The water from a can of chickpeas makes a great egg substitute for baked goods and pancakes, but you can also use it in other tasty items like cocktails. Here’s how.
WASHINGTON—Telling reporters they were working hard to provide important national security updates to the new commander-in-chief in a manner he found most useful and actionable, intelligence officials confirmed Monday they have been struggling to condense President Donald Trump’s briefings down to a single word. “The president prefers his briefs to be concise and straightforward, preferably no longer than two or three syllables, so we’re now focusing on compressing each day’s classified intel and any intercepted geopolitical chatter down to the sole most salient word,” said Deputy National Security Advisor K.T. McFarland, adding that a team of staffers had been tasked with stripping each briefing of the overly technical or complex details that President Trump disliked, such as arcane insider terminology, multiple bullet points, and any compound or hyphenated words. “The president tends to grow frustrated if crucial intelligence is not delivered within the first seven letters or so. We recently gave him a briefing that consisted only of the term ‘nuclear proliferation,’ but he clearly became distracted by the end of the first word, so we shortened it to simply read ‘bomb,’ and he seemed to respond well to that.” At press time, McFarland confirmed President Trump had asked officials to continue formatting his daily intelligence memos in the model of his most recent briefing, which consisted entirely of a brightly colored clip-art fighter jet.
Beyoncé’s performance at tonight’s Grammy Awards was a thrill for some, baffling to others, but a tour de force by any measure. To best understand it, we’ve isolated her vocal track for your critical and cultural comprehension—and appreciation.
After 21 seasons of The Bachelor, after 12 seasons of TheBachelorette, and after 15 years on the air, ABC will reportedly announce on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday night that they’ve cast their first black lead of the franchise.
Esteemed president Donald J. Trump met for the first time with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday. At the meeting, Trump, video shows, tried to pull his trademark unsettling handshake on Trudeau, but ultimately failed in the “endeavour.” Here’s hoping their negotiations go better.
A week ago, Grimes and Janelle Monáe shared the video for “Venus Fly,” off Grimes’ 2015 album Art Angels. However, you may have missed it if you’re not a TIDAL subscriber, as it was released exclusively through the streaming service. Now it’s also on YouTube, and thus it’s also below in this very post for your viewing delight.
The video — which features Monáe wielding a fiery sword in a flamboyant angel-warrior outfit in keeping with the costumery of the other videos from Art Angels, and Grimes bathing in a tub of molasses and weaponizing fairy tale femininity (you’ll quickly see the nod to Beauty and theBeast)— was directed and edited by Grimes.
Grimes praised Monáe in an Instagram post upon the release of the video, writing, “Sometimes it feels futile to be making art in this cruel and extreme political climate, but some of the brightest moments of the last few months for me and for a lot of you, i suspect, have come from seeing @janellemonae ‘s amazing and positive vision of the future, especially when we are being introduced to so many possible dystopian futures;” she signed off her message with “#femthefuture.”
The crucial first interview after this ruling with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was given to the glorious official news outlet of the Trump administration, Breitbart News. Conducted by a boy in a suit named Charlie Spiering, it is a glorious two-minute comedy of errors, with production qualities rivaling the cringe-inducing crap cinema of Fateful Findings,A Talking Cat!?!, and even The Room. It is worth discussing in its entirety.
The film begins with several seconds of dead air. Spiering ...
Click through and check out Tinamou eggs. Never heard of them - they're beautiful.
If you write “eggs” on your grocery list, you most likely are referring to those that came from a chicken. Though hen eggs are an almost perfect food, there’s a whole world of other egg-citing options out there.
There are 62,979,879 reasons Hillary Clinton didn't win the election, but a simple one is: A lot of people didn't want a woman to be president.
For the most part, that feeling was subconscious, snugly cushioned by opposition-manufactured narratives cloaking hidden realities of cognitive dissonance, or, put more simply, "emails." Still, plenty of others would tell you and the rest of Facebook that the presidency is a man's job. That feels too sexist to say out loud. It should.
The reasoning behind the institutionalized sexism that has kept women from the Oval Office isn't usually explained, but the idiotic stereotypes mostly have to do with emotion. Women are too emotional to be trusted with the highest office in the free world. They'll make "rash decisions," possibly while PMSing. They could be signing executive orders, and conducting foreign policy, and condemning private offices and individuals guided by no discernible metric beyond the flow of hormones! Look how emotional I'm getting right now! I'm a triggered snowflake, right? (By the way, the inversion version of this argument, published by TIME in 2015, is that Clinton would be a good president because she's already gone through menopause.)
Here's the ironic part: All of the nonsense behind the misogynistic fear of a female president has been coming to fruition in Donald Trump's first weeks in office. Worried that a woman in the White House would have careening mood swings often spurred by catty arguments? Look no further than Trump's Twitter feed.
The short version of all the women-can't-be-president nonsense is that we'd risk nuclear war once a month. The first time someone told me that joke, I was too young to have a full briefing on periods and didn't get the punchline. In case you don't, it's a biological disparagement of women as erratically unhinged. I'm going to pretend that we all agree misogyny is bad. I don't have the word count or patience to work under any other assumption. Let's also agree that someone who is erratically unhinged should be kept one restraining order's distance away from the White House. Finally, be so kind as to grant me the establishing belief that having public breakdowns about reality television, recklessly condemning businesses in the private sector for personal gain, and using Twitter as if it is a series of text messages to your id is erratically unhinged behavior.
