This Is Emily's Fault

What does it take to teach a bee to use tools? A little time, a good teacher and an enticing incentive. Read more here: http://to.pbs.org/2mpRUAz

And then I’m puzzled at all the Neil Why’s, and realise that this was me in the Wayback Long-ago.

At least I’m consistent.

Norse Mythology: Unfortunately, Loki was bored.

Egyptian Mythology: Unfortunately, Set was envious.

James T. Kirk:

-Graduated in the top 4% of his year -was bullied by jocks -Is a history nerd -was so much of a teacher’s pet that he cheated on an exam and was commended for it -Was referred to as “a stack of books with legs”

Jean-Luc Picard:

-Spent all his free time drinking in pubs and playing billiards -broke more hearts than he can remember -started a bar fight that ended up in him being stabbed in the heart -likes to explore dangerous ruins of ancient civilizations for fun -wouldn’t even have become a starship captain if he wasn’t this much of a hothead

Jim Kirk seems like a wild man because he’s standing next to calm, logical Spock.*  

Meanwhile, Picard seems stately and dignified because he’s standing next to Will “Any alien physiology is bangable if you just put some thought into it” Riker*.  

* Of course THEN, we get to the next layer, which is that Spock is the dude who told the Vulcan Science Academy to fuck itself, while Riker plays the trombone.

“Creative.”

—–

The agent sits across from you, sharp suit crinkling at his crossed ankles. His shoes are polished bright enough to reflect the fluorescent lighting back into the gleam of his flat black sunglasses. He doesn’t smile—he never does.

You like this about him. You like a lot of things about him, but the no smiling reins supreme. It means he’s not trying to charm you, trick you, use you. He simply shows up, asks questions, offers you a single nod, and leaves. 

This time he’s brought coffee, which is new, and a notepad and pen, which is not. The click of the pen echoes against the four white walls of your cell, and in the interest of politeness neither of you flinch. Pointing out your unlawful imprisonment feels gauche between the two of you, up to and including reacting to every small noise clattering against the cinderblocks. There’s not anything either of you can do about it, anyway. 

“So,” he says. “You’ve killed a lot of people.” It might be an unusual conversation opener, if it wasn’t coming from him. 

“I have.” There’s no point denying it. He could bring you the entire folder of death certificates if he wanted to. Someone else had tried that tactic before. And apart from that, he’s smart enough to have put the pieces together a long time ago. You could only hold up the innocent act for so long. “Any opinions on that?”

“Mmm. More paperwork.”

a child 10,000 years ago left a handprint on a wall. they were fingerpainting. a viking climbs up a rock just to carve the words “this is very high” 10ft off the ground. somebody centuries… milennia… ago burned their dinner so thoroughly that they buried the ruined pot in the backyard rather than attempt to clean it. shakespeare got drunk and wrote dick jokes. tutankhamun was a little boy who liked ducks more than anything. a roman carves his name into a monument in another country saying “i was here”. a prisoner, centuries ago, in the tower of london scratches lines into the wall as a tally marking the days. a medieval monk scrawls in the margins bemoaning the boredom of his work.

but all of us, every one, has a deep primal need to persist. we leave handprints on the wall, scratch our names into stones, carve initials into a tree, mark our growth as children on a wall, bury little time capsules. write in the margins of a book. hide notes behind the wallpaper.

reaching out into the future to some unknown human long after we’re gone to say

here i re-wrote it as a poem to fit your tag

Somewhere far away from me And impossibly long ago, now A mother holds her child up high To leave a handprint on the wall

A man I will never meet Climbs a rock for fun He writes a message on the stone And he says “this is very high”

Somebody, once Cooked a meal and burned it Took the pot to the land outside their house And buried the evidence

An Egyptian king Thousands of years before my birth Wore a shirt embroidered with little ducks And kept it, lovingly, in a chest

In a prison cell within a tower A man stretches out through centuries And marks off the days of his sentence As lines on the wall

A long-forgotten monk Labours over a manuscript by candlelight And writes in the margins He is bored, and he has a hangover

They leave pieces of themselves behind And they say

“I was here I was here please do not forget me I was alive and I loved and I got sick I had a favourite animal I was here. Do you love me? I love you”

Yes, I do. I hold your life between my hands And I see it, and I love you

I scratch my name into a rock On a tree, I carve my initials And the initials of someone I love So very much

