Whether your literary tastes lean more toward Pride and Prejudice or Fifty Shades of Grey, books can have a powerful effect on one’s own set of romantic ideals. Which is why the New York Public Library is a fan of February 14th and has created a unique way for you to share your love—of literature and that special someone in your life—this Valentine’s Day.
The NYPL wants you to “Send Some Library Love” via a conversation heart e-card, each one emblazoned with a library-themed message like “Check Me Out,” “Talk Wordy to Me,” or “You’re On Hold.” To send your own e-card, log onto the NYPL’s website, choose your preferred sentiment, personalize it with a message, hit send, and hope for your own storybook ending.
If you’re looking for a classic typewriter with the modern convenience of Internet connectivity, then the Qwerkywriter is the wireless keyboard for you. The elegant, vintage-style keyboard turns any iPad, tablet, or desktop computer into an old-school mechanical typewriter. No Wite-Out required.
Just connect the keyboard via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and your system will read it as if it were any other wireless keyboard. The three-pound keyboard is made from aluminum with “clicky” mechanical key caps and switches. It even features a built-in tablet stand, which mimics a real typewriter’s paper slot, feed rollers, and carriage return. It’s also rechargeable, with up to three months of battery life and standby time. The keyboard is compatible with iOS, Android, Windows 10, and Mac OS X.
Anyone who has ever read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudiceover the past 200 years has surely conjured up his or her own idea of what the curmudgeonly-but-lovable Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy would look like in real life. Since the 1995 premiere of the BBC’s beloved miniseries based on the book, that image may look a lot like Colin Firth. But a couple of academics and one illustrator are here to dash your dreams.
A group of researchers led by John Sutherland, a professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, and Amanda Vickery, a professor of Early Modern History at Queen Mary University of London, were recently commissioned by Drama TV to dig into Austen’s text (which offers very little description of Darcy), the author’s own romantic relationships (which often inspired her work), and the fashion standards of the time to create the first historically accurate image of one of literature’s most iconic leading men, courtesy of editorial artist and illustrator Nick Hardcastle. Here’s what he looks like…
Image courtesy of Drama TV.
According to a press release from Drama TV, “The new portraits paint a very different picture of the literary heartthrob when compared to modern day TV depictions, portrayed by Hollywood actors such as Colin Firth, Elliot Cowan, and Matthew Macfadyen.” We’ll say!
According to the team’s research, Mr. Darcy—who would stand just under six feet tall—would have “a long oval face with a small mouth, pointy chin, and long nose.” This pale-complexioned dreamboat would also have “slender sloping shoulders and [a] modest chest” and his hair would be white—and powdered.
“There are only scraps of physical description of Fitzwilliam Darcy to be found in Pride and Prejudice; he is our most mysterious and desirable leading man of all time,” Sutherland explained. “What’s fantastic about Jane Austen’s writing is that Mr. Darcy is both of the era and timeless. Our research for TV channel Drama’s Jane Austen Season shows how Austen herself envisioned Mr. Darcy, however the literature leaves space for the reader’s imagination to create their own Darcy and bring their own fantasies to the storyline.”
“Mr. Darcy is an iconic literary character, renowned for his good looks, charm, and mystery,” added Vickery. “As Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice in the 1790s, our Mr. Darcy portrayal reflects the male physique and common features at the time. Men sported powdered hair, had narrow jaws and muscular, defined legs were considered very attractive. A stark contrast to the chiseled, dark, brooding Colin Firth portrayal we associate the character with today. Drama’s ‘The Real Mr. Darcy’ … reveals that in recent times, Darcy’s character has been sexed up for the modern day audience with a turbo-charged injection of testosterone and steamy romance.”
You can see more of how the project came together in the video below:
Fifty years ago, a small group of Pittsburgh filmmakers decided to make a scary movie. Working from a shoestring budget with limited crew and a cast partly composed of amateur actors, they headed out to a Pennsylvania farmhouse and began crafting a horror classic.
