Daily Archives: May 20, 2021

Josh Taylor is itching to etch his name into the history books against Jose Ramirez by becoming Britains first undisputed world champion of the four-belt era.

Only four other male fighters from around the world Oleksandr Usyk, Bernard Hopkins, Jermain Taylor and Terence Crawford have held the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO titles consecutively in their divisions.

And the 30-year-old 'Tartan Tornado' knows he will achieve boxing immortality if he can add 28-year-old American Ramirezs WBC and WBO belts to the light-welterweight titles he already holds in Las Vegas on Saturday.

He said: To be on the doorstep of achieving it is crazy.

This is why Im so motivated my name will have some kind of greatness attached to it if I win this fight.

Undisputed world champion in the four-belt era, the first person from Britain to do it, the first person in Scotland to do it, and there are only four other fighters in the world to have done it.

Its a really, really special club to be a member of and its one that puts my name in the history books so people will hopefully be talking about me when Im long gone.

Lennox Lewis was the last undisputed world champion from Britain after his 1999 victory over Evander Holyfield completed the set of WBC, WBA and IBF titles in the three-belt era.

While Taylors fellow Scot, Ken Buchanan, became Britains first undisputed world champion in 1971, when he held the WBC and WBA world lightweight titles.

Taylor added: I never thought Id hear my name mentioned in the same breath as Kennys as an undisputed world champion.

Even when I turned professional, people were saying, Can you be as good as Ken Buchanan?

I was, like, Dont disrespect the man, this is an all-time British great and youre putting me in the same breath. Come on, thats ridiculous.

But now its a realistic goal and Im just a few days from achieving what he achieved.

Im close to Kenny as well, Ive seen him a lot over the years.

Id love to go home and see him with the belts and say, Look, Im just like you, Champ.

Taylor only sees his clash with Ramirez, who is also unbeaten, ending one way.

He said: Ive visualised this fight over and over, thousands of times in my head, Ive imagined it in lots of different ways, and every single time its me winning.

My speed, power, skill, accuracy, boxing IQ, my brain will be different to anything he has faced before.

The ball is in my court, the way I want to take the fight on, Im better than him in every department and my skill levels will be the difference.

Hes a very good fighter, he comes forward, puts the pressure on and hes very good at what he does, so Im not here disrespecting him.

I just believe Im better than him and he is going to have to prove me wrong.

Ramirez v Taylor will stream live and exclusively in the UK on FITE for 9.99. Live coverage begins at 130am UK on Sunday, May 23.

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Josh Taylor eyeing boxing immortality in undisputed Las Vegas clash with Jose Ramirez - Mirror Online

Enter the words Kobe Bryant highlights into the search bar of YouTube, and the site will spit out dozens of videos that have been viewed a million times or more. How many? I stopped counting at 29. Some of the videos arent highlight compilations at all. Some of them are eulogies and tributes. Some of them are interviews. Some of them are entire games. But enough of them are highlight compilations that Kobe-philes can spend a day or more losing themselves in his brilliance, one violent dunk, one twisting and twirling layup, one contested 19-foot buzzer-beater at a time.

There is one video that stands out among those dozens. It has been watched 77 million times. It lasts 3 minutes, 8 seconds, and it is required viewing for anyone seeking to understand why Bryants peers regarded him with so great a sense of respect, of competitive reverence, and why that respect is sure to be a theme of his posthumous induction Saturday night into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Lakers are playing the Magic in Orlando in March 2010, and Bryant is jawing, grappling, elbowing, and tussling with the mercurial forward Matt Barnes. The referees assess each of them a technical foul, and with jabs and subtle shoves and trash talk, Barnes keeps trying to antagonize Bryant, to goad him into an overreaction, another tech, and an ejection. Now Barnes is about to inbound the ball, and Bryant stands in front of him, his hands at his sides. From no more than five feet away, Barnes raises the ball and, instead of throwing it to a teammate, snaps a fake chest pass toward Bryant, as if hes going to fire the ball into his face.

READ MORE: How Kobe Bryants death brought Bobby McIlvaine an athlete, a scholar, the friend I shouldve known better back to life | Mike Sielski

Bryant, his eyes locked on Barnes, doesnt so much as blink. Is he in some kind of trance? Has he achieved so deep a detachment that he doesnt throw up his hands to protect himself? No. The opposite. He has long ago steeled himself against the tactics that Barnes is employing. In that setting, in that moment, he is fully engaged, and he considers himself bulletproof. He has spent his whole life training himself to be so.

In the summer of 1993, there was a pickup basketball circuit in and around Philadelphia for pros and college players, which meant Tim Legler a La Salle alumnus, having just finished his third season in the NBA could find a good game just about anywhere, anytime. The sites rotated: Philadelphia Community College, Philadelphia Textile, Hayman Hall at La Salle, McGonigle Hall at Temple, the Sporting Club. The games were so popular and such an essential part of the NBA offseason that the Sixers trainers would set up tables courtside to treat the players. Legler was getting his ankle taped one day when he saw this young dude, he said, long and kind of gangly but just crazy athletic.

