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The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Cover of the first edition
|Joseph Campbell
|United States
|<templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
|Media type
|Print (Hardcover and Paperback)
|201/.3 22
|LC Class
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (first published in 1949) is a work of comparative mythology by American mythologist Joseph Campbell. In this book, Campbell discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero found in world mythologies.
Since publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theory has been consciously applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. The best known is perhaps George Lucas, who has acknowledged Campbell's influence on the Star Wars films.[1]
The Joseph Campbell Foundation and New World Library issued a new edition of The Hero with a Thousand Faces in July 2008 as part of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series of books, audio and video recordings. In 2011, Time placed the book in its list of the 100 best and most influential books written in English since the magazine was founded in 1923.[2]
Campbell explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, which Campbell called the monomyth. In a well-known quote from the introduction to The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell summarized the monomyth:
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A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.[3]
In laying out the monomyth, Campbell describes a number of stages or steps along this journey. The hero starts in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unusual world of strange powers and events (a call to adventure). If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials (a road of trials), and may have to face these trials alone, or may have assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift (the goal or "boon"), which often results in the discovery of important self-knowledge. The hero must then decide whether to return with this boon (the return to the ordinary world), often facing challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world (the application of the boon).
Very few myths contain all of these stages—some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation and Return. "Departure" deals with the hero venturing forth on the quest, "Initiation" deals with the hero's various adventures along the way, and "Return" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.[citation needed]
The classic examples of the monomyth relied upon by Campbell and other scholars include the stories of Osiris, Prometheus, the Buddha, Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus, although Campbell cites many other classic myths from many cultures which rely upon this basic structure. The alleged similarities between these shared hero legends is one of the basic arguments of the Christ myth theory.
While Campbell offers a discussion of the hero's journey by using the Freudian concepts popular in the 1940s and 1950s, the monomythic structure is not tied to these concepts. Similarly, Campbell uses a mixture of Jungian archetypes, unconscious forces, and Arnold van Gennep's structuring of rites of passage rituals to provide some illumination.[4] However, this pattern of the hero's journey influences artists and intellectuals worldwide, suggesting a basic usefulness for Campbell's insights not tied to academic categories and mid-20th century forms of analysis.
Campbell used the work of early 20th century theorists to develop his model of the hero (see also structuralism), including Freud (particularly the Oedipus complex), Carl Jung (archetypal figures and the collective unconscious), and Arnold Van Gennep (the three stages of The Rites of Passage, translated by Campbell into Separation, Initiation and Return). Campbell also looked to the work of ethnographers James George Frazer and Franz Boas and psychologist Otto Rank.
Campbell called this journey of the hero the monomyth.[5] Campbell was a noted scholar of James Joyce (in 1944 he co-authored A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake with Henry Morton Robinson), and Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake. In addition, Joyce's Ulysses was also highly influential in the structuring of The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
Publishing history
The book was originally published by the Bollingen Foundation through Pantheon Press as the seventeenth title in the Bollingen Series. This series was taken over by Princeton University Press, who published The Hero through 2006. Originally issued in 1949 and revised by Campbell in 1968, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been reprinted a number of times. Reprints issued after the release of Star Wars in 1977 used the image of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker on the cover. Princeton University Press issued a commemorative printing of the second edition in 2004 on the occasion of the joint centennial of Campbell's birth and the Press's founding with an added foreword by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
A third edition, compiled by the Joseph Campbell Foundation and published by New World Library, was released as the twelfth title in the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell series in July 2008.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been translated into over twenty languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Turkish, Dutch, Greek, Danish, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Czech, Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian, Russian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Hebrew, and has sold well over a million copies worldwide.[6]
The hero's journey and women
One of the criticisms that has been raised about the way that Campbell laid out the monomyth of the hero's journey in Hero with a Thousand Faces was that it focused on the masculine journey. Although this was not altogether true—the princess of the Grimms' "The Frog Prince" tale and the saga of the hero-goddess Inanna's descent into the underworld feature prominently in Campbell's schema—it was, nonetheless, a criticism that has been raised about the book since its publication.
Late in his life, Campbell had this to say:
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All of the great mythologies and much of the mythic story-telling of the world are from the male point of view. When I was writing The Hero with a Thousand Faces and wanted to bring female heroes in, I had to go to the fairy tales. These were told by women to children, you know, and you get a different perspective. It was the men who got involved in spinning most of the great myths. The women were too busy; they had too damn much to do to sit around thinking about stories. [...]
In the Odyssey, you'll see three journeys. One is that of Telemachus, the son, going in quest of his father. The second is that of the father, Odysseus, becoming reconciled and related to the female principle in the sense of male-female relationship, rather than the male mastery of the female that was at the center of the Iliad. And the third is of Penelope herself, whose journey is [...] endurance. Out in Nantucket, you see all those cottages with the widow's walk up on the roof: when my husband comes back from the sea. Two journeys through space and one through time.[7]
Artists influenced by the work
In Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, a book drawn from Campbell's late lectures and workshops, he says about artists and the monomyth:
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Artists are magical elfs. Evoking symbols and motifs that connect us to our deeper selves, they can help us along the heroic journey of our own lives. [...]
The artist is meant to put the objects of this world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal. The hero journey is one of the universal patterns through which that radiance shows brightly. What I think is that a good life is one hero journey after another. Over and over again, you are called to the realm of adventure, you are called to new horizons. Each time, there is the same problem: do I dare? And then if you do dare, the dangers are there, and the help also, and the fulfillment or the fiasco. There's always the possibility of a fiasco.But there's also the possibility of bliss.— Joseph Campbell, [8]
Influences on artists
The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced a number of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and poets, such as Bob Dylan, George Lucas, and Jim Morrison. Additionally, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead had long noted Campbell's influence and agreed to participate in a seminar with him in 1986, entitled "From Ritual to Rapture".[9]
In film
Stanley Kubrick introduced Arthur C. Clarke to the book during the writing of 2001: A Space Odyssey.[10]
George Lucas' deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of the Star Wars movies is well documented. On the DVD release of the famous colloquy between Campbell and Bill Moyers, filmed at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch and broadcast in 1988 on PBS as The Power of Myth, Campbell and Moyers discussed Lucas's use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces in making his films.[11] Lucas himself discussed how Campbell's work affected his approach to storytelling and film-making.[12]
In games
Jenova Chen, lead designer at thatgamecompany, also cites "The Hero's Journey" as the primary inspiration for the PlayStation 3 game Journey (2012).[13]
Mark Rosewater, head designer of the Magic: The Gathering trading card game, cites "The Hero's Journey" as a major inspiration for "The Weatherlight Saga", an epic storyarc that went from 1997 to 2001, and spanned multiple cardsets, comic books, and novels.[citation needed]
In literature
Christopher Vogler, a Hollywood film producer and writer, wrote a memo for Disney Studios on the use of The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a guide for scriptwriters; this memo influenced the creation of such films as Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Beauty and the Beast (1991). Vogler later expanded the memo and published it as the book The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers, which became the inspiration for a number of successful Hollywood films and is believed to have been used in the development of the Matrix series.
Novelist Richard Adams acknowledges a debt to Campbell's work, and specifically to the concept of the monomyth.[14] In his best known work, Watership Down, Adams uses extracts from The Hero with a Thousand Faces as chapter epigrams.[15]
Author Neil Gaiman, whose work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure,[16] says that he started The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true—I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I'd rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."[17]
Many scholars and reviewers have noted how closely J. K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter books hewed to the monomyth schema.[18] To date, however, Rowling has neither confirmed that she used Campbell's work as an inspiration, nor denied that she ever read The Hero with a Thousand Faces.[citation needed]
In music
Singer Janelle Monáe, in the liner notes of her album, The ArchAndroid (2010), cites Hero as one of her inspirations for the track "57821".[citation needed]
The Atlanta-based metal band Mastodon draw from The Hero With a Thousand Faces on their 2006 album Blood Mountain.[citation needed]
In television
Dan Harmon, the creator of the TV show Community, has stated that he has used the monomyth as inspiration for his work.[19]
The sixth and final season of Lost recognizes Campbell's theories on the hero. During one of the bonus features, the makers of the series discuss the journey of the main characters and how each is a hero in their own way. Before each little segment of this particular feature, they quote Campbell and then expound on that particular quote by discussing the various characters.
See also
- The Golden Bough
- The Iron Dream
- The Seven Basic Plots
- Vladimir Propp
- Aarne–Thompson classification systems
- Bildungsroman
- Otto Rank
- Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
- ↑ Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work, 3rd edition, Phil Cousineau, editor. Novato, California: New World Library, 2003, pp. 186-187.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Joseph Campbell. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 30 / Novato, California: New World Library, 2008, p. 23.
- ↑ Since the late 1960s, with the introduction of post-structuralism, theories such as the monomyth (to the extent they are based in structuralism) have lost ground in the academic world. Nonetheless, the resonance of this theory and of Campbell's schema remains; every year, The Hero with a Thousand Faces is used as a text-book in thousands of university courses worldwide. Source: Joseph Campbell Foundation website.
- ↑ Source of term monomyth.
- ↑ The Complete Works of Joseph Campbell data base on the Joseph Campbell Foundation website, accessed July 2, 2010.
- ↑ --Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004, pp. 145, 159.
- ↑ Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation, Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004, pp. 132, 133.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Joseph Campbell, The Hero's Journey, loc. cit.
- ↑ Kevin O'Hannessian, GAME DESIGNER JENOVA CHEN ON THE ART BEHIND HIS "JOURNEY"; CoCreate Magazine
- ↑ Bridgman, Joan (August 2000). "Richard Adams at Eighty". The Contemporary Review (The Contemporary Review Company Limited) 277.1615: 108. ISSN 0010-7565.
- ↑ Richard Adams, Watership Down. Scribner, 2005, p. 225. ISBN 978-0-7432-7770-9
- ↑ See Stephen Rauch, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth, Wildside Press, 2003
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Sharon Black, "The Magic of Harry Potter: Symbols and Heroes of Fantasy," Children's Literature in Education, Springer Netherlands, Volume 34, Number 3 / September, 2003, pp. 237–247, ISSN 0045-6713; Patrick Shannon, "Harry Potter as Classic Myth"; Deborah De Rosa, "Wizardly Challenges to, and Affirmations of the Initiation Paradigm in Harry Potter," Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter, Elizabeth Heileman, ed. Routledge, 2002, pp 163–183—there are numerous similar references.
- ↑ A Sense of Community: Essays on the Television Series and Its Fandom. (McFarland, 2014) p. 24. ISBN 1476615713
- Campbell, Joseph. The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. Edited and with an Introduction by Phil Cousineau. Forward by Stuart L. Brown, Executive Editor. New York: Harper and Row, 1990.
- Campbell, Joseph and Henry Morton Robinson. A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake, 1944.
- Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1st edition, Bollingen Foundation, 1949. 2nd edition, Princeton University Press. 3rd edition, New World Library, 2008.
- Campbell, Joseph. Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation. Edited by David Kudler. Novato, California: New World Library, 2004.
- Ford, Clyde W. The Hero with an African Face. New York: Bantam, 2000.
- Henderson, Mary. Star Wars: The Magic of Myth. Companion volume to the exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. New York: Bantam, 1997.
- Larsen, Stephen and Robin Larsen. Joseph Campbell: A Fire in the Mind. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions, 2002.
- Manganaro, Marc. Myth, Rhetoric, and the Voice of Authority: A Critique of Frazer, Eliot, Frye, and Campbell. New Haven: Yale, 1992.
- Moyers, Bill and Joseph Campbell. The Power of Myth. Anchor: Reissue edition, 1991. ISBN 0-385-41886-8
- Pearson, Carol and Katherine Pope. The Female Hero in American and British Literature. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1981.
- Vogler, Christopher. The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure For Writers. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 1998.
External links
- Information on the 2008 third edition from the Joseph Campbell Foundation
- Monomyth from UC Berkeley (archived)
- The Archetype of the Hero's Journey from Web English Teacher
- A Practical Guide to The Hero With a Thousand Faces at the Wayback Machine (archived February 19, 2009)
- The Hero Cycle as seen in the Star Wars saga
- Star Wars Origins - Joseph Campbell
- The Matrix - Joseph Campbell Monomyth on YouTube
- Use mdy dates from October 2014
- Articles with unsourced statements from October 2015
- Articles with unsourced statements from March 2016
- Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016
- Articles with invalid date parameter in template
- Webarchive template wayback links
- Books by Joseph Campbell
- Comparative mythology
- 1949 books
- Mythology books
- Religious studies books
- Philosophy books
- Sociology books
- Pantheon Books books


