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Star Wars: New Doctor Aphra Preview Claims "Eternal Life" Can Be Achieved Through Wearing Two Rings – Bounding Into Comics

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Danzig

A new preview for Marvel Comics upcoming Doctor Aphra #5 book claims there are two rings that worn together can grant an individual eternal life.

The newly launched Doctor Aphra series is written by Alyssa Wong, who accused Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski of being a racist before landing a job at the company. Shes joined by artist Marika Cresta.

The series takes place during the events of The Empire Strikes Back and specifically after the Battle of Hoth. After stealing a shipment of Rebel contraband from Imperial troopers on Hoth, Aphra is approached by a college student named Detta Yao about a pair of mythological artifacts called The Rings of Vaale.

Yao claims that the rings grant their wearer eternal life and boundless fortune when theyre worn together. However, she also notes that they are cursed. But Aphra isnt worried about the curse dismissing it as superstition created to prevent people from seeking the rings.

Aphra quickly accepts the deal to acquire the rings and heads to the Ruins of Kolkur in the Outer Rim to find Doctor Eustacia Okka, a supposed expert on the rings.

However, after tracking down Okka, Aphra discovers that another party is also interested in the rings, Ronen Tagge. And Tagge has an obsession of destroying rare artifacts after hes the last one to touch them.

He explains, the only thing that makes my blood sing more than owning something precious is being the last person to touch it.

After recruiting Okka, she leads Aphra and her team that includes Black Krrsantan, Yao, and a sniper named Just Lucky to the planet of Dianth in the Malitoris System. There they discover the Lost City of Vaale.

While exploring the city and attempting to find the location of the two rings, its revealed the two rings actually have their own titles, The Ring of Fortune and The Ring of Immortality.

While they would discover The Ring of Fortune, the Ring of Immortality was missing. It was not located in its case in the Inner Sanctum of the Architects Workshop in Vaale.

However, a game of double crossing occurs. One of Aphras party, Lucky, is revealed to be an agent of Tagge and comes away with The Ring of Fortune and promptly sets off to deliver it to his benefactor.

Lucky also leaves Aphra and her party to fend for themselves. While Aphra and Okka try to find a way out of the catacombs underneath the city they discover that the supposed curse Yao originally warned about is actually the city thats been built out of bone matter. And it could potentially drive them crazy.

However, while it appears its the city driving the individuals mad, Lucky is still hearing a sound emitting from The Ring of Fortune despite being away from the city.

While Lucky is taking the ring to Tagge, Aphra and her team eventually escape the catacombs and just as soon as they do, Tagges military forces destroy the entire city of Vaale as well as Aphras starship despite The Ring of Immortality missing.

Fortunately, for Aphra she discovers a High Republic starship that just so happened to be abandoned on the planet and in full working order. She decides to bait Tagge and gets her and the rest of her team captured.

Now, in this new preview from Star Wars, its revealed Tagge already had The Ring of Immortality and has been wearing it since the beginning of the series.

He even reveals that the ring has been in his familys possession for numerous generations after they acquired it from an infamous space pirate.

And once he found out that the ring was actually The Ring of Immortality, it made him want to not only obtain The Ring of Fortune, but also to destroy them and erase all knowledge of them from the galaxy.

However, in order to stop him from destroying the rings. Aphra claims that the stories and legends surrounding the rings that they actually do grant eternal life, incredible fortune, and limitless power are true.

Aphra even explains to demonstrate the rings abilities and power.

The preview ends there, but the implication is that these rings do indeed hold this power when worn together.

Now, given this is comics its quite possible there is a twist and the rings are indeed cursed and their supposed gift of eternal life could be something twisted like eternal life through zombification or being kept alive in stasis, unable to actually act.

If it is something like stasis, its actually been done before. The Sith Lord Exar Kun ritually sacrifices thousands of Massassi lives in order to shed the chains of his mortal body and run rampant throughout the cosmos.

However, the ritual doesnt actually allow him to gain immortality and shed his mortal flesh. Instead, his spirt is trapped in a temple on Yavin IV.

While its quite possible there will be a twist with the rings, if there isnt, and I wouldnt be surprised if the rings do grant eternal life, it would just be another slap in the face to Star Wars fans who appreciate the rise, the fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

Skywalker falls to the Dark Side after Darth Sidious tempts him with not only the keys to immortality, but the ability to keep others alive specifically his wife, Padme.

Well find out when the new issue of Doctor Aphra arrives on October 28th.

What do you make of the introduction of these rings? Do you think they will actually grant eternal life?

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Alyssa WongDoctor AphraMarika CrestaMarvel ComicsStar Wars

Cyberpunk 2077 delayed again: Check out the reason for the delay and the new release date – Republic World

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Danzig

CD Projekt Red's open-world cyber-thriller Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly one of the most anticipated video games of the year. The action RPG had been scheduled to come out on November 19this year;however, it now appears that the release has been pushed to a later date.

Also Read |Cyberpunk 2077 Going Gold And Release Date; Everything You Need To Know

CD Projekt Red has recently released a statement informing fans that its ambitious open-world title Cyberpunk 2077 won't be releasing on November 19. The developers alsoexplainedthe exact reason behind the delay. According to the statement, the developers were facing issues shipping the various versions of the video game title involvingthecurrent-generation and next-generation gaming consoles, along with the Google Stadia and Windows PC versions. It further stated that the launch will require the team to prepare and test out a total of nine different versions of the video game which would be a major challenge at the moment. This involves testing the compatibility between the Xbox One/Series Xand Xbox Series S/Series X, PlayStation 4/Procompatibility on PS5, Windows PC and Stadia platforms while working from home.

Also Read |Cyberpunk 2077 Map Leaked On Reddit; See The Upcoming Game's Map Right Here

Cyberpunk 2077 is now set to release on December 10, 2020. The video game will be released onPlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, along with Microsoft Windows and Google Stadia. Additionally, it will also be available on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.

This is the third time that developers have delayed the cyber-thriller, which was originally scheduled to release earlier this year in April. However, in an effort to improve the title and make a few changes, the date had to be shiftedto September17. Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, thelaunch was finally moved toNovember 19.

Also Read |Arch Motorcycle's Method 143 Bike Model To Show Up In 'Cyberpunk 2077'?

However, despite all the delays, Cyberpunk 2077 continues to be one of the highly-anticipated gaming titlesof 2020 and it's also shaping up to be the quirkiest video games to launch this year.

Cyberpunk 2077 is an open-world cyber-thriller which is set in the Night City, a megalopolis that has a deepobsession with fame, power, and body modification. Gamerswill get to play as V, a mercenary outlaw who is running wild in the city with a goal to secure a one-of-a-kind implant that will lead to his immortality. Players will also be able to experiment with all sorts of character customization in the game.

Also Read |Cyberpunk 2077's New Trailer Ft Keanu Reeves Played During NBA Finals Game 1

Image credits: Cyberpunk

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Cyberpunk 2077 delayed again: Check out the reason for the delay and the new release date - Republic World

Morning Live: Why you should never eat mouldy bread – Metro.co.uk

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Danzig

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An expert has warned why you should never pick mould off a piece of bread and still eat it.

The advice was revealed in new BBC show Morning Live, hosted by Kym Marsh and Gethin Jones, as they discussed Marcus Rashfords new campaign against child poverty in the UK.

Talk turned to how much food we waste in the UK, although bread is apparently one food we should never feel bad about binning.

While some people may pick off the mouldy parts of a piece of bread and eat the rest, there are plenty of reasons why you should not do this.

During the 45-minute episode, Ready Steady Cook chef Anna Haugh explained that in the UK we throw away 20 million slices of bread per day.

One thing you shouldnt do when your bread is on the turn is cut off any signs of mould and eat the rest, Anna explained.

After putting a piece of bread under a microscope, food scientist Dr Nazanin Zand explained that even if you pick off the mould, the bread is still not fit for consumption.

This is a piece of a roll of a bread, the expert explained. That has been separated from another roll that was contaminated.

As you look at it with the naked eye, mould isnt visible, but when you zoom in, you can see that mould has clearly grown and actually penetrated in the surface of the bread.

Anna added: It may not be visible, but the mould actually runs all the way through the loaf, and for some that could actually be a bigger deal than it sounds because bread mould contains micro-toxins which can affect the immune system.

Dr Zand went on to explain that while there are no real dangers of eating mouldy bread, the long-term effects can be dangerous.

I wouldnt say its dangerous and is going to cause any immortality, she added.

The point about exposure over a period of time is that micro-toxin has an accumulative effect.

Long term exposure and a high dose, can cause problems.

Morning Live airs weekdays at 9.15am on BBC One.

Got a story?

If youve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with theMetro.co.ukentertainment team by emailing uscelebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page wed love to hear from you.

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Morning Live: Why you should never eat mouldy bread - Metro.co.uk

Stefan Collini Book Reviewing: On the ‘TLS’ LRB 5 November 2020 – London Review of Books

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Danzig

In July 1921, Alfred Harmsworth by then ennobled as Viscount Northcliffe, proprietor of the Daily Mail, the Times, and numerous other publications wrote in irritable mood to the managing director of the Times about the Lit Supp, as the Times Literary Supplement was known. He grumbled that its circulation has decreased a great deal, concluding that there is no reason why it should not be 80,000 a week (it was around 23,000 at the time) and that it should be made a little lighter. Seeing no improvement, Northcliffe proposed early in 1922 to fold the Lit Supp back into the Times. He wired the long-suffering managing director in best Scoop manner: Give great prominence to fact Times readers will as result merger receive lit supp free but outpoint Richmond many more popular books must be dealt with also. (Bruce Richmond had been the editor of the Lit Supp since shortly after its launch in 1902.) An announcement of the merger was set in type, to appear in the next, and final, issue of the Lit Supp, but the increasingly erratic Northcliffe changed his mind at the last minute (he was in poor mental as well as physical health and died a few months later). Tradition has it that the announcement was removed only twenty minutes before the issue went to press.

That may be as close to death as the TLS has ever come, but it has continued to have its ups and downs. Circulation rose through the 1920s to 30,000, then dropped sharply, down to 23,000 by 1934, and Richmond despaired of arresting the decline: Even among my own relations I know three households that have given it up. He did not believe, however, that new features (pictures, crosswords, a serial story, special numbers etc) would really have any permanent effect. His offer of resignation not having been accepted, he made a request that must be rare in the annals of journalism: In view of the condition to which I have brought the Supplement, I hope you will consider the question of a reduction of my salary for the coming year. Richmond remained in post, and presumably on full salary, till the end of 1937. His successor, D.L. Murray, predictably tried a spot of new-broomism changing the layout and coverage to make the paper lighter and more popular and found, just as predictably, that this was not a recipe for success: circulation continued to fall, dipping below 20,000 by the outbreak of war, and falling to 17,000 two years later. But what goes down can come back up. Circulation rose sharply in the reading-hungry postwar years, reaching a peak of 49,000 in 1950 under the editorship of Alan Pryce-Jones, and stayed above 40,000 until the beginning of the 1970s.