Who is that guy? Legler asked.

Oh, someone said, thats Kobe Bryant. Thats Joe Bryants kid. Hes a freshman at Lower Merion.

A freshman? Legler couldnt believe it.

He was absolutely out there holding his own, he said. His confidence level made absolutely no sense for any 15-year-old person doing anything. He wanted to go at guys. He wasnt just surviving, like someone did him a favor by letting him in the game because they knew Joe Bryant. This was a situation where this kid showed up, and he was there to get in games and to hang and hold his own. All of those things were going to be ahead of him, but it was impossible to know that at that age. All I know is, Ive never seen a person in my life that young that confident at anything.

Each weekend that summer, Legler would play pickup down the shore, at the courts at 8th and Dune in Avalon, against Big 5 guys and other college players. And once in a while, a 15-year-old or two would join them, and Legler always noticed the terror in those kids eyes as they went against grown men with game, and he always thought of the gangly freshman who had no fear at all.

During Bryants freshman season, Lower Merion went 4-20.

We would go to the movies, but Kobe would be working out in his driveway, said Guy Stewart, a friend and teammate. So he was constantly, constantly working, and because he was, he made such a leap from his freshman to his sophomore year, it was just insane. You would get these glimpses of him that summer or that next season, Oh, hes different now. Narberth Summer League, Ardmore Summer League. Then you would see him play pickup somewhere, where you could see how hard he had worked to change his game. He was just doing it with ease now, whether it was his jump shot, whether it was his handle, his vertical. Every year, it was an improvement a drastic improvement, too.

Anthony Gilbert was a student at Temple in the mid-1990s when he met Sharia Bryant, who was a standout volleyball player for the Owls, and her younger brother. Gilbert and Kobe became fast friends, but no matter how many times Gilbert prodded him, Hey, man, lets go to South Street, maybe talk to some girls, Kobe told him no. Kobe preferred to work on his game. We would hang out in basketball spaces, said Gilbert, a longtime contributing writer for SLAM Magazine.

READ MORE: Sixers center Joel Embiid says he owes much of his success to Kobe Bryant

They would go to Tustin Playground, across the street from Overbrook High School. And to the Jewish Community Center in Wynnewood. And to Ardmore Park. And this, to Bryant, was hanging out: He would shoot pull-ups and three-pointers and 38-footers from just inside the half-court stripe hone his footwork, put himself through drill after drill on those courts. Gilbert had a two-pronged responsibility. He would rebound all the shots and, per Bryants instructions, shout challenges and insults at him.

Youre good, but you dont play in the Public League.

You go to a white high school.

Theres no competition in the suburbs.

During Bryants junior and senior seasons, Lower Merions practices started at 5:30 p.m. Because he arrived by 6 each morning a janitor would open the gym for him so he could practice alone or with a teammate Bryant would have spent close to 12 hours at school, then another two hours for practice. Then coach Gregg Downer and one of his assistants, Mike Egan, would play H-O-R-S-E or Around the World with the players for another 45 minutes or so, but not with Bryant.

Kobe always had his laboratory, his basket down there where he was working on his footwork until we said, OK, gotta go, Egan said. No one really bothered him. No one talked to him much. Hed work on the same move for 15, 20 minutes. It was amazing for a kid at that age. Wed yell down, Come on, Kobe. Dont be scared. Hed just laugh and wave us off. Its not by accident he had those moves. It was dedicated, focused repetition. He knew what he was doing.

In December 1995, Lower Merion won two of its three games at the Beach Ball Classic, a prestigious tournament held at the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Convention Center. Sold out, the center held between 7,500 and 8,000 people, a gigantic crowd for a high school basketball game, and there were five future NBA players, including Jermaine ONeal and Mike Bibby, who participated in that tournament. Bryant scored 117 points 43 one night, 31 the next, 43 the next the most productive three-game stretch of his prep career to that point.

We got to see Kobes game accelerate against the top teams in the country, said Omar Hatcher, a forward for Lower Merion then. It showed me a good players game has to travel. It cant be subject to place or atmosphere.

Kobe Bryant had been named the NBAs most valuable player in 2008. He had won his fourth championship with the Lakers in 2009. He would win his fifth in June 2010, which means that the Matt Barnes moment occurred at what can reasonably be called Bryants apex, the period during which he was regarded as the best basketball player in the world.

There are only so many people who can claim or have claimed that title, and what separates Bryant from most of them, if not all of them, is the degree to which he was willing to mold himself into that caliber of player. He did not need a tiger mom to push him. He would not have expressed any incredulity at the idea of talkin bout practice.

As a teenager, he could not palm a basketball his hands would grow to be 9 inches long, neither large nor small by NBA standards so he labored to shave away any imperfections from his fundamentals. So many of those highlight compilations feature Bryant making shots of the highest degree of difficulty, fadeaways and leaners that seem impossible but for his ability, with a drop step or a shoulder dip, to contort his body and free himself and still maintain his flawless shooting form.

