We’re not positive, but we’re pretty sure that if you look up “traditional anniversary presents” and then flip to the “25th Anniversary” section, you won’t find an entry for “Lich King.” And yet, that was probably the perfect gift for Blizzard Entertainment. This 2-ton, 10-foot-high bronze statue of Warcraft’s Lich King Arthas Menethil is on display in Taichung, Taiwan, to honor the company amazing achievements in the world of MMORPGs. You can see more shots of Arthas Menethil at Geeks are Sexy, and see a video of his creation over at Nerd Approved!
On August 1, 1996, a little-known fantasy novel called A Game of Thrones was published. No, really: “Reviews were generally good, sales were… well, okay,” George R.R. Martin reminisced on his Not A Blog earlier today. “Solid. But nothing spectacular. No bestseller lists, certainly.” Looking back on the last two decades, he jokes about modest and downright bad (his record being “minus four”) signings and the “long friendly talks” he had with early A Song of Ice and Fire readers.
But things have changed quite a bit thanks to ASOIAF fans, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and merchandising: “It has been a helluva twenty years, twenty years that have transformed my life and career, twenty years during which the novel has never been out of print,” Martin writes. “And something like that has to be commemorated.” That something is an illustrated edition of A Game of Thrones coming later this year, which Bantam Spectra announced today.
Martin shared the cover for the illustrated edition:
Plus, details about the “galaxy of talent” contributing to the black-and-white and color pieces:
An anniversary like this requires something special, something more than just a reprint and a new novel. This new edition will be very special, I think. Same story, of course. But we’ve added an introduction by the World Famous Nebula Toastmaster John Hodgman… and a truly astonishing amount of artwork… a total of seventy-three (73) black and white interior illustrations, and eight (8) spectacular full color plates. Some of the artwork is drawn from the Ice & Fire calendars, from The World of Ice and Fire, and from the card and board games and RPGs… but forty-eight (48) of these pieces are completely new, never-before-seen artwork. Bantam says, “With gorgeous full-page illustrations to open every chapter, the mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure of this magnificent saga come to life as never before.”
[…] The list of participating artists reads like an all star roster of fantasy illustrators, and includes such luminaries as John Picacio, Paul Youll, Gary Gianni, Didier Graffet, Victor Moreno, Michael Komarck, Arantza Sestayo, Magali Villeneuve, Ted Nasmith, Levi Pinfold,Marc Simonetti, and many more. We’ve had some stunning illustrated editions of A Game of Thrones before, to be sure, with the limited editions from Meisha Merlin and Subterranean Press… but each of those was illustrated only by a single artist. This will be the first edition to feature such a galaxy of talent.
Here’s one of the new illustrations, of Hodor and Bran:
A Game of Thrones: The Illustrated Edition will be available October 18, 2016.
I’ve been working on a bunch of posters for Hulu’s Summer Roadtrip event, where they’re screening different movies and tv shows at locations across the country. The posters are given out at the different screenings in limited numbers. This is the first one, for one of my favorite shows ever.
Noise-canceling headphones can make it hard to hear when a person actually needs your attention, and Amazon wants to fix that
Noise-canceling headphones provide a peaceful haven for those trying to work or sleep in loud environments, but make it difficult to hear when someone really needs your attention.
To address this problem, Amazon has outlined plans for headphones that selectively listen out for certain sound patterns – such as someone saying a specific keyword, such as your name.
You will know her from Captain Blood and Robin Hood!
This is the age of Olivia de Havilland. We’re just lucky to be living in it. Today, on July 1, 2016, she turns 100. To celebrate her talent, her courage, and her breathtakingly diverse legacy of screen performances, I embarked on an “Oliviathon” and vowed to watch or rewatch all of her films by the end of this month.
To mark her centennial, I’ve decided to list 100 reasons why I admire, worship, and adore her—starting with with 50 today.
What about the other 50? Just wait until I’ve watched my way through her filmography! Some of my reasons are frivolous, some have altered cinema history. I offer them here in no particular order. So please join me in giving thanks for a great actress and an inspiring woman.
1. She took on the studio system—and won her fellow actors greater rights and freedoms. Golden Age Hollywood wasn’t so golden for actors under contract to studios. If they chose not to do assigned roles, they could be put on suspension… and the term of that suspension would be added onto their existing contracts. Olivia de Havilland put her career on the line to fight her battle against studios that treated their artists like property.
