Most bizarre musical instruments (15 photo)

Women Who Have Gone Back in Time: An Annotated Ranking Netflix

Don’t dwell on the Past, they say. Pshh: Don’t dwell in the Past, that’s my advice. 

What’s the Past got? Plague, feudalism, no Netflix. Medicine is bugs eating you and/or “the robed man frowns.” Birth control options that range from “convent” to “death.” Some Johnny Rufflesleeves mansplaining the luminiferous aether. “Less pollution sometimes,” that’s about the best we can say for our friend The Past. (The Past is not your friend.)

Sure, patriarchy thrives in the 21st century and Progress is a dubious construct. My high school world history text made that clear when it argued that women in ancient Rome had more liberties than most (non-slave)women would enjoy “until the 19th century.” Who are you trying to impress, ancient Rome? Some freeborn Victorian broad? I’ll take my chances in this here temporal realm, where I can be president of the Latin club and have hobbies beyond the loom.

My time-travel fantasy is guiding a Ye Olde tourist who arrives in the present. When performing basic tasks — driving, purchasing groceries, gadding about unescorted — I’ll picture how impressed my visitor would be. That’s right, Margwainnea, I bought this bottle of wine myself. It’s called “second wine,” and is customarily drunk “next.” I’d scan my debit card like a pro, and not drop it or do it backwards like sometimes happens. How Margwainnea’s eyes would shimmer…

Anyway. What makes some women cross to the nether-centuries is beyond me. Here is an ordered list, from Horrifying to Most Horrifying, of women who have traveled to the Past.

1. Susan and Lucy Pevensie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

“Narnia’s not the Past! It’s a parallel wonderscape breathed into being by a holy lion!” TRUE. But the Narn is still a preindustrial society without like, public school or trains or tampons. It’s cool they have enchanted healing cordial instead of leeches, but remember in The Horse and His Boy where Queen Lucy says, “the High King has so strictly charged me not to carry it commonly to the wars”? So we’ve got a) limited supply of useful medicine controlled by the elite b) brotriarchy, c) “the wars,” commonly, d) fancy wars, presumably?

Narnia gets points for magic, and because being queens is a good deal that Susan and Lucy could not have come by in 1940s England. Perhaps the most disturbing “back in time” aspect is the return to their 20th-century childhood bodies. As a YA reader I found no greater horror than the idea of growing up, overcoming puberty, and then winding up a 9-year-old again.

2. Aubrey Plaza’s character in Safety Not Guaranteed

This is that indie rom-com in which time travel is a metaphor for feelings…or more.Debatable whether she “goes back in time.” I sorta liked this movie, which annoys me, and that is how I imagine Aubrey Plaza feels about liking this dweeb who wants to build a time machine to be with Veronica Mars.

3. Reese Witherspoon in Pleasantville

She decides to stay in fake TV alt-’50s cause colleges will accept her, and that is not a bad reason! But what if you took the lessons you learned about literature and character and returned to a post-Civil-Rights era, Reese?

4. Amanda Price, aka the chick from Lost in Austen

In which a Pride and Prejudice fan straight trades lives with Elizabeth Bennett. This yikes of a choice is mitigated by the fact that original Lizzie has the good sense to stay in the 2000s and Amanda marries rich. Remember when I gave up voting for you, babe? This egg cup needs encrusting, rubies should do.

5. Women on Doctor Who, I think

Some time ago, I mentioned to a guy that I did not like Doctor Who, and his friend, a guy to whom we were not talking, turned and rage-bleated: “Yeah well JON SNOW DIES.” I have never and will never get over this, no matter how many times Jon gets Willow’d. I will carry this slight to my grave and bring it back with me every time I myself get Willow’d; I will nurse this grudge like a changeling babe that has tricked me into believing it is flesh of my flesh. Anyway, those Dr. Who companions probably had reasons for going back in time but I don’t have to like ’em.

6. That trashy romance novel my sister and I found at the church garage sale 

The moon takes a lady into Olden France and she falls in love with a hot lord, and he mocks women’s rights and is very impressive at feudalism, and that was the beginning of my brief and uncomfortable “reading trashy romances from the church garage sale” period.

7. Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Bends the fourth dimension to her will so she can do more homework. This could be the saddest thing in Harry Potter, counting all the deaths and Neville’s mom’s candy wrappers. My god, Hogwarts, get an academic adviser on staff.

8. Claire, S1 Episode 11 of Outlander (and the Outlander books, I guess)

Outlander is about a 20th-century Englishwoman who must choose between a sex kilt and a life without witch-burning. Claire is condemned to the flames in what is approximately the 734th attempt on her life in Erst Highlands. Sex Kilt rescues her and she gets the chance to go home — where her burned-at-the-stake risks falls from Imminent to Zero — and she’s all “nah, I’m good.” CLAIRE, THERE ARE HIGHER DEGREES OF GOOD THAN “WASN’T IMMEDIATELY TORCHED TO DEATH, JUST THEN.” That’s the last episode of Outlander I ever watched. Claire, how can I care about you when you care so little for your own self-interest? Don’t give me “love,” you can love wherever, there is only one timeline here in which “witch hunt” is a metaphor.

