rehua, one of the most powerful and ancient Maori deities: the Lord of Kindness, who dispersed gloom and sorrow from the minds of men Camelot = castle where the legendary King Arthur held court,the location of the famous Round Table Celadon =a mythological river of Arcadia crossed by Heracles, the son of Zeus, in pursuit of the Hind of Ceryneia, a mythical creature that took the form of an enormous female deer, larger than a bull, with golden antlers like a stag, that "excelled in swiftness of foot", and snorted fire El Dorado = the legendary lost city of gold, whose myth led many conquistadors on a adventure into the rainforests and mountains of South America. On the other for South American people El Dorado was never a place, but a ruler so rich that he allegedly covered himself in gold from head to toe each morning and washed it off in a sacred lake each evening Ferri = in Albanian mythology the Underworld, the supernatural world of the dead Kronomo = the myth of the legendary Ngäbe chief Mironomo-Kronomo. The Ngäbe are an indigenous people within the territories of present-day Panama and Costa Rica in Central America. Originally few, if any, Ngäbe occupied the mountainous region in which they now live.They retreated to that area over time under pressure from Spanish conquistadors, after encountering Christopher Columbus Kshira Sagara = in Hindu cosmology, the "Ocean of Milk", the fifth from the center of the seven oceans. It is also the place where Vishnu, the Supreme God, reclines over Shesha Naga, the king of all nagas, one of the primal beings of creation and an Avatar of the Supreme God Lilliput = fictional island nation that appear in the first part of the 1726 novel Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Its inhabited by midg... I mean tiny people who are about one-twelfth the average height. Linnunrata = in Finnish mythology, its the name for the Milky way, "the path of the birds", because the birds were believed to move along it to Lintukoto, "the home of the birds" located at the edges of the Earth and back. There are edges because of course the Earth is flat. Mag Mell = in Irish mythology represents a mythical realm achievable through death and/or glory. Unlike the underworld in some mythologies, Mag Mell was a pleasurable paradise. Its a place where sickness and death do not exist, a place of eternal youth and beauty. Here, music, strength, life and all pleasurable pursuits come together in a single place. It is the Irish equivalent of the Greek Elysium or the Valhalla of the Norse Mulitefao = in Tuvaluan mythology , the stories of the people who first inhabited the island say: “The first inhabitants were half spirit and half human beings who lived at Mulitefao. Their leader was Kulu who took the form of a woman. The first human settlers came from Samoa in a canoe captained by a man called Mataika." The islands and atolls of Tuvalu are a part of West Polynesia. Neno Kuni = a netherworld in Japanese mythology, meaning "Land of roots", ruled by the god Susanoo. Izanagi divides the world among his three children: Amaterasu gets the Plain of High Heaven, Tsukuyomi the Night, and Susanoo the Seas.However Susanoo instead kept howling causing the mountains to wither and the rivers to dry up. After saying to his father that he wished to go to his mothers Izanamis land, Neno Kuni , a furious Izanagi then expelled Susanoo "with a divine expulsion" . Also the Uciha clan controlled all of them to use their power. Nidavellir = in Norse mythology it was the home of the Dwarves. The dwarves are master smiths and craftsmen who live beneath the ground. Accordingly, Nidavellir was probably thought of as a labyrinthine, subterranean complex of mines and forges. They are still crafting BIS gear. Plancta = Riallaro = a great cluster of small islands, surrounded by a ring of fog, and thus undiscovered by the outside world for a long time. Captain Nemo explored the Riallaro Archipelago where he found the islands as a "strategically disastrous group of territories" that avails him nothing in his intentions against the British Empire. Depicted in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Sarrangalla = "island of technology" from Die Inseln der Weisheit (The Islands of Wisdom), a 1922 novel by Alexander Moszkowsk. The novel's island depictes mobile telephones and a thorough mechanization of life way ahead of its time. Theleme = a deeply religious nation, from the game Greedfall, built around the teaching of StMatheus, a legendary figure who taught his people to manipulate the magic of light for the greater glory of their creator: The Enlightened. It is inspired by the Spanish kingdoms during the Reconquista. Tlillan Tlapallan = "Place of the black and red colour" , a legendary place or region on the Gulf Coast of Mexico where king Quetzalcoatl,"Precious serpent" , a deity in Aztec culture, went in order to burn himself and change into the Morning Star. Meaning he became a principal member of the pantheon of gods within the Aztec religion, representing the Morning Star Venus. Uku Pacha = in Incan mythology, one of the 3 realms of cosmos, meaning "world below" Vourukasha = the name of a heavenly sea in Zoroastrian mythology. It was created by Ahura Mazda, the creator deity and in its middle stood the Harvisptokhm or the "tree of all seeds" . Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest continuously practiced religions, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. Yggdrasil = in Norse mythology, is an immense and central sacred tree. Around it exists all else, including the Nine Worlds.One of its roots extended into Niflheim, the underworld; another into Jötunheim, land of the giants; and the third into Asgard, home of the gods. At its base were three wells: Urdarbrunnr (Well of Fate), from which the tree was watered by the Norns (the Fates); Hvergelmir (Roaring Kettle), in which dwelt Nidhogg, the monster that gnawed at the tree’s roots; and Mímisbrunnr (Mimir’s Well), source of wisdom, for the waters of which Odin sacrificed an eye. After Ragnarök, the world tree, though badly shaken, was to be the source of new life

EUROPE

Abaton = in Greek mythology, a dream chamber within the temples of the demi-god Asclepius. Those seeking healing would drink and bathe at a sacred spring whose waters carry the healing energy of the earth spirits, and undergo a purification ritual facilitated by dedicated priests Alastor = in Greek mythology, an epithet of the god Zeus, which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed. The personified spirit of the family blood feud--the inflicting of vengeance upon younger generations for the crimes of their forefathers Albraca = a fortress within king Galafrones realm, from Orlando innamorato, an epic poem written by the Italian Renaissance author Matteo Maria Boiardo Alfheim = in Norse mythology , home of the Light Elves Annwn = in Welsh mythology, essentially heaven, a world of delights and eternal youth where disease was absent and food was ever-abundant Amenti = in Egyptian mythology, thought to be where the sun set, and where the entrance to the Underworld was located. Later the term began to associate itself with graveyards and tombs as well. Asgard = in Norse mythology, one of the Nine Worlds surrounding the tree Yggdrasil, the fortified home to the Aesir tribe of gods, located in the sky Bakhu = in Egyptian mythology, the mythical mountain from which the sun rose. The region of the eastern horizon. One of two mountains that held up the sky, the other being Manu. These peaks were guarded by the double lion god Aker. Baltia = a mythic island in northern Europe mentioned in Greco-Roman geography in the connection of amber, fossilized tree resin that has been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since Neolithic time. It presumably corresponds to a territory near either the Baltic Sea or the North Sea Barri = in Norse mythology, the place where Freyr, the ruler of peace and fertility, rain, and sunshine and the son of the sea god Njörd, and Gedr, goddess of gardens, fertile earth, and enclosures necessary to protect crops, are to consummate their union aka netflix and chill Bengodi = a fictional place from The Decameron, a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio "The district is called Bengodi and there they bind the vines with sausages, and a denier will buy a goose and a gosling into the bargain; and on a mountain, all of grated Parmesan cheese, dwell folk that do nought else but make macaroni and raviuoli, and boil them in capon's broth, and then throw them down to be scrambled for; and hard by flows a rivulet of Vernaccia, the best that ever was drunk, and never a drop of water therein. ” Also depicted in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Bensalem = mythical land from New Atlantis, incomplete utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon, published posthumously in 1626. The novel depicts the creation of a utopian land where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the commonly held qualities of the inhabitants of the mythical Bensalem. The plan and organisation of his ideal college, Solomon's House, envisioned the modern research university in both applied and pure sciences Bifrost = in Norse mythology, a burning rainbow bridge that reaches between Midgard (Earth) and Asgard, the realm of the gods. The bridge ends in heaven at Himinbjörg, the residence of the god Heimdallr, who guards it . The bridge's destruction during Ragnarök is foretold Caer Sidi = the name of a legendary otherworld fortress mentioned in Middle Welsh mythological poems in the Book of Taliesin, one of the most famous of Middle Welsh manuscripts, dating from the first half of the 14th century though many of the fifty-six poems it preserves are taken to originate in the 10th century or before. Duat= the realm of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology. It has been represented in hieroglyphs as a star-in-circle. The god Osiris was believed to be the lord of the underworld. He was the first mummy as depicted and he personified rebirth and life after death Eurytheia = in Greek mythology, an island where Hercules was sent to seek the cattle of Geryon, the son of Chrysaor, eventually slaying the giant. This island lay in the far west, beyond Oceanus. To cross the ocean, Hercules barrowed the "goblet of the Sun," in which the solar star sailed back to his palace every evening on the other side of the world. Hercules had to threaten the Sun with his arrows before he was offered the loan of the goblet. Yes, he threatened the Sun. Ekera = in Oromo mythology , the underworld. Oromo are a Cushitic ethnic group and nation native to the Oromia region of Ethiopia and Kenya Elysium = in Greek mythology also known as the Elysian Fields, a conception of the afterlife , only mortals related to the gods and other heroes or those chosen could enter. They would remain at the Elysian Fields after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulge in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life. Yes, same job in heaven , just forever. Fae = aka fairies, mythical being or found in European folklore Finias = in Irish mythology, one of the four great cities from which the Irish mythical Danaan, a supernatural race, were said to have sprung. Ganzir = in Mesopotamian mythology, the palace where the ruler of the underworld, the goddess Ereshkigal, resided. Sometimes used as a name for the underworld itself Gaunes = in Arthurian legend, the name given to the kingdom of King Bohort, father of the round table knight, Sir Bors de Ganis and brother to King Ban, father of Lancelot Glyn Cagny = refers to The Crock of Gold is a comic novel written by Irish author James Stephens, in which tells the tale of two Philosophers who are "wiser than anything in the world except the Salmon who lies in the pool of Glyn Cagny into which the nuts of knowledge fall" Hades = in the Greek mythology, the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hellheim = in Norse mythology the realm of dead, ruled by the goddess Hel Harmonia = in Greek mythology, the immortal goddess of harmony and concord. Renowned for the the Necklace of Harmonia, a cursed, fabled object which brought missfortune to those who wear it Hyperborea = in Greek mythology, a fabulous realm of eternal spring located in the far north beyond the home of the north wind. Its people were a blessed, long-lived race untouched by war, hard toil and the ravages of old age and disease. Icaria = is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. According to tradition, it derives its name from Icarus, the son of Daedalus, a skillful architect and craftsman, in Greek mythology, who was believed to have fallen into the sea nearby for flying too close to the sun using his wings made of feathers and wax Ife = an ancient Yoruba city in south-western Nigeria. According to the traditions of the Yoruba religion, Ifè was founded by the order of the Supreme Gods. Its famous worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures dating back to 1400 A.D. Inferni = are humans who practice the art of manipulating matter at its most basic formand whose power lies in the manipulation of different natural elements. Depicted in the Shadow and Bone trilogy, fantasy adventure novels written by Leigh Bardug. Di inferi is close, in Latin, "the gods below", a shadowy collective of ancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld. Iroko = a large hardwood tree from the west coast of tropical Africa that can live up to 500 years. Yoruba people believe that the tree is inhabited by a spirit, and anybody who sees the Iroko-man face to face becomes insane and speedily dies. Any man who cuts down any iroko tree causes devastating misfortune on himself and all of his family. Also belived to have healing properties Ishtakar = in Islamic mythology, a legendary ruined city that stands. Prophet Sulaiman built this city with the aid of the jinn,supernatural creatures. It was destroyed by a terrible storm sent by god. Below the city lie many caverns and chambers, and it is the dwelling place of Iblis and his evil jinn Kor = a lost city, where a once mighty civilisation that predated the Egyptians lived, from She, subtitled A History of Adventure, a novel by the English writer H. Rider Haggard, published in 1887. The story is a first-person narrative which follows the journey of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. They encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen named Ayesha who reigns as the all-powerful "She" or "She-who-must-be-obeyed" Ketumati = a legendary place in Buddhist traditions. It is the earthly paradise of Maitreya, the future Buddha. Devotees of Maitreya believe that the kingdom is a pure land where he and his future parents will preside upon his descent from the Tusita Heaven to Earth Lyonesse = a kingdom which, according to Arthurian legend, consisted of a long stretch of land from the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England to what is now the Isles of Scilly in the Celtic Sea portion of the Atlantic Ocean. It was considered lost after being swallowed by the ocean in a single night Melinde = a town at the mouth of the Sabaki River, lying on the Indian Ocean coast of Kenya. The town is best known for the Vasco da Gama Pillar, built by the Portugues. The monument is one of the oldest European cenotaphs built on the East African coast in 1498 amid Muslim resistance. More impressive for what it represents (the genesis of the Age of Exploration) than the edifice itself. Muspelheim = in Norse mythology, a realm of fire. Its described as a hot and glowing land of fire, home to the fire giants, and guarded by Surtr, a major figure during the events of Ragnarok where carrying his bright flaming sword, he goes to battle with the major god Freyr, and afterward the flames that he brings forth will engulf the Earth. Murias = in Irish mythology, one of the four islands from which the mythological Tuatha Dé Danann aka The Tribe of God, are supposed to have brought the four treasures aka magical items, when they arrived in Ireland Naxos = a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades, an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abrasives available. Idavoll = in Norse mythology, plains located in the middle of Asgard, a meeting place of the gods Nav = a phrase used to denote the souls of the dead in Slavic mythology. The singular form is also used as a name for the underworld, over which god Veles exercises custody Nifheilm = in Norse mythmology, meaning "Home of Mist", the cold, dark, misty world of the dead, ruled by the goddess Hel. In some accounts it was the last of nine worlds, a place into which evil men passed after reaching the region of death (Hel). Situated below one of the roots of the world tree, Yggdrasill, Niflheim contained a well, Hvergelmir, from which many rivers flowed Midgard = in Norse mythology, the Middle Earth, the abode of mankind, made from the body of the first created being, the giant Ymir. The gods killed Aurgelmir, rolled his body into the central void of the universe, and began fashioning the Midgard. His flesh became the land, his blood the oceans, his bones the mountains, his teeth the cliffs, his hair the trees, his brains (blown over the earth) became the clouds, his skull was held up by four dwarfs and became the dome of the heavens. The sun, moon, and stars were made of scattered sparks that were caught in the skull. Metsola = could refer to Kalevala,a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. It tells an epic story about the Creation of the Earth, describing the controversies and retaliatory voyages between the peoples of the land of Kalevala and their various protagonists and antagonists, as well as the construction and robbery of the mythical wealth-making machine Sampo. The Kalevala is regarded as the one of the most significant works of Finnish literature along J. L. Runeberg's The Tales of Ensign Stål the district of Metsola in the city of Vantaa , is a place in Finnland with a Kalevala-related name Nysa = in Greek mythology, the mountainous district where the rain nymphs, the Hyades, raised the infant god Dionysus , the god of the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine, of fertility, orchards and fruit, vegetation, insanity, ritual madness, ecstasy, festivity and theatre aka my guy Penglai = in Chinese mythology , immortals live in a palace called the Penglai Palace which is located on Mount Penglai. The mountain is often said to be the base for the legendary Eight Immortals, as well as the illusionist Anqi Sheng, a Taoist wizard, who is able to render himself visible or invisible. Supposedly, everything on the mountain seems white, while its palaces are made from gold and platinum, and jewels grow on trees. Rocabarra =in Scottish Gaelic mythology,a phantom island, which is supposed to appear three times, the last being at the end of the world Runeberg = Johan Ludvig Runeberg , the Finnish national poet. If you visit Finland in early February, when the whole nation celebrates J.L. Runeberg’s birthday by eating the quintessential Runeberg cake. His wife used to make him a cake using leftover bread crumbs, punch and fruit from the garden the muffin-like pastry quickly became part of the poet’s daily breakfast Saba = a Caribbean island which is the smallest special municipality of the Netherlands. Christopher Columbus is said to have sighted the island in 1493, however, he did not land, being deterred by the island's perilous rocky shores. Eventually through colonisation the Netherlands eventually gained complete control of the island in 1816. Saena = could refer to Simurgh Saena ,a mythical bird in Persian mythology,the Great Falcon. The word comes from "the bird Saēna", originally a raptor, likely an eagle, falcon, or sparrowhawk. Sanor = Silpium = in Greek mythology, the ancient mountain where Io, the first priestess of Hera and the mortal lover of Zeus, dies of grief Slavna = "famed", in Norse mythology, a female jötunn aka giant Tanje = Thule = the farthest north location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography.In classical and medieval literature, ultima Thule (Latin "farthermost Thule") acquired a metaphorical meaning of any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world" Tir Na Nog = in Irish mythology, "Land of the Young", a part of the Celtic Otherworld. Oisín (a human hero) and Niamh (a woman of the Otherworld) fall in love. She brings him to Tír na nÓg on a magical horse that can travel over water. After spending what seems to be three years there, Oisín becomes homesick and wants to return to Ireland. Niamh reluctantly lets him return on the magical horse, but warns him never to touch the ground. When he returns, he finds that 300 years have passed in Ireland. Oisín falls from the horse. He instantly becomes elderly, as the years catch up with him, and he quickly dies of old age. Yikes Tupia = Tupia, Native of Polinesia’ (Tupaia) had been enlisted by Lieutenant James Cook amongst the crew of the Endeavour during his first visit to New Zealand in 1769. He acted as a guide and intermediary and played a pivotal role in mediating between Māori communities and the crew Una bara = in Japanese mythology, the Sea realm, which the god Susanoo rejected when his father tasked him to rule over it, resulting in him being expelled to be near his mother in the land Neno Kuni Urdabrun = in Norse mythology , the legendary well which is located beneath the world tree Yggdrasil, associated with Norns, deities responsible for shaping the course of human destinies Utgard = in Norse mythology, meaning "Outyards", surrounded a stronghold of the giants. They are associated with Útgada-Loki, a great and devious giant featured in one of the myths concerning Thor and Loki who competed in rigged competitions held in the Outyards. These outdoor arenas contrasted with the putrid, indoor cave where Útgarda-Loki is said to have dwelt, when chained. Vainola = in Finnish mythology, an ancient nation said to be ruled by the deities Vainamoinen and Ilmarinen. It pressumably began existing during the Golden Age and slowly became the part of the modern nation of Finland with the arrival of Christianity in the Middle Ages. Zerzurra = a mythological city, long rumored to have existed deep in the desert west of the Nile River in Egypt or Libya. It is said to be a city in the Sahara full of treasure with a sleeping king and queen. The city is guarded by black giants who keep anyone from going in and coming out