After completing a disappointing melodrama called Devotion, Olivia thought she was finished with her constraining Warner Brothers contract. Jack Warner, however, insisted that the time she’d spent on suspension still counted against her. With lawyer Martin Gang, Olivia decided to take Warner Brothers to court for a practice that she considered unlawful. If she lost, she’d never work in Hollywood again.
The battle was a long an arduous one, as expertly described by the Self-Styled Siren. But Olivia’s gamble paid off. She emerged victorious—to seek out the complex roles she’s yearned for. Her colleagues could also revel in their new-found freedom. As Olivia recalls, “No one thought I would win, but after I did, flowers, letters and telegrams arrived from my fellow actors. This was wonderfully rewarding.”
You know how stars today can choose their roles carefully and shape their careers? Well, that’s what de Havilland’s guts and brains earned for them back in the 1940s. As Bette Davis said, “Every actor in the business owes a debt of gratitude to Olivia de Havilland for taking us out of bondage.”
2. She can swear like a trucker if the occasion calls for it, as her bloopers indicate. Each year Warner Brothers created a humorous reel of “breakdowns” or “blow-ups” featuring snippets of stars flubbing their lines or on-set mishaps. There aren’t many clips of Olivia in these reels (I’m guessing because she knew her lines word-perfect most of the time). But there are a few choice moments, like this outtake from In This Our Life.
She seemed to have more blow-ups than usual in 1946—no doubt because she loathed Devotion, the silly, colorless costume melodrama that Warner assigned her. See if you can detect the note of hostility in her bloopers. This is unvarnished footage of a woman about to rebel, a lady feeling the weight of the last straw before she decided to sue her employers.
3. She spent much of WWII visiting military hospitals, including psychiatric wards. A Major Richardson asked her to talk to his patients, feeling that her sensitivity and kindness could “do some good” for men under severe pressure and shock from army conditions.
I’ll let her tell it in her own words…
Olivia toured hospitals from Alaska to Fiji on such a demanding schedule that she contracted pneumonia and almost died. So, the next time you watch one of her films and she’s risking her life to stay true to her values or struggling to hold her life together as the world falls apart around her, remember: her life was no less impressive, no less courageous.
Olivia with Chief Pharmacist’s Mate Arthur J. Dodd at the Naval Air Station in Kodiak, Alaska, 1944.
4. Her wry winking motif in The Strawberry Blonde (1941). Whenever she winks, it fills me with such glee and hope for humanity that I want to hug the nearest object.
5. She has a splendid sense of humor—especially about herself. Her witty memoir Every Frenchman Has One is as jam-packed with bon mots as the Étoile is jam-packed with lunatic drivers. Or, in her words…
She begins the book by assuring the reader that she is not dead (“I’m not at all sure that you know that I’m alive…”). She moves on to cheerfully recount her often-mortifying adventures with the French language and culture, like that time she announced that French sailors are expensive (matelot, which means sailor, and matelas, which means mattress, sound awfully alike). Or the memory of being told that her accent was “légèrement Yugoslav.” Negotiating the minefield of niceties that is a French dinner party, she “really did want to die” after a series of faux pas involving a countess and an enormous brandy snifter.
My favorite anecdote involves her taking her young son to a French-dubbed screening of Robin Hood on the Champs Elysées. Afterwards, little Benjamin exclaimed, “Mamma, you spoke better French then than you do now!”
6. She gave us the best-ever onscreen depiction of a rabid fangirl in It’s Love I’m After (1937), a.k.a. the best screwball comedy you may have never heard of. Amusingly enough, Leslie Howard plays the matinee idol that Olivia’s character is stuck on, which gives this movie a delightful air of retrospective irony. In any case, it’s startlingly funny to watch future-Melanie tackle future-Ashley like this.
7. Her Withering Glare of Righteous Judgement from In This Our Life (1942). I feel like an ant under a magnifying glass just looking at these screencaps. Phew.
8. She was utterly unfazed by Hollywood’s bevy of man candy, at least according to this 1937 anecdote from Movie Classic magazine about Olivia and Robert Taylor after a radio performance. (Look, I know that fan mag articles should be taken with a grain of salt, but I do believe this one. And I sure want to believe it.)