Related: Has there ever been a story where a woman has a choice between “anything” and “a man” and the man was the better choice?

Related further: Should I watch Outlander again?

9. Victorian Lady, Real Life / Your Weekend Hate-Reading

Thinks a time before Lemonade is a time worth living in.

10. Kate, Kate & Leopold

Remember when you were a kid, and all movies were an inherent pleasure because going out to the movies was a treat? Kate & Leopold is the first time I remember leaving the theater afroth with loathing. This is a “rom-com” about a woman who hurled herself into the East River until feminism froze long enough to let her marry some sentient epaulets.

Kate realizes my fondest wish — a Past Traveler joins her in the future-present to sputter in bafflement at her trousers and career! Except it’s not Margwainnea, it’s some white dude (yo, already have my fill of guys grappling with a lost monopoly on privilege, thanks!) and he has to get back to his stupid time or else elevators will kill everyone. But Kate loves him! Oh no! What’ll she do? Live her life, accepting that sometimes the laws of physics don’t serve as our matchmakers? Oh, no! She jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s either “no human rights or hygiene forever” or death. Margwainnea and I are out.

Special Mention: Dana from Kindred, Who Gets It

Octavia Butler doesn’t care about your corsets and sex kilts and fancy wars. She knows white supremacy and patriarchy are more than ornamental doilies at the antebellum costume ball. Butler’s novel sends Dana, a black woman from Los Angeles c. 1976, back to a Maryland plantation so she can protect her slave-owning ancestor and safeguard her family’s existence.

Let’s go over some ways Dana is BAMF. She: 1) figures out the parameters of the time warp immediately; 2) ties on a survival kit; 3) focuses on integration and alliance-building; 4) is ready to leap into the future by any means necessary. She opens her own veins. She stabs a guy. Her arm gets crushed by the weight of walls and history and she does not look back, because it’s time to get the fuck out of the Past. My hero.

---

Not willing to leap into the Future either, that’s just reckless. Please send all dissatisfied women-of-Yore to me; I’ll be a gracious host. Thank you for your time.

Women Who Are Dating Peacocks In Western Art History

“Perhaps it’s best if you go after all, Jeremy. Maybe we can talk later, if you’re able to stop saying such hurtful things.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason we can’t be civil, Clarkson. Jeremy here has been very much looking forward to meeting you.”

“Jeremeth. Paulson – Oh. Trimothy. You’re – what are all of you doing here? What…what is this? Have you three been getting together and talking about me when I’m not around? Because I don’t have to take this. Least of all from you, Paulson. And we never said we were exclusive.”

“The flowers are nice. But you’re still in trouble.”

“We don’t have to go, honestly. I’d much rather just stay in and nest. Heh. Nest.”

“This is hard for me, Clarence. But you’re worth being vulnerable for.”

 “Well, I thought it was funny.”

[cooing]

“It doesn’t mean anything. It just means I thought it was funny. There doesn’t always have to be some sinister dark meaning to everything, you know. Some things are just funny. You don’t have to think about what it “means.” It’s just a joke.”

“It’s none of your business ‘which one’ I left you for, and frankly even asking me that question shows how much you never understood me.”

From the Desk of the Director, Cold War Reenactment Society

Welcome, new members of the Cold War Reenactment Society (henceforth known as the ‘Tradesmen Benevolence Society’ or simply ‘The Society’). As Director, it warms my heart to know that so many are dedicated to upholding the tradition of honest analog espionage. No computer program or data breach could possibly compete with the authentic satisfaction that accompanies a lovingly planted bug or the elegant jab of an umbrella-tip full of ricin. It feels so good to know there is a real person opening, reading, and then resealing your mail — that there’s a real pair of eyes behind those binoculars and dark, drawn curtains.

Expect no drones here, only flesh-and-blood, morally compromised people devoted to doing whatever it takes to do whatever it is we do here.

First let us deal with the practicalities. Your tweed jackets, tortoiseshell glasses, and tan trench coats are provided, but Society members are expected to provide their own heavy glass ashtrays and drinking problems. First assignments will be given after a short evaluation and bowler hat-fitting period. Secret families across town may be established upon request.

Please indicate if you are being blackmailed into spying for The Other Side via the enclosed necktie color chart. Double agents are encouraged to become triple agents. Quadruple agents will be mocked.