A quick intro for my experience with Community: I'm from England, and started watching it as background TV in late 2019, before moving to Germany. There was no way for me to continue watching it here, so I asked for the DVD for Christmas, and was given the complete box set with all 6 seasons. Just a few months later the show was added to Netflix, but I am immensely happy that I've got the DVDs. I've since watched the entire show 4 times, and it's my joint favourite TV show of all time (alongside The Inbetweeners, and This Is Us).
My list, along with their place in a tier-ranking system, is below. I have used the DVD running order, and I know in advance that some of my opinions won't go down well here. Apologies in advance.
Season 3 contained my absolute favourite, and absolute worst episode. If you averaged the ranks from each episode, my ranking of seasons goes in the order 2, 3, 1, 5, 6, 4.

Tier 1: Streets Ahead

#1: Remedial Chaos Theory (Episode 52, S3 E3)
Troy and Abed's housewarming party turns into a surreal, post-modern world with parallel realities; each reality showing the effect on the study group of one character's absence from it.
#2: A Fistful of Paintballs (Episode 48, S2 E23)
The Greendale campus celebrate their last day of school with a BBQ picnic. Dean Pelton announces plans for a new game of paintball, which has students forming alliances and friendships being tested. During the game, a mysterious man (Josh Holloway) emerges on campus.
#3: Modern Warfare (Episode 23, S1 E23)
After the Dean announces the prize for a friendly game of paintball, Greendale sinks into a state of all-out paintball war, with every student battling for supremacy. During the chaos, Jeff's study group teams up in order to last longer in the game. Meanwhile, Jeff and Britta finally act on their previously unresolved sexual tension, though the group does not find out.
#4: Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design (Episode 34, S2 E9)
When Dean Pelton begins checking class schedules, he discovers that Jeff has listed a class that doesn't exist. Just when it appears Jeff will be caught in a lie, the mysterious "Professor Professorson" (Kevin Corrigan) emerges from the shadows to confirm that Jeff has been taking his class, "Conspiracy Theories in U.S. History," at night school. When Jeff later admits to Annie that he's never seen Professor Professorson in his life, the two decide to find out who the professor really is. Meanwhile, Abed and Troy are busy building the most elaborate blanket fort that Greendale Community College has ever seen.
#5: For a Few Paintballs More (Episode 49, S2 E24)
As the paintball game continues, it takes a dramatic turn with new participants entering the game. The study group realizes they must unite to defeat the enemy despite disagreements about strategy.
#6: Contemporary American Poultry (Episode 21, S1 E21)
Jeff's plan to get chicken fingers from the school cafeteria for the study group quickly evolves into a mafia film-style endeavour with Abed calling all the shots. The episode features several cultural references from mobster films such as Goodfellas and The Godfather.
#7: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Episode 39, S2 E14)
Jeff invites "Fat Neil" (Charley Koontz) to play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with the rest of the study group, hoping to boost his confidence, after Jeff becomes concerned about his mental health. When Pierce finds out he was not invited, he joins anyway, disrupting their plans.
#8: The First Chang Dynasty (Episode 70, S3 E21)
When Chang gains control of Greendale's campus, the study group forms a plot to take back the school. Troy seeks help at the Air Conditioning Repair Annex.
#9: Cooperative Polygraphy (Episode 8, S5 E4)
The study group undergo a polygraph test as part of the conditions of Pierce's will, but it soon turns sour as the group's secrets come to light, and Troy makes a major decision in order to satisfy the conditions of the bequeathing.
#10: Epidemiology (Episode 31, S2 E6)
Pierce and a few other Greendale students ingest a bio-hazard substance at the school Halloween Party, causing them to exhibit flu-like symptoms and they soon begin turning into zombies. It is up to the rest of the gang to save themselves and the school when Dean Pelton locks them in with the zombie-infected student body.
#11: Basic Lupine Urology (In a homage to Law & Order, the study group investigate a crime when someone sabotages their biology experiment. When they discover the perp, Annie plans on prosecuting them to the fullest extent of Greendale's Code of Conduct.)
#12: Geothermal Escapism (Episode 89, S5 E5)
To honour Troy's last day at Greendale, Abed organizes a campus-wide game of "The Floor Is Lava."

Tier 2: Pop Pop!

#13: Intro to Political Science (Episode 42, S2 E17)
When the vice president comes to Greendale, Dean Pelton organizes a student body election, which Annie is determined to win against Leonard, Jeff, and Star Burns. Meanwhile, Abed becomes friends with a secret service agent (Eliza Coupe).
#14: Pillows and Blankets (Episode 63, S3 E14)
Presented in the style of Ken Burns' documentary, The Civil War: What starts as a casual disagreement over pillows and blankets soon blossoms into all-out war on the Greendale campus. While insults are hurled and the study group choose loyalties, Jeff tries to negotiate a truce, but with neither Abed nor Troy budging on their principles or real estate, the future looks grim for the duo's friendship.
#15: Cooperative Calligraphy (Episode 33, S2 E8)
When Annie's pen goes missing, she suspects that a member of her own study group is the thief. On a mission to find the pen and solve the mystery, the group takes a self-imposed lockdown and Jeff takes the lead in conducting the search. Meanwhile, Troy and Abed are itching to get out of the study room to make it to the Greendale Puppy Parade taking place on the quad.)
#16: Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (Episode 94, S5 E10)
The study group organizes a game of Dungeons & Dragons so that Prof. Hickey can reconnect with his estranged son, Hank (David Cross).
#17: Basic Intergluteal Numismatics (Episode 87, S5 E3)
Jeff and Annie try to solve the case of the Ass Crack Bandit, who drops coins into people's pants. Though the suspect is quickly caught, Jeff believes that perhaps the real Bandit is still at large. Meanwhile, the team receives bad news about Pierce Hawthorne.
#18: Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television (Episode 110, S6 E13)
With six years at Greendale completed, the group imagines what a hypothetical season seven would be like while discussing the uncertainty of life.
#19: Pascal's Triangle Revisited (Episode 25, S1 E25)
After Britta is nominated for queen of the Transfer Dance, Professor Slater admits to Jeff that she misses him and wants to get back together. Troy's dad asks him to move out of the house, and Troy begins hoping to move in with Abed, although Abed rejects the idea. Annie reveals to the group that Vaughn has been selected for a competitive Hacky Sack team in Delaware and will be leaving for the summer, but she secretly tells Jeff that the move is permanent and she will not be coming back to Greendale. In a separate storyline, Chang plans to beat up Duncan, who mocked him for being fired when Chang turned to Duncan for help cheating his way to re-obtaining his degree.
#20: Environmental Science (Episode 10, S1 E10)
When Señor Chang assigns twenty pages of homework to the class due to the sadness of separating from his wife, Jeff tries to befriend him and help him get back with her. Pierce helps Shirley with her public speaking class. Abed and Troy work on a biology experiment.
#21: Introduction to Film (Episode 3, S1 E3)
Jeff signs up for an "easy A" class taught by Professor Whitman (John Michael Higgins), where all they have to do is "seize the day" to receive an A. Though Jeff soon realizes it will not be as easy as it seems. Meanwhile, Britta helps Abed by paying for a course where he can study film. Abed's father is angered when he finds this out, and Abed creates a film documenting his life and how people do not understand him, including that he feels he is to blame for his mother's abandoning the family. His father is moved by his film and agrees to pay for his classes.
#22: Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas (Episode 36, S2 E11)
When Abed wakes up in stop-motion animation, he takes it as a sign that he and the group must re-discover the meaning of Christmas. Meanwhile, Jeff and Britta become increasingly concerned about Abed's mental health and enlist the help of Professor Duncan. They trick Abed into a group therapy session to explore his winter wonderland and unravel the truth behind Abed's madness as one by one, the members who don’t believe in his fantasy get thrown off the tour.
#23: Digital Estate Planning (Episode 69, S3 E20)
Pierce is summoned to Hawthorne Enterprises to discuss his inheritance with his deceased father's former right-hand man, Gilbert Lawson (Giancarlo Esposito). The study group goes with him for moral support and must all pitch in to play the video game of their life on Pierce's behalf – or risk losing his inheritance. Most of the episode is animated like a pixel-art video game.
#24: Studies in Modern Movement (Episode 56, S3 E7)
The group tries to help Annie move in with Troy and Abed but things go awry when she becomes frustrated by their lifestyle; Dean Pelton blackmails Jeff into spending the afternoon with him.
#25: Introduction to Finality (Episode 71, S3 E22)
Jeff and Alan (Rob Corddry) battle in court as opposing counsel in Pierce and Shirley's sandwich shop case. Vice Dean Laybourne continues to win over Troy to the Air Conditioning Repair School.
#26: Geography of Global Conflict (Episode 51, S3 E2)
A Model UN competition introduces Annie to a new frenemy Annie Kim; Jeff and the rest of the group try to help her win and Annie has a big tantrum in the process. Britta goes head to head with Campus Security Officer Chang, as they both try to fulfill their own fantasies through foolish conflict. While Chang wants his job to be taken more seriously, Britta wants to be tough again.
#27: Investigative Journalism (Episode 13, S1 E13)
The group returns from their winter break, and realize a student named Buddy (Jack Black) has inserted himself into the study group. They must decide whether or not to allow him to stay. Meanwhile, Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) makes Jeff the new editor of the Greendale Gazette Journal, where Annie discovers a story about racial profiling in the school. Jeff tries to rebrand his persona as calm and laidback.
#28: Regional Holiday Music (Episode 59, S3 E10)
Greendale's choir director (Taran Killam) asks the study group to fill in at the holiday pageant after the glee club is unable to attend.

Tier 3: Cool. Cool cool cool.