9. Her epic chowing-down-on-a-chicken-wing scene in Robin Hood (1938).
10. Her astonishing range, from the fluffiest comedies to the grittiest dramas, from contemporary problem pictures to high adventures in faraway lands. I’d argue that her gifts as a comedienne are especially underrated. Had she not been one of the greatest dramatic actresses of her time, I have no doubt that she could’ve been a screwball comedy queen. Even when Olivia hated a role, she made something of it, stretching herself, learning, growing.
11. Her laugh. A strange, coy, undeniably merry laugh. The kind of exquisite laugh that makes you finally understand what poets are talking about when they throw around words like “silvery” and “sonorous” to describe the voices they adore. Some laughter brays, some laughter snarls, some chortles, some twitters. Olivia’s laughter sings and sparkles and tickles the ear. No wonder she’s gravitated towards the French language. Her ringing laughter sounds like pure joie de vivre.
12. She can fling a Shakespearean insult with verve and panache. As attested by this monument to feminine fury in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), the first film Olivia ever made (though not the first released)!
13. She was no mere damsel in distress. Lest we forget, Arabella Bishop, her character in Captain Blood, repeatedly flouts convention to save Peter Blood from torture and death. In Robin Hood, Lady Marian risks her life to help Robin escape hanging and then to spy on wicked King John and his allies. While de Havilland didn’t write the scripts, she invested these characters (and her many 1930s and 1940s costume heroines) with an air of competence, intelligence, and courage and made their heroism utterly believable. She played her love interest roles not as shrieking innocents, but as brave, spirited women—worthy equals of the heroes who wooed them. I can’t say how much that meant to me as a little girl when I discovered her films.
14. She once spent her spare time calculating a formula for converting Centigrade into Fahrenheit. As she explains in her memoir, Every Frenchmen Has One, de Havilland was flummoxed by French thermometers, which only added to the anxiety of nursing her son through a fever in a foreign land. Determined to help other mothers in the same situation, “I stayed in bed in my room for twenty-four hours straight with a clutch of pencils and a quire of paper…. And finally, triumphantly, I found a formula which would translate Centigrade into Fahrenheit.” Remember, now, this happened in the days before all human knowledge was accessible through smartphones. De Havilland’s formula was published in a letter to the NY Herald Tribune. While a few mansplainers reared their heads in response, she’s proud of her formula. As she should be.
15. Her chilling double performance as good and evil twins Ruth and Terry in The Dark Mirror (1946). This psychoanalytic noir gave Olivia the chance to play against type as a jealous, charismatic murderess who nearly succeeds in gaslighting her gentle, suggestible sister.
What’s so uncanny about this Freudian thriller is that Olivia embodies two distinct characters with an identical appearance. We get to witness how different a friendly face can look when a malevolent personality lurks behind it. Ruth and Terry have recognizably different postures, voices, and mannerisms. Abetted by skillful camera trickery, The Dark Mirror opens the audience’s eyes to the subtle sorcery of Olivia’s craft, since we can see two of her creations share the frame.
16. The adorable dance that her daffy heiress character is doing here in Four’s a Crowd (1938) to provide a screwball comedy distraction.
17. Her raw, shattering, fearless, compassionate performance in The Snake Pit (1948).
18. She means what she says. When de Havilland started making films, she asked James Cagney for advice on screen acting. His advice: Always mean what you say. You can hear that she took those words to heart. She is so grounded in her text. She says things with startling sincerity—startling because sincerity is not common.
19. Her magnificent I-came-to-slay face and pose in this 1930s publicity portrait. That’s almost too much fierce for a single image to contain.
20. And lo! Olivia’s I-came-to-slay face is still with us today. Because she’s still slaying. In vintage Dior. (Photo by Brian Adams for The Evening Standard.)
21. She was lobbying for strong female protagonists decades before it was cool to do so. While she made the most of her “love interest” roles, she didn’t want to keep on playing guests in other people’s stories (cough, cough, men’s stories, cough, cough) for the rest of her life. As she told the Academy of Achievement, “The life of the love interest is really pretty boring…. I longed to play a character who initiated things, who experienced important things.”
