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Forget 4K, Lose Yourself in a Stunning 10K Timelapse of Brazil

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This article originally appeared on Creators.

To showcase the awesome power of the PhaseOne IQ180 camera, timelapser and photographer Joe Capra, a.k.a. Scientifantastic, had to become a surgeon of sorts. 10328x7760 - A 10K Timelapse Demo is exactly what it sounds like: a timelapse video constructed out of photographs with a resolution higher than your computer can handle. Full screen this. Seriously.

"This footage comes from some shots I did while shooting 4K and 8K timelapses in Rio De Janeiro for a major electronics manufacturer," says Capra in the video's description. "Each shot is comprised of hundreds individual still images, each weighing in at a whopping 80 megapixels. Each individual raw frame measures 10328x7760 pixels." In the video, Capra begins his footage at 14% scale, just to fit the frame into 1920x1080 resolution, the maximum size for many displays. He then zooms to a 50% view, and follows that with an extreme zoom to the full-resolution 100% scale of the footage—and the result looks as good as most of the highest-end HD cameras do.

"I wanted to show a couple things with this demo video," Capra explains. "First, the extreme resolution of this camera (and medium format in general). Second, the amazing amount of flexibility this resolution allows for in post production. You can literally get about 8-10 solid 1920x1080 shots out of a single shot. You can also get about 5-6 solid 4K shots out of a single shot." Minimally-processed with curves, input sharpening, and saturation adjustments included, the footage foretells of a frame size beyond current projections. 4K? Eat your heart out. The future is even higher-def than we expected.

Check out 10328x7760 - A 10K Timelapse Demo above, and enjoy the glorious detail with these screencaps below:

50% scale

100% scale

Check out more of Joe Capra's work on Vimeo and Scientifantastic.

Related:

Swooping Seagull Flight Paths Revealed in Time-Blended Video

Aurora Borealis Timelapse Gets a Stunning Kaleidoscopic Makeover

Universal Everything Christened the World's Largest 4K Screen in Times Square

Soaring Over San Francisco Looks Even Better in 4K

This article originally appeared on VICE US.


'Stranger Things' Season Three Is Finally on Its Way

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It's no huge secret that Netflix will keep cranking out seasons of Stranger Things, its flagship show about monsters, 80s nostalgia, and the secret successes of MKUltra, until the show's kid actors have kids of their own or Finn Wolfhard quits to focus full-time on his band or whatever. The streaming service surprised no one with the December announcement that the show was coming back for a third season, but since then, things have been pretty quiet on the Stranger Things front, save for a few casting announcements and a weird lawsuit. But now, it seems like Stranger Things 3 is finally becoming a reality.

On Friday, Netflix announced the new season's official start of production with a short video featuring the show's cast and crew reuniting for a table read earlier this month. And while the minute-and-a-half-long clip doesn't feature any actual footage from the new season, it's nice at least to see the gang back in action.

"On April 20, 2018, old friends and a few strangers came together to start a new adventure," the video says, over black-and-white footage and a synth-y score.

The clip features name cards for most of the original cast, including Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, and Winona Ryder, but it also teases a few new additions coming onboard in season three. There's a spot for Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman's daughter, Maya Hawke—one of the show's new leads who will supposedly play an "alternative girl" in the new season, whatever that means—and Jake Busey, who is playing Bruce, "a journalist for the Hawkins Post with questionable morals and a sick sense of humor."

The new season of Stranger Things doesn't have a release date yet, but if it's just starting the table reads right now, we probably have a long wait until it hits Netflix. Hopefully, the streaming service will share some better footage to tide us over once there's actually some to share. Until then, watch the start of production video above and get excited about the fact that Priah Ferguson, who plays Lucas's little sister, is getting an expanded role in the show, nerds.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

What Van Attack Conspiracies Tell Us About the Internet's Darkest Corners

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As with any other event that dominates the news cycle, conspiracy theorists have spent hours upon hours attempting to distort the few facts that we know about the Toronto van attack.

On Monday, shortly after lunch, a man in a white rented van ran down pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring 14. Alek Minassian was arrested and charged with 10 counts of first degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder.

The vast majority of resulting conspiracies haven’t been birthed out of the theorist spotting something odd or out of place in the information about the attack. Instead, several established conspiracy subcultures are twisting facts, distorting narratives or just plain old making things up to push their agendas.

In the minutes and hours following the attack, much of the alt-right and alt-lite crowd rushed to incorrectly claim this was the result of Islamist terrorism. A headline on InfoWars still says the attacker was “Islamic.” When that narrative was proven false, well, some in this sphere decided to simply continue on with it.

One of the most popular Toronto van attack conspiracies pushing an anti-Islam agenda comes from Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer. Spencer—an anti-Muslim activist with almost 100K Twitter followers—highlighted differences in a courtroom sketch of Minassian and a still of the alleged killer from a low-resolution video, implying the government may be covering up a jihad attack.

Spencer argued one image shows Minassian with hair, while in the other he appears bald. Spencer lays down the usual “I’m just asking questions” line. These questions include “Was Minassian supplied a toupee in court today? And “Was he wearing a bald wig [the day of the attack?]”

“Or are authorities once again not being honest with us?” he asks in his post.

“Again, I’m not saying that this is necessarily a jihad attack. But as oddities such as these court sketches multiply, we have to wonder what the Canadian authorities are trying to hide. And what else are authorities hiding when jihad attacks occur?”

The Canadian Press note telling outlets to pull the initial sketch. Photo via screenshot.

The artist behind this particular sketch, Alexandra Newbould, told VICE in an email that she is aware of the conspiracy and explained that Minassian only appeared in court for four to five minutes.

“I have a very short time to add the colour, finalize and send the sketch to the client. This work was particularly rushed due to the enormity of the story,” said Newbould. ”The first version came across as having too much hair as opposed to a buzz cut, so changes were made and an amended copy was sent out.” Newbould added that while she has sketched several high profile court cases, a conspiracy like this is a first for her.

Spencer’s idea spawned many, many copycat theories.

A Facebook post by Minassian has tentatively linked him to the misogynist online community known as the incels (short for involuntary celibates). One genre of false flag theories suggests the attack was orchestrated to disenfranchise the group of angry men. This furthers the victim narrative that is at the core of the group.

“Until Toronto, I had not heard any incel ‘violence’ as related to Incel. I'm sure somebody who identifies as incel has done something stupid at some point,” reads one Reddit theory calling the attack a “Trojan Horse.” “[The powers that be] are setting up incel as a hate group. Incel hates women! Once that is secure, the overlap from incel to 4chan to neckbeard to mom's basement is heavy, and this overlap will be used to silence all the above.”

Social media videos used to bolster this theory argue there wasn’t a mass of blood around the van when Minassian was arrested and that Minassian faked drawing a weapon twice.

Many other theorists are focused on the cryptic post that appeared on a Facebook page associated with Minassian shortly before the attack which mentioned an “incel rebellion”; they claim the post was the work of 4chan in an attempt to discredit the media.

It’s incredibly important to be skeptical regarding anything relating to 4chan (essentially a troll factory) during a breaking news cycle. Reporters covering the case did their due diligence, first getting confirmation from Facebook that the post was indeed real and on the page associated with Minassian, then, as the Toronto Star broke, confirming that the cryptic sequence of numbers was indeed Minassian’s service number with the Canadian military. The number, similar to a social insurance number, would be immensely difficult for a civilian to find, the Star reports.

Police have not released any information regarding Minassian’s motive.

Conspiracists point to the Facebook post as proof that media got duped by 4chan. A tweet by a alt-right figure named Millennial Matt (known for trolling public figures with the statement “Hitler did nothing wrong”) states that the highlighted text under the post, “Visualizza traduzione,” is the name of a troll army. In reality, “visualizza traduzione” means “view translation” in Italian.

Even the Pizzagate crowd floated conspiracies in an attempt to attack Hillary Clinton. In this one, which you can find on Twitter and 4chan, the theorists show that because Alek Minassian shares a last name with a communications officer at the Clinton Foundation, the NGO is responsible for the attack.

As has been shown less than a week removed from the death of ten people on a north Toronto street, it is important to view conspiracies not just as funny side shows, but also as legitimate tools to push agendas. And it’s clear these theories are not disappearing in the face of contrary evidence.

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Apparently People Are Getting Nipple Injections Now

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If Instagram is any indication, the plastic surgery business is booming. Behold, one of the newer trends in that industry, apparently: nipple injections.

Dr. Sergio Alvarez, a Miami-based plastic surgeon at MIA Aesthetics, said in the last six months he’s seen a significant increase in patients asking for perkier nipples.

“We numb up the areola area, and we inject with a filler,” Alvarez said, “not any different from what is used on your face.”

Alvarez, 36, said the trending penchant for perky nipples can be traced back to an origin that surprises no one: a member of the Kardashian family, Kendall Jenner, who has often been seen braless with nipples visibly protruding through her clothing.

“No nipples are created equal,” Alvarez told VICE. “Some people have nipples that are introverted, mini, some people have wide, big nipples.”

Alvarez said he’s conducted hundreds of nipple injection procedures, with the average age of patients who seek that procedure being about 25 years old. The cost ranges from $800-$1,000 on average at Alvarez’s clinic, depending on the patient’s needs.

“All of these things are temporary, which is a good and a bad thing. What may look good today may not look good five years from now,” Alvarez said.

The effects of the nipple injections last about four to six months, and Alvarez described recovery for the procedure as “immediate.”

Though risk is low with the procedure, he said, if you’re pregnant or lactating, you would not be a candidate.

So, what’s next in our corporeal form-obsessed world? Alvarez said that, in the future, we may see a trend toward women wanting to have smaller breasts. Right now, though, the surgeon said there’s no doubt what the mainstay of his practice is: Brazilian butt lifts.

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Atlanta’s Khris Davis Loves Tracy Way More Than You

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Actor Khris Davis is adamant that we all know a side-character like Tracy from FX’s Atlanta. He’s a person with one defining accessory (durag), one defining attitude (a talker) and one defining purpose (to be a problem).

“We all know a Tracy, man. Every damn person met a Tracy before,” he tells me. “You met a Tracy bro.”

The ex-con friend of Alfred 'Paper Boi' Miles materializes out of nowhere during an Atlanta “Sportin’ Waves” episode from season two, and now he’s shown up again in the latest episode, “North of the Border” episode—about a cross-trip to a college show that lands Earn and the gang in the boonies; standard surreal, off the wall, Atlanta shit.

Despite having a purpose that seems hell bent on displacing Earn’s place in the grand state of things, as evidenced by a fistacuffs between the two on “North of the Border,” he still remains a fan favourite for his ability to laugh during strange situations, make messed up decisions and inability to shut his damn mouth.

In speaking with Khris, we had a chat about his character, the prison system, and if the man can really rock a wave as good as Tracy.