Kobe will go down in history as having the greatest footwork of any perimeter player who ever played, Legler said. Thats not innate. It has to become second nature so that you react in the moment. It cant be something you have to think about. It has to be muscle memory, so much repetition that your body just reacts. That is something where you have to go into a gym and be obsessive about practicing it.

READ MORE: A year after Kobe Bryants death, remember that the Lower Merion kid was ours to cherish | Mike Sielski

The tolls and sacrifices of this existence were obvious and severe. His detachment manifested itself off the court, in more personal and intimate matters: in his relationships with his parents and teammates and coaches, with people to whom he had once been close and whom he removed from or allowed to pass out of his life, in his interactions with the opposite sex.

But those costs are not likely to come up much this weekend. The ceremony will be a celebration, though a sad and bittersweet one, of Kobe Bryant the athlete, of Kobe Bryant the competitor, of Kobe Bryant, who could watch Matt Barnes make like he was going to break his nose and not even flinch over the threat. No one has ever been as confident in anything.

Editors Note: Mike Sielskis book The Rise: Kobe Bryant and the Pursuit of Immortality will be published in January.

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Kobe Bryant enters the Hall of Fame on Saturday. Heres how he achieved basketball immortality. | Mike Sielski - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Death as a mortal is nothing new to comics. But a nasty, resentful Death plotting against humankind to reclaim her throne in the immortal world? That is a concept that acclaimed comics creator Ram V (Grafitys Wall, Black Mumba) and artist Filipe Andrade (Fantastic Four: Road Trip) pull off to delightful success in their new BOOM! Studios series, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.

When humans stumble upon the secret to immortality, Death suddenly finds herself out of luck and out of a job. Sentenced to life as a mortal, Death is reincarnated in Laila Starr, a recently deceased orphan whose final resting place happens to be in the same hospital as humanitys new savior. Death is desperate to snuff out this threat; but standing in her way is the smooth-operating Life, who she will have to circumvent to get what she wants.

Just as in Ram Vs graphic novel with Anand Radhakrishnan,Grafitys Wall, Mumbai stands as the backdrop to this vibrant story of magical realism. I caught up with Ram and Filipe to talk about why Hinduism and Indian mythology are the perfect vehicles in which to explore the thin line between life and death in The Many Deaths of Laila Starr.

Nancy Powell: How did you come up with this concept of life and death for the series?

Ram V:A lot of it has to do with me as a younger amateur writer trying to write stories that featured death in some way and going like, clearly I dont have the life experience or something with this kind of gravity to be able to really write about it. Now as a near-40-year-old, I look at it and feel like, okay, I can see how death was an ever-present part of my childhood, even though somehow children seemed to be untouched by it, almost immortal in that sense. And so that kind of spurred on this idea to write about Death having to experience mortality, if you will. Theres also been a long tradition of stories that feature the god of death coming down to the mortal realm in Indian stories. So, I felt like that was a nice thing to draw from as well.

Powell: Have you read Neil Gaimans Death: The High Cost of Living?

V: Yes! So, Neil Gaiman is one of my absolute favorite authors. When we first started this story, I had to first sit here and wonder, like, come on, Gaimans done that. What else do I have to say about it? I think the realization is that death means very different things to different people, depending on where you come from. The way Americans and Europeans and Christians, I imagine, think about death is very different from the way Indian Hindus think about death is very different from the way Indian Buddhists think about death.

And so, death is a very uniquely social, cultural, religious artifact that we all contend with in very different ways. So, I felt like I had something to say about this in context of where I come from, who I am and how I perceive death to be. And so, the story kind of started there. And I imagine, by the end of it, people will take away an idea of death that hopefully is very different from anything youve read before.

Powell: Is Death based on a particular Hindu God?

V: No, I mean, there are multiple gods of death in mythology. Yama is considered by some to be a god of death, Kali is considered by some to be a goddess of death. But no, I dont think were specifically sort of pointing at any one god or the other, but rather the concept of this being who looks upon mortals with this power to decide when their time on Earth is done and when they are to leave, to make that concept suddenly powerless and have to earn its place among humanity. Its always an interesting concept.

Powell: In one of your previous graphic novels, Grafitys Wall, you write that the main characters are pushed aside by the churning current of Mumbai, and I feel Death as Laila is similar in that vein. What is it about Mumbai and its marginalized figures that fascinates you so much?

V: Well, I come from Mumbai. I lived in Mumbai ever since I was a kid. I feel like theres a way to write a story where individuals and their lives are pushed around by the greater forces that surround us. But in doing so, I think we often dont look at the inversion, and I think Im doing the inversion of that, where Im looking at this great force of death that we all know and hear and have a relationship with, and how it feels for Death to suddenly become powerless and be pushed around by this immense force that humanity is.

And I think Filipe will also attest to the fact that Mumbai in this story feels like an external giant force of humanity, that is inescapable in some ways for our protagonist, Laila Starr.