I bury a box in my garden And I write in the margins I reach into the future To somebody I do not know

A stranger who will never know me

“Hello, you” I say “I was here, once. I loved and I got sick and I had a favourite colour

please do! i wrote it for you, stranger i will never meet

and if you print it then maybe somebody finds it, somewhere, in the back of a drawer in 100 years and hold it in their hands and love me as i love them

And like there was no permanent cast, all these celebrities seem to have gotten a scene or part of a scene to do (i’m not sure exactly, I did not ever watch Quibi and thus haven’t seen this yet), and then they just… recreated it as best they could. At home. Under quarantine.

So like, you had Jennifer Garner in a blanket cape playing Princess Buttercup AND the Booing Old Woman with a crowd comprised entirely of stuffed animals:

Or Taika Waititi paying Westley off a badly-drawn Inigo on a piece of cardboard held in front of someone’s face:

And it’s all just delightful.

But my absolute favorite part of this thing that I’ve sadly never seen but assume is probably absolutely hilarious and a treasure and I want to find it some day and watch the whole thing… is that Carey Elwes is in it.

As Prince Fucking Humperdink.

Here ya go

in glasgow necropolis, there is a gravestone. it is very small and unassuming. in fact, it's very easy to overlook because if you walked past it it would not even come up to your knees and it peeks out of the surrounding foliage

there is no date of birth, nor date of death.

it is the grave of a child. her name was "Wee Bessie" Wilson. she lived, and then died aged just 2 1/2, sometime in the victorian era (from the age of the stone, and the fact the necropolis is largely a victorian burial ground)

nobody knows who she was, anymore. but 150-200 years later people leave flowers, toys, brightly coloured pinwheels, teddy bears, or seashells on it as they pass

Because the universe has a sense of humour, the sky unleashed what can only be described as a biblical rainstorm as soon as I left the shop

I told her you said hello, @dykeopathic, all the way from California which is a place she never knew - may never have known - but is very far away

I told her thousands of people around the world say hello, and I told her about @thebibliosphere who used to stop by but moved far away and can't visit her anymore.

And I left her a little toy whale I crocheted some time ago, a seashell I collected the last time I went to Aberdeen beach with @blarghala, and a bouquet of baby's breath

Because the universe has a sense of humour, as soon as I turned to leave it stopped raining completely.

[ID: a small grave stone in the shape of a celtic cross, which flares out toward the bottom, atop a plinth. the stone is a dark greyish-brown and is weathered and stained with moss and water marks. behind the grave is a large bush, ivy, and ferns that now partially obscure it.

the inscription is worn, but still readable. on the cross itself is inscribed (double slashes denote line breaks) "IN // MEMORY OF // WEE BESSIE". at the flared base of the cross are the words "AGED // 2 1/2 YEARS" followed by a horizontal line and then "W. WILSON". to either side, at ground level, are bright pink flowers. the ones on the right are obscured by foliage. to the left, stuck into the bush, is a large pinwheel in bright colours. the pinwheel is almost as large as the circular part of the celtic cross. to the right, similarly placed, is a bouquet of white baby's breath flowers in a cellophane wrap.

[ID: Ten gifs from Leverage of Irish mob members Liam and Connor having an argument outside of a church.

Liam, gesturing with his gun: The church. They’re in the church.

Connor: Oh, I’m not just busting into a church to kill two men.

Liam, suddenly getting an idea: What if they’re in the church basement? If they’re in the church basement, then we can kill ‘em.

Connor: So you’re implying that the church is holy, but the church basement isn’t.

Liam: They don’t say mass in the basement. The church basement is not holy ground.

Connor, mockingly: So, what, it goes holy ground, mmh, the basement, holy ground?

Liam: The Boy Scouts meet in the basement, and they’re not a religious group.

Connor, annoyed but confident: A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent! “Reverent” is right there at the end, because it is, if not a faith-based organization, not entirely secular.

Liam: So you’re not coming in with me.

The conversation picks up later, farther away from the church.

Liam: How do you know the Boy Scout law?

Connor: We all had dreams once, Liam.

END ID]

LEVERAGE APPRECIATION WEEK

SHOW - DAY 1 - FAVORITE QUOTE/SCENE