#29: Communication Studies (Episode 16, S1 E16)
On Valentines Day, Britta gets drunk and leaves an embarrassing message for Jeff which causes Abed to point out that Britta has lost her power and that Jeff needs to leave her an equally embarrassing message so she can get it back. Annie and Shirley try to pull a prank on Señor Chang after he embarrasses Troy and Pierce during class.
#30: Wedding Videography (Episode 109, S6 E12)
The group attends Garrett's wedding while Abed films it for a new documentary.
#31: Competitive Ecology (Episode 53, S3 E4)
While the gang pairs off to build a terrarium, the seven group members have to include an outsider in order to make even pairs and the friendships are tested. Chang relishes his imaginary role as a noir detective and ends up causing a lot of damage.
#32: VCR Maintenance and Educational Publishing (Episode 93, S5 E9)
Jeff, Shirley, and Hickey discover a large stash of unused textbooks, but soon turn on each other when deciding the best way to sell them. Meanwhile, Annie and Abed decide they need a new roommate, and play an old-west themed VCR game to decide between Annie's brother Anthony or Abed's girlfriend Rachel.
#33: Intro to Knots (Episode 81, S4 E10)
The study group holds a Christmas party at Jeff's apartment. Annie secretly invites Professor Cornwallis (Malcolm McDowell) in order to get on his good side so he will give them a good grade. The group hold Cornwallis hostage, not letting him go until he grades them with a C. Or, as Annie would like, an A in order to achieve valedictorian. After failing to have the group turn on each other, Cornwallis relents and gives the group a C+, confessing that he was willingly their hostage as he is otherwise alone during Christmas.
#34: Intro to Felt Surrogacy (Episode 80, S4 E9)
After a traumatic balloon ride leaves them stuck in an awkward silence, Dean Pelton helps the group come to terms with events through the new technique of "puppet therapy". This episode feature several musical numbers and the cast are animated with puppets.
#35: Basic Email Security (Episode 103, S6 E6)
A hacker threatens to publish emails unless a scheduled appearance by a racist comic (Jay Chandrasekhar) is cancelled.
#36: Basic Rocket Science (Episode 29, S2 E4)
Dean Pelton acquires a spaceflight simulator for Greendale after City College announces one of its own. The group becomes trapped in the simulator as it is towed off campus. Abed is left behind and attempts to guide them safely back.
#37: Early 21st Century Romanticism (Episode 40, S2 E15)
During Valentine's Day, Abed and Troy compete over the college librarian. Britta befriends a female student who she thinks is gay. Jeff is forced to throw a party at his apartment when Professor Duncan (John Oliver) invites himself over to watch a soccer game.
#38: Mixology Certification (Episode 35, S2 E10)
The study group convenes to celebrate Troy's birthday, they realize he is actually turning 21 and decide to hit the bars.
#39: The Science of Illusion (Episode 20, S1 E20)
Britta pulls an April Fools prank that backfires on her. Annie and Shirley become on-campus security guards with both fighting to be the "bad cop."
#40: Intro to Recycled Cinema (Episode 105, S6 E8)
When a commercial starring Chang goes viral, the group tries to cash in by converting footage of a cop drama starring him into a sci-fi film.
#41: App Development and Condiments (Episode 92, S5 E8)
The introduction of an app that allows people to rate others causes the campus to devolve into a caste-based society.
#42: Home Economics (Episode 8, S1 E8)
Jeff is kicked out of his condo and moves in with Abed temporarily, until Britta helps him move on and look for apartments. Annie helps Troy prepare for his date with a different girl. Pierce briefly joins Vaughn's band.
#43: Documentary Filmmaking: Redux (Episode 57, S3 E8)
Dean Pelton is asked by the school board to film a new commercial for Greendale; Abed films all the activities for a documentary.

Tier 4: I see your value now

#44: Lawnmower Maintenance and Postnatal Care (Episode 99, S6 E2)
Britta discovers that her parents have been helping her financially from behind the scenes, while the Dean becomes obsessed with an expensive virtual reality system and Jeff seeks out the inventor, Elroy Patashnik (Keith David), to get a refund.
#45: Comparative Religion (Episode 12, S1 E12)
Shirley plans a Christmas party for the study group, hoping to celebrate in her Christian ways, but learns everyone else is from a different religious background. Meanwhile, Jeff stands up to a bully named Mike (Anthony Michael Hall) that harasses Abed in the cafeteria. The study group comes to Jeff's defence when they fight Mike and his friends on the college campus.
#46: Spanish 101 (Episode 2, S1 E2)
The Spanish students are paired to create simple dialogues; Jeff is stuck with Pierce after an attempt to be paired with Britta backfires. Shirley and Annie mount a student protest after Britta tells them of anti-journalist violence in Guatemala.
#47: Beginner Pottery (Episode 19, S1 E19)
Jeff signs up for an easy pottery credit taught by a man (Tony Hale) with only one rule: no re-enactments of the pottery love scene from Ghost; however, the class becomes complicated by Jeff's obsession with proving one talented classmate is a ringer. Shirley and others sign up for a boating class taught by Admiral Slaughter (Lee Majors) in the school parking lot, but find land-boating harder than it sounds.
#48: Basic Genealogy (Episode 18, S1 E18)
During Family Day at Greendale, Pierce tries to re-connect with his step-daughter Amber (guest star Katharine McPhee) who becomes attracted to Jeff. Britta gets caned by Troy's nana and Shirley's sons cause havoc for Abed's father.
#49: Celebrity Pharmacology (Episode 38, S2 E13)
Annie convinces the group to put on a middle school anti-drug production, but finds it continually derailed by Pierce's efforts to give himself a better role. Meanwhile, Chang attempts to connect with Shirley, while a prank involving Britta's phone puts Jeff in an awkward situation.
#50: Advanced Documentary Filmmaking (Episode 77, S4 E6)
Abed films a documentary on Ben Chang's "Changnesia" in order to help Greendale secure a $40,000 grant from MacGuffin Neurological Institute. Jeff at first is against the idea, but then goes along with it publicly only to continue trying to find evidence that Chang is faking.
#51: Alternative History of the German Invasion (Episode 75, S4 E4)
With the study group beginning their European History class, they are dismayed to learn that they will be sharing the class with the obnoxious German students that Jeff and Shirley dueled with over the foosball table the previous year. In addition, Chang returns to Greendale as "Kevin" suffering from amnesia (or "Changnesia"), which upsets Dean Pelton.
#52: Debate 109 (Episode 9, S1 E9)
The dean solicits Jeff to join Annie in a debate competition, where they will compete against star debater Jeremy Simmons to debate whether Man is intrinsically evil or good. Abed's latest student films show a prescient tendency that frightens Shirley, whose predicted behaviour includes being chased by a werewolf. Pierce offers his services as a hypnotherapist to Britta in her attempts to stop smoking.
#53: Heroic Origins (Episode 83, S4 E12)
Abed pieces together the study group's past and reveals that their lives have always been intertwined. Chang attempts to destroy Greendale for good.
#54: The Politics of Human Sexuality (Episode 11, S1 E11)
Annie and the Dean sponsor an STD-awareness fair. Britta and Shirley help Annie prepare for her big condom usage demonstration. Troy and Abed compete to see who is the better athlete. Jeff and Pierce go on a double date to the fair where Jeff learns that he is getting mature and is now not interested in shallow women anymore.
#55: Curriculum Unavailable (Episode 68, S3 E19)
When Abed becomes convinced that Dean Pelton has been replaced by an impostor, he is required to see a therapist (John Hodgman), who attempts to convince the group that they have been experiencing a shared psychosis and Greendale is actually a mental institution. This leads to the group to recall the stranger activities and events that took place at Greendale through a series of flashbacks.
#56: Basic Human Anatomy (Episode 82, S4 E11)
Annie and Shirley are being somewhat snide to each other over the valedictorian race, but they are united in disgust that Leonard is currently #1. Troy and Abed re-enact a scene from the original Freaky Friday that leads them each to act like they've really switched bodies. Through dialogue with Britta and Jeff, Troy and Abed come to terms with painful truths and the need to stand up for what's right.
#57: Critical Film Studies (Episode 44, S2 E19)
For Abed's birthday, Jeff plans a Pulp Fiction inspired surprise party at a restaurant. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Abed invites Jeff to another restaurant for dinner based on the film My Dinner with Andre.
#58: Modern Espionage (Episode 108, S6 E11)
Frankie's "Cleaner Greendale" initiative drives the school's paintball game underground as the group tries to discover the identity of a mysterious assassin.
#59: Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking (Episode 41, S2 E16)
Pierce pretends to be dying and gives the study group specific gifts that are actually meant to torment them. Britta wonders what to do with a blank check for "charity," Jeff ponders the idea of meeting his father, and Troy gets to meet LeVar Burton, while Abed films the whole thing for a documentary.
#60: Basic Crisis Room Decorum (Episode 100, S6 E3)
When City College plans an attack ad asserting that Greendale gave a degree to a dog, the group clashes over the best way to handle it.

Tier 5: I give this a D, for Delightful

#61: Queer Studies and Advanced Waxing (Episode 101, S6 E4)
The Dean is offered a position on the school board but only as a token homosexual, Chang auditions for a theatre version of The Karate Kid, and Abed and Elroy attempt to fix the school's Wi-Fi connection.
#62: Advanced Criminal Law (Episode 5, S1 E5)
Señor Chang discovers someone has cheated on their Spanish test, and will fail everyone unless the cheater comes forward within 24 hours. When Britta comes forward, Jeff represents her when she is facing expulsion for cheating. Meanwhile, Annie enlists Pierce to help write a new song for Greendale, Troy messes with Abed's gullibility and Abed tries to pay him back.
#63 Aerodynamics of Gender (Episode 32, S2 E7)
After a classroom smackdown with a group of "mean girls" led by Meghan (Hilary Duff), Britta, Shirley, and Annie bond with Abed by turning him into the ultimate "mean girl." Meanwhile, Jeff and Troy embrace a zen-like spirituality under the guidance of a groundskeeper (Matt Walsh) when they come across a secret trampoline on campus. Determined to uncover the source of their new bliss, Pierce ends up taking a disastrous turn on the trampoline and lands in the hospital.
#64: Course Listing Unavailable (Episode 67, S3 E18)
Starburns suddenly dies and Britta insists on counselling the group using her skills from psychology class, despite nobody grieving him. This predictably fails and when the group finds out their biology credit is invalid, their attendance of their fallen classmate's wake quickly goes awry. Meanwhile Chang takes over campus and has the study group expelled.
#65: Conventions of Space and Time (Episode 74, S4 E3)
The study group attends InSpecTiCon, a convention for fans of Inspector Spacetime. Abed meets a fellow fan named Toby (guest star Matt Lucas), who causes a rift in Troy and Abed's friendship. Meanwhile, while Jeff is attracting a female Inspector Spacetime fan (Tricia Helfer), Annie creates an elaborate fantasy involving her and Jeff after the hotel staff begin calling her "Mrs. Winger". Pierce and Shirley join a focus group for an American remake of Inspector Spacetime.
#66: Custody Law and Eastern European Diplomacy (Episode 43, S2 E18)
The study group organizes a baby shower for Shirley, while she tries to keep Chang out of her life. Britta is interested in Abed and Troy's new friend, Lukka (Enver Gjokaj), who has a dark past. Jeff tries to get Chang out of his apartment by making him believe that having his own apartment and a job would convince Shirley to let him be in the baby’s life.
#67: Pilot (Episode 1, S1 E1)
Recently disbarred lawyer Jeffrey Winger (Joel McHale) is forced to attend Greendale Community College to redeem his illegitimate law degree. He starts up a Spanish study group in order to score with attractive classmate Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), who invites her friend Abed Nadir (Danny Pudi), who in turn invites classmates Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Annie Edison (Alison Brie), Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown), and Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase).
#68: Analysis of Cork-Based Networking (Episode 90, S5 E6)
Annie and Hickey embark on a mission to start improving Greendale, but it soon turns into a labyrinthine chain of favours. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang help set up a dance, and Abed connects with a fellow student.
#69: Digital Exploration of Interior Design (Episode 62, S3 E13)
A new Subway shop opens in the cafeteria and Shirley, Pierce, and Britta attempt to shut it down. Vice Dean Laybourne returns to try to win Troy over. Troy and Abed build competing blanket/pillow forts.
#70: Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps (Episode 54, S3 E5)
In order to determine the odd man out of the group (who, in this case, is apparently a sociopath), Britta conducts a search by having the gang tell scary stories.
#71: Economics of Marine Biology (Episode 78, S4E7)
Dean Pelton enlists Jeff, Britta, and Annie to help Greendale recruit a "whale", a lazy young man whose wealthy parents would be pouring money fruitlessly into his college education for a long profitable while. Jeff is tasked to keep Pierce occupied off-campus so that he doesn't show up and ruin the plan. Troy and Shirley enroll in a new "Physical Education Education" class where they are taught how to be P.E. teachers. Abed starts a new fraternity, the Delta Cubes, in general defiance of the Dean's dislike for such groups.
#72: Laws of Robotics and Party Rights (Episode 102, S6 E5)
Prisoners attend Greendale via telepresence robots, and Britta uses Abed so she can have a party, breaking Annie's rules.
#73: Grifting 101 (Episode 106, S6 E9)
The group is cheated and tries to get back at a grifter (Matt Berry) now teaching at Greendale.
#74: History 101 (Episode 74, S4 E1)
Jeff competes to earn the group places in the over-booked "History of Ice Cream" class, while Abed struggles with the inevitable end of their time at Greendale, causing him to enter a mental "happy place" which shows bizarre alternative versions of Greendale. Annie and Shirley pull pranks around the school.
#75: Paranormal Parentage (Episode 75, S4 E2)
After Pierce locks himself inside the panic room of his mansion, he calls on the study group to find the code that will unlock the room and let him out. The group searches the dark, scary mansion for the code, uncovering all sorts of secrets and oddities along the way.
#76: Basic RV Repair and Palmistry (Episode 107, S6 E10)
The group takes a road trip in Elroy's RV to deliver a giant fiberglass hand that Frankie forces Dean Pelton to sell, while Abed imagines the trip as a flashback-filled movie.
#77: Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations (Episode 76, S4 E5)
Jeff reunites with his father and meets his half brother. Shirley hosts a Thanksgiving gathering at her house with the study group, minus Britta, who has joined Jeff and his family. Abed narrates the group's time at Shirley's house in the style of The Shawshank Redemption.
#78: Advanced Gay (Episode 55, S3 E6)
Pierce is excited about a party he's throwing to celebrate his business success, but the affair becomes very different when his elderly father arrives.
#79: Introduction to Statistics (Episode 7, S1 E7)
Annie hosts a Day of the Dead party for Halloween. Jeff hits on his statistics professor, which upsets Shirley but not Britta. At the party, Pierce has a bad trip and has to have Jeff and Abed help him.
#80: Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality (Episode 91, S5 E7)
Jeff helps Professor Duncan try to win over Britta's affection. Abed and Hickey face off after Abed accidentally ruins some of Hickey's drawings, and Chang finds himself in the middle of a ghostly mystery.
#81: Basic Sandwich (Episode 97, S5 E13)
With Greendale hours away from sale, the group searches for the hidden lab of the school's first dean, believing there is a treasure there which can save the school.

