#carping

I never noticed before but... When you're doing the blowing away thing like the gif, aren't you supposed to open your fingers from the ones next to your face first? To give the illusion of blowing them out? Az does it the other way, from his pinky inwards towards his face. Not outwards.

He does it inwards... Because the trick is reeling in a kiss, "making the magic happen".

Crowley is doing the thing he likes best, standing around "carping", which is a fish, in the ocean, and all sea related things are sex metaphors between them. (That's a long read so let's summarize.)

Crowley's carping isn't him being mean. It's foreplay. He's literally begging Aziraphale. Get it? It's an iteration of the wall slam.

Carping about the magic act is Crowley's way of saying your magic is working on me and I want to ravish you.

"Retire" the magic act? You lay it to rest. To rest is to go to bed. To fuck around instead of working, which we know they're always doing, because they're NEVER working.

Also, one of Terry's famous wordplay quotes is about how elves are "terrible":

Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder. Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels. Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies. Elves are glamorous. They project glamour. Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment. Elves are terrific. They beget terror. The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning. No one ever said elves are nice. Elves are bad.

Aziraphale is "terrible at magic"?

The etymology of terrible: late Middle English (in the sense ‘causing terror’): via French from Latin terribilis, from terrere ‘frighten’. Literally terrific, lol. Same idea Azirahpale used when describing Crowley as a "wily adversary" who "keeps me on my toes", and the same kind of wordplay as Crowley's "see a wile, ya thwart": wiles meaning sexually attractive, and the old meaning of "thwart" as to cross over--see a sexy demon, you jump ship and straddle him.

If you look up the definition of terrible, you get the common "extremely bad", but also these:

2 a : difficult in a terrible bind b : formidable in nature : awesome a terrible responsibility c : exciting extreme alarm or intense fear : terrifying 3 : extreme, great a terrible disappointment

Frankly, all three apply, excusing parts of speech: magic is difficult; he's awesome and formidable at it, and the way he does it is terrifying; he's also great at it.

It has been too many years since my last rereading of Jane Eyre. So in downloading whatever copy that was available to me on Kindle, I started to read the prefaces that Charlotte (at that time under the penname Currer Bell) included in subsequent editions. In her address to those that look harshly upon the novel, her statement of "certain simple truths" really hit me.

Below is a snippet from the preface to the 2nd edition of Jane Eyre dated December 21st, 1847.

"Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths. Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last." - Charlotte Brontë

Nnena Kalu is an artist. She is also, as of this week, a winner of the Turner prize. Her work – twisting ribbon forms made from old VHS tape, plastic and strips of fabric – has been praised for its “finesse of scale, composition and colour” (the judges), its “emphasis … on the visual, tactile and experiential in art” (Mark Hudson, the Independent) and for being “so full of life and energy … so…