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(2015) Historical Epic (XLRator Media) Frank Lammers, Charles Dance, Barry Atsma, Sanne Langelaar, Rutger Hauer, Derek de Lint, Roeland Fernhout, Hajo Bruins, Egbert Jan Weeber, Nils Verkooijen, Daniel Brocklebank, Colin Mace, Filip Peeters, Tygo Gernhardt, Victor Löw, Pip Pellens, Aurélie Meriel, Will Bowden, Ella-June Henrard, Lieke van Lexmond. Directed by Roel Reiné
You've probably not heard of Michiel de Ruyter unless you were schooled in the Netherlands or are a European history buff, but you likely should have. One of the most revered figures in Dutch history, he was a naval genius who kept his country from being invaded on several occasions by the English and the French, and at a time when his country was in political turmoil he was a stabilizing figure whom many credit for keeping his nation from plunging into civil war during a turbulent era.
As the movie opens, the 20,000 ship Dutch navy is under the command of Maarten Tromp (Hauer) but during the Battle of Scheveningen he is mortally wounded, although he does succeed in repelling the English. While King Charles (Dance) schemes in England, new prime minister Johan de Witt (Atsma) knows that the Dutch Republic, already a government teetering on the edge of a possible civil war with the Orangists, a monarchist group that wants William of Orange (Weeber) to rule, needs an admiral to defend the Netherlands from the rapacious British and their allies of convenience the French.
He recruits de Ruyter (Lammers), a stocky and unlovely man who is more interested in retiring to the country with his wife Anna (Langelaar) and two daughters. However, he is also a deeply patriotic man and is convinced by de Witt and his brilliant brother Cornelis (Fernhout) that the sailor is desperately needed.
Time and time again de Ruyter uses brilliant naval tactics to stave off the Brits while court intrigue between the de Witt brothers and the Machiavellian Kievit (de Lint) keep the Netherlands in chaos. As the years pass, the monarchist party slowly begins to take the upper hand – but will that advantage come at the expense of the entire nation?
Los Angeles Times reviewer Robert Abele characterized the movie as a Michael Bay treatment of Dutch naval history and a more succinct summation of this film couldn't be asked for. There is a good deal of large scale mayhem, with ships being hit by cannon fire, bodies flying in the air in all sorts of directions, splinters and wood dust coating everything. Some of the warfare sequences are pretty grisly, although not as much as the depiction of a historic lynching which ends up with various body parts being pulled out of the bodies of those possibly still conscious.
For most Americans, the history is going to be a bit vague. I doubt that the average American knows anything about the Anglo-Dutch War, let alone that there was more than one. Some of the stuff I learned here about the politics of Europe in the 17th century was fascinating; certainly, I never knew any of it which goes to show you how ignorant of history we Americans really are. Of course, I love this stuff and eat it up like candy but I'm sure those moviegoers who find history to be a bore will not have the same appreciation for it that I do.
War buffs will appreciate the naval strategy that is shown here, much of it innovative for its time. The rest of us may not be quite as appreciative of the overhead shots of the deployment of ships. However, film buffs will definitely be a little hosed that the CGI of the various fleets and the damage done to them is not very impressive; there are some very fine effects houses in Europe and certainly there could have been a better job done with the special effects.
The acting is very solid. Some of the finest actors in Europe appear here. While most in America are familiar with Hauer, de Lint and Lammers are two of Holland's most respected actors. Lammers in particular does a good job with the stocky, somewhat awkward de Ruyter who was nonetheless beloved by those who sailed under him – his men nicknamed him 'Grandfather," a sign of affection and respect. Lammers physically captures the look of the man but also the indomitable spirit of one of the Netherlands' greatest heroes.
The big problem here is that the movie is way too long. It is just over two hours long and captures 24 years in the life of de Ruyter but it feels like a good half hour could have been trimmed. There are only so many naval battle scenes you can take before they start to run together. Even with that there is some solid entertainment here that with a judicious pair of scissors and a little extra dough in the effects budget might have been a lot more.
REASONS TO GO: Pretty decent production values. Lammers and cast do fine work. Insights into Dutch history most of us are unaware of here in the States.
REASONS TO STAY: Way too freaking long. The score is annoying. Underwhelming CGI
FAMILY VALUES: War violence, a graphic and gruesome lynching scene, some foul language and some sensuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: A special version of the film was created that was less gruesome in depicting several historical deaths so that schoolchildren in the Netherlands could view the film.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/22/16: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: 300: Rise of an Empire
NEXT: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