22. That scene between Melanie and Belle Watling in the carriage in Gone with the Wind (1939). De Havilland’s whole performance is flawless, filling the movie with an almost otherworldly grace. But, if I had to choose only one scene to show her artistry, this quiet scene in a film of bombast astonishes me much more than the burning of Atlanta. Her Melanie is one of those rare people with the intelligence and humility to understand that the smartest thing we human beings can do is to be kind to each other. Melanie knows that survival depends not only on Scarlett values—like ambition and chutzpa—but also on love and caring. Scarlett values can keep you from dying when your world’s gone to hell, but Melanie values will keep you truly alive.
23. The Heiress: it was her idea to make the story into a film, she selected the director, and she delivered a virtuoso dramatic performance that runs the gamut from devastated vulnerability to commanding authority, a performance that shows what she was fighting for all those long years. The freedom to make great art and to realize a vision of her own.
24. This clip of her dishing on her silent crush on Errol Flynn. (Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go build a time machine so I can slap Errol upside his head. “Dude, a snake? Seriously? Seek help!”)
25. The fact that she didn’t let Errol Flynn (and his ridiculously gorgeous face) derail her life plans. Respect. That must’ve taken superhuman discipline.
A pretty accurate depiction of Errol and Olivia’s relationship.
26. Her jaw-droppingly determined and terrifying build-up and climactic flip-out in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.Few people have out-Bette-Davised Bette Davis in a Bette Davis movie, but I think Olivia has in this instance.
27. The vivid expressions that she lavished even on a silly spread in a 1937 issue of Modern Screen magazine. She’s supposed to be writing “a letter to her beau,” the sort of things that fan mags of the 1930s routinely cooked up. But, damn, look at these faces. Olivia never does things by halves. You’d think she was auditioning for Juliet. Or Lady MacBeth. Or Ophelia. Or all three at once.
28. Her wrenching, poignant, and utterly convincing Oscar-winning transformation—in mind, body, and spirit—from dreamy young woman to embittered matron in To Each His Own (1946).
29. Her gift for conjuring the essence of a character through her voice alone—an ability which served her well on the radio. Listen to the brittle, nervous tones she brings to this 1944 Lux Radio Theater version of Suspicion.
(I wonder what sister Joan would have thought. And that’s is the only oblique reference I will be making to the de Havilland-Fontaine feud in this piece, thankyouverymuch.) For more excellent de Havilland radio performances, I refer you to this wonderful post on Once Upon a Screen.
30. This triumphant portrait, which seems to say, “Yes, I’ve got two Oscars, I’ve outlived all the haters, and I look fabulous.” (Photo by Philippe Biancotto for Madame Figaro.)
31. Her exquisitely vulnerable performance in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which needs a DVD release as soon as possible. As the naïve American who marries a European gigolo in Mexico—unaware that he’s just looking to cross the border—de Havilland exudes wonder, tenderness, and innocent sensuality. The story’s redemptive arc works because you believe that something about this shy little schoolteacher can free a world-class operator (Charles Boyer, never better) from his hardened cynicism. She embodies the best of small-town America, in all its starry-eyed kindness and cluelessness. Really, see this movie if you get the chance.
32. This pout from Call It a Day (1935).
33. Just look at her cuddling with these cats.
And, hey, I’m all for equal-opportunity snuggling. Here’s Olivia with a puppy on the set of Hold Back the Dawn.
34. Based on these publicity stills for Captain Blood, she totally should’ve had her own swashbuckler movie where she wore boots and a cutlass and took down the patriarchy. (Hey, I can dream, can’t I?)
35. She illuminates even the clunkiest, dullest films with passion and pathos. Take Anthony Adverse (1936). Now, I love Fredric March, but he looks bored to his knee breeches and buckle shoes by this unwieldy literary adaptation. Claude Rains does his best wicked Claude Rains, and Gale Sondergaard does her best wicked Gale Sondergaard. It’s Olivia who delivers the film’s most memorable tearjerking moment (in my opinion) with her devastating, “Goodbye, Anthony…” whispered from the stage of a Paris opera house.
