Vainglorious Bastards Graphic Novel - playboy.com

Vainglorious Bastards Graphic Novel

Quentin Tarantino provides us with a Nazi-killing scene from his new movie and artist R. M. Guera helps us give it a graphic graphic-novel treatment.

For optimal viewing, select MAX pictorial player size above.

Inglourious Basterds - The Graphic Novel

Rock-Doc's Loud Guggenheim Grille Rap

The song is already incredible, and it has no lyrics. These guys (the guitarists) are hidden.

 

By Phil Gallo

After building a career as a successful television director, Davis Guggenheim became an acclaimed documentarian with “An Inconvenient Truth,” the environmental film known colloquially as “the Al Gore movie.” He turned his cameras to another subject equally unexplored, the role of the guitar player in a rock band to create “It Might Get Loud,” which Sony Pictures Classics releases Friday.

Guggenheim brought together Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, U2’s the Edge and Jack White of the White Stripes for two days on a soundstage to see what would happen at the first meeting of legendary guitarists from three different eras. He spent considerable time with each individually in the cities of their youth --  Dublin, London and Detroit -- before shooting the summit meeting in Los Angeles.

Jack White is the focal point of his bands. But the other two, while stars, are sidekicks. How do they balance that with taking on a supporting role?

On U2’s Elevation tour, my wife turned to me and said, You want to be Bono. I said no, I want to be the Edge. Live, lyrics are not that important -- it’s about that intense vibration coming through those speakers. It’s the guitar that puts you in ecstasy.

 

Your filming process was different on this than it was on "Inconvenient Truth" ...

“The ugly truth about making documentaries is that you’re startled when you get the money, can’t believe you have the money, and just jump in. On "Inconventent Truth" we arrived at Al Gore's desk and started shooting on day one -- and you don’t have a point of view.

“This was much more intuitive We started with inexpensive, audio-only interviews and used those to tell us what to shoot. Jack told us about having to move his bed out of his bedroom to put in two sets of drums, and since we couldn’t shoot in that room, we animated it. The Edge gave a great metaphor about how trees are lined up in man-made forest, so we shot that. It was a different way to make a movie.”

 

What was the interview process?
We started by doing intense interviews with no cameras around, just the audio, and we captured these intimate moments. Jimmy talks about retiring in his 20s, about joining the Yardbirds to get out of doing Muzak sessions. They feel like personal journals. I wanted to get inside Jimmy Page’s head and know his deepest feelings.  

 

That certainly occurred with Jimmy, but while he was so personal, Jack and the Edge reveal more sociological issues -- poverty and the troubles in Ireland in the ‘70s.
The revelation with the Edge comes when we see him pull out old (tapes), an early sketch of “Where the Streets Have No Name.” It’s an artifact of a hit song before it was made.

Eventually, while the stories build, they all crash down in self-doubt. For the Edge, it’s a question of “Am I a writer or just a guitarist?” For Jack, it was about ”Am I allowed to play the blues? How do I find a way to play something authentic?” In all three cases, there’s a crisis of confidence.

 
You captured Page’s swagger, the intense technician inside the Edge and White’s intense devil-may-care attitude. There’s a sense that they are the characters they play onstage. How much were you aware of how the images they projected?
We didn’t want to reinforce the myth of the rock star. In every interview, (stars) are fighting against a human instinct to present themselves in a certain way. On camera, people stop being who they are. Jack is aware of what people find weirdly genuine; he says, ”Let me play along.”

You see the TV footage of Jimmy (in his early teens) when he’s playing skiffle music on the acoustic. His left leg is swinging while all the other boys are very stiff. Jimmy was always moving. When the Edge was teaching him “I Will Follow,” Jimmy was trying to move in a blues rock way, even questioning whether the Edge was playing his song the right way.

Your background is TV. If this meeting were documented for a TV show, would it have come out differently?
I watched “Behind the Music”  a lot. You know that every six minutes, the announcer will say, “When we come back from commercials, what happened after the third album.”  TV needs to keep you connected. With a film, we have the benefit of a captive audience and could linger longer in spots.  

