There is not much to see from this last week; mainly it was spent drawing smut and the above is a cover for a little Xmas-themed smut comic I'm thumbnailing at the moment. These are made from a folded piece of copy paper, so there's only so much I can fit on the small pages - I wound up making this a two-parter and I'm still figuring out the second part. I mean, I know what happens, I am just trying to make it look good and also deal with the constraints I've placed on myself. Earlier this year I did a little comic and made it mini-zine-sized and while that gives you more pages, it is so tiny that it is really not worth it. I like doing these because:
1) They're small, so they can get finished faster (I'm very impatient) 2) They unfold into a single page so they're easy to photocopy. I also did a Santa pin-up in the style of Tom of Finland but I don't like how it turned out. Oh well. There's a first time for everything. No one in the Kake comics is older...or has a beard...it's okay though.
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Jorman dreamed that he was in a crowded room full of people dressed in white. The air was hazy with incense and cigar smoke and the haze of dreams. He scanned the room, but found no familiar faces.
Jorman felt slow and tired, even though he was in a dream. A splash of color in the corner of the room caught his eye, and he moved towards it, gently weaving in and out of the crowd. The people around him bobbed and weaved, dancing to drummers that Jorman couldn't see. He arrived at the colorful corner - bright yellow in this white room, not from paint but from yards and yards of yellow and gold fabric that had been gathered and draped with great care over the walls and floor. Saffron-yellow satin, tulle embroidered with golden butterflies. Yellow rosebuds in golden vases, a statue of a woman looming over a rowboat. On the floor, a bowl of money, a bowl of oranges, a multitude of cakes iced in yellow and white and green and orange. Jorman took all of it in. The drumming across the room seemed to grow more insistent. He turned to crane his neck to look at the drummers and he saw Maja. Maja had died two weeks ago, in the world of not-dreams. She was young, so young; was about to turn twenty-eight. Her death had been sudden and shocking; Jorman had attended her funeral to support her brother, who had stared into the distance for the entire sad ceremony, tears streaming silently down his face. But here she was in this dream, alive and well, smiling and catching Jorman by the wrist, yellow satin tied around her head like a pirate's kerchief, her own wrists clanging with bangles. Maja also wore a white dress with a wide skirt, and it billowed around her as she danced to the drummers, who remained lost in the crowd. He tried to call to Maja, to say that he was so glad she was alive, to say that her brother would be so happy that there had been some kind of mistake. But his voice came out in a whisper. Maja cocked her head and put a hand to her ear, the sign for "repeat that?", but Jorman was adrift in the drumming and the dancing and the crowd on all sides of him, who sang in a language Jorman had never heard before, the language of the world of dreams. Suddenly Maja seized his arm tightly with both of her tiny hands - baby hands, her brother used to call her - and threw Jorman with the strength of a circus strongman. He landed directly under the canopy of yellow satin, the side of his head smashed into a cake. The crowd cheered, the drums pounded louder, and it sounded like a bell had been added to the drumming, but the bell was Jorman's alarm, snapping him suddenly back into the world of not-dreams, where Maja was dead and buried. *** Jorman lived alone, so he didn't know how there came to be a cake on his dining room table. He didn't even so much have a dining room. He lived in an efficiency apartment, and had a table where he ate all his meals, so we'll call it that just to make things easier. Nothing else was different about this table - his empty glass from yesterday still at his place, his wallet, his keys. Here there was, however, an exquisite cake. It was not iced in yellow or green or gold like the ones in his dreams. It was all white, with delicate piping around the edges, and on top were glistening strawberries arranged meticulously on tufts of white frosting. Jorman put his hand out to pluck a strawberry from the top of the cake, but his hand passed through the cake. I'm still dreaming, he thought, but then he stubbed his toe hard on the wooden legs of the table and he knew that he was wide awake. He tried again to touch the cake, but again his hand passed through it. Jorman sighed and started his coffee maker. *** A week later, the cake remained. It looked as delicious as before. The fruit flies that bothered Jorman's bananas every other week did not seem to notice the gleaming strawberries that topped the cake. Every day, Jorman looked at the cake - there was not much else in his apartment to look at - and every day, his hand passed through it like it was a ghost. On every other Wednesday, Jorman saw Maja's brother, Marquis. Jorman hadn't expected Marquis to want to come by so shortly after his sister's death, but Marquis insisted, saying that if he didn't force himself to leave the house he would just stare at the ceiling fan for hours. Jorman imagined Marquis, laying crucifixion-style on his bed, listening to the CDs he'd kept from cleaning out Maja's apartment, crying silently like he did at her funeral. I used to hate this music, man. But now it just reminds me of her. Jorman had even offered to pick up dinner this Wednesday, but again, Marquis had overruled him. It's my turn, Marquis had insisted, and although he was right, Jorman felt bad about it. Jorman was replaying the conversation in his head, thinking about how he could have and should have argued Marquis down, when a sharp rap at the door jolted him out of his own thoughts. It was Marquis, ten minutes late, carrying two bags of take-out balanced on a pizza box. "What's that?" Jorman asked, nodding his head at the pizza box as he took the bags from Marquis. "It's what they put the naan in now, man," grinned Marquis, opening the pizza box. "They gave me extra." Jorman unpacked the boxes, rice and curry and samosas, while Marquis rummaged in the fridge for a drink. Generally Jorman and Marquis ate at the table and then watched a movie or played a game. Jorman brought the take-out boxes to the table, but stopped short and stared. The cake was gone. "You alright?" Marquis asked. "Yeah," said Jorman. "It's nothing." "It smells nice in here," Marquis said. "Like strawberries. You got a girl now?" "Nah," said Jorman. He gingerly touched the table where the cake had been. Nothing. A dream. He looked at his friend, still present, still Marquis, even in his bottomless grief. Jorman smiled, a quick blink of a smile that disappeared before Marquis could look up from his bowl. "Let's eat."