Since the sale of the Times to Rupert Murdoch in 1981, the TLS has once again been a minor part of a sprawling media empire, a province granted a partial autonomy that is hedged round with Solomon Binding guarantees. But it was never one of the more prosperous provinces: in the 1980s it lost money every year and by 1990 circulation was down to 26,000 copies. When Ferdinand Mount was appointed editor in 1990 he diplomatically announced that, while contemplating some changes, he did not want to tamper with the bedrock virtues of the paper the comprehensive coverage, the adventurousness, the readiness to cover any book, no matter how obscure or difficult. Mounts judicious blend of conservatism and innovation, together with his reported willingness to give his specialist editors their head, made his 12-year reign one of the more impressive phases of the papers history. By the beginning of this century, circulation was back up to over 35,000 again.

The biggest shake-up came in 2016 when the 36-year-old Stig Abell, previously managing editor of the Sun, was to general surprise appointed editor. He proceeded to engage in a more vigorous spate of new-broomism than any of his predecessors had ever attempted. The most immediately obvious changes were to the appearance and format, with less print on the page and many more photos (and a TLS cartoonist). But his changes to the contents went deeper and were seen by some observers as threatening the identity of the paper. Critics of the TLS have always complained that it is unexciting, but excitement can come in many forms, and anyway there are some things more important than excitement. A certain staidness had been the obverse of its enduring merits: the TLS carried a lot of considered, well-written reviews of a wide range of books by people who knew what they were talking about. Following Abells make-over, it still had some of those, but in the past few years they have been increasingly squeezed by free-standing pieces, frequently confessional or narrative in form, as well as by a variety of features addressed to topical issues in fact changes of the kind Richmond was sceptical about nearly a century ago. By the beginning of this year circulation, having briefly risen in response to a concerted marketing campaign, had fallen back to around 32,000.

Having left his very visible mark, Abell moved on (to a senior role at the new Times Radio) in June this year, and Martin Ivens, former editor of the Sunday Times, was installed in his place. But it would appear that the paper is suffering from long-term health problems. Alan Jenkins, the widely respected deputy editor, left a few months ago, and now other long-serving staff are being made redundant, amid rumours of unsustainable losses. Such developments will inevitably occasion sermons lamenting (according to taste), the decline of the reading public, the end of book reviewing, the now unbridgeable gulf between academia and lay literary culture, and so on. These sermons have all been preached before, when some storm cloud or other looked particularly ominous. In 1938, for instance, noting how many literary journals had recently closed and fearing for the future of the Lit Supp, John Middleton Murry, a frequent contributor, declared the decline in the amount and quality of reviewing has been catastrophic since 1914, adding that book reviewing is a vanished profession. That obituary turned out to be premature, as have been its many successors, but, as Mark Twain discovered, having your death announced prematurely is no guarantee of immortality.

At such moments its good to be reminded of some of the more illustrious passages in the papers long history. In 1905, Richmond invited the 23-year-old Miss A.V. Stephen to review for it. She quickly revealed herself to be the kind of young contributor editors dream of unearthing. She readily took on whatever she was asked to do, writing fifty pieces in the next three years, and her disconcertingly intelligent, quirkily stylish reviews were delivered to length and on time. Since reviews were published anonymously in the Lit Supp at that time (and indeed until 1974), Stephens industry did not help to build a wide reputation for her, but when, after her marriage in 1912, she began to publish novels under her married name, it soon became known that Virginia Woolf was one of the papers most valued contributors. Under its own imprint, the TLS recently gathered together 14 of her contributions in the volume Genius and Ink. An episode not mentioned there (it is documented in Hermione Lees biography of Woolf) points to the tensions with which the paper has always struggled in one form or another. Richmond felt obliged to return the third piece Woolf submitted, apologising for having commissioned it and insisting that the subject (a book about Catherine de Medici) required a more scholarly treatment.

Like most of us, perhaps, Woolf preferred reviewing to being reviewed, and although notices of her books in the Lit Supp were generally favourable, there is an undertow of grumpiness in her private responses As for the Common Reader, the Lit Supp had close on two columns sober & sensible praise neither one thing nor the other my fate in the Times. Since many of the essays reprinted in that volume had first appeared in the pages of the Lit Supp, professional decorum may have required a little restraint by the reviewer. Woolf continued to contribute essays well into the 1930s, even coming to be paid, so Derwent Mays centenary history of the TLS reveals, at a uniquely preferential rate.

But the issue raised by her review of the book on Catherine de Medici didnt go away, and in fact became more acute and more agonised over as the century wore on. The paper was in principle committed to reviewing the most important new works of scholarship alongside a selection of that months novels, biographies, popular histories and so on. But were these two worlds pulling further and further apart as recondite specialism increasingly dominated the first and relentless pursuit of best-sellerdom more and more shaped the second? The continued existence of the TLS has itself been a standing refusal of this defeatist analysis, though this has meant treading a fine line. The great majority of books from both these worlds, in so far as they really are two worlds, do not get reviewed in its pages; careful selection of both books and reviewers helps maintain the necessary fiction of a shared culture. The guiding principle was wryly expressed by John Sturrock, who worked there for more than thirty years, when he remarked that an ideal contribution should probably strike academic readers as journalistic and journalistic readers as academic.

Different readers want different things, and some tastes do, eventually, change. But it does not seem likely that the TLS could ever succeed as some mix between a glossy lit magazine and an experimental little review for new writing. In fact, it is hard to imagine any version of itself succeeding in the future which does not continue the attempt to straddle the worlds of academic scholarship and commercial publishing. Like it or not, many (though very far from all) of its readers are going to be academics, and a lot (perhaps practically all) of its readers, academic or otherwise, will want serious, informed reviewing of a wide range of books. Intellectual quality, literary judgment and cultural curiosity have to be its hallmarks, not liveliness or accessibility or topicality or any of the other buzzwords that make the pulses of advertising managers race. Whether that can be sustained these days without losing money is hard to say, and what kind of ownership structure might best protect it is similarly moot. The Lit Supp survived Northcliffe and his moods, just, and the TLS may yet survive Murdoch and his accountants. Of course, the world will not end if the paper is forced to close or to change its character radically, but something will end, something that many people have grown used to thinking of as rather valuable.

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Stefan Collini Book Reviewing: On the 'TLS' LRB 5 November 2020 - London Review of Books

Great Expectations: A Tribute to Daniel Burgess – Long Island Tennis Magazine

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Danzig

How does anyone attempt, successfully, to pay homage to one of the most influential people in their life? Two books and five podcast seasons simply wouldnt do to express the impact. It would be a Sisyphean endeavor to attempt to write a summation of an individual whose life could be characterized as Shakespearean in its endurance, but here I am rolling the boulder up the hill.

This morning I woke up to discover that my mentor and friend had passed away. If you live long enough, you know what that feels like. The loss of someone you have so much love for is a debt that cannot be paid it stays with you forever. I felt compelled to talk to him one more time, to impress upon him what he had done for me, but now it is too late, so here I am writing what I would say. What we remember is never the details, but rather the impression were left with, like a beautiful piece of prestidigitation. This is not who Daniel Burgess was, but who he was to me.

Right after college, my family and I moved from Queens to Long Island. I had no idea what I was doing, lost like so many other 20-somethings. Without a car, I took a job that was close enough for me to walk to, associate at Blockbuster video I hated it. My passion for movies was dwarfed by the soul sucking, pride swallowing, daily grind of retail. On the best days Id only suffer a mild ennui that was painful enough. One fateful day, a customer of mine struck up a conversation about tennis with me; they were coming from playing. Freeport Tennis (the club which Daniel ran) is looking for people, you should apply. Within weeks, I was working the front desk, then I was working the pro shop, then I found myself on court. The circumstances that bring us to a tipping point in our life are always a surprise. One pro got sick, another moved back home to Jamaica, and another was a no-show what are the chances of that. Daniel came to me and said, I need you to teach today. I dont know how to teach, I replied. Daniel was asking, but he wasnt; this was mandate he had given me, the first of many. Youve seen it done a thousand times, I need you today. And so Daniel had given me a direction, a purpose, a career. I was awful at first, but Daniel made me better. Not only did he mentor me to make me a better instructor, he mentored me to be a better person. He gave me the most important thing a mentor can give someone, the desire to learn more. A great mentor/coach is someone that makes themselves progressively less needed. In tennis, youre by yourself on the court. Teaching someone how to improve, problem solve, to be curious and go beyond what is directly given to them by their coach is incalculable in value.

Because of Daniels mentorship, I went on to be a successful coach. I helped others, the way he helped me. One teenager came to me wanting to join his school team. We had 30 minutes for the next four weeks to make that happen. He was awful! When I asked why he wanted to join the team, he told me its because all of his friends were going to be on the team and he wanted to spend time with them after school. Stakes were high, this was important for him. Not only did he make the team, he was the captain the following year. One girl took lessons with me after having a horrible experience with two other coaches. She would cry on the court with the other pros and began to hate the sport. In very little time, she not only improved, but grew to love the sport in a way that surprised her parents. There are dozens of stories I could tell you of people reaching to me after I stopped coaching professionally to let me know that they loved their time with me, that I was the best instructor they ever had. But I was only the best for them because I learned from the best; thats who Daniel was, he was the best of us.

After I stopped teaching, I started a career in book publishing. Publishing is not an easy industry to get into. The old vanguard of publishing professionals fancy themselves gatekeepers of culture and the few positions that are available are given mostly to those who prove themselves worthy (and willing) to slave away for more hours than anyone should work for very little compensation. But, my mentor and friend Daniel is always a voice in the back of my mind reminding me once you walk through a door, you have a responsibility to help others walk through it as well. Because of Daniel, I serve on multiple diversity committees, sponsor young adults to attend publishing events, and mentor several people every year. With luck, and hard work, his philosophy will change my industry.

My story is not one that is unique, only unique to me. Daniel touched the lives of countless people like myself. His fingerprint is on the heart and soul of everyone that met him. And while all men, consciously or unconsciously, steer their boat toward immortality in this life, the storm of time takes us all. True immortality lies in leaving a legacy. For as long as people remember you and speak your name, you still live in this world. Daniel Burgess will live forever because I will embody his philosophy, I will teach his lessons, and I will speak his name.

Thoughts From Tennis Community Members

"I met Danny many years ago at Freeport Indoor when my then five-year-old picked up a racquet for the first time. Over the years Danny became a close friend to my whole family and I quickly learned that not only did he never say no, but he would never take no for an answer. That resulted in many new things for me including joining the USTA LI board, creating a newsletter with him and more recently, teaching reading and writing enrichment at his tennis camp. I can honestly say that getting to know Danny changed my life for the better and I will miss him so much." - Jacki Binder

"Daniel was far more than a tennis instructor to many. He was a community leader, father, brother, grandfather and much more. Words cannot describe what he did for me on a personal level as both a mentor and a teacher. Daniel was always there for me. He always went above and beyond with everything, whether it be volunteering -- which he loved -- or teaching children at his camp. Daniel was a great person and he will be missed by everyone who met him." -Ross Binder

Danny was more than just a coach, he was a friend. He made lessons so much fun, and I was lucky to have him teach me how to be a coach too. I hope that one day I can be half the amazing coach he was. - Julia Cicchillo

Danny has left the world and our local tennis community a better place than he found it. He was a teacher, friend and mentor to so many with such a kind and charitable heart. He will be sorely missed but his positive influence will be felt forever. Steve Kaplan

Danny was one of the few people that got me active with the USTA again after raising my two children. He helped me to organize community festivals, and later on it led me to organize the Family Tennis League. The work has been very gratifying, and I hope to continue his legacy and share my love for tennis. I ran into Danny at the outdoor courts a few days before he passed. I could never have imagined that would be our last time together. As he was about to start teaching, he said, we need to do something about fixing all the cracks on these courts! Thanks to Danny, I now have my next project! He was loved by the whole community and will be missed by all. Fabiana Rezak

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Great Expectations: A Tribute to Daniel Burgess - Long Island Tennis Magazine

Heat Star Gets Brutally Honest on Rookie of Year Snub: ‘I’m a Hall of Famer’ – Heavy.com

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Danzig

Getty Kendrick Nunn against Grizzlies

Kendrick Nunn finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in 2019. He had 204 total points to Ja Morants 498, with no first-place votes. According to the Miami Heat guard, he should have won the coveted award, and now he plans to prove all his doubters wrong.