36. This early 1940s home movie footage of her acting goofy in a pool with John Huston. Wow.
37. She can rock a corset and an eyepatch simultaneously, as this still from That Lady (1955) shows.
38. She makes good girls so interesting. In many of Olivia’s best movies, she’s “stuck” with the part that would make many actresses cringe: the nice sister, the quiet daughter, the dutiful friend. And she tackled those parts while going up against stars playing flashier (ostensibly meatier) roles—nymphomaniacs, shysters, shut-ins, sociopathic Southern belles. Many actors would be grateful merely to register as a blip on the screen against such a gallery of eccentrics.
Olivia, however, never took good girls for granted. She underpinned their goodness with a rich psychological tapestry, woven in a unique pattern for each one. Roy in In This Our Life is a very different woman from Melanie in Gone with the Wind and from Emmy in Hold Back the Dawn—though they share many qualities and face similar situations.
Goodness never equates to dullness for Olivia, as for many other actresses. We often assume that a girl is good because she lacks imagination, because it never occurred to her to be bad. She brought a sense of interiority, of free will to her good-girl parts. They choose their course in life—for reasons specific to their characters—often more consciously and clear-sightedly than their sinful sisters/friends/rivals/relatives. And that’s why de Havilland’s good girls remain fascinating and complex—and tend to eclipse the flashier characters around them.
39. The seductive, enigmatic allure she channels in My Cousin Rachel (1952).
40. She won over Bette Davis as a friend. And that was not an easy thing to do. As de Havilland says, “The first time I saw Bette Davis she scared the daylights out of me.” I’ll let these two legendary pals tell the story for themselves…
41. Her luminous beauty in Technicolor. Yes, that sounds shallow, but it takes a hell of a lot of poise and grit to seem serene and glamorous under blindingly bright and swelteringly hot lights!
42. Her intrepid strength in the little-known made-for-TV movie The Screaming Woman (1972). I watched this on YouTube while going on a 1970s thriller binge (as one does) and hardly strayed from the edge of my seat until the denouement. Olivia’s portrayal of an older woman who solves a grisly mystery while questioning her own sanity not only provides gripping entertainment, but also sends a poignant message about society’s treatment of its elders.
43. She immersed herself in a foreign culture—and advises her fellow Americans to do likewise.
44. Her searing take on Lady in a Cage (1962): “a depiction of the aimless violence of our era.”
Her main rivals were former internal affairs minister Hiroya Masuda, the preferred choice of the LDP-Komeito ruling coalition, and veteran journalist Shuntaro Torigoe, who was backed by the main opposition bloc led by the Democratic Party and the Japanese Communist Party.
... As the capital’s first female governor, Koike vowed to pursue policies that will promote better conditions for women.
... “I received so much support from women this election. The support made me think deeply that I have a responsibility to work on the issues of waiting lines for day care centers, elderly care and work-life balance,” Koike told reporters.
Koike has served as environment and defense minister (and, before that, worked as a television news anchor). She announced her candidacy before receiving her party's official blessing, which is why they backed Masuda. Masuda received 1.75 million votes; Koike, 2.85 million.
Tokyo will host the Olympics in 2020. "The Olympics are right in front of us," Koike said, adding, "I want to use them as a chance to build a new Tokyo for beyond 2020." Her platform also included returning "Tokyo to its position as Asia’s leading international financial capital by making full use of the city’s 'special economic zone' strategy" for the benefit of the city's more than 13 million residents.
Virginia’s Smithfield Police Department invited eight ‘random citizens’ to catch super-rare Ditto in their processing room, after New Hampshire police employed same tactic
There can’t be any doubts now of Pokémon Go’s world domination – even the police are getting in on the action.
A police station in Virginia is using its Facebook page to invite “random citizens” to try and catch a super-rare Pokémon in their processing room.
A revolution in politics is under way, and it is being fought 140 characters at a time. Gaby Hinsliff reports on how Twitter is fuelling a political race to the bottom
When Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first woman in American history to clinch a major party’s presidential nomination, her rival responded with all his customary grace.
“Obama just endorsed Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama – but nobody else does!” Donald Trump sneered on Twitter.
