The vast majority of people browsing social media streams via the web are doing just this: spending a lot of time browsing junk content.

While much of this "junk content" is for entertainment or some means of mental and/or emotional health, at root it becomes the opiate of the masses.

He loves her for her fine placement in his chessboard, his puppeteering.

A fictional story in which a shiny stone triggers an intergalactic alarm. And the protagonist's father uses the unique scent of uziza leaves to soften the hearts of aliens and prevent a catastrophic war. The post also includes a recipe for Ofe Nsala, a traditional Nigerian dish.

• Who: The author (zyzymena), Ijele (the author's brother), Ukachi (Ijele's project partner), the author's father, the alien leader, fellow villagers, Ijeoma (the author's friend), young men from the village, the village women.
• What: Resolving an intergalactic alarm triggered by the retrieval of a shiny stone by Ijele, cooking a soup using uziza leaves to soften alien hearts, preventing a catastrophic war, sparing Earth from the impending threat.
• Where: Gamuga village, outskirts of the village by the riverside, the village square, the author's house, the heart of the village, the alien ships.
• Why: To prevent a catastrophic war and spare Earth from the impending threat posed by the aliens, to reunite the shiny stone with the alien leader, to celebrate the resolution of the threat.
• When: Rain danced in Gamuga village for seven days. On the eighth day, the sun came out. Ijele ventured to the outskirts of the village and retrieved the shiny stone. The aliens arrived after the soup was cooked. The village women erupted into dance and song after the aliens spared Earth.
• How: The shiny stone triggered an intergalactic alarm. The author's father explained the solution of cooking a soup using uziza leaves. The author prepared Ofe Nsala (white soup) using uziza leaves. The unique aroma of the soup caught the attention of the alien leader and softened the hearts of the aliens. The aliens tasted the soup and decided to spare Earth. The village women erupted into dance and song to celebrate.

The story concludes with a recipe for Ofe Nsala (white soup). Which is served with a sprinkling of Uziza leaves. For enhanced taste and aroma.

The post discusses the excitement and anticipation for the upcoming release of a new Gundam Seed movie. Highlighting expectations for the storyline, character development, animation quality, and soundtrack.

• Who: The author, Jude, and fans of Gundam Seed.
• What: A new Gundam Seed movie is set to be released in January 2024.
• Where: The movie will be released in Japan, but the author hopes it will also be shown in the Philippines.
• Why: The author is excited to watch the movie and hopes for more screen time for the main characters, Kira Yamato and Lacus Clayne.
• When: The movie is set to be released in January 2024.
• How: The author plans to watch the previous Gundam series while waiting for the movie and hopes for an epic OST for the movie.

Jun 1, 2023

Abstract

WSJ goes behind the scenes with PixMob, a leading concert LED company, to see how they use “old tech” to build creative light shows, essentially turning the crowd into a video canvas.

Seen as a source of entertainment, of tragedy, Desdemona loves him for his suffering and tragedy -- of his foreignness and surprise? She pities him for having endured all that. As a play

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/may/27/news1

In 2005, 2929 Entertainment signed a distribution deal with Steven Soderbergh which was one of the first to suggest distributing projects simultaneously to theatrical, home video, and cable.

https://8flix.com/scripts/the-black-list/

https://scrambledgregs.com/fucked-up-shit/sssttteeellllllaaaaaaa/

The sub mention of the other woman was likely Amanda Cavallacci, Myrna Jacoby's assistant in the early 2000s.

https://letterboxd.com/bitdepth/lists/

bitdepth has some interesting lists, including films directed by women.

Harry Lorayne, having run out of card tricks to entertain actor Victor Jory one evening, invented a trick in which he recalled the location of all the cards in a deck of playing cards. The feat so impressed Jory that Lorayne made it part of his magic act in the Catskills.

Harry Lorayne recognized the use of mnemonics as a form of entertainment and parlayed it into a career. Others before him, primarily magicians like David Roth had paved the way for some of this practice.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0017674/?ref_=tt_cl_t_12

book idea w/ title:

Uncredited: The Life of Fred Aldrich

was he related to Robert Aldrich?

https://events.jhu.edu/form/HopInHollywood2023

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/14-warning-signs-that-you-are-living

Every studio has a slate.