I'm not even beginning to address policy or ideology here (see again: word count, patience). The unimaginable cruelty of Trump signing away human lives with the stroke of a pen—on pieces of paper he may have failed to read—has been well documented. This is not about partisanship; it's about fitness to serve, an issue that has nothing to do with gender. If Trump's first executive orders compelled airlines to provide free alcohol and a human amount of leg room, it would remain deeply disturbing that the president of the United States is struggling so much with the duties of the office.
On the left, there's been a lot of speculation around Trump's physical and mental health. You may find that ridiculous, but it doesn't begin to touch the outrageous and sexist fear-mongering around Clinton's health, which was deliberately manufactured by the alt-right and then adopted by the Trump campaign itself. Trump also claimed Clinton didn't have a "presidential look" or the "stamina to be president"—another stereotype that's ironic in retrospect when you hear reports that Trump was "fatigued" during an apparently contentious call with the Australian prime minister.
While we're on the topic of double standards, the conflicts of interest juxtaposition of the Clinton and Trump foundations alone is like comparing apples to a malignant tumor shaped like an orange. After spending months inveighing against Clinton's supposed coziness with Wall Street, Trump is putting former Goldman Sachs executives in charge of the government; after Trump complaining ad nauseum about Clinton's lax email practices, his own White House staff is reportedly using private email accounts. The list goes on.
Sexism defines a woman's existence with granular intricacy. On a more macro level, it holds back more than 50 percent of the population from equal pay, reproductive rights, and even physical safety. The deep, pervasive nature of sexist ideas is the reason we have never had a female president, and baked into that condemning non-statistic is the grotesque belief that menstrual cycles cast women outside the realm of reason and common sense. "Outside the realm of reason and common sense" sounds like a pretty accurate descriptor of Trump's first weeks in office, or really just his Twitter feed.
The notion that Clinton (or any woman) would be weak, or irrational, or guided by her hormones, was always sexist nonsense. But as a consequence of too many people buying into that nonsense, we've got a president who actually has problems with controlling his impulses and letting emotion overrule reason. It would be funny, except we're all going to be living through it for four years.
It's a strange place, London: a city that doesn't really seem to function for the majority of people who live there. Stroll past the barren luxury apartments, artisanal kitchenware studios, and appointment-only candle shops, and you'll see it's certainly not for you. Watch as rents rise faster than house prices, and the idea of "home ownership" becomes a funny little thing people reminisce and laugh about, like fuck bands or how we used to put asbestos in walls, and realize you do not belong.
But if there's one clear-cut reminder that London is not for you, it's the density of private members' clubs in this city. Those tastefully lit, expensively furnished places of refuge for the world's elite. Somewhere you can sip a negroni in peace, without the risk of encountering some satellite-town pleb asking to pinch a filter.
The thing is, of course, that I very much am that satellite-town pleb, and so have always wondered about what luxury lies behind the doors of these places. Problem is, there are certain barriers to me ever finding out: my Midlands accent, my muddy Converse, my lack of an actual membership to even one private members' club. But you know what? I'm not going to let any of that stop me. Instead, by hook or by crook, I'll finally find a way in.
Starting with:
Flower Power
OK, so getting into a private members' club is basically just finding a way to get past the doormen, right? Which really can't be that hard. I've seen Daniel Craig pout his way into enough places in the last few Bond films to know that. So my first ruse is a simple one: Pretend to be a flower deliveryman.
One backward cap, a bouquet, and a pair of denim shorts later, and I've got a one-way ticket into Shoreditch House, a private members' club in east London aimed so directly at media types that there's a no-tie rule, because exactly nobody who works in media wears a tie.
I strut through the lobby, whistling absentmindedly and looking down at my clipboard.
An "excuse me?" rings out, hitting me like cold water down my collar. "Can I help you?"
"Sure, I've got some flowers here to deliver to the upstairs bar for a… Simon?" The lobby guy's face folds in on itself.
"We've got hundreds of Simons. Do you not have any more information?" I shake my head. "What company are you from?" I feel my temples tighten.
"'That's Flowers.'"
"'That's Flowers?' OK cool. Let me google them." Fuck. "Nothing—that's weird. Can I have a word with your boss on the phone?"
"Sure, let me just grab my phone out of the car."
Within seconds, I'm barreling down Brick Lane. No matter—forget that. Next up:
If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them
Who do members' clubs have in mind when they're deciding which cut of tuna to include on their sashimi platter? You know the types: the guy who plays squash before work; the woman who takes clients for three-hour afternoon tea sessions; the trust-fund kid who's developed a cocaine habit in lieu of a personality. And the reason clubs roll out the red carpet for them is simple: They smell the hot wad of Queen Elizabeth's face in their pockets. What I'm saying is: This isn't a matter of tiptoeing through the back door. This is a case of putting on my best suit, stealing some hair gel, filling my wallet, and blowing the bloody doors down.