Nunn, who beat out Zion Williamson for second, revealed that of course he should have beaten out Morant for Rookie of the Year. But his long-term goals are higher than that as he seeks to join basketball immortality in Springfield one day.

Im an All-Star player. Im a Hall of Famer, Nunn told Alex Kennedy, via Basketball News. Thats my goal and I know thats what Im going to reach.

Nunn has caught fire of late for the Heat. Head coach Erik Spoelstra had been using the second-year guard sparingly to start the year, but a rash of injuries combined with COVID-19 health and safety protocol absences have turned Nunn into a key contributor off the bench. He has averaged 23 points in 34.5 minutes per game over the last two contests. Spoelstra praised him for not causing a ruckus after he pulled him from the starting lineup.

K-Nunn has an incredible competitive character, Spoelstra told reporters. He really does. He has a grit and a perseverance to him, that not only do you have confidence that hell be able to respond from this kind of adversity, but you respect him so much, that youre like really rooting for him, and you really want it for him.

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Back to that Rookie of the Year snub. Why did Nunn feel he deserved to win it? Well, he wanted to shock the world as an undrafted player beating out the No. 1 (Morant) and No. 2 picks (Williamson). No hard feelings, of course. Nunn was named Rookie of the Month three straight times in 2019-20.

Of course I shouldve won. Its really rare for an undrafted player to perform like that and have the kind of season that I had. Obviously, its expected that a lottery pick the No. 1 pick or No. 2 pick or No. 3 pick will win that award. So, just from a shocking-the-world thing, I feel like I shouldve won.

Thats all in the rear-view mirror for Nunn. The 25-year-old is gunning for a return to the NBA Finals this year to complete unfinished business for the Heat. They lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games despite being down key players like Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic. All-Star forward Jimmy Butler recently caused a stir when he told GQ Magazine, we should have won. Nunn seemed to agree.

This season, my No. 1 goal is I want to run it back to the NBA Finals, Nunn told Kennedy. We gotta get that Finals win. That was kind of upsetting to me that we didnt get that win, and we could have.

Miami returns to action on Friday night (7:30 p.m., FOX Sports Sun) against the Toronto Raptors in Tampa. The Heat took the first game in their two-game set on Wednesday night thanks to 28 points (in 35 minutes) from Nunn.

The Heat will be without Butler (health protocols) for the fifth straight game, as well as guard Avery Bradley (health protocols) and center Meyers Leonard (shoulder strain). Tyler Herro (neck) is questionable while guards Goran Dragic (foot) and Gabe Vincent (knee) are probable to play.

Watch: ATEEZ Gets Standing Ovation From Rain With Their Performance On Immortal Songs – soompi

Posted on February 7, 2021 by Danzig

On February 6, KBSs Immortal Songs aired their Rain special, with performances from 2AMs Jo Kwon, Jamie, 2AMs Changmin, N.Flyings Yoo Hwe Seung, ATEEZ, and Kim Young Heum.

The episode opened with a powerful performance from Rain himself and Ciipher, the boy group he produced, of his viral hit GANG.

The firstperformer to compete was Kim Young Heum, whoput his own spin on Instead of Saying Goodbye.Jo Kwon went next with Bad Guy and set up his performance like a whole musical number, winningthe round against Kim Young Heum.Performing third was N.Flyings Yoo Hwe Seung, who sang How to Avoid the Sun. At the end, Rain stood up to applaud his performance, but Jo Kwon ended up winning this round as well. Performing fourth was Changmin with Rainism, which he reinterpreted with a band and a funky vibe. As a result, he was able to defeat Jo Kwon and win the round. Next to perform was Jamie, who sang Love Song and showed her emotional range, butwas unable to win against Changmin.

Goinglast this episode was ATEEZ, who chose the song Its Raining andimpressed the audiencewith a performance that lived up to their title as performance masters. Asked about the key point of Rains original performance, ATEEZ talked about Rains amazing physique and his sexy breathing during the song. The group also hyped up their performance by asking, Is the stage sturdy? Because were going to smash our performance and Instead of its raining, its going to be ATEEZ-ing from now on.

ATEEZ alsoshared a preview of their powerful moveswhiledancing to some of Rains songs before theirperformance.

After their electric performance, Rain and the entire panel rose to give the group a standing ovation. MC Kim Tae Woo said, There are no cracks in ATEEZ. Their dancing, singing, expressions, and gestures are all perfect. Rain said in admiration, I think that ATEEZ are the superstars of the next generation superstars.

The panelists voted ATEEZ the final winner of the episode, marking the second time that the group has taken the final win on Immortal Songs. The grouppreviously also won a round on the King of Kings specialof the show.

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87: The spelling of immortality in the Soyinka canon, By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu – Premium Times

Posted on July 20, 2021 by Danzig

It beggars belief that Soyinka has made it to the heavy age of 87 after a life of multiform dangers: an unknown gunman invading the broadcasting house to replace the premiers tape, going to Biafra in a season of anomie, enduring imprisonment and solitary confinement, bearing the wounds of exile, daring Abacha etc. In short, way beyond the claims of the evangelical churches, the only miracle I see is Wole Soyinkas life.

He was so daring early in life that nobody gave him any chance of living up to 87 years on this earth. But here we are: Professor Oluwole Akinwande Soyinka, that is Wole Soyinka for short, is 87 today.

On my small part, I did not want anything to do with schooling anymore, being much of a tearaway in my youth then I saw the name of Professor Wole Soyinka as the Head of the newly created Dramatic Arts Department at the then University of Ife.

My plans had been to head into the bush to change the system as a guerrilla fighter, but once I learnt of the Soyinka school at Great Ife, I applied and was taken.

Aside from his genius in literature, Soyinka ranks amongst the greatest freedom fighters ever, a foremost defender of the sanctity of the human life.

The first African to win the coveted Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, he is an accomplished playwright, poet, novelist, memoirist, filmmaker, director, translator, actor, director, singer, activist, humanist, aesthete, connoisseur, and above all else, a human being, and a very remarkable oneat that.

Wole Soyinka threw a party for my class on graduation, declaring us the most challenging students he had ever taught. Of course everybody knows that praise from Soyinka does not come easily. His word is his sword!

This does not at any rate qualify me as an exemplary student. Back then at the University of Ife, I was with my Dramatic Arts classmates in Soyinkas house for practical lessons on television production based on Edith Uche Enems play. I did not care a kobo about the lesson. I told Soyinkas steward, the Ghanaian lad Francis, to get me a cool Star lager beer from the refrigerator. I was nursing my beer gloriously while Soyinka taught my classmates. Then he saw me drinking the beer. He didnt get mad at me. He asked why I was drinking beer while my fellow students were learning and I promptly told him: Prof, sir, thats how I get my inspiration. Soyinka just cast a fatherly benign look at me in the manner of some fathers do have them and continued with his teaching.

After my degree exams, I was totally out of cash. I needed money badly, and I ran to Soyinka in his office. I told him I had no money to go home. He gave me all the money he had. In a show of bravado I told him I would pay him back his money when I came for convocation. Soyinka had a healthy laugh and said: How am I sure you will not run through the money and come back with another sob story?

The truth, of course, is that I only went to Ife because Soyinka was there. I did not care for university education. I went to Ife in 1978, with Soyinka as my Head of Department. Then there was Okot pBitek, the inimitable Ugandan poet of theSong of Lawino fame, in the literature department. Soyinka was always travelling all over the world, while Okot was an ever-present company. Soyinkas Ghanaian boy, Francis, was, of course, around to attend to my needs in Soyinkas gods-festooned home. Soyinkas sister, Folabo Ajayi, was also around, always wondering at my age on account of my multiform high jinks, whilst we were rehearsing Akinwunmi Isolas play Madam Tinubu, directed by Femi Euba, which we took on tour to Ibadan and Lagos.

Our first experience of Soyinka as a teacher was, yes, very dramatic. He was to teach us Shakespeares King Lear. We had all come from secondary schools where Shakespeare was read line-by-line and explained by the class teacher. In Soyinkas case, we were all seated in the Pit Theatre at Ife when he casually strolled in. He distributed sheets of cyclostyled paper in which a speech taken out of King Lear was printed. Soyinka asked us to pick out the unnatural word in the speech. None of us could understand this kind of teaching. He then said we ought to have still been in high school. The West Indian lady, Dr Carroll Dawes, had to come to our rescue by teaching us King Lear, line after line, at Oduduwa Hall for weeks and months on end.

In the course of our Ife studies, we had to read up all the plays of Bertolt Brecht as our special author. We found to our chagrin that Brecht was a rival of Shakespeare in the large number of plays written. My classmates and I had to confront Soyinka with the charge that he was making us read for a Ph.D when we only applied to earn a bachelors degree! Soyinka asked us to arrest Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi as the culprit who gave us more books to read than doctoral candidates.

Soyinka took us on a course in Humanism. It was class war all the way because most of us in the class were Marxists. We asked Soyinka to join us in the bush of guerrilla struggle, instead of being an arm-chair humanist! He was never angry with our youthful ebullition, only advising us that we would get to understand society further as we grew in life. Interestingly, the very next year, Soyinka asked a Polish lady who barely spoke English to take us in the course of Aesthetics in his place! We were thus denied of the opportunity to argue with the lady as we argued with Soyinka.

His intervention on road safety happened before our very eyes whilst at Ife. He had no stomach whatsoever for dangerous driving that killed many along the notorious Ife-Ibadan road. He would bring his friend, Femi Johnsons jeeps into the campus and we were even quite used to Bola Iges vehicles as the then governor of Oyo State. For Soyinka, a vehicle was just a vehicle.

After leaving school, I tried my hands at peasant theatre. I sent the play I wrote, A Play of Ghosts, to Soyinka and it was only much later that I got to know that he forwarded the play to the American director, Chuck Mike, for production. Soyinka does all these favours without asking for any attention whatsoever.

When I ran into Soyinka at poet Odia Ofeimuns birthday party, he wondered aloud where I had been all these years. I replied him that I had all along been in Nigeria doing a great battle with Nigerian poverty. At the time his memoirs You Must Set Forth At Dawn was just published, and I learnt from the novelist, Okey Ndibe, that Soyinka was to do a reading for an organisation run by white ladies in the heart of Victoria Island, Lagos. When Okey and I got to the venue, Soyinka asked me to select the passage that he would read. I told him I did not have a copy of the book ready at hand. He then off-handedly told me that his publisher, Bankole Olayebi, was my friend, in which case I would not have much trouble getting a free copy!