Today, Night of the Living Dead is universally regarded as the king of zombie flicks, but it didn’t start out that way. What started as a weird idea for a movie about aliens went through rewrites, crucial casting decisions, and a little fire to become the film we know and love today. So, to celebrate the granddaddy of the modern zombie story, here are 10 gruesome facts about Night of the Living Dead.
1. THE ORIGINAL IDEA WAS AN ALIEN COMEDY.
In early 1967, writer/director George A. Romero, writer John A. Russo, and actor Rudy Ricci were working together at the Latent Image, their Pittsburgh-based commercial film company, when they decided it was time to try their hand at making a feature film. Though the effort eventually produced Night of the Living Dead, early concepts were very different. Russo initially thought of making a horror comedy about “hot-rodding” alien teens who would visit Earth, meet up with human teenagers, and generally cause mischief with the help of a cosmic pet called “The Mess.” The group’s budgetary constraints made this concept impossible, so Russo instead dreamed up an idea about a boy who runs away from home, only to discover a field of corpses under glass, which were rotting to the liking of alien creatures who would eventually consume them. Russo presented this idea to Romero, who latched on to the flesh-eating angle.
2. GEORGE ROMERO WAS HEAVILY INSPIRED BY I AM LEGEND.
Armed with Russo’s flesh-eating concept, Romero went to work, pairing it with a story he’d been working on that “basically ripped off” Richard Matheson’s apocalyptic horror novel I Am Legend. Russo later recalled that Romero returned with “about 40 really excellent pages,” including the opening in the cemetery and the arrival at the farmhouse. Russo set to work on the rest, and Night of the Living Dead began to come to life.
3. DUANE JONES REWROTE HIS OWN DIALOGUE AS BEN.
The character of Ben was originally written as an angry, rough truck driver, with somewhat crude dialogue to reflect that. When actor Duane Jones came aboard the production, he began revising the dialogue.
“As I recall, I believe that Duane himself upgraded his own dialogue to reflect how he felt the character should present himself,” actor/producer Karl Hardman, who played Harry Cooper, later recalled.
4. THE FAKE BLOOD WAS MADE ON A BUDGET.
Night of the Living Dead was made on a budget of less than $150,000, which meant everything from props to sets had to be created on the cheap. Since the film was shot in black and white, the crew never had to worry what color the blood was, so either red ink or chocolate syrup was used, depending on the desired effect in each shot. For the scene in which Karen Cooper (Kyra Schon) begins eating her father’s corpse, the crew’s leftover lunch was employed.
“Earlier in the day, we were eating hamburgers or meatball sandwiches, so they just smeared chocolate syrup all over it and that’s what I was biting into,” Schon said.
5. THE NUDE GHOUL CAUSED A SPECTATOR SCENE ON SET.
Reasoning that least some of the “ghouls” (Romero never referred to the creatures as zombies) would have woken up in the morgue and walked away naked, the crew opted for a single living dead extra to be nude on camera, and enlisted a local artist’s model for the job. When word spread that the production planned a nude scene during one of its night shoots, local residents apparently decided they wanted to have a look.
“The night they filmed the nude ghoul, all of Evans City found out about it. They had their lawn chairs set up around the edges of the property,” Judith Ridley, who played Judy, said. “It was funny to see the rest of the zombies trying to keep their eyes elsewhere instead of looking down at the obvious places on the nude one.”
6. THREE DIFFERENT CREW MEMBERS SET THEMSELVES ON FIRE DURING FILMING.
To add to the realism of the zombie attack scenes, both Russo and actor Bill Hinzman—who played the iconic “Cemetery Ghoul” in the opening sequence—volunteered to be set on fire. Russo was lit on fire during the scene when the survivors are throwing makeshift Molotov cocktails at the undead, while Hinzman poured lighter fluid on his suit so he could be lit during the scene in which Ben wards off the ghouls with a torch. In both cases, everything went according to plan, but one fire was started by accident.
For the scene in which Ben sets a chair on fire to distract the ghouls, crew member Gary Streiner volunteered to coat the prop with gasoline. Everything went fine for the first take, but when it came time to give it a second try, Streiner ran into trouble when he tried to add more gasoline.