So I look 1 million bucks. But I don't have 1 million bucks—I have like 20 bucks. And how am I going to tip the doorman, the manager, and the concierge with that? I need to somehow turn that amount into more. But how?
Yowza! Read it and weep: 7,200 Hungarian forint. Now it's time for me to make my name known at one of London's finest business-oriented private members' clubs, the Devonshire.
Swaggering up to the door, I wink at every businessman I see to get me in the mood.
"Good evening, sir!"
I offer my hand and slip the doorman a 500 forint note. We maintain eye contact, shaking hands, and he takes my umbrella from me. This is going to be easy. I'm led down a lowly lit hallway, through to a lobby where a man offers me a warm towel. A woman calls me over.
"It's fantastic to have you this evening. May we take your jacket?"
"Quite a chill on out there, isn't there?" I'm rounding my vowels like John Cleese.
"Absolutely! And what is your name?"
"It's Richard."
"Your second name? Just so we can check against our membership lists."
"You see"—I lean over the counter—"I didn't think that would be necessary." The woman's eyes shift from side-to-side, and I continue. "I'm not a member, but seeing as I just want a quick sip of something before I head to a gala dinner nearby, how does 500 sound?"
She looks at the note, then up at me, and then back at the note. I raise my eyebrows.
She doesn't accept the note. I say that I'll "sort it out," and then pretend to speak on the phone for at least ten minutes. Sweating and running out of ideas, I give up and make my escape.
Next, my final ruse—and the one that has to come off:
Grant + Me = The Pleasure
Bounding through central London, stinging from the cold slap of failure, I'm pulling my hair out. What do members' clubs actually look for? Who can they simply not refuse? Eureka: celebrities! Of course! Finding an A-lister to roll up with is all that's standing between me and sweet success. And within 45 minutes, I've got my man. My key to the city of London. A priceless asset, for the cost of £300. Meet:
HUGH GRANT! Or Simon. Simon is a Hugh Grant impersonator, who, like Hugh, was prolific in the 90s, but has been a little quieter since. Until tonight.
The plan is simple: we're going to trick Soho's finest members' club, The Groucho, into thinking Hugh Grant (Simon) and his PR (me) have shown up for a quick drink. Trouble is, Simon has a thick Essex accent, so he needs to let me do the talking. And for added effect, photographer Chris is going to pretend to be a pap, desperate for a picture of the Love Actually star.
Sunglasses on and with Chris waiting around the corner, it's show time. We spin onto Dean Street and the flashes begin. Chris lunges out abrasively. I shield and protect my client.
The door lady lunges into action, swinging the portal open, ushering us in.
"Can we help you?" the receptionist asks.
"Yes," I reply. "We'd like a table."
"Okay, do you have a membership name?" I feign shock.
"I'm with Hugh." I look over my shoulder, back to Simon, who is staring into a roaring fire. "Hugh Grant."
The receptionist's jaw drops. Soon, we're being led through into the lounge. I order a beer for me and a gin and tonic for Hugh. They take my card and hand over some pretzels. This is good. This is a win. But I want to see how far I can push it. I tell Simon to look pissed off.
"Hugh is a little bit uncomfortable down here. Do you have anywhere quieter?" I ask the barman.
"Of course, sir."
Up the stairs we go, until the man opens a concealed door and smiles.
Simon and I dance and clink glasses in our very own private room. For a bit. And then we get bored. Private members' clubs aren't really that great, are they? As far as I can see, they're just well-decorated pubs that you have to pay hundreds of pounds a year to get into. Enough of this—time to get out of here. I ask for the check.
"Oh, you're going?" asks the man. "Is it something we've done? Because we can make this right if it is?"
"Well," I feel a lightning bolt go through my body. "Perhaps two glasses of champagne would do it?"
"Of course!" He stops. "But can I come deliver them myself?" I feel a rock in my throat.
Turning back up the stairs, I wonder if I've gone too far.
Yep, I have. I definitely have. I explain this to Simon, who immediately panics. We switch seats so his back is to the door, and cross our fingers. In the guy comes. We fall silent. Placing the glasses down, he turns to Simon. "Hugh," he smiles. "I hope you've had a good evening."
Feeling very bad about what I've just done, I feel it's time to go. We drink up and I text Chris so he's poised and ready to pap.
Coming out the door, the flashes are mightier than ever. I almost yell at Chris, telling him to stop, but this is not Chris. This is not Chris at all. This is a man clutching a camera the size of a mortar, rapidly firing flashes as bright as the sun into our eyeballs.
"Had a fun game of tennis this morning, didn't you, Hugh?" he cackles. Initially stunned, we start pacing down the street. "Hey Hugh!" the gentleman prods. "Had a few drinks tonight, have you, Hugh?"
Ducking into a bar and taking a seat, I try to make sense of what's just happened. Is this the price you have to pay for being the kind of man who storms into private members' clubs and demands champagne? Is this treatment why Hugh Grant always looks miserable? Simon and I look at each other, wide-eyed, and start laughing. I slap his shoulder and he smiles back, looking at me warmly and saying:
"Can I go home now?"
I hand him his money and he leaves.
Today has cost me £361, £11 more than an annual under-30s membership to the Groucho Club.