Powell: So, Filipe, have you been to Mumbai?

Filipe Andrade: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Powell: Was it pretty easy to visualize what Ram had in mind for the story?

Andrade: Yeah, I mean, you see, maybe easy is not the word, but it was visually appealing to me, so in that way it was easy to fall in love. But Mumbai is a difficult city to try to draw because it has so many layers. Its like Ram said, the energies and the amount of people, and its beautiful and ugly. Its all these contrasts, so its a really interesting city as a set-up.

Powell: Did you find yourself having to study up on Hinduism or any of the iconography in order to draw the comic?

Andrade: A little bit, yeah, but not too deep because its huge. Its impossible. I didnt take that risk.

Powell: So which gods or goddesses in Indian culture most interest either of you? And will they make appearances in The Many Deaths of Laila Starr?

V: All the gods interest me, to be honest. I dont particularly have an interest in one particular god or the other, but I like looking at Indian and Hindu gods as these overly-dramatic, often prone to making terrible mistakes, and unintentionally hilarious beings of extreme power and significance and importance. I like thinking of gods in those terms.

I think one of the great travesties that I feel about Indian mythology is that, because its so close to religion, it has become conflated with that. And I feel like we edify and we ossify the stories that relate to Indian mythology. So part of my endeavor here is to remind people that these are just stories, you know? Gods are allowed to be funny. Gods are allowed to be stupid. Sometimes gods are allowed to fail. Gods are allowed to struggle. And so I think part of part of my endeavor in writing this story has been to convey that sense of that emotion.

As for the rest of the series, I dont want to spoil anything. I will say that Issue Two is not what youre expecting, and Issue Three is even more so.

Powell: And how about you, Filipe?

Andrade: Yeah, I mean, its difficult for me to talk about India and the geography of religion. So I will say that pictorially its so interesting. Its so dramatic. Like if you compare it to The Iliad from Europe or something like that, it feels even more old, its even more, lets say, ritualistic. I dont know if this is the word. But it feels like everything has meaning. When I was looking through some references of Kali, for example, its so diverse in the way that she was represented, but always so graphically intense. In Christianity there are always these pictures of suffering or dramatics. In this way, Indian art is more appealing.

Powell: At the end of Issue One of The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, do I detect a current of romantic tension between Death and Life?

V: Of course. I mean, Life is eternally in love with Death, and Death doesnt care at all. So, yes, theres clearly this romantic tension between Life and Death.

Powell: And can Life change Deaths perception of being mortal going forward, or is that too much of a spoiler?

V: Well, I also feel like, should Life want to change everything about Death? He absolutely loves her as she is. I think he loves her because of who she is. So I dont think he would ever dream of changing anything about her. I think he would much rather sit on the sidelines and watch her go through her own stuff and be there for her whenever she needs him to be, whether she wants him to be there for her or not.

Powell: And going back to the inspirations for The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, was there a particular movie or book besides Gaimans Death that proved pivotal to developing the storyline?

V: I mean, I draw from a lot of different places. Gabriel Band Fbio Moons Daytripper was certainly an influence for me. And there is theres oodles of novels, I think. Filipe, I dont know if you know Jos Saramago, but Jos Saramagos novels are a massive influence in terms of the stories that Im writing. Yeah, I take bits and pieces from all kinds of media, but those are probably the most noteworthy things of influence. Over to you, Filipe.

Andrade:Yeah, do you know that Saramago lived in Lanzarote, in one really, really small island.

V: Yeah. Yeah.

Andrade: If you ever seen the movie about them, Saramago and Josette? And so youre going to fall in love, and actually, now youre saying this, its kinda lightened me up. Im so sorry about what to say. I totally lost the question.

Powell: Oh no problem. Is there a particular movie or book that inspired how you visualized or how you drew the comic?

Andrade: Not in particular. I mean, I always like to mix a lot of things that actually are not connected, like even some sticker I see in the street or someone I meet in the street or something that I see like in a background of a movie. But some actions were like, for example, Brahma, I picture him a little bit, like he was acting like The Big Lebowski.

Powell: That is so funny. I can see that. Anyhow, I really loved The Many Deaths of Laila Starr, and its beautiful. I cant wait to read more about it.

V: Thank you.

Andrade: Thank you so much.

Published by BOOM! Studios,The Many Deaths of Laila Starr #1 is in stores now. The second issue of the five-issue series is due in stores and digitally tomorrow.

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INTERVIEW: Ram V and Filipe Andrade on Deaths rude awakening in THE MANY DEATHS OF LAILA STARR - Comics Beat

Legendary Comics has revealed their new YA imprint today.

Legendary Comics YA will feature a line of amazing stories for the young adult audience. This year, fans will be greeted to The Heart Hunter (August 3, 2021) and Lupina (September 9, 2021). Next year, Tragic (April 18, 2022) and The Witches of Silverlake (October 1, 2022) will join the imprint. Right now, readers can grab the first book in Legendary Comics YA titled Championess. More information about each story can be seen below.