“I just went over and started to pour the gas on and the liquid found a hot ember somewhere and a flame just came up into this container I’m holding in my hand,” he said. “I jumped back and all of a sudden I’m on fire!”
Hinzman came to the rescue and extinguished the flame before Streiner was seriously hurt.
7. BOTH ROMERO AND RUSSO MADE CAMEOS.
Night of the Living Dead’s co-creators make cameo appearances in the film. Russo played one of the ghouls who managed to reach into the farmhouse only to be struck with a tire iron, while Romero can be seen in the Washington D.C. sequences as a reporter.
8. JONES FOUGHT AGAINST AN ALTERNATE ENDING THAT WOULD HAVE SAVED BEN.
One of the film’s most famous elements is its grim ending, in which Ben, having survived the night, is shot by the sheriff’s zombie-hunting posse and thrown on the fire. At one point, a happier ending for the film was considered, but Jones fought it and won.
“I convinced George that the black community would rather see me dead than saved, after all that had gone on, in a corny and symbolically confusing way,” Jones said. “The heroes never die in American movies. The jolt of that, and the double jolt of the hero being black seemed like a double-barreled whammy.”
9. IT’S IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN BECAUSE OF A CREDITS ERROR.
Night of the Living Dead might be the most famous public domain movie of all time, but it was never intended to be. The Walter Reade Organization, which distributed the film, wanted to release it under the title Night of the Flesh Eaters, but lawyers representing the makers of 1964’s The Flesh Eaters threatened a lawsuit, so the title was changed to Night of the Living Dead. When the title changed, though, copyright notices were not added to the opening titles or to the end credits. Though the filmmakers have fought it in federal court, the film is still in the public domain.
10. ITS CREATORS SANCTIONED BOTH A REMAKE AND A REVISION OF THE ORIGINAL, BUT NEITHER WAS WELL RECEIVED.
In 1990, Russo, Romero, and other collaborators from the original film re-teamed to remake Night of the Living Dead, with the hope that the project would help shore up their original copyright claims. Russo produced, Romero revised the original script, and makeup effects wizard Tom Savini (who would have worked on the original film had he not been serving in Vietnam at the time) was brought in to direct. The film features a strong cast (including Tony Todd as Ben) and more sophisticated makeup effects, but failed to reach the classic status of its predecessor.
Then, in 1998, Russo, Hinzman, Hardman, and actor/producer Russ Streiner (who played Johnny) decided to revisit the film for its 30th anniversary. Inspired by the Star Wars Special Editions, Russo wrote and filmed new scenes for the project, including an origin story for the Cemetery Ghoul. The effort was not well received. As for Romero, though he wasn’t involved, he reported “no bad blood” between himself and his former collaborators.
USIA / National Archives and Records Administration Records of the U.S. Information Agency Record Group 306, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
Rosa Parks didn’t set out to become “the first lady of civil rights.” But when she defied Alabama law by refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger on December 1, 1955—and was arrested as a result of it—the impact of her act of defiance was far-reaching, and encouraged others to stand up with her.
On what would have been her 104th birthday, here are 15 inspiring quotes from Rosa Parks.
1. ON STANDING UP FOR ONESELF
“Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.”
2. AND 3. ON FEAR
“You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.”
“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
4., 5. AND 6. ON FREEDOM
“I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free … so other people would be also free.”
“Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.”
“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.”
7. ON REASON AND MADNESS
“There is just so much hurt, disappointment, and oppression one can take… The line between reason and madness grows thinner.”
8., 9. AND 10. ON LEGACY
“Each person must live their life as a model for others.”
“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.”
“I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.”
11. AND 12. ON RACISM
“Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.”
“As far back as I can remember, I knew there was something wrong with our way of life when people could be mistreated because of the color of their skin.”
13. AND 14. ON THE MONTGOMERY BUS BOYCOTT
“People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically … No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”
“I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.”
15. ON PAIN
“Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.”
For the second time in franchise history, the Atlanta Falcons are headed to the Super Bowl. Will they rise up and claim Atlanta’s first major pro sports championship since 1995? Super fan Samuel L. Jackson has definitely got his fingers crossed. From adventurous mascots to touchdown dance crazes, here’s a quick primer on everything you should know about the “Dirty Birds.”
