Rewrite: September 2024

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The comment by The D Quuuuuuill:

When I was in elementary school, I met a man who worked in the Merrimac Mine in VA (closed 1935 after two anarchists dropped lit dynamite into a gas pocket) who one late summer day got on a train and headed up to Logan County with an 1895 Winchester and a pack of hard tack in solidarity with his UMWA brethren. He must have been about 90 when we met him. Our teachers shuffled him out of the room when he started talking about “The Civil War” because “he was getting confused.”

It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was some of the realest shit anyone had ever said to me. It didn’t really matter that it wasn’t the civil war, it still was a civil war, and it was the one he’d fought in. He’d staked his life to that he deserved to be treated with dignity and that future generations shouldn’t waste away deep beneath the earth the way his friends had. I think about that that was the kind of person who was willing to say some seemingly bonkers shit to some 10 year olds just to jolt them awake because that’s who he was. That was what he knew. I also think about that he met us. He saw us. He created a connective tissue between the elders of his day. If they were as old to him as he was to us, they would have been more in 1837 before anyone new the value of the coal beneath the soil in our home valley. The most military technology of the time was powered by the wind. They grew up knowing, and hating, the southern plantation system that existed in nearby valleys and down in the piedmont just south and east of where we grew up. One of them probably even knew the enslaved man who built the finest building in the entire valley, a building so impressive and beloved that the entire town gathered the funds to buy his manumission papers, and then helped him buy the mill that would a few years later be burned down 3 times by both the Union and Confederate armies under the assumption that the owner was feeding the other army.

He spoke to us. He spoke to us the way those elders had spoke to him. He said something so threatening to the status quo that it was assumed to be nonsense. I think when he was a boy probably some old abolitionist said something like that to him that didn’t set in until he was old enough to get on that train. Ever since I realized the value of this connective tissue I have lived my life to preserve these stories and pass them into future generations. To help people of today see that the settler-colonists who first defiled this land and tried to create plantations despite the dense forests and ill suited soils just to turn over a quick buck, who killed and raped the Muskogee native Americans who had been here for millennia, and who pushed the escaped enslaved Africans from Florida further west into what is now Kentucky are the same people who joined the Confederate army, are the same people who refused to respect the results of the post-civil war elections and created the Jim Crow era, are the same people who thugged for JH Blair, are the same people who Dr Martin Luther King and Angela Davis resisted, are today once again active and going by the name “Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

When I was in my 20s, I was naive. I thought that the moral arc of history was long, and bent towards justice, and that I would know liberation in my time. I see things very differently now. It will probably be some 10 year olds I speak to when I am 90 who know the freedom I am so thirsty for. Even then, this may be my naivete. The generations between me and them may be too twisted by the hatred that has been engendered in me that I hold toward the people who enable the system we suffer under for the process of communal healing to be complete. Thank you for sharing the story of Blair Mountain with more people. It is but one example of many of the great American imperial project’s violence against my people. The greatest advice I can give, especially right now during Pride month, is to build the largest and widest coalition you can, and to never stop speaking truth into the universe.

I am reminded of a song (though everyone should go listen to Union Maid or Which Side Are You On immediately). “Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist. So keep on loving and keep on fighting”

This was originally posted by @[email protected] on a now-deleted thread on c/AskLemmy entitled "I want to leave some confusing stuff at a friend's house." Thanks to @[email protected] for helping me find all of the text again after the post deletion.

Due to accessibility + the sheer length of the post, I will be simply re-sharing the full story here. Some typos fixed with permission, but text otherwise unaltered.

::: spoiler A baffling museum theft, and answers that only raise more questions

Oh. Oh god.

Okay, so bear with me.

Many years ago, some friends and I worked at the University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at University of Pennsylvania. At the time of this story, the museum was undergoing a bunch of renovations. The renovation dust would intermittently get kicked up by the ventilation system or would fall in a clump or whatever, and the movement would set of the security alarms. After a couple months of this, Security became somewhat lax in responding to alarms, because every night there were a number of false alarms.

So, one early morning, a student is walking to the university and spots something weird sitting in the middle of the pedestrian walkway on the South Street bridge. As they get closer, it starts to look familiar. They get up close and recognize it as the solid silver stand that usually supports in the Rotunda of the Museum. This is the first indication that anyone has that the museum was burgled the night before.