subset: commoncrawl


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ALSF Childhood Cancer Research Grants
With your support, we have been able to fund outstanding research, leading toward cures and improved quality of life for children with cancer. Browse through more than 1,000 funded projects below.
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|Duke University / Corinne Mary Linardic, MD, PhD
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|University of Rochester / Archibald Perkins, MD, PhD
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text:
There Be Dragons
Over the past years, peer conferences on software testing have sprung up all over the world. Europe in particular has seen a lot of strange acronyms emerge: DEWT, DWET, SWET, CEWT, LEWT, TITAN, PEST,…
When initial talks started for DEWT (the Dutch Exploratory Workshop in Testing) in 2010, I jumped on the Dutch train. It's been a great – nay, fantastic – ride so far. But there was always that undisclosed little area that was conspicuously absent in the peer conference landscape. One country that testing-wise had "Here Be Dragons" written all over it: Belgium.
Sure, there were plans, ideas and good intentions, but rarely the energy. This is were Beren Van Daele decided to kick things up a notch. With energy to spare, he registered a site, fired off some invitatons and started planning that first peer conference on Belgian soil.
BREWT force!
That is how BREWT was born. The Belgian Research Event and Workshop on Testing. Undoubtedly similar to DEWT but with a distinguished Burgundian twist (and most likely some uncut Belgian surrealism thrown in the mix). I see BREWT not only as a peer conference, but also a sounding board of professionals, a place to discuss and share ideas, an opportunity to sharpen our skills and thinking. A movement? Let's see where it leads us.
Et tu, BREWT?
Our first major event will be a peer conference in the fall of 2017. If you're interested in joining, we would like to hear from you!
For more information, visit us at http://brewtconf.wordpress.com.


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HONOLULU — Ocean-borne radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan has not reached the shore of California and is unlikely to pose any threat to human health, two leading North American scientists said Monday.
The experts on the fallout's path across the Pacific Ocean presented their latest findings in Hawaii at the Ocean Sciences Meeting, a conference that brings together many of the world's foremost oceanographic researchers. They delivered their message amid lingering anxiety — and misinformation — about the potential of the 2011 accident to poison people living on the West Coast.
Ocean samples at several locations in California from La Jolla to Point Reyes have not detected elevated levels of cesium-137 and cesium-134, the primary radioactive substances emanating from the leak, said Ken Buesseler, a marine chemist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
The radioactive material is expected to arrive in small quantities on the coast this spring. But two models for predicting ocean circulation, said John Smith of the Bedford Institute for Oceanography in Nova Scotia, estimate that cesium-137 amounts will top out at roughly 25 becquerels per cubic meter. That's at least 300 times less than would justify worries about contamination here.
"It's clearly not a health threat," said Smith, noting that his primary interest is tracing the course of the radioactive material to learn more about water circulation and mixing in the northern Pacific Ocean.
Not everyone has absorbed that message, however. In December, for instance, someone posted a YouTube video of a man registering radioactivity with a Geiger counter at a beach near Half Moon Bay. The title of the clip suggests a link to Fukushima. Though such a link has been debunked, the clip has nonetheless attracted more than 760,000 views.
To better educate the public as well as further his own research into the spread of Fukushima radiation, Buesseler recently launched a crowd-funding initiative to study ocean samples along the West Coast. The project allows people to invest, mentally and financially, in the scientific process by collecting the water themselves and paying to have Buesseler's team analyze it.
"No agency has taken on monitoring the west coast of America," Buesseler said regarding the impetus for the project.
Samples taken off the California shore so far show no cesium-134 and background levels of cesium-137, between 1.5 and 2 becquerels per cubic meter. Those cesium-137 levels stem from nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific Ocean in the 1950s and 1960s, Buesseler said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's maximum allowable amount of cesium-137 in drinking water is 7,400 becquerels per cubic meter, Buesseler said. Swimming in the ocean, he added, exposes a person to about 12,000 becquerels per cubic meter of potassium-40, a naturally occurring radionuclide.
Contact Aaron Kinney at 650-348-4357 or firstname.lastname@example.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/kinneytimes.
Help study Fukushima radiation
To learn about Ken Buesseler's research into radiation levels in the waters of the West Coast, or to participate in it, visit http://ourradioactiveocean.org.


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Benjamin on Baudelaire
From the "INTRODUCTION" By Michael W. Jennings — THE WRITER OF MODERN LIFE: ESSAYS ON CHARLES BAUDELAIRE by Walter Benjamin:
Yes the ragpicker is also a figure for Baudelaire, for the poet who draws on the detritus of the society through which he moves, seizing that which seems useful in part because society has found it useless. And finally, the ragpicker is a figure for Baudelaire himself, for the critic who assembles his critical montage from inconspicuous images wrested forcefully from the seeming coherence of Baudelaire's poems. Here and throughout Benjamin's writings on Baudelaire, we find a powerful identification with the poet: with his social isolation, with the relative failure of his work, and in particular with the fathomless melancholy that suffuses every page.
Benjamin concludes this first constellation by contrasting Baudelaire with Pierre Dupont, an avowed social poet, whose work strives for a direct, indeed simple tendentious engagement with the political events of the day. In contrasting Baudelaire with Dupont, Benjamin reveals a "profound duplicity" at the heart of Baudelaire's poetry–which, he contends, is less a statement of support for the cause of the oppressed, than a violent unveiling of their illusions. As Benjamin wrote in his notes to the essay, "It would be an almost complete waste of time to attempt to draw the position of a Baudelaire into the network of the most advanced positions in the struggle for human liberation. From the outset, it seems more promising to investigate his machinations where he was undoubtedly at home: in the enemy camp … Baudelaire was a secret agent–an agent of the secret discontent of his class with its own rule." … By the late 1930s Benjamin was convinced that traditional historiography, with its reliance upon the kind of storytelling that suggests the inevitable process and outcome of historical change, "is meant to cover up the revolutionary moments in the occurrence of history … The places where tradition breaks off–hence its peaks and crags, which offer footing to one who would cross over them–it misses." … Benjamin thus seeks to create a textual space in which a speculative, intuitive, and analytical intelligence can move, reading images and the relays between them in such a way that the present meaning of "what has been comes together in a flash." This is what Benjamin calls the dialectical image.
In the central section of "Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire," titled "The Flaneur," Benjamin turns to an extended consideration of the reciprocally generative relations between certain artistic genres and societal forms. In the crowded streets of the urban metropolis, the individual is not merely absorbed into the masses: all traces of individual existence are in fact effaced. And popular literary and artistic forms such as physiologies (literary and artistic exemplifications of physiognomic types) and panoramas (representations of "typical" tableaux in Paris) arose, Benjamin argues, precisely in order to quell the deep-seated unease that characterized this situation: through their "harmlessness" they suggested a "perfect bonhomie" devoid of all resistance to the social order of the day, and in so doing contributed to the "phantasmagoria of Parisian life."
…Physiologies are in this sense deeply complicit with phantasmagoria, in that they fraudulently suggest we are in possession of a knowledge that we do not in fact have. As Benjamin says, physiologies "assured people that everyone could — unencumbered by any factual knowledge — make out the profession, character, background, and lifestyle of passers-by." …
If Baudelaire's poetry is neither symptomatic of social conditions (as were the physiologies) nor capable of providing procedures for dealing with them (as did the detective story), what exactly is the relationship of that poetry to modernity? Benjamin champions Baudelaire precisely because his work claims a particular historical responsibility: in allowing itself to be marked by the ruptures and aporias of modern life, it reveals the brokenness and falseness of modern experience. At the heart of Benjamin's reading is thus a theory of shock, developed on the basis of a now-famous reading of the poem "A une passante" (To a Passer-By). The speaker of the poem, moving through the "deafening" street amid the crowd, suddenly spies a woman walking along and "with imposing hand / Gathering up a scalloped hem." The speaker is transfixed, his body twitches, wholly overcome by the power of the image. Yet, Benjamin argues, the spasms that run through the body are not caused by "the excitement of a man in whom an image has taken possession of every fiber of his being"; their cause is instead the powerful, isolated shock "with which an imperious desire suddenly overcomes a lonely man."
This notion of a shock-driven poetic capability as a significant departure from the understanding of artistic creation prevalent in Benjamin's day and in fact still powerfully present today. The poet is, in this view, not a genius who "rises above" his age and distills its essence for posterity. For Benjamin, the greatness of Baudelaire consists instead in his absolute susceptibility to the worst excrescences of modern life: Baudelaire was in possession not of genius, but of an extraordinarily "sensitive disposition" that enable him to perceive, through a painful empathy, the character of an age. And for Benjamin, the "character of the age" consisted in its thoroughgoing commodification. Baudelaire was not simply aware of the processes of commodification from which the phantasmagoria constructs itself; he in fact embodied those processes in an emphatic manner. When he takes his work to market, the poet surrenders himself as a commodity to the "intoxification of the commodity immersed in a surging stream of customers." The poet's role as a producer and purveyor of commodities opens him to a special "empathy with inorganic things." And this, in turn, "was one of his sources of inspiration." Baudelaire's poetry is thus riven by its images o a history that is nothing less than a "permanent catastrophe." This is the sense in which Baudelaire was the "secret agent" of the destruction of his own class.
…Baudelaire's spleen–that is, his profound disgust at things as they were–is only the most evident emotional sign of this state of affairs.
–From the "INTRODUCTION" By Michael W. Jennings — THE WRITER OF MODERN LIFE: ESSAYS ON CHARLES BAUDELAIRE by Walter Benjamin
AMY KING View All →
Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the Women's National Book Association (WNBA) Award. Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She co-edited with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She also co-edits the anthology series, Bettering American Poetry, and is a professor of creative writing at SUNY Nassau Community College.