I FINALLY FINISHED IT! In honor of the brave national parks employees that rebelled against Trump’s anti-science agenda, I have drawn a revolutionary pic of the Parks and Rec characters!
According to an internal report from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seen by Reuters, the wall that President Donald Trump has been squawking about building for over 18 months will be really, really fucking expensive.
As of this Tuesday, 5 Billion Betsy is now our Secretary of Education. For those of us who dreamed of better for the burgeoning minds who’ll be America’s future — and who’ll now feel the stigmata of corporate-driven theocracy — her appointment is an especially rough development. But we dreamers can keep dreaming, can’t we? Seeking solace in the dream world of filmand television, Flavorwire has gathered a list of empowering, inspiring, influential onscreen politicians and educators who would’ve made better Secretaries of Education than Betsy DeVos.
Oversized Pin on Leslie Knope’s Blazer in Parks and Recreation
Unlike Betsy DeVos, Oversized Pin on Leslie Knope’s Blazer is no-nonsense when it comes to speaking its mind, even if its mind can only speak the word “Knope,” — but damn, does it do it with integrity. And though it may be unable to answer in the affirmative, and may spell its limited statement of naysaying using the old dutch “Knope,” it is, unlike Betsy, honest about what it can’t… and can’t do. Has Oversized Pin on Leslie Knope’s Blazer, for example, funneled over a million dollars into attempts to get Michigan to avoid oversight of charter schools, schools that are owned, often, by private companies? “Knope.” Does Oversized Pin on Leslie Knope’s Blazer claim to be experienced enough to be the Secretary of Eduction? “Knope.” Would Oversized Pin on Leslie Knope’s Blazer appear to plagiarize answers to a test issued by Congress? “Knope.” Now, that‘d be a Secretary of Education/Oversized Pin you could trust.
Elephant Candelabra on The Queen’s Desk in The Queen
Republicanism, it should be noted, gives a bad name to elephants, a species that has been through more than enough (no thanks to the Leader’s progeny). With Republicanism’s face becoming more sinister in its current state as an enabler of fascism, appointing this Elephant Candelabra on the Queen’s Desk to be Secretary of Education would be a very good opportunity for elephants to reclaim their image. More to the point, Elephant Candelabra on the Queen’s Desk would also, simply, be a better Secretary of Education than Betsy DeVos. Because it’s a candelabra, it’s unlikely that it could buy its way into its position. Also, as a candelabra, the potential for religious bias to be driving its policy is low. DeVos can’t hold a candle to Elephant Candelabra on the Queen’s Desk.
Headrest From Which Michelle Obama Is Leaning Away in Southside With You
Michelle Obama may be leaning away from Headrest From Which Michelle Obama Is Leaning Away in last year’s presidential indie romance (yes, another presidential indie romance), but what’s so impressive about this headrest is that it won’t lean away from her. This is a very good indication of the way that Headrest From Which Michelle Obama Is Leaning Away would also approach public schooling in its oversight to the Department of Education. Unlike DeVos, whose idea about public school is to fix problems by taking money away from them and pouring that money into private and for-profit schools, this Headrest is the structural paragon of undying support.
This Particular Upper Left Piece of Confetti Next to Prime Minister Hugh Grant in Love Actually
Why would This Particular Upper Left Piece of Confetti Next to Prime Minister Hugh Grant would a much better Secretary of Education than Betsy DeVos? The answer all boils down to privilege. This Particular Upper Left Piece of Confetti was brought into the world with nearly nothing, an unostentatious square with no possessions. Its sole purpose was to exist for and perform with its fellow pieces of confetti, all of whom are pictured here. The lightly socialist implications of its existence imply that the group is greater than the sum of its parts. A single “confetto,” by its very nature, is a preposterous thing: a “confetto” alone is meaningless. Ms. DeVos is the daughter-in-law of a billionaire, and owns a 20,000 square foot lake house. This Particular Upper Left Piece of Confetti, meanwhile, has never been entitled enough to ask for anything except to flutter from the ceiling, and to relish the simplicity of that experience. That’s a lesson our kids could use.
Urinal Adjacent to Harvey Milk in Milk
Though Harvey Milk would, if he were still with us, certainly have been a better candidate for any form of political office than Betsy DeVos, it’s undeniable that the urinal next to him in this image from Milk would also have been a preferable pick. While this urinal likely comes equipped with a deodorizer block, a press-down flusher, and high walls to minimize splatter, Betsy DeVos comes equipped with a desire to gut the public school system. It’s not hard to see who’d be the better Secretary of Education.
Hefty Portion of Peas Beneath Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Albus Dumbledore may be a powerful wizard and thoughtful educator, but Hefty Portion of Peas Beneath Albus Dumbledore has likewise proven a more able candidate than Betsy DeVos for the position of Secretary of Education. While DeVos likely thinks of all public schoolers as little more than peas in a large bowl, Hefty Portion of Peas Beneath Albus Dumbledore understands firsthand the feeling of erasure and neglect that comes from being seen as nothing else. As the 1% literally stares down at Hefty Portion of Peas Beneath Albus Dumbledore in this photo, ready to eat its constituent peas, both literally and metaphorically, what goes unspoken — perhaps because it speaks for itself — is that Hefty Portion of Peas Beneath Albus Dumbledore would, if it had been given a chance through better schooling and a less immobilizing system (unlike the one Betsy DeVos is about to exacerbate), have made for an excellent educative politician.