The police are called, the stand goes through evidence collection, everyone traipses over to the Museum, Security (and the museum administration) is shocked. Everyone starts looking around for whatever else might have been taken. Eventually we conclude that only three items are missing: the Dowager Empress' crystal ball, the solid silver stand the ball usually rests on, and a 2500 year old bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris. [The ball is gorgeous: it's like the third largest crystal ball in the world, it's absolutely flawless, and John Wanamaker bought it for like $50,000 back in 1920.]

All three items were taken from either the Rotunda itself or just nearby. This is somewhat confusing, as the Rotunda is all the way toward the back of the Museum, and up a couple staircases. Why wouldn't the thieves grab stuff from a more accessible area instead of crossing almost the entire Museum? Also, the objects are heavy or difficult to carry - why wouldn't they take something smaller, more easily portable, and more valuable - for example, the Tang dynasty horses that are also in the Rotunda and much more valuable?

Even more confusing is why the thieves decided to ditch the stand for the crystal ball. Presumably they were having problems carrying all three items and decided to leave one behind. Did they drop the four-foot tall 60-pound statue of Osiris? No. Did they leave the 50-pound crystal ball which is very round and can be hard to hold safely? No. They decided to leave behind the 20-pound stand, which has lots of easy finger-holds, is made of solid silver, and is easily meltable into easily-sold unidentifiable metal. It's all just ... very weird.

Anyway, the police show up. Because of some University association with the state that I can no longer remember, the FBI shows up. There's lots of chaos. And ... nothing happens. The FBI takes the stand into custody for forensic examination, but they can't find any clues. They keep the stand in custody for a couple years in case "something else turns up" but the case goes cold.

Eventually they return the stand to the Museum. We clean it carefully and, heartbroken, put it into storage. And for a couple more years, nothing happens.

Then one day, Jes Canby (one of our Museum workers) happens to visit a junk store a few blocks off campus - Jes loves junk stores! As she's wandering around looking at stuff, several aisles over, she sees something and thinks to herself, "Hunh. That kinda looks like the Osiris statue that was stolen from the Museum a few years ago." She gets a couple aisles closer and thinks, "Wow, that really does look like the Osiris statue that got stolen!" She goes over to get a closer look and discovers the Museum accession numbers still on the side of the statue. She calls the police.

The police show up. The FBI shows up (again). The shop owner is interrogated: Where did you get this statue?! Why, from Al the homeless junk guy, of course. Al wanders around on trash day and pulls out stuff, and the junk store guy buys it from him. Just last week, he paid Al $25 combined for the Osiris statue and an old side table. Does the FBI want the old side table, too? After much examination and consultation, the FBI does not want the old side table.

And where, they ask, might the FBI find Al the homeless junk guy? I dunno, says the store owner, he's homeless. So the FBI starts searching West Philly for Al.

Eventually they find him. Where did you get the statue? they ask. "From the curb in front of some house a couple miles away; sometimes they throw away some nice stuff in that neighborhood." They put him in the car and drive around a whole lot until they eventually find the right house (things look different from a car).

They question the homeowner: Where and how did he get the Osiris statue? "I didn't," he says. "I have a large garage and my family and friends sometimes store things there. I was on vacation in Europe a few years ago, and when I got back, this statue was there. I asked my family and and friends about it and no one knew anything about it.

"I started clearing out my garage a month or so ago, and asked again and no one still knew anything about the statue, so I gave it to my brother-in-law; he wanted it for a lawn ornament. Except his wife thought it was ugly and made him bring it back. I didn't have any use for it, so I put it out with the trash."

Oh? asks the FBI real casually. Did anything else happen to show up around the same time?

A pause while the homeowner thinks. "Oh yeah - there was a crystal ball, too. I gave it to my housekeeper - she's really into all that New Age-y stuff. Where does she live? Oh, somewhere across the river - maybe Trenton, I think?"

So the FBI gets the housekeeper's info and drives across the river to Trenton and knocks on her door. She truly does have a bunch of New Age-y stuff in her place. They ask her about the crystal ball the homeowner gave her.

"Oh yes," she says. "You know, I used to keep it in my bedroom, but the light in there was just too strong - it burned a hole in my arm!"