If you could have added three other guitarists -- living or dead -- to the mix, who would they be?
We thought about putting an empty chair there for Jimi Hendrix, just because he was so huge. And people have said how about Eric Clapton? Jeff Beck? You could make a movie with three other guitar players and be just as intense as long as they are artists still trying to figure out who they are and what they play. Too many musicians are more concerned with getting the look just right and reinforcing the myths. 

At the end of the film, you have three legendary electric guitarists playing acoustic guitars and play a song that is so very different from their own styles, the Band’s “The Weight.” How did that come about?
It had been all electric, great hardcore rock music for two days. I saw one of the guys noodling on an acoustic and thought why don’t we end with something acoustic. The Edge said, "Let’s play ‘The Weight.'" They had to learn it -- we had to scramble to find the lyrics.

Rock-Doc 'Loud's' Guggenheim: Grilled | The Wrap

The King Cover-up “Needle Nick" - Dr. George Nichopoulos Rap

I was 32 years ago, on Aug. 16., when the world,devastated by the news of the sudden death of the King of Rock 'n' Roll --son-in-law--passed, The King of Pop.

Elvis Presley would never know -- greeted with similar incredulity, both cases: grieving family, friends, and fans like me demanded to know the cause of tragedy.

“It may take several weeks to discover the exact cause of death,” Elvis’ personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos, a.k.a. “Needle Nick, told reporters the next day, the Memphis coroner at his side. “The precise cause may never be discovered,” he added, positing simple “cardiac arrest” in the meantime. 

A full autopsy was performed, requiring the removal of the star’s brain and organs. But the contents of his stomach were destroyed without being analyzed. No coroner’s inquest was ordered. The medical examiner’s notes, toxicology report, and photos disappeared from official files.

Rumors of a cover-up soon began to flourish.

Two years later, investigators discovered that 10 major narcotics had been found in Elvis’ system. Independent medical experts concluded that he had died of “poly-pharmacy,” the lethal interaction of these controlled substances. The most toxic in the mix was codeine, to which Elvis, a pharmaceutical autodidact, knew he was dangerously allergic.

He had secured a bottle of the painkiller during an emergency dental appointment on that fatal night. His liver was found to contain 23 times the average therapeutic dose (equivalent to the entire bottle). Another American icon, Howard Hughes himself, had suffered a fatal codeine overdose the year before, in 1976. 

The King’s young step-brother, David Stanley -- his self-described bodyguard “lifer” -- insisted that he had committed suicide but was immediately muzzled. “There were millons and millions of dollars wrapped up in Elvis’s various insurance policies,” he later wrote. “If they even got a whiff of the theory that Elvis died of self-induced drug overdose then a fortune was at stake.”

But why, at age 43, would the world’s most popular entertainer take his own life? Several reasons, perhaps. His estranged bodyguards had just published a scathing tell-all -- "Elvis: What Happened" -- depicting their boss as a terminally addicted and deranged prescription junkie. He was deeply in debt, his record sales at an all-time low.

He feared he was a has-been. He was exhausted from relentless touring, but was being forced back on the road by his insatiable manager, Colonel Parker. And his fiancée, Ginger Alden, was threatening to leave him.

Moreover, the King was in desperately poor health. He had been battling lupus for more than a decade. The stress of his career exacerbated the immunological disease. Its symptoms could only be relieved by cortisone. This steroid was widely regarded as a “miracle” drug in the sixties and seventies; but it is now known to cause, in immoderate doses, psychosis and suicidal depression.

Suicide allegations, however, were nipped in the bud, and Elvis’ life insurance policies were paid out in full.

Seven years earlier, Jimi Hendrix had fatally OD'd. His close friend, Eric Burdon of the Animals, announced in a TV interview that the guitarist had committed suicide. Hendrix’s manager and his record label, Warner Bros., had taken out a multi-million dollar insurance policy on him. After Burdon’s announcement, a Warner’s VP accosted him: “You f---er, don’t open your mouth again -- that’s our insurance policy!”

