PicoBlog

I was never able to get into Harry Potter. When J.K. Rowling’s first book was released on September 1, 1998, I was a die-hard Game of Thrones fan, eagerly awaiting A Clash of Kings, the sequel to G.R.R. Martin’s bestselling book. (If you haven’t read Martin’s books, you must. You will not be disappointed.) I had little time or interest in Hogwarts, the ridiculously named school (let’s be honest) where children with British accents are taught wizardry and witchcraft.

(All articles this month are to get attention to our new Kickstarter. If you like weird, retro indie games or RPGs, it’s worth a look.) Video games function best as power fantasies. This is a statement that can generate controversy, though fifty years of video game history show that it is true. We've seen debates about whether video games can be art. Whether the word "fun" has meaning. Whether a Walking Simulator is a game (though that genre has mostly vanished, unlamented).

We are offically halfway through Season 10 Hearties! Time has really flown by! Part of my is glad that we are halfway through, since we’ve been promised in various interviews that things really start to pick up in the back half of the season. The other part of me however, is scared. We’re halfway through already, and while the first six episodes have been lovely and very feel-good, not much has actually happened or progressed.

I found myself breathless as I watched the last 15 or so minutes of episode 3 of Heart of Invictus. Without spoiling it, we are thrown a curveball—a new storyline—on top of the already moving stories we are following already. I had tears streaming down my face and promptly made myself a bowl of Cookies n’ Cream ice cream at 10:30am because damnit I needed it. Basically a sweet tooth’s equivalent to a whisky and a cigarette.

Today I’m sharing a story that blew my mind. Who knew? The cruelty described is unfathomable, and of course, the star of the exposé, a man called the “Torture King,” lives in a basement festooned with Confederate and MAGA flags. I’m not going to comment too much on this incredible story, but I wanted to share it with you. This is the astonishing lede of 1 News New Zealand reporting on a stunning BBC investigation:

Demolition Man (1993) is the greatest movie that the general culture has not openly recognized as a Great Movie. It was born of strange alchemy: a sincere action movie re-written to be a comedy by the writer of Heathers (1988), Daniel Waters, it attracted talent far above what it might have merited, including Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes both at the height of their powers, mainstays like Bob Gunton and Sir Nigel Hawthorne (before he was knighted), and as-yet-unknowns who would go on to be knowns, like Sandra Bullock and Benjamin Bratt, and blink-and-you’ll-miss him, Jack Black.

The heyoka is a kind of sacred clown in the culture of the Sioux. The heyoka is a contrarian, jester, and satirist, who speaks, moves and reacts in an opposite fashion to the people around them. Only those having visions of the thunder beings of the west, the Wakíŋyaŋ, and who are recognized as such by the community, can take on the ceremonial role of the heyoka. Lol at this: “Only those having visions of the thunder beings of the west can take on the ceremonial role of the heyoka.

I am Garance, and, as you’re about to see, I love oversharing. It might be why you’re here, and I totally get it, because who wouldn’t want to know everything about a French woman living in Somerset (that’s in England, I discovered this recently myself) with her dog (and, sometimes, her husband) and recovering from being a fashion superstar?  Not me. For those of you who haven’t met me before, in a decade far, far away, I used to be a fashion blogger, one that shared her fashion illustrations, her street style photographs, and, well, who already loved talking at length about her life in all its glory and misery, except at that time it was entirely groundbreaking and now it’s just what everybody does.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana “I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: We’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.” — Kurt Vonnegut Cocaine Bear comes out on Friday. It is about a 500-lb black bear who ingests a duffel bag full of cocaine and presumably does the bear version of Al Pacino’s rampage at the end of Brian De Palma’s Scarface.