It looks like a set from a sci-fi epic, but this solar plant in the scorching Nevada desert has a far more practical purpose…
High in the stark Nevada desert, a couple of hundred miles north-west of Las Vegas, is the shimmering circular mirage of Crescent Dunes. Ten thousand silvery glass panes, each measuring 115 square metres, surround a tall central tower, which stands like a twinkling needle in the featureless landscape around it. Resembling a fabulous alien metropolis, Crescent Dunes is in fact a highly sophisticated, mile-and-a-half-wide solar power plant – “the next generation in solar energy”, according to Kevin Smith, one of the project’s founders.
The glass panes, which comprise a combined area of more than a million square metres, are not photovoltaic (PV) panels like those installed on rooftops and in solar farms worldwide. Instead, they are simply vast, multifaceted mirrors, which track the course of the sun like heliotropic plants. This field of mirrors harnesses and concentrates the blazing Nevada sunshine, directing it precisely towards the top of the central tower.
When Thomas Hicks, an American runner, faltered near the end of the 1904 Olympic marathon, in St. Louis, his assistants gave him shots of strychnine (which is now commonly used as rat poison) and brandy to revive him. Hicks crossed the finish line after another American, Fred Lorz—but was declared the winner when it was discovered that Lorz had ridden eleven miles of the marathon in his coach’s car. The perception was that Lorz had cheated, and Hicks had not.
Stills from “Pigtails“ trailer. Short-film directed by Yoshimi Itazu (Miss Hokusai) & Production I.G. Based on manga by Machiko Kyō about 2011 Japan Earthquake.
PHILADELPHIA—The Democratic National Convention has been far better produced than the Republican one. There have been soaring, electrifying speeches. Michelle Obama was show-stopping. Joe Biden’s performance was charming, folksy, and combative, the distilled essence of everything Democrats love about him. Michael Bloomberg offered the perfect backhanded endorsement for wavering moderates: “Let’s elect a sane, competent person.” Barack Obama was elegant and inspiring, the starkest possible contrast to Donald Trump. The star power, including performances by Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz, vastly outshone the sad crew of C-list soap stars and sitcom has-beens who appeared at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Yet as I walked around Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center—usually teeming with people, unlike Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena—I was sick with dread. Each day brought news that Trump had overtaken Clinton in at least some polls; on Thursday morning, Nate Silver published a piece at FiveThirtyEighttitled, “Election Update: Why Our Model Is Bullish on Trump, for Now.” Silver now gives him a 40 percent chance of winning the election. Yes, I know that Trump had a convention bounce and that Clinton will likely pull back ahead next week. All the same, here was the cream of the American meritocracy, as well as heroic progressive figures like Bernie Sanders and the Mothers of the Movement, uniting behind Clinton. It couldn’t be more different from the chaotic and apocalyptic scene in Cleveland. And still, the election is close.
One of the unofficial slogans of this election, at least among the green room flotsam and millennial ironists on Twitter, is “nothing matters.” It’s an expression of weary incredulity at each new Trumpian outrage that should be the end of him but isn’t. This election isn’t a contest of ideology. It’s certainly not about experience or competence. It’s being fought at the level of deep, unconscious, Freudian drives. Trump promises law and order, but he is the Thanatos candidate, appealing to the people so disgusted by the American status quo that they’re willing to blow it up. Clinton is the candidate of dull, workmanlike order and continuity. She once described herself as a “mind conservative and a heart liberal,” but her convention has almost been the opposite, with the most liberal platform in decades married to a show of sunny, orderly patriotism. “America is already great!” is as anti-radical slogan as can be imagined. The question in this election is whether the forces of stability are a match for those of cynical nihilism. This convention has been, for the most part, impeccably choreographed. Will it matter? Will anything?
Rumors that Chipotle was furtively developing a burger chain were, it turns out, completely true. The burrito-maker will also have to master burger-flipping for a new concept it’s going to call Tasty Made. Chipotle spokesperson Chris Arnold (whose job may be getting a lot busier) says...More »
Taco Bell’s mad food scientists, who are always at work dreaming up new culinary experiences, have landed on their latest mash-up experiment: the Cheetos Burrito. No doubt incensed by the gall of Burger King’s Mac N’ Cheetos, the chain will introduce the item about halfway through next month...More »
Extreme stories loom large in this genre, and the ‘biggest bad’ of the Third Reich holds a powerful fascination for many YA authors – and teen readers
Young Adult fiction thrives on extremes: so often these days, a teenage hero or heroine is plonked into a dystopian or post-apocalyptic society, to get busy subverting the established order. It is a well-worn but enduringly popular trope – witness the ongoing success of The Hunger Games, or the Divergent trilogy, not to mention the old-school examples I grew up on, by writers like John Christopher (The Tripods) and Lois Lowry (The Giver). But recently, there’s been a vogue for alt-historical YA titles, set against the readymade extremes of nazism.