Legendary Comics senior vice president Robert Napton said:

Weve identified the young adult genre as an opportunity to expand and invest in our audience growth. Legendary Comics YA is the beginning of our long term commitment to this category and the diverse stories we want to tell.

Legendary Comics senior editor Nikita Kannekanti said:

The YA genre is known for telling groundbreaking, innovative, and unique stories. By working with exciting new talent and comic book veterans in the YA space, we have been able to acquire books where emotional and personal journeys are at the forefront. Legendary Comics YA is our chance to focus on fresh character-driven stories that reflect the diverse voices of young adults all over the world.

Legendary Comics YA titles

Championess (in stores now) based on the true story of Elizabeth Wilkinson, a female bare-knuckle boxer in 18th century London. Elizabeth, reimagined as half-Indian, and her sister Tess struggle to make ends meet and cover Tesss debts. While Elizabeth works odd jobs at the local newspaper, the only way she knows how to make enough money to help them survive is her true passion, bareknuckle boxing. With Tesss support, Elizabeth trains at the boxing facility of one of the most famous retired boxers and the only real fight promoter of any notoriety, James Figg. As Elizabeth trains with Figg and James Stokes, she confronts her personal demons of what destroyed her family and comes to terms with being the first half-Indian female boxer in a white male world. Writers: Tarun Shanker and Kelly Zekas. Arist: Amanda Perez Puentes.

The Heart Hunter (August 3, 2021) set on the cursed island of Envecor, where everyone is doomed to wear their heart outside their body and are immortalunable to die, to change, to have children until they find their soul mate. Paired soul mates are then turned mortal, freed from the curse, and able to leave. But all fairy tales have a dark side: those who dont want to lose their immortality pay Heart Hunters to find their soul mates and kill them so they may remain immortal. Psyche, a Heart Hunter, is hired by the king to kill his soulmate. As she sets out on her quest, she begins her own journey of mending her broken heart and learning to trust again. Writer: Mickey George. Artist: V. Gagnon.

Lupina (September 9, 2021) a six-part captivating saga about a young girl on a journey of revenge with her wolf companion. In the coastal town of Kote, recently brought under the yoke of the Addalian Empire, four-year-old Lupa spends her days getting bullied by her older sister and hiding behind her mothers skirts. But when tragedy strikes, Lupa finds herself alone in a new world alone until shes found by the she-wolf, Coras, and sets off on a journey of discovery and revenge. Writer: Eisner Award-nominated writer James F. Wright. Arist: Li Buszka.

The Witches of Silverlake (October 1, 2022) the story of Elliot Green, who moves across country to start high school in one of Los Angeles most prestigious private schools. Hes quickly taken in by the schools outcasts: the scholarship kids; the queer kids; and the ones who just dont really fit in with the glossy trust fund babies of SJTBA. They quickly let him in on their little secretthey are witches. Elliot joins them in their world among the crystal stores and occult shops of Silverlake and ends up joining his new friends coven. During one of their magical experiments, they accidentally release a bloodthirsty demon that starts murdering their classmates and teachers. Elliot and his coven realize that the fun and games of playing with crystals and candles is over, that magic is powerful, real, and that it might be more dangerous than theyd ever imagined. Writer: Simon Curtis. Arist: Stephanie Son.

Tragic (April 18, 2022) a retelling of Shakespeares Hamlet from a queer lens and told through the eyes of 17-year-old Harper Hayes. After her father Hamilton dies a mysterious and tragic death, Harper is convinced that he was murdered, and her first suspect is her uncle, who has been sleeping with her mother. With the help of her ex-girlfriend Talia and her best friend (sometimes with benefits) Holden, Harper is determined to find her father's killer. But when Caius, Talia's father and Hamiltons business partner, is also found dead, Harper realizes the answer to Hamiltons murder is more complicated than she had initially realized. As Harper begins to see her fathers ghost in the form of a teenage Hamlet everywhere and starts slipping into hallucinations of his murder that end with blood on her hands, one thing becomes clearin order to uncover the truth about what happened to her father, Harper has to confront her own demons and ones that haunt the Hayes family. Writer: Dana Mele. Artist: Valentina Pinti. Colorist: Chiara Di Francia.

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Legendary Comics announces YA imprint - MP3s and NPCs

William Urban| Daily Review Atlas

Every writer has experienced someone coming up and asking how it feels to be a published author. Locally, one can ask Sue Van Kirk, whose books have done very well. Most of us would say, that if money is the object, there are easier ways to make it. Like mowing lawns.

The truth is that professional writers have to write a lot, and writing is a lot of work. Not many are so lucky as to turn out just the right book at the right time. Bob Hellenga over at Knox College did that, turning his personal and professional experiences during his first year in Florence into a popular book. He died too young, but his books, especially that first one, live on. That must be one of the things that drives us, to create something lasting.

Of course, we know that books dont live forever. Thats why we have libraries book stores clear their shelves once the managers see that books arent moving. Libraries save these books, at least one copy, until it hasnt been checked out for a few decades. As a means of achieving immortality, writing a book is only marginally better than writing poetry.