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Read the whole thing. It is well worth it.
They speak of "shipwrecks" and "guiding stars." Men tend to look at women as guiding stars and women tend to think they can turn the men they love into knights in shining armor. In reality, both men and women are "companions in shipwreck." Kevin points out that Tolkien's view is both brutally realistic and at the same time wholly fair and charitable. Continue reading


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Four high school boys afflicted with spring fever skipped morning classes. After lunch they reported to the teacher that they had a flat tire. Much to their relief she smiled and said, "Well, you missed a test today, so take seats apart from one another and take out a piece of paper."
Still smiling, she waited for them to sit down. Then she said:
"First question: Which tire was flat?"


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This article was first published on The Huffington Post – 3 March 2014
With nearly 65,000 signatures, our Change.org petition calling for Theresa May to make the Merseyside hate crime model law is gathering momentum. We've yet to hear from Mrs May, but as Home Secretary responsible for freeing up the police to fight crime more effectively, I hope we do. However, we did hear recently from Assistant Chief Constable Chris Armitt, the National Police Lead for Prostitution, and he met with me, Jackie Summerford, mother of Bonnie Barratt who was murdered at age 24 in the sex trade, and Alex Bryce, Manager of National Ugly Mugs, to discuss our campaign.
Based in Merseyside where he is Assistant Chief Constable for People Development, ACC Armitt sees first-hand the positive outcomes for people in the sex trade, the police and the wider community of the hate crime approach. Since 2006 when they adopted the model, reporting of crimes against sex workers has dramatically increased and their conviction rates for rapists and other violent criminals are astounding, making all of society safer. Here he explains why he advocates for the Merseyside model of policing prostitution.
What do you see as the benefits of the Merseyside hate crime model?
It forms only a part of an overall approach that focuses on the vulnerability of those involved in the sex industry. The Merseyside model aims to build trust and confidence amongst sex workers to report when they are attacked, which allows the police to identify and arrest dangerous people who pose a threat to the whole of society. It also means that when sex workers are operating in a manner that is causing public concern then influence can be used to quickly modify behaviour and reassure communities.
Would you agree the hate crime model for policing prostitution should be made law in line with other hate crimes which are monitored by the Crown Prosecution Service and the Association of Chief Police Officers?
I think any steps that are taken that enhance the police response to attacks on vulnerable groups such as sex workers are important. By treating such attacks as a hate crime it helps to reassure the victims that the Police Service are taking their crime seriously and it ensures that the subsequent response and investigation will be as comprehensive as possible.
What are your thoughts on the hard line policing approaches to on-street prostitution some forces have adopted, such as Operation Clearlight in Redbridge, London, and the Safe Exit operation that ran in Medway, Kent?
The operational challenge facing respective forces is diverse and challenging and ultimately each force needs to decide what operational tactics it employs to deal with any issue that is of concern to the communities it protects. The national guidance we promote urges forces to work in partnership to achieve long lasting solutions to benefit communities and sex workers.
Do you know why no other police forces have taken on the 2011 Association of Chief Police Officers' guidance recommending the adoption of the Merseyside approach?
It might be that some forces see it as a big step to take, ultimately change takes time and all we can do is to continue to promote what we believe is best practice. That is exactly what I will continue to do.
Please add your name to our Change.org petition, hopefully bringing us closer to hearing from Theresa May and making the Merseyside model the national standard policing approach for prostitution.


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MSI Ryzen X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
Published: 24th April 2017 | Source: MSI | Price: £299 |
We did our overview of the MSI X370 Titanium when we first looked at the Zen architecture and you can catch up with our thoughts, and the huge feature list of the Titanium, by clicking these magic red words. Although we know that some of you, for reasons that we don't understand, like all your information in a single form, and so just for you lazy people we'll also give you the specifications table and our original preview video. Don't say we aren't kind to our loyal audience.
Most Recent Comments
I am getting 34 idle and 67 on load at stock settings. Had to reapply aftermarket paste because I was getting 42 and 72. Running Ryzen Power Balance Plan with X370 XPower Gaming Titanium (MS7A31) Bios : 1.40. Stock cooler no overclock.
Tried using the XMP profiles to overclock the ram but no post, also tried setting timings and voltage manual nothing over stock will post.
I haven't tried overclocking the processor because the temps I been getting at stock seems like what others are reporting with a overclock. Waiting for your overclock guide as I'd like to try and push my system a bit but currently don't have the experience to get anything working correctly.Quote
It definitely comes down to hardware features, UEFI features, and looks now. (And still somewhat to DDR4 compatibility with a few motherboards.)
P.S. You have MPOWER all over the place. Text and diagram images. It was really confusing at first, because I have XPOWER in my head and looking at results with only MPOWER.
EDIT: I'm still contemplating waiting for the rumoured 12-core and 16-core Ryzen CPUs and possibly a 16-core Naples. With 48 PCI-e 3.0 lanes to the CPU and X399 chipset and SP3r2 socket. Because just 16 PCI-e 3.0 lanes to the CPU for GPUs is currently the deal breaker for me. But all that depends on cost though (as always). My use is not gaming.Quote
Because just 16 PCI-e 3.0 lanes to the CPU for GPUs is currently the deal breaker for me. But all that depends on cost though (as always). My use is not gaming.
Even if it isn't gaming, you will still be perfectly fine.
Ryzen has no built-in GPU. It has just 16 PCI-e 3.0 lanes across 2 PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots.
A minimum of 32 PCI-e 3.0 lanes across 4 PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots (4 times x8) would be what I need. Not even counting in NVM-e, M.2, etc.
EDIT: To be honest, even the x4 slot going to the X370 chipset would be plenty for the Android X86 virtual machine.
I need 4 graphics cards (3 if Ryzen had a built-in GPU) for hardware passthrough to virtual machines on Linux KVM + QEMU + IOMMU + VFIO + Synergy (by Symless). Each virtual machine gets its own dedicated graphics card (proper GPU drivers have to be installed in the virtual machine), its own dedicated memory, its own dedicated USB ports, etc.
Or in other words :
Running a web design and development testlab with Linux, Windows, OS X, and Android x86 hardware virtualised and simultaneously on one box. Multiple monitors with the 2 40" 4K monitors each displaying the output of two OS'es side-by-side in PBP mode. I make changes in my editor on the 25" 1440p monitor. When I save everything is automatically synced to all open browsers on all OS'es.
(And also to the test devices (smartphones and tablets) connected through Wi-Fi to the modem/access-point.)
To give you a idea, it's a setup similar to this : https://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutori...evice-testing/
Check the photo with this description below it : "Synchronized URL testing across 27+ devices".
I know exactly what I need.
I can't take photos of my current setup now because I'm redecorating at the moment. (Bought an old flat with lots of deferred maintenance. Also all woodwork has to be replaced.) And it's going much slower than the 6 months I anticipated. You can see the mess in the background of some of the pictures I posted here. Most of my gear is at Shurgard now. And I rented a shoe box office for the time being which is just too small for a compete setup. Plus I don't want to risk theft. : https://plus.google.com/u/0/10456804...ts/dEy8RwJDtCcQuote