1. ATLANTA’S TEAM WAS ALMOST THE CARDINALS.
Before the Falcons came along, the Arizona Cardinals (as we now know them) considered migrating to Atlanta. From 1960 to 1987, this storied football team played in St. Louis, where they were briefly holed up in an outdated stadium called Sportsman’s Park. Owners Bill and Charles Bidwill didn’t think much of this home field and the replacement was suffering constant delays, so between 1963 and 1964, they met with Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. to talk about the possibility of bringing their Cards to Georgia’s capital city. Faced with the threat of losing its NFL team, the city of St. Louis appeased the Bidwills by building Busch Memorial Stadium, a $24 million sports venue. It opened in 1966.
2. THEY WERE BORN IN 1965.
The Atlanta Falcons were born in 1965 as an NFL expansion team, which the league awarded to Atlanta-based insurance executive Rankin Smith for $8.5 million. At the time, this was the highest sum that had ever been paid for a professional sports franchise. (By comparison, in 2008 the Miami Dolphins were purchased for $1 billion. How times have changed.)
3. THE TEAM’S FIRST-EVER DRAFT PICK GOT SOME ADVICE FROM AN ASTRONAUT, AND IGNORED IT.
Linebacker Tommy “Mr. Falcon” Nobis has the distinction of being the franchise’s first-ever draft pick. He’s also one of the few athletes who’s ever gotten career advice from an astronaut. In college, Nobis averaged almost 20 tackles per game and led his Texas Longhorns to a national title in 1963. His skills caught the attention of two rival football leagues: the established National Football League and the upstart American Football League. (On June 8, 1966, the two leagues announced that they would merge and form the modern NFL.)
When he decided to turn pro, Nobis was drafted by both the Falcons—who were part of the old NFL—and the AFL’s Houston Oilers. News of this debacle reached the orbiting Gemini 7 spacecraft. In a transmission back to earth, astronaut Frank Borman said, “Tell Nobis to sign with Houston.” But the linebacker picked Atlanta instead. Nobis officially signed with the Falcons on December 14, 1965 and would play a major role in their inaugural season in 1966.
4. THEY’VE BASED THEIR TEAM COLORS ON POPULAR COLLEGE TEAMS.
Tim Warner/Getty Images
Why do the Falcons wear red and black? Their color scheme is an homage to the Georgia Bulldogs. Early in their history, the Falcons paid tribute to another beloved SEC team—the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets—with a pair of gold stripes that graced their helmets from 1966 to 1970.
5. A FORMER COACH USED SOME ODD PROPS TO MOTIVATE THE TEAM, INCLUDING A STICK OF DYNAMITE.
Interim head coach Jim Hanifan used some weird—and potentially dangerous—props in his motivational speeches. While the team was getting ready to take on the San Francisco 49ers in week 13 of the 1989 season, Hanifan walked into their locker room holding an unlit stick of dynamite. Imploring the players to “be explosive with every play,” he invited them to walk up and touch the strange visual aid. (It didn’t help; the Falcons lost 23-10.)
For the next game, when the club visited Minnesota, Hanifan brought in three hand grenades. After the Falcons were trounced 43-17, Hanifan upped the ante by leaving a disarmed bomb in the locker room. (Incidentally, he had the thing painted red and black. Nice touch.) One Falcon was reported as saying, “If we lose to Washington Sunday, [Hanifan’s] liable to show up for that last game with something nuclear.” The Falcons lost 31-30.
6. WHEN THEY DRAFTED BRETT FAVRE IN 1991, A LEAGUE EXECUTIVE MISPRONOUNCED HIS NAME AS “FAVOR.”
Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre famously spent his rookie season in Atlanta. When the Falcons nabbed him in the 1991 draft, the announcement was made by NFL executive Don Weiss, who mispronounced the last name of the future superstar. “Atlanta has selected Brett Favor, quarterback, Southern Mississippi,” Weiss said.
