I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. …
When Ophelia appears onstage in Act IV, scene V, singing little songs and handing out imaginary flowers, she temporarily upsets the entire power dynamic of the Elsinore court. When I picture that scene, I always imagine Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Horatio sharing a stunned look, all of them thinking the same thing: “We fucked up. We fucked up bad.” It might be the only moment of group self-awareness in the whole play. Not even the grossest old Victorian dinosaur of a critic tries to pretend that Ophelia is making a big deal out of nothing. Her madness and death is plainly the direct result of the alternating tyranny and neglect of the men in her life. She’s proof that adolescent girls don’t just go out of their minds for the fun of it. They’re driven there by people in their lives who should have known better.
I did not deliberately set out to make my past few months’ nonfiction reading into a rec list for a more in-depth look at the political issues addressed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Honest. (Mostly honest. The Paperclip book might’ve caught my eye in part because of the shoutout in Cap 2.) But one of the reasons I fell in love with the movie was the great big middle finger it gave the American national-security complex… and then when I was tumbling ever further down the nonfiction rabbit hole and things started sounding eerily familiar, I realized, duh, the scriptwriters for TWS were probably reading a lot of the same books I was.
I don’t make any claim that this is an exhaustive list. As noted, it’s a straight-up list of books I’ve picked up recently, so I have no doubt there are other relevant ones I’m missing. But it’s a pretty solid overview. So without further ado, I give you: the “Actually, a Hydra conspiracy would be less disturbing” national security reading list.
Jane Mayer – The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals.
Tom Engelhardt – Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World.
Dana Priest and William Arkin – Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State.
Annie Jacobsen – Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America.
More detailed writeups and a bit of a rant under the read-more link. (Gist of the rant: The best and scariest thing about Cap 2 is that the most disturbing things about SHIELD/Hydra are 100% based in fact.)
Coming back to this list, I’d also like to add Bruce Schneier’s Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World. Schneier is no paranoid crank or partisan hack; he’s been a well known, widely respected computer security expert since the mid-late 90s, and he has a knack for distilling very technical issues down to the essentials of what it all means and why it matters. He’s also a reliably lucid voice on broader issues of security, risk, fear, the establishment of trust, and the foundations of civil society.
I’m telling you all this because the apocalyptic wasteland described in this book, which will make you want to flush your phone down the toilet and never drive or take public transit anywhere ever again, is actually a pretty restrained take on the situation from a guy who knows what he’s talking about and understands the needs, stakes, and motivations of all parties involved.
(Notably, Schneier does not encourage you to flush your phone down the toilet, or up stakes and move to a bunker in Montana. Part of his point is that if seeing the very tip of the data-exploitation iceberg makes you feel like you have to, something is horribly out of whack and there’s no actual reason Certain Parties need to be given unfettered, unsupervised access to every single thing they ask for.)
Zola’s algorithm is already out there, more versions of it than anyone knows how to count, ticking away in the cloud. To paraphrase a different Schneier quote, it’s bad civic hygiene to sit around waiting for someone to decide that building death helicarriers out of it would be a great way to keep the world safe.
Peggy Carter’s grave is filled so quickly by her friends and family that they don’t need gravediggers
Tony Stark sometimes wonders if the Arc Reactor could be marketed to synagogues as a Ner Tamid
Pepper Potts’ grandfather called her “Peppila”
The first time Bruce Banner comes back from his transformation, he says the
Shehecheyanu
In Israel, people call Thor “Makebet” and he is known to get an inordinate number of Hanukkah party invites
Natasha Romanoff can pull herself out of flashbacks by reciting the shema
Clint Barton only goes to synagogue on Kol Nidre, and won’t let anyone go with him
Nick Fury’s hebrew name is Niv Amichai, for his grandfather
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD
Magneto says the shema when anything vaguely dangerous starts happening. It’s a habit. He recites it under his breathe more out of habit that anything else now, he’s suffered but at least he’s alive. He’s genuinely surprised when he watches Billy do the same thing years later.
Tommy and Pietro compete to about can read
haggadah passages the fastest so they can get to food sooner.
Wanda uses her powers to show “animated” versions of the stories to the her and Pietro’s children every holiday.
Kitty will get vegetarian options if they’re at a non kosher restaurant.
Robbie Reyes worries for months about whether or not he’s able to step into a shule after becoming the Ghost Rider because he knows Gabe’s Bar Mitzvah is coming up (via @russianspacegeckosexparty )
Elijah Bradley makes sure to light Yartzeit candles for his grandfather every year.
Isaiah Bradley is extra proud to be going against Nazis, because he knows he embodies every last thing they hate, and that he will win.
Kate Bishop had a super fancy Bat Mitzvah party, and no one realizes her favorite part of the whole day was receiving the silver wine glass handed down on her mother’s side.
Oh hey look, something that ISN’T TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT 😀
… Step 1. Realize that you should exercise. Step 2 ? Step 3. HEALTH!
When you’re depressed, that question mark can be a barely navigable labyrinth of garbage fires fueled by physical and mental exhaustion, self-loathing, defeat, and frustration. The last time I found myself trying to hack through that mess during a particularly dark period, I started to come up with my own list of bare-bones, practical tips to help me face the idea of moving again. Now I’m sharing them, in case they might help someone else in a similar position. I stress the word “might.” If you’re depressed, the last thing you need is another a-hole telling you what you should do. But if you’re looking for somewhere to start, I’ve been there too.