What is the source for this?

It's highly related to having a direction in life, or the famous example of Feynman's 12 Favorite Problems that he always kept in mind to slowly be working at.

Part of having a list of purpose dovetails to how one builds their identity too.

There are three goals of most reading: education, information, and understanding.

Are there others we're missing here?

The documentary Casting By (2012) shows casting director Marion Dougherty's 3 x 5" index card collection which she used for casting notes. In particular they show an example card for Dustin Hoffman with his details. In Hoffman's case, his card included the older telephone numbers with exchanges (EN2-6933 or Endicott2 6933), so these cards may have also served a contact purpose similar to more modern rolodexes. Different from them however, Dougherty's also included heights, credits, and other observations relevant to the casting process.

Screen capture from the movie

Broad forms of reading: - consultation reading - intensive reading (meditation, religious) - entertainment reading (novels)

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls538847946/

Masterclass may appear to be selling an education product, but they're really selling inspiration, infotainment, and the credibility of their teachers.

Zach Baylin is JHU A/S '02 Academy Nomination for Original Screenplay 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/14/business/media/ankler-janice-min-richard-rushfield.html

I thought this was the niche filled by Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood?

If you see something, say something is a lot over-the-top for a Hollywood rag.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/12/13/on-succession-jeremy-strong-doesnt-get-the-joke

So very Hollywood with all the fluff.

Starting with reality television, everything seems to have become entertainment. Social media has accelerated this.

The idea that "making is showbusiness" is an interesting label for this.

We also have "manufacturing"; when will we have digufacturing?

We go to theaters to see plays. But with movies, TV show and Vlogs on YouTube there are more ways to tell a story. I would argue it’s not cheap entertainment it’s a new way of story telling

Before beginning this piece I'm reminded to note some advice given to me by Rick Kurtzman at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) on reading scripts: If you're not going to act on having read (a script), then why bother having read it in the first place?

He meant to make notes, write coverage, create writer lists for rewriting, producer lists for selling, director list for directing, casting lists. One should tell people about the (good) things one read. Make your reading produce something.

He uses academe, but I might liken it to a studio system of sorts.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2021, February 4). Small Business Pulse Survey Shows Shift in Expectations from Spring to Winter. The United States Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/01/small-business-pulse-survey-shows-shift-in-expectations-from-spring-to-winter.html?utm_campaign=20210126msacos1ccstors&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

DokkenOfficial (2021) Don Dokken discusses Covid-19 with Dr. Anne Rimoin, Youtube Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3XvmFf23XU&feature=youtu.be

I find it interesting that The Atlantic files this story with a URL that includes "/entertainment/" in it's path. Culture, certainly, but how are three seemingly random people's lives meant to be classified by such a journalistic source as "entertainment?"

This is also the same sort of cultural movement to happen to journalism with Hard Copy in the early 1980's.

This also makes me think back to other entertainments of the historical poor including the use/purpose of stained glass windows in church supposedly as a means of entertaining the illiterate Latin vulgate masses.

Feldmann, A., Gasser, O., Lichtblau, F., Pujol, E., Poese, I., Dietzel, C., Wagner, D., Wichtlhuber, M., Tapiador, J., Vallina-Rodriguez, N., Hohlfeld, O., & Smaragdakis, G. (2020). The Lockdown Effect: Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Internet Traffic. ArXiv:2008.10959 [Cs]. http://arxiv.org/abs/2008.10959

pg.82 There were two types of balls: private and public. In a private ball, the hostess finds a room appropriate for dancing before giving out invitations in person to those on her guest list or send a servant to hand out the invitations. (Olsen, All Things Austen: Volume I, 197)

London had a variety of shops: the newest fashions, bookstores, china showrooms, and shops with a wide selection of ribbon, lace, calico, or silk. Like Mrs. Bennett, Jane Austen thought the town was a nice place to visit but not an ideal place to live. (Doody, Jane Austen’s Names)

"A round card-game played by a varying number of players. The cards in three-card loo have the same value as in whist; in five-card loo the Jack of Clubs (‘Pam’) is the highest card. A player who fails to take a trick or breaks any of the laws of the game is ‘looed’, i.e. required to pay a certain sum, or ‘loo’, to the pool." (OED)

This is a huge loss...