Of course, I am very proud of my teacher, the very first black man to win the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986. Back in time, my crystal ball did not hide anything when it revealed to me that Soyinka would win the Nobel, a first for Africa, in the year 1985. I told not a few friends that the Nobel was definitely coming that year, and it was such a shocker when the prize went instead to the obscure French novelist, Claude Simon. Well, it is remarkable that Claude Simons first novel bears the very unfunny title, The Cheat.

Soyinka is at heart a jovial soul. From teaching the art of wine to a young Italian girl, to setting a trap for wine-thieves in his then Ife home, Soyinka is the master of his universe. Humour is never lacking in his forte. For instance, an Igbo classmate of mine with a thick Igbo accent asked Soyinka a question in class, only for Soyinka to reply: Are you an Ibadan man?

There was no denying Soyinka the very next year, 1986, when the Nobel Prize for Literature landed on our shores. Soyinka had just made the flight from Cornell University, New York, where he was then teaching, to the International Theatre Institute (ITI) in Paris to attend the executive meeting of the world body, which he headed. His plan was to spend some quiet time at the apartment of his cousin, Yemi Lijadu. He found his cousin giddy with joy: The news just broke that Nigerian playwright Wole Soyinka had won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature, thus becoming the first African to win the coveted award.

For reasons no one can really explain, the name Kongi has stuck with Soyinka amongst his students and colleagues, even though the character in question in the eponymous play is highly detestable. Behind Soyinkas back, some of us call him Langage, pronounced as Longage, taken from his Inaugural Lecture at Ife entitled The Critic And Society: Barthes, Leftocracy And Other Mythologies.

Soyinkas collection of poetry, Samarkand and Other Markets I have Known, was launched in 2002 at the National Theatre under a tree that is now known as the Samarkand Tree. Soyinka autographed my copy of the book right under that famous tree. The long poem Elegy for a Nation dedicated to Chinua Achebe at Seventy is quite striking. Soyinka had wanted to read the poem at An Evening With WS sponsored by Globacom, but there was too much noise at the Golden Gate, Ikoyi venue, such that it did not provide the right mood for the Nobel Laureate to pay homage to his great compatriot. It was at that event that I asked Soyinka the question: Why are you not a born-again Christian? He duly replied thusly: I have my own religion; thank you! It is a matter of great joy that Soyinka still continues in the onerous task of supporting younger writers, like the irrepressible Onyeka Nwelue. I treasure on my bookshelf a hardback copy of The Second Genesis: An Anthology Of Contemporary World Poetry which features some of my poems, alongside those of my teacher, Soyinka, and my dear compatriots, Ikeogu Oke and Obari Gomba. The book which features poets of 60 countries, from Albania to the United States, is indeed a heavy feast of comparative humanity, a cause to which Soyinka has dedicated his venerated life.

At Freedom Park, Lagos, during the 60th birthday celebration of Kunle Ajibade, the journalist jailed for life by General Sani Abacha, Soyinkas kind and personable wife, Folake Wole-Soyinka, provided two thousand naira for the Nobel Laureate to give to Adunni and her Nefertiti dancers, only for WS to sharply nick one thousand naira into his own pocket and give the musicians the remaining one thousand naira!

Wole Soyinka is still as fecund as ever. I was so happy to break the world exclusive news of Soyinka publishing his third novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth, just after the wave of the COVID-19 onslaught. The great man is still hard at work, writing more immortal books.

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a student of the Nobel Laureate.

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87: The spelling of immortality in the Soyinka canon, By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu - Premium Times

Keanu Reeves addresses rumours of him being immortal, jokes with Fallon in an interview – Republic World

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Danzig

Keanu Reeves isfamousnot just for his acting skills and hit movies but his timeless John Wick hairstyle which has been popular since the film's first installment. Keanu Reeves fans argue that it isn't just his hairstyle that is timeless but fans think the actor seems to never age, some even suggest that the actor is immortal, in what has become a running trope. During one of his interviews when he was confronted about this, he expertly dodged the nonsensical non-seriousclaims. Read all the details about this interview here.

ALSO READ:'John Wick 2' Cast: Know The Actors Who Starred In This Keanu Reeves' Action Thriller Film

During an interview with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2017, the presenter of the show asked Keanu Reeves about the immortality claims by the fans. He confronted the actor with some pictures from the fan site Keanuisimmortal.com. He showed him a series of photographs which show that the actor looks similar to some of the historic figures shown. While the actor agreed that there are some similarities between all these personalities he neither accepted nor denied the claims made.

Reeves and Fallon both joked about the notion and theories of how Keanu could actually be immortal and has been alive for centuries. Although these jokes acknowledge the similarities it doesn't cancel the potential immortality theory. These jokes still seem like an expert dodge and another bit towards a confirmation according to some conspiracy theorists.

ALSO READ:Keanu Reeves Sports A Buzzcut, Chops Off Famous Long Locks For Upcoming Movie

ALSO READ:Cyberpunk 2077 Mix It Up Poster: Learn About The Controversial Ad In The Game

Keanu Reeves is not active on social media. The actor keeps a very low profile and doesn't share a lot of personal updates on the internet. Even after all his attempts to not be very social, the actor's fans have made him a social media superhero. According to the reports by Showbiz Cheat Sheet Reeves' acts of generosity and philanthropy have established the actor in everyone's good books. In 2019 when he went public about his relationship with his girlfriend Alexandra Grant the internet fanseven titled him asthe internet's boyfriend.

While there have been many memes surrounding the actor, many claims were made about his immortality and ageless looks. Fans have noted similarities between Keanu Reeves and many other historical figures such as Vlad the Impaler, artist Parmigianino and actor Paul Mounet. The 56-year-old actor resembles these popular figures who lived centuries apart.

ALSO READ:Keanu Reeves To Feature In Tom Cruise's Next Mission Impossible Film?

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.

Batman Fought Lovecraftian Horrors in The Doom That Came to Gotham – CBR – Comic Book Resources

Posted on January 3, 2021 by Danzig

During his time in the DC Universe, Batman has faced off against many threats but none have challenged him like Cthulhu, the greatest evil.

The beauty of Batman as a character is how versatile and adaptable he really is. His origin, skillset, and background can be applied to virtually any number of alternate world stories. It's a flexibility that characters like Superman and Wonder Woman lack due to being firmly routed in a very specific narrative related to their powers and origins. But the concept of Batman can be applied to virtually any scenario. A Victorian Era Gotham City, a futuristic one, and almost two decades ago, a '20s Gotham City where Batman faced off against a Cthulu-like entity.

In Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham by Mike Mignola, Richard Price, Troy Nixey, and Bill Oakley, Bruce Wayne has been away from Gotham for about 20 years. He traveled the world acquiring skills much like his main continuity counterpart, he even picked up alternate versions of his first threeRobins along the way. But what prompted Bruce to leave Gotham for all this time is a little different from his usual origin story in Crime Alley.

RELATED:Batman: Bruce Wayne Makes a BOLD Costume Choice for His Most Personal Battles

As usual, young Bruce was out with his parents when they were accosted by an armed assailant. But the man who killed Thomas andMartha Wayne wasn't Joe Chill and he certainly had no intention of stealing pearls. Their murderer was fueled by pure rage towards Thomas Wayne and his family. Bruce managed to flee into a nearby church, but upon climbing to the top of the bell tower, he was met by a hanged man that warned him of "The Thing" and that it was coming and how Bruce was the only one who could stop it. The experience traumatized Bruce, but also informed his decision to leave Gotham to train. He would train, not for a war on crime, but to one day do battle with whatever force had robbed him of his parents and seemed to be behind the supernatural forces hidden within the city. And20 years later he finally donned the cape and cowl to search for answers, but what he discovered was even more bizarre and disturbing than he could have imagined.

In a unique spin on Ra's al Ghul, he was not an immortal eco-terrorist but a deranged cultist, bent on freeing Iog-Sotha, a Lovecraftian horror, from its prison. The reason Bruce was dragged into the supernatural proceedings was that his father was directly involved in making Gotham the site of its return. The Thomas Wayne of this universe was in fact centuries old, having been involved in a ritual with one of Iog-Sotha's followers that granted him immortality. But recognizing what would happen if they went through with the ritual, Thomas and his cohorts built Gotham over the temple that Iog-Sotha would return through.

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Chinese TV Animation Is Starting to Corner the Global Boys Love Market – CBR – Comic Book Resources

Posted on December 18, 2020 by Danzig

Thanks to the likes of Mo Dao Zu Shi and Heaven Official's Blessing, Chinese animation is breaking through in a big way -- particularly BL series.

Donghua, Chinese animation, has rocketed in popularity in part thanks to the BL series Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation in English). Another series based on novels by author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, Heaven Official's Blessing, is also gaining popularity, being the donghua streamed by Funimation. These popular series have opened the world to danmei (Chinese BL) and have become phenomenons on Tumblr and Twitter. Their global popularity seems to have put danmei on the radar -- giving Chinese comics and animation a wider platform, similar to the popularity Korean comics (manhwa) have received over the years as well.

Danmei, similar to Japan's yaoi genre, is somewhat controversial. Male characters are often put in heteronormative "masculine" and "feminine" roles, perpetuating harmful stereotypes. Danmei is usually made by heterosexual women for the straight female gaze, rather than by LGBTQ creators. However, the genre is also considered a positive step in representation as it pushes LGBTQ romance into the Chinese mainstream.

RELATED: Heaven Official's Blessing Sheds More Light on Xie Lian's Underdog Status

Though homosexuality is legal in China, media with LGBTQ elements tends to be censored because of the conservative government. Danmei series, which contain subtle elements of boys' love, are small but significant breakthroughs -- especially as the live-action danmei The Untamed became one of China's biggest dramas. As danmei becomes increasingly popular, to the point of a global sensation, it may both increase LGBTQ acceptance and lessen China's censorship laws.

Mo Dao Zu Shi and Heaven Official's Blessing are also both part of the Xianxia genre, a genre influenced by traditional Chinese mythology. The protagonists are often "cultivators," people trained in martial and mystical arts, that seek immortality (the closest translation for the concept of "Xian") and supernatural powers. Mo Dao Zu Shi's protagonist, Wei Wuxian, attains Xian only to be killed -- but is then summoned into the world once again, taking over host Mo Xuanyu's body and eventually being involved in a complex conspiracy. Meanwhile, in Heaven Official's Blessing, the character Xie Lian is shunned by the Heavens twice and attempts to ascend a third time.

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Chinese TV Animation Is Starting to Corner the Global Boys Love Market - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Humanity can go screw itself The Old Guard – tor.com

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Danzig

In August 2017, Keith R.A. DeCandido took a weekly look at every live-action movie based on a superhero comic in the weekly 4-Color to 35-Millimeter: The Great Superhero Movie Rewatch. He caught up to real time, as it were, in January 2020, but is revisiting the feature every six months or so to look back at the new releases in the previous half-year. This week, we have The Old Guard, while next week, well look at The New Mutants.

Greg Rucka got his start in the writing biz as a novelist in 1996, with the novel Keeper. Two years later, Oni Press published his comic book Whiteout, with art by Steve Lieber, and at the turn of the millennium, he became one of the major writers in DCs stable, novelizing the No Mans Land event in the Batman comics, followed by lengthy runs on various comics (including Gotham Central, a favorite of your humble rewatcher, in collaboration with Ed Brubaker and artist Michael Lark).