The Society includes three ranks of specialization. THIEF kit members will receive a crowbar, wire cutters, a black turtleneck, a ball-peen hammer, sanitary gloves, and a cassette tape cued up to to “The Girl From Ipanema.” FIGHTER kit members will receive duct tape, torn bedsheets, a lighter, five gallons of gasoline, one canvas sack, one dozen oranges, and a Walkman containing “The Other Side” by The Doors. WIZARD kit members will receive a graphing calculator, a transistor radio, a terminal connected to ARPANET, a short-sleeved dress shirt, and The Best of YES on vinyl.

Members wishing to specialize in asset acquisition and running will be given makeovers, a free fashion consultation, a weeklong improv workshop that includes a lecture from a “How to Win Friends and Influence People” guru, and a copy of “Kinsey Ain’t Nothing But a Number.” Members wishing to specialize in Administration have already been contacted at their respective Yale clubs.

For general advice on assignments, please consult the following supplementary materials: ‘So Your Gay Lover is Defecting,’ ‘Recruiting at Oxbridge: Wingtip Tips,’ ‘Advanced Redacting,’ and ‘101 Uses for a Windowless Room.’ These can all be found inside hollowed-out books titled NORWEGIAN MARITIME TAX LAW 1880-1887 located in friendly used bookstores.

In addition to our annual ‘We’re Not So Different, You And I’ meet-up with The Other Side, The Society hosts many recreational activities, including Wig Making Classes, Accent Acquisition, Honeypot Potluck, and Group Contemplation of the Grim Mathematics of Mutually Assured Destruction (21+).

Society members with small children are encouraged to get them involved by introducing the Shredded Document Jigsaw Puzzle game and re-casting ‘Hide and go Seek’ as ‘Front and Follow.’ Junior Society Members can practice their skills by observing and reporting on their friend’s parents. Remember: It’s never too early to get them used to using dead drops.

Society meetings will take place in movie theater balconies, alleyways near embassies, empty VFW halls, and when you’re least expecting it. Transcripts of previous meetings may be requested via cryptic messages in the classified section of your major daily newspaper. Please have a P.O. box under an assumed name for deliveries, or just have your oblivious spouse pick them up unknowingly.

If you need to contact the Society directly, merely flick the light in your upper-story bathroom twice or begin speaking into any public pay phone; an unmarked black van will be with you shortly. Members are advised not to use actual radio stations for communication. No one wants a repeat of the Mykonos incident.

Members are also encouraged to peruse alternate funding streams for the Society, such as goods transporting, people moving, and community narcotics outreach.

A request for a full copy of the Society Rule Book may be requested and then denied. Remember, whether you’re playing for your Crown, your Country, or your Party, it’s not about winning. It’s about making sure our off-the-books budget never decreases.

Good luck. We’re all rooting for you and/or plotting against you,

-D.

P.S.: Congratulations on successfully decoding this letter. It has been treated with a contact poison already working its way into your bloodstream. The antidote will be given at the next Society meeting.

Five Alternative Career Choices for a Pirate

A article offering five alternative jobs for a pirate.
It’s been an extremely hard time for pirates of late.  Not those of the Somalia variety – but those of the yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum variety.

The days of  sailing the high seas in search of hidden treasure are long gone – all the gold has been sold to Cash4Gold, the price of grog has gone sky high and unemployment is at an all time high.  So what’s a pirate to do?
Well if Blackbeard was to visit his local job centre, I’m sure that he’d find one of the following alternative careers just as satisfying as piracy.
1.   Banker

Being a banker nowadays is a form of legal piracy!  The amount of money badly invested, the billions of dollars paid to bail out bankers and now the argument over whether the bankers should be paid a bonus..  This is an ideal job for an out of work pirate!
2. Politician

Being a politician in the UK is a great way of getting your mitts on all the booty you need – just simply fill out an expenditure claim form!  All the worldly goods you ever wanted can be yours at the tax payers expense!
3. Inland Revenue/IRS

If a pirate was to set up is own version of the Inland Revenue or IRS, they would be made for life.  Tax people on their wage, on their food, on their fuel – in fact almost everything.  Who needs a crumby old pirate ship – they could afford a luxury yacht with a helipad.
4. Solicitor

If a pirate misses the sense of adventure that he experiences on the high seas – why not become a solicitor?  You could get paid a stack of money, to represent all the bad ass criminals out there.  Working with the scourge of the nation and getting money at the same time – perfect job!
5. Utility/Petrochemical Company


Gas, electricity, water, oil – the new treasure to own, far more valuable than gold, rubies or diamonds.   A pirate should get a job here – work his way up through the ranks, until he’s the CEO.  Then simply set the charges at extortionate rates and slowly take control of the world.
Perhaps the reason that the world is in such a bad state, is that the Pirate’s of the world, have already been employed in the above positions…