And where, they ask patiently, is it now?

"Oh, it's right over there." She points. It's on the coffee table; she's using it as a hatstand.

Various epilogues:

The FBI confiscated the crystal ball and the Osiris statue, and re-confiscated the stand, for "forensics analysis". But the staff at the Museum had thoroughly cleaned the stand before putting it into storage, the housekeeper took obsessively good care of the crystal ball, and the Osiris statue had been through too many locations under different conditions and entirely too many hands for anything useful to be found. Eventually, after many years of us asking, they returned the items to the Museum.

There had been a reward offered for the successful return of the items - maybe $10k or something? The homeowner tried to claim it, but was turned down. I personally think it should have gone to Al the homeless junk guy: he explicitly saved the statue from the trash, his actions are the ones that triggered the whole recovery process, and he's definitely the one who could have benefitted the most. But no :( Eventually they decided to give the money to Jes, who promptly turned around and donated it back to the Museum.

While the theft shows clear signs of some insider knowledge - that there would likely be no Security response to alarms going off, and that the garage would be open and homeowner away - they never caught the thieves. I personally think the number of people who knew both things would be pretty small, but no one was ever charged.

The FBI did a bunch of press conferences congratulating themselves on their diligent fieldwork and years-long persistence in recovering the objects - completely ignoring that they'd long since given up and that there would have been no discovery at all if Jes hadn't wandered into that junk store. Years later, one of the FBI guys wrote a book and it turned out these were the guys from the FBI's semi-newly-created Art Crimes Unit, and this was one of their first successful "investigations".

And, finally: the artifacts have been lovingly cleaned and returned to their display positions at University Museum. If you visit the Museum today and head to the Rotunda, you can see the Dowager Empress Cixi's crystal ball sitting proudly on it's solid silver stand, while the Osiris statue lives just a few yards away.

Anyway, OP, that's my answer to your question: a stolen, 2500 year old, 60 pound bronze statue of the Egyptian god Osiris. I can guarantee that it will cause much confusion over many years.

:::

https://feddit.org/post/16855485/8170591

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/63795808

The Button: Season 3 Wrap-Up: The Stranded Jedi

Theme: Star Wars · Duration: 25h 39m · Started: 2026-05-04 20:00 UTC · Ended: 2026-05-05 21:39 UTC

---

🏆 Winner: Purple

A genuine four-way scrap. Every faction crossed 21% of total hold time, and the gap between 1st and 4th was less than 8 percentage points.

Rank	Faction	Hold %	Hold time
🥇 1	Purple	29.41%	7h 32m
🥈 2	Green	25.75%	6h 36m
🥉 3	Blue	23.12%	5h 55m
4	Red	21.70%	5h 34m

---

🔘 The Button

• 473 presses from 172 unique players
• 213 active recruits (faction members) across the season
• 30 referrals signed up via referral links
• Median timer at press: 14m 18s (858s)
• Game duration: 25h 39m 38s

Press distribution

Faction	Presses	Members	Unused presses
Purple	161	59	213
Green	148	56	85
Red	85	45	126
Blue	79	53	157

Purple's win was carried by sheer participation. The most members and the most presses.

---

🎬 First & last press

• First click: stegodon (stegodon.social, 🟪 purple) - 14m 53s left on the clock at 2026-05-04 20:00:07. Less than a second after the gates opened.
• Last click: livligkinkajou (slrpnk.net, 🟩 green) - 14m 49s left at 2026-05-05 21:24:45, with 15 minutes to spare before the timer ran out for good.

The opening flurry (first 8 presses)

#	Player	Faction	Timer left
1	stegodon	🟪	14:53
2	volore	🟥	14:39
3	wagnast	🟩	14:36
4	elettrona	🟪	14:47
5	winged_hussar	🟥	12:57
6	roydbt	🟩	14:48
7	zloubida	🟪	10:30
8	nusm	🟩	14:54

---

🔥 Closest calls

Five players took the timer all the way to a single-digit second count:

Player	Faction	Hold	When
livligkinkajou	🟩	0:01	2026-05-04 23:57
comradepupivy	🟥	0:01	2026-05-05 00:51
tigeruppercut	🟩	0:02	2026-05-05 03:59
demigodrick	🟪	0:05	2026-05-05 03:37
squirrel	🟪	0:08	2026-05-05 20:15

livligkinkajou got the badge for closest-to-zero overall.