7. THEY WERE FANS OF M.C. HAMMER.
The 1991 Falcons chose M.C. Hammer’s “2 Legit 2 Quit” as their team anthem. That year, Hammer, who frequented Atlanta home games, gave wide receiver Andre Rison and cornerback Deion Sanders a cameo in the song’s official music video. Then-head coach Jerry Glanville made an appearance as well.
8. A 38-YARD OVERTIME FIELD GOAL SENT THEM TO THEIR FIRST SUPER BOWL.
One of the greatest moments in the Falcons’ franchise history came at the end of the 1998 NFC Championship Game, when kicker Morten Andersen made a 38-yard overtime field goal that sent the Falcons to their first Super Bowl. Andersen was one incredible athlete: During his 25-year NFL career, he took the field in 382 games, more than any other player in league history. Furthermore, he’s also the NFL’s all-time leading scorer. Andersen clinched this latter record as a member of the Falcons. During a 2006 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, he nailed an extra point attempt in the second quarter. This gave him 2435 career points overall—one more than the previous record-holder. By the time he retired, Andersen had drilled in a grand total of 2544 points, including the 806 he made in a Falcons jersey.
9. THEIR “DIRTY BIRD” DANCE WAS A HIT WITH FANS.
Show us a Falcons fan who grew up in the 1990s, and we’ll show you someone who probably knows the “Dirty Bird” dance by heart. Running back Jamal Anderson is usually credited with inventing the jig during Atlanta’s ’98 Super Bowl run. Before long, everybody on the roster was doing it—even head coach Dan Reeves showed off his own version right after the Falcons were handed the 1998 NFC Championship trophy.
The following off-season, Atlanta linebacker Jessie Tuggle made an appearance at a local elementary school function. At one child’s request, the NFL veteran started doing the Dirty Bird. But just a few seconds in, the kid interrupted him. “He said, ‘That’s not how Jamal does it!’” Tuggle recalled to The New York Times. “And then he started doing it himself to show me. That was pretty much the last time I agreed to do the Dirty Bird when someone asked me.”
10. THE TEAM’S MASCOT ONCE FLEW AWAY DURING PRACTICE DRILLS.
For the club’s first 15 seasons, an actual falcon assumed mascot duty. Back then, the team played in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which didn’t have a roof. As avian trainer Mike Cady found out the hard way, this was not an ideal situation. While practicing drills on the field one day in 1966, Cady’s raptor suddenly flew out of the building. “[The bird] just chickened out,” Cady told the press. The wayward falcon was later recovered when somebody saw it loitering at a Kraft food plant in suburban Atlanta and called Cady, who quickly recaptured his escapee.
11. THE TEAM’S GOT A STAR-STUDDED FAN BASE.
Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
The Falcons have one star-studded fan base: Jeff Foxworthy, Samuel L. Jackson, Jimmy Carter, and Usher are among the many celebrities who live and die with the Dirty Birds. Believe it or not, one of their most prominent boosters is now the quarterback of a rival team. Carolina Panthers QB Cam Newton grew up in Atlanta, where he rooted for the Falcons through thick and thin. Despite the fact that he presently plays for another franchise in the same division, Newton’s affection for his hometown team remains strong. “I’ve always been a Falcon fan,” he said in a 2013 interview, “and I’m still a Falcons fan—except for those two times a year [when they play Carolina].”
Another Falcons diehard? Moe Szyslak from The Simpsons. In the season 10 episode “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday,” Springfield’s number one bartender leapt at the chance to attend Super Bowl XXXIII because it features his “favorite team,” the Falcons. “Ever since I was a boy,” he tells Homer, “I’ve always loved the Atlanta Falcons.”
12. THEY WERE THE FIRST TEAM TO FACE OFF AGAINST THE SAINTS IN NEW ORLEANS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA.
In week three of the 2006 season, the Falcons were the visiting team in the first post-Katrina home game of their perennial archrivals, the New Orleans Saints. As a Monday Night game, it was broadcast by ESPN. Over 10 million people across the country tuned in to watch the meaningful matchup, giving it the second-largest cable audience of any broadcast in history at the time.