It’s easy to see why the excesses of the Third Reich appeal to speculative writers; the bizarre brutalities, thought-control exercises and sheer scale of Hitler’s regime create a high-stakes landscape you really “couldn’t make up”. But is it justifiable simply to reach out for the “biggest bad” of the past, whose tendrils still snake through so many lives, and to reshape it as the background to an author’s own speculative fiction? To me, it depends on the thoughtfulness with which that context is handled – and the point the book is trying to make.
From Mark Frost, co-creator of the landmark series, the story millions of fans have been waiting to get their hands on for 25 long years.
The Secret History of Twin Peaks, publishing October 18th from Flatiron Books, is a vastly layered, wide-ranging history that deepens the mysteries of the iconic town in ways that will thrill disciples of the original series, and will prepare fans for the upcoming Showtime series like nothing else out there. It’s a publication that’s been under wraps for years, so get the very first look at its pages below!
Research by US and UK scientists shows the size of the hole has shrunk, and the layer will eventally recover, albeit slowly
The vast hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica appears to be healing, scientists say, putting the world on track to eventually remedy one of the biggest environmental concerns of the 1980s and 90s.
Research by US and UK scientists shows that the size of the ozone void has shrunk, on average, by around 4m sq km since 2000. The measurements were taken from the month of September in each year, when the ozone hole starts to open up each year.
Baltimore prosecutors failed to obtain a conviction after four trials, meaning there will likely be no criminal accountability for Gray’s death from a ‘rough ride’
Baltimore prosecutors have dropped all remaining charges against police officers in the death of Freddie Gray.
The surprise announcement Wednesday comes after four trials that ended with no conviction, and means there will likely be no criminal accountability over Gray’s death. Gray, a 25-year-old African American man, sustained fatal injuries in the back of a police van in April 2015.
Sriracha is everywhere these days. It’s in tacos, popcorn, beer, vodka, and now even McDonald’s burgers. If it’s edible, chances are there’s a Sriracha-ized version of it. But this well-known hot sauce has humble beginnings. And it went from obscurity to ubiquity without any advertising dollars at all.
An increasing number of US landowners want to build commune-style villages that are completely self-sufficient and have a low carbon footprint
When a massive wildfire destroyed more than a thousand homes last year in the bone-dry hills of drought-stricken Lake County, California, about two hours north of San Francisco, Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz and her husband, Eliot Hurwitz, were among those made homeless. Eager to transform their tragedy into an opportunity, they got together with a group of neighbors who had also lost their homes and began imagining a different kind of community.
Tepco requests Niantic to remove Pokémon character from nuclear plant meltdown areas and evacuation zone
Japan is asking for the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone to be classified as a no-go area for Pokémon after the discovery of at least one of the game’s characters on a power station’s site.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) has requested that Pokémon Go developer Niantic and the Pokémon Company prevent Pokémon appearing in and around areas affected by the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima to help prevent encouraging players to enter dangerous areas.
Tepco requests Niantic to remove Pokémon character from nuclear plant meltdown areas and evacuation zone
Japan is asking for the Fukushima nuclear exclusion zone to be classified as a no-go area for Pokémon after the discovery of at least one of the game’s characters on a power station’s site.
Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) has requested that Pokémon Go developer Niantic and the Pokémon Company prevent Pokémon appearing in and around areas affected by the nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima to help prevent encouraging players to enter dangerous areas.
Here's what to expect from the new outpost of the Italian foods juggernaut
The long-in-the-works second New York location of Italian food mega-complex Eataly is slated to open "in the next week or two" at 4 World Trade Center, the Times reports. Like the original culinary thunderdome near the Flatiron Building, Eataly Downtown, as it's called, will have market areas, prepared food stations, a wine bar, and a sit-down restaurant. But unlike the other NYC outpost, this one will have a special emphasis on both bread and breakfast. The centerpiece of the market will be a brick oven built on premises that will be constantly baking various types of Italian bread made from a 35-year-old starter yeast that was brought over from Italy. The space will also have a stand called Orto e Mare that will serve breakfast items from chef Alex Pilas.