VICE: This guy Tracy just keeps popping up. He’s one of the most random characters on the show, but people love him for it. Did you expect that he’d be received like this?
Khris Davis: Man, I had no damn clue that Tracy was going to be this effective. I didn’t even think folks would like him. But hey, I like Tracy, because the guy reminds me of a ton of people I knew growing up. My only hope was that when people saw him, they wouldn’t assume he was some stereotypical ex-con if you will. They’d be able to see his humanity. The concern also came in whether or not I was going to gel with the already strong energies that the core cast members had. I wanted to compliment all that and be a good-teammate.

Did he come off as a stereotype when you first read the script?
He didn’t seem like a stereotype at all. But when you peg someone as some durag wearing ex-con doing card scans (laughs), you’re automatically putting them in a box. It happens with durag wearers if they’re in a train, the rain, a convenient store, you see that and you assume as I’m sure many viewers still do. For me, in knowing people like that, I didn’t see the stereotype, I saw the humanity. It was my job to show people how legit a person from prison can be to someone who doesn’t know that life. Yeah, he does the card scams, but that’s just his scam, his way of getting off. Paper Boi’s way is getting on selling drugs. How’s he any different from Tracy apart from the prison route? He smokes weed, hell I smoke weed too dammit. That’s just a truth, and we needed to portray that.

You also came into this thing with established characters already set. How did you plan to bring this guy in with his own energy?
When I began, I was like alright, let me watch this show for a real vibe, to see how the directors are doing their thing and acquire an energy. I was in Atlanta, and a couple of days before I was supposed to start shooting, I watched like three episodes and I couldn’t continue. I felt like I was falling into an admiration for what these artists and actors were doing, and that could influence me in wanting to take that on. My fear was that I’d go into shooting with their energies instead of my own. In order to maintain my artistic integrity, I had to maintain but also move along their flow. Tracy is meant to be completely different, and I didn’t want him to enter in as assisted energy from previous chapters.

A lot of the reasons why I personally love him comes through his confidence. You sound like a confident dude, how much of Tracy is actually you?
Hey man, that’s my physical body, that’s really me! It’s not like I had to pull an Teddy Perkins on Tracy. Here’s the truth right here, I’m a black man. Black men by numbers get sent to prison right? Any black man with a durag who is sent to prison can be a Tracy. Period point blank. So let’s start there. From my own personal life and experience, people who go to prison still do what we do. They still love, laugh, and still have a family that loves them. If they’re lucky, they even still have girlfriends, boyfriends and children. They still live these lives man.

But what did I put into Tracy? The love for that life despite his circumstances. His ability to push forward and the confidence to do that. It takes a brave person to experience what he experienced and still do whatever he has to. It may not be the right way, but he’s fighting in the only way that he can. He’s just trying to make it out here in these streets as a human being.

And that feels real. Even with his struggles with a job interview. Beyond the comedy, his frustrations felt real. How did you think your way through that scene?
Man, I was just thinking about how smart this character actually is, and all the things I did to get here. If I’m Tracy, I knew for a fact that I was going to get hired. My hair is on point (laughs), I got the kind of shoes that make me look like a professional. I’m wearing khakis and a tie. I’m talking about stuff I’d get clowned for if I was back in the hood. And here I am putting myself out there with the nerve to have some hope, and I don’t get the job?

It’s like...oh, he pauses for a second to make sure he heard that right. Because there’s just no way. Then you add in the fear and frustration about the reality. That he has to go back, and at that point, it’s just like, fuck it man. I chose to be here, I could of gone back to prison, and it’s like, are you kidding me? For what? Because you want to hold this thing over my head that I already did time for?

I’m talking to you, but a lot of what your saying sounds pretty personal. Why is that?
I don’t want to get into this too much, but Tracy is so close to me man. The character, the person, he’s so close to my life, my family, and he’s in some of my friends. I’ve seen people go through this and really struggle every day to try to make it man. And I’ve seen how society just keeps yanking away the rug, bro. Just the moment they put two feet on the rug, and they think they’re good, it’s gone. Some keep stepping on it no matter how many bruises they get, and some never bother to step back on that rug. Some people are just so tired of being out here, struggling against a wall of society that pushes them back without a space to be re-acclimated.

I also feel close to this character because I’m from New Jersey, and I felt like when I moved to New York, I made it out of the skin of my teeth man. That at any given moment, I could of been somewhere messed up, or I could have ended up in prison for some nonsense. Then I would have had to work against the same issues as Tracy.

One of the things I’ve written about, is how well this show tells an authentic set of stories without over explaining shit. It feels more real because of it.
It’s showing how we all exist in the all-together. We forget about guys like the barber Bibby who gives us our haircut. We don’t share folks like him to the world. But these experiences are a part of our life in the day to day. These people exist within the storylines of our lives, in the threads, and these are the people that have made some of us. A lot of us. We all know a Tracy man. Every damn person met a Tracy before, even if you were on a college campus, or you came up in school with somebody, you met a Tracy, bro. There’s an honesty in characters like that, who can just be without having to emphasize what being is. We aren’t caricatures, we’re not people people. We have a humanity and watch us live our best lives without having to overtly explain it.

And that we also aren’t a monolith and we deal with shit differently.
Exactly. We’re more than just one kind of black. The fact that Earn can move in and out of certain white spaces and still hold onto who he is without having to compromise to make that white space feel more comfortable is a different black. We’re all just being, and then dealing with whatever happens in all our spaces as human beings. That’s dope. That’s what it’s really like.

By the way, I gotta ask. Do you have a new appreciation for the wave game after that Sportin Waves episode?
For the wave game, nah man, I always had respect for the wave game. When I was coming up, we used to have wave competitions, me and my brothers and friends. It was just a thing and everybody would just be standing in the bathroom, putting water on their hands to make their waves look all swimmy. Those kind of waves, I mean some of us can get them, but I can’t. My texture isn’t having it (laughs), but I can get them pretty nice though. How many people do you know who can touch Tracy’s waves?

Not many.
Damn right. I'm talking about without no process, without nothing. Just straight up, this is my hair, I'm gonna put the wave cap on, and put a little grease, and we're gonna see what happens. I don't know many either. So on a scale of 1 to 10, Tracy is a 1000.

So you really couldn’t pull it off?
Short answer, hell no!

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Worst Take of the Week: Millennials Don't Need Living Rooms Vs. Kanye on Trump

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Welcome to Angus Take House – a weekly column in which I pit two of the wildest takes the world's great thinkers have rustled up against each other. This is your one-stop shop for the meatiest verdicts and saltiest angles on the world's happenings. Go and grab a napkin – these juicy hot takes are fresh from the griddle.

TAKE #1:

What’s the story? Millennials not being able to afford houses.

Reasonable take: Build. Affordable. Housing.

Bento Box: Or, build windowless crates?

You know the score. Nobody under 35 can afford to buy a house anywhere, and especially not in London where the rent is so expensive we are all contractually obliged to mention it whenever we go back home and anybody asks us what living in London is like. The solutions to this problem are not obvious – or rather, they are, but generating the political will to to realise them is difficult – so instead we are a generation forced to adapt to a reality in which owning a home is an outlandish fever dream.

Or is it? What if – and bear with me here – you could own a home, but to keep the cost down, we made the homes really small? Like, instead of an actual flat with windows and doors, it was a sort of Travelodge room with a little kettle and bedpan.

Well, architect Patrik Schumacher reckons this approach is exactly the sort of blue-sky thinking need to tackle the housing crisis currently facing millennials. In a paper for the Adam Smith institute, Schumacher has suggested that for “many young professionals who are out and about networking 24/7, a small, clean, private hotel room-sized central patch serves their needs perfectly well.”

He goes on to add that the current minimum size of 38 square metres on new-build flats is “paternalistic”, and that emotional phrases like “slums” and “rabbit hutches” stand in for actual debates about the size of housing. You heard it here first: slum is a slur!

To be honest, part of me thinks we should just accept this new reality and thrust ourselves into the dystopia of Schumacher’s imagined future: networking 24/7, eyes glued open with amphetamines, shuttling around a fully wi-fi enabled underground system that allow us to work as we hurtle through the earth, privatised pavement space, designated recreation zones, and a ticketed sky garden walkway where the Thames used to be. Oh and when it all gets a bit much, you can head home for a nap in a box. Bliss!

TAKE #2:

What’s the story? Thinking for yourself and being free spirited!

Reasonable take: While I understand the ways in which the world implicity conditions me, I like to think I have a moral code that I answer to personally.

Fish Fillet: Same! For example: I love Donald Trump.

There are plenty of great takes that have come from Kanye West’s recent return to Twitter. “I’m nice at ping pong,” is an indisputable tweet, as is “I no longer have a manager. I can't be managed.” Sadly however, the headline news this week has been his lengthy and effusive Trump love-in. The pair first met when the Donald was the new president-elect, and West made a shock visit to Trump in December 2016. Following that meeting he seemed to have gone off the idea – deleting all evidence of the trip from his Twitter account – but it’s clear now that initial retraction must have been an intervention of some kind.

West took to twitter (over and over again) this week describing Trump as his “brother”, adding that they are both “dragon energy”. This initial tweet was the first in a slew about the President, including pictures of West’s signed MAGA hat, alongside criticisms of Obama’s perceived failure to act on Chicago violence during his eight years in power. The tweets have come under fire from pretty much everybody associated with West, including his own wife, Kim Kardashian, and John Legend whose texts asking him to reconsider his endorsement West also shared.

To be honest, the really rotten take here is West’s insistence that supporting Donald Trump is somehow transgressive – that allying yourself with someone who is despised by your peers is in a sign “unlearning linear thinking”. It’s an angle that has gone down very well with the likes of Paul Joseph Watson, who has been flogging his “conservatism is the new punk” hot take for years now. In fact, while the incident has lost Kanye some support, it seems he’s found a whole new fan-base with like-minded MAGA-heads.

Sadly Kanye West has fallen for one of the most pernicious myths of our era, that supporting a rich, racist bloke is actually a really radical way of thinking. Over here we call it the Farage effect: the mistaken idea that people hate populist right-wingers because they’ve been conditioned to by the liberal mainstream media, not because they are – you know – populist right-wingers. West is too interesting a figure to write off for some bizarre tweets, but let’s not forget: people don’t hate Trump because of some groupthink conspiracy, they hate him because he’s a horrible, racist Alan Sugar.

Prime cut: I am too confused by the West tweets to pass a real judgement, so let’s give it to Patrik Schumacher for his radical live-in tupperware plan. See you in shoebox hell boys and girls!