13. IN 2012, THOMAS DECOUD PLAYED THE “MEOW GAME” WITH AN ESPN REPORTER.
Back in 2012, Thomas DeCoud, a free safety who suited up for Atlanta from 2008 to 2013, decided to mess with ESPN sportscaster Bram Weinstein by playing the Super Troopers “meow” game during a live interview. For the uninitiated, the rules—as established in the 2001 cult comedy—are straightforward: Just find somebody to talk with and then see how many times you can sneak the word “meow” into your sentences before he or she catches on. In the span of four minutes, DeCoud dropped 14 audible meows. Weinstein later claimed that he finally realized what was going on near the end of the interview. “You killed me man,” he told DeCoud on Twitter after the fact. “Funny. I’m a Falcons fan now. Meow.”
14. QUARTERBACK MATT RYAN’S CAREER GOT OFF TO A GREAT START.
Talk about a great first impression: Current starting quarterback Matt Ryan’s very first professional pass in the NFL, in 2008, was a 62-yard touchdown throw to wide receiver Michael Jenkins.
15. A PLAYER’S WIFE WAS RECENTLY AWARDED THE TEAM BALL—AND WITH GOOD REASON.
After a particularly hard day as a new mom, the ball was a reminder that I can be as tough as the rest of our team! See you in Houston! pic.twitter.com/fnlFj3LpBy
Last month, Atlanta held off Seattle with a final score of 36-20 to secure an NFC Championship appearance—the club’s second in five years. Katie Levitre, wife of Falcons guard Andy Levitre, would’ve had a great excuse for missing that Seahawks game: She went into labor just before kickoff. But instead of calling an ambulance, Katie decided to stay put in the stadium. She also refrained from breaking the news to her husband until after the game. That afternoon, the couple went to a local hospital where Katie gave birth to their first child, a healthy baby girl they named Lily. In recognition of her amazing toughness, the proud new mother was awarded the game ball by head coach Dan Quinn.
16. THEY’RE ABOUT TO GET A NEW HOME.
The Falcons will soon have a new nest to roost in. The team is set to move into Mercedes-Benz Stadium, a $1.5 billion venue presently under construction, for the upcoming season. Among other things, the surrounding plaza will feature the largest metal bird statue on Earth—a football-clutching metallic falcon with a 64-foot wingspan.
17. ONE FALCONS SUPER FAN HAS BANNED THE SALE OF SAMUEL ADAMS BEER IN HIS STORE UNTIL AFTER THIS YEAR’S SUPER BOWL.
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for NYCWFF
An Exxon gas station in Gainesville, Georgia recently made headlines when the manager, Hadji Chhadua, decided to ban the sale of Samuel Adams beer in his establishment until after Super Bowl LI. The story quickly gained traction on Twitter, where the Boston-based brewery weighed in with a couple of tweets, one of which read “don’t worry Atlanta, we’re still drinking Coca-Cola.”
Poet. Novelist. Playwright. Activist. There wasn’t much that Langston Hughes couldn’t do. Born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902, Hughes—an innovator of the jazz poetry art form—eventually made his way to New York City, where he became one of the most recognized leaders of the Harlem Renaissance. But even amongst his peers, Hughes’s work stood out as unique.
In 1973’s Modern Black Poets: A Collection of Critical Essays, critic Donald B. Gibson wrote that Hughes “differed from most of his predecessors among black poets … in that he addressed his poetry to the people, specifically to black people. During the twenties when most American poets were turning inward, writing obscure and esoteric poetry to an ever decreasing audience of readers, Hughes was turning outward, using language and themes, attitudes and ideas familiar to anyone who had the ability simply to read.”
On the occasion of what would have been his 115th birthday (Hughes passed away in 1967, at the age of 65), here are 20 inspiring quotes from Langston Hughes.
1. ON HUMOR
“Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it … what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.”
2. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DREAMS
“A dream deferred is a dream denied.”
3. ON CENSORSHIP
“We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.”
4. AND 5. ON FREEDOM
“In all my life, I have never been free. I have never been able to do anything with freedom, except in the field of my writing.”