For the downtown lunchers, Eataly Downtown will have a piadina stand, a salad bar, a mozzarella station, a pizzeria, a juice cafe, a pastry shop, and a grab-and-go section. At night, the coffee bar will turn into a wine bar. The space will also feature a restaurant focusing on the cuisine of Southern Italy called Osteria Della Pace. The whole shebang will be open daily from 7 a.m to 11 p.m.
Just like the 23rd Street superstore, the Financial District complex is being run by Eataly CEO Nicola Farinetti in partnership with the Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s restaurant group. Stay tuned for more from inside NYC's second Eataly in the coming weeks.
In a win for folks who believe women's bodies are public property, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled in favor of a supermarket employee who followed a customer around the store, secretly recording a video of the view up her skirt. Citing a "gap" in Georgia's criminal statutes, Judge Elizabeth Branch and five colleagues ruled earlier this month that "upskirting" is permissible under current law.
"It is regrettable that no law currently exists which criminalizes [the appellant’s] reprehensible conduct," Branch wrote.
Security footage from a Publix store in Houston County, Georgia, shows employee Brandon Lee Gary stooping down behind a woman and aiming his cellphone camera underneath her skirt as she picked an item from the supermarket shelves. Then he did it at least three more times. Upset after catching him on the floor behind her repeatedly, the woman left the store. She later returned to complain to the store's manager, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Gary later admitted to police officers that hewas responsible for the video recordings.
Following the June 2013 incident, a local judge convicted Gary of criminal invasion of privacy, deciding that "there's no more blatant invasion of privacy than to do what [Gary] did," according to the appeals court ruling. But in Gary's appeal, the court examined whether his conduct was actually criminal under the state's invasion-of-privacy law. The statute forbids "any person, through the use of any device, without the consent of all persons observed, to observe, photograph, or record the activities of another which occur in any private place and out of public view."
On July 15, the court ruled 6-3 that the space underneath the woman's skirt did not count as a "private place." In a four-page meditation on the meaning of "place," including definitions from the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster's New World, the majority determined that the relevant locationmeant the supermarket, and not the space concealed by the woman's clothing. The recordings, according to six judges, were taken in a public place.
In an angry dissent, Judge Amanda Mercier slammed her colleagues' decision, arguing that the legal understanding of "private place" should include places on an individual's body that are "out of public view," and which people can expect to be "safe from casual or hostile intrusion or surveillance."
"We have decades of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence setting forth limitations on law enforcement’s ability to merely pat down an alleged suspect on top of their clothing to protect the sacrosanct bodily privacy of even those who are accused of violating criminal laws," Mercier wrote. "But today, with the stroke of a pen, we are in effect negating the privacy protections from the intrusions of fellow citizens."
City and Dallas-area police got hundreds of applicants since 7 July shooting
Dallas police chief invited protesters to join: ‘Don’t be part of the problem’
In the aftermath of tragedy, Dallas residents showed appreciation for their police department by covering two squad cars parked outside the headquarters with flowers and tributes. Some are also paying their respects by filling out forms.
Applications to the Dallas police department more than tripled following the fatal shooting of five officers on 7 July, the agency said. Between 8 June and 20 June, Dallas police received 136 applications. In the 12 days from 8 July, the total was 467, amounting to a rise from an average of 11.3 to 38.9 per day, a 243% increase.
This is the age of Olivia de Havilland. We’re just lucky to be living in it. Today, on July 1, 2016, she turns 100. To celebrate her talent, her courage, and her breathtakingly diverse legacy of screen performances, I embarked on an “Oliviathon” and vowed to watch or rewatch all of her films by the end of this month.
After completing a disappointing melodrama called Devotion, Olivia thought she was finished with her constraining Warner Brothers contract. Jack Warner, however, insisted that the time she’d spent on suspension still counted against her. With lawyer Martin Gang, Olivia decided to take Warner Brothers to court for a practice that she considered unlawful. If she lost, she’d never work in Hollywood again.
