What's everyone up to right now?

[Rev. Rye]

Well, this week in the Deep Hurting Project, a film I probably should have covered two cycles ago (to tie in with Series 5 of Black Mirror, the one with the Street Fighter-themed episode): Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. I'm not going to pretend I know Jack Shit about the franchise outside of what I've absorbed from some Internet videos, and foot fetish porn of a character who never appears in this movie, though.

On a more "guaranteeing my place in Hell" note:

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I just played this scene over the rape scene in Episode 12 of 13 Reasons Why, and I'm not sure if it's gallows humour, or just something that throws the horror into sharp relief:

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[Rev. Rye]

I decided to see a community theater production of Tom Sawyer outside the old firehouse (which is now the Skokie historical society) today, and to be honest, it was kind of underwhelming. I probably shouldn’t expect that much from community theater, although, I have to admit that the cast really did put some life into it, particularly in the little things, the spaces between the lines, where, like one character is doing some small mischief, and the adults in their lives are trying to keep them in line without interrupting the flow of Twain’s words. 

Of course, there were a few questionable things about the production, some of which may be original to Timothy Mason’s adaptation, and some of which may be the fault of the director:

• There are two scenes where the cast and ensemble sing hymns, not so bad in itself, if a bit boring, but at least it’s expected in antebellum Missouri. The thing that gated me about it was Mark Twain (yes, he’s a character, the narrator) was also singing in the choir, and even got a solo verse for “Blessed Be the Tie That Binds.” Admittedly, I did recently re-read Letters from the Earth (which may have coloured my perceptions a bit), and Tom Sawyer predates a lot of the nihilistic shit in those writings, but even in that book, he pokes a bit of fun at religion (it’s fairly gentle, but still there if you look for it) and I can’t see Twain singing along with the choir, even if he did remain a self-identified Presbyterian. 
  
• They made Joe Harper a girl. Not a problem in itself, and the actress did do a good job of fleshing out a character I honestly forgot was actually in the original books, but it does kind of undermine Tom’s pursuit of Becky Thatcher, since he's now got a female friend who seems perfect for him, and this isn't likely one of those "the perfect girl was right in front of me the whole fucking time" stories. 
  
• The most legitimately baffling thing about this production was the length. It was about an hour long, although I read elsewhere that this particular version is 1 hour 45 minutes. How did they shorten it? Well, they show the scene in the courtroom where Tom revealed Injun Joe is the murderer, and Twain says something about hiring a St. Louis detective to try and locate him (finding nothing) and then... CURTAIN CALL. And then the post-show square dance. Seriously?
  

So, yeah, they ended it like this, except without the sort of post-modern shit that made it interesting or thematically relevant. 




Maybe if you wanted to keep Injun Joe a largely unseen character, since Skokie does not have a big Native American population, that’s understandable, but maybe change the “Injun” part to something else, if that was your problem. It’s a little irksome to see someone mess with the original work, but an understandable change. Hell, the Wishbone version called him “Crazy Joe.” Then again, since we do have a sizable Indian-American population, I think casting one of them would have been an interesting subversion. If length was the issue, maybe find some other part to cut except the whole last third of the story? Even Wishbone could condense the novel to less than an hour AND deal with a present-day B-plot that mirrored the original book.

[Rev. Rye]

Fredrik Knudsen, creator of Down the Rabbit Hole, said he was going to drop a TWO HOUR, EIGHT MINUTE, AND NINE SECOND episode of DTRH today. We’re still waiting... hopefully, he’s trying to feed the YT admins a stray cat so they can manually review it and okay it for monetisation.

And we still have no confirmation about the subject matter beyond "the story of a person who's given up and destroyed themselves, and the buzzards of the internet took notice,” but I’ve heard it could be about Wings of Redemption. That sounds pretty close to his story. Welp, I reckon we’ll find out soon enough.

[DodosAreDead]

Helloooo dropping in for a quick minute since I had a class where atheism was discussed today and was reminded of this place. How is everyone? In response to the thread title, I'm up to some fairly exciting things because college has started! (undergrad). I'm at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which I feel comfortable saying because it's such a huge fucking school. I've been here about two weeks so far and there have been ups and downs but the ups have heavily outweighed the downs and overall I'm very happy and functioning perfectly well despite my parents being across the small atlantic pond and european, er, village? I don't even know. The point is that life is good and I'm finally getting to do a lot of the things I've wanted to for so long.
dodo

[The Valkyrie]

Can you be more specific, Dodo?

I’ll have to nuke the school to get you going by that vague description

[EgoDeath]

Currently watching tv.

Going to do some writing in a bit and then go up to the coffee shop and get some reading done. If it's too noisey I'll head up to the library or maybe the park.

[Rev. Rye]

We've FINALLY got the new Down the Rabbit Hole episode I've been waiting for for about two weeks. It did not disappoint:





If you're not willing to go the full 2 hours, 8 minutes, and 9 seconds, here's the gist of it:





Except instead of imagining Sisyphus becoming happy, imagine a 460-lb gamer whining while Call of Duty footage plays, interspersed with footage of trolls mocking him, with just enough footage of him being an absolute cock that you don't feel too sorry for him.

[The Grand Nudger]

Knee up, iced, tore my acl again.

[EgoDeath]

Doing what?

[Fireball]

Doing what?

Kneed some dude that was wearing an iron cup in the crotch. 

Yes, I had some bourbon and am feeling silly.