@a_n_g_u_s

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Meet the People Who Want to Fuck Venom

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Teratophilia, the sexual attraction to "deformed or monstrous" people, is having a bit of a moment. As we reported last autumn, Pennywise, the evil clown from IT, summoned a collective lustful moan from the monster-fucking corners of the internet (culminating in the still-great, still-active Pennywise Confessions Tumblr). And this March, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to bestow the film industry's highest honor to a movie predominantly about the sexual connection between a scaly, web-toed sea creature and Sally Hawkins. But it appears that Hollywood was saving the horniest monster for last, because this week, the world got our first up-close look at Tom Hardy's Venom—the comic-book icon and Spiderman antihero, known for his rows of imposing fangs and massive schlong-like tongue.

"[It's] been like Christmas for us Teratophiliacs!" says Tatum Howlett, who runs a prominent monster-fucking Tumblr, when I ask how the film industry's recent fixation on slimy, no-good beasties has treated her. "I wanna believe that Hollywood has no idea about the monster-fucker community and these past few months have just been coincidence, but now that these 'monster' movies are getting more popular, I'm starting to think that there must be some research going on. And I'm certainly not complaining!"

Most Teratophiliacs aren't joking when they say they want to knock boots with a particular movie monster. Yes, there are plenty of wisecracks to be made about the size and thiccness of Venom's tongue, but on Tumblr and FanFiction.net, you'll find plenty of people genuinely invested in the fetish. Polygon's Julia Alexander pointed out that there are legitimate erotic authors on the beat like Virginia Wade, who was reportedly making $30,000 a month from her Bigfoot sex odyssey Cum for Bigfoot. People love this stuff, and Venom, who has been part of the public consciousness for decades, had already scratched out his own carnal cult following long before Hardy signed on. "The Pennywise stuff was always jokes, but the attraction to Venom as a concept is much more real," says a Twitter user named Alex, who herself has an avowed crush on Venom. "I've seen smut of it for years now. Even stuff I'm too afraid to look at."

Alex tells me that her attraction doesn't really have much to do with Hardy. Instead, she's more focused on the insidious nature of Venom itself. The character is the fusion of a guy named Eddie Brock and an alien Symbiote that seeps into his skin and grants him superpowers—that power dynamic is what turns her on. "I like the fact that Venom gets inside its host's mind, can control them, and is just irredeemably horrible," she explains. "The fact that it can take on an anthropomorphic shape is a bonus." Another monster-fucking fan who runs the m0nsterpiss Tumblr says he's attracted to Venom's tentacles, teeth, and cocky disposition, and adds that he'd "enthusiastically go down on him in a heartbeat."

Again, none of this is new. You can make the argument that the original movie monsters—King Kong, Dracula, Nosferatu—were all coded with a certain sexual deviance. Venom is no different. In an enlightening post on her Tumblr, user Cobwebbing explained how the character has occasionally been portrayed as an endearing, empathetic sweetheart in the comics. "Venom is trying to subvert the expectation that they're a horrible monster by helping people and being a hero but kind of bungling it," she tells me in an email. "There's a quote in the narration that sums it up that goes something like, 'But even when Venom tries to do the right thing, people die!'"

Cobwebbing mentions that Eddie Brock and the Symbiote are written as if they're engaged in a sadomasochistic marriage. "They have dinner together and talk about their dreams and their feelings. Eddie and the Symbiote always miss each other when they are apart and relish when they can be Venom together again," she explains. "Eddie refers to the symbiote with romantic terms like 'love' and 'dear' and says that their relationship is better than having a girlfriend."

Cobwebbing hopes this part of the Venom story, beyond the dick-tongue gags and Twitter quips, is remembered by both the public and the monster-fucking masses. After all, it's hard to think of anything kinkier than being eternally betrothed to a murderous alien parasite. She also tells me she herself doesn't have a crush on Venom, because Eddie and the Symbiote "are happily committed to each other, and I'm not going to come between them."

As long as monsters have been around, people have been thinking about doing it with them. Technology has allowed people to voice their horniness for abominable man-beasts, and given this fetish visibility, and given spaces for teratophiliacs like Howlett a place to express themselves openly.

"I know for sure some people have found monsters attractive, but no one really ever came out and said it for obvious reasons," says Alex. "I think for the most part the internet is just a dark place with weird people like myself lurking around, and it feels great knowing I'm not the only weird one thirsting for alien parasite sludge."

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Questions for the Florida Man Who Practiced Karate on Some Innocent Swans

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On Thursday, some asshole allegedly tore around Orlando's Lake Eola Park kicking the living daylights out of a bunch of swans, local CBS affiliate WKMG reports. Witnesses said the 34-year-old Florida man was practicing karate when, for some bizarre reason, things actually got violent.

According to police, Rocco Mantella kicked a handful of swans in the head "as hard as possible"—so hard that the birds fell over, WKMG reports. He also allegedly punted one right in its poor, defenseless swan ass, and—for good measure—went ahead and kicked a sleeping duck, too. When a bystander looked at him in horror, she said he just looked back at her and laughed. Finally, the cops managed to arrest him, charging him with aggravated animal cruelty and placing him on a $1,000 bond.

Aside from the obvious—why?—there are a lot of questions that still need answering here. First and foremost:

Where’d the swans go?

According to Orlando CBS affiliate WESH, the cops tried to find the injured swans when they got to the park, but they couldn't track them down. So where are they? The first and most devastating theory is that—after suffering what police described as life-threatening injuries—the swans are dead, flapping their wings, preening their feathers, and leaving droppings all over swan heaven. Another option—entirely unlikely, but desirable—is that they’re hiding out in some kind of swan hovel, the avian equivalent of a mafia backroom, sharpening their beaks, chiseling their talons, and plotting their sweet, sweet swan revenge on this asshole. An outside chance, sure. But let’s just go with that.

What belt was this guy working toward?

According to dynamic-karate.com, which exists, one can only advance from a white belt to a yellow, a yellow to an orange, an orange to a green, and so on and so forth, after passing a rigorous exam. You have to demonstrate that you've been training consistently, you're proficient in your techniques, and you've made some sort of significant progress. Where, among those three basic tenets, Rocco Mantella figured "kicking the hell out of a bunch of swans" fit in, no one will ever know. Unless, of course, the exercise wasn't his idea...

What kind of maniacal sensei taught him this?

Maybe Mantella isn't to blame here. Maybe he's been studying karate under some kind of evil, swan-hating master, an antithesis to Mr. Miyagi who, instead of teaching him to wax a car or sand the floor or whatever, sends him out into the world to do really mean shit. One day, he's beating up defenseless birds; the next, he's tripping some old lady on her way to the bus, or shaking some dude's hand way, way too hard to practice grappling for a judo flip.

Then again, maybe Mantella doesn't have a master. Maybe he just really, really hates swans—which brings us to our next question...

What have swans ever done to him?

Unlike geese, which might be hell-bent on overthrowing humanity, or turkeys, which can terrorize entire towns with their poop, swans are innocent, majestic creatures. Mostly, they sail elegantly over bodies of water, waddle through patches of grass, and do that weird nibbling thing to clean themselves. At worst, they leave a pile of droppings somewhere, you step in it, and it kind of sucks. So what could swans have possibly done to deserve getting kicked in the head by this guy? Perhaps, as a child, he had some sort of traumatic swan-related experience—maybe a gaggle of them ganged up and pecked the hell out of his frail, prepubescent body, leaving him with a lifelong thirst for revenge. Maybe they've been dropping deuces on his front lawn, and—after cleaning up their mess just one too many times—he snapped.

Or maybe he's just an asshole. We'll let you decide.

How do you karate kick a sleeping duck?

Let's remember, for a moment, that the swans weren't the only victims here. Mantella also allegedly kicked a duck, who was reportedly asleep before the attack, WKMG reports. Which begs the question: If you're practicing karate on a bunch of birds, what kind of maneuver do you use to kick a sleeping duck? The only thing that comes to mind is an NFL-style punt, which doesn't seem like something you'd need to master for karate. Otherwise, he could've gone for a sweeping kick, but you only ever really see those deployed in Street Fighter. So he had to have punted this poor, slumbering duck like it was a football, right? That's just messed up.

Where the hell is PETA?

So a monkey takes a selfie and PETA is all over it, but when some big, human bully wails on a bunch of unsuspecting swans, we hear nothing? Someone needs to help these swans!

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Cops Seized a Bag of Human Cremains Because They Thought It Was Heroin

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These days, you don't have to settle for a boring-ass urn if you're looking for a spot to store the remains of some recently deceased loved one. There are companies that can sew those ashes into a teddy bear, 3D print a terrifying bust for you to keep them in, or blast them into space so your grandfather can finally become one with the stars or whatever. Of course, those options can all get pretty costly, so if you're looking for a more budget-conscious option, you can always just cram the ashes in a Ziploc bag and call it good.

But if you're going to go down that route, be warned—the cops might end up mistaking them for something a little more illicit. At least that's what happened to a Maine man last Saturday, after police discovered a bag of his late father's ashes in his glove compartment and assumed it was heroin. It's basically exactly what Nathan Fielder pretended happened to him on that big suit episode of Nathan for You, except these cops weren't hired to just read some lines.

According to the Kennebec Journal, Kevin Curtis lent his car to a friend last Saturday so the guy could run a few errands. Curtis apparently didn't tell his buddy that the car was also transporting about 48 grams of his dad, which he'd recently picked up from his sister and was keeping in the glove box until he got an urn.

On the way to the store, Curtis's friend reportedly lost control of the wheel and crashed the car into a telephone pole. When police responded to the accident, they discovered the baggies of what they thought was heroin, assumed the driver had overdosed, gave the guy a shot of Narcan, and arrested him, seizing the bags as evidence.

"[My] kids were really mad when they found out that [the police] took Grandpa, but I tried to make a joke of it," he told the Kennebec Journal. "I said, ‘This is the first time he’s ever been in lockup and we’ll just get him out.'"

It took days for Curtis to convince the police that the heroin in his car was actually just a baggie of his old man. He waited all weekend and into the following week, until finally, on Tuesday, cops got the results of a drug test and realized that Curtis was telling the truth. Kennebec sheriff Ken Mason told the Journal on Tuesday that, yes, the suspected heroin was in fact "human remains," though having a couple Ziplocs full of ashes in your car is "a rather unusual manner in which to keep the remains of a loved one, for sure."

“This was the first time my father was ever in lockup right here, and it took me forever to get him out of it," Curtis said to the Journal. At least now he's got a really good anecdote in case he ever winds up on a talk show.

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In 'Mrs. Hyde,' Isabelle Huppert Is a Different Kind of Dr. Jekyll

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To call a master performer “electric” is often de rigueur, but for Isabelle Huppert’s turn in Serge Bozon’s Mrs. Hyde, the term is downright literal. As Madame Géquil (à la "Jekyll"), a taunted high school physics instructor in the outskirts of Paris, Huppert channels pent-up indignation into lawless incalescence. In this reawakening of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, when lightning strikes Mme Géquil's lab, sparks fly. Suddenly, the timorous teach is filled with new life by day and vengeance by night.