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If you've ever paid attention to the swimsuits you will see at the pool during your workouts, training and competitions, you have probably noticed the dull colors everyone is wearing. A lot of people are wearing plain black suits because this is what a performance suit is made from, right? However, when it comes to the Arena Carbon Pro, you can experience the performance enhancement you desire with a splash of color that will make you stand out from the crowd. Available in the open back kneeskin, closed back kneeskin and jammer, you have four colors to choose from.
Dark Grey
If you prefer a more muted color that doesn't stand out too much, the dark grey is the perfect option for you. This color is dark enough to almost qualify as black, allowing you to take advantage of the benefits of the Arena Carbon Pro performance suits without being too loud. Some people just want to stand out based on performance, not the color of their suit.
Bright Green
Green is a sign of life and vitality. Bring new meaning to the color green when you purchase your Carbon Pro suit in this bright color. All your competitors will be green with envy when they see you streak by them in the pool, wearing this impressive green color. Everyone will be able to see you coming through the water.
Bright Red
So maybe green isn't your color. In that case, if you are looking for something bright to help you stand out from your competitors, bright red can be a great option. Your competitors and the fans won't be able to help but notice this fantastic color as you streak through the pool.
Royal Blue
If you are looking for something that will stand apart from the typical mute colors swimmers wear for their performance suits but you want something a little tamer, the royal blue is an excellent choice. A darker color than some of the other options, you can show off what you can do with a little splash of blue to complement the blue of the pool water.
So which Arena Carbon Pro color is your favorite? Will you choose the typical dark grey for your suit, or will you choose something a little different to help your performance stand out from the crowd, such as bright green, bright red or royal blue.


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SQ party bus Mountain Park provides transportation services in Mountain Park and Georgia. Our Party Bus is perfect for Mountain Park Proms.
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Please visit our website. In our fleet page you can see our broad selection of Town Cars, SUV's, Limousines, and Stretch Limos, Party Buses, Coach Buses, Mini Buses, Shuttle Buses. We can provide any vehicle you need and we have extensive experience with transportation service for birthdays, weddings, proms and "nights on the town", romantic dinners, bachelor and bachelorette parties Mountain Park, concerts and events, sightseeing tours, corporate events, sporting events, airport and seaport transfers, and much more. You can quickly and easily get the best rate available from SQ Party Bus Mountain Park. Just call us at or fill out the contact form on our website and we will call you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to be of service to you.


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Civil participation active citizens
Your opinions, suggestions or criticisms are more than welcome. We'd love to hear what you feel strongly about. There are various ways of contacting us and telling us what you think.
- General contact system
Send us your general observations and inquiries
Simply use the contact form on the Website to send us your general observations and inquiries.
Contacting the Director of the City Planning Dept. and the section heads
You can find out all about the respective fields for which we are responsible, and contact the Director and the relevant section heads by clicking the sub-menu points in the About Us page on the Website, which you will find on the left-hand navigation bar.
Questions on topics and projects presented on the our homepage
Simply contact the person stated on the respective page of the Website directly by email or by phone.
Urban planning procedures and processes will only be successful if Frankfurt inhabitants are well informed and the general public actively involved.
- Processes for participation in planning
Classic civic participation procedures
Alongside the statutory participation processes, the range of means tried and tested to date for involving the general public has extended from lecture events with public discussions, district conferences and civic opinion polling through to workshops and planning workshops.
Online civic participation process
In addition, active participation through the Internet is becoming ever more important.
On our Website pages you can view online the planning documents for the legal zoning plans already made public and comment on them directly. Click here for the details.
Moreover, we want to increase use of the Internet platform as the basis for civic dialog. This repeatedly includes conducting online surveys on selected topics – information on them will be posted here for the duration of the respective process.


