One way I de-stess over the holidays: avoid everything, break out the paint pens, and take a stab at zentangle inspired doodles. I needed a new clipboard for work, anyway.
Things that give me a heart attack: Finding out I am technically missing a graduation requirement that I literally do not have time to fill.
I mean, I will fight them to the grave that one of my high school AP classes should cover it, because they are the exact same thing as…
I’m, oh, almost 20 years out of graduate school and I still have occasional nightmares in which, for some reason, my home state decided to add an American History requirement to graduate high school. No problem, right? Except they applied it retroactively. That meant that while I was applying for board certification for professional specialty accreditation it was discovered that my postdoctoral fellowship was invalid because I didn’t officially have a doctorate, which was invalid because I didn’t have a BA, which was invalidated by the fact that I had never received that new retroactively applied American History credit and so hadn’t officially graduated from high school.
Somehow I end up seated in a row among those plastic and pressboard desks trying desperately not to fall asleep and resenting the hell out having to back to friggin’ HIGH SCHOOL of all places. And yet at the same time they were pressuring me to provide professional services to their students, because lord knows of course they were able to get the state to agree to uphold my license to practice even though at the same time they were saying I didn’t even have a HS diploma, much less a graduate degree and the many and various things you have to have after a doctorate in order to actually practice your profession.
As you can tell, I may have had this dream one or two times.
Alternate titles: Veggie Tales: Cain’s Corn-ucopia Veggie Tales: The Amaizing Story of Cain and Abel Veggie Tales: Cain goes (Mid)West No Seriously What’s up With All the Corn
(don’t look at me)
What’s up with all the corn? Great question! Short answer: the corn signifies humanity.
Corn has a long and fascinating history (no don’t laugh) not just as an agricultural staple, but as a religious and cultural image. I could tell you so many things about corn. I’ll focus on the specific contexts where it’s used as an image in Supernatural, and hopefully this won’t turn into a book.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I hadn’t thought about corn as being manufactured by humans.
I guess that would support the theme of identity and self-transformation that’s been running through the past couple of seasons. That Dean isn’t becoming a monster in the natural (lol, supernatural?) way, through turning or being born that way, but pursuing a course that abandons his humanity (“I’m poison”) and transforms him into a weapon.
I’ve seen several people mention the tattoo, but I haven’t seen much analysis on it.
The star part does bring to mind all the other starswe’ve seen this season. I’m thinking they mean more than one thing: shining stars as guiding lights, fallen stars as poorly chosen paths, hope, destiny, the renewal and rebuilding of Heaven and angels, even something to do with the Americana/patriotism/civil war stuff. As the season progresses, maybe they’ll coalesce into a tighter meaning, but for now I’m keeping all those ideas on the table. There’s also the very real possibility that they go along with all the sun and moon stuff happening in the last couple of seasons.
The rose part is an interesting addition. thevioletcaptain wrote a very nice meta about Cas and his connection with flowers (which I can’t find the link for at the moment).
Roses, in particular though, have shown up several times that I can recall off the top of my head, especially this season. Rowena had an orange rose near her when we first saw her.
The guy in the roadhouse in Paper Moon had a red rose on his jacket.
Colette the maid fell into a bowl of white roses when Olivia killed her.
A couple of times I can remember in past seasons are that Mary had red roses embroidered on her shirt when Dean went back to the past, and Cas used a red rose to cut his hand so he could make a sigil to get rid of Ephraim.
I honestly don’t know what to make of all these roses showing up all of the sudden in different colors and associated with very different people, victims, friends of victims, and villains. This is the first time I can recall that the stars and the roses have been presented together.
So….uh….I guess at the moment, I got nothing. I do think you’re right that they are very relevant to the story, though. If anyone has any ideas or interpretations they’d like to add, please feel free!!
~*~
And then flowers and Claire: I did a bit of screencapping of that scene in Randy’s house and boy, once you lighten the images, they are EVERYwhere.
So, yes, here in the room with Claire, there are red/pink roses, but there are yellow roses as well.
That wallpaper in the background has red and yellow roses taking into account how orange the lighting is. I’m betting those lace curtains have flowers on them too, but I can’t tell from this pic.
And there are red and yellow flowers on that area rug under Salinger.
Someone noted (I wish I could remember who), that his blood seems to be black where the others’ was dark red.
I find it really interesting that, sure red flowers presage danger, but also demons?
Yellow flowers were initially associated with the psychic children, but have gone on to be associated with supernatural beings more in general.
Then we have the character name “Salinger,” whose most famous work is a story all about someone who loses it in the midst of an identity crisis.
And then we have the fact that this all came down because Randy made a deal, which has all kinds of history in Supernatural.
I wonder if this whole thing with Randy and Claire wasn’t a setup, that there isn’t some supernatural element to what happened there. Hmmmmm, I wonder what Crowley has been up to lately?
I noticed the roses on the wallpaper in Claire’s room (I pretty much always notice flowers now), and I have a feeling that they’re to do with the remnants of Castiel’s grace that she’s carrying around. And because of the red roses, I don’t imagine that’s going to go very well. (I’ve been saying for years that RED = BADNESS COMING.)
LOL I know, RIGHT??
Oooooo, that WAS you.
Yeah, red flowers and Claire in blue= sacrifice. Ack! I know what’s coming, but I do NOT like it.
Flowers unfold. As buds, their inner parts are hidden, secret, until they come to their full bloom and reach their peak of potential. Supernatural uses many, many visual motifs to reinforce its narrative. Flowers are one of them.
Let me take you way, way back to the beginning.
~*~
obsessionisaperfume:
OH MY GOD THIS IS IT THIS IS THE FLOWERS MEAN SECRETS META I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS FOR YEARS BLESS YOU
Seriously, this is the reason I knew that Crowley was up to something in “First Born”—there were roses on his teacup.
They’re warnings that there’s something going on, that we need to look closer at what’s going on.
If you see me commenting on flowers in a liveblog, this is why.
Hi there, Dori! *waves* I think we met years back at VanCon, with Hugemind and Bowtrunckle. Nice to see you!
Sandy McElroy was never near Canfield Drive on August 9. She completely fabricated her entire story weeks after Darren Wilson killed Mike Brown. During their interrogation of her, Sandy McElroy was completely shredded by the FBI as a racist, a liar, unstable, and more. They proved in their own interview, with evidence, that McElroy lied about ever being there, about how she left the scene, about key details of the case that she claimed she witnessed, and more.
Shaun King provides a great summary of Sandra McElroy’s role in Bob McCulloch’s grand jury debacle. There are links to King’s previous piece on Witness #40 and to The Smoking Gun’s exposé (mind the “bipolar” BS, though) and source documents; all are worth reading as well. All of this should, must, lead to charges.
Hearseeno 