Moreover, male book authors sitting alone at a bar dont find that mentioning their occupation is a particularly good conversation opener. Poets do better. Perhaps its because young women, who are the traditional focus of western poetry, are more likely to appreciate a sonnet than a weighty tome; perhaps its because poets are more likely to develop an artistic persona dark wavy hair, grubby clothes, mysterious sighs. Writers at least male ones tend to be bald and the sighs reflect recent interactions with publishers and editors. Female writers must be about the same, but fewer are bald.

Somewhere we must mention stimulants. Coffee is probably more common than alcohol, and marijuana seems to induce a what-the-hell attitude unlikely to help getting the manuscript finished. Hemingway drank a lot which might explain why his best works were short stories and short books.

Bottom line: writing is a lot of work, and any writer who is at a bar had better be in Paris like Hemmingway because writers need to concentrate and the French will ignore you, especially if youre an American. For me the best time was lunch in my office. Friends went off for good conversation and a break. (Joining them may be a good strategy for inspiration for an academic novel. It doesnt do much for scholarship.) Every now and then Id have a student come by at that time, so Id set the work aside to talk. I drew the line at playing chess, lest Id lie awake at night with the game in my head, working out what I could have done differently. (If you cant see the board in your head, youre not a serious chess player, just as if you cant remember the paragraph that isnt working, you arent a writer.)

Not many people realize that writing a book is only half the work. Then comes editing. Editors are good people, but slave drivers. They have hard deadlines, too.

There is also the promotion industry. In 1970 I wrote an outline for a novel/play called "The Dean Is Dead." The story took place in an obscure college in the middle of nowhere that was on the absolute bottom of the US News ranking of liberal arts colleges. The dean had hired a recent Ph.D. in Sociology who could not even get an interview elsewhere because he had been a policeman. (1970!) When the dean was found drowned in the college pool, the new hire found himself working with a police chief who had little experience with crime beyond car theft and vandalism. Complications arose when he was attracted to a young colleague who believed that all cops were fascists. (1970!) I finally self-published it in 1995.

It was not a best seller, but I enjoyed writing it, and everyone who read it said that they recognized the personalities on their own campuses. But academics have little tolerance for satire. I have to explain this to promotors who still contact me to offer putting me in contact with publishers, movie producers, and television studio heads. I tell them that I have a sense of humor, but not enough to pay them for their services.

My serious publications, twenty-odd by now, came about because publishers heard of my work somehow and contacted me. So I never underestimate the importance of luck. But luck appears after one writes an article or gives a talk that impresses someone.

Should you write? Short answer if you want to, it would be hard to stop you. And youll love it. Give it a try!

William Urban is the Lee L. Morgan Professor of History and International Studies at Monmouth College.

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William Urban: The perils of publishing - Monmouth Daily Review Atlas

Most of us are familiar with Shakespeares plays. Even if we arent Shakespeare geeks, chances are weve waded through five or six in school, seen several movie adaptations and been to an in the park production.

And then there is the constant background of Shakespearean quotations and references colouring our lives, from recognisable lines like let slip the dogs of war, to the oh, I didnt know Shakespeare wrote that cliches, such as one fell swoop or wear my heart upon my sleeve.

However, apart from a few hits, Shakespeares sonnets are less known.

Fortified with a familiarity with the plays, a virgin journey into the sonnets is as good a literary adventure as anyone could hope for. It is both unsettling and beguiling.

The Shakespeare of the plays is god-like: he is everywhere in his creations as a masterful and unifying presence, and yet he is aloof. If I had to take a punt, Id say he was wise, wry the kind of person who knew how to do life right.

Thus it is a shock to meet the Shakespeare of the sonnets. This Shakespeare is frail (sonnets 29 and 145), obsessed (28), judgmental (130), fickle (110) and self-pitying (72). And so we are drawn in. We begin to ponder how much of himself Shakespeare reveals in the sonnets, and, if he is in there, how one of the most remarkable humans could be so like the rest of us.

A sonnet is a short poem, traditionally about love. The English or Shakespearean sonnet has a standard form. There are 14 lines, each with five beats.

Each beat has two syllables, with the second being stressed. This is known as iambic pentameter. Try it out with the most famous line from the sonnets: Shall I compare thee to a summers day? (18)

The sonnet has three quatrains stanzas with four lines and a final rhyming couplet two lines that rhyme. The couplet packs a certain punch that turns the sonnet on its head or provides the key to the sonnet or something similar.

Read more: Explainer: poetic metre

When we talk about Shakespeares sonnets, we are usually referring to the 154 sonnets published in 1609 when Shakespeare was about 45. The sonnets were likely written and revised throughout Shakespeares adult life (though there is debate).

Keeping to the tradition, Shakespeares sonnets are about love. But they take us into loves maelstrom. The sonnets speak, often in the most raw fashion, of jealousy (61), fear (48), infidelity (120) and love triangles (41, 42), but also of the simple happiness that love can bring (25). Because of this, according to poet and essayist Anthony Hecht, young lovers make up the most substantial readership of the sonnets.