The singer immediately retracted his statement. Hendrix’s beneficiaries were paid in full.

Weeks later, Janis Joplin’s body was found in her L.A. hotel room. Her insurance company denied her manager, Albert Grossman’s, claim. They alleged that the singer had intentionally OD'd, nullifying the policy. Grossman prevailed in court and was paid. He and his attorney had arrived at the hotel room before the authorities and all the drug paraphernalia had gone missing.

Cover-ups have become more the rule than the exception in celebrity deaths. Michael Jackson’s personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, waited at least a half hour before calling 911. What evidence might have been removed from the death scene in that time?

To date, two autopsies have been completed. Now Jackson’s mother, suspecting “foul play,” is demanding a third. In a surprisingly hasty move recently, Jackson estate executors settled for a $3 million pay-out on a $20 million policy. Should final autopsy results indicate drugs as a cause of death, the pay-out will be nonrefundable; but an additional $17.5 million Lloyd’s policy taken out by Jackson’s London promoter, AEG, could be rendered null and void. 

But to date, publication of Jackson autopsy results has been delayed “indefinitely.” In the meantime, it is likely that Dr. Murray will be scapegoated and tried for murder, just as was Elvis’s physician.

Though Dr. Nicholpoulos was ultimately cleared of charges, he lost his medical license. And Vernon Presley, refusing to believe that his son was ultimately responsible for his own fate, tried to have his enabler assassinated.

The Tithe King Cover-up, a.k.a. “Needle Nick Wrap"

Octopussy Sea of 1111s

Introduction to cryptic crosswords - crossword tools .com - Online tools for crosswords and more

Cryptic crossword puzzles are widely considered the ultimate challenge for lovers of word-play. They are highly entertaining and highly addictive!

This page is designed as a first introduction to cryptic clues for people that are new to them. It also serves as a quick tour of some of the types of clue that the clue solver on this site can solve. The information is applicable to cryptic crosswords found around the world though there are some slight differences. For example, the editors of American cryptics tend to be far stricter about what is and isn’t acceptable and the puzzles don’t often include straight cryptic definitions (see later).

The word cryptic is defined by Chambers as ‘hidden; secret; unseen; mysteriously obscure’. Clues in cryptic puzzles are just like that. To understand them you have to read them in a very devious way. What the clue appears to be defining on the surface is designed as a distraction and is almost never what it really means. However, to be fair, the clue will always tell you what the answer is (usually more than once), even if you have to twist your brain inside out to read the clue in the way that tells you!

All cryptic clues have a definition and this definition is almost always at one end or another of the clue. Finding where it starts and finishes is part of the challenge.

A cryptic clue usually has a second part as well, called the subsidiary indication. This also leads you to the word but it does so using some devious wordplay. When reading the subsidiary indication words may mean the letters that make them up, other words that mean the same thing or they may refer to an operation that you do on the other words to spell out the answer.

Let’s look at some specific types by way of illustration:

1. Anagram Clues

In an anagram clue, the subsidiary indication contains the letters of the answer and an indication that the letters should be rearranged or are not presently in the right order. A correct rearrangement gives the solution. e.g.

Unusually remote celestial body (6)

Reading this straight you would think that the answer is a star or something that is millions of light-years away. However, this is a cryptic clue so it won’t be that obvious. The way to read it is:

The letters R,E,M,O,T,E ordered in an unusual way (or) a ‘celestial body’

You need to insert a mental pause after the word ‘remote’. Punctuated to help the cryptic reading it would be:

Unusually: "REMOTE"; Celestial body (6)

The answer is METEOR. The definition part of the clue is ‘celestial body’, the anagram indicator (as it is called) is ‘unusually’ and the anagram letters are from the word ‘remote’.

