Hall of Mirrors

A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.

But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here

Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.

Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:

But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:

likely the most famous picture of a Thanksgiving dinner ever painted and you see it all the time.

What you may not know is its actual title

“Freedom From Want” it’s a part of a series of 4, including this now famous meme

“Freedom of Speech” These paintings were illustrations of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech where The President laid out a vision that would become what the Allies were fighting for in WWII universal human rights that became a part of the UN charter.

So this homey American Thanksgiving scene was also a bold statement that no one in the world should go hungry

I've had this nag on my activity page for years. Of course my system notifications are off: I turned them off. Intentionally.

I reported this as a bug at the time. Why do I need a reminder for an intentional preference? They said it's a feature and it's not going away. Whoever made that decision is an asshole.

And unsubscribing? This is your warning to never make a NextDoor account. I've had to unsubscribe nearly a dozen times. I'm still getting emails. Their sleazy loophole? They have about 20 different newsletters, so unsubscribing only applies to that specific one you clicked.

I went into my account to unsubscribe from the rest. Yet there's still at least one secret newsletter.

You aren't dead, but you're leaving our friend group.

You aren't dead but you've moved to a different state and now we text twice a year.

You aren't dead but you blocked me.

You aren't dead but we stopped talking, not on purpose but so long ago that I wouldn't even know what to say to you now.

You aren't dead but you're a stranger to me now.

You aren't dead but we lost touch and now I don't even remember your username.

You aren't dead but I ended things with you and now we never speak.

You aren't dead but I still have to grieve you. Whether I'd change it if I could or not, you're still a presence that I'm used to and now you won't be there anymore.

Like, I’m not necessarily talking realism here since often it’s still pretty far from realistic, but more like, “someone has to be running spies in this fantasy kingdom, and we’ve seen the whole royal court, so which background character is it? How does that change these three major interactions?” Or “real life historical nobility did in fact have some things to do that were like jobs, how does this human disaster cope with running an estate?” Or “there’s no reason for a sci-fi robot detective to know how to whitewater kayak, where’d she learn?” Or “if this guy is serving the emperor directly he has to be way high up in the space empire servant hierarchy, why is he doing this menial task for someone else? What’s his motive? Does he perhaps have the secret space telepathy?”

AND.

Ed is nearly 50. Look at these hugs. Look at the secret handshake. These are friends, or as close as his pre-Stede Pirate Life allowed him to get. He doesn't have to think about that secret handshake for a second.

Anne and Mary aren't perfect people, but Ed is comfortable around them. He clearly knew them when he was young - they call him "Eddie" and "Teach", never "Blackbeard." Narratively, they function to force Ed and Stede into a conversation about Stede leaving.

Thinking about this more today, I like Anne more and more in this episode. She's bonkers, sure. She loves drama. AND:

She tests Stede - does he want to get back together with Ed? If so, is he still willing to kiss someone else?

She makes sure at that dinner table that Ed knows that Stede went back to his wife.

Honestly, that's pretty close to bestie behavior for a pirate. By the time Ed leaves that house, he knows that Stede didn't kiss anyone else when given the opportunity, and he knows the truth about where Stede went.

I think about this line a lot:

"A lot of your friends are troubled, aren't they?"

"Yeah, well, they're all pirates."

Ed is my favorite character, I love thinking about him, I want to know everything about him. We can learn a lot about his past from Anne and Mary.

(Plus, if we don't want to learn about it from Anne and Mary, who does that leave? Izzy? No thanks. We can think about younger Ed without giving someone else the lead in his story.)

It doesn't diminish Ed's love story with Stede to acknowledge and think about what made him the man he is now. It doesn't make Ed and Stede's sexual relationship any less meaningful and loving to believe that Ed's had times in the past where he slutted it up a bit (especially pre-Blackbeard). We don't slut shame in this house.

I have a personal headcanon (that I know I saw @teeny-tiny-revenge mention as well) that Ed didn't have a lot of opportunities to relax as Blackbeard. I like to think that every few months, when things got to be too much, he would fuck off for a week with Anne, Mary, and/or Jack to party and/or get laid. That's why Izzy thought to send Jack in 1x8 - when Jack shows up, Ed fucks off for a week. That's what happens. Only it doesn't work this time, because Ed doesn't need an escape from himself when he's with Stede; he's not keeping up a performance.

His childhood made him guarded and wary anyway and then he ends up on Hornigold's crew, a place where violence and brutality were watchword from the top down.

My headcanon is that's when Ed really started keeping people at arm's length emotionally because when Hornigold mentions a cabin boy (without using his name), Ed immediately defensively says "His name was Felix. He was a really nice guy."

Calling him a nice guy, when Hornigold is referring to him as a boy, suggests that Ed considered him an equal which means he and Felix were probably both around the same age. We've got canonical references to pirates cutting rations as punishment, so I wouldn't be surprised if Felix was stealing rations for Ed and Ed remembering that kindness (so much meta about Ed and food in the context of the show. SO much), only to see him get killed for it.

Better not to let anyone see you care about anything or be nice or let anyone be nice to you or you might end up with a live crab forced down your throat. Better get tougher. Don't act like you feel pain. Laugh when you're whipped in the balls. Go to extremes for fun and profit. Even with the chaos trio, as much as he clearly adores them, Ed still does keep his defensive walls up.