The bulk of the sonnets (1-126) are addressed to a young man, often referred to as the fair youth.

The last 28 are mostly addressed to or about a woman: the dark lady. The real-life identities of both figures are not known. However, the dedication to the sonnets, which some consider to be a code, may contain the youths identity (see this article by amateur Shakespeare scholar, John Rollett).

Within these two broad sets there are smaller groupings. Sonnets 1 to 17 are known as the procreation sonnets, while 78 to 86, which reveal that another poet is drawing inspiration from the fair youth, are referred to as the rival poet sequence.

And throughout, two and sometimes three sonnets are directly linked as if they were a longer poem (for instance 66, 67 and 68 look out here for the objection to the silly wigs everyone wore).

Read more: Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up

There are several recurring themes here.

A number of sonnets address the pain of being apart (such as 44 and 45). And in 49 we see the personas anxiety about parting permanently when he imagines the time when thou [the fair youth] shalt strangely pass, / And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye.

But we also witness the persona drawing on his love for the youth to fortify himself against unhappy memories. The well known 30 begins with:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear times waste.

It finishes with the lines, But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restord, and sorrows end.

There are also the themes of times destruction of beauty and the horror of death. And hand-in-hand with these, we see the persona searching for ways for the youth to achieve immortality.

In 12, one of the procreation sonnets, the youth is encouraged to seek immortality by having children. It finishes with: And nothing gainst Times scythe can make defence, / Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.

However, even more poignant are the personas many explicit attempts to preserve the youth through his poetry a quixotic enterprise that, remarkably, has worked. This is best exemplified in 18. We read:

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderst in his shade, / When in eternal lines to time thou growest. / So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

A common discussion is whether the fair youth sequence reveals that Shakespeare was gay or bisexual. Unless the sonnets are a wild fabrication, Shakespeare certainly wasnt straight.

However, we should, as scholar Dennis Kay reminds us, be cautious of applying a modern understanding of, and attitudes toward, homosexuality to early modern culture. Read 20 and see what you think.

Not all the sonnets in the fair youth sequence are addressed to the youth. An exception is another of the evergreen sonnets: 116. This ode to the eternal nature of love begins with:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.

Returning to sonnet 66 (my favourite), although the final couplet addresses love, the sonnet stands out because its focus is not love, but the corruptions of the world.

In it, the persona objects to folly (doctor-like) controlling skill and art made tongue-tied by authority. Here we are reminded of the battles many who are capable and spirited must fight against soulless bureaucracies and the censorious.

The dark lady is dark because when she is introduced in 127, her complexion and eyes are described as black:

In the old age black was not counted fair, / Or if it were, it bore not beautys name; / But now is black beautys successive heir, / And beauty slanderd with a bastard shame.

And later in the sonnet we read: my mistress eyes are raven black.

In the dark lady sequence, the persona suffers familiar torments. But there are also several instances of humor the fair youth sequence is almost humorless.

In sonnet 135 and 136 the persona puns bawdily and relentlessly on the world will: Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, / Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

But the stand-out is 130. Here the persona pointedly declines to use tired comparisons to praise the attributes of his mistress.

We read: My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun, and, And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

Then come the glorious lines: I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground.

The sonnets were not much read for nearly 200 years after their publication, but since then they have only grown in popularity. This was, perhaps, assisted by Wordsworths own sonnet: Scorn Not the Sonnet. (I know, its hard not to laugh.)

Today, lines from the sonnets turn up from time to time in popular culture. Naturally, in Dead Poets Society sonnet 18 is recited.

So what do the sonnets mean for us today? Many things. Most commonly, they have come to stand for perfect love, but this is likely because few readers make it past two of them: sonnets 18 and 116.

For those who do read further, the sonnets provide a more honest account of love, while exploring other substantial themes such as fear of death and the search for immortality.

The sonnets can also be enlisted to support social and political causes, from freedom to sexuality. And then there is the possible portal they provide into Shakespeare the man.

Ultimately though, we read on because of Shakespeares inimitable commingling of beauty and truth if the two can be separated. And because each reading reveals that we are still only splashing about in the shallows of an immeasurable ocean.

Read more:

Guide to the classics: Shakespeares sonnets an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself - The Conversation AU

Our time will come to an end. But what if it doesnt? What would you do? Would you quit your job and travel the world? Take a nap? 17776, a hypertext speculative fiction narrative by Jon Bois, proposes a different answer on behalf of humanity: play football. As a deeply conditional football fan, this piece has to be my favorite thing Ive ever read (and truly, I believe that 17776 should be experienced with little prior knowledge).