In 2017, he collaborated with artist Leandro Fernndez on The Old Guard: Opening Fire, a miniseries published by Image. Three years later, Netflix released a film adaptation of the series.

It is rare, though not unheard of, for folks who worked on comics to later work on the movie adaptation of those comics. Frank Miller cowrote the first Sin City movie and wrote the sequel A Dame to Kill For solo, David Quinn co-wrote the movie version of Faust: Love of the Damned, Geoff Johns contributed to the stories of Aquaman and Wonder Woman 1984, and J. Michael Straczynski contributed to the story for 2011s Thor, but theyre the exception. (Having said that, a lot of Batman comics writers contributed to Batman: The Animated Seriesbut comics writers have had an easier time breaking into animation scripting than live-action.)

Rucka, however, wrote the movie based on his comic book, and hes the only one credited, so its a rare case of the writing credits on both source material and adaptation matching perfectly, which has only ever happened in this rewatch once before (A Dame to Kill For).

Mind you, the movie almost didnt have this distinction, as Charlize Theron had issues with Ruckas first draft and hired her own writers to redo it. However, Netflix wasnt happy with that rewrite, and Rucka was brought back on to rewrite his script in a way that satisfied Theron.

Opening Fire, as well as its 2019 sequel Force Multiplied, are about immortals. For reasons that are never made clearand that lack of clarity is sometimes a source of frustration to the characterscertain people are immortal. When a new immortal activates (when theyre killed for the first time), the other immortals dream of them until they find each other. Eventually, the immortality wears off, but theres no warning or rhyme or reason to that, either.

The immortals are all warriors of some kind or other, and in modern times they take on jobs that (a) involve violence (at which they all excel) and (b) help people.

Theron plays the main character, Andromache of Scythia, who is thousands of years old, and goes by Andy. As the oldest of the immortals, shes the leader. Shes joined by KiKi Layne as Nile Freeman, a U.S. Marine who becomes the latest immortal during the movie, Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts as Sebastien de Livre, who goes by Booker, Dutch-Tunisian actor Marwan Kenzari as Yusuf al-Kaysani, who goes by Joe, Italian actor Luca Marinelli as Nicol di Genova, who goes by Nicky, and Van Veronica Ngo as Quynh, an immortal who is believed to have died. (The character in the comic was Japanese and named Noriko, but when the Vietnamese Ngo was cast, she asked that the name be changed to one that reflected her own heritage.) Rounding out the cast are Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in this rewatch in Doctor Strange) as Copley, Harry Melling (best known as Dudley Dursey in the Harry Potter films, and currently in The Queens Gambit as Beltik) as Merrick, and Anamaria Marinca as Dr. Kozak (gender flipped and renamed from Ivanov in the comic).

The movie was one of Netflixs most-watched movies this year, and plans for a sequel are underway, likely an adaptation of Force Multiplied, set up by the final scene, which adapts a scene from that sequel miniseries.

Sometimes you got to work with people you dont want to eat with

The Old GuardWritten by Greg RuckaDirected by Gina Prince-BlythewoodProduced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Charlize Theron, A.J. Dix, Beth Kono, Marc EvansOriginal release date: July 10, 2020

Screenshot: Netflix

Four immortals, Andy, Nicky, Joe, and Booker, meet up in Marrakesh. Its their first time together in a year, and theyve been approached by a former employer, James Copley. Andy is reluctant, as they dont like to repeat employers. If they stick with anyone for too long, they start to notice that they havent aged. But Booker says the job is worth it, and so Andy and Booker take the meeting, with Nicky nearby with a sniper rifle.

Copley isnt working for the CIA anymorehe left when his wife died of ALS. Hes now running a freelance security company. Hes learned of children whove been kidnapped in the Sudan, and they need a quick rescue operation before the kids are separated and moved to where they cant find them. Andy agrees, and they gear up for the mission.

Unfortunately, its a setup. There are no kids, just a big team of commandos who ambush them and shoot them to ribbons. Unfortunately for the commandos, they then get up and kill everyone.

In Afghanistan, Marines are chasing a terrorist. Sergeant Nile Freeman asks some women, through an interpreter, if theyve seen him. Aloud, they say nothing, but one older woman, who says verbally that no man would hide behind women, also indicates a house with her eyes.

Freeman and another Marine enter the house, and subdue the terrorist, but hes been wounded. Freeman tries to treat the woundtheyre supposed to bring him in aliveand the terrorist slices her neck open.

The quartet are livid at being set up by Copley and want to go after him. They burn their clothes and sneak onto a train. While sleeping, they dream about Freeman. For her part, Freeman wakes up in a base hospital, with not even a scar, and very confused, especially after dreaming about people shes never met.

Screenshot: Netflix

The quartet of immortals piece together their dreams and figure out that the latest immortaland the first since Booker in 1812is Freeman. Andy doesnt want to divert from their task of finding Copley and making him pay, but letting Freeman wander around immortal and alone and unknowing could compromise them. So she goes to Afghanistan while the other three work to find Copley.

Andy is able to kidnap Freeman right before shes to be flown to Germany for more tests. Freeman is confused at first, and unwilling to accept whats happening, even after Andy shoots her in the head and she recovers. They hop a Russian drug runners plane, which Freeman tries to hijack by threatening the pilot. Andy says something in Russian and then shoots the pilot, and the plane starts to go down. A panicking Freeman frees Andy, at which point Andy says, You dont speak Russian, do you? She reveals that what she said to the pilot was Play dead. The pilot wakes up and retakes control while Freeman and Andy fight. Eventually, Freeman calms down and goes along with whats happening.

Freeman learns about the other immortals. Theres Andy, whos been around so long she has no memory of how long shes been alive, and cant even remember her mothers face. Booker was the youngest before Freeman, as he fought for Napoleon and died on the Russian front. Joe and Nicky were on opposite sides during the Crusades and kept killing each other over and over again; eventually they became lovers and have become inseparable in the millennium since.

Then there are the two who are no longer around. One is Lykon, who one day just stopped being immortal. His wounds stopped healing and he died. The other is Quynh, who rode and fought alongside Andy for centuries until they were captured by Puritans who condemned them as witchesand their inability to die just proved the accusation. They finally put Quynh into a suit of armor and threw her into the water, where she drowned over and over again.

Andy takes Freeman to an abandoned church outside Paris, to discover that Nicky, Joe, and Booker were ambushed. Nicky and Joe were taken, while Booker is left for almost-dead. They come back for Andy, but Andy takes them all out easily and bloodily, which both shocks and impresses the hell out of Freeman.

While Booker tries to figure out where to find Copley, Nicky and Joe are taken to Merrick Pharmaceuticals, run by Steven Merrick, a very young CEO who wants to figure out the secret of the immortals healing to mass produce it. The doctor hes assigned to the task, Dr. Meta Kozak, takes a ton of samples from Nicky and Joe, but is unable to figure out what makes them immortal.

Freeman cant handle the notion that she can never talk to her family again. This despite Booker telling her that his entire family disowned and hated him when he didnt grow old and they all did. Andy decides to let her go and also charges her with ditching their car and the extra weapons. Andy also gives her the handgun Booker had handed her so shes armed.

Booker and Andy arrive at Copleys office, to discover that Copley figured out that they were immortal on his ownand did copious research to find all kinds of connections, including people they saved who later went on to do great things.

Screenshot: Netflix

Copley betrayed the group to Merrick because he wants people to not suffer the way his wife did. And Booker helped him, as he proves when he shoots Andy. Booker just wants to finally be able to die. Unfortunately, Andy seems to have lost her immortality the way Lykon did, and she isnt healing, to Bookers devastation.

Merricks people take Booker and Andy away and render an objecting Copley unconscious. By the time Freeman shows up (having realized that the gun Booker gave to Andy, and which Andy gave to her, had no ammo in it, at which point Freeman has realized that Booker betrayed them), Copleys all alone. Freeman shoots herself in the foot to prove shes who she says she is, and Copley leads her to Merrick.

All four immortals are imprisoned by Merrick, Andy bandaged up, and all three of the others pissed at Booker. Freeman arrives and rescues everyone, though she loses Andys axe one of the times shes shot dead. She frees the others, at which point, even with Andy no longer functionally invulnerable, they wipe out Merricks entire team of mercenaries.

Merrick, Andys axe in one hand, a gun in the other, threatens to shoot Andy if Freeman doesnt give up. Andy asks if she thinks he speaks Russian, at which point Freeman pretends to shoot Andy herself. She plays dead long enough to distract Merrick.

Then Freeman jumps out a high-story window with Merrick, crashing into a car, killing Merrick, and it takes Freeman a bit to recover.

The five immortals gather at the Devils Tavern pub in London. Booker and Freeman sit outside while the other three decide on Bookers punishment for betraying them. Freeman tells Booker that Copley arranged things so that Freeman will be declared killed in action. Andy then tells Booker that he has to stay away from them for a hundred years. Theyll meet back up at the pub after a century, and Joe, Nicky, and Freeman will decide his fate then. (Andy will be dead by then.)

After seeing how Copley managed to track down everything they did, the remaining immortals inform him that hell be responsible for finding jobs for them, and also covering their tracks so that someone else cant do what Copley and Merrick did. Though they arent giving Copley a choice, the ex-CIA agent is, nonetheless, happy to do it.

Six months later in Paris, Booker stumbles home, drunk, to find a woman waiting in his apartment: its Quynh.

She stabbed me, so I think she has potential

Screenshot: Netflix

My favorite bit in this movie when I saw it the first time was when Nicky and Joe are captured. One of the mercenaries asks snottily if Nicky is Joes boyfriend, and Joes reply is: Youre a child. An infant. Your mocking is thus infantile. Hes not my boyfriend. This man is more to me than you can dream. Hes the moon when Im lost in darkness and warmth when I shiver in cold. And his kiss still thrills me, even after a millennia. His heart overflows with the kindness of which this world is not worth of. I love this man beyond measure and reason. Hes not my boyfriend. Hes all and hes more.

A longer version of this speech is in the comic book, and it turns out that it was stipulated in Greg Ruckas contract that any filmed version of this story had to include that sequence.

Which is awesome, and is one of the reasons why I adore this movie (and the comic it adapts) so much. Our five immortals arent just characters in a story, theyre people. And they all do such a good job of showing the weight of their years, especially Charlize Theron, whose Andy is just so exhausted. Shes just so obviously done with everything. Matthias Schoenaerts Booker has a similar affect, as his continental ennui is cranked up to eleven.

Director Gina Prince-Blythewood deserves a ton of credit here, as the movie manages that perfect balance between strong character work and powerful action sequences that superhero movies rely on if they want to be any good. The fight choreography is also stellar. The four immortals fight like a well-oiled machine, and Freemana combat Marinemixes in well with them. I particularly like how easy they all make it?, and I particularly like how the immortals all fight with more aggression than their opponents, simply because they know they cant be hurt permanently. (I also like that the filmmakers are aware that guns dont have an infinite supply of ammunition and need to be regularly reloaded.)

The exception is Therons Andy, but not just because she becomes mortal partway through the movierather its because shes really so much better than anyone else. Its so effortless for her, she almost seems bored. I used to do karate with a high-ranking black belthes since left our dojo to open his own dojo in a different disciplineand he is an amazing fighter. What blew me away watching him in sparring tournaments is that he barely moved and just made everything look so easy and effortless as he knocked people repeatedly to the ground and kicked them repeatedly in the head. Theron has that same style about her in her fight scenes.