There are literally thousands of possible anagram indicators. The knowledge base of this site contains around 3500 and we regularly see new ones suggesting that there are many more. Any word or phrase that connotes confusion, arrangement, deviousness, change or any of a number of other related concepts can serve. The anagram letters may be taken from any number of words.

Our clue solver can solve anagram clues very readily and with a high degree of confidence. (In fact it can usually solve them even when it doesn’t recognise the anagram indicator.)

2. Straight Cryptic Clues

This is one of the rare breeds of clue that doesn’t have a subsidiary indication. Instead the deviousness comes from reading the definition in a peculiar way. For example:

Accommodation that’s barred for flappers (4-4)

The intended answer is BIRD-CAGE. Here barred doesn’t mean prohibited but having bars and flappers refers to things that flap i.e. birds with wings.

Another example:

Revolutionary line for jumpers (8,4)

The intended answer is SKIPPING ROPE. Here, ‘revolutionary’ means ‘revolving’ rather than radical and ‘jumpers’ are not pullovers but people that jump!

Incidentally, using words ending -ER in an unusual way is common practice for cryptic crosswords. Another example is ‘flower’ meaning not a colourful plant but something that flows (e.g. a river). ‘Revolver’ has even been used to define TURNTABLE.

Understandably for a computer, the clue solver probably has the most difficulty with this type of clue. However, it is amazing how often it can suggest the answer, even without any checked letters. For example with the second clue it suggests SKIPPING ROPE with the following justification:

SKIPPING ROPE Confidence: 8%
'revolutionary line' is the definition.
I am not sure about the 'revolutionary' bit but 'skipping rope' can be an answer for 'line' (skipping rope is a kind of line).

I cannot understand how the rest of the clue works.

It doesn’t understand the ‘revolutionary’ bit or the reference to ‘jumpers’ but picks the answer up from the word ‘line’! The confidence is relatively high as (8,4) phrases are relatively rare. Adding checked letters would increase the confidence upwards very quickly.

3. Double Definition Clues

Here the subsidiary indication is replaced by a second definition. Often these clues are short, perhaps two or three words. An example:

Clear as a document (8)

The answer to this is an eight letter word that can mean both ‘clear’ and ‘document’. The answer is MANIFEST.

The way to read this clue cryptically is to imagine it is asking for a synonym of "clear" that is the same ("as") a word for "a document"

The clue solver will always get the double definition if it knows both definitions and it will often suggest it even if it only knows one of the two definitions.

4. Charade Clues

In charade clues, two or more words run together to form the solution.

To tantalise the left is a plant (6)

Another way of saying ‘to tantalise’ is ‘tease’ and a common abbreviation for ‘the left’ is ‘l’. When those two are next to each other (as they are in the clue) they spell the word ‘teasel’ which is a type of plant. Sometimes the joining together of the words is explicitly stated with words and phrases like ’after’, ‘running to’ and so on. For down clues words like ‘below’, ‘above’ etc. might be used.

Abbreviations such as ‘left’ being substituted for ‘l’ are a very common feature of cryptic clues as the setter often has to find a way of indicating one and two letter combinations. With experience you will recognise many of the common abbreviations used.

5. Container Clues

In these clues the letters of one word are inserted into another.

Widest and best way inside (8)

The answer is BROADEST. ‘ Widest’ is the definition and ‘best way inside’ is the subsidiary indication read cryptically as ‘the letters BEST with the letters ROAD placed inside them’. A road is a kind of ‘way’ in the sense of a route.

This clue contains a link - the word ‘and’ - which separates the definition from the subsidiary indication.

Container clues are very common and the indicator can appear between the two words, at one end or at the other. Depending on what it is, it can also indicate either word being placed inside the other.

Container indicators include ‘outside’, ‘around’, ‘without’, ‘crossing’, ‘sheltering’, ‘is eaten by’ and hundreds of others.

6. Hidden Word Clues

Sometimes the answer is shown, with correct spelling, directly within the clue. e.g.

More lice are found to contain what remains (5)

The answer is RELIC (defined by ‘what remains’). The subsidiary indication says that the letters MORELICE contain the answer, which they do! Very occasionally the answer is hidden backwards in amongst the letters.