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So, first off, SF Bluestocking is now a TWO TIME Hugo Award Finalist in the Best Fanzine category, and I am over the moon, you guys. It truly is an honor just to be nominated, and once again I find myself in good company. John Scalzi insists that being a finalist never gets old, and it's early for me (hopefully!), but I'm inclined to agree. So many, many thank yous to everyone who put my name on their ballot during the nomination process, and all the rad vibes and very best wishes to my fellow finalists.
And now for some commentary on the rest of the list (excluding the Retro Hugos because I have no opinion of those one way or the other).
2018 Hugo Awards Finalists
Best Novel
- The Collapsing Empire, by John Scalzi (Tor)
- New York 2140, by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit)
- Provenance, by Ann Leckie (Orbit)
- Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris)
- Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty (Orbit)
- The Stone Sky, by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)
Only one of these titles (The Stone Sky) was on my own nominating ballot, but I have actually read all of them but Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140. As usual, in spite of an overall exciting group of finalists on the total list, the Best Novel category is a little ho-hum, skewing towards the mainstream and popular rather than celebrating what's fresh and original in the genre. Which, whatevs. That's fine. The mainstream-ness of Best Novel is somewhat made up for in the short fiction categories. Perhaps what's most interesting to me about this category this year is how dominated it is by science fiction. Only The Stone Sky is fantasy, and even that has strong sci-fi elements and themes. This isn't the list of books I thought were best last year (which was fantasy-heavy), but it's a solid selection. Of the books that made the cut, I'd most like to see N.K. Jemisin's The Stone Sky win. The Broken Earth is a superb trilogy, and this was a strong finale to the series.
Best Novella
- All Systems Red, by Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)
- "And Then There Were (N-One)" by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny, March/April 2017)
- Binti: Home, by Nnedi Okorafor (Tor.com Publishing)
- The Black Tides of Heaven, by JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)
- Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing)
- River of Teeth, by Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing)
I thought for sure that this year would be the year that we'd start to see Tor.com's stranglehold on the Best Novella category start to loosen, but I see it is not to be. I'm very disappointed that none of the Book Smugglers' novellas made the list–not even the excellent (and, as of today, Aurealis Award-winning) Girl Reporter by Tansy Rayner Roberts–but I am happy to see that "And Then There Were (N-One)" is on here. It's the first novella published in Uncanny; I said early last year, when I first read it, that it would be among the year's best; and I still stand by that, although I expect All Systems Red and The Black Tides of Heaven to give it a run for its money when it comes to the final round of voting.
Best Novelette
- "Children of Thorns, Children of Water" by Aliette de Bodard (Uncanny, July-August 2017)
- "Extracurricular Activities" by Yoon Ha Lee (Tor.com, February 15, 2017)
- "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer (Clarkesworld, September 2017)
- "A Series of Steaks" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Clarkesworld, January 2017)
- "Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time" by K.M. Szpara (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
- "Wind Will Rove" by Sarah Pinsker (Asimov's, September/October 2017)
Personally, I would love to see the novelette length get the kind of renaissance that novellas have been enjoying in recent years. I always feel like there just aren't that many of them, and very few of them ever manage to make it into my eyeballs (for whatever reason). That said, I have read four of this year's six finalists, even though none of them were among my favorites of 2017. "Extracurricular Activities" is a fun, if slight, story set in Lee's Hexarchate universe and featuring a popular character from the series, so I'm not surprised to see it on the list. Likewise, Aliette de Bodard's "Children of Thorns, Children of Water" is in the same setting as her current book series. Vina Jie-Min Prasad is nominated for the Campbell, so it makes sense to see her show up here as well, though "A Series of Steaks" isn't as superb as her nominated short story. If I had to guess at the outcome of this category, my money would be on "Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time" for the win. Uncanny knocked it out of the park all last year with their short fiction selections, and I expect to see multiple winners from that publication come August.
Best Short Story
- "Carnival Nine" by Caroline M. Yoachim (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 2017)
- "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" by Fran Wilde (Uncanny, September 2017)
- "Fandom for Robots" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad (Uncanny, September/October 2017)
- "The Martian Obelisk" by Linda Nagata (Tor.com, July 19, 2017)
- "Sun, Moon, Dust" by Ursula Vernon, (Uncanny, May/June 2017)
- "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™" by Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex, August 2017)
"Fandom for Robots" and "Welcome to your Authentic Indian Experience™" are the obvious standouts in this category, and both were on my own nominating ballot, so of course those are the stories I'm most pulling for to win. "Sun, Moon, Dust" was a fine, exemplary piece of Ursula Vernon work, but I'm honestly a little surprised to see it on here; Vernon herself has written better stories, and this one is definitely not up to the quality level of the rest of the finalists here and its inclusion seems more a testament to Vernon's general popularity than to any particular virtue of the story itself. I haven't read the Yoachim or Nagata stories, and I don't recall much of the Fran Wilde one, though I know it was much buzzed about when it came out. I'll be rereading all of these stories before making my voting decision, and there are enough excellent options here that I hesitate to predict what will win.
Best Related Work
- Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate, by Zoe Quinn (PublicAffairs)
- Iain M. Banks (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), by Paul Kincaid (University of Illinois Press)
- A Lit Fuse: The Provocative Life of Harlan Ellison, by Nat Segaloff (NESFA Press)
- Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia E. Butler, edited by Alexandra Pierce and Mimi Mondal (Twelfth Planet Press)
- No Time to Spare: Thinking About What Matters, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
- Sleeping with Monsters: Readings and Reactions in Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Liz Bourke (Aqueduct Press)
Luminescent Threads is what probably ought to win here, but with Ursula K. Le Guin's recent death it seems likely (and, let's be real, not inappropriate) that her final collection of essays is what will win.
Best Graphic Story
- Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, written by Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Christian Ward, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Marvel)
- Bitch Planet, Volume 2: President Bitch, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Valentine De Landro and Taki Soma, colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)
- Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)
- My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
- Paper Girls, Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (Image Comics)
- Saga, Volume 7, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
I'm not a great reader of comic books, but I do love Monstress. I like Saga, though I don't think Volume 7 is the best of the series, and I haven't caught up on Bitch Planet yet. I kind of despise Paper Girls and never got into the book after it kicked off its first issue with a rape threat against a child, so I couldn't care less about its appearance on this list (except for a mild sense of annoyance that it seems to be popping up on here every year now). This is another category I hesitate to predict, but I'd say Monstress has a good chance at a second win.
Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form
- Blade Runner 2049, written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, directed by Denis Villeneuve (Alcon Entertainment / Bud Yorkin Productions / Torridon Films / Columbia Pictures)
- Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele (Blumhouse Productions / Monkeypaw Productions / QC Entertainment)
- The Shape of Water, written by Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor, directed by Guillermo del Toro (TSG Entertainment / Double Dare You / Fox Searchlight Pictures)
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson (Lucasfilm, Ltd.)
- Thor: Ragnarok, written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, and Christopher Yost; directed by Taika Waititi (Marvel Studios)
- Wonder Woman, screenplay by Allan Heinberg, story by Zack Snyder & Allan Heinberg and Jason Fuchs, directed by Patty Jenkins (DC Films / Warner Brothers)
I'm so happy to see Get Out on here, and disappointed to see that the full first season of The Good Place didn't make it. Let's be real, though; it'll be Blade Runner 2049 or The Last Jedi for the win.
Best Dramatic Presentation – Short Form
- Black Mirror: "USS Callister," written by William Bridges and Charlie Brooker, directed by Toby Haynes (House of Tomorrow)
- "The Deep" [song], by Clipping (Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, Jonathan Snipes)
- Doctor Who: "Twice Upon a Time," written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay (BBC Cymru Wales)
- The Good Place: "Michael's Gambit," written and directed by Michael Schur (Fremulon / 3 Arts Entertainment / Universal Television)
- The Good Place: "The Trolley Problem," written by Josh Siegal and Dylan Morgan, directed by Dean Holland (Fremulon / 3 Arts Entertainment / Universal Television)
- Star Trek: Discovery: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad," written by Aron Eli Coleite & Jesse Alexander, directed by David M. Barrett (CBS Television Studios)
What the Long Form list lacked in The Good Place is almost made up for by the inclusion of two episodes here, but the most exciting thing about this list, for me, is the lack of Game of Thrones episodes. Thank fuck for that. It's also cool to see Clipping nominated again, this time for a song, but I'm thinking "USS Callister" or "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" (both hands down the best episodes of their respective seasons of Black Mirror and Star Trek: Discovery) will win in the end.
Best Editor – Short Form
- John Joseph Adams
- Neil Clarke
- Lee Harris
- Jonathan Strahan
- Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
- Sheila Williams
In the absence of Brian White, Tor.com's excellent Lee Harris has my vote here, but it's honestly anyone's game. All of these editors have distinctive editorial aesthetics and publish excellent work.
Best Editor – Long Form
- Sheila E. Gilbert
- Joe Monti
- Diana M. Pho
- Devi Pillai
- Miriam Weinberg
- Navah Wolfe
Diana M. Pho and Navah Wolfe were my picks here, and I stand by them, but as with the Short Form Editor category, these are all good options.
Best Professional Artist
- Galen Dara
- Kathleen Jennings
- Bastien Lecouffe Deharme
- Victo Ngai
- John Picacio
- Sana Takeda
It seems safe to say that Bastien Lecouffe Deharme made the list following his public tiff with well-known garbage person Terry Goodkind, but Deharme's oeuvre (outside of the Goodkind cover art he's done) is quite good. It's actually refreshing to see a finalist list without Julie Dillon (wonderful as she is) on it, and my personal favorites here are Galen Dara and Victo Ngai.
Best Semiprozine
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies, editor-in-chief and publisher Scott H. Andrews
- The Book Smugglers, edited by Ana Grilo and Thea James
- Escape Pod, edited by Mur Lafferty, S.B. Divya, and Norm Sherman, with assistant editor Benjamin C. Kinney
- Fireside Magazine, edited by Brian White and Julia Rios; managing editor Elsa Sjunneson-Henry; special feature editor Mikki Kendall; publisher & art director Pablo Defendini
- Strange Horizons, edited by Kate Dollarhyde, Gautam Bhatia, A.J. Odasso, Lila Garrott, Heather McDougal, Ciro Faienza, Tahlia Day, Vanessa Rose Phin, and the Strange Horizons staff
- Uncanny Magazine, edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota, and Julia Rios; podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven Schapansky
The Book Smugglers deserves the win. Probably it will be Uncanny again, though.
Best Fanzine
- File 770, edited by Mike Glyer
- Galactic Journey, edited by Gideon Marcus
- Journey Planet, edited by Team Journey Planet
- nerds of a feather, flock together, edited by The G, Vance Kotrla, and Joe Sherry
- Rocket Stack Rank, edited by Greg Hullender and Eric Wong
- SF Bluestocking, edited by Bridget McKinney
Hey! This is my category!
I wish I could say that I'm surprised to see Rocket Stack Rank on here after their well-documented cissexist bias was publicly called out, but I feel like there's never not going to be people willing to defend and stand up for the right of people to have the worst sort of garbage opinions regardless of who those opinions hurt.
Best Fancast
- The Coode Street Podcast, presented by Jonathan Strahan and Gary K. Wolfe
- Ditch Diggers, presented by Mur Lafferty and Matt Wallace
- Fangirl Happy Hour, presented by Ana Grilo and Renay Williams
- Galactic Suburbia, presented by Alisa Krasnostein, Alexandra Pierce and Tansy Rayner Roberts; produced by Andrew Finch
- Sword and Laser, presented by Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt
- Verity!, presented by Deborah Stanish, Erika Ensign, Katrina Griffiths, L.M. Myles, Lynne M. Thomas, and Tansy Rayner Roberts
Fangirl Happy Hour is the only fandom podcast I regularly listen to, and Renay and Ana are the best. That is all.
Best Fan Writer
- Camestros Felapton
- Sarah Gailey
- Mike Glyer
- Foz Meadows
- Charles Payseur
- Bogi Takács
Bogi Takács and Foz Meadows both provide valuable perspectives, but Sarah Gailey continues to be a rising star in genre-related writing. The dark horse on this list, however, might be Camestros Felapton, who pays attention to Vox Day et al. so the rest of us don't have to, which is surely Good Work for which he deserves to be rewarded.
Best Fan Artist
- Geneva Benton
- Grace P. Fong
- Maya Hahto
- Likhain (M. Sereno)
- Spring Schoenhuth
- Steve Stiles
I'm so disappointed that FIYAH Literary Magazine didn't make the list for Best Semiprozine, and I'm genuinely surprised that none of their stories made the short fiction categories (although they're admittedly at a disadvantage versus the free-to-read publications), but I am super excited that FIYAH's Year One cover artist, Geneva Benton, is nominated here.
Best Series
- The Books of the Raksura, by Martha Wells (Night Shade)
- The Divine Cities, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Broadway)
- InCryptid, by Seanan McGuire (DAW)
- The Memoirs of Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan (Tor US / Titan UK)
- The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson (Tor US / Gollancz UK)
- World of the Five Gods, by Lois McMaster Bujold (Harper Voyager / Spectrum Literary Agency)
The only one of these series I've read any of at all is Marie Brennan's Lady Trent books, of which I've read and enjoyed the first two or three. There's no universe in which I'll read even a representative sample of all the rest before voting time, but this has definitely bumped Robert Jackson Bennett's The Divine Cities a little farther up my TBR.
2018 Associated Awards (not Hugos) Finalists
John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
- Katherine Arden
- Sarah Kuhn
- Jeannette Ng
- Vina Jie-Min Prasad
- Rebecca Roanhorse
- Rivers Solomon
I won't even speculate about this list because I'm so excited about it. Vina Jie-Min Prasad and Rebecca Roanhorse were my nominees, but Jeannette Ng's Under the Pendulum Sun was on my Best Novel list, and Sarah Kuhn's Heroine books were some of the most fun books I read in 2017. Katherine Arden is fine, and I haven't read Rivers Solomon yet, but I wouldn't be mad about any of these writers winning, and it's great to see such a diverse list representing the future of the genre.
The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) Award for Best Young Adult Book
- Akata Warrior, by Nnedi Okorafor (Viking)
- The Art of Starving, by Sam J. Miller (HarperTeen)
- The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, by Philip Pullman (Knopf)
- In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan (Big Mouth House)
- A Skinful of Shadows, by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan UK / Harry N. Abrams US)
- Summer in Orcus, written by T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon), illustrated by Lauren Henderson (Sofawolf Press)
This list is just a reminder of how completely out of the loop I am when it comes to YA fiction. I haven't read a single one of these. Let me know in the comments if there's one that you think I definitely need to make time for, though.