---

🥇 Most active pressers

Player	Faction	Presses	Total time held	Longest single hold
zedstrian	🟩	15	3h 15m	15:00
squirrel	🟪	15	2h 15m	14:59
dunstabzugshaubitze	🟩	12	2h 45m	14:57
netweirdo	🟪	10	2h 23m	14:58
livligkinkajou	🟩	10	2h 03m	15:00
stegodon	🟪	10	1h 55m	15:00
sebas	🟩	10	1h 53m	14:58

• The longest holds were by Chancellors!

---

🏛️ The Galactic Senate

Six elections were held over the course of the game. Five chancellors used their term; the final election ran out the clock with no nominations:

Term	Chancellor	Faction
1	stegodon	🟪 Purple
2	zedstrian	🟩 Green
3	havatra	🟥 Red
4	corvuscornix	🟦 Blue
5	rajtinka	🟪 Purple
6	(unfilled)	—

Notable chancellor moves:

• stegodon opened with a flurry - three royal decrees, two custom badges (⭐ and 🦾), two bonus presses, and a timer bonus
• zedstrian and havatra both leaned hard on Galactic Largesse, twice each
• corvuscornix burned three royal decrees in 20 minutes, a Blue blitz mid-game
• rajtinka wrapped up with two faction bonus presses for Purple, very likely the deciding shove

---

Senate Voter Turnout

Election	Faction-vote ballots	Chancellor-vote ballots
1 (start of game)	30	20
2 (overnight)	9	8 ← lowest turnout, the dead-of-night election
3 (early morning)	20	18
4 (lunchtime)	20	14
5 (final)	19	22 ← highest turnout, peak engagement

Engagement climbed steadily into the final hours.

---

🧩 The Stranded Jedi puzzle

Master Kellin Vos was waiting in the holocron channel for anyone who could hear him.

• 2 players completed all 9 steps:
  • 🟦 m_f finished 2026-05-05 12:34 (light/dark final reached first)
  • 🥈 w3dd1e finished 2026-05-05 15:33
• 2 more reached step 8 havatra and marauderiic (decoded the Vigenère but didn't speak the mantra)
• 3 reached step 7 zedstrian, shimozu, corvuscornix
• 5 broke past step 1 beyond that
• 246 messages in the hidden #holocron channel

---

💬 Chat

4,272 messages across all channels:

Channel	Messages
#main	2,743
#purple	375
#holocron 🔒	246
#senate	223
#green	211
#red	204
#corvid-chat (pop-up)	144
#blue	126

---

Top 10 chatters

#	Player	Faction	Messages
1	w3dd1e	🔴 Red	473
2	corvuscornix	🔵 Blue	424
3	squirrel	🟣 Purple	228
4	rajtinka	🟣 Purple	218
5	havatra	🔴 Red	192
6	zedstrian	🟢 Green	153
7	stegodon	🟣 Purple	126
8	demigodrick	🟢 Green	119
9	dmmacniel	🟢 Green	112
10	comradepupivy	🔴 Red	79

---

Top 5 reaction emojis

Emoji	Count
❤️	200
🐦‍⬛	182
😂	133
👍	131
💯	117

The crow emoji, added to the picker only hours before the game ended, landed in second place behind the heart. A late-game phenomenon.

---

🎖️ Final badges

• 🥇 stegodon - first to press the button
• 🥈 w3dd1e - runner-up Jedi
• 🟦 m_f - light-side Jedi master
• 🛡️ Sentinels - demigodrick, comradepupivy, squirrel, zedstrian, tigeruppercut, havatra
• 🛡️🏁 livligkinkajou - sentinel + closest-to-zero
• ⚡ siv9939 - chancellor's electric custom badge

---

🔝 Top referrers

Recruitment chain MVPs:

Player	Faction	Sign-ups brought in
zedstrian	🟩	8
dunstabzugshaubitze	🟩	7
squirrel	🟪	5
livligkinkajou	🟩	3
snoopy	🟩	2

Green ran the strongest referral game (20 sign-ups), but Purple's existing roster was already big enough to translate into wins on the board.