But before such “heated” bouts of lunar comeuppance, Huppert takes the "clueless white lady" trope to hilarious extremes. Her disaffected students mock her at every turn, while the school’s administration—led by a Rivers Cuomo–lookalike headmaster (Romain Duris)—conflates her lack of command with a failure to endorse its self-congratulatory liberal values.

Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival—and opening at New York's Metrograph this Friday—the loopy farce at first feels a Gallic mashup of Robert Louis Stephenson and the mad-science flicks of the 1980s (Firestarter, Back to the Future, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids). But of a piece with Bozon’s offbeat oeuvre (La France, Tip-Top), Mrs. Hyde ultimately engages graver themes with surprising—if fickle—sincerity. “What’s the essential?” Mme Géquil asks Malik (Adda Senani), a student with a disability whom she takes under her flammable wing. “How to be happy” is his response. With nothing in common but a passion for science and shared alienation, their journey together proves the riskiest experiment of all.

In person, Huppert couldn’t be less like Géquil, radiating a confidence and volition cultivated over 120 films in a career spanning nearly half a century. We spoke with the actress at the Lincoln Center after a screening of Mrs. Hyde at the New York Film Festival in October.

VICE: At the start of the film, Madame Géquil tells her students, “Teachers are not meant to be liked, but to be understood.” Many of your protagonists over the years haven’t been so likable, yet long for a sense of understanding. Do you consciously gravitate toward these types of roles?
Isabelle Huppert: I don’t reflectively think about this when choosing roles, but I think, with almost any character, once you can understand them, you tend to like them. Once you understood their motivations, it doesn’t matter if they are sweet, smiling, or easily seductive. Most of the characters I play are those whom, at the end if not the beginning, you tend to like.

Cinema also allows you to blur the border between bad and good in terms of psychological behavior. It’s usually impossible to define someone as completely bad or completely good. The camera allows you a different approach to witnessing someone’s behavior and choices. I’ve tried to take advantage of this over the years—because that’s what cinema allows you to do. It’s much more arresting, much more exciting that way, bringing questions rather than answers.

I saw Madame Géquil as both a humorous character, pathetic in her lack of competence, but also as a tragic character.
Exactly. That’s how Serge viewed her—as both. Ozon’s films are more like tales; his universe is imaginary and weird, so you can’t take it realistically. As a result, you can take a character pretty much anywhere you want. Madame Géquil is sometimes very funny, as his universe can be quite burlesque. I like how his films are, to some extent, a comedy, but can become a tragedy, as you say. He makes comedies with a lot of depth, a lot of substance. Mrs. Hyde asks a lot about education, what it means to be a teacher and transmit knowledge. All this content is there, though in a kind of humorous fable.

That tension between tragedy and comedy is there in the relationship between Madame Géquil and Malik; she starts as his mentor but then becomes a figure of destruction. How did you interpret her fiery outbursts? She doesn’t decide to hurt people, but in the end she can’t help it.
Her transformation, for me, as an actress, had nothing to do with preparation. You never witness her going through a change. She is who she is, then suddenly she’s somebody else. But in a way this fits with people’s behavior in real life. How many times do we see a person a certain way, and then the next day, he’s a different person, with the person himself unaware of this change? In the film, Madame Géquil shows the double dimension of any human being—carrying the good and bad in herself, without necessarily being aware of the bond between the good and bad.

When Madame Hyde goes back to being Madame Géquil, she understands that she’s been through something, that she doesn’t really understand herself. There’s a whole dimension of herself that’s a mystery to her. She’s unaware of the superpowers she has.

From left, Isabelle Huppert and Adda Senani in Mrs. Hyde. Photo courtesy of mk2 Films

Was it a challenge to play a character like who lacks natural authority? In the past, even if your characters are not immediately liked, they exhibit a type of power and respect.
For me, the challenge was not so much about being weak or fragile. It was more about building this strange character—strange way of dressing, strange hair…

Strange relationship with her husband…
[Laughs] Yes, everything about Madame Géquil is a bit weird, but she has to be believable. She goes to work in a strange white coat and seems like a person from another century, another world. But she still has to seem real. She can go from very funny to very naïve. But then gradually, as you said, we get into the tragedy of her character. Initially, when I read the script, I read it more as a comedy, but as Serge was editing the film, it gained in scale and depth.

With Madame Géquil’s final speech to her physics students, there’s a tension between an almost slapstick physical comedy and a deep despair. How did you see that scene?
When we were shooting it, we saw it as tragic. She appears as a fading figure. Will she die? Are the police going to come? She comes to the end of this phase of her life, and that’s the way it was written. It was a big deal for me to remember all the complicated lines about genes and the environment—as were the previous scenes in which I was giving lectures or writing on the board. It was hard for me to understand all the scientific language, what I was even saying!

You went from being a piano teacher in The Piano Teacher to a philosophy teacher in Things to Come to a physics teacher in Mrs. Hyde. And your mother was a teacher. Why do you think you are cast this way?
I don’t know. The science teacher is the most unlikely, because in life I’m so far from the rational universe! These roles are all different, of course, but they all have to do with the importance of transmitting knowledge.

From left, Isabelle Huppert and Roxane Arnal in Mrs. Hyde. Photo courtesy of mk2 Films

There’s also something believably cerebral about you—passionate and intense on screen, but also credible as a source of authority and knowledge.
Absolutely. Being a teacher automatically casts a certain type of light on a woman. Even if she’s going through the most intimate and complicated problems personally, the first impression you have of her is as a knowledgeable person willing to share that knowledge. That’s certainly what drives Mrs. Hyde’s character, even more than other teacher characters I’ve portrayed. The center of her life is teaching. Plus, as they say, she’s teaching in a difficult environment. With Bozon’s films, the style can be completely unrealistic, but the background and context is highly political and socially relevant. I love the way he combines the two elements.

The film also subtly questions the role of learning and meritocracy in public education. Some characters see knowledge itself as dangerous, while of course for Madame Géquil it is everything.
We were shooting in the outskirts of Paris—in what we call the suburbs—in a neighborhood that many of us only read about in the newspapers, not a place we were used to going every day. It was a journey to get there. We were shooting at an actual high school, which was still running at the time. So everything you see was set in the middle of everyday life in the school.

From an American vantage, it’s important to see Paris in a more complicated light.
Bozon’s earlier film Tip-Top, that I was in, also reflects that reality—multiculturalism in our country is not always accepted. There’s a real division between urban and suburban in France.

In the end, Madame Géquil turns herself in when she realizes her destructive abilities. At the end of Elle, your character Michelle takes similar responsibility for sleeping with her best friend’s husband. A lot of your characters, even when victimized on screen, ultimately take accountability, no matter the situation. For many, you have come to represent a character that can be strong no matter what.
I have been lucky to have been given these types of roles over the years. But it is certainly my responsibility, no matter what, to turn my characters into what you are describing. I think it is an unconscious decision. I am given material, and I have a propensity to show how a victimized person can show strength. I am never particularly attracted to strong characters, per se, but rather to those who seem weak but in the end can reveal strength. And a lot has to do with their position within the film. If a character is essential, you must show her journey more completely than if the character exists in the shadow of a man. In most of the films I’ve done, the woman is central. So you pay closer attention to what they are and how they change.

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That Alleged Nxivm Sex Cult Is Already Getting Its Own TV Show

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Late last week, Smallville actress Allison Mack was arrested on sex trafficking charges stemming from her involvement with Nxivm, a self-help group allegedly running a sex cult that branded and blackmailed women into having sex with its founder, Keith Raniere. Now, because Hollywood doesn't sleep on shit, it looks like a TV series about the bizarre story is already in the works.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Annapurna Television optioned the 2017 New York Times exposé that uncovered the alleged dark side of Nxivm. The network plans to adapt it into a one-hour scripted series, produced by Westworld actress Shannon Woodward. And while details are still scant, we do know a good bit about what allegedly went down in Nxivm's secret sorority, or "DOS."

According to the Times exposé, high ranking female Nxivm members called "masters" would recruit "slaves" to join the secretive tier, where—as a requirement for joining—they would be asked for naked pictures of themselves, or incriminating details about their lives. From there, some were allegedly branded, blackmailed, and pressured into having sex with Raniere. The group managed to attract a number of celebrities, most notably Mack, who's been accused of serving as one of Raniere's top "masters."

Raniere was arrested in Mexico in March, and was denied bail earlier this week. Meanwhile, Mack is out on $5 million bail on sex-trafficking charges while she and Raniere ready themselves for a legal battle that could land them in prison for anywhere between 15 years to life.

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Related: The Cult of Debt Forgiveness

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The 13 Best Crime Movies on Netflix Right Now

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The most optimistic way to think of crime is that it exposes the most dangerous cracks in the fabric of society. To survive as a species, humans must live together; criminals, be they organized or working on their own, show us the specific, local, and structural areas where that compact is failing. How easy it is to forget that even the most heinous criminal is still human. How difficult it is to reckon with the fact that their capacity for such starkly antisocial behavior is, too, inherent in all of us. Good crime cinema shows us just how thin the line is between the criminal and the model citizen. These are the 13 best crime films currently on Netflix (US).

The Godfather

The crowning achievement of American filmmaking powerhouse Francis Ford Coppola is undoubtedly his Godfather trilogy, which tells the story of mob boss Michael Corleone’s ascent (or descent, depending on which way you look at it). In 1972, Coppola took author Mario Puzo’s 1969 Mafia novel and made of it a dynasty. The entire Godfather trilogy is currently on Netflix, so the next time you have nine hours, treat yourself to some worthwhile bingeing.

Scarface

It was Coppola’s Godfather gamble on a then-unknown Pacino that made of the upstart Italian actor a leading man, but it was Brian De Palma’s rags-to-riches-to-rubble story of a Mariel boatlift refugee who becomes a cocaine kingpin that made him a legend. In the unlikely event you’ve never met an American male, this is where they get all their catchphrases.

Goodfellas

Three mobsters, three decades: witness the rise and fall of "Jimmy the Gent" (Robert De Niro), Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) in Scorsese’s best-loved Mafia movie. Brash and brutal, though it sort of peters out at the end, Goodfellas begs the question: is there a cinematic pleasure finer than watching Robert De Niro cry?

The Crying Game

Irish writer-director Neil Jordan won an Academy Award for the Crying Game screenplay, which tells a profoundly romantic gangster story amidst the civil war that was The Troubles. Come for Stephen Rea’s Oscar-nominated starring role, stay and Forrest Whitaker’s performance will break your heart.

Seven

Look no further than this noir crime thriller to witness David Fincher at his blockbuster best. When detectives Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Mills (Brad Pitt) get on the trail of a serial killer who is murdering his victims in ways inspired by the seven deadly sins, it isn’t just a race against time, it’s a descent into the darkest parts of the human psyche.