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Obamacare is awful -- yet it's a godsend
The Obamacare We Deserve
by Michael Moore
Jan. 1, 2014
Today marks the beginning of health care coverage under the Affordable Care Act's new insurance exchanges, for which two million Americans have signed up. Now that the individual mandate is officially here, let me begin with an admission: Obamacare is awful.
That is the dirty little secret many liberals have avoided saying out loud for fear of aiding the president's enemies, at a time when the ideal of universal health care needed all the support it could get. Unfortunately, this meant that instead of blaming companies like Novartis, which charges leukemia patients $90,000 annually for the drug Gleevec, or health insurance chief executives like Stephen Hemsley of UnitedHealth Group, who made nearly $102 million in 2009, for the sky-high price of American health care, the president's Democratic supporters bought into the myth that it was all those people going to get free colonoscopies and chemotherapy for the fun of it.
I believe Obamacare's rocky start -- clueless planning, a lousy website, insurance companies raising rates, and the president's telling people they could keep their coverage when, in fact, not all could -- is a result of one fatal flaw: The Affordable Care Act is a pro-insurance-industry plan implemented by a president who knew in his heart that a single-payer, Medicare-for-all model was the true way to go. When right-wing critics "expose" the fact that President Obama endorsed a single-payer system before 2004, they're actually telling the truth.
What we now call Obamacare was conceived at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and birthed in Massachusetts by Mitt Romney, then the governor. The president took Romneycare, a program designed to keep the private insurance industry intact, and just improved some of its provisions. In effect, the president was simply trying to put lipstick on the dog in the carrier on top of Mitt Romney's car. And we knew it.
By 2017, we will be funneling over $100 billion annually to private insurance companies. You can be sure they'll use some of that to try to privatize Medicare.
For many people, the "affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act risks being a cruel joke. The cheapest plan available to a 60-year-old couple making $65,000 a year in Hartford, Conn., will cost $11,800 in annual premiums. And their deductible will be $12,600. If both become seriously ill, they might have to pay almost $25,000 in a single year. (Pre-Obamacare, they could have bought insurance that was cheaper but much worse, potentially with unlimited out-of-pocket costs.)
And yet -- I would be remiss if I didn't say this -- Obamacare is a godsend. My friend Donna Smith, who was forced to move into her daughter's spare room at age 52 because health problems bankrupted her and her husband, Larry, now has cancer again. As she undergoes treatment, at least she won't be in terror of losing coverage and becoming uninsurable. Under Obamacare, her premium has been cut in half, to $456 per month.
Let's not take a victory lap yet, but build on what there is to get what we deserve: universal quality health care.
Those who live in red states need the benefit of Medicaid expansion. It may have seemed like smart politics in the short term for Republican governors to grab the opportunity offered by the Supreme Court rulings that made Medicaid expansion optional for states, but it was long-term stupid: If those 20 states hold out, they will eventually lose an estimated total of $20 billion in federal funds per year -- money that would be going to hospitals and treatment.
In blue states, let's lobby for a public option on the insurance exchange -- a health plan run by the state government, rather than a private insurer. In Massachusetts, State Senator James B. Eldridge is trying to pass a law that would set one up. Some counties in California are also trying it. Montana came up with another creative solution. Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat who just completed two terms, set up several health clinics to treat state workers, with no co-pays and no deductibles. The doctors there are salaried employees of the state of Montana; their only goal is their patients' health. (If this sounds too much like big government to you, you might like to know that Google, Cisco and Pepsi do exactly the same.)
All eyes are on Vermont's plan for a single-payer system, starting in 2017. If it flies, it will change everything, with many states sure to follow suit by setting up their own versions. That's why corporate money will soon flood into Vermont to crush it. The legislators who'll go to the mat for this will need all the support they can get: If you live east of the Mississippi, look up the bus schedule to Montpelier.
So let's get started. Obamacare can't be fixed by its namesake. It's up to us to make it happen.
See more like this at


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Anderson Cooper Calls Tweeter a 'Moron' Over Photoshopped Photos
Anderson Cooper has been tweeting pictures from the tornado wreckage in Joplin, Missouri. But then he took some time out to call another Twitter user a "moron." What got Andy's parka in a bunch?
Cooper's tweet, "You are a moron," was directed to a young man named Brent Summers, in response to his tweet which read, "@skylor I'm pretty sure the @andersoncooper shot is #photoshopped."
I'm assuming Andy thought Summers was referring to one of the pictures he tweeted of the Joplin wreckage. Naturally the CNN anchor would be upset if he thought someone was so crass as to suggest he was concocting photos of the tornado's destruction and would have every right to call that person a moron.
But what Summers was really talking about was a link that @skylor tweeted earlier that showed Andy dressed as a cop with his hands tied behind his back and duct tape over his mouth—a picture that was obviously Photoshopped. So Summers tried to rush to Cooper's defense and instead got branded a "moron."
Well, either that or Andy knows exactly what is going on and is calling them both morons for sending around Photoshopped images of his head on a cop's body. That is also possible. We know how much Jake Gyllenhaal hates fake pictures of himself. Maybe Andy feels the same way.
Now will you people leave Anderson alone so that he can go back to documenting tornado wreckage? It's not easy being a serious journalist.