---

📊 By the numbers

)

• Most presses by one player: 15 (zedstrian and squirrel, tied)
• Average press timer remaining: 14:18
• Unused presses across all factions: 581 (more than were actually used!)

---

⏰ Hourly Heatmap

Press volume climbed steadily into the final evening (UTC):

Shading legend: 0 · ░ 1–2 · ▒ 3–5 · ▓ 6–9 · █ 10+

Hour (UTC)	🟦 Blue	🟩 Green	🟪 Purple	🟥 Red	Total	Bar
May 04 20:00	▒ 4	█ 10	▓ 9	▓ 6	29	███████████████
May 04 21:00	░ 1	▒ 4	▒ 4	▒ 3	12	██████
May 04 22:00	▒ 5	▒ 5	▒ 3	▒ 5	18	█████████
May 04 23:00	▒ 3	▒ 5	░ 2	░ 2	12	██████
May 05 00:00	░ 2	░ 1	░ 2	░ 2	7	███
May 05 01:00	▓ 6	▒ 3	░ 2	▒ 3	14	███████
May 05 02:00	░ 2	▒ 3	░ 2	▒ 4	11	█████
May 05 03:00	0	▒ 4	░ 2	▒ 3	9	████
May 05 04:00	▒ 3	░ 1	░ 2	▒ 3	9	████
May 05 05:00	0	░ 1	░ 1	░ 1	3	█
May 05 06:00	▒ 3	▓ 8	▒ 3	▒ 5	19	█████████
May 05 07:00	░ 2	░ 2	▓ 6	▒ 3	13	██████
May 05 08:00	0	0	▓ 7	░ 2	9	████
May 05 09:00	▒ 5	▒ 3	░ 2	░ 2	12	██████
May 05 10:00	░ 1	▒ 4	▓ 6	░ 2	13	██████
May 05 11:00	▒ 3	▒ 3	▓ 6	▒ 3	15	███████
May 05 12:00	▓ 8	█ 14	█ 20	░ 2	44	██████████████████████ ← peak
May 05 13:00	▓ 8	█ 15	█ 15	▒ 4	42	█████████████████████
May 05 14:00	▒ 3	▓ 6	▒ 5	▒ 3	17	████████
May 05 15:00	▒ 3	▒ 3	▒ 3	▓ 6	15	███████
May 05 16:00	░ 1	▓ 7	▓ 8	▒ 4	20	██████████
May 05 17:00	░ 1	░ 1	▒ 5	▒ 3	10	█████
May 05 18:00	░ 2	▓ 8	▓ 9	█ 10	29	██████████████
May 05 19:00	▒ 5	█ 20	█ 21	▒ 3	49	████████████████████████ ← peak
May 05 20:00	▓ 7	▓ 9	█ 10	░ 1	27	█████████████
May 05 21:00	░ 1	▓ 8	▓ 6	0	15	███████
Total	79	148	161	85	473
Chat volume followed a similar curve, peaking at 323 messages in the 20:00 hour as the season raced toward the finish.

---

🌐 The Fediverse Showed Up

Players came from 49 different Fediverse instances. Top contributors:

Instance	Players
lemmy.zip	65
lemmy.world	32
feddit.org	22
sh.itjust.works	13
piefed.social	7
lemmy.ml	7
discuss.tchncs.de	5
sopuli.xyz	4
startrek.website	3
piefed.zip	3

…plus 39 more instances with 1–2 players each. A genuinely cross-platform crowd.

---

🐦‍⬛ Honourable Mentions

• Corvid Chat - the first admin pop-up channel ever spawned. 144 messages in roughly an hour. The crow emoji that arrived in the same patch promptly took silver in the reactions chart.
• The 8-vote election - election 2 fired at 02:30 UTC and got 8 chancellor votes. The dead-of-night turnout floor.
• The Light Side Choice - m_f could have hoarded ten bonus presses for themselves. They didn't. Whoever you are: that's a Jedi move. 🟦

---

Bugs!