This Tennis Ball That’s About to Be Inserted Into George W. Bush’s Dog Barney’s Mouth in W
Tennis Ball That’s About to Be Inserted Into George W. Bush’s Dog Barney’s Mouth has spent a lot of time in a Scottish Terrier’s mouth. Do you think, after that trauma, it’d be open to giving in to the will of a presidential Scottish Terror? The qualification is right there in the photo, friends, and I believe (though I of course cannot state as fact) that fitting into the mouth of a Scottie is a qualification you’ll find nowhere on Ms. DeVos’ CV.
This Broccoli Rabe Dish Next to Meryl Streep’s Violin Teacher Character in Music of the Heart
There’s a disheartening dearth of stills of Meryl Streep next to amusing objects in Music of the Heart. But I’ve crudely pasted a broccoli rabe dish beside Streep. And now that it’s there, it deserves to be said that this broccoli rabe dish would be a better Secretary of Education than Betsy DeVos.
This Frowning Nun’s Wimple in Selma
Betsy DeVos has donated a total of some $100 million to Christian schools and has said that she wants to “advance God’s kingdom” through education. Since it may seem that DeVos wants to throw the proverbial wimple on all children, it’d be far more direct to simply have This Frowning Nun’s Wimple in Selma controlling the Department of Education.
In part due to the current political climate and our new president’s fondness for frequent critiques of the program, Saturday Night Live has been enjoying its highest ratings in more than 20 years. SNL now looks to capitalize on its renewed relevance by (maybe) launching a prime-time Weekend Update spin-off. In the video above, A.V. Clubbers Marah Eakin and Katie Rife discuss the details of the ratings surge and whether or not they would watch a Weekend Update spin-off.
Damn I should have done this with the sweater that Mickey destroyed
Some dogs need a little extra warmth during chilly weather in the form of a doggie sweater or jacket. You can turn an old sweater or sweatshirt into one for your dog with a little sewing and this video shows you how it’s done.
Interesting article. I'm fascinated by this. Not enough to want it for myself - I am more in the "death acceptance" camp myself - but it is interesting. I wonder if the technology will be developed in my lifetime or at all.
From outside, the offices of America's largest cryonic-freezing center are more befitting of Michael Scott from The Office than Philip K. Dick. Tucked away in a bland, blue-gray office park in Scottsdale, Arizona, Alcor Life Extension Foundation rests against a backdrop of a sienna-toned quilt of strip malls, ranch homes, gun clubs, and cacti stitched together with slabs of highway that seem as wide and endless as the sunset vistas. But, if I wanted to confer with frozen bodies and household pets, it turns out, I had to head to the desert.
Cryonics—the science of using sub-freezing temperatures to preserve people in the hope that resurrection may come in the future—is a pseudo Easter for atheists. Upon arriving in Alcor's office, I counted myself among its skeptics. The nonprofit's nine employees smiled as they buzzed amid shiny silver walls and framed photographs of the currently frozen, a sort of doctor's office meets Deep Space Nine. Alcor has 149 bodies and heads stored at 300 degrees below zero, including a Chinese science-fiction author, a little girl from Thailand, and baseball icon Ted Williams, among others. (But not, representatives said, Walt Disney, contrary to popular belief.) And the foundation is looking to expand; more than 1,100 people, or "cryonauts," have committed to doing the same deep freeze. About a quarter of them, Alcor says, work in technology, and most committed to the postmortem freeze in their 40s rather than their silver years, seeing the body as a hackable machine just in need of a future reboot.
But behind the Jetsons-mortuary sheen, does cryonic freezing stand a chance?
Fred Chamberlain, who co-founded Alcor with his wife, Linda, in 1972, is frozen in its vault. The team believes this scan of his brain shows that his memories have potentially remained intact. All photos by Mark Peterman.
Cryonics critics are manifold and vocal. The practice is currently illegal in some places, including France and parts of Canada, and many have argued that organizations like Alcor provide false hope to those who are most vulnerable to the pain of grief's weight—a Ponzi scheme devoted to the gathering of new member dollars in order to keep the older members chilled. Recently, in the United Kingdom, the mother of a deceased 14-year-old fought (and won) a legal battle to uphold her daughter's wish to be posthumously frozen. Writing in MIT Technology Review, neuroscientist Michael Hendricks calls cryonics a "false science," adding that "those who profit from this hope deserve our anger and contempt." In 2006, the cryonics movement was dealt a setback when the son of two cryonauts discovered a freezer had malfunctioned and his parents had thawed, and similar macabre "suspension failures" go back at least to the 1960s.
However, to Linda Chamberlain, who co-founded Alcor in 1972, the notion of cryonics is "liberating." Chamberlain told me that she is among those committed to postmortem freezing and her husband, Fred, who died of cancer in 2012, is already in Alcor's vault. "You know that there's a very good possibility that even if something happens to you," she said, "you'll have another chance to play."