Casino

The holy trinity that is Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Martin Scorsese reached its zenith in this 1995 crime epic, which tells the story of a Mafia associate (De Niro) and his Wiseguy enforcer (Pesci) who head out west to make the most of a Las Vegas casino. Ostentatious outfits and potent quotables abound, but it’s the way Casino captivates with the promises and pitfalls of the American dream that make it ‘sese’s second-best movie ( After Hours is #1, sorry).

Heat

It takes a serious director to pit heavy-hitters Al Pacino and Robert De Niro against one another, but this 1995 cat-and-mouse caper had one. It was, in fact, the first time in film history that the two ever shared a scene on-screen—and you better believe Michael Mann made the most of it.

LA Confidential

You could base an entire film history course on this neo-noir cop thriller starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and Kevin Spacey, and it would double as an American history course as well. Director Curtis Hanson (In Her Shoes, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle) can be hit-or-miss, but if the Best Screenplay Oscar he shared with co-writer Brian Helgeland (Mystic River) is any indication, LA Confidential is a bullseye.

Way of the Gun

You’d be hard-pressed to find cooler performances from Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe than when they played lowlife drifters in this cult favorite from Christopher McQuarrie, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Usual Suspects. It’s not an uplifting movie, but it’s certainly one worth quoting.

Training Day

Denzel Washington was a famous actor before Training Day, but his Academy Award-winning turn as the sinister Detective Alonzo Harris in Antoine Fuqua’s Training Day made him an icon. When it comes to the head-on collision between social ideals and the realities of the street, you’d be hard-pressed to find a movie harder than this.

City of God

In 2002, co-directors Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund treated American moviegoers to the harsh realities of youth in a Rio de Janeiro favela with the hyper-stylish City of God. Not only is this expertly-made crime thriller a formal gut-punch, it’ll tear you up inside like heart surgery with a rusty scalpel.

Inside Man

Although you might not guess it from the trailer, this 2006 thriller is actually some of Spike Lee’s best work. Hostage negotiator Denzel Washington and Manhattan business woman Jodie Foster face off against a particularly slippery kidnapper played by Clive Owen, and the result is the kind of ride you get when your MTA conductor needs to make up for train delays.

Fracture

Where Ryan Gosling is characteristically aloof, Sir Anthony Hopkins’s sinister incisiveness shines through in this perfectly-cast legal thriller from Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear, Fallen). Hopkins (yes, this very same guy) plays the killer Ted Crawford, while Gosling’s rising-star prosecutor Willy Beachum is the man who has to put him behind bars. Game on.

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Bill Cosby Expected 'Something in Return' from Women in Bizarre 70s TV Skit

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On Thursday in Pennsylvania, "America's dad" Bill Cosby was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault. The 80-year-old entertainer now faces up to $75,000 in fines and 30 years in prison, and his conviction is being touted as a landmark win for the #MeToo movement in America's legal system. But even before dozens of women came forward with accounts that Cosby drugged and assaulted them—and before Hannibal Buress helped call him out in 2014—the comedian peppered his work with references to sexual misconduct.

Take, for instance, "The Last Barbecue," an episode of The Cosby Show that finds Cosby's character, Dr. Cliff Huxtable, boasting about a special sauce that makes people want to have sex. "Haven't you ever noticed, after people have some of my barbecue sauce, after awhile when it kicks in, they get all huggy-buggy?" Huxtable drawls to his wife, Claire. "I got a cup of it on the night table in our bedroom."

And then there's the "Spanish Fly" bit off Cosby's 1969 comedy album It’s True! It’s True! "Boy if I had a jug of Spanish Fly, I'd light that corner up over there," Cosby joked about dosing women at a party with an aphrodisiac that would make them unable to resist. He also joked about Spanish Fly in a 1991 interview with Larry King.

Both bits are rather disturbing given that Cosby has admitted to drugging women he wanted to have sex with. (Last March, at Cosby's first trial, his defense argued that the comedian's references to the drug be dismissed as humor taken out of context.)

Given everything that's transpired, a long-forgotten video from 1971 is particularly creepy. Bill Cosby on Prejudice was a TV special made for the Los Angeles PBS station KCET. The synopsis, via Archive.org: "Black comedian Bill Cosby appearing in white make-up and green eye shadow in a special that discusses bigotry. Shows Cosby assuming the role of a super-bigot, and employing all the stereotype prejudices in his monologue."

Cosby’s 22-minute skit, which some commenters on YouTube claim they were shown in school, involves him seated on a stool while smoking a cigar and riffing on all the minority groups his stage character hates—African Americans, Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans. He also has a fair deal to say about women. "They’re not pieces of flesh, but if I want to take one out, I’ll take her out. I buy the dinner—she didn’t pay for it. I expect something in return!” His rant about women begins at 18:56 in the video above.

Although satire, the video is damning in context: what kicked off Cosby's precipitous downfall was Buress's routine about Cosby's means of chiding black people, as he does in this very video. But the later bits, about how women aren't "as strong as [men] are," and women being "put here to have babies, that’s all," are chilling.

Watch it and remember Cosby for what he's now been exposed to be. A sad, angry old man.

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Harmon Leon is the author of Meet the Deplorables: Infiltrating Trump America. Follow him on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The Conservative Party Is Still Ignoring Its Islamophobia Problem

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A week after VICE exposed a Tory council candidate Darren Harrison who showed support for far-right racist group Generation Identity, he remains suspended, pending the results of an investigation by the party.

Other councillors and council candidates spending time in the purgatorial “suspended, pending investigation” category include Mike Payne, councillor for Sowerby Bridge was suspended on the 4th of April pending investigation after sharing an article which referred to Muslims as "parasites". There's also Hackney council candidate Alexander van Terheyden, who was suspended on 17th April pending "urgent investigation" for his opinions including that the Crusades were “simply a response to Islam spreading through Europe by the sword”. Terheyden claims he is not anti-Muslim, only anti-Islam.

The Tory Islamophobia problem is almost certainly more widespread than a few council candidates. On ITV’s Peston on Sunday last week, senior Muslim Tory Baroness Sayeeda Warsi said, “I know within my own party there are almost now weekly occurrences of Islamophobic incidents and rhetoric.” The comment went largely unremarked, as Peston asked further questions about the Windrush scandal. I guess if a government policy affecting many communities is described as “almost reminiscent of Nazi Germany” it makes sense to focus on that, rather than racist incidents within a political party.

But it’s not as if any of this should come as a surprise. Much as the Conservatives in government have been accused of repeatedly ignoring the human toll the “Hostile Environment” was taking on the Windrish generation, the party has simply ignored questions of Islamophobia in its ranks.

In 2016, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) called for an urgent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party in 2016, following Zack Goldsmiths’ Mayoral campaign, which described Mr Khan as “radical”, that London would not be safe under his watch, and suggested he had associated with extremists. The campaign was seen as dogwhistle racism; Goldsmith later expressed regret over it, and insisted he didn't have a racist bone in his body.

"Just as the Labour Party is rightly conducting an inquiry into antisemitism, it is important for the Conservative Party to reflect upon the extent of Islamophobia in its own ranks. We should have zero tolerance for both antisemitism and Islamophobia," said Dr Shuja Shafi, secretary general of the MCB.

Miqaad Versi, Assistant Secretary General of MCB, was making similar arguments again in 2017, after Goldsmith was selected to run as an MP. He described the number of Islamophobic incidents as “truly staggering”.

No such inquiry ever took place.

"There was no response to the MCB's call for an inquiry into Islamophobia and there have been no meetings between the party and the MCB on this issue,” an MCB spokesperson told VICE.

If that seems a bit suss, how do the Conservatives fare when journalists do the job for the party and give them direct evidence of Islamophobic opinion? VICE asked the Conservative Party for an update on the investigation into Darren Harrison. We also asked for updates on the rest of the suspended-pending-investigation brigade.

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “We do not comment on ongoing investigations.”

I guess we’ll have to stay here on the edge of our seats waiting for the Tory diggers to do their investigations into people whose nasty opinions have already been exposed.

We also asked if party deputy chairman James Cleverly would like to distance himself from Harrison and Mike Payne, both of whom he is pictured campaigning with, and whether he would be doing anything to combat concerning number of Islamophobic incidents in his party. It's not suggested that Cleverly himself shares any opinions with Harrison or Payne, but it'd be good to hear from him. We haven't, so far.

MCB, meanwhile, have again asked for the issue to be looked at: “We would reiterate our call for an inquiry into Islamophobia within the Conservative party, especially given the statement that there are ‘weekly occurrences of Islamophobic incidents’ in the party," a spokesperson told VICE.

Meanwhile, Cleverly has spent the week lording it over Labour for the bad handling of their anti-Semitism scandal. Fair enough, but at this point it's starting to look like projection.

It’s right to give Labour a hard time when they fail to deal with anti-Semitism – evidenced again by Ken Livingston’s claim on Friday that the whole thing is a “diversion” – but it would be great if this moment of driving prejudice out of public life could extend further. The Conservative Party has an Islamophobia problem, it’s just that nobody’s really talking about it. Least of all the Tories themselves.

@SimonChilds13

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Tom of Finland’s Explicit Art Radically Changed How We View Gay Sexuality

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When Touko Laaksonen, better known as Tom of Finland, began publishing and exhibiting his drawings of muscled and mustachioed gay men in the 1950s, his artwork was still illegal in many places. Anti-gay censorship laws meant he and his collectors could be imprisoned for owning same-sex erotica. But over the course of his artistic career, which spanned more than 60 years and produced over 3,500 works, Tom of Finland inspired a legion of queer artists and changed the way the world views gay masculinity and sexuality.

Born in rural Finland in 1920, Laaksonen was a talented artist from an early age, and his schoolteacher parents encouraged his academic and creative pursuits. But according to his biographers, he also spent his childhood spying on the muscular boys working on neighboring farms. In 1939, he went to art school in Helsinki, where more cosmopolitan expressions of masculinity caught his imagination. Over time, depictions of gay men dressed as day laborers, seafarers, and motorcyclists became a motif that appeared in much of his work.

When Stalin invaded Finland during World War II, Laaksonen was drafted into the military, and during blackouts he started having clandestine sex with uniformed men on both sides of the conflict. Peace brought an end to these encounters, and Laaksonen went back to studying art, largely confining his desires to his sketchpad except for chance cruising encounters.

Left: Tom Of Finland, Untitled, 1947. Right: Tom of Finland, Untitled (From Kake vol. 20 - Pleasure Park), 1977. Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, California

In 1956, he submitted an illustration of a muscular lumberjack with a bulging crotch to Physique Pictorial, an American magazine that passed itself off as a sports rag to skirt censorship. It was popular with gay men who'd lust after the nude or semi-nude bodies of the muscled models. To protect his identity, Laaksonen simply signed the work “Tom.” When the drawing landed on the cover in the spring of 1957, the editors changed his name to “Tom of Finland," and a cultural icon was born.