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A giant tortoise found ambling down a street in suburban Los Angeles has been reunited with its owners. The Alhambra Police Department says a local family claimed the 150-pound reptile named Clark on Sunday, a day after it was spotted strolling on the street. It took two officers to heft the creature into a patrol car so they could turn it over to animal control authorities.
The tortoise did try to make a run for it; but, our officers are pretty fast. Almost had a pursuit!
Alhambra Police Department
The department posted photos of Clark on its Facebook page in hopes of finding the owner and cracked a "Tortoise and Hare" joke about officers capturing the reptile after a brief pursuit. No word yet on how far the tortoise had gone from home when it was caught.


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What to Do at Channel Islands
Top Experiences
With so much unspoiled nature and so many coastal areas to explore on the five islands, visitors can choose from an array of activities. Santa Cruz Island attracts kayakers with its hundred-plus sea caves, some more than 200 feet long. Take the 3.8-mile route from Potato Harbor to Cavern Point, passing through the Surging T, a 354-foot-long tunnel (www.islandkayaking.com). Anacapa is great for scuba diving, whale watching, and snorkeling because of the kelp beds that are right offshore. Visit San Miguel's Cuyler Harbor, a sand beach you'll share with elephant seals. Each island has hiking trails, beaches to explore, fishing, and wildlife observation. You can also swim, bird-watch, kayak, camp, and explore tide pools, isolated beaches, and rugged canyons on the majority of the islands.
Scenic Boat Rides
Though the park doesn't allow vehicles, visitors can board scenic boat trips from ports in Ventura, Oxnard, and Santa Barbara. The most popular trip cruises around Anacapa's Arch Rock, the national park's main icon. Boat rides also offer an opportunity to view local marine creatures, so visitors should bring binoculars. Call the Island Packers office (1 805 642 1393) or Truth Aquatics (+1 805 962 1127) to get boat schedules and make reservations in advance.
Best Hikes
Anacapa Island: Anacapa Island Loop Trail is a two-mile round-trip hike out to Inspiration Point, which affords one of the most dramatic views of the park. The trail starts from the visitors center and weaves in a figure eight around the island. Along the way you'll pass a campground and several overlooks with dramatic coastal views that invite you to stop for a picnic.
Santa Barbara Island: Hike either Elephant Seal Cove, a two-and-a-half-mile strenuous hike with views of elephant seals from an overlook, or the moderate one-mile-long Arch Point trail, which has great views of the ocean and passes by fields of seasonal wildflowers. Portions of the trails are sometimes closed for nesting pelicans January through August; check with park headquarters before heading out.
Santa Cruz Island: Leaving from Scorpion Beach on Santa Cruz Island, take the seven-mile strenuous hike up Smugglers Road to the pristine, and usually empty, cobblestone beach at Smugglers Cove.
Most hikes on Santa Cruz Island are challenging and require you to be an experienced hiker, but the Scorpion Canyon Loop is a four-and-a-half-mile hike that can be moderate or strenuous depending on where you choose to start from. To avoid a steep climb, hike clockwise at Smugglers Road toward the oil well, then down into Scorpion Canyon and back to the beach. You may even spot the island's unique scrub-jay.
If you take the two-mile Smugglers Cove hike to Smugglers Canyon, be prepared for loose rocks and uneven terrain, but also for some magnificent off-trail hiking in a streambed surrounded by steep canyon walls and native vegetation.
Santa Rosa Island: When the wind isn't too strong on Santa Rosa Island, go on an easy three-mile round-trip hike along a dirt road to Water Canyon Beach. Here you can explore the two-mile-long sand beach.
Another popular hike for a day trip is the 3.5-mile Cherry Canyon Trail loop, featuring rolling grasslands, oak forests, and magnificent views from the coastal bluffs above Bechers Bay.
San Miguel Island: Many parts of remote San Miguel, the westernmost island, are closed to protect local wildlife, plant life, and geology. However, there are several areas open to the public and some that are accessible if you are accompanied by a ranger. Don't have a ranger with you? Take the Nidever Canyon trail, which meanders past a ranch and ranger station, then climbs along the east wall of the canyon. To arrange a hike with a ranger, call park headquarters, +1 805 658 5730.
Some 145 species of animals are unique to the Channel Islands. Marine life ranges from kelp forests to the endangered blue whale. More than 2,000 species of plants and animals live in and around the Islands. Common dolphins, Risso's dolphins, and bottlenose dolphins are often spotted in the protected waters surrounding the Channel Islands. Pacific gray whales arrive during the winter as they pass through to Baja, Mexico, where they breed. San Miguel Island is the only place in the world with four species of seals and sea lions breeding in one place. California sea lions, northern fur seals, harbor seals, and northern elephant seals call these islands home. Other marine animals found around the islands include giant black sea bass, sunflower stars, garibaldi fish, and California's spiny lobster.
Animals found on land include the island fox, island deer mouse, island spotted skunk, Townsend's big-eared bats, and the island night lizard. The fox and deer mouse have evolved into sub-species on the island; there are now eight unique species that can only be found on the Channel Islands.
The many bird species include the golden eagle, snowy plover, island scrub jay, Xantus's murrelet, brown pelican, ashy storm-petrel, loggerhead shrike, and bald eagle.
The islands are also home to some of the rarest and most endangered plants in the world: 70 plants grow only here. Some of the threatened plant species are the soft-leaved paintbrush, Santa Rosa Island's manzanita, the island rushrose, and Santa Cruz Island's lace pod.
Photo Ops
Booming waves have created towering sea cliffs and rock bridges that jut out into the ocean. Don't miss the 40-foot-high Arch Rock on Anacapa Island's far eastern end, which is especially striking as the sun sets.
Request a trip with a ranger to San Miguel Island and visit the caliche forest, made up of hollow, calcified sand castings that sit eerily on a plateau. For another beautiful shot, hike up the Black Mountain trail on Santa Rosa Island for views of the other islands and the mainland.
- Nat Geo Expeditions
Smart Traveler Strategies
There are no stores, eateries, or hotels on any of the islands, so be sure to come prepared with food and water, and camping and hiking equipment. Stay away from cliff edges at all times, since they tend to be very unstable and dangerous. Also, be aware of ticks, scorpions, "jumping" cholla cactus, and poison oak when you are hiking. Make sure to pack food in animal-proof containers, and keep trash well secured at all times.
Excursions Outside the Park
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area features rocky canyons, oak forests, and sandy beaches.
Take a boat ride on the Catalina Express to another Channel Island, Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles. Avalon, Catalina's waterfront town, has shops, restaurants, and golf carts you can rent to tour the island.
Joshua Tree National Park lies 140 miles east of Los Angeles. This 800,000-acre desert park has a rich cultural history and surreal geological features, such as granite monoliths and deep desert canyons. Visit in late February to see the ancient Joshua trees in full bloom.
Los Padres National Forest is a one-and-a-half-million-acre forest that stretches from the western edge of Los Angeles County to the Big Sur Coast in Monterey. The forest encompasses everything from marine habitats to redwood forests.


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For most of us, society has always dictated a strict work ethic:
- "Work, work, work."
- "All work and no play."
- "Work now… There'll be plenty of time to rest when you're dead."
But somewhere along the way ideals changed. Maybe it was because of poor health or maybe you finally realized what's really important. Or, possibly, you now fully understand what "you can't take it with you" means.
The fact that more and more adults now go to yoga classes; join reading or cooking groups and color just for relaxation says a lot about the way we now view our lives. There's no right or wrong choice but, in the end, it is your choice so choose wisely!