Chamberlain and her husband met at one of the first cryonics meetings in California in the late 1960s and worked on the Alcor rescue team, which picks up bodies and begins the freezing process, for many of their 46 years of marriage. She now works part-time as special-projects manager at Alcor. "I can be closer to him and watch out for him," she told me.
Birdlike in build, and intentional in her tone, Chamberlain, sitting in front of a long timeline of cryonic history that hangs in Alcor's office, added, "Fred and I always planned to stay together. I had no intentions of remarrying or anything. I'm strictly gonna get him back."
The foundation prices whole-body preservation at $200,000; just the head (the "neuros") costs $80,000, and pet freezing is also available.
The timeline on the wall begins with Benjamin Franklin making mention of embalming people "in such a manner that they might be recalled to life" in a letter to a friend in 1773; stretches to when the academic Robert Ettinger published his 1964 tome, The Prospect of Immortality; and continues on to the present. Ettinger's work is credited with inspiring today's cryonics movement. But in spite of the title of his provocative text, Alcor does not promise immortality, Max More, the group's red-haired British chief executive, told me.
The general idea is that while those of us currently living don't personally know our human successors, it's worth trusting "our 'friends of the future'" (as Ettinger called them) to be better, smarter, more clever than we are. And that they will be curious enough about the world to want to bring us back, like a more sentimental take on Encino Man, or a real-life Futurama. To More, the cryonauts are neither cult members nor profiteers nor weirdos; they're just misunderstood and intrigued by the limits of a human potential. "We're offering a chance," More said, "to have a second life."
***
"None of us want to do this," More said of dying. "Floating in a tank of liquid nitrogen, unable to control our destiny, is very unappealing. But it's much more appealing than being nibbled on by worms and bacteria. Or incinerating in a giant oven." But cryonics, he told me, is "a chance, and it's uncertain. We can't guarantee the technology will ever be developed. But it seems likely. It doesn't violate the laws of physics. It's a matter of technical development."
Alcor's rates, depending on what you're looking for, can be quite costly. The foundation prices whole-body preservation at $200,000; just the head (the "neuros") costs $80,000, and pet freezing is also available. Often life insurance policies, which Alcor does not offer, help pay the bill. And Alcor does not receive referral fees for the policies, More said. About half of the cost goes to a patient-care trust, which is intended to last longer than the current Alcor administration and buffer the frozen from future financial uncertainty (even though there is no way of knowing what currency will be like if a thaw were to happen). There is "the misconception that this is only for rich people, which it's not," More said. "If you pay with life insurance, it's about the same as getting a Starbucks every day."
Max More, the foundation's chief executive, suggests that the cryonicthawing process "should be doable" in 50 to 150 years, and that "cryonauts" are not weirdos, simply misunderstood.
During my visit, More took me to an operating room of sorts, and under bright, convenience-store-style lighting, he guided me through a demonstration of what Alcor representatives do with a body the moment it's proclaimed dead. Alcor maintains a "watchlist," he said, of those who are terminally ill, and tries to reduce the time between death and freeze to better reduce any potential damage. Surgeons hired on contract, employees, and other volunteers make up the rescue team, and though many of them live in Scottsdale, they can be dispatched elsewhere. "We're not yet at the stage with suspended animation like in the movies," More said while we stood over a gurney with a rubberized, life-size Ken doll, surrounded by plastic ice cubes. "Yet."
Once on the gurney, the body would be injected with about 16 to 17 different substances—including anticoagulants and antacids—the first one being the anesthetic Propofol. GoPros record the entire process, both for family members and for other researchers. Case studies are, in some cases, made public or redacted.
Whether scientifically nutty or not, cryonics are—literally—banking on a world that is better than the one we live in today.
Clinical as it all seemed, it still felt totally weird. I asked More whether he thought the general vibe around cryonics will normalize. He pointed to recent innovations like the mainstreaming of in vitro fertilization and organ donations as examples of once-impossible innovations that have helped people in and out of the medical community to open up to the idea of freezing.
"I think we're kind of a bit like Leonardo da Vinci when he designed helicopter wings and other flying devices. People probably thought he was a bit nuts back then, but he was right. He just couldn't build them because he didn't have the tools and technologies. The principles were right," More said. "Or, say, 1960. Let's put someone on the moon. How are we going to do that? We don't have big enough rockets. We don't have life-support systems. They had no clue, but within ten years, it was done."
I found myself curious about when, if at all, the frozen become thawed. And if, once resurrected, how much of one's personality remains? If I were frozen and thawed, would my memories—be they my ATM PIN number or a treasured time spent with loved ones—be there when the cube becomes a puddle?
More pulled up a scan of Fred Chamberlain's brain on a flat-screen monitor and, pointing to various parts of the almond-shape mass of neon pink, purple, and blue, said, "It's very easy to think that all his memories are intact. Everything is still there."
In More's vision, cryonic freezing and thawing "should be doable," although it's hard to put a date on when it will occur. Fifty to 150 years, perhaps, he suggested. He then led me into another room, where, through bulletproof glass, a series of floor-to-ceiling canisters came into view. As we entered the freezer room, dozens of them surrounded us—shiny, reflective, cool, and smooth to the touch. On the current property that Alcor owns, there's room to store nearly 1,000 people.