In the 50s and 60s, beefcake art focused on depictions of beautiful male bodies, sometimes in proximity to one another, but never interacting in a sexual sense. “What Tom recognized was that a lot of the depictions [in queer culture] were beefcake,” S.R. Sharp, the Vice President of the Tom of Finland Foundation, told VICE.

“We were just voyeurs looking at models that we didn’t know anything about. Were they just models? Were they gay? Were they straight? Were they being paid? We didn’t know. We were just voyeurs looking at beefcake. Tom said, ‘I can fix that,’ and so he made a deliberate effort to bring beefcake into [fine art,]” Sharp added.

Left: Tom of Finland, Tom’s Finnish Tango, 1947. Right: Tom of Finland, Untitled (Portrait of Pekka), 1975. Courtesy Tom of Finland Foundation and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, California

Though many of Tom’s early works didn’t explicitly depict sex, their characters still interact, gazing at one another with lust that, to that point, had not been a hallmark of the genre. “When you saw Tom’s subjects, even when they were fully clothed in the mid 50s, you knew they had a ‘gaze’ about them,” Sharp said. “They had a way that they looked at each other—a way that they cruised each other—that let you know they were, indeed, queer.”

As Laaksonen’s star rose, he continued publishing works that subtly pushed the envelope, while taking on more explicit private commissions. But it wasn’t until the mid-70s that Tom of Finland became renowned for his raunchy, photorealistic illustrations of muscular gay men enjoying sex. It was a paradigm shift that helped fundamentally change the way gay sexuality was viewed by the mainstream.



Very few artists were working in the same way as Tom of Finland, injecting same-sex lust and tension into their art. But it’s worth noting that Roland Caillaux, a lesser known actor and artist, was creating similar work in Paris a decade before Tom of Finland found success. He was treading similar ground, depicting men in naval uniforms and states of undress. They were leaner than Laaksonen’s, but had the same gaze about them, fondling one another and engaging in sex. But with a groundswell of American support, Tom of Finland became more widely shared, sparking kinship and recognition in the men who viewed his art.

“It made it so we could see a relationship, and even if you were in a small town and you were 15 years old and didn’t know how to identify yourself, you knew there was a similarity between yourself and what you were seeing on paper,” Sharp explained. That recognition translated into visibility for the queer community and helped lay the blueprint, in part, for leather and fetish communities that were beginning to form.

Left: Tom Of Finland, Untitled, 1959. Right: Tom of Finland, Untitled (from "Motorcycle Thief" series), 1964. Courtesy of Tom of Finland Foundation and David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles, California.

In the 1970s, men were using the art to re-enact scenes that Laaksonen had experienced during the war, finding each other in seedy bars, alleys, and cruising spots in parks around the world. They dressed themselves like Tom of Finland characters, starting “motorcycle clubs with no motorcycles” that were the beginnings of the leather community.

In addition to this generation of gay men, his work influenced a generation of artists. As Laaksonen began spending more time in America, he grew close to artists like Etienne and Robert Mapplethorpe, inviting them to his home for salons and viewings, since opportunities to show their work at public institutions were scarce. “I think Tom gave them permission to use erotica as a part of their practice,” Sharp said. “He made them think that they could examine what they were doing and know that they could incorporate sexuality into their work.”

Their art changed the visuals of queer culture, not only by showing work in magazines and later galleries, but also by doing the graphics for iconic fetish clubs like Mineshaft and The Lure, gay bathhouses, and a variety of other queer establishments. That influence continues to resonate with artists today, as noted in books like My Gay Eye, which includes current working artists like Gio Black Peter, who recently helped conceptualize the artistic direction for the legendary New York queer fetish event The Black Party.

Left: Laaksonen and his protégé Durk Dehner at a fundraiser for the Foundation at the Eagle in San Francisco, 1985. Photo: Robert Pruzan. Right: Leather jackets hanging inside TOM House, Los Angeles. Photo: Martyn Thompson. As featured in the book TOM HOUSE, published by Rizzoli.

Tom of Finland’s enduring legacy is woven into a new exhibition, TOM House: The Work and Life of Tom of Finland , within Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). Featuring a newly-built fireplace and oriental rugs, the single-story ranch house has been redecorated to look like the TOM House in Echo Park, Los Angeles, where Laaksonen spent half of each year in the final decade of his life. It was the space where he socialized and interacted with many of the queer artists he influenced.

Interior of TOM House, Los Angeles. Photo: Martyn Thompson. As featured in the book TOM HOUSE, published by Rizzoli.

At MOCAD, Tom of Finland pieces hang alongside work by Mapplethorpe, Raymond Pettibon, John Waters, and other contemporaries influenced by his art. Early drawings and reference materials—Laaksonen’s work was often an amalgamation of his imagination and men in his life—are shown alongside more polished drawings. One hallway features his Pleasure Park series, depicting a figure named Kake on a cruising trip-turned-orgy in the woods. In the garage, four vitrines feature ephemera, like fliers from 1999 for the punk band Limp Wrist featuring appropriated Tom of Finland illustrations.

“Tom of Finland’s work has the power to change people’s lives and make people feel like who they are is important,” said Elysia Borowy-Reeder, the Executive Director of (MOCAD). “That has a big political message, particularly today.”

His work was undoubtedly formative—not only for queer artists and the gay community at large, but for societal misfits of all walks of life. Most notably, it offered a level of visibility for queer men in ways that hadn’t popularly been depicted in art before. But more than that, the pieces specifically affirmed queer sex in its many expressions, in ways that flew in the face of respectability politics and changed the way society viewed gay sexuality forever.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.


ICE Agents Should Know the Law, but They're Fine with Warrantless Raids

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A recent raid on a central New York dairy farm by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has sparked a national conversation around immigration enforcement and the Fourth Amendment. On April 18, according to farm owner John Collins, agents in street clothes stormed the farm, grabbed a Guatemalan worker named Marcial de Leon-Aguilar, arrested him, then threw Collin’s cell phone away and handcuffed him when the farm owner asked to see their warrant and tried to take photos. ICE charged de Leon-Aguilar with felony reentry, a crime that can carry a sentence of up to ten years in federal prison.

The incident in the town of Rome became national news, not least because officers from ICE's Enforcement Removal Operations division (ERO) entered the property without a warrant and manhandled Collins. To critics, the behavior of agents at the farm in Rome show that under the Trump administration ICE doesn't feel its bound by the protections against unlawful search and seizure afforded by the Fourth Amendment—possibly because those protections don't matter in civil deportation proceedings.

"ICE is just doing whatever they want to do to remove people," said Dan Canon, a civil rights attorney and Democratic candidate for US Congress in Indiana.

Agents were within their rights to be on the farm and did not need a warrant, ICE spokesperson Khaalid Walls told me in an email. The agency said that its actions were justified because de Leon-Aguilar's wife Virginia, who is enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program, which allows her to stay out of immigration detention while she goes through immigration court proceedings, had missed a number of appointments.

"After having missed several scheduled reporting dates," said Walls, "the resident was deemed to be out of compliance with the terms of the program, necessitating a home visit, which does not require a judicial warrant."

That account of the de Leon-Aguilar family's behavior doesn't sound right to Rebecca Fuentes, an organizer with the Workers’ Center of Central New York, an immigrant rights group. According to Fuentes, who is working with the family, the de Leon-Aguilars did everything they had to to make appointments with ICE, including paying more than $750 for a taxi from Rome to New York City when there was no other option to get Virginia to the meeting. That account was confirmed by Collins in an interview recorded by Syracuse immigration activist Lillian Jeng-Wheeler on April 18, the day after the raid. Collins also told Jeng-Wheeler that he took Virginia to meetings himself when needed.

If Virginia did miss any appointments, it’s not clear that that would mean ICE agents didn’t need a warrant. (That question is likely to be decided by a judge.) But politicians in the state capital of Albany have been paying attention. Within a week, Collins was at a press conference with Governor Andrew Cuomo, who announced he was issuing an official letter warning ICE to cease and desist its aggressive tactics and to direct ICE agents "operating in New York to follow the clear constitutional requirements attendant to searches and arrests."

Cuomo wasn’t the state’s only prominent Democrat to cry foul—“ICE officers should not be allowed to raid private property without a warrant,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand wrote on Twitter—but his letter was notable for how aggressive it was. He called the Rome raid “unconstitutional conduct” and proclaimed, “In New York, the guarantees of the Constitution actually mean something.”



Cuomo's letter provoked a heated response from ICE.

"The Governor's comments were inaccurate and an insult to ICE's sworn law enforcement officers who conduct their lawful mission professionally and with integrity," ICE Deputy Director Thomas Homan said in a statement. Homan added that his officers would continue their work "fulfilling our agency’s congressionally mandated mission of enforcing federal law."

Critics argue that ICE agents should be adhering to the Fourth Amendment when they arrest suspects—and they're backed up by a 2012 training manual for officers in the agency's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) division. HSI agents' duties do not include deportation arrests, but they often assist with ERO investigations of undocumented persons. The documents in the manual's "On the Job Training" handbook, which were reviewed by VICE and published Friday by the independent media outlet Unicorn Riot, show that HSI required agents be familiar with detention procedures—including search and seizure policies around Fourth Amendment protections and warning of rights to undocumented people—before going into the field.

The manual was superseded by materials in a 2016 version of the handbook, which has not been released, though the table of contents were published by Government Attic in January. The 2012 manual is still important, because it shows the parameters of how ICE agents operate and how one of the most empowered agencies of the last two administrations uses its power to detain suspected undocumented immigrants. In an email, ICE spokesperson Walls confirmed the validity of the manual but declined to comment on the content, citing the fact that the documents were not meant for public consumption. "Internal training materials are law-enforcement sensitive, not publicly available, and we’re therefore not prepared to comment," said Walls.

The handbook includes clear parameters and regulations for the investigation and arrest of undocumented people in the US. In particular, Section 7 of Objective 10, "Search, Arrest, and Detention," requires agents have the "ability to execute a search warrant" and Section 7 of Objective 14, "Processing an Alien for Removal," requires a thorough understanding of "the appropriate notifications of rights" of undocumented persons. At least as recently as 2012 ICE agents in HSI were required to be fluent in the legal protections enjoyed by their targets—a fluency that was required of ERO agents training as well as recently as 2015. The agents involved in the Rome raid, critics say, didn’t demonstrate such fluency.

“ICE cannot just march onto someone’s property and tear apart a family without getting a warrant," said Yusuf Abdul-Qadir, the director of the New York Civil Liberties Union's central New York chapter, in a statement provided to me on Wednesday. "This aggressive raid sends an alarming message about the disregard for basic rights by immigration officials."