Tier 6: The opposite of Batman

#82: Social Psychology (Episode 4, S1 E4)
Jeff begins to bond with Shirley over their mutual distaste for Vaughn (Eric Christian Olsen), Britta's new boyfriend, a laid back hippie. However, in an effort to show that he and Britta could be friends, Jeff tries to refrain from making fun of Vaughn, but can't help himself from sharing a poem that Vaughn had written for Britta. The incident breaks up the relationship and brings up the question of dating and intimacy within the group. Meanwhile, Annie joins Professor Duncan in a psychology experiment that tests people's patience, which has Abed, Troy and Señor Chang (Ken Jeong) as test subjects.
#83: Introduction to Teaching (Episode 86, S5 E2)
Jeff begins his teaching job at Greendale and is shown the ropes by Professor Hickey, with whom he shares an office. While Jeff learns to adjust to the expectations of being on staff, Abed convinces the rest of the study group to take Professor Garrity's new class on whether Nicolas Cage is "good" or "bad".
#84: Physical Education (Episode 17, S1 E17)
Jeff eagerly anticipates his billiards class, but his hopes fall down when he discovers that the instructor demands the use of clothing that, in Jeff's opinion, are not fitting into his style, which turns into a battle between the instructor and Jeff. The girls find a passionate sketch in a Spanish textbook resembling Abed's face, and they happily begin to search for the author of the book, while testing Abed's skills regarding relationships with women, with humorous but intriguing results.
#85: Advanced Introduction to Finality (Episode 84, S4 E13)
Jeff now has enough credits to graduate and contemplates his future; Streets behind again comes into play.
#86: Accounting for Lawyers (Episode 27, S2 E2)
Jeff is re-connected with his former law firm colleague Alan Connor (Rob Corddry) and finds himself returning to his old ways and missing his former life. Alan takes Jeff to a law firm event to see his former boss Ted (Drew Carey), and the study group shows up to "rescue" him. Meanwhile, Chang waits for the study group to join him in a dance competition in hopes that they'll let him in to the group.
#87: Anthropology 101 (Episode 26, S2 E1)
Classes resume at Greendale Community College and the group enrolls in a new class, Anthropology 101, which is taught by June Bauer (Betty White), an esteemed, but quirky anthropology professor. Jeff deals with the aftermath of last season's transfer dance, where Britta confessed her love for him and he shared a secret kiss with Annie. Señor Chang decides to enroll at Greendale as a student.
#88: Herstory of Dance (Episode 79, S4 E8)
To distract from Greendale's drinking fountains being removed by the CDC, Dean Pelton plans a "Sadie Hawkins" dance. Britta organizes a competing "Sophie B. Hawkins" dance in protest, confusing her with Susan B. Anthony. At the dance, Abed goes on two dates, set up by Annie and Shirley. But after he is found out, Abed realises that he enjoys spending time and has more in common with the coat check girl (Brie Larson) who aided in his night's mischief.
#89: Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism (Episode 58, S3 E9)
Jeff and Shirley spend time together playing foosball. After Annie breaks Abed's special edition DVD of The Dark Knight, she covers it up by staging a robbery.
#90: Romantic Expressionism (Episode 15, S1 E15)
Britta and Jeff conspire to break up Vaughn and Annie by attempting to reignite her feelings for Troy. Meanwhile, Pierce tries to get some genuine laughs during Troy and Abed's bad film night.
#91: Interpretive Dance (Episode 14, S1 E14)
Jeff tries to keep his relationship with Professor Slater (Lauren Stamile) a secret from the group, but they eventually discover the truth. Meanwhile, Britta and Troy try to keep a secret from the group that they are taking dance lessons. Chaos ensues when the group learns about the secrets.
#92: Urban Matrimony and the Sandwich Arts (Episode 61, S3 E12)
Andre re-proposes to Shirley. Britta and Annie quickly begin making arrangements for the wedding. Jeff must write a speech, and Troy and Abed attempt to become "normal" for the wedding. Pierce and Shirley try to get a sandwich shop installed in the cafeteria.
#93: Ladders (Episode 98, S6 E1)
Dean Pelton hires Francesca "Frankie" Dart (Paget Brewster) as a consultant to help improve Greendale, but her tactics create tension on campus.

Tier 7: Streets Behind

#94: Biology 101 (Episode 50, S3 E1)
The study group decides to take a biology class together, but Pierce who has rejoined the group faces problems when only six seats are available in the class. Jeff quickly makes enemies with their professor (Michael K. Williams) and is removed from the class. Pierce takes his place and Jeff realizes what is it like to be excluded. Dean Pelton, meanwhile, finds a new rival in Vice Dean Laybourne (John Goodman), the dean of the renowned Air Conditioning Repair Annex in the process of transforming Greendale’s management.
#95: Applied Anthropology and Culinary Arts (Episode 47, S2 E22)
Just as the study group is getting ready for their final Anthropology exam, Shirley goes into labour, leaving the group to figure out the best way to help. Meanwhile, Pierce buys the rights to Troy and Abed's special handshake, ruining it for them.
#96: Advanced Safety Features (Episode 104, S6 E7)
The dean is highly susceptible to a guerrilla marketing campaign by Britta's ex-boyfriend, Rick, who now works for Honda. Meanwhile, the group tries to become closer friends with Elroy. Greendale hosts an alumni dance and hires the band Natalie is Freezing to perform, while Elroy reveals he once dated the band's lead singer Julie (Lisa Loeb).
#97: The Psychology of Letting Go (Episode 28, S2 E3)
After the death of Pierce's mother, the group comes together to help comfort him in his time of need, only to find him in denial of her death in accordance with his obscure religion. Jeff is told that he has high cholesterol, causing him to rage against the injustice after a life of healthy eating and exercise. Professor Duncan struggles to take over the anthropology class. Britta and Annie clash over their methods of raising funds for an oil spill.
#98: Repilot (Episode 85, S5 E1)
Jeff returns to Greendale a year after graduation to research a potential lawsuit after his practice goes under. While doing this, he finds out what has happened to his friends within the study group since his departure.
#99: Origins of Vampire Mythology (Episode 64, S3 E15)
The carnival comes into town and Britta enlists the help of the study group to keep her away from her ex. Vice Dean Laybourne and Dean Pelton band together to try to woo Troy to the Air Conditioning Repair Annex.
#100: Asian Population Studies (Episode 37, S2 E12)
The group debates whether Annie's new crush Rich (Greg Cromer) or Chang should be new additions to the group. Shirley has big news to reveal when her ex-husband Andre (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) returns.
#101: English as a Second Language (Episode 24, S1 E24)
Señor Chang reveals to Jeff that he does not have a teaching degree and asks him where he got his. The conversation is inadvertently recorded by Annie, who records all classes for taking notes. When Dean Pelton finds out, Chang is replaced by another, much stricter professor who has the class take a much harder Spanish final. Meanwhile, Troy discovers he has a natural talent for fixing plumbing, and must ward off a persistent maintenance worker (Jerry Minor), who wants him to use his talent to become a plumber.
#102: Paradigms of Human Memory (Episode 46, S2 E21)
As the study group assembles their 20th and final diorama for their anthropology class, they reminisce about their favourite moments over the past year (all never-before-seen flashbacks). However, while reminiscing, a secret year-long affair between Jeff and Britta comes to light which threatens to tear apart the group. Meanwhile, Troy's monkey reappears but disappears back into the ventilation system, leading Chang to try to get the monkey, as well as retrieve all their stolen loot.
#103: Competitive Wine Tasting (Episode 45, S2 E20)
The study group begins to choose their spring electives. Britta and Troy explore an acting class where Troy makes up a story about being molested as a child in order to fit in with the group which in turn makes Britta attracted to him, while Abed picks a course that studies the 1980s sitcom Who's the Boss? taught by Professor Sheffield (Stephen Tobolowsky) who has written a book on the subject. Meanwhile, Jeff and Pierce take a wine tasting class, where Pierce meets a mysterious Chinese woman named "Wu Mei" (Michelle Krusiec) who quickly becomes engaged to Pierce. Jeff gets suspicious of Wu Mei's actions and tries to figure out what is really going on.
#104: Football, Feminism and You (Episode 6, S1 E6)
The dean blackmails Jeff into convincing Troy to join Greendale's football team, over the objections of Annie. Shirley teaches Britta proper ladies room etiquette. Pierce and the dean devise a new school mascot, the Human Being.
#105: Basic Story (Episode 96, S5 E12)
When Greendale is appraised to be an asset instead of a liability, the school board immediately decides to sell it to Subway. Abed, Annie, and the Dean find a secret that may save the school, and Jeff must decide where his allegiance lies.
#106: Contemporary Impressionists (Episode 60, S3 E11)
Jeff begins experiencing extreme narcissism. The group helps Abed get rid of debt by impersonating various celebrities at a bar mitzvah.
#107: The Art of Discourse (Episode 22, S1 E22)
Shirley gets Pierce kicked out the study group, Jeff and Britta plot revenge on a group of high schoolers who make fun of them for attending community college, and Troy helps Abed accomplish some of his film-clichéd social goals.

Tier 8: Ones don't get a rhyme because they're garbage

#108: Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples (Episode 30, S2 E5)
Shirley gets inspired to create a religious film. After reading the Bible, Abed becomes very enthusiastic and wants to make his own, however, Shirley wants no part of it when she hears his idea, a film that equates a film director with Jesus and his camera with God. Meanwhile, Pierce struggles to come to terms with being the oldest member of the group and is recruited by another set of students his own age, known around the campus as "hipsters."
#109: G.I. Jeff (Episode 95, S5 E11)
The entire group becomes part of the cast of a classic "G.I. Joe" cartoon from the 1980s.
#110: Virtual Systems Analysis (Episode 65, S3 E16)
When a final exam is postponed, Annie talks Abed into letting her spend some time in the dreamatorium, where an innocent simulation turns into an examination of the study group.

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Disclaimer: never actually played the mod (or HoI4 for that matter), just reading the lore, and all the ramblings about dentist spears and similar concepts on this subreddit. Anyway, the lovely snippets documenting the travails of humanity after the end are collected in this post. Got inspired to collate a history, divided by regions, with citations the tales themselves with a code appended for finding them. The focus will be on identifying patterns and major changes, since one can just read the stories for the exact, smaller details.
 
Codes

• (R) Russia
• (E1) Europe 1-50
• (E2) Europe 51-100
• (E3) Europe 101-150
• (N1) North America 1-50
• (N2) North America 51-102
• (S) South America
• (J) East Asia (basically Japan’s empire)
• (C) China
• (I) India
• (O) Southeast Asia (really more Oceania)
• (A) Africa
• (M) Middle East
• (G) International

 
Russia
Russia, having been subject to Luftwaffe terror bombing and other German depredations, could have been said to have been hardened for the apocalypse [R: He Wants No Bull and a Lot of Talk, The Merciful Earth; Mother Russia Lives]. Nenetsian teachings would save many survivors from deaths in the first nuclear winter [R: In The North]. West Russians remnants would sweep west into Moskowien and even Germany itself [R: The Horde Rides; The Cossack; The Classical]. The Aryan Brotherhood would be lost to time, vanquished by the descendants of Nowa Polska and the Ural Guard [R: A Brother No More; Modern Crusaders]. Dirlewanger [R: The Guardsman and the Bandit, Shooting Star] and Magnitogorsk would leave a mark in Uralian consciousness [R: The Ghosts of Uralia, The Black Mountain]. Syktyvkar would grown and thrive in the post-atomic age [R: The Place for All of Us]. In Central Asia, steppe hordes and trade routes would emerge once again [R: The Horse Lords; A Land of Milk and Honey].
Siberia would see efforts by many to preserve the memories of the past [R: The Cirque; The Last Forge; The Angel of Death; A Flag of Deepest Reds; New Dawn for an Old Art]. Tyumen would bury Lenin’s corpse and see a community based on its church rise to prominence [R: Ashes to Ashes; Faith and Fire]. Omsk would foster a sense of collective guilt over their efforts to bring about the Great Trial [R: Stalwart Shell, Soft Heart]. Mikhail II of Chita would keep monarchy alive in the east [R: Men of Iron]. Soviet leadership would be immortalized in Irkutsk [R: Pantheon]. Magadan would continue its radio broadcasts [R: Live in Three]. About 300 years after the nukes, the four regional states eventually unite as Rus [R: Faith and Fire; United, We Are Stronger].
 
Germany
Many American nuclear weapons were aimed at Germania, launched as a response to Fall Rockwell [E1: The Bombardier; Inhale, Count to Four][E2: Thirty Minutes Before Impact; Party Like It’s 1962; Goodbye; Hail Der Kaiser!][E3: The Toast]. Members of the German space program would watch the destruction of the old world in their spacecraft [E1: Twilight Forevermore][E2: The Flashes Seen in Heaven]. Rural areas would be mostly spared [E1: The Day After][E2: Call of the Wild; Das Wandern ist des Müllers Trauer], with some being claimed by nature [E1: The Curse of Widgemeer]. The tribes of Leipzig would be united by a stone monument [E1: Völkerschlacht].
A new medieval society would emerge [E1: The Panzer-Knights], with different regions struggling against one another [E2: The Children Grow Up][E3: Men Without Honor]. Jewish slaves would set up a new homeland called Zion [E1: Return to Zion]. Nazi ideology would take on a forbidden, occult image [E1: The Cursed Book][E3: Liber Goetia Germanicus], if it was not forgotten [E1: Trinkets of Antiquity]. Release of pre-war stocks of hemorrhagic smallpox [E3: A Dead Hand] would trigger a plague that would sweep the globe.
 
British Isles
Many tried to face their ends with stiff upper lips [E1: A Diary Entry; The Final Minute][E2: A Captain Always Goes Down With His Ship]. Survivors would persist in the London Underground [E1: The Hundred Years Blitz]. Remnants of fascist occupation would linger [E2: Who Do You Think You’re Kidding]. The British Monarchy would figure heavily in the ethos of its successors, who would be inspired by Arthurian legend [E1: Avalon’s Last Gift][E2: Camelot][E3: The Crown; The Table]. England would eventually be united by a king [E1: First and Final King].
Amateur archaeology would sift through the remains of the old [E2: A Field Held in Time; Ghosts of Cable Street; The Fall and Subsequent Fall of Reggie Birch; Steam and Steel; Tales of Black and White][E3: Having Fun Isn’t Hard]. It would help to reclaim England’s heritage, particularly its buildings [E1: St. Paul’s Knights; The Last House on Downing Street][E3: When the Bell Rings]. The knowledge of medicine, however fragmented, would persist further than it did in other regions [E1: The Legend of the Panacea; The Plague]. A ferry connection to mainland Europe would be built [E1: Connections]. British music would be found and heard again by future generations [E2: Tempo House; Ghost Town][E3: Beatles for Sale]. Freemasonry continued in Edinburgh [E2: The Last Lodge].
In Ireland, a monastery would preserve literature and eventually become a new center of learning [E2: The Books of Tallow]. Pub culture would also survive [E2: A Couple Never Hurt Anyone].
 