First heading? “You don’t have to exercise.” I love this entire piece. It’s going on facebook, that’s how much I love it. A+
“The perfect body is a breathing one. Anything that serves those ends is worth considering. Everything else is noise.”
I want the recipe for the mustard-roasted potatoes, and if it’s any good, for the chicken and dumplings. If you please, kind sir.
IT IS. He is my culinary avatar. It was either that one or
I’ll post the mustard potatoes recipe if it turns out to be any good. The chicken and dumplings is more of a procedure than a recipe, it’s for the pressure cooker, but I’ll check in with Sci and see if she’s ok with me posting it.
Sci’s Mostly Fudged Recipe for Chicken and Dumplings for your Electric Pressure Cooker
(I use bone in chicken thighs, 4-6 of them for this recipe, because they are cheap and plentiful and I like dark meat better. You can easily use chicken breasts, but if you use boneless, I’d reduce the cook time a bit)
-Roll chicken in poultry seasoning, salt, pepper, thyme and whatever other seasonings you have and like. Let this sit in the fridge while you get the pot ready and get things going.
-Roughly chop an onion and a stalk of celery if you have it, including the leaves.
-Turn pressure cooker to sauté, add butter or oil just to shine the bottom of the pan. Saute onions and celery, then remove from cooker.
-If your oil/butter is gone, add a little more. Add chicken, brown on both sides. Cook in multiple batches if you need additional room.
-Remove chicken from the pot and add 3-4 cups of chicken stock or broth, a tablespoon of soy sauce and a splash of Worcestershire if you have it. This will both help the taste and also make the gravy look less… Anemic. Stir pot to make sure that any browned on bits are removed from the bottom of the pot and won’t end up burning. If you have fresh herbs (parsley, rosemary, ect) chop up a few leaves and toss ‘em in with the broth. Add veg and chicken, make sure that the broth covers the chicken. If it doesn’t, add a little more liquid.
-Close lid and lock, closing the steam vent. Set pressure cooker for 20 minutes.
-When time is up, quick release the steam, open the lid, and remove the chicken from the pot. Put the cooker back to ‘saute’ and bring the broth to a boil while you pull chicken off the bone or shred boneless chicken.
-Make dumplings from favorite recipe. I use bisquick’s, because I’m lazy. Consider replacing some of the liquid in the dumplings recipe with some of the broth, especially if you’ve added herbs, because it results in a much tastier dumpling.
-Once the broth has been back at a roiling boil, drop dumplings by small spoonful into the liquid. They will puff and spread almost immediately. Try to space them out a bit.
-Close lid and wait about five minutes with the pressure cooker on sauté and the steam vent closed.
-Open cooker, remove a dumpling and cut into it to make sure it’s cooked all the way through. If it’s not, put cover back on for another minute or two. If it is, remove dumplings to a plate or bowl. The broth should’ve absorbed some of the starch/flour from the dumplings and be closer to gravy now. If it’s not thick enough for you, stir a bit of milk into a tablespoon or two of cornstarch and add to broth to thicken. If it’s too thick, add just milk.
-The gravy will be a bit lumpy and not particularly attractive because of A. bits of dumpling and B. the veg. But dang it tastes good.
-Eat over rice, mashed potato, or just with the dumplings. You can toss frozen vegetables into the hot gravy at the end, or serve with roasted carrots, or a salad. Works well as leftovers.
“Dropping the shield is a rejection of the Captain America identity and a choice to embrace the Steve Rogers identity,” Anthony Russo says.
please don’t forget that steve didn’t just drop the shield in cacw to show he’s choosing to protect bucky—he also dropped it to show he’s choosing himself. bucky, and his friendship, and the connection to the past that he represents, is of course an inextricable part of that self. but bucky isn’t the only part.
captain america, the mantle that steve’s worn for so long, is arguably most visible through this shield. it was created for captain america. it is his best and most enduring and most recognizable weapon. the shield represents all the honor of the role, and all the responsibility of the role, and all the heaviness of the role. it’s a literal weight to carry. one that people who matter to steve (natasha, bucky, others) have picked up time to time in battle, a metaphorical sharing of the burden.
make no mistake—steve can carry the weight of the shield. he wears it well. he is captain america, insomuch that captain america is the persona the world needed to give him so he was allowed to use his powers to actually do something. but as soon as this mantle, this title, this legacy, this shield, becomes representative of someone else’s ideals rather than his own, steve makes a decision:
drop it.
when he leaves the shield in that bunker in siberia, he’s leaving behind a lot of things: his role on a team that felt more like someone else’s family than his own; the identity created for him by 70 years in the ice and never recrafted to fit who steve was when he got unfrozen; the expectations placed on him by the world at large based on that identity; the need to put faith in and take orders from and represent institutions he’s progressively been losing trust in since the WSC ordered a nuke to hit NYC.
when he leaves the shield in that bunker in siberia, he’s leaving behind captain america as the 21st century has created him.
he’s choosing himself. he’s choosing steve. he’s choosing to be steve. free to put faith in people, individuals. free to stand up for what he believes in. free to be flawed. free to explore who steve even is, in this new world.
like i said—it’s huge that steve gives up the shield with bucky’s arm thrown around his shoulder, but that’s because bucky is a part of steve. and steve is the most important thing being reclaimed, defended, and protected in that final scene.
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