“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”
6. ON THE PURPOSE OF ART
“Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people—the beauty within themselves.”
7. ON NOT TAKING “BUT” FOR AN ANSWER
“I will not take ‘but’ for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy’s ‘but’ too long.”
8. AND 9. ON THE WRITING PROCESS
“I must never write when I do not want to write.”
“Writing is like traveling. It’s wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.”
10. ON DETERMINATION
“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”
11. ON THE PLACE OF POLITICS IN POETRY
“Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.”
12. AND 13. ON DEMOCRACY
“Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.”
“I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.”
14. ON LIFE AND DEATH
“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”
15. ON THE DUTY OF BLACK ARTISTS
“To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering ‘I want to be white,’ hidden in the aspirations of his people, to ‘Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro—and beautiful!’”
16. ON LIVING IN THE PRESENT
“I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.”
17. ON SEEKING STRENGTH FROM WITHIN
“When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself.”
18. ON REVOLUTION
“Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.”
19. ON THE NATURE OF JAZZ
“Jazz, to me, is one of the inherent expressions of Negro life in America: the eternal tom-tom beating in the Negro soul—the tom-tom of revolt against weariness in a white world, a world of subway trains, and work, work, work; the tom-tom of joy and laughter, and pain swallowed in a smile.”
20. ON BEER
“Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.”
The immense success of Making a Murderer—the addictive 2015 documentary series that follows the incredible story of Steven Avery, a 54-year-old Wisconsin man who has been in prison since 2005 for a murder he may or may not have committed—was surprising to a lot of people, including the powers-that-be at Netflix. Reed Hastings, the company’s CEO, admitted that his main thought about the series was, “I hope it wins some awards, because it’s not going to be popular.”
The series did win awards, including four Emmys. It also racked up a legion of fans who couldn’t get enough of the twisty case—and begged Netflix to give them more. So it was hardly surprising when, seven months after the series first dropped, Netflix confirmed that it had ordered a second season. And now it looks as if we’ll be seeing more of Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, this year. Here’s everything we know about Season 2 of Making a Murderer.
1. IT WILL FOCUS ON THE POST-CONVICTION PROCESS.
When news first broke that Making a Murderer would get a second season, Variety reported that, “This next chapter will provide an in-depth look at the high-stakes post-conviction process, as well as the emotional toll the process takes on all involved.”
2. EVEN BEFORE IT WAS OFFICIALLY RENEWED, LAURA RICCIARDI AND MOIRA DEMOS WERE WORKING ON A SECOND SEASON.
Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos will again be co-directing Making a Murderer. Having spent 10 years working on the first season (without any distribution commitment), Making a Murderer is clearly a passion project for the duo. Even before they were given the official go-ahead for a second season by Netflix, the two were already at work on it.
“I think today marks four weeks since the series launched and what we’ve managed to do in the past four weeks is have several phone calls with Steven Avery which we have recorded with an eye toward including them in future episodes,” Ricciardi told the press at a Television Critics Association event in early 2016. “We have not returned to Wisconsin in the past four weeks.”
“As we said before, in relation to this story, this story is ongoing, these cases are open,” Demos added. “It’s real-life so you don’t know what’s going to happen. We are ready … if there are significant developments, we will be there. And we are looking at other stories, as well.”
3. KATHLEEN ZELLNER WILL PLAY AN IMPORTANT PART.
In 2016, Avery hired famed defense attorney Kathleen Zellner—who, according to her website, “has righted more wrongful prosecutions than any private attorney in America” in the past 23 years—to represent him. “When I watched the Avery case, I felt that the attitude toward him by the prosecutors and the state was that he was disposable,” Zellner told Newsweek. “It was almost like a class thing. [His family] didn’t matter, they had no power. The longer I watched it, the more angry I got.”
Since then, Zellner has stated that there is “significant evidence” that proves Avery’s innocence in the murder of Teresa Halbach. So expect her to play a major role in the second season.