Western Europe
The final plans of the Ordensstaat Burgund would be hampered by logistical shortcomings and human actions [E1: A Vision Fulfilled; Alone in the Dark; Deserter; Boredom][E2: Regret; New Reds, Old Habits][E3: Refusal; That Which Sleeps; Blessed Are the Meek]. While now free [E2: A Matter of Perspective], French and Belgian nationalism would falter in the face of the bombs [E1: To A Generation of Destroyers; City of Shadows; The Haunted House of Ostpar]. Old crimes festered, such as the gang known as The Jackals [E2: Century of the Jackal]. Old divisions would eventually fade away [E1: Darling in the Franks][E3: Alpbewonner]. Burgundy would not be remembered fondly by the new world [E1: Union of Evil][E3: Paradise Lost]. Remnants of the French Foreign Legion would establish a Mediterranean empire [E2: Legio Patria Nostra].
Italy was succeeded by her regions. Florence, a tribe would be inspired by a manned NASA spacecraft crashing near it [E1: Fallen Star]. Naples would become home to vanquishers of abductors [E2: Briganti Rossi]. The Adriatic Desert would birth a raiding horde [E1: Dustbowl][E2: The Last Race], before eventually filling again with water and letting Venice be aquatic again [E1: La Dona Bella]. The Papacy would be reborn in a small village in the Apennines [E2: The Seda Vacante]. On the island of Stromboli, the village of Tantillo would see one of the last air-to-surface attacks against warships of the great war.
Despite the destruction of many settlements in Iberia [E2: The Man of La Mancha], the Gibraltar Dam would persist, protected by an order descending from Gibraltar [E3: The Order of the Holy Gates], even if its function was forgotten [E1: The Wall]. New kings would emerge to rule the peninsula [E1: Lineage], while old cultures would remain [E2: Calé Night]. Catalonia would become a beacon of stability [E2:Homage for the Bells].
A seed vault in Svaldbard would survive the nuclear conflagrations [E2: The Final Contingency]. The vaults of Swiss banks would be sought after by treasure hunters after the war [E2: The Vault].
 
Eastern Europe and the Balkans
Trade would eventually flourish once again on the river Danube [E1: River Trade]. Poland and its people would carry on and flourish in the post-apocalyptic age [E1: The Exodus][E2: Lost and Found; The Encounter][E3: From the Ashes]. Slaves in many work camps, one in Ostland as a particular example, would target their tormentors [E2: Revenge]. Michał Vituška would establish a kingdom that crumbled [N1: A Promised Land]. In the Ukraine, an SS nuclear missile base would be destroyed by an infiltrator [R: The Second Sun]. Nature would reclaim the Caucasus [E1: New Beginnings], as would people [E2: A Golden Disk]. In Crimea, a nuclear submarine would surface, and its launch codes buried [E2: The Tin Book].
West of the Black Sea, a cult believing in a 3rd apocalypse would emerge and turn on itself [E1: Portents of the Third End]. Survivors of the Greek Resistance carried on in the ruins of Athens and other major cities [E2: Out of the Shadows]. On the island of Rhodes, old art would be preserved by new rulers [E1: The Royal Treasury].
 
United States
Scenes of frenzy, resignation, and exodus would greet the falling nuclear munitions:
[N1: Hellfire; No Name Yet; Rush Hour; Vindication; Ten Big Brave Army Men; The Seventh Seal][N2: Good Luck to Bad Men; Sacred Loss; Riverboat Fantasy; Clean Slate; Knew It; The Lost Sheep; Closed Circle; Black Box].
President Margaret Chase-Smith would commit suicide in the presidential bunker [N1: Queen of the Ashes]. The various regions of the United States would eventually rebuild [N2: A Road]. Pre-war American culture like superheroes, sports, songs, etc. would continue on in different fashion to succeeding generations [N1: Heroes; The Steel Men of Pitt; Songs from Better Times][N2: In The First Days; The Bard; The Captain]. The story of the old nation [N1: Generations; One Last Dance; Founts of Ancient Knowledge][N2: There Was Said To Be A Nation; A Horse With No Name] yielded to the successor states of America.
The Empire State would emerge in New York City, growing to control the northeast United States, and eventually collapsing [N1: Rise of Empires][N2: The Hanging Tree]. The Under Empire thrived in NYC’s subways and seweres, eventually invading the Empire State [N1: The Under Empire]. Just north of it was the Homestead, a land of equals that persisted in memory [N1: Homestead]. In Washington, D.C. the Lincoln Memorial would be an object of confusion and devotion, despite eventually being lost to the ravages of time [N1: The Funny Looking Man; Statue of the Emancipator]. Providence, RI would become a haven for mutants [N2: Shadow Over Providence]. Sailors from the eastern seaboard would make landfall in Europe [N1: Land Ho]. Chicago would be succeeded by two nearby cities of wood and metal [N2: One Great Lie]. The Midwest was also where heavier-than-air flight would be rediscovered in the new age [N1: The Flyer].
The West Coast would be terrorized by gangs and a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier [N2: Grinding Forward][N1: The Dread Carrier]. Survivors of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex would emerge as the Cheyenne tribe [N1: An Ode to D1]. A Titan missile launch complex in Arizona would be sealed off by an order of monks [N1: A Canticle]. The Grand Canyon became a verdant region [N2: The Land of Plenty]. Phoenix, AZ would be rebuilt by those who settled on its ruins [N1: From Ashes]. The city of Corpus Christi would be reborn as Novam Ierusalem, the seat of an alternative Papacy [N1: Novam Ierusalem]. Elsewhere in Texas, a traveler would carry on the legacy of NASA, leading to the rediscovery of jet engines, while other towns would be less distinguished [N2: The Visionary; King of the Hill]. While some settlements lived, others would die, like Carvers, NV [N1: The Condition of Man].
The Bluegrass Kingdom would emerge in Kentucky and raid the surrounding areas [N1: The Bluegrass Kingdom]. The Ohio valley would be united by a peacemaker [N1: Planting the Greatest Seed of Them All]. The memory of the Organization of Free Nations would be reignited along the Mississippi River [N1: The Free Nations]. The Trail of Tears would be walked again by choice [N1: A Trail Retread]. New Orleans would become a submerged diver’s paradise [N1: The Underwater City]. Polities in Florida would unite in a climactic battle against the Great Reformer invading from the north [N1: The Southern Stand].
 
The Americas
Mexico’s Day of the Dead would spread throughout North America as a remembrance of those who died in the exchange [N1: Day of the Dead]. Luchadores and vaqueros would become heroes again [N1: Los Luchadores][N2: Los Vaqueros].
In remote locations, a few would be saved from outright destruction [N2: Big Joe’s Radio]. Traditions like the Stanley Cup, Polar Bear Dips and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would be continued by future generations [N1: The Great Lord’s Chalice][N2: Plunge; The Mountees]. New communities would emerge in the various provinces [N2: The Historian's Guild of the Great Confederacy of the St. Lawrence; Warriors of Spirit; Peace on the Peace River]. From Halifax, an expedition for Europe left and never returned [E2: May You Travel East]. First Nations would revive traditions such as companion planting [N1: The Three Sisters]. On Baffin Island, the exploits of an Empire of the North would spread tales throughout Canada [N2: The King on the Hill].
The memory of Fidel Castro would continue to inspire the survivors of Cuba [N2: Comandante], while that of Edward VIII’s did the same for the Bahamas [N2: The King Across The Sea].
Having been nuked less, the quality of post-apocalyptic life in South America was better. A woman called the Counselor would establish an empire in Brazil’s Southeast Region [S: The Counselor]. The tradition of Carnival would survive in Rio de Janeiro [S: Carnaval!], while Manaus flourished as it escaped being targeted [S: The Paris of the Tropics].
 
Japan
The end would be greeted in a variety of ways [J: Pets Allowed; Death Poem of the Emperor; Kamikaze; Ronin]. Remnants of the Imperial military would make their mark in the early days [J: The Steel City].While old Japan would fade from memory [J: Yokohama Shopping Trip; The Spirit of Imperfect Things], the monarchy would survive the nukes [J: Sokui no Rei]. An era of feuding warlords would appear in Japan again [J: Under the Blue Sky]. Christianity would be passed on [J: Abe Maria]. Merchants began to establish trade with China [J: The Friendship Expedition]. Advancement would continue until atomic energy would be rediscovered in the home islands [J: Indivisible, Made Divisible].
 
Asia
The sherpa would build an empire of merchants in the Himalayas [J: Kings on the Mountain]. Burma’s Arakan region would be settled by inland migrants [J: Outsiders]. Symbols of the Philippines would persist, regarded by future generation [J: Tanging Ikaw; Lam-Ang’s Trial]. The Indonesian islands would be united by a tribe that gave them the means to live off the sea [O: The Prince of the Islands].
 
China
Nuclear destruction made Japanese organization defunct [C: Firefly Dance; A Very Big Playground], while the ideals of China’s various peoples would survive in different ways:
[C: The Little Red Devil; Await the Fifteenth; The Theater State; A Short Excerpt of the Romance of the Fire Age; No Gods, No Masters; Chūn Qiū; The brotherhood of Howls; The Demon Came Down to Guangdong].
The people of China suffered from the bombings, just as they had suffered under Japanese rule [C: Not All That Glitters; A Second Chance; Might of the Masses]. The expanses of China would lead to many travels and various warring states [J: West][C: These Steeds of Steel; Halted at the Gates]. In the southwest, the Yi people’s hierarchy would dissolve in the post-nuclear world [C: Black and White in a Grey World]. The Silk Road would be revived as a trade route [C: Journey to the West]. An incursion into Vietnam by southern Chinese states would be defeated [C:The Dog and the Farmer].
 
India and South Asia
The people of India would suffer greatly when the nukes dropped [I – Bollywood Flight; Compassion; Singing in the Shower]. The example of Chennai being depopulated is the clearest example [I: Burning Chennai]. The environment would eventually fare better, with the Ganges River becoming clean again [I: Ganga’s Cleansing]. The Republic of India’s (and Azad Hind’s) heritage would be preserved by a variety of organizations, mainly by monks in the case of its constitution and religious teachings [I: Preservation; Pilgrimage to the Rooftop; An Old Monk’s Tale]. The ideas of P.V. Narasimha Rao are particularly notable for birthing a religious movement [I: The Tale of the Red Raja; Holy River, Holy Blood]. Memories of the separation of the two countries would persist, despite their distinctions disappearing [I: The Border Guard]. Delhi would be rebuilt as Nu-Delhi [I: Delhi Unbound]. In Bihar, a society guarding the remnants of India’s old nuclear program would be formed [I: Smiling Buddhas]. Even theater troupes would play their role in passing down history [I: The Indian Film Society, The Red Theatre Show]. A number of zoo keepers would protect their animals and eventually release them into the wild [I: Menagerie].
Various warlords would vie to control the vast expanses of India [I: The Tale of the Red Raja; Durga Reborn; Touchables; Arjun’s Talwar]. Eventually the disparate territories would come together as Jai Hind, marked by religious syncretism [I: Fragments of a Nation; Satyagraha Dervishes]. This was likely due to a monk who called himself Chakravarti, who accomplished this unification peacefully [I: Chakravarti].
Post-nuclear Sri Lanka would stay isolated except for one port town. It would be well-known for its stock of pre-war artillery[I: A Visitor].
 
Australia and Oceania
Australia’s interior would be reclaimed by its aboriginals [O: Road Train]. The Pacific would see long sailing voyages once more [J: A Pacific Ocean; Freedom Via the Seas; Sensuikan; Death or Dishonor][O: The Odyssey; The Great Flood]. The Moai of Easter Island would be revered as ancient protectors [J: Moyai].
 
Africa
German occupation would have lasting effects for Africa’s post-apocalyptic peoples. The toxic waters of the Congo Basin would lead to a migration of tribes [A: At the White Peaks Beneath the Moon]. Dilapidated tanks would become objects of veneration for some in the Congo [A: Altars of Lead and Fire]. In Zanzibar, a cache of German chemical weapons would be used by a warlord to deadly effect [A: The Devil’s Breath]. Wolfgang Schenck would lead the remnants of German garrisons to what was once Egypt, and a descendant would establish an empire [A: Desert Fox][M: Reply of the Eritrean Askari]. There was once again a great lighthouse to guide ships around the Nile Delta [M: A New Light Shines], along with centers of learning [M: The First Merchant]. The Muhlar Tribe would emerge from a people taught how to hunt by the titular general [A: The King]. A Jewish state in Madagascar would fortify itself against the world [A: An Island Fortress]. Pirates from the area of Algeria would terrorize the Mediterranean [A: Barbary Corsairs]. The Olympics would be reborn in Tunisia [M: The Games].
 
Middle East
Italian military control would quickly evaporate with the nukes [M: Images in the Sands of Times; Happy Birthday], though Italian soldiers would continue to influence the power balance. Attacks from Africa’s Desert Foxes would be a perennial issue for local rulers [M: The Sons of Rome]. Aside from the invaders, lions would return and thrive again in Arabia [M: Return of the King]. An end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict eventually came [M: Peace At Last]. Petra would stand as a mystery to passerby [M: Resilience]. The Fertile Crescent would once more bring prosperity and invading hordes [M: Land of Silk and Silver; A Friendly Exchange; The Secret History]. Representative of the three Abrahamic faiths would meet and establish an accord [M: Holy Trinity].
 
Global
Putting it all together, the countless nuclear detonations created many goodbyes [R: Second Coming][E2: Symphony] and untold hardships: [E1: The Unraveling; Free at Last][E3: Absolution][N1: His Last Song; The Raven][J: Swallows and Amazons][N2: The Atom’s Baptism; Gonzo]. One of these hardships was a new plague of smallpox that spread around the world [E1: The Plague][E3: A Dead Hand][J: Charge of the Third Horseman]. The environment suffered as well [N1: The Swamp], but would recover in time [N2: Nature Endures]. Despite it all, the remnants of humanity still persevered [G: R-40 – Online; The Dawn]. Divisions and conflict persisted at first:
[R: And Just Because He’s Human, A Man Would Like a Little Bite to Eat][E3: An Endless Song] [N1: Watch Over Mountazhnia][N2: Soledad Brothers; Flaming Rose; Sic Semper Tyrannis] [J: The Hill Men][G: The Curse of the Ruins; Peaceful Isolation].
But survivors would band together [N2: Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen; A New Canaan][M: Mitsvoh][G: The Safe Haven]. Old hatreds began to be washed away [E1: Starcrossed No More][A: Sand to Sand, Dust to Dust][M: The Adoption]. Humanity would have to forgo the technology of the past:
[R: Erasing What Was; The Last Gun][E1: Meltdown] [N1: The Sea Towers; City of Ruins; Deus ab Hominibus] [N2: Whale; Light; The Hunter; The Deep One Cometh][S: Wanderer in the Sky] [M: The Man Who Flew][G: Running Away; The Tube; The Box].
But its memories were easier to retain:
[R: The Watcher in the Hills][E1: The Frozen Man; Sacred Text][E2: Miss Jackson] [N2: The Last Veteran][S: El Último][A: A Morning of Celebration, The Griot’s Tale] [M: The Wager of Kings; Times Gone By; Old Imam; Agni Parthene] [G: Back in Time; Lament for the Apocalypse; Remembrance Day].
People carried on as best they can:
[R: Another Day in Siberia, That Gives No Bread or Meat; Sukhoy Nos] [E2: In Nomine; My Heart Cries Out Meridian; I Feel Voxish][E3: Life Goes On; Jester; Ebagum] [N1: The Mountain Watches; The Lord Never Spoke][N2: Time Enough to Try; Inner Peace; The Garden of Eden; Honest Work; Adam Wakes Up; Ghosts of Empires] [J: The Last Generation][C: The Good Life][A: Do You Copy?; Signals Firing].
Social structures would be rediscovered:
[E1: A Strange Experiment; Symbiosis; The Empire Before Empires; An Encounter With Subjugation] [E2: I Told You!][N1: Minting Coins][N2: A Full Belly for a Price] [S: The Foco We Know; Confederation][J: War Games].
Eventually even all the old technology would be recovered after at least a thousand years [E1: A Conversation on the End], marking the yielding of an old order to a newer, kinder one [G: Second Step].
 