7. ‘Sound Like’ Clues

Here the subsidiary indication tells you about a word that sounds the same as the answer. e.g.

By the sound of it, I'll row (5)

The answer here is AISLE, ‘row’ is the definition and the subsidiary indication when read correctly says that the answer sounds like I’ll which it does.

Other sound like indicators include ‘say’, ‘it’s said’, ‘reportedly’, ‘one hears’ etc.

8. Reversals

Mistake that puts school children back (4-2)

The answer here is SLIP-UP. The definition is ‘mistake’ and when ‘pupils’ is substituted for ‘school children’ and the letters reversed in order you get the answer.

Note that for down clues, the reversal indicator may have connotations of going up, e.g. words like ‘uprising’, ‘going North’ etc.

9. Deletions

Here letters are removed from a longer word. e.g.

Swimmer in underwear abandoning the lake (4)

The answer is LING a type of fish defined by ‘swimmer’.

To solve the subsidiary indication you need to substitute LINGERIE for ‘underwear’ and remove (‘abandon’) the letters ERIE, the name of one the great lakes.

Other forms of deletion include removing the first, last or middle letters. Indicators include words like ‘short’, ‘topless’, ‘hollow’ etc.

10. Initial, Final, Alternating and other letter clues

e.g.

Tree begins autumn pruning, putting leaves everywhere (5)

The answer to this is APPLE, defined by ‘tree’.

In the subsidiary indication ‘begins’ should be read cryptically as meaning ‘the beginning letters of’. Taking the first letters of the words ‘Autumn Pruning Putting Leaves Everywhere’ spells out the answer!

The same can be done with final letters and even alternating letters and centre letters.

11. Combinations of types

Setters would not make cryptic crosswords so simple that all clues correspond to one of the above types.

Very often more than one of the above techniques are combined to make the subsidiary indication even more challenging. The clue solver can deal with these just as easily.

e.g.

Laugh at round ends? It's tough (4)

This is a combination of a charade and a deletion of the middle letters. The answer is HARD (defined by ‘tough’). Laugh is substituted for HA, ‘ends’ says one should take the end letters of ‘round’ and throw the rest away (i.e. RD) and ‘at’ says the two should go together to spell HARD.

It's indecent to let little Albert roam around inside (6)

This is a combination of an anagram and a container. The answer is AMORAL (defined, as ‘indecent’).

‘Little Albert’ is substituted for AL (‘little’ indicates an abbreviation rather than a small child). ‘around’ is an anagram indicator saying that the letters of ‘roam’ need to be moved around, in this case to make MORA and ‘inside’ says that they go inside AL. Placing MORA inside AL spells out the answer!

12. Miscellaneous Clues

There are numerous other rare things that setters sometimes do. In these cases extra imagination is needed to find the answer.

Although it is unlikely that the clue solver will fully understand the clue in these situations it will often get the answer from the definition or as a last resort from the checked letters.

Where now

Learning to solve cryptic clues improves with practice. A very good first step is become a member if this site. The clue solver tool is an excellent resource for people learning cryptic crosswords as it can solve and explain the answers when you get stuck! If you wish to see how the clue solver works before signing up you are free to try with any of the example clues on this page (which will work for non-members)! The ability to use the clue solver on any crossword clue is a privilege of being a member.

The following books may also be of value:

• Chambers Crossword Manual by Don Manley (publishers: Chambers, ISBN 0-550-19052-X)
• How to do the Times Crossword by Brian Greer (publishers: Times Books, ISBN 0-00-70840-0)
• How to Solve Cryptic Crosswords by Kevin Skinner (publishers: Right Way, ISBN 0-7160-2013-0)
• Cryptic Crosswords and How To Solve Them by Michael Kindred and Derrick Knight (publishers: Chambers, ISBN 0-550-19047-3)

Introduction to cryptic crosswords - crossword tools .com - Online tools for crosswords and more