4. WE’LL SEE BRENDAN DASSEY’S CONVICTION BE OVERTURNED.
On August 12, 2016, a U.S. District Court judge in Wisconsin overturned the murder conviction of Brendan Dassey, Avery’s nephew and alleged accomplice, and it was reported that he’d likely be released from prison approximately 90 days later. In November, just days before he was scheduled to leave prison, his release was blocked by a federal appeals court. Dassey remains behind bars today, and we’ll see this play out in season two—though part of it may be as a mock trial. According to The Independent, because Ricciardi and Demos were not present to see Dassey’s conviction overturned, they’re planning to recreate it for season two.
5. THE NEW SEASON WILL DROP IN 2017.
Though Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vice president of original content, confirmed that Making a Murderer’s second season will drop “sometime this year,” that’s as specific as they’re willing to get. “We don’t know when for sure new episodes will be coming,” Holland told USA Today. Part of that uncertainty likely has to do with the legal nature of the show, and the fact that both Avery and Dassey’s cases are ongoing—so new developments could shape the second season in different ways.
“There are certain things happening with respect to both those cases that we’re waiting to take place before we bring it to the world,” Lisa Nishimura, Netflix’s vice president of original documentary and comedy programming, told The Hollywood Reporter in late 2016. Given that the original season’s popularity was partly attributed to it being released in December—over the holidays, when people had time to binge-watch—don’t be surprised to see season two served up in December.
Okay, okay: It’s probably just a pun to mark the first day of shooting on the spin-off film. But come on, of courseHan shot first.
The Solo-centric film is set to be released next year, with Hail Caesar! star Alden Ehrenreich front and center as a young Solo and Atlanta‘s Donald Glover taking on the role of Lando Calrissian. Woody Harrelson and Emilia Clarke are also involved in the project. Phil Lord will direct alongside Miller; the two have worked together on 21 Jump Street, The LEGO Movie, and their respective sequels.
The universe doesn’t have to be expanding into anything in order to expand. I know that sounds ridiculous, so let me give you a different example that is easier to understand.
Imagine that you have a line that goes on forever. On that line, you have a mark every inch. There are an infinite number of inches. Now move each marker so that they are separated by two inches. The whole pattern has expanded. It still goes to infinity, but the markers are further apart. The pattern has expanded, but the length is still infinite.
Now a new example: Suppose you have a long piece of rubber, going all the way to infinity. (That piece of rubber represents the universe.) The rubber has marks on it every inch. Now stretch the rubber, until the markers are two inches apart. It still goes to infinity—but it has expanded.
Physicists think of “space” not as emptiness, but similar to a piece of rubber. (But they don’t call it rubber; they call it the “vacuum.” “Particles,” in physics, are just vibrations of the vacuum.) The vacuum can expand, just like the piece of rubber. But because it goes all the way to infinity, it doesn’t need more space. A clever way to say it is that “there’s lots of room at infinity”. (That’s clever, but it doesn’t really explain anything.)
Now here is something new that might confuse you, or might help. In the standard physics theory, the galaxies are all getting farther apart; that is the expansion of the universe. Yet in the way the theory describes it (I mean in General Relativity Theory), none of the galaxies are actually moving. All that is happening is that the amount of space (vacuum) in between them is increasing.
No, you will not learn this in school, or even in college (unless you have an extraordinary professor). It is usually taught in graduate school, when you are earning a Ph.D. degree. At that point the language you will encounter is this: “In the Big Bang Theory, all galaxies have fixed coordinates. (That means they are not moving.) The ‘expansion’ is described by the ‘metric tensor,’ which describes the distances between those fixed coordinates. In the Big Bang Theory, it is the metric tensor which is changing; that represents the expansion of the universe, even though the galaxies aren’t moving. The recent discovery of accelerated expansion means that the rate of expansion is increasing.”
Maybe you’ve read about the curvature of space. Put a black hole between two unmoving objects, and the distance between them will suddenly increase—even though they haven’t moved. So “distance” is not as simple as people thought. It was Einstein who came up with the remarkable idea that “space” (that is, vacuum) is flexible; it can curve and stretch.
I expect you will find this to be very confusing. That’s not a bad sign; it is a good one. When you learn new things that are completely different than you ever imagined, then “confusion” is the first step.