P.S.: My favorite story is A Good Life. I just love how content Old Feng is with his life and job. Plus, if you need to prepare post-apocalyptic char siu, he can hook you up.
P.P.S: I would just like to thank the creators of this mod for writing well about humans being humans in a time of disaster.

Find Laura: a Season 3 scene-by-scene analysis 3D

Previous Posts:
Find Laura: Part 1: 1A • 1B • 1C • 1D • 1E • 1F • 1G • 1H • 1I • 1J • 1K • 1L • 1M • 1N •
Find Laura Sidebar: FWWM & TMP: Mr.. Mibbler’s Complaint A •
Find Laura: A Visual Abstraction A •
Find Laura: Part 2: 2A • 2B • 2C • 2D • 2E • 2F • 2G • 2H • 2I • 2J
Find Laura Sidebar B FWWM & TMP: Gordon Cole, Philip Jeffries and The Ring A
Find Laura: Part 3: 3A • 3B • 3C

Find Laura: a Season 3 scene-by-scene analysis 3D

•
I want to take a step back and break down this bedroom scene at Rancho Rosa, starting with Douglas Jones and Jade.
In Part 3A of this series I wrote:

What does it look like inside the mind when you try to remember, or when dream images form? All these individual acetylcholine neurons firing trying to recreate sensations and images of a moment that no longer exists.

We’re about to see what recollection looks like in this dreamscape of Laura’s subconscious. In the Red Room Laura whispered the secret to Cooper, passing it from her to him (note his stunned reaction). The secret is supposed to be hidden away, to be repressed and made nonexistent whenever it attempts to surface.
The repressed memory that has been fragmented through abstraction so many times as to create nearly-infinite variations of itself, each a fractured piece of a puzzle that Laura once solved, but is too afraid to put it all back together once she gets close enough to sense what it’s trying to reveal.
The Pietà
In our first shot of Douglas Jones and Jade, they are in a similar position to Cooper and Laura as seen previously in the Red Room. This position has been struck many times in Twin Peaks, so I’m adding it to our list of things to look out for, as the Pietà.

As Wikipedia states, “A pietà (meaning ‘piety,’ ‘compassion’) is a subject in Christian art depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus, most often found in sculpture.” Since it is a part of the Christian sacrifice story and assumption of sins, this named association feels appropriate when considered in the context of the “scapegoat/sacrificial lamb” concept put forward in our last installment.
A possible related aspect, also from Wikipedia: “Michelangelo's treatment of the subject was influenced by his passion for Dante's Divina Commedia... In Paradiso (cantica 33 of the poem), Saint Bernard, in a prayer for the Virgin Mary, says "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio" (Virgin mother, daughter of your son). This is said because, since Christ is one of the three figures of Trinity, Mary would be his daughter, but it is also she who bore him.”
In the Red Room there is much time confusion (is it future or is it past). In this inversion of the scenario implied in *Divina Commedia we have the bad father whose daughter creates an new father figure who, falling victim to BOB, then perpetuates the cycle. An infinite lineage with no beginning or end.*
In Twin Peaks the pietà position involves a transaction in order to move forward:
• whispered secret/kiss in the Red Room
• cash/kiss in the Rancho Rosa bedroom
• gun/secret recorded info between the Bad Cooper and Daria
• coffees/room entry with Sam and Tracy

As Douglas Jones gets dressed, his left arm numb, he is thrown to the ground by a pain in his gut. He crawls on his hands and knees and, unable to enter the bathroom, crawls into the living room. He vomits.
And freeze.
Starting Positions
It was at the conclusion of the season 2 premiere that we have our first glimpse of what went on in the train car, as a flash of memory for Ronette in the hospital. From left to right we saw the bloody rag on a table, and then center screen on her back lay the body of Laura Palmer, and to the right on his hands and knees bending over the mound of dirt is BOB howling in seeming agony.
In Rancho Rosa, Douglas Jones has been forced to assuming the position of BOB in the train car as 2:53 approaches. Douglas Jones, a horrible, whoremongering father that drinks and gambles, misses his son’s birthday while disappearing for three days. A bad dad doing bad things, not as bad as Leland perhaps, but bad enough.
And doesn’t he look almost exactly like Dale Cooper?
We might remember that in Twin Peaks Season 1, it was three days after Laura’s death that Maddy arrived in Twin Peaks. Similarly, when Leland was revealed as BOB and then died in police custody, there was a three-day gap in the story once it resumed in the next episode. Up until that point, each episode was basically one day with no gaps.
Here, Douglas Jones’s three-day disappearing act ends with his replacement via the arrival of Dougie Jones, the DougieCoop. He’s the purified Jones, reclaiming his place on his pedestal as Dad, good father and provider for the family.

In keeping with the tracking of Christian symbolism, I’ll mention here that between Jesus’s death on the cross and his resurrection, three days passed.

Prior to our arrival at Rancho Rosa, Douglas Jones had just had sex with Jade, and when we first join the scene she in the physical position of Laura from the previous Red Room scene’s pieta. This is not coincidental. The train car scene is, in a sense, the starting position of all of Twin Peaks, and the assumption of the pietà pose is tied directly to its aftermath. It is the first abstraction from which the other abstractions are built. But it was an abstraction.*

Like BOB, the train car is not reality, although it may better communicate how it felt and therefore how it was remembered by Laura, our *bad transformer.

It’s what Laura believed was done to her, and seemingly still believes. It’s Agent Cooper’s mission now to disabuse her of that notion, a false belief he himself unfortunately proved to be “true” in Season 2. That was Agent Cooper’s mistake. So the lie of BOB still must be removed. Once that is done, then the hidden truth can finally be faced again, and integrated into Laura’s reality. This integration is what will heal the split between MIKE and the ARM and its corollary Laura Palmer and Agent Cooper.
The mystery of Laura’s murder begins here where she died, in the train car. And Douglas Jones, the horrible father, has assumed the position of BOB. In place of the roar of BOB in the train car, Douglas Jones vomits up garmonbozia, disappears, and is replaced by the Good Cooper.
The swapping out of the bad father figure for the good, facilitated by Laura’s assumption of the father’s evil and guilt (garmonbozia), making him pure again after his sin.
Her fault, not his.
The Ring, which is removed from the pedestal in the Red Room to allow the transgression, the crossing over between the two worlds, will be replaced on the pedestal once the evil is done, returning the father to the exalted status, unstained by his incestuous actions.
This was the location of Agent Cooper’s arrival in the psyche of Laura Palmer in FWWM. And here we actually see it happen as Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Dale Cooper, the good father figure, soon arrives to replace the bad father, Douglas Jones.
Enter the Good Cooper
There’s a lot to comment on visually in the Good Cooper’s arrival. He enters the room through the wall socket, extruding as a smoking black tube that unrolls to reveal our conscious-yet-silent Special Agent.
The slashes of light cutting across the floor of the living room match the way the light fell in the train car. And where Douglas Jones assumed the position of BOB and was subsequently ripped from this space, Agent Cooper is inserted and assumes the position of the dead Laura Palmer. Just above Agent Cooper’s head is the pile of garmonbozia left by the departed Douglas Jones, its position evoking the bloody towel from the train car.
Like the Pietà, this prone position is struck many times in Twin Peaks, the implication being this “starting position” has been resumed several times prior to Rancho Rosa.
Looking back to Part 1 of season 3, we can see that the smoking black circle that extrudes into the room to become Agent Cooper was structurally foreshadowed in the the scene where the cops sought out the key to Ruth Davenport’s apartment, the vertical stripes of sunlight in the Las Vegas bedroom echoing the green metal bars of the fence.
The empty, white PVC pipe with its black end a frozen version of Cooper’s horizontal arrival. The Black Dot and its variant, The Hole: things we noted on our list of things to watch for at the end of Part 1N. And speaking of The Hole, here’s one!
Also, as an aside, Cooper’s arrival in this scene wordlessly asserts a concept of dimensional perception: how a tube as three-dimensional object (height, width, depth, moving directly at you through time) would be seen as a small circle becoming larger and larger. The depth of this two-dimensional image is illustrated via the shadow to the right of Cooper’s “arrival tube” on the wall. Looking straight at it, it is a black, smoking spot growing larger as it approaches, while its shadow reveals the hidden depth of the object.

I have mentioned earlier that to create the inner world of Laura Palmer, Lynch has used the rules of theoretical physics to create the boundaries of its otherworldly nature. Conceptually, what appears to us as a two-dimensional black dot can be revealed when viewed in three dimensions as a tube. But what we see as a tube could, in the fourth dimension, appear as something quite different. As a layman I doubt I can correctly describe it, but Carl Sagan can.
While it’s not necessary to understand this concept to follow the theory behind the Find Laura series, I believe it is a basic structural principal of the world of Twin Peaks, especially for Season 3. The infinite starfield through which Cooper traveled to get here is the subconscious of Laura Palmer, and that subconscious is the fourth-dimensional space of the world we observe in Twin Peaks Season 3.
The characters in the story exist in and can only see the three-dimensional projection of the fourth-dimensional psyche of Laura, as we in the real world can only experience the three-dimensional world that contains us. But we, as viewers, get to see behind the curtain where Lynch paints the fourth-dimensional space of the inner workings of Laura Palmer’s consciousness in the abstract, and also shows how it manifests and expresses itself as the dramas in the three-dimensional world of Twin Peaks.
But we cannot understand what we see because we are so used to describing the 3D projection, rather than the 4D object itself. That is, we witness the projected abstractions of the original occurrence. Here with Find Laura we’re attempting to describe the 4D consciousness that casts that twisted 3D shadow. The current version of this shadow takes form as Las Vegas

This Cooper, the Good Cooper, is an innocent, literally lacking sense. He contains no garmonbozia—he is stainless, guileless. Lacking agency he does nothing, knows nothing. He returns as a child, as opposed to the now-removed, worldly, bad dad Douglas Jones.
Leland’s Wound
Although obscure in FWWM, the film’s script singles out both the bloody towel and the torn diary pages, and especially references “Leland’s Wound.” It is not clear but the implication is that in the train car while repeatedly stabbing Laura, Leland also stabbed himself. The towel was stuffed into his shirt, and then (according to the original script) prior to entering the circle of sycamores he threw the bloody towel and diary pages to the wind.
In the final Red Room scene of FWWM, when the pietàed MIKE and the Arm request all the garmonbozia, BOB reaches up to Leland’s bloody gut (where once was the bloody towel and diary pages) and throws that blood on the Red Room floor, where it is absorbed and then consumed by the Arm in the form of creamed corn.
The connection is abstract but direct. The abuse of his daughter and the knowledge of it manifest in the train car. The bloody towel is Leland’s guilt (a self-inflicted, bleeding wound), and the diary pages are knowledge (those specific diary pages are said to identify her “killer”). Leland is relieved of both these thing in the Red Room of Laura’s subconscious.

We can remember that Agent Cooper receives his own version of Leland’s Wound in the season 1 cliffhanger when he is shot in the stomach, a similar wound to one the Bad Cooper will receive at the hands of that fucker Ray in Part 8.
That the Bad Cooper will place the Ring on Ray’s finger in Part 13 as the Good Cooper places the Ring on the Bad Cooper’s hand in Part 17 is a parallel deserving closer examination when we get there.
But for now...

We’ve established that garmonbozia is Leland’s pain and sorrow, his guilt over abusing his daughter. And I have already asserted that it is through her “death” in the train car that Laura took on and removed Leland’s guilt, as Jesus was to take away the sins of the world, to be the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat that allowed forgiveness of all sin.
She made it all her fault, and once it was all her fault the only way to stop it was for her to die. Although the line of dialogue is missing from the finished film, the script lays it out plainly:

1.  INT. TRAIN CAR - NIGHT 

   Leland hoists Laura up so that she hovers facing the floor a foot off the ground. He places a mirror on the floor directly under her face.
   IN THE MIRROR
   Laura sees herself turn into Bob. Leland screams into space.
   

    LELAND DON'T MAKE ME DO IT. LAURA NO, YOU HAVE TO KILL ME. LELAND I always thought you knew it was me. LAURA (to Bob in the mirror) NO! YOU CAN'T HAVE ME. (to Leland) KILL ME. 

That Laura is directing Leland’s behavior here makes it clear that this is a fantasy, a hallucination of Laura’s drug-addled psyche as she tries to figure out a way to escape BOB and save her father, family, and her friends from the influence of BOB.
It would seem that her last chance is her Sunday School lessons of the crucifixion. Sacrifice, redemption, and forgiveness. After all she was only twelve when the abuse began. What understanding beyond a Sunday School spirituality could a pre-teen girl hope to possess to deal with what she believed was an evil spirit?
2:53
So, what happens at 2:53 in Part 3?
In South Dakota, it’s a giant smash-up on the road to nowhere with the Bad Cooper’s car going wheels-up and flipping over.
In the Red Room the Good Cooper, while watching the Bad Cooper approach through the curtain, is forced into a “nonexistent” space by the Arm’s doppelgänger.
Fun to note that as the Bad Cooper is looking at a map of South Dakota on his computer after killing Daria but prior to finding Chantal in the next room, in the Red Room Agent Cooper is looking through the curtain at South Dakota itself. The black car containing the Bad Cooper is barreling directly toward Agent Cooper, foreshadowing DougieCoop’s entrance toward us through the Rancho Rosa bedroom wall socket.
While in the Mauve Zone Agent Cooper will leave Naido’s room and enter American Girl’s room matching the Bad Cooper’s movement from Daria’s room (who is as dead as Naido is gone) and enter Chantal’s room, a scene we’ve already addressed. But here’s a visual echo we hadn’t mentioned: compare the curtains and chair to the jacket and bedspread.
Next Up: Return to the Red Room
If you like what you’ve read and would like to support my writing, you can tip me here.
Thanks! Lou Ming

1896

• April 21, 1896: Joseph Francis Maskell born in Baltimore? [Conflicts with the entry below]

1898

• Joseph Francis Maskell came from Newcastle West, Co. Limerick, Ireland in 1898 with his parents, Daniel and Hanna Meade Maskell. Hanna was from Abbeyfeale, Kerry. They came into New York and settled in Baltimore, MD.