"A set of games (usually three or five), the last of which is played to decide between the opponents when each has won an equal number; (hence) the winning of more than half the individual games by one side. Also in early use: †the final decisive game (obs.)" (OED).

"Casino first appears in the card game literature at the end of the eighteenth century in London, and shortly afterwards in Germany" ... "The aim in Casino is to capture cards from a layout of face up cards on the table. A card is captured by playing a matching card from hand. It is also possible to capture several cards at once if their values add up to the value of the card played" (John McLeod, Casino, page 1).

"These small and elegant worktables were portable and could be easily carried near a light source or fireplace, or stashed against a wall when company came. They varied, some coming with a variety of compartments – some hidden – that contained writing and painting supplies. Many had book stands for reading, others had drawers that contained paper or embroidery threads and sewing supplies" (Vic, Regency Work Tables: A Regency Lady at “Work”, p 1).

"Rolledpaper work, filigree work, or as it is now known, quilling, was a popular pastime for accomplished young ladies in the late 18th/early 19th centuries. The first known forms of this type of decoration, which is made by decorating items with many, many rolled and pinched or crimped pieces of paper, set in pleasing patterns, date from the 15th and 16th centuries" (Austenonly, Ladies Accomplishments, p 1).

*The above image is a tea-caddy decorated with fillagree work.

"A round game, in which a narrative of the meeting of a lady and a gentleman, their conversation, and the ensuing ‘consequences’, is concocted by the contribution of a name or fact by each of the players, in ignorance of what has been contributed by the others" (OED).

At this time it was not unusual for women to go to London or other urban settings for access to different experiences. They offered many opportunities for new social interaction and there is ample evidence of women traveling to London and partaking of its many social activities. There were also many opportunities of new experiences for pleasure and excitement, some through social interaction. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_out/urban_life_04.shtml

The comparison between Marianne showing her talents in music and displaying her abilities, and Lady Middleton, who used to play piano before marriage, depicts the importance of “female accomplishments” during this time. Women were to attain certain achievements (drawing, playing music, etc.) to appeal to their male suitors (Hughes, "Gender Roles in the 19th Century,"British Library).

A billiard room according to David Selwyn served as a key part of enjoyment towards entertaining guests, "large houses . . . were provided with a billiard room, which, though largely for the enjoyment of the men, could sometimes be an advantage to the ladies: Jane Austen commented that it drew 'all the Gentlemen to it whenever they are within, especially after dinner'" (Selwyn, Jane Austen and Leisure, p. 265). In this context, Austen is depicting the assumption that people with large houses who frequently entertain guests are expected to have a billiard room.

This shows how Public enemy started a physical movement among the people. Many took to the streets to participate in non-violent protests for the cause. Many were forced to hear what they had to say and there was a push for change. Public Enemy never wanted the protest to be violent, they just wanted change.

The master of ceremonies was an official position in fashionable towns like Bath. Their job was to oversee the balls and parties. Their duties spanned from enforcing the rules and keeping the peace to making sure everybody was dressed correctly. As we see in this line, one of their most important jobs was to introduce young men and women (Austenonly, "The Master of Ceremonies: The Georgian Assembly Room, Part Four", https://austenonly.com/2013/02/28/the-master-of-ceremonies-the-georgian-assembly-room-part-four/ ).

The pump room -- better known as The Grand Pump Room -- was a building used for upper-class social gatherings and parties in Bath. It was especially popular during Jane Austen’s lifetime (Michael Forsyth, Bath, 68) (Mabel Van Niekerk, The Ancient Roman Cities of Bath and York, 24).

There is no evidence for a song with this title existing. During the Georgian period wedding hymns were often sung at parties that were not weddings, just for fun. However, the lyrics for this particular hymn does not exist. Austenites speculate that the author invented this title as an excuse for John Thorpe to suggest marriage to Catherine (ODP).

Huge follower counts on YouTube and social media DO NOT easily translate to income. And those followers expect you to be "real" -- so they are hostile to advertising and sponsored content.

Do you own a business? It might pay to offer a salary to the producers of a YouTube channel that reaches your target audience -- in exchange for low-profile "brought to you by" links and mentions that won't offend that audience.

https://twitter.com/JBUshow<br> https://twitter.com/gabydunn