Screenshot: Netflix

Its fascinating to look at the changes made from the source material, especially because both had the same writer. Some changes are for the better: the movie adds that Copleys wife died of ALS, a particularly brutal, debilitating disease, thus providing him with a more solid and more noble motive for betraying the team to Merrick. Others are not improvements: Freeman is a woman of many talents in the comic, but thats toned down in the movie, going so far as to not make her fluent in Pashto as she was in the comic, instead relying on a translator. And others are neutral: in the comic, Andy is a drunk, smokes a ton, has a metric buttload of casual sex, and struggles with modern technology, where Therons Andy does none of those things.

The biggest change, though, is that Andy has become mortal, which did not happen in the comics. It certainly raises the stakes of the climactic fight, as Andy, unlike the others, can be hurt. Im wondering if this was a trap door for Theron in case she didnt want to keep playing the role once she got into her 50s (she turned 45 this year).

The only place where the casting falls down is in the villain, though there isnt a lot to work with here. The Merrick of the comic is a one-dimensional cartoon psycho, a fourth-rate version of Jared Letos Joker from the Suicide Squad movie. As played by Harry Melling, the movie iteration is, instead, a fourth-rate version of Tom Hiddlestons Loki, which isnt as much of an improvement as it needs to be. This is a role that calls for the bureaucratic blandness of David Strathairn in The Bourne Ultimatum, and as played by Melling you just cant take him seriously as a bad guy.

Chiwetel Ejiofor makes up for this, though, giving Copley a depth of character he didnt even have in the comic. You feel his pain in betraying them, but also his fervent desire to try to find a way for people not to suffer. And Theron, Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and especially KiKi Layne are superb.

This is a great adaptation of a great comic book, and I very much look forward to seeing how they handle Quynhs return in the sequel adaptation of Force Multiplied. (I also hope that the movie has a better title)

Next week, well take a gander at the only superhero comic book adaptation to be released in theatres after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. to date: The New Mutants.

Keith R.A. DeCandido also is doing a rewatch of Star Trek: Voyager every Monday and Thursday for this site, plus reviews of each new episode of Star Trek: Discovery when it is released on Thursday.

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Humanity can go screw itself The Old Guard - tor.com

Books: Forever young? How the battle against old age could soon be won – HeraldScotland

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Danzig

Bloomsbury, 20

Review by Neil Mackay

FOR a book about how humanity now stands on the cusp of beating the scourge of ageing, I felt pretty damn old by the time Id finished this work by Andrew Steele. There are popular science books and then there are science textbooks, and Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old falls down on the textbook side of the divide.

I dont consider myself a scientific dunce but for someone without a fair bit of scientific learning under their belt, Ageless can be daunting. This randomly selected passage gives a flavour: Another place where clonal expansions are common is among the HSCs the stem cells responsible for making blood cells. The most common driver mutation in HSCs is a gene called DNMT3A.

The book begins well, telling us how the giant tortoises which Darwin studied on the Galapagos Islands gave the first hint that negligible senescence effectively the act of ageing without showing signs of age and biological immortality were possible. If only we could understand the processes which allow these great creatures to live so long, we could mimic them ourselves, extending our lifespans greatly. Harriet, one Galapagos tortoise collected by Darwin in 1835, finally died in 2006.

Steele uncovers just how close we really are to cracking the curse of old age. Were within a few generations of being able to slow and arrest the ageing process, prolong lifespans and eradicate a host of biological evils which have haunted humankind throughout our existence. For that alone, Steele deserves plaudits.

There are some incredible revelations in this book. The science is fascinating despite the dry delivery. Laboratory breakthroughs are now being made in genetics and medicine that will presently herald a new biological era. Humanity could soon see average lifespans expand astonishingly 120-plus might shortly be a not uncommon age to live to, with all your physical and mental faculties crucially intact.

Ageing, we learn, is merely Mother Natures sleight of hand. In terms of our lifespans, it doesnt matter how many years pass, what matters is the degradation of the body caused simply by being alive. Cells wear out, DNA gets ragged, microscopic gunk builds up in the body causing everything from heart attack to Alzheimers. If we can work out how to stop this biological collapse, we can delay, even suspend, ageing. The human body really is a machine and were currently working out how to repair it indefinitely.

This is the realm of biogerontology the study of human ageing. Whats astonishing is that scientists have known for decades that life can be prolonged but with illnesses like polio and smallpox dominating medicine until recently, science has had little time or money to invest in what was seen as the esoteric study of ageless ageing. Now though, as medicine progresses to the point where we can control if not cure monstrous diseases like cancer, scientists have the time and funds to explore the last great frontier: taming ageing itself.

Were looking at the kind of technological breakthroughs that will inevitably inspire a new wave of science fiction. I suspect well see reprised versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray or She both stories about the gift and curse of immortality as these discoveries seep into the public imagination.

What Steele says is both revolutionary and important life-changing in the true sense of the word. His thinking is bold, visionary, utopian: Every day we bring forward a cure for ageing, we save 100,000 lives. We know its scientifically possible. Its now up to all of us to meet the defining humanitarian challenge of our time.

Some ageing experiments have been macabre, like splicing two living rats together one young, one old, to discover if youthful tissue can delay the ageing process in older animals. In short, the answer is: it can giving rise to a whole new concept when it comes to vampirism.

I wanted more of this. I wanted to know the lives of the crazy geniuses who are about to change human existence their motives, their inspirations, their challenges and struggles. I also wanted to know more about the social impact of these new scientific breakthroughs that are coming our way. Steele poses some questions early on about what super-extended life spans would mean when it comes to population, employment, pay, pensions and climate change but quickly leaves that behind as we enter textbook territory.

What struck me most about this book, though, was the sense of personal disquiet it gave me. Middle-aged folk like me, and our children, might be the last two generations to really live with the fear of the grotesqueries of growing old. If Steele is right, and we really will soon be able to keep the human body in a state of almost constant good maintenance, both mentally and physically, then my grandchildren may well inherit a world without cancer, stroke, heart attack and dementia; where diabetes and Parkinsons are beaten; where the simple wear and tear on the human body and brain can be repaired with stem cells, gene therapy and medicines being invented in the lab right now.

These breakthroughs will force humanity to ask huge metaphysical questions about itself, and about the nature and meaning of life. Thats what I wanted from this book.

Great popular science books should work like all the best non-fiction: you follow the writer on a journey into an unknown world populated by fascinating characters. Great non-fiction is full of colour and reportage, sugaring the pill of material that might otherwise seem intimidating. Its the old Reithian trick of entertaining while educating.

I wanted Ageless to take me into a world I knew nothing about and show me the men and women working in the lab wholl change the shape of tomorrow and I wanted Steele to lead me through the moral maze this Brave New World will confront us with as a species. Instead, I felt like I was back at school swotting for my Biology A Level.

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Books: Forever young? How the battle against old age could soon be won - HeraldScotland

The Award-Winning Cultist Simulator Is Heading To Switch With All Past DLC Included – Nintendo Life

Posted on December 3, 2020 by Danzig

Cultist Simulator: Initiate Edition, a special release of the award-winning roguelike narrative card game, will launch on Nintendo Switch in February 2021.

A game "of apocalypse and yearning," Cultist Simulator takes place inside a 1920s-themed setting of hidden gods and secret histories. "Perhaps you're looking for knowledge, or power, or beauty, or revenge," the game's official description states. "Perhaps you just want the colours beneath the skin of the world." Intriguing.

This all-new Switch edition includes the base game and first three DLCs as standard the Dancer, the Priest, and the Ghoul. An optional add-on will also launch at the same time; called 'Exile', this DLC will be the game's biggest expansion yet adding a whole new game mode and "a third more content." The main game (with old DLC included) will cost $19.99 / 19.99, while the new Exile DLC will be an additional $6.99 / 6.99.

Here's a feature list:

Cultist Simulator: Initiate Edition will launch on Nintendo Switch on 2nd February 2021. Will you be giving this one a go? Tell us below.

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The Award-Winning Cultist Simulator Is Heading To Switch With All Past DLC Included - Nintendo Life

Dessie Hutchinson’s journey from Brighton to the brink of hurling immortality with Waterford – Independent.ie

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Danzig

In some ways, the arrival of Dessie Hutchinson back into an already stacked Ballygunner squad was the last thing the Waterford championship needed.

n contradiction, his decision to ditch soccer for a career with the Dise has looked to be just the tonic for the county team.

Prior to 2020, Waterford had taken just a draw from their previous eight championships, a run of results that took its toll on morale in the county.

But Liam Cahill has rejuvenated the squad, with the introduction of former Brighton man Hutchinson helping to revive the county's fortunes.

Already, Waterford have seen off Cork and Clare and went stride for stride for long periods with All-Ireland favourites Limerick.

Tomorrow night, they face Kilkenny in Croke Park for a place in the All-Ireland final. It will be another step in the development of Cahill's team, and another step forward for Hutchinson's fledgling inter-county hurling career.

Of course, Hutchinson might have been lost to the GAA forever. With his contract expiring in Brighton, he looked to be heading in the right direction. He captained the club's U-23s and made his first-team debut in the League Cup.

Business

Hutchinson was set to move to St Mirren on loan in January 2018 to gain first-team experience but then the business end of soccer took over.

The deal fell through around the paying of his wages. An untimely injury followed and suddenly his time was done. It was cruel and swift but just the nature of the beast.

At home he played briefly with Waterford FC, but seeing his brothers JJ and Wayne collect county titles with Ballygunner had its charms.

In truth, the club had never been far from his thoughts. While in England, he'd often puck around with the likes of Aaron Connolly and Jayson Molumby.

The pull of home and people and place never left him. So when he came he played football with Gaultier and joined up Ballygunner training after they had won five in a row in Waterford. It was a major boost to Ballygunner, already the pre-eminent side in the county, but also a blow to the chasing pack.

Earlier this year, they made it seven on the bounce, winning those finals by an average of more than 11 points.

And not too many are betting against them to equal, or even surpass, the county record of nine consecutive crowns.

And if Hutchinson has now found his feet at inter-county hurling, it was football manager Benji Whelan who handed him his first Waterford senior jersey in early 2019.

"We became aware of him for two reasons," Whelan remembers. "One was he was playing football with Gaultier and they were starting back. And also his brother JJ was playing with us at that point.

"So we bounced it off JJ when we heard he was back around and he said, 'Yeah, he's a nice footballer' so we asked him in and he came.

"We had probably a couple of games under our belt in the league. So he came on in a couple of games and as you know, its going to take time to get your footing. But he started championship for us that year.

Talented

"He's very talented. There's no two ways about it. The whole soccer side of things would have given him the left foot and the right foot and he can pick a pass with either foot from any distance. We kept him closer to goal because he was very accurate and we didn't see the best of him because he just needed more time."

Whelan studied exercise physiology in Trinity and noted Hutchinson's pace and agility.

"He trades on mobility. His agility is probably in the higher level, close to elite. He can accelerate and decelerate really, really quickly and he can turn off left or right very sharply.

"And he's also very clever, the way he plays he can create space for himself. So in football he was a natural inside forward."

Despite missing so many formative years, Whelan isn't surprised he has stepped up to county hurling so quickly.