1903

• Maskell's mother born

1924

• May 2: Maskell's older half-brother is born.. Joseph Thomas "Tommy" Maskell would become a police officer.

1921

• Police report featuring Maskell's uncle, James Haskell.

1924

• Police report featuring Maskell's uncle, James Haskell.

1939

• April 13: Maskell born, Anthony Joseph Maskell. His mother is the second wife of his father.
  
• Raised in Northeast Baltimore near Clifton Park
  

1940

• April 13: Maskell's first birthday

1941

• April 13: Maskell's second birthday

1942

• April 13: Maskell's third birthday. (Maskell's sister Maureen is born in 1942)
  
• Maskell's older half-brother Tom - who would become a cop - graduates from City College.
  
• November 17: Cathy Cesnik was born in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA.
  

1943

• April 13: Maskell's fourth birthday
  
• Maskell's older half-brother Tom - who would become a cop served in the army until 1944
  
• November 17: Cathy's first birthday
  

1944

• April 13: Maskell's fifth birthday
  
• Fall: Maskell starts kindergarten?
  
• November 17: Cathy's second birthday
  

1945

• April 13: Maskell's sixth birthday.
  
• Spring: Maskell finishes kindergarten?
  
• Fall: Maskell starts first grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's third birthday
  

1946

• April 13: Maskell's seventh birthday
  
• Spring: Maskell finishes 1st grade
  
• Maskell's older half-brother Tom joins the police force and works there until he is shot in 1966 and forced to retire.
  
• Fall: Maskell starts 2nd grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's fourth birthday
  

1947

• April 13: Maskell's eighth birthday
  
• Spring: Maskell finishes 2nd grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts kindergarten? Maskell starts 3rd grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's fifth birthday.
  

1948

• April 13: Maskell's ninth birthday.
  
  • Since childhood, Anthony Joseph Maskell seemed destined for the priesthood. His favorite childhood game was "Mass." In child-sized vestments his mother had sewn for him, Joe would gather neighborhood children into the family's basement, where he would dispense the body of Christ in the form of white Necco wafers.
  • His mother, Helen Maskell, was very keen on her son becoming a priest, recalls childhood friend Bill Heim. "I always wondered if he was going to revolt at some point," Heim says. "But he never did."
  • When young Joe was old enough to join in sandlot baseball games, he would dress in black and take his position of choice behind the plate, calling the balls and strikes. According to Heim, Maskell liked having the author­ity to say: "This is right; that's wrong."
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes kindergarten? Maskell finishes 3rd grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 1st grade. Catherine Anne Cesnick grew up in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She attended St. Mary Assumption Roman Catholic Church and School in Lawrenceville, PA. The school was operated by the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND), a teaching order.
  
• Fall: Maskell starts 4th grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's sixth birthday
  

1949

• April 13: Maskell's tenth birthday. (Maskell once said that, when he was about 10, he'd had a crush on a pretty neighborhood girl.)
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 1st grade. Maskell finishes 4th grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 2nd grade. Maskell starts 5th grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's seventh birthday
  

1950

• April 13: Maskell's eleventh birthday
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 2nd grade. Maskell finishes 5th grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 3rd grade. Maskell starts 6th grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's eighth birthday
  

1951

• April 13: Maskell's twelfth birthday
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 3rd grade. Maskell finishes 6th grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 4th grade. Maskell starts 7th grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's ninth birthday
  

1952

• April 13: Maskell's thirteenth birthday
  
• William Keeler graduates (BA) from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, PA, in 1952. He earned another bachelor’s degree from St. Charles Seminary at Overbrook in Philadelphia. He received both a licentiate in sacred theology and a doctorate in canon law from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 4th grade. Maskell finishes 7th grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 5th grade. Maskell starts 8th grade.
  
• November 17: Cathy's tenth birthday
  

1953

• April 13: Maskell's 14th birthday. At 14, Maskell went off to St. Charles Seminary in Catonsville, but returned after about a week because he was homesick.
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 5th grade. Maskell finishes 8th grade.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 6th grade. Maskell starts his Freshman Year at Calvert Hall College High School
  
• November 17: Cathy's 11th birthday
  

1954

• April 13: Maskell's 15th birthday. A fastidiously clean kid, a teenaged Maskell one year spent so much time immersed in his bathtub ritual, Heim recalls, that his father announced his displeasure over it. Joseph Francis Maskell, an office-furniture salesman with Lucas Brothers, was known for his short fuse.
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 6th grade. Maskell finishes his freshman year of high school.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 7th grade. Maskell starts his sophomore year of high school.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 12th birthday
  

1955

• April 13: Maskell's 16th birthday
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 7th grade. Maskell finishes his Sophomore year of high school.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts 8th grade. Maskell starts his Junior year of high school.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 13th birthday
  
• William Keeler was ordained in 1955.
  

1956

• April 13: Maskell's 17th birthday.
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes 8th grade. Maskell finishes his junior year of high school.
  
  • According to Maureen Baldwin, her brother was so intent on becoming a priest that he never had a date in his life. When a girl he knew in high school told him he had the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, he had no idea how to respond.
  • Friends from his teen years can't recall Maskell ever expressing a libido. "I never saw him with a girl the whole time we were in school," says Dennis Rogers, "outside of his mother."
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts her freshman year at St. Augustine High School.
  
• Fall: Maskell starts his senior year at Calvert Hall College High School (when it was located downtown)
  
• November 17: Cathy's 14th birthday
  

1957

• April 13: Maskell's 18th birthday. Maskell's Senior Picture
  
• Approximate: Maskell graduates from Calvert Hall College High School. The original school building was in downtown Baltimore where the AOB building is now. Yearbook Photos
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes her freshman year at St. Augustine High School.
  
• Summer: (Paraphrased from Patrick Forestell's 2015 comment): Anthony "Joe" Maskell was a teenager attending St. Mary's Seminary in Roland Park (Roland Ave). He and his friend, fellow pedophile William Simms, were both teenage camp counselors at then Saint Martin's Camp in Love Point, MD (Kent County); a summer camp for children from the St. Martin's Parish on Fulton Ave. in Baltimore. A St. Mary Seminary counselor told me years later that he counseled Maskell (in 1957) and Maskell had problems. Yet Maskell and Simms were allowed to become ordained, and they both inflicted harm on numerous children under the protection of the Arch Diocese of Baltimore. Maskell used his cognitive superior IQ and manipulation to get what he wanted. At Saint Martin's Camp in 1957 William Simms was playing strip poker with the children. I was 11-years old, and a young, innocent child. As I walked by the cabin I heard the laughter from peers while Simms played strip poker with the children. Maskell was outside the cabin and lured me into the open area shower where he assaulted me. Following the abuse I asked someone who that man was and he answered a "student priest." Years later I learned that the student was Maskell. I mention all this to show the hypocrisy of the Archdiocese of Baltimore for teaching theology to the masses while allowing monsters to exhibit evil deeds on numerous children over decades.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts her sophomore year at St. Augustine High School.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 15th birthday
  

1958

• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes her sophomore year at St. Augustine High School. (Maskell begins first year at St. Mary's Seminary in Roland Park
  
• April 13: Maskell's 19th birthday. Maskell trained for the priesthood at St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park. When he tried seminary again, after high school, he liked it fine, and reveled in the privileges that came with being a third-year sacristan, which included free social time after mass while the congregation prayed. The perk seemed to appeal to his ego. "He used to say with a smile, 'We're sacristans. It is our place to be back here,"' recalls long-time friend and fellow seminarian William Kern.
  
• Fall: Charles Franz starts kindergarten (?) grade at St. Clements School
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts her junior year at St. Augustine High School. In high school, Cathy contemplated entering the religious life.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 16th birthday
  

1959

• April 13: Maskell's 20th birthday.
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik finishes her junior year at St. Augustine High School. // Charles Franz end of (kindergarten?) St. Clements School. // Maskell ends his first year of priest training at St. Mary’s Seminary in Roland Park.
  
• Fall: Cathy Cesnik starts her senior year at St. Augustine High School. // Charles Franz starts first grade at St. Clements School. // Maskell starts second year at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• Cathy writes a poem called "Death." Some people meet death with open arms. And thank god their time has come. Others beg to be spared for just one more day, saying there's much to be done. But if we, before performing an act, would stop and think of death. Of death, of judgement and of all such things, I'm sure we would do our best... So that when our time comes, we may say: Take me, lord. Without delay.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 17th birthday.
  
• January, 1959: When Pope John XXIII announced the creation of the Second Vatican Council (also known as Vatican II) in January 1959, it shocked the world. There hadn't been an ecumenical council — an assembly of Roman Catholic religious leaders meant to settle doctrinal issues — in nearly 100 years.
  

1960

• April 13: Maskell's 21st birthday. .
  
• Spring: Cathy Cesnik graduates from St. Augustine High School. Photo of Senior Class Officers. After graduation, Cathy moved to Baltimore to enter the Baltimore Province of the SSND in 1960 and took final vows on July 21, 1967.
  
• Spring: Charles Franz end of first grade year at St. Clements School // Maskell ends second year at St. Mary’s Seminary.
  
• Fall: Charles Franz starts second grade at St. Clements School // Maskell begins third year at St. Mary’s Seminary.
  
• Fall: A member of a devout Catholic family in Pittsburgh, Catherine Ann Cesnik joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame at the age of 18.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 18th birthday.
  
  • Early photo of Cathy at Nun school with her family

1961

• April 13: Maskell's 22nd birthday.
  
• Spring: End of Cathy's first year at School Sisters of Notre Dame // Charles Franz end of second grade year at St. Clements School // End of Maskell's third year at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• Fall: Cathy starts 2nd year at School Sisters of Notre Dame // Charles Franz starts third grade at St. Clements School // Maskell starts fourth year at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 19th birthday.
  

1962

• April 13: Maskell's 23rd birthday.
  
• Spring: End of Cathy's 2nd year at SSND // Charles Franz end of third grade year. // End of Maskell's fourth year at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• Fall: Cathy starts third year at SSND // Charles Franz starts 4th grade at St. Clements School // Maskell starts fifth year at St. Mary's Seminary (?)
  
• November 17: Cathy's 20th birthday.
  
• The Second Vatican Council called between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops and thousands of observers, auditors, sisters, laymen and laywomen to four sessions at St. Peter's Basilica between 1962 and 1965. Sixteen documents came out of it, laying a foundation for the church as we know it today. William Keeler was a special adviser at the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s.
  

1963

• April 13: Maskell's 24th birthday.
  
• Spring: End of Cathy's third year at SSND /// Charles Franz end of 4th grade year. // End of Maskell's fifth year at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• Fall: Cathy starts fourth year at SSND // Charles Franz starts 5th grade at St. Clements School // Beginning of Maskell's sixth -- and final? -- year at St. Mary's Seminary?
  
• November 17: Cathy's 21st birthday.
  
• December 28, 1963: Maskell's father passes away at the age of 67.
  

1964

• April 13: Maskell's 25th birthday.
  
• Spring: End of Cathy's fourth year at SSND // Charles Franz ends 5th grade year. // End of Maskell's education at St. Mary's Seminary.
  
• Fall: Cathy starts 5th year at SSND // Charles Franz starts 6th grade at St. Clements School // Maskell is assigned to St. Clement's?
  
• November 17: Cathy's 22nd birthday.
  
• Chrismas Eve: Maskell's half-brother sustains gunshot wounds that end his police career
  

1965

• April 13, 1965: Maskell's 26th birthday.
  
  • Maskell was ordained in 1965. Once ordained, Maskell was known for delivering thoughtful homilies with a compelling bass voice, and for excelling in the heroic moment. When Holy Cross parishioner Lynn Gerber Smith gave birth to an ailing baby, Maskell rushed to the hospital and performed an emergency baptism. When Maskell's friend Albert Griffith called to say he was depressed and thinking of "blowing my brains out," Maskell drove to Severna Park within 15 minutes.
  • Maskell serves at Sacred Heart of Mary from 1965 to 1966.
• Spring: End of Cathy's 5th year at SSND // End of Charles Franz sixth grade year.
  
• Spring: Is this a picture of Cathy and her Dad at Cathy's "graduation" from SSND?
  
• Fall: Keough opens: As enrollment at all Catholic high schools increased, by the mid-1960s it became evident a new school was needed on the southwest side of the city. The School Sisters of Notre Dame responded to this need, and in 1965, Sr. Mary Virginia Connolly became the founding principal of Archbishop Keough High School. The school was built on 30 acres of land on Caton Avenue, and was structured as an archdiocesan high school. Archbishop Keough High added one grade a year; the first commencement took place in June 1969. The school flourished; in 1987, it was named an exemplary school by the U.S. Department of Education.
  
• Cathy Cesnik began her teaching career at Archbishop Keough High School on Caton Avenue (renamed Seton-Keough) when the school opened its doors in 1965. She taught English literature and oversaw the school's Drama Club. She was an energetic, enthusiastic and dedicated teacher. She was supportive and alert to her students at the all-girls school. -- Cathy's obituary at findagrave.
  
• Cathy moves into the residences for Nuns at Keough.
  
• Fall: Charles Franz starts 7th grade at St. Clements School.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 23rd birthday
  
• The Second Vatican Council called between 2,000 and 2,500 bishops and thousands of observers, auditors, sisters, laymen and laywomen to four sessions at St. Peter's Basilica between 1962 and 1965. Sixteen documents came out of it, laying a foundation for the church as we know it today.
  

1966

• In 1966, about 16 months after his ordination, Maskell became associate pastor at St. Clement in Lansdowne.
  
• April 13: Maskell's 27th birthday
  
• Spring: End of Cathy's first year teaching at Keough // End of Charles Franz 7th grade year.
  
• Summer: Between seventh and eighth grade, Charles Franz is an altar boy at St. Clement I. Masses were 6pm, 7pm, 8pm. This is when Charles got to know Maskell.
  
• Fall: Second year commences for Keough. New freshman enter. Last year's students move up to sophomore. Cathy Cesnik's Keough yearbook picture.. Cathy is still living in the nun's residence at Keough.
  
  • Cathy met Gerry Koob when he was an intern at Keough. Koob told The Sun that he and Cathy were deeply in love but that “it was a love between two celibates in a commitment to Christ.” Koob described Cathy as a naive, unworldly young woman who had no sense of her own beauty -- or its effect on others.
• Fall Charles Franz starts 8th grade.
  