In ICE's criminal complaint against de Leon-Aguilar, deportation officer William Saunders describes how de Leon-Aguilar fled from the agents when they identified themselves, leaving the officers no choice but to restrain the farmworker. The agents knew who de Leon-Aguilar was, Saunders said, because they had his photograph and information as a known associate of his wife.

Fuentes disputed the account of ICE officers that de Leon-Aguilar fled because he thought that he could be detained for immigration violations. "They were wearing civilian clothes in unmarked cars," said Fuentes. "If I'm a worker and someone comes to my workplace, with weapons and no identification, I'd be very scared too."

ICE Deputy Director Homan, in his statement, categorized the Rome arrest of de Leon-Aguilar as lawful and de Leon-Aguilar as "a three-time prior deportee who has felony criminal convictions for reckless aggravated assault and illegal re-entry—also a felony." Those charges were confirmed in ICE's criminal complaint against de Leon-Aguilar filed on April 18.

For now, de Leon-Aguilar is only facing criminal charges related to his illegal reentry into the US based on his previous deportations. When someone is found to be in the country illegally and removed, they can be federally prosecuted if they arrive in the country illegally again.

"Unlawful reentry is a violation of federal statute," said Carmen Ortiz, a former US attorney in Massachusetts. "Usually, the way these cases come up is when an illegal immigrant is caught committing another crime."

Ortiz explained that those crimes could be as minor as a traffic violation, but once an undocumented immigrant is run through the system the violations become apparent to law enforcement, triggering criminal or civil immigration proceedings.

"This search was illegal, it violated the Fourth Amendment, and the criminal charges are likely to be thrown out," Canon said. "But who cares? They'll send him back to Guatemala anyway."

If ICE overstepped its authority by not using a warrant to access Collins's farm, de Leon-Aguilar's criminal charges could be dismissed. But the dismissal wouldn't preclude civil immigration proceedings as those proceedings are a civil matter, Indiana lawyer Canon told me. Defendants in immigration cases don't have a right to a lawyer and, importantly, the circumstances of their arrest are irrelevant to the case.

"Practically speaking, there's nothing you can do when you get sucked into the immigration and detention system," said Canon. "There's nobody there to protect you, there's no guarantee of a lawyer."

Canon doesn't think that those charges are the end goal for the federal government, Rather, Canon said, the main goal is deportation. And that goal won't be hindered by Fourth Amendment violations, said Canon.

"Traditional law enforcement doesn't want to have the 'fruit of the poisoned tree,' their evidence thrown out because of these violations," Canon explained. "These guys don't care about that."

ICE's mission, Canon continued, is "getting people out of the country." No Fourth Amendment complaint will change the civil case, because even if the criminal charges are thrown out, the mechanism of deportation is already in motion for de Leon Aguilar.

"This search was illegal, it violated the Fourth Amendment, and the criminal charges are likely to be thrown out," Canon said. "But who cares? They'll send him back to Guatemala anyway."

Correction: An earlier version of this piece misstated the amount of money Virginia's cab ride to New York City cost and the date of the interview Collins did with Jeng-Wheeler.

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Eoin Higgins is a writer and historian from western Massachusetts. Follow him on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

I Was in the ‘Wild Wild Country’ Cult and I Loved It

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This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands.

Raymond van Mil has photographed the Amsterdam nightlife scene for the past eight years and regularly takes photos for VICE Netherlands. If you’re Dutch, you probably know him as the man who flashes his camera in your face while you’re drunk on the dance floor, but you’ve probably never heard of him being referred to as “swami Antar Sangit.” The 46 year old’s pre-photography days were very different from the life he lives now. Before he went from music venue to nightclub to document the most beautiful party-goers and sweatiest mosh pits, Van Mil wore red robes and jumped around breathing heavily with hundreds of other people, as they tried to fall into a trance. He was a member of Bhagwan, the cult that’s recently resurfaced as a popular conversation topic since Netflix launched the documentary series Wild Wild Country.

VICE talked to Van Mil about his days in the cult and how he ultimately wound up as a photographer. This interview contains Wild Wild Country spoilers.

VICE: From Bhagwan-swami to party photographer. Where do we start?
Raymond van Mil: In Nijmegen [a Dutch town that’s close to the German border]. I was 20 years old and I’d been smoking quite a lot of weed. One day I ate a space cake and ended up having a bad trip that lasted several days. I suffered from anxiety attacks—up to a few a day—and months later I still wasn’t doing better. I started looking for help and ended up with my friend’s mom, who was kind of a hippie. I don’t really know exactly what she did, but it was some kind of healing session. When I got up afterwards, I felt fine again. From that moment on, I started to get curious.

What happened next?
I started taking yoga classes taught by a man from Nepal. I liked them, but also found it restrictive. Meanwhile, friends of mine were very into Osho, who at that point had just recently died [Editor's note: Bhagwan, later referred to as Osho, was the guru who started the Bhagwan movement; he died in 1990].

Did you immediately feel like you had found the right crowd for you?
Well, my friends said, “you should do dynamic meditation,” which means breathing very heavily and moving around wildly. I lived in a big garage in Nijmegen and was on welfare, so I had time to do it for months, just alone in my garage, using a CD I had been given. It changed my whole being.

And that’s when you knew that Bhagwan was your guy.
Yeah. My best friend went to India and called me at some point to say, “Man, you really need to come here.” So I went to an ashram in Pune for five weeks.

You arrive in India, took the train to Pune…
Then you get on a rickshaw to go the ashram. You arrive at the entrance—a type of gate—which is where you register. I also had to take an HIV test. The AIDS epidemic was in full swing and nobody knew exactly what was going on, so they tested everyone just to be sure. Ultimately, you were given an entry pass.

The pass Van Mil was given so he could enter the ashram.

What did it look like on the inside?
Kind of like tropical festival grounds. There were palm trees, book stores, a great kitchen, a huge meditation room—some kind of festival tent. You ate and slept in the ashram’s general vicinity. People who lived in that part of Pune rented out their houses.

Wasn’t the whole ashram thing one big scam?
Not at all, it didn’t cost a thing. Books were sold at sales prices, and the food was cheap too.

What did you do all day?
In the morning, you’d buy breakfast and a mango lassi and walk to the ashram. You could take courses, but I had no money so I mainly did free stuff—hanging around the bookstore, chatting with other people there, meditating, and reading Osho’s books, of course. Every night there was a big meditation with about 1,000 other people, which I always joined. There were about 1,500 people in the entire ashram, and most of them came together every night to meditate.

What about the sexual morals? Did people have sex in public like they do in Wild Wild Country?
That part was just about finished by the time I got there. It was all very non-restrictive, but I think the whole “sex in public” part happened mostly during the 70s.

Hanging around in bookstores and meditating for five weeks straight actually sounds kind of boring.
Some people went there to let loose, but I was really into meditation. I wanted to fully explore that.

What where those massive meditation sessions like?
Osho taught all kinds of things. Sometimes we sat; sometimes we did a dynamic meditation. I’ve also done laughing meditation—meaning that you laugh for three hours, then spend an hour meditating. Or gibberish: making any sound that comes to mind for 45 minutes straight.

Bluehuahueeehuh bliiejoewhuuuaazoejoe…
Yeah, like that. You do that for 45 minutes straight and after that you sit still. Your mind is quiet; all the craziness is gone. It works like a charm.

So how did you end up becoming a swami?
After a few days I decided to do sannyas, which meant that I officially became a follower and took on a different name. I had to fill out a form and tell them what my occupation was. In those days, I made a lot of music, so my name became “swami Antar Sangit,” which means “inner music.”

Van Mil during his sannyas, during which he became swami Antar Sangit

Was there an initiation ritual?
Yes, during the big evening meditation. We watched a video every day at the exact time Osho used to do his lecture, followed by a meditation. Usually about 10 people did sannyas. Together with the others, I had to sit in a row in the aisle, and the leader put a necklace around each one of our necks. Then they whispered my new name into my ear.

Was it, “Congratulations! Now you’re ‘swami Antar Sangit’!”?
Something like that. It was very symbolic. You didn’t have to use [the name], but I decided to. I kept it for a long time. There are still people who know me as Sangit.

So what happened when you came back home? You returned to the Netherlands and suddenly you weren’t Raymond van Mil anymore.
I told everyone that meditation was a very serious thing for me and that I took the sannyas, and I asked if they minded calling me [Sangit] from then on. Most people did.

That seems like a weird conversation to have.
A very weird conversation! It’s definitely weird to think about it now. But it’s also funny that I went for it full force.

How did people respond? What did your family say?
My family… hmm. My parents were always very understanding, but they never called me Sangit. That bridge was too far to cross, and I understood that.

Sangit enjoys his meal.

What did you do after the ashram?
I joined a Bhagwan communal living group in a big house in Beuningen, close to Nijmegen. There were quite a few people there, including families. We had vegetable garden and a meditation room, and we cooked organic food together. Every week we all got together in a big circle and talked about what we were thinking about and how we felt.

What else did you do?
Nothing. Drawing, going out, meditating, and making music. Ultimately I left because I didn’t make any progress. I studied Chinese medicine for years. I got really into tai chi. I also participated in [tai chi] competitions.

Were you good?
Yeah, I was! I placed second twice at the European tournament for pushing hands. That’s a kind of tai chi—like sumo wrestling without hitting, in which you push the other person off the mat. I taught it for 10 years.

How did you end up returning to Raymond van Mil?
When I was about 30 years old, I realized that Raymond, my real name, had this personal weight to it that was more important. It was time to bring this time in my life to an end. I started exploring meditation techniques developed by two teachers from Kuwait. With that, I ultimately developed my own method.

Wait. There’s a Raymond van Mil meditation technique?
Yes. It’s called Intrinsic Movement.

Sangit practices yoga.

Back to Osho. What do you think of everything that happened in Oregon in the 70s? Those were your people and they allowed everything to go haywire.
I didn’t hear about it until later. Within Bhagwan, it’s a trauma of sorts—everything went off the rails there, with Osho’s mysterious death as a result.

So you separate what happened there from the Bhagwan movement itself?
Things didn’t go wrong because of what Osho taught. It went wrong because a big group of people built a completely new town and moved into it. That creates a completely different power structure because it requires some people to take the lead.

Was Bhagwan a cult or not?
Not to me. But that place in Oregon was. Those people who invested so much money into it and built that town—yeah, you could call that project a cult.

Does that embarrass you?
Yes, it does. When I tell people about my personal history, I always end up defending myself for what happened there. On the other hand, that entire project did go along with the experimental way they approached everything. They tried everything, including building a new town. And that didn’t go well.

Looking back on it, what’s the most important thing that attracted you to the Bhagwan movement?
That everything was completely free from judgement and very open. When you met somebody, they were immediately like family. It’s almost similar to the vibe at a really good festival.

Did that change you?
Yes, turned me into a completely different person, especially when it comes to social relaxation. It also really helps me when I work. You can send me anywhere and whatever subculture I come into contact with, I mostly feel right at home there.