"The thing about Dessie is that he was an accomplished hurler before he left for the UK . . . but for the fact that Ballygunner had so many players of a high calibre, Dessie would have been a big loss.

"Like Dessie would have been a huge loss to any other club in Waterford I would say. But he was always known as an accomplished hurler in Waterford. And all of those guys, who can perform to a high level, tend to have natural talent with co-ordination, balance, movement skills."

Our statistics, collated by analyst Diarmuid Whelan in conjunction with DeelySportScience.com, show the impact he has made in the championship so far.

Hutchinson has taken 12 shots in his three championship matches so far, delivering 2-6 and four wides.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his relative inexperience at this level, his best performance came in the most recent game against Clare, where he hit 2-2.

Both our touch and shot maps show that Cahill wants the Ballygunner man close to goal, as he gets on the ball and shoots from on or inside the 45-metre line a large majority of the time.

And that's likely where he'll be stationed against the Cats tomorrow.

Team-mate Stephen Bennett has been impressed with Hutchinson so far and insists he'll get even better.

"In fairness to him, he is brilliant, he trains very hard. He is obviously very skilful, but it's his movement.

"I suppose the four years over training professionally definitely helped him. I just think his first five steps are just brilliant. You'd love to take it off him. He's really good.

"He'll always give the option. We need to get better at actually using him, and all our other forwards."

From Ballygunner to Brighton and back again, Waterford can be thankful that Hutchinson is here to stay. And he'll only get better.

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Dessie Hutchinson's journey from Brighton to the brink of hurling immortality with Waterford - Independent.ie

Never Seen Before Tolkien Works Will Be Published In 2021 – Unreserved Media

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Danzig

Lovers of Middle-earth rejoice, because next year there may be more to read of the magical land that has become beloved internationally by so many. This new collection explores the heart of the land filled with elves, dwarves, hobbits and magic in only the way Tolkien can satisfy.

The collection, titled The Nature of Middle-earth, covers themes including Elvish immortality and reincarnation as well as the geography of places where some of Tolkiens most famous epic fantasies were set.

Which is no surprise considering how much thought he put into the description of every path and woodland mystery in the Fellowship of the Ring when Frodo and gang leave the Shire for the first time.

Not only will this collection give more depth to the already considerable Middle-earth legendarium, but it may also even settle the long-running debate among readers about whether dwarf women had beards. Which will hopefully quell the debate thats been raging on Reddit for years.

Considered one of the founding fathers of modern fantasy, Tolkien is best known for his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, published in 1937 and 1954-1955. Translated in over 70 languages, the books are international bestsellers made even more famous by the well-received Hollywood trilogies directed by Peter Jackson.

The British author didnt stop there, he continued to write about Middle-earth in the following decades, right up until the years preceding his death in 1973. Tolkiens love for developing the land and its lore is obvious to anyone who delves into his literature.

For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earthreveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation, Deb Brody, vice-president of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt explains.

After his death, his son Christopher Tolkien worked on editing and putting together many of his unpublished works as his literary executor. Much of his writing was in pen and on scraps of paper, some drafts written over other drafts. From the manuscripts, he managed to publish various works such as The Silmarillion, The Children of Hrin andmore recently The Fall of Gondolin.

With Christopher having passed away earlier this year, The Nature of Middle-earth has been edited by Carl F. Hostetter, one of the worlds leading Tolkien experts and respected head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. This international organisation, founded in 1988, studies the fictitious languages imagined by J.R.R. Tolkien.

To get ready for the new information, take a little journey through Middle-earth with this extensive interactive map created by chemical engineer Emil Johansson here.The book itself is due out 24 June 24 2021, and is published by HarperCollins in the UK and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in North America.

Source: AFP Relax News

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Never Seen Before Tolkien Works Will Be Published In 2021 - Unreserved Media

#ComicBytes: The comic book origin of Nick Fury | NewsBytes – NewsBytes

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Danzig

Nick Fury is the thread that holds the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) together. After all, he is the one who started the Avengers initiative in MCU.

However, his story is a bit different in comics. For starters, there are different versions of Nick Fury in the multiverse.

To know the origin of the character, we will begin with the original- Nick Fury Sr.

The original Nick Fury was Caucasian and made his debut in the WWII comic called Sgt. Fury. He later fought in the war alongside Captain America while leading the legendary Howling Commandos.

Working with the CIA in the 60s, Fury later became the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to fight evil organizations like Hydra and A.I.M.

This version was retired by Marvel.

The Ultimate Marvel Universe is the Marvel Universe in an alternate timeline. Nick Fury in this Universe was also a WWII veteran and Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, but with a complicated personality.

Interestingly, here Fury is Black, and his design was inspired by Samuel L. Jackson, who went on to become the onscreen Nick Fury, five years after the comic series was released.

After the immense popularity of the Ultimate and MCU version, Marvel brought in the original Nick Fury's secret son, Nick Fury Jr. or Marcus Johnson.

A former Army Ranger, Johnson discovered his true identity and joined the S.H.I.E.L.D to carry on his father's name and legacy.

He is currently a top operative in the organization, alongside his best friend Phil "Cheese" Coulson.

In Captain Marvel, Goose The Flerken snatched out Fury's eye. But in the comic versions Fury Sr. loses his eye to a Nazi grenade blast, Ultimate Fury loses it in an explosion during the Gulf War and Fury Jr. had his eye cut out.

They also got limited immortality from the Infinity formula (super-soldier serum in the Ultimate version).

As mentioned before, Marvel has retired Nick Fury Sr. to pave way for his son. The Ultimate version also doesn't exist anymore as this Universe disappeared after the Secret Wars.

Nick Fury Jr. might be the only Fury in the current continuity, but he represents the previous Furys in terms of being a badass, a great strategist, and an important part of S.H.I.E.L.D.

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#ComicBytes: The comic book origin of Nick Fury | NewsBytes - NewsBytes

The myth of the apple – Evangelical Focus

Posted on November 30, 2020 by Danzig

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest

is my beloved among the young men.

I delight to sit in his shade,

and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

(Song of Songs 2:3)

The Hebrew word thappuakh means apple or apple tree and refers to a species of tree now known as Malus domestica or common apple tree.

This name was translated into Greek as melon, and into Latin as malum. It is a fruit tree that was mentioned in the Old Testament and grew abundantly in Ashkelon, the country of the Philistines. There were several places that bore this name in the Hebrew Bible, such as Tapa (Joshua 12:17; 15;34; 17:8) and Bet-tapa (Joshua 15:53), which probably indicates that there were plantations of apple trees in many different parts of the Biblical lands.

Besides, in the book of Joel it appears as one of the fruit trees that were grown next to the vine, the fig-tree and the palm-tree (Joel 1:12). It was a plant that not only produced sweet, healthy fruit, but also provided very welcome protection from the burning rays of the sun (Song of Songs 2:3). Under its shade you could sleep peacefully (Song of Songs 8:5), and its aroma could reanimate you if you fainted (Song of Songs 2:5).

The Egyptians also grew these trees as far back as the era of Rameses II (13th century BC). Likewise, the Greeks associated their fruit with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality. The lover would throw an apple to his beloved to symbolically express his love for her and, if she caught it, it meant that she accepted him. [1]

Another popular myth, related with the Biblical story of the Fall and sin of Adam and Eve, is the belief that the forbidden fruit was an apple.

Scripture refers, in fact, to the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden (Genesis 3:3), but it says nothing about apples. So why have so many painters and illustrators since ancient times represented Eve as biting an apple and then passing it to Adam? Why have artists and writers, from Albert Drer in 1504 to John Milton, in his 17th century narrative poem Paradise Lost insisted so strongly on the apple of discord?

The answer lies in the curious play on the Latin words, dating from the 4th century AD, associated with the Vulgate translation.

In fact, in the year 374, Pope Damasus I asked his secretary, the historian Jerome of Stridon, to translate the Bible into spoken Latin, from the earliest Hebrew versions available. This translation took 15 years to complete, and came to be known as the Vulgate. Later, in 1546, it was approved by the Council of Trent, and went on to become the official version of the Catholic Church.

The reference to the apple originated in the similarity in Latin between two Latin words. Jerome ingeniously conflated the Latin adjective malus, meaning bad, and the noun malum, which means apple to show how Eve, in biting the malum (the apple) fell prey to malus (evil).

resco de la Capilla Sixtina (Vaticano) pintado por Miguel ngel a principios del siglo XVI, en el que se representa la tentacin de Adn y Eva

However, the Hebrew text does not specify which fruit it was but uses the general term peri, which could refer to any kind of fruit. Some Jewish commentators suggest that it might have been a fig. This, in fact, is the fruit that Michelangelo painted in the famous scene of the temptation and expulsion from Eden depicted in the Sistine Chapel.

Other authors, besides apples and figs, refer to pomegranates, grapes, apricots, etc. Despite this, apples gained in popularity at the expense of the other options, especially after Albert Drers engraving, and thus other artists followed suit, so that Eves apple became widespread and became the myth that is now taken for granted.

From a botanical point of view, the origin of the apple tree is uncertain, though it is believed that other wild species like the Malus sylvestris, Malus orientalis and Malus sieversii became intermingled with the Malus domestica species cultivated by humans. This would locate the origin of the tree in Caucasia and Turkestan (central Asia). From there it would have spread to Palestine, Egypt, Greece, from where the Romans might have introduced the fruit to Europe. Now more than a thousand varieties of apples are grown throughout the world, the results of countless hybridations with wild apple species.

The apple is one of the healthiest fruits that exist as its nutrients are a source of numerous benefits for human beings. In particular, it is rich in pectin, a type of soluble fibre which forms part of the cell wall of plants. When this substance combines with sugar or different acids, it forms a jelly-like substance that is used to make jam. This soluble fibre helps to reduce the level of cholesterol in the blood, which makes apples a good means of keeping cholesterol under control.

Another interesting substance in this fruit is quercitin, a natural colouring which has antioxidant properties, that is to say, it neutralises the free radicals which oxidise the organism and contribute to the appearance of numerous diseases, such as a range of cancerous tumours. In this way, apples help to keep the intestines, and therefore the whole body, in a healthy condition.

In Greek Mythology, the Hesperides were nymphs who lived in a garden, known as the Hesperides Garden, where a very special apple tree grew. It was a tree that produced golden apples, which imparted immortality to whoever ate them (note the similarities with the Biblical story). The task of the Hesperides consisted in protecting this apple tree from any mortal who tried to steal the apples in order to become immortal. To this end, they were able to count on the help of a hundred-headed dragon called Ladon.

Hugh Macmillan (1833 1903), a minister of the Free Church of Scotland wrote the following, with reference to such dreams of immortality:

All these dreams have turned out to be vain and empty of meaning. They arise from earthly longings, rather than a divine promise: they are the fruit of egotism, not of holy aspiration. In a fallen world full of the sorrow caused by sin, no man can achieve fulfilment. Every fruit in the affairs of humankind is marked by suffering and only won through pain. Earthly happiness is a flower that always grows out of a cruel thorn, masked by human manipulation. The poetic myth that places the golden apples in the Hesperides, a garden guarded by dragons, is an allegory of our human reality: if we do not put to death the dragons of egotism and sloth we shall never achieve golden success in life. And even if we could achieve the objects of our desire without work or effort, we would not be able to enjoy them, because if we wish them to do us any real good, they must be the result of our self-denial and hard-work. This is the great lesson that we learn from way in which the Lord performed his miracles. They teach us that both in temporal and in spiritual matters, we cannot glibly throw ourselves into the arms of divine providence and grace if this means that we neglect our own responsibility and the work that it is our part to perform. [2]

[1]Edmonds, J. M., trans.; rev. John M. Cooper. "Epigrams".Plato: Complete Works.Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997, p. 1744.