  • Maskell is giving Charles Franz rides home from mass. Maskell would put the bike in the trunk, and they'd stop for a Snoball. Father Maskell regularly comes in Charles Franz classroom saying he wanted to see Charles up at the Rectory. At first it was once a week. Then it was 2-3 times per week. Often Maskell would keep Charles from lunch until the day ended (2:30). Maskell taught Charles how to drink and take drugs to forget what was happening around him.
  • Maskell would call Charles Franz (13) out of class at the parish school to chat, usually for several hours at a time, two or three times a week. They often started out talking about sports, but invariably wound to the subject of male anatomy.
  • One day, Maskell took Charles and two other boys target shooting. On the drive home, Charles sat up front with Maskell, and as the car rose over a bump in the road, Charles alleges, Maskell reached over, grabbed the accuser's crotch, and said playfully, "Hold on to your balls."
• November 17: Cathy's 24th birthday.
  

1967

• Winter: Maskell serves at St. Clements in 1967. Maskell also served as a chaplain for the Maryland State Police and Baltimore County Police and Maryland National Guard and later the Air National Guard as a Lieutenant colonel. (Dates unknown)
  
• April 13: Maskell's 28th birthday.
  
  • Charles says he began to feel cautious around Maskell. One afternoon when the school baseball team was changing into new uniform pants, Maskell told Charles that he needed a jockstrap to play. Charles didn't have one, but Maskell did, back in the rectory. Maskell sent the Charles to get it, giving him the key to his bedroom. Charles dashed to the rectory, lept into the jockstrap, and was dressed in record time, he says, just before Maskell arrived.
  • Charles began telling his friends to be careful around Maskell. Word of this filtered back to Maskell, who called Charles into the rectory, several days before graduation, Charles says. Allegedly, Maskell confronted him: "Listen, you little m-----f----r. If one more person says something to me that came from you, I'm gonna make sure you don't graduate."
  • [In The Keeper's Charles said that he told a couple of his friends to stay away from Maskell, and that Maskell came to his classroom and lifted him out of his seat by his hair and ordered him to the rectory. In the rectory, Maskell said, "Listen you little motherfucker, if I hear one more thing... I'm going to make sure you don't graduate." Maskell tossed Charles off the basketball team, off the baseball team, and kicked him out of CYO.]
• May: At home, Charles told his mother that Maskell had threatened him. She phoned the archdiocese to complain, and Charles graduated on time, and within three months Maskell, though continuing to reside and perform some duties at St. Clement, was assigned to Archbishop Keough High School for girls.
  
  • [In the Keepers, Charles says that in May of 1967, his mother went down to the Archdiocese and went straight to the top and said, "Father Maskell is abusing my 8th grade son." Shortly thereafter, Father Collopy calls Charles to tell him he is back on all the teams and back in the CYO, and that Maskell was no longer at St. Clement's and was being transferred.]
• Spring: End of second school year Keough is open. // End of Cathy's second year teaching at Keough // End of Charles Franz 8th grade year.
  
• Gerry Koob told the Huffington Post that he was in a romantic relationship with Cesnik and that "two years before her disappearance" -- before he was ordained and before she had taken her final vows -- he had asked her to marry him. She turned him down, but they continued to spend time together and write each other love letters.
  
• According to a letter, Cathy wrote in June of 1969, June of 1967 is when she began to feel that living the way she had been living as a nun was not the right way for her.
  
• July 21: Cathy took final vows on July 21, 1967. Her professed name was Sister Joanita.
  
• Fall: Maskell victims Jean, Deb Silcox and Lil Hughes start their freshman year at Keough. Charles starts his Freshman year at Mt. St. Joseph High School.
  
  • This is the third year Keough has been open. This is the start of Maskell's first year as school chaplain and counselor at Keough. Cathy starts her third year teaching at Keough. She is still living in the residences at Keough.
  • Jean recalls confessing to Magnus that her uncle had urged her to let a dog lick her sexually, and that the dog later died. She claims Magnus then began masturbating, saying that if she told anyone, she would go to hell.
  • Wehner said she went to see Magnus, the school’s religious services director, for confession when she was 14 years old, because she had been feeling guilty about sexual abuse she experienced as a young child. The priest turned to her in the confessional, quizzed her on the details of the abuse, and began masturbating as she talked, she said.
  • After that, Maskell and Magnus would call her into their offices for joint counseling sessions, which they said was for the purpose of helping her find God’s forgiveness for what she did as a child. She says they would masturbate in front of her, take nude photos of her and force her to perform sex acts as part of her “spiritual healing” process. “I thought they were literally praying for me,” she said.
  • Jean claims Maskell and Magnus instructed her to perform oral sex on them because “the Holy Spirit was coming through them....It was like the Eucharist." She saw Maskell for counseling sessions during which "he was praying that I would stop being bad."
  • Soon, Maskell began calling Wehner out of class and into his office without Magnus, she said. He would show her pornography, tell her that he was trying to help God forgive her for the abuse she suffered as a child, and rape her. “He kept saying it didn’t seem like I was open to the Holy Spirit and God’s grace,” Wehner said. “I was just doing what I was being told, thinking I must be such a horrible person that God can’t forgive me.”
  • Per Baltimore Magazine (1995): At Keough, Maskell was known by at least two contradictory personae. One was a gruff militarist who barked out commands in the hallway and might search a girl's locker for drugs or even cut open the hem of her skirt if he believed she was showing too much thigh.
  • The other was a chummy confidant who developed a following among some of the girls by offering his office as a smoking lounge in a school where smoking was grounds for suspension. Girls pretended to need his counsel so they could get out of class. After hear­ing his invitation to light up, they'd smoke until they got dizzy, spinning their tales of parental misunderstanding, or boyfriend problems, as the priest would nod appreciatively and take notes.
  • Many women today recall his being genuinely helpful. "He was my mentor," says one. Says another: "He helped me to put my life back together. He let me cry on his shoulder." But while dispensing such comfort, others claim, Maskell also sometimes crossed a line.
  • Keough was a traditional Catholic school, where students were required to wear knee-length plaid skirts and shirts buttoned all the way up to their necks. But it was hardly immune to the 1960s counterculture. Former Keough students said that in Maskell’s office and in the nearby rectory, where he lived, the priest offered the girls a relaxed, open-minded environment where they could talk freely about sex and drugs, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes on his red velour sofa and ask for help dealing with their traditional Catholic parents. At the peak of the sexual revolution, Maskell was well positioned to exploit the experimental and rebellious atmosphere of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In a confusing time, he offered an intoxicating cocktail of spiritual guidance, hypnosis, booze, pills and himself.
  • Maskell was a charismatic young man in his late 20s when he started at Keough as chaplain in 1967, two years after it opened. Broad-shouldered, with light blue eyes, the Irish-descended priest also served as the school’s psychological counselor.
  • Former Keough students said Maskell used his charm, psychology training and moral authority to first disarm the young girls, then to manipulate them into sexual relationships. He targeted struggling or badly behaved students — Hoskins and Schaub, who got straight As, said he never bothered them — asking the girls if they were having problems at home, or if they had been sexually active with their boyfriends or used drugs. Sometimes the priest used repetitive phrases — “I only want what’s best for you, just what’s best for you,” one woman recalled him saying — to coax them into talking.
• November 17: Cathy's 25th birthday (Those who knew Cathy remembered her spiritual and physical beauty. Quiet and reserved, but friendly, gentle and supportive, Cathy was respected and loved as a teacher and friend.)
  
  • “Sister Cathy was always a joy to be around,” said David A. Curtis, who attended Cardinal Gibbons High School but studied drama at Keough. As the drama teacher, “she was very supportive; she was your friend. But she didn’t let the friendship issue cloud the fact that she was our teacher, our leader … the adult.”
• Christmastime: Margaret and Edgar get engaged.
  

1968

• Maskell has limited duties at St. Clement's and serves at Our Lady of Victory in 1968. Maskell also chaplained for the Baltimore County Police, the Maryland State Police and the Maryland National Guard. Maskell was known to host an improvised mass on the hood of a jeep, or and/or cheering up troops in the rain, or walking over to a county police sta­tion with one of his own pistols to tar­get shoot with the boys.
  
• April 6-14: Baltimore Riots
  
• April 13: Maskell's 29th birthday.
  
• Spring: Maskell victims Jean, Deb Silcox and Lil Hughes end their freshman year at Keough. Charles ends his Freshman year at Mt. St. Joseph's High School. End of Cathy's third year teaching at Keough.
  
• Cathy is still feeling like the way in which she is living as a nun is not the right way for her (per a letter she would write a year later.)
  
• Koob said he asked Cathy to marry him before he was ordained in 1968 and before she had taken her final vows. She refused, but the two continued to see each other regularly and exchanged letters. Koob remained a Jesuit priest for a decade after her death.
  
  • Koob gave Cathy a ring inscribed in Greek. It reads: "Agape is the unconditional love." Cathy was wearing that ring when her body was found.
• Fall:
  
• Cesnik was like a real-life version of Maria, Julie Andrews’ character from “The Sound of Music,” Hoskins recalled: warm, exuberant and strikingly beautiful. The nun played guitar and wrote musicals for the girls to perform on stage. She invented creative vocabulary games to push the girls to teach each other new, obscure words. [Cathy is still living in the residences at Keough.]
  
  • Maskell begins second year as school chaplain and counselor at Archbishop Keough // Cathy starts her fourth year teaching at Archbishop Keough.
  • Maskell victims Jean, Deb Silcox and Lil Hughes start their Sophomore years at Keough. Charles starts his Sophomore year at Mt. St. Joseph High School. Maskell victim Teresa Lancaster starts her freshman year at Keough. Lancaster is a straight A student. Lancaster says she was a nerd in the 9th grade. This is the fourth year Keough has been open. The school's first graduating seniors start the school year.
  • Undated photo of a group of girls from the Keough Class of 1970
• Over a three-year period, Jean says she and Maskell had vaginal intercourse four times, including once during which he called her a whore. She alleges Maskell once forced her to have sex with a uni­formed police officer and at least once to have sex with someone who gave the priest money. Other memories involve a broth­er from Cardinal Gibbons, anal intercourse, and coerced enemas.
  
  • Jean recalls that Maskell hypnotized her: "He would use a certain phrase and everything would just stop." The phrase, she says, was, "I only want what's best for you, just what's best for you." She says he told her that before divulging a certain incident to anyone, "I was to kill myself."
  • Jean also claims Maskell once put a gun in her mouth. On another occasion, she says Maskell held an unloaded gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Maskell warned Jean that if her policeman father ever learned "what was going on," Maskell would do the same thing to her father, but with a loaded gun.
• Kathy Hobeck said she asked Cesnik to protect her from Maskell’s abuse when she attended Keough in 1968. “She would make excuses for me when he would ask me to come down [to his office],” Hobeck said. “She’d say, ‘She’s in a study, she can’t get away,’ or she’d make up a story.”
  
• October: Cathy took her students to see the 1968 movie version of “Romeo and Juliet” after they read the Shakespeare play.
  
• November 17: Cathy's 26th birthday
  

1969

• John A. “Pete” McKeon, a Christian brother, met Cathy Cesnik and Gerry Koob at a 1969 retreat for Notre Dame sisters in Boston. McKeon described Cathy as “extremely intelligent, extremely sensitive.” McKeon said Cahty was chosen to help lead the retreat “for her poetic ability, because of her sensitivity to pick up on other people’s feelings.”
  
  • Like many young religious in the late 1960s, Cathy was troubled by the regimented life of the convent.
  • It was an era when many young priests and nuns were advocating social activism at the same time they were questioning the personal and emotional demands of celibacy that the church imposed. According to Helen Russell Phillips, Cathy had fallen in love with Gerald Koob, a young Jesuit priest.
• March 31: Ford's new Maverick becomes available for sale for approximately $2,000.00 Photo of similar car. Cathy would have purchased this car sometime between April and October of 1969. It has been reported that Cathy and Russ jointly purchased the vehicle and shared it. And that at some point, police returned the Maverick to Russ, who continued to drive it, after Cathy's death.
  
• April 13: Maskell's 30th birthday. Maskell also serves at Our Lady of Victory in 1969.
  
• Spring:
  
  • Maskell victims: Jean, Deb Silcox and Lil Hughes end their Sophomore years at Keough. Charles ends his Sophomore year at Mt. St. Joseph. Maskell victim Teresa Lancaster ends her freshman year at Keough. She is still a straight-A student. This is the first year that Keough graduates a class of Seniors, meaning it's the fourth year they've been open.
  • End of Maskell's second year at Keough
  • May: Jean told police that in May, 1969, she confided in Cathy that a priest had sexually abused her at Keough. Jean never saw Cathy again after that term.
  • The only person who tried to help the girls was Sister Cathy Cesnik. Wehner said that in 1969, at the end of her sophomore year, Cesnik stole a moment alone with her in her classroom. “Are the priests hurting you?” the nun asked gently. Wehner nodded her head, too afraid to open her mouth. Cesnik told Wehner to go home and enjoy the summer. She said she would handle the situation.
  • In the Spring of 1969, it's the end of Cathy's fourth year teaching at Keough. Cathy and Russell ask for permission to live outside the 40-sister convent but to continue teaching as nuns, but outside of Archbishop Keough.
  • Russell (who was married and living in Carroll County when she was interviewed in 1994), said the idea of living outside the convent was often discussed, particularly among the younger nuns. Russell said The Order denied Cathy and Russell's request to live outside the convent and teach at public schools.
  • “But we were the renegades,” Russell said. “We said we were going anyway. We already had the apartment.”
  • This conflicts with Cecilia -- the ex-nun on The Keepers -- who said that Mother Maurice gave Cathy and Russell permission to experiment. Koob confirms The Order refused the request and that Cathy had until December 31 to move back to the convent or quit being a nun. [From Cathy's obituary at findagrave: As many religious did in the turbulent 60's, Sister Joanita (Cathy) requested permission to take a sabbatical from the Order. This was granted and Catherine moved with another nun into an apartment in the Edmondson Village area of Baltimore. She also decided to teach instead at Western High School beginning in the fall of 1969.]
• June:
  
  • Russell and Cathy left Keough (and the residence) in June 1969, adopted civilian dress, got teaching jobs in city schools and moved into the Carriage House Apartments on North Bend Road, in Southwest Baltimore.
  • June 1, 1969: Letter from Cathy explaining decision to leave Keough.
  • Margaret and Edgar get into a big fight because he's not paying the bills. Edgar chokes Margaret and says he could kill her. Margaret wants to leave but she's carrying twins.
• August: Cathy went home to Pittsburgh to explain to her family why she was leaving Keough. Marilyn said Cathy wasn't her happy-go-lucky self and was sad. Cathy's father told her the world is a dangerous place and Cathy said, "How do you know my world is not a dangerous place?"
  

Timeline II >>