There were a couple of bugs in this Season, for which I apologise profusely for. One ended up wiping the database mid game. I managed to recover most things, but fastest press is not correct sadly, just an approximation based on chat timestamps :(

---

Until next season. 🟪

[Original text link. Written by [email protected] in response to a meme image that said, "you know what. fuck your favorite song. tell me your absolutely least favorite song, one you just absolutely hate with all your heart"]

I'm a crusty metal head. It takes a lot, and I mean A LOT, to make me hate a song. Design the Skyline's 2011 flaming pile of shit Surrounded by Silence is the single worst metal song I've ever listened to. At a time where we had major musical juggernauts like BTBAM, Periphery, Protest the Hero, After the Burial, and so many other great technically sound musicians just hitting their stride or deep in their prime, Design the Skyline said 'this'll do.'

I could rip into this thing a million different ways. Lets just start with the fucking aesthetics. It's 2011. I'm a year into college. Hipsterism is on the rise. Scene kids are dying out. These guys are the last vestige of an embarrassingly low period of teenage subculture. You got two lead screamers. A gelfling, and Rhea Ripley 12 years before her time. The bassist is little brother Ethan after Mom said let your little brother be in the band. 3 nondescript other dudes wearing girls clothing who are too embarrassed to show their faces at all. And a drummer who is too good for this shit. They're children of that time. The first thing I thought to my self as soon as they show up in the video even back then is, 'we're still doing this?'

The start of the song is the best part. It's this techy synth stuff with great dynamics that fits the era. It's long enough to make you think we're in for a good ride. Then it drops out and the actual band starts and hooooo boy is it bad. It's pure WHAT THE FUCK! The two screamers go back and forth unintelligibly. The guitars are playing fuck all. The bass drops out like fucking Hetfield was mixing And Justice For All. It's just chaos.

Then you get to the chorus. It's autotuned to shit. In the actual video the gelfling is battling snow that keeps falling into his mouth. The Rhea clone is dry heaving and singing at the same time. He legit looks like he's gonna be sick the way he's moving. Then little brother Ethan comes in. He's the most awkward, no confidence looking mother fucker of the whole video. He looks like he spent the whole day getting yelled at to move like this and you'll look cool, but it was really a joke and he just looks stupid. To the point there's a shot of the Rhea clone staring off and rolling his eyes while little brother Ethan is singing, like why is he here? It's just a fucking mess. The best part of the chorus is this is the only time in the whole song it happens.

Then it returns back to the chaos of nothingness musically and you feel shock. Why am I being bombarded by this? What is the point of this song? What is the point of my life? There are legit musicians at this period of time. Misha Mansoor is working hard on P2. The boys in BTBAM are working hard on P2. Everybody is waiting for the next Contortionist album. You got a whole new movement in Djent. Then this shit forces it's way into the spotlight like a distraction from the Epstein Files.

And when I tell you the description I'm writing is nothing compared to the hate this song got at the time, I fucking mean it. They released their record then split up. The amount of hate they got broke the band up. There was no way anyone was taking any of this shit seriously. That's how bad it was.

Here it is. Do not enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSZI6UJEUQ

The only other songs that makes me a fraction as upset as the above is Pause and Rib Woman on Frosting by Bent Knee. I can't prove it but I really think those two songs caused a rift in the band that got Ben and Jess kicked out the band. Ben with out of control creativity that tanked a record on Pause. Whoever decided to have a high pitched alarm go off for a whole song deserves to be whipped. Nobody wants to listen to Jess moan for a whole song like Rib Woman. They're lucky they had the cover of covid to leave, but man that record really upset a lot of people. None more than the band itself. They'll never say it but it's pretty obvious. The Hyperpop experiment was a failure.

There is also another reply from foggy in that thread which goes into security considerations.

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/46831588

Avocado. Is it really so untasty or I am doing something wrong?

Avocado. I heard much about these fruits/berries/whatever. But I am a poor guy from a very poor and totally non-tropical country. So apples and carrots are the sweetest things around and apples become too expensive too.

Still I bought a few. Just out of curiosity. It tastes like... butter block. Internet says that it should be this way. So... Why people eat it? Maybe it is bad alone and\or raw, but after some preparation it is delicious?

Am I missing something?

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/35769143

Hi StarTrek.website, I'm Karim Diané aka Jay-Den Kraag from Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, AMA! (Responding to questions Thursday @4pm!)

Original comment: https://lemmy.world/post/38715833/20461924

Text:

Dad misses. In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship. He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat. Nobody notices this, however because In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied. Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab. There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.

However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.

There was a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that.

Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:

“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”

…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness. The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.

“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked. I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.

“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”

“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.

As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”

“No.” Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.

It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.

“No. That’s crazy.” She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.

“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.

“And you- you didn’t… Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?” the archbishop demanded of my father.

“Do I look like I can jump that high?” Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.

Original comment from user [email protected]: https://lemmy.world/comment/20461868

Text:

When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.

Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace. Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on. In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.

For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then literally become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you. It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass. All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.

“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

“We’re getting to that.” He waved.

The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them. But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s. He couldn’t NOT have communion.

“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts. Jesus will understand.”

Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.

A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible. It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.

They were a SPECTACULAR hit. Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them. Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of? So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.

Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”

The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.

Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.

“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.

At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.” Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.

“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.” Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.

“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas. Why not on easter? Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone. Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”

“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.

“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right? Doesn’t look like much of anything, really. Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.

What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”

He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.

“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off. Just descend into his corpse like vultures. I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.” he nodded thoughtfully. “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”

“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.

And so, the plan was hatched. Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.

This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus. Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?* She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile. He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.

“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?

“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man. With all that entails.” She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel. “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”

Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action. The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.

Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.

Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade. Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.

Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses, down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.

Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman. Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.

However, two things happen that were not planned on:

Original comment: https://vger.to/lemmy.world/comment/22018742

@[email protected] describes working on internet infrastructure back in the 1990s. This was on one of those "drive by" AskLemmys where a new user posts a juicy question, then after a couple hours they delete the topic and their account. However, those posts and comments are still visible in Piefed, ex: https://piefed.social/post/1733969#comment_9969293

Or more correctly the SO of the user, in an attempt by an official US social media account to alter an image and the situation.

Party hard!

@[email protected] explains "Why Lemmy is the Worst Social Media Platform I Use" on ![email protected] at: https://lemmy.world/post/23320272

::: spoiler spoiler
It's satire. You knew that, right?
:::

Comment on ![email protected] by @[email protected] at: https://lemmy.world/post/40836743/21256978 For links to the songs see below. Note that apparently they typed out the whole thing on a cell-phone.

Basically, some people started incorporating gloomy aspects to punk aesthetics and music. Gloomy aspects from literature, film, tropes. Some were looking to express similar political sentiments but in a more metaphorical way, I suppose; that's my impression, that there was an added element of artistry/artsy there. Some were looking to add also subjective themes (madness, unlove, etc.). Example (Bauhaus - In the Flat Field).

This gave us post-punk and similar sounds in the very late 70s and mostly early 80s. You probably know some bands that were influential. Example. (The Cure - The Hanging Garden).

Anyway, the mohawk grew longer, blacker. Still teased, often shaved, but creepier. The leyering in clothing also became blacker or creepier (transparent layers, protagonism of the net layers). Theatrical and extravagant outfits emerged, inspired by the decade's fashion too. Example in music video A. (Alien Sex Fiend - R.I.P.).
Example in music video B. (Specimen - Kiss Kiss Bang Bang)

Famously, the night club called "The Batcave" started reuniting bands and listeners, and in the 80s many countries had similar venues. A little more aggressive or punkier sound persisted with a genre called deathrock. There was now post-punk, deathrock, goth rock, darkwave (inspired by the synth-driven genres of the 80s), etc. Example A. (The Sisters of Mercy - Lucretia my Reflection)
Example B. (The Frozen Autumn - Is Everything Real?).

The subculture was consolidated around these genres, and then the name "Goth" stayed, and then more communication and inspiration... And nowadays social media keeps many things alive through teachings in video and, I guess, text, like this one. Why? In part, because [context] a person that is new to all this world is called a "baby bat" and [/context] most Goths are protective and integrating of baby bats.

And that's it. There was a good deathrock revival in the late 00s and early 10s. Example. (Cinema Strange - I Remember Tendon Water). And today there's an obsession to bring back the original elements but it's all still very different (and often cliched, which I don't like, personally).

Here's some Goth music from 'recent' years. (Lebanon Hanover - Gallowdance).
Another one. (Boy Harsher - Fate).
And another one. (The Cemetery Girlz - Broken Teeth)

More knowledgeable Goths, correct or add as needed...

@[email protected] provides an anecdote about cats in their house, on ![email protected]

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/23146012