My Review Of Listen, And Why It's Better Than Blink.

simongerman600

My joint review of Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline.

Man, I hope they rehire Jamie Mathieson next season and every season.

Giveaway Contest: We’re giving away fifteen paperback classics that were hand-picked by you! Won’t this collection look lovely on your shelf? :D To win these classics, you must: 1) be following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblog this post. We will choose a random winner on December 29, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. And yes, we’ll ship to any country. Easy, right? Good luck!

Please, reblog! IIt’s called self defense. Apart from having here, in the US, one of the highest cases of homicide and rape in the world and high rate of GBV, think about how this could help your mother or sister

Me trying to figure out the distance between places and how long it’ll take a character to get there in a society that travels mostly on foot:

My review of Robot of Sherwood.

"The meeting between these two fantastic figures should be the most revolutionary and politically explosive episode since...

... oh, no, wait, it's a Gatiss script."

Minor correction -- Reagan didn’t fund Bin Laden. Bin Laden was in Afghanistan, but was sitting on the sidelines watching everything go down. The Saudis were initially highly resented for that approach.

It was in the aftermath of the disastrous civil war that followed out departure without building infrastructure or bothering to support the right people that he was able to gain a foothold with the angry.

Now, America was funding Bin Laden for decades -- but not because of the Soviet-Afghan war. The Saudi royal family belongs to the Wahhabi sect of Islam, the same radical school that birthed both Al Qaeda and ISIS, and have spend decades funneling the money we pay them for oil directly back into terrorism against us. Our thirst for black gold has been paid in blood for decades, and that’s fueled endless violence.

But nobody talks about this because we don’t want to have a mess fighting the Saudis -- the do, after all, have the Muslim Holy City, and can you imagine that disaster? --, it’s easier for liberals to just blame Reagan than acknowledge the more complex truth of what we’ve done (and our own complicity), and heaven knows we don’t want to be paying $3 a gallon.

To be clear, this is just a correction of a minor point. The thrust of everything above? Important truth.

wait….are any americans aware that the cia overthrew the democratically-elected premier of iran in 1953 because he wouldn’t concede to western oil demands….and how that coup was the reason for the shah’s return to power, the iranian revolution, and the resulting fundamentalist dictatorship…..like, america literally dissolved iranian democracy and no one knows about it???

My latest cartoon for @GuardianBooks.

Man, Ophelia gets even more screwed in this version.

Hamlet, Scooby-Doo Style

[This is one of the funniest, most brilliant damn things I’ve ever read.  It dates from very early Internet days and I thought it deserved resurrection to Le Tumble]

This recently discovered folio edition of “Hamlet” follows other known versions closely until Act V, Scene II, where it begins to diverge at line 232, as will be seen:

KING: …`Now the king drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin, And you the judges, bear a wary eye.

Trumpets sound. HAMLET and LAERTES take their stations

HAMLET: Come on, sir.

LAERTES: Come, my lord.

Enter FRED, DAPHNE, VELMA, SHAGGY, AND SCOOBY

DAPHNE: Wait!

SHAGGY: Stop the fight!

HAMLET and LAERTES put up their foils

KING: I like this not. Say wherefore you do speak?

FRED: Good lord, I pray thee, let thy anger wait. For we, in seeking clues, have found the truth Behind the strange events of latter days.

VELMA: The first clue came from Elsinore’s high walls, Where, so said Hamlet, Hamlet’s ghost did walk. Yet though the elder Hamlet met his death, And perforce hath been buried in the ground, ‘Tis yet true one would not expect a ghost To carry mud upon his spectral boots. Yet mud didst Shaggy and his faithful hound Espy, with footprints leading to a drop. This might, at first, indeed bespeak a ghost… Until, when I did seek for other answers, I found a great, wide cloth of deepest black Discarded in the moat of Elsinore. ‘Tis clear, the “ghost” used this to slow his fall While darkness rendered him invisible.

FRED: The second clue we found, my lord, was this.

KING: It seems to me a portrait of my brother In staine’d glass, that sunlight may shine through.

FRED: But see, my lord, when placed before a lantern–

KING: My brother’s ghost!

HAMLET: My father!

VELMA: Nay, his image.

FRED: In sooth, that image caught the Prince’s eye When he went to confront his lady mother. Nor did his sword pierce poor Polonius. For Hamlet’s blade did mark the castle wall Behind the rent made in the tapestry. Polonius was murdered by another. The knife which killed him entered from behind.

LAERTES: But who?

FRED: Indeed my lords, that you shall see.

HAMLET: And if this ghost was naught but light and air, Then what of that which I did touch and speak to?

The GHOST enters.

GHOST: Indeed, my son.

SHAGGY: Zoinks!

DAPHNE: Jenkies!

GHOST: Mark them not. Thou hast neglected duty far too long. Shall this, my murderer, live on unharmed? Must I remain forever unavenged?

SCOOBY and SHAGGY run away from the GHOST. SCOOBY, looking backward, runs into a tapestry, tearing it down. As a result, tapestries around the walls collapse, one surrounding the GHOST.

GHOST: What?

FRED: Good Osric, pray restrain that “ghost”, That we may reach the bottom of the matter. Now let us see who truly walked tonight.

FRED removes the helm and the disguise from the GHOST’S face.

ALL: Tis Fortinbras!

FRED: The valiant prince of Norway!

FORTINBRAS: Indeed it is, and curses on you all! This Hamlet’s father brought my own to death, And cost me all my rightful heritage. And so I killed this king, and hoped his son Would prove no obstacle to Norway’s crown. Then Claudius bethought himself the killer (As if one might be poisoned through the ear!) The brother, not the son, took Denmark’s throne, And held to Norway with a tighter grip. I swore an end to Denmark’s royal house. I spoke to Hamlet of his uncle’s crimes. Then killed Polonius to spark Laertes. This day, with poison’s aid, all might have died, And Denmark might have come to me as well As my beloved Norway and revenge. My scheme blinded them all, as if by fog But for these medd'ling kids and this their dog.

KING: The villain stands confessed. Now let us go. For much remains to us to be discussed. And suitable reward must needs be found For these, our young detectives and their hound.

EXEUNT OMNES. Copyright 1993 Michael S. Schiffer

Giveaway: We’re giving away 12 vintage classics by Truman Capote, Mary Shelley, Chinua Achebe, Shakespeare, John Keats, and others! Won’t they look lovely on your shelf? =) Enter to win these classics by: 1) following macrolit on Tumblr (yes, we will check. :P), and 2) reblogging this post. We will choose a random winner on 3 July, at which time we’ll start a new giveaway. Good luck! Follow our IG account to be eligible for our IG giveaways. For full rules to all of our giveaways, click here.