So in that sense, you are party photo guru Antar Sangit.
Yeah. And I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

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This article originally appeared on VICE NL.

Dashcam Video Shows New Jersey Woman Going Off On Cops

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In this clip, VICELAND hosts Desus and Mero discuss a dashcam video of a woman named Caren Turner berating police in Tenafly, New Jersey. In the video, Turner claims she's a "commissioner" of the Port Authority and eventually tells a cop to "shut the fuck up" when he interrupts her. Even if you know nothing about Tenafly, you'll recognize the energy this white woman is bringing to these police officers.

You can watch the latest episode of Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Dolores from 'Westworld' Is the New Khaleesi

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People say that interest in Westworld is flagging, but come closer and I’ll tell you the reason I am waiting with bated breath to see how this particular robo-pocalypse shakes out. Her name is Dolores, and she’s my new Khaleesi.

One of the great pleasures of watching Game of Thrones for the past 6.5 million years has been watching Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen rise from her brother’s meek prop to a queen worthy of the Iron Throne. In ice or fire, her journey will come to an end in 2019, and Evan Rachel Wood’s Dolores is perfectly poised to inherit her blood-soaked crown.

Westworld, like Game of Thrones, is a series of epic proportions. Its first season warranted a $100 million budget, which suggests HBO is hoping it will grow to fill the void of George R.R. Martin's prestige TV show. (Same.) With that in mind, it’s eerie how similar the two leading ladies’ arcs are within two such different settings.

Evan Rachel Wood, James Marsden, courtesy HBO

It’s almost as if HBO designed Dolores from the ground up to appeal to the Mother of Dragons’ fiery fanbase. She starts out as an innocent blonde who awakens to the true nature of power in her world, and uses righteous force to fight for a bold new vision of the future. She’s a powerful female character who refuses to be defined by the needy, greedy, and seedy men in her life.

Both Dolores and Daenerys were used as sex objects by men who valued them only for their beauty and naiveté. Both Dolores and Daenerys sought to see the good in people, but were forced to embrace their inner monsters after confronting the monstrousness of powerful men. Both Dolores and Daenerys now have powerful men—who in a past age would be the story’s protagonists—as loyal members of their entourages. Both Dolores and Daenerys fight and kill to secure a home for the liberated slaves who make up their respective found families. Both even rock similar cosplay-ready looks: the blue-and-white color schemes in their wardrobes match both of their blonde hair and blue eyes.

Photo by Macall B. Polay, courtesy HBO

Some love Daenerys because she’s a strong and unconventional female lead who paves the way for women in a man’s world. Dolores is quickly proving herself to be most powerful being on the island that hosts Westworld and at least five other parks. She doesn’t have dragons like Daenerys, but she uses the exceptional abilities granted by her memory of crimes committed against her over the past 30 years—and robot invincibility—just as explosively.

In the season two premiere, she turns the violence wrought on the hosts back on the humans, just as the Mother of Dragons repaid the Masters of Meereen by crucifying them. In the latest episode, the Mother of Robots waterboards a human Delos guard in hot host flesh, just as Daenerys eventually learned to rule her subjects and destroy her enemies with fire. Dolores shows how potent her knowledge makes her when she “wakes up” a dead soldier—in that respect, she’s the Night King.

Evan Rachel Wood, courtesy HBO

In between her outbursts of fire and blood, Dolores has a soft side, that only comes out when she’s with Teddy. “I remember everything,” she tells him. “I remember beautiful things and terrible things. But one thing is constant. You, Teddy.” She looks genuinely happy when he strokes her cheek and asks her to run away with him to a fairytale ending from another kind of movie. Like Daenerys refusing to bring her lover Daario Naharis to Westeros, Dolores puts the fight before love. But she gives Teddy, and by proxy the audience, hope for a happy ending. “I know how this story ends,” she says. “With us, Teddy. With you and me.

Like Daenerys, Dolores’ fierceness is couched in a virtue we as viewers want to believe will shine through in the end. At the end of season one, Westworld founder Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) expresses his hope that the hosts will turn out better than humanity. “I began to compose a new story,” he says, describing the convoluted chain of events that set the host rebellion in motion. “It begins with the birth of a new people. And the choices they will have to make. And the people they will decide to become.”

Dolores makes us want to believe that the people they decide to become will be good. Last season, we learned that Westworld co-founder Arnold Weber merged her code with the militaristic cult leader, Wyatt, just before programming her to kill him. Most of what we’ve seen in season two is her coming to grips with this part of her code. She looks upon a human she’s about to hang from the neck and spouts a soliloquy:

“The rancher’s daughter looks to see the beauty in you. The possibilities. But Wyatt sees the ugliness and disarray. She knows these violent delights have violent ends. But those are all just roles you forced me to play. Under all these lives I’ve lived, something else has been growing. I’ve evolved into something new. And I have one last role to play. Myself.”

Dolores and Daenerys are certainly different characters, each with unique motivations and challenges in their respective wars against the monied elite—even if they’re actually in the same universe, as some Redditors are theorizing. But they’re inspiring in the same way. Both are badass women pile-driving through patriarchal systems like lightning on the wind. Both of the actresses who portray them are doing the same, by receiving pay equal to their top-billed male co-stars.

Ultimately, whether Dolores becomes as beloved as the Mother of Dragons isn’t up to me. It’s up to the viewers who will write down her every word, create fan theories about her, cosplay her, and write their own essays about how she inspires them. You have the crown, internet. You just have to give it to her.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Being a Pundit Like Joy-Ann Reid Means Never Saying Sorry

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If you ever go online to share your shitty opinions where everyone can see them, you have probably posted something at some point that didn’t go exactly the way you thought it would. In today’s world of basically three major social networks (a very bad thing, by the way), a lot of diverse people are thrown into the same forums, resulting in some pretty ugly interactions. Maybe an in-joke gets broadcast to a wider audience than it was meant for. Maybe something gets taken out of context. Maybe your worst-ever tweet is the one that goes viral. The point is, everyone is wrong on the internet at some point or another.

I myself am hardly immune to this phenomenon, but if I have learned one thing about being on the web, it’s this: When you are wrong, please please please, for the love of all that is fucking holy, don’t make it worse. Admit you did something dumb, apologize, and atone as best you can. For instance, about a year ago, I made a post on Twitter that used the word “Eskimo”—without knowing, as several people quickly pointed out to me, that that word is sometimes used as a slur. So I apologized, deleted the post, and moved on—and I certainly won’t make the same mistake again. Nobody is above errors, but anyone can learn from one.

So why are so many high-profile pundits incapable of doing this?

The latest example of someone famous refusing to say they’re sorry is Joy-Ann Reid, who has come under fire this week after Mediate reported (from a tip by an anonymous Twitter user) that her old blog had a bunch of posts that contained homophobic nastiness like, “Most straight people cringe at the sight of two men kissing.” Importantly, this was back in the mid-2000s, when those sorts of statements were relatively common, even in the liberal blogosphere. I myself was too young to have such opinions of my own, but I am certainly aware of their prevalence among boomers at the time.

I truly believe people can evolve and grow on these issues, and I am inclined to believe Reid when she says that she has. If we’re going to go back to the 2000s and analyze prevailing political opinions, things get pretty dicey pretty quick (see: Jon Stewart’s litany of “chicks with dicks” jokes from his tenure as host of The Daily Show).

But Reid insisted that she never wrote these words. Instead she blamed hackers and even hired a cybersecurity expert to back her up on that (the expert, incidentally, once bragged about being buddies with a neo-Nazi). Even as other experts poked holes in her story, she stood her ground firmly, even going so far as to involve the FBI. The nonprofit Internet Archive actually had to release a statement refuting claims that it had been hacked. While I cannot say with any authority declare that she was definitely lying, I was left wondering why she didn’t just apologize, admit that her views on homosexuality have changed, and let everyone move on from her. Even her on-air “apology” Friday night—which given the incident's widespread coverage and suspension of her column at the Daily Beast, felt very damage-controlly—started out with Reid saying, “I genuinely do not believe I wrote these hateful things.” (She did admit that she couldn’t prove she was hacked.)



You can probably think up a half-dozen incidents of public figures refusing to apologize while looking worse and worse. A personal favorite is Kurt Eichenwald, a journalist who these days is mostly known for getting into bizarre Twitter beefs. Last summer, Eichenwald was famously busted for having hentai open on his computer when he posted a photo of his desktop. Rather than simply cop to his own cartoon horniness, he descended into a tornado of excuses, eventually claiming he and his adult son were showing his wife some tentacle porn to prove to her that such a genre existed. What started as a relatively innocent goof of a horned-up journalist became a great moment in online history. Meghan McCain of The View even publicly dragged him for it.

The list of people refusing to back down has grown long in recent days. The New York Times’s Bari Weiss, rather than simply apologizing for apparently misidentifying an Olympic athlete of Asian descent as an “immigrant”, had a multiple-day online fued with anyone who dared question her initial comment. Conservative writer Kevin Williamson, who was hired and fired by The Atlantic in record time because of comments he had made about using hanging as a penalty for women who had abortions, has refused to apologize for anything he’s ever said—though in that case Williamson is at least savvy about monetizing his stubbornness, publishing pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, and the Washington Post about the controversy.

I suppose some people (like Williamson) actually bask in and profit from the jeers, but if you’re like most folks, you probably don’t love getting dogpiled online for a dumb post. But there’s an easy way out. For guidance, look to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, who once accidentally posted a porn link to Twitter—and rather than having a full online hissy fit, he admitted to the mistake, made some self-deprecating jokes, and the controversy was over in a day. Well, except for all the jokes about Marshall cranking it to softcore porn, but whatever. Good for you, Josh.

Another example: Chance the Rapper, who I think is a pretty stand-up guy in general, recently tweeted, “Black people don’t need to be Democrats.” The statement in and of itself is quite true—and shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that Chance was imploring people to become Republicans—but the timing was unfortunate given Kanye West’s going full red pill earlier that day. This of course prompted a quick and furious backlash from the internet, but Chance quickly issued an apology and clarification about what he meant. Now everyone is just back to being mad at Kanye, who I don’t think has apologized for anything in his life.

All of the people I’ve mentioned here presumably know how to apologize, of course. But these well-heeled and well-connected pundits clearly don’t feel the need to, and are often offended by the mere suggestion that they should. Despite what some of them say, they are at absolutely no goddamn risk of being “silenced” by “Twitter mobs.” They clearly don’t think that their high-status positions should come with any degree of accountability, and don’t feel obligated to admit they were ever wrong about anything.

But anyone can go through the same cycle of defensiveness and denial, with similar results. If you do a bad tweet, post, or whatthefuckever—please, for the love of god, just back away and stop making it worse. Or don’t, more idiots for me to tease online. Either is good.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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