Published online in 2017 at SB Nation, a sports-focused media outlet owned by Vox, 17776 is a deeply odd and oddly deep fictional narrative that questions how the scarcity of time affects existence. Set 15,755 years in the future, Bois creates a world where birth, death and the suffering in between ended on April 7, 2026. People live free of financial and health concerns; instead, in the United States, many focus their energy on an ongoing nationwide football game, where participants play or engage in fanfare. The story is narrated by three sentient space probes, who jokingly converse about the state of the universe while observing the game.

Its unlike anything Ive ever read. First, the format: a mixture of monthly calendars, group chat records, historical documents, podcast transcripts and Google Maps of a landscape different from our own. 17776 is a narrative that pushes the boundaries of fiction, especially on the internet: its one of the most well-known additions to the internet genre of hyperliterature, in which online fiction uses unconventional, expressive forms to convey its function.

While newly-awakened space probe Nines (Pioneer 9) group chat messages are formal, insistent and laden with question marks (most commonly What? followed by questions like We dont do anything, right? and This is the end, right? The end of this story?), Tens (Pioneer 10) and Juices (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) texts are much more casual, with less grammar and more jokes, like this one about Lunchables: neatly partitioned meats and cheeses appeal to me on an aesthetic level ok mfer. Ten and Juice are deeply familiar with the state of the universe and have no sense of time or urgency they dont ask questions or bother with most things, really. Compared with Nines insistent questioning and existential dread, they seem uninterested in serious questions of the world around them. Juice would much rather discuss football, like many of the humans on earth.

The lack of productivity infuriates Nine, from the late 20th century, who begins angrily texting messages such as Im appalled disgusted, I guess, overcome with the lack of purpose. Ten and Juice then slowly and calmly text back, explaining to Nine that wasting time is simply impossible time has ceased to be a finite resource, and life goes on forever. In 17776, human beings are no longer under the jurisdiction of the natural world. But for creatures whove learned to define their existence with constraints such as time, money and physical ability, immortality is terrifying. Since, instead of uncertainty or stress, boredom is their only enemy, so humanity turns to sports to deal with being alive.

The sheer amount of thought put into 17776 is impressive. With plenty of newspaper clippings, historical facts and believable vignettes, the intricate worldbuilding makes the piece feel like an irreverent, entertaining study of history. Looking at historical documents such as certificates and newspaper clippings makes me feel like Im trying to answer a Data-Based Question for my high school American history class again (in a good way, this time). The montages of documents over a course of 15,000 years have a way of making you feel incredibly inconsequential in their magnitude. Most of the historical vignettes narrated by the space probes group chat gave me genuine goosebumps, as I absorbed the stories in which people grapple with the pain of an endless existence. The tales weave in and out of the football game, making the unnatural seem profoundly mundane, and the every day seem truly otherworldly an always-burning light bulb is sacred, and New York City has all but disappeared into an underwater ghost town.

Additionally, 17776 remains the only true utopian piece of literature Ive ever read; absent of suffering, its impressive that the piece so thoroughly captures attention without the traditional ideas of conflict. Instead, it draws readers in through thorough worldbuilding, crafting a reality wholly different but strangely similar to our own. Ultimately, within the story, many Americans turn to football to pass the time, like we always have. Many, including Nine, could easily call playing football a waste of time. But, in our world and theirs, humans need for sports goes beyond expectations of productivity and profit; Bois shows us that to unite in this fashion and bring uncertainty and excitement to a life filled with mundanity is anything but useless. Whether existence has an end date is irrelevant experiencing the passage of time is hard enough, so why not play football?

While a social utopia, the world of 17776 is not bereft of problems in fact, much of the United States has sunken into the ocean. Juice reminisces on climate change deniers, who believe they wont live with consequences, convinced destruction would only be felt by a distant, disembodied concept of other they dont care about, instead of their own homes as well. Nah, Juice says. All of it. The entire world is damaged beyond repair because of those who were selfish and counted on their timely demise before environmental destruction. Only, in this fictional world, the same people who created climate change also have to deal with it. It leads to an almost sick sense of satisfaction when reading even the people whove ruined our world have to live in it. However, there is no gloating in 17776 throughout the public, there is a tangible sense of despair when mentioning submerged cities. Reading this fictional piece in the present as we push the Earths climate beyond repair makes addressing climate change feel more necessary than ever.

I cant stop thinking about 17776. I fall asleep at night trying to figure out how the world map has changed and how other countries grapple with existence in their post-scarcity world. Apart from being the only accurate depiction of a group chat that Ive ever seen, 17776 is unlike anything else (in terms of medium, genre, structure and general message) in how it questions our view of time. Scrolling through the long montages of newspaper clippings or listening to accounts of many thousand-year-long football games makes the length of our life seem almost laughable. Just like the characters of the story, the reader pays less and less attention to the trappings of a lifetime and instead is more and more interested in the ever-present football game in order to make life bearable. Ultimately, the work offers a novel promise to football lovers and haters alike: a view of our present, mirrored and distorted into a startlingly eccentric utopia. More words would only sully its perfection.

Daily Arts Writer Meera Kumar can be reached at kmeera@umich.edu.

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The anomaly of Jon Bois's '17776' - The Michigan Daily