Each body is wrapped in a sleeping bag of sorts, placed in an aluminum pod, and then slid straight down into the canister with three other bodies, along with five heads in the center column. The tubes are "basically gigantic, very expensive thermal flasks," More explained, turning on the lights. The walls are multiplated, and while a backup power generator supports the room, More assured me that power isn't necessary to keep the frozen from thawing, at least not for a few weeks.
Members of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation, dubbed "cryonauts," are stored in liquid nitrogen at 300 degrees below zero in shiny metal tubes like those pictured here.
As I continued to walk the halls of Alcor, however evocative the experience may have been of Space Age pulp, it was hard not to be struck by something that seemed far more unusual—optimism. Whether scientifically nutty or not, cryonics in Ettinger's time, and now, are—literally—banking on a world that is better than the one we live in today. It's a narrative of hypotheticals, in a time of profound cynicism and uncertainty. That oddly charmed me—regardless of any of the logic, science, and narratives I've told myself about death.
Standing in the freezer, thinking of all of the frozen heads and bodies that rested on the other side of the metal, I asked More whether a bright-eyed view is necessary to becoming a cryonaut. "I wouldn't say all our members are optimistic," More said. "I know some pretty miserable people who are always thinking how things are going to go to hell. You have to have at least technological optimism, think that things are going to progress. Otherwise, you're not going to come back. I think more of us tend to be more optimistic than most of the culture, because most of the culture is really blinkered on the long-term perspective.
"People are always moaning how bad things are today. 'It's the worst it's ever been.' Bullshit. Just go back 100 years, or 200 years, or 500 years, or 1,000 years, or 10,000 years. See what life feels like then. Do you want to go back to a time when you couldn't own property, or your husband would own you? Or slaves? Or we had no painkillers or antiseptics? When three-quarters of children died in childbirth? No, thank you."
He sent me off with several issues of Alcor's periodical Cryonics, an application packet, and a handshake. As I perused the literature on the journey home, I wondered if, in spite of tomorrow's imperfections, whether taking a longer view—perhaps one even beyond a first last breath—may be a more productive mind-set in an era of malaise, whether one opts for the freezer or not.
WASHINGTON—In an effort to respond to the vast and ever-changing dangers faced by the nation’s commander-in-chief, Secret Service administrators announced Wednesday the creation of an Emotional Protection Division to safeguard President Donald Trump’s psyche.
The new unit’s three dozen agents, who have undergone rigorous training to prepare for their challenging role, will be charged with defending the 45th president’s psychological well-being around the clock, investigating foreign and domestic threats to his self-esteem and quickly intercepting any spoken or written criticisms before they can harm his pride.
“After conducting a full review of the operational procedures available to us, it became clear that adding this new division was the only way to meet President Trump’s emotional security needs,” said Secret Service director Joseph Clancy, noting that the president’s detail is specially trained in assessing risks and minimizing any opportunity for him to feel insecure or belittled. “His psyche could be put in grave danger from unfavorable poll numbers or suddenly come under attack from a White House press corps heavily armed with uncomfortable questions.”
“All of our agents stand ready to lay down their lives to ensure nothing can hurt President Trump’s feelings,” he added.
According to officials, the Secret Service is reportedly conducting careful background checks on White House visitors to look for any red flags, such as A-list celebrities who might choose to decline a photo op with Trump. The department has also instituted measures to screen the president’s mail for messages that do not reinforce his belief in his own superiority, and to sweep any room before he enters to remove high-risk copies of The New York Times and The Washington Post.
High-ranking agency sources told reporters that their tireless efforts have already made the president’s psyche significantly more secure. In particular, they cited occasions in which agents have shielded Trump against credible attempts on his vanity, saying they have kept him away from photographs on the internet in which he appears in an unflattering light and from news reports indicating that some television programs have garnered higher ratings simply by mocking him.
“We’ve already had one really close call,” said Clancy, citing an incident in which a member of the Secret Service jumped directly in front of Trump to prevent him from seeing primetime news coverage of massive rallies held to protest his administration. “But the moment we detected a risk, a few brave agents rushed in to surround the president and place their hands over his ears, safely ushering him into his motorcade before he could hear more than a few words of criticism.”
“The president was then immediately taken to a secure location where he was evaluated for any injury to his self-importance,” Clancy continued.
While acknowledging the assignment’s significance, several agents bemoaned the difficulty of keeping a vigilant eye upon the constantly evolving risks to Trump’s feelings, observing that whenever the president travels, the Secret Service must vet his destination days or even weeks in advance to ensure it is free of anything that could pose any risk of offense.
“It’s incredibly demanding work because his ego is such a big target,” said Roger Mercer, 36, an agent in the Emotional Protection Division. “There are new threats emerging every hour, and if even one of them gets through to him—really gets through to him—it’s all over.”
“I can already tell the next four years are going to be the hardest of my career,” he added.