[2]Spurgeon, The Treasury of David

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The myth of the apple - Evangelical Focus

Eagles News: PFF says Philadelphia not making the playoffs is a good bet to make – Bleeding Green Nation

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Danzig

Lets get to the Philadelphia Eagles links ...

Favorite NFL futures bets ahead of Week 11 - PFFPhiladelphia Eagles +154 to miss the playoffs. This is the second time weve gone to this well this year, but the Eagles have a brutal upcoming schedule and a quarterback who generates a negatively-graded play on almost 20% of his dropbacks in Carson Wentz. His irreducible inaccuracy is going to make it difficult for Philadelphia to compete against the likes of Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and, possibly, Drew Brees in the coming weeks. Now, a real question remains about which team will knock them off, but with the Eagles having a 46% chance of not winning the division in our simulations, this is a good bet to make.

Did Joe Judge get beat up by Marc Colombo? - BGNMarc Colombo put up more of a fight against Joe Judge than the Eagles did.

Wheel of Suck - BGN RadioJimmy Kempski and Brandon Lee Gowton dig deep into some past decisions with the receiver group, preview the Browns, make their NFL East Picks and more! Powered by SB Nation and Bleeding Green Nation.

Scouting the Browns Week 11 opponent: Philadelphia Eagles - Our Q&A with Bleeding Green Nation - Dawgs By NatureOn defense, I have to go with Brandon Graham. He shouldnt qualify as an under-the-radar guy but Im picking him because hes like the one guy on defense you can count on to consistently show up every week. Graham is having a Pro Bowl caliber season for the first time at age 32. I could see him forcing Baker Mayfield into a turnover or two.

Eagles reportedly to sign RB Jordan Howard - PhillyVoiceThe Eagles desire to bring Howard back continues an alarming trend of bringing back familiar players. In fact, they now have 8 players who were with the Eagles, then another team, then the Eagles again. Its an odd signing for a team that has hit on some players unfamiliar to them, like Travis Fulgham, Boston Scott, and CreVon LeBlanc. There wasnt a practice squad player out there worth taking a flier on instead of a seemingly cooked Jordan Howard, especially for a team that is clearly not going to contend for a Super Bowl this season? I dont get it.

Still in First Place - Iggles BlitzFans do not want to hear Were in first place. This team just lost to the Giants by 10 points. Theyve trailed by 10 or more points in 6 of their 9 games. First place or not, the Eagles are a bad team. Doug is supposed to put some positive spin on things, but he needs to be grounded in reality. First place? The Eagles are in first place in the worst division in the history of the NFL. That just isnt something you celebrate. You accept it. Someone has to win the division. You dont apologize for being in first place, but you sure dont sit there with a smile on your face. Thats just not a good message, to fans or players.

Eagles 20 questions: Offseason priorities, future of Wentz-Hurts package & more - The AthleticSomething Lurie will have to consider if he decides to move on from Pederson is whether he can attract the best candidates with the same front-office structure in place. Eric Bieniemy, for instance, is likely to have his pick of open jobs this offseason. Would he want to go coach a team where someone from the same coaching tree was squeezed out three years after winning a Super Bowl and the person who won the deciding power struggle was still there in full force?

What exactly do the Eagles have in Hurts? - NBCSPThe good? Hurts had a 20-yard run against the Ravens and a 14-yard run against the 49ers. He completed an 18-yard pass to Richard Rodgers against the Steelers and a 9-yarder to Travis Fulgham against the Cowboys. He got enough attention from the Ravens that it opened up room for Miles Sanders to take off on a 74-yard run. The bad? The big plays have been few and far between. In the last three games, he has four carries for one yard, plus a failed two-point conversion run. He has 53 scrimmage yards, which puts him last among the 14 skill players taken in the second round this year. Hes 0 for 3 on two-point conversions. Hes fumbled three times, although two were on low snaps. There were 29 players taken in the second round this year, and 21 of them have started at least one game. Hurts is averaging less than four snaps a game.

Week 11 Fantasy Football Rankings: QB - RotoworldQB15 Carson Wentz just had one of the worst starts by any quarterback all season. This, as his supporting cast finally gets healthy. Despite what feels like one disaster after another, he is still on the edge of QB1 status by average points. The way to get the Browns is through the air.

Your Week 11 NFL Matchup Guide: Can the Ravens Avenge Their Playoff Loss to the Titans? - The RingerFour years ago, the Browns traded the second pick in the 2016 draft to Philadelphia, and the Eagles used it to draft North Dakota State quarterback Carson Wentz. Less than a year and a half later, Wentz was an MVP favorite for the Eagles, and Browns fans were distraught that they had not drafted Wentz themselves. The Eagles won the Super Bowl that season, and the Browns went 1-15. Its amazing how quickly things change. This year, Wentz is playing the worst football of his career, and hes trusting all the wrong instincts. Adding insult to his many injuries, Wentzs favorite player growing up, Brett Favre, said last week that the Eagles should have kept Nick Foles over Wentz (nothing stings more than your childhood idol saying you suck). Eagles fans who were once jubilant about their Super Bowl win have switched over to a more familiar mood: turning their internalized despair into rage. Things arent much better in Cleveland, where Baker Mayfield now looks less like a franchise savior and more like a liability under center. Perhaps both fan bases can find solace in the fact that whatever choice they made at quarterback, it would have been the wrong one.

Wide receiver non-PPR rankings for Week 11 fantasy football - DraftKings NationTravis Fulgham, Philadelphia Eagles. One catch for 8 yards didnt exactly do the trick for fantasy managers in Week 10, but they should have some hope for this weeks outing against the Browns. Fulgham has seen 12 targets over the last two games and has had a safe floor since his premier in Week 4. The Browns held the Texans receivers in Week 10, but its worth noting that the weather was horrific, and the game was windy. They allowed four touchdowns to wideouts in the two games prior, however. Fulgham has a nice shot to bounce back against this secondary.

2020 Fantasy Football Rankings: Tight ends for Week 11 - Fake Teams5) Dallas Goedert @ CLE I know the output was underwhelming against the Giants last week, but he saw six targets despite missing time with a concussion. His teammate, Richard Rodgers, saw five targets. Add it all up and we cant ignore this Philly tight end role, especially in a good matchup against the Browns. Cleveland has allowed the sixth-most receptions to the big guys so far this year, which bodes well for Goederts outlook.

Start and Sit: Week 11 - Football OutsidersWorst Week 11 Matchups - Defenses. Compared to the Chiefs and Falcons, the Colts and Browns are not scary offenses. But they remain ones to avoid in fantasy because of their proclivities for running the ball. Its difficult for Philip Rivers and Baker Mayfield to turn the ball over when they drop back 30 or fewer times, regular occurrences this season when the game scripts have developed in their favors. And while the Packers and Eagles may not be the Jets or Bengals as far as appealing matchups go, both opponents have defensive weaknesses that can allow teams to control the game.

Stock up, stock down: Bears-Vikings recap - Windy City GridironNick Foles - Just when I think it cant go lower, it somehow does. Hes so, so bad. Im running out of adjectives to describe it.

Fan confidence poll: After victory over Eagles, confidence of Giants fans is soaring - Big Blue ViewAfter two straight victories that have propelled the New York Giants back into the NFC East title race despite a 3-7 record, fans are feeling good. Really good. In our most recent SB Nation Reacts poll, a season-high 84 percent of fans who voted expressed confidence in the team. Fan confidence was at a low of 37 percent after Week 4, but has risen steadily. After an 0-5 start, the Giants have gone 3-2. Last Sundays victory over the Philadelphia Eagles was the Giants first in nine tries.

Point-counterpoint: Winning may be losing for the Cowboys - Blogging The BoysThe Dallas Cowboys come out of their bye week tied for dead last in the NFC East and still in position for a top five draft pick. They also remain in the thick of the race for the division crown and an automatic playoff berth. It could go either way, or just see them land somewhere a bit lower in the draft order. So what is really best for the team in the long run? Are they better off trying to capitalize on what looks like a fairly weak schedule for the rest of the season, or would it work out better to stay in the basement? Our Tom Ryle and Terence Watson try to figure it out.

DK Metcalf is chasing glory - ESPNHes got superpowers, in a sense, Carroll says. What cant he do? Now in the NFLs top four in receiving touchdowns (eight), yards per catch (18.1) and receiving yards (816), Metcalf has garnered comparisons to a young Calvin Johnson (although the comp Carroll prefers is TChalla), a new nickname, Baby Bron, from the Lakers captain himself, and increased chatter about a return to the Super Bowl for the Seahawks. It feels like nobody can stop you no matter what they do, Metcalf says of the rarefied air hes enjoying right now. It feels like youre on top of the world. Two years ago, at the start of Metcalfs unprecedented rise, the view was very different. After a freak neck injury at Ole Miss, vulnerable and scared, he looked up from a hospital bed as doctors informed him he might never play football again. They were wrong. Just a few months later, in fact, Metcalf burst onto the scene as the viral (and often shirtless) star of the 2019 combine and the eventual second-round pick of the Seahawks. And in Seattle, a perfect storm of ingredients the Seahawks veteran leadership, Metcalfs upbringing as the son of an NFL lineman and a budding telepathy with Wilson that was buoyed by a strange (but effective) offseason bonding ritual have created a generational talent who is now eyeing NFL immortality.

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Unseen JRR Tolkien essays on Middle-earth coming in 2021 – The Guardian

Posted on November 20, 2020 by Danzig

A previously unpublished collection of writings by JRR Tolkien, exploring the world of Middle-earth in essays tackling topics ranging from Elvish reincarnation to which characters had beards, is to be published next summer.

The new collection, which is authorised by the Tolkien estate, will be called The Nature of Middle-earth, and will be published in June by HarperCollins, which promised it would transport readers back to the world of The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and The Lord of the Rings. The publisher has released a host of previously unseen work by Tolkien, who died in 1973, over the last decade, including The Children of Hrin, Beren and Lthien and The Fall of Gondolin.

The Hobbit, Tolkiens first Middle-earth story, was published in 1937, with The Lord of the Rings following in 1954 and 1955. But HarperCollins deputy publishing director Chris Smith said the author continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death.

For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, said Smith, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation.

Smith said the new collection was a veritable treasure trove offering readers a chance to peer over Professor Tolkiens shoulder at the very moment of discovery: and on every page, Middle-earth is once again brought to extraordinary life.

Topics include Elvish immortality and reincarnation; the nature of the Valar, the god-like spirits of Middle-earth; the lands and beasts of Nmenor; the geography of the kingdom of Gondor; and even who had beards. Whether elves, hobbits and even dwarven women could grow beards has long been subject of debate among fans.

The writings will be edited by Carl F Hostetter, a Tolkien expert and head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship who has been a computer engineer at Nasa since 1985. Hostetter previously worked with Tolkiens youngest son Christopher, who curated the authors posthumous output until his death in January, aged 95.

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Unseen JRR Tolkien essays on Middle-earth coming in 2021 - The Guardian

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