Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

The way some anti-Nolans on here act like she really took him down and dragged him through the mud and he should be weeping in shame is kinda... funny as well. Because the review wasn't even all that scathing. Some parts were even complimentary, especially the last paragraph.

and then on the day of the show, my friend asks, "where is the camera I requested?"

gallerist: "you didn't request a camera"

my friend: "I did, and you confirmed that you would have one here."

gallerist: "that isn't true."

and then she proceeded to pull up the email thread, and my friend could see that every single email they had sent had been summarized by AI, and that the gallerist had then had AI write a response to them based on the AI summary, and that the AI had detected that they needed a camera, and confirmed on behalf of the gallerist that they would bring a camera, but because the gallerist had offloaded the work of actually reading and responding, she simply hadn't actually made any note of it herself, therefore didn't bring it, nor did she even know one was needed.

Offer alternatives: IE, “Sorry, nobody’s allowed to hang out over there, but we have seats over here you’re welcome to use”. I recommend getting familiar with local parks, public seating, free food programs, outreach, mobile aid, etc., just in case those are needed.

Be polite: IE, “Excuse me, sir”, “I beg your pardon, miss”. This should go without saying but everyone deserves dignity.

Avoid phrasing requests as orders: IE, “Don’t stand in front of that” VS “Excuse me, could you move a bit to the side?”. This works best with an explanation, like, “There’s a sign behind you”, or, “you might get clipped by someone”. This helps communicate that you are asking for a reason, not just throwing your weight around. If you don’t have a reason, rethink whether or not you need to be doing anything.

Avoid directing blame or fault. Don’t say, “The owner says you gotta go” when you could say, “I’m not supposed to let people be here for X period” or “do X thing”. Again, try to have alternatives ready so people can use other resources or do something else instead of just abruptly changing plans.

Come from a place of compassion whenever you can. People are gonna tell you to get rid of the crazy screaming guy. They say that because they’re frightened and don’t know what to do. Your best approach is, “Hello sir”, followed by, “How are you today?”, “how’s it going?”, “are you doing alright?”, etc., depending on what the person is ACTUALLY doing / saying when you get there. You can offer help from there if needed, or leave them alone if they’re not in danger or a risk to anyone.

Remember you’re not a cop. This can mean whatever you need it to mean. For me personally, that means that with incredibly rare exception (like trying to sell to kids, contaminating other’s food or drink) I won’t report you for drugs. If I find you doing drugs on my site I’ll tell you a different place where you can do them instead and ask you to do them there. I have interrupted drug deals to ask the client and the salesman to both kindly move 15 feet to the left, I’m not kidding, I do not care.

Know who you can throw under the bus. Sometimes you gotta enforce rules and be the bad guy and if that’s the fault of some dipshit in a suit 200 miles away, you can say that. Sorry man, I can’t let you park your car on the lawn. I know you’re not hurting anyone and frankly I think lawn culture is stupid but there’s other parking stalls and if my boss sees you I’ll get a write-up for not doing my job. Shit sucks sometimes but if it wasn’t me telling you it’d be the new guy, and between you and me he’s an idiot and he’ll probably just report you to bylaw.

Don’t just act like you’re their friend, genuinely try to be a good friend. If you know that someone is doing something that will only result in a bystander phoning police, don’t let them go down like that. Let them know, “hey man, you seem like you’re having a shit time and I get it, I’ll do what I can, but we gotta have this conversation somewhere else ‘cause we’re freaking out the old ladies.”

Swallow your tongue. You can’t fix the world. People are gonna bitch at you about communists and 5G and gangster rap ruining the neighbourhood, that’s just part of the deal. Nod along, remain neutral, shut down any hate speech, redirect if you can, and keep a limit in mind where you’ll have to shut things down.

Accept that sometimes there are no solutions. Yes, that angry guy who blasts music will be back tomorrow. That homeless woman who asks you to help her find her dog that she hasn’t had in 30 years will ask again, and yes, you’re still going to take a description and promise to keep an eye out. That kid who smokes crack behind the building has been clean for a few weeks and still stops by to say hi, and you hope he’ll get his life together and be happy, but he also might relapse and OD before he hits 25. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can, even if nothing is guaranteed.

Be kind to teenagers. Being a kid is hard, and everyone’s on their ass all the damn time for everything.

Remember that the vast majority of bad people aren’t bad, just unhappy. The guy who keeps showing up drunk and puking on the carpet is unhappy. The lady who bitches about the service every single time and keeps coming back anyway is unhappy. The guy who leaves trash everywhere is probably unhappy. If they were happy, maybe they’d do better, but they’re not, and that’s kinda sad. You don’t have to let them get away with their shit, but they probably aren’t actually a worthless human being either.

It doesn’t matter if 12 is true or not. You need to believe it or you will become a harsh and bitter person. Look for evidence that people are not terrible and invent it if you have to

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

As Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei Asia found in a recent investigation, just five US tech giants — Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle — are hiding an estimated $1.65 trillion in debt that doesn’t appear on balance sheets. That’s even more than the $1.35 trillion in debt the five companies officially reported in their financial data for the most recent quarter. Meta alone has amassed around $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt, according to Nikkei, highlighting how precarious the AI industry’s steep investment in AI has become, and inspiring comparisons to energy company Enron, which collapsed in spectacular fashion in 2001 because of similar debts hidden behind shell companies. Like Enron, they’re using special purpose vehicles, or off-balance sheet arrangements such as legally distinct subsidiaries, as a way to make their financial reporting look healthier than it actually is — often a glaring sign that something is deeply amiss behind the scenes.

Interestingly enough, people only started to associate the word "fit" with the meaning of "athletic" or "healthy" after the phrase "survival of the fittest" was coined.

"Without a tub of wax for my ears – which Himesh Patel’s ever anxious Eurylochus, Odysseus’s doomed right-hand man, uses to sail safely past the Sirens – I was exposed to the full din of thumping sticks, staffs, swords and clashing armour, thunderbolts, crashing waves, grunts, screams, toppling palaces and burning temples. But unlike Matt Damon, the wax-free Odysseus who is tied to the mast as he is conveyed past the Sirens (naked ladies reclining on some uncomfortable-looking rocks), I gazed at the shipwrecks and bloodbaths without any agony of emotion."

and

"There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem."

Well, that tracks for a Nolan film -

"The couple have no chemistry and nothing in common. Throughout his wanderings, the uxorious Odysseus clings to a little doll figure, intended to represent his wife (like the spinning top clutched by Leonardo di Caprio in Inception); the real woman is barely more interesting."

Yikes -

"If you’re not going to compose a script in Homeric Greek, or even in metrical English verse, you might as well use something like conversational American English. But writing dialogue is not one of Nolan’s talents. The language is relentlessly expository, humourless and flat."

The lines she calls out in this section will probably make a least a couple of my friends laugh incredulously -

"I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter. In at least one interview, he cited my version of the first line of the poem: ‘Tell me about a complicated man.’ But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script."

....oh my GOD, EMILY -

"The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan’s Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people. It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centres, aggrandises and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgment of his own guilt."