While both Bill and Hillary Clinton have been relatively soft-spoken regarding Donald Trump’s recent political foibles, their daughter, Chelsea, seems to have turned a corner on the whole thing and is just going off. Over the past week or so, Clinton has turned her Twitter account into a non-stop barrage of fuck yous directed at Trump, his team, and his policies. She’s become a one-woman rebuttal machine, retweeting comments she agrees with and adding her takes, from notes like “Horrifying. We are better than this” in regard to a report about “children who will die of treatable illnesses while they wait for the refugee suspension to end,” to a befuddled “This is… this is…” posted while she watched Trump’s Frederick Douglass boosting Black History Month forum.
What???? Did he actually say "on both sides"?? And here I thought it was extremists of ANY background who pose a ...
holy SHIT. Holy shit. Reese Witherspoon's daughter is her clone, right? Like they just took some of Reese's cells, cloned them like Dolly the Sheep, and here we are?
The first person we see in John Wick: Chapter 2 isn’t Keanu Reeves, or Ian McShane, or Laurence Fishburne. It’s Buster Keaton. A clip from one of his daredevil short comedies is projected onto a building in midtown Manhattan (as happens, y’know, all the time), its silence quickly broken by roaring engines and a breathless motorcycle and car chase, and we’re off and running.
But before we follow, pause a moment, and ruminate on that choice. Everything in a big production like this is intentional, and that little shout-out to the Great Stone Face is a clear, clean mission statement from director Chad Stahelski and writer Derek Kolstad. That’s who their influence is, and you can see it in the comic precision of the stunts, fights, and kills (and the way both their cameras and their characters react to them). On the surface, the John Wick movies are pro-forma vengeance-based shoot-‘em-ups. Look closer.
Their sense of humor is likably self-aware – playing up the cool, iconic hero stuff, the gunplay and death, but winking at the audience. We know what they’re up to, and they know that we know, so when the pre-title sequence includes a clueless flunky asking of the title character, “Why can’t we just… eliminate him,” we all snicker. You can’t eliminate him. He’s John fucking Wick! (Peter Stormare plays the eventual target in this sequence, and his cutaways are worth the price of admission alone.)
The first film told of how Wick, a ruthlessly efficient hitman, was brought back into action following the death of his beloved wife. He finally evens that score in the opening, but is asked, “Can a man like you know peace?” It’s a good question; he may go off the job, but he’s still wrestling with his grief. And no sooner has he reapplied the cement to the basement floor than his doorbell rings. “Just when I think I’m out,” etc. The ringer of that bell is Santino (Riccardo Scarmarico), there to call in a marker from John’s assassin days – a literal, physical marker. “I’m not that guy anymore,” he insists. “You’re always that guy, John,” Santino retorts.
And we’re off and running. That marker is a juicy new addition to the finely-honed Wick world, full of rules and codes (“Without them, we live with the animals,” shrugs Ian McShane’s Winston), jargon and rituals. Wick’s mission takes him to the Rome location of the Continental, the first film’s swanky New York hotel, run and populated by paid killers with the understanding that no business may be conducted on its grounds. The Roman Continental, in a touch so perfect your correspondent might have squealed, is run by Franco Nero. (“Are you here for the Pope?” he asks Wick, with concern.)
Wick, I’ve somehow neglected to mention, is played by Keanu Reeves, again surrounded by a cast of great character actors; in addition to McShane, John Leguizamo, and Lance Reddick (holdouts from the first film), this one’s got Nero, Stormare, and Reeves’s old Matrix co-star Laurence Fishburne. Reeves does the heavy action lifting, his co-stars do the heavy acting lifting, and this is as it should be. Keanu isn’t trying to do Shakespeare or Stoker anymore, and hasn’t for a while, but here, the first time, he legitimately recalls Clint Eastwood. It’s not just manifested in his taciturn nature (as Santino puts it, he’s “never one to waste words”) – it’s how, with age, he’s embraced his limited range, which has in turn hardened into sheer presence and gravitas. He’s not a great actor, but when he’s taking out a room full of gangsters and baddies single-handedly, he’s never less than convincing.
That’s thanks, in no small part, to the skill with which Stahelski stages and shoots that action. It is – in stark contrast to the typical, Bay-influenced action pic – not chopped all to shit. On a level of sheer physicality, it’s impressive (watch out for the brutal fistfight that rolls down several sets of steep, stone steps), but that’s not all that’s striking. There’s a choreographed elegance to the gun fighting (these guys clearly spent a lot of time watching John Woo movies) and physical brawls, and whenever possible, they keep the compositions medium-wide and the takes medium-length, so we may better appreciate not just individual actions, but the musicality of the whole. There’s an art to this; at times, the John Wick movies are less narratives than dance recitals.
Action movies may not be your cup of joe, which is fine, and John Wick will probably not transform your view. But like any genre, reputable or no, you can do these things lazily, or you can do them well – with imagination, ingenuity, wit, and skill. It pays off. John Wick: Chapter 2 is a blast.
To our ongoing delight, Janelle Monáe’s star continues to rise beyond the music world, and last night she made a stop at Conan to discuss her Oscar-nominated films Moonlight and Hidden Figures. Still, Conan felt the need to school his viewers on her music career (can you imagine!) so he asked her when she first…
This was the second-worst season in the Bears' 97 years. [ more › ]