I have not been up to much but I did watch this absolutely bonkers movie over the span of two days. I started it on Saturday night, then Monát texted me and said she was ready for studio time so I paused.
"What is that?" she asked. "It's about a sniper and he kills people and fucks a lot," I replied. "Well, of course," she said, and that is also how I feel about snipers. (I am actually glad I did not see this movie when I was in my late teens or early 20's because I probably would have gone absolutely off the deep end, in a horny way.) The first thing that you need to know about this movie is that the opening sequence is unbelievably wild and hilarious:
I cannot deal with this! It made me lose my goddamn mind. There is a headless CGI (CGI! In 1983!) skeleton shooting a revolver. It's too much for my delicate constitution. I said as much to my friend Parke and they just replied, "It's so fucked, enjoy it", which is the understatement of the year.
The first half of this movie is Purty Good and after that things start to get Wild. So, let's see. Our mans Duke Togo has taken on a job, as one does, and has shot someone as their father is preparing to hand over the family company.
Golgo 13 seems to bang a lot for someone who has all of two facial expressions. He never seems like he is having a good time, although all these ladies seem to be having a good time, so I guess that's saying something. During this particular sex scene I was affronted as his informant comes in and gives the intel briefing while they are going at it? This is very rude imo. (I would also like to note that even though this woman has a ribbon around her neck, her head does not fall off at any point.)
SO now we're off to seduce the mob boss' daughter, Cindy. She is nude a lot, which I also would be if I were rich and had a lot of bodyguards around me all the time. Having a lot of bodyguards, though, does not prevent people from taking videos of you frolicking in the ocean nude. That's fine, though. If I were a rich blonde babe who could frolic nude and someone took a video of me doing it, well. What could I say except, "You're welcome."
Our mans just knows if he just beats up one of her bodyguards Cindy is going to take him home and bang him out and, he's correct. I mean, it's a good setup. As I am writing this out I am realizing I am not 100% on all these plot points, because the direction I thought this movie was going in and the direction it actually wound up heading in were two very, very different things.
After some horseback riding, some shenanigans with a phone in a safe, even more nude swimming, and the big reveal of "Cindy is the Real Dr. Z" (which seemed very large at the time, but in the larger scope of the movie is nothing), I think I paused for the evening.
I would say that it is my wish that I had paused for the evening after the plotline with Dr. Z and Cindy and then never watched the rest of this, but I dressed up like Rita for Otakon so I guess I felt like I had to see this all the way through.
After we leave this mini-plot behind, we're back at it again at Krispy Kreme with Leonard Dawson, the oil baron whose son was assassinated earlier. Leonard Dawson is mad as hell and has vowed revenge on Our Hero, which involves: - Paying the CIA, the Pentagon, and the FBI to bring in some bad boys to try to kill Golgo 13 - Hiring some enormous freak with no teeth to murder Golgo 13's affiliates - Trapping his daughter in law in a room with aforementioned freak just so we can all writhe in disgust at a prolonged and unnecessary rape sequence - Training his very small granddaughter to shoot handguns (she has to be like four or five, how you get a child that age to handle the recoil on a handgun is beyond me but I guess this is a cartoon so nvm) so she can try to shoot Golgo 13 through her teddy bear - Convincing the aforementioned feds to let some absolute killing machines out of federal prison so they can kill Golgo 13, even though he already has the toothless freak Around the time Leo Dawson was bullying the feds for the millionth time I started texting Daryl Surat of Anime World Order fame and asked why the feds didn't just murder Dawson and be done with it. He said that if they killed Dawson then they wouldn't get paid, although at that point in the movie everyone seemed like they were about to get fed to an alligator in a tank, so I didn't see what they had to lose. The turning point in this movie's plot was not when Golgo 13 shot some dude directly between the eyes and the dude still managed to squeeze the trigger and wound Our Hero in spite of being Already Dead. In fact, the turning point was when Leo Dawson's daughter in law got fed up with his dumb shenanigans and points out: Hey genius, Golgo 13 isn't just out here shooting people for fun, he takes JOBS, so maybe figure out who hired him to kill your son?
(I have left out our girl Rita but she gets her trigger pulled by Our Hero and then gets murdered by the fucking snake freak. It's a damn shame.)
We then have Golgo 13 versus helicopters - also CGI, in the '80s! However, they look entirely different from the animation, colors and everything. They look so different that I was sincerely beginning to think that I was somehow being pranked.
This movie, by the way, is full of Very Dramatic Sequences that end scenes in which there is a still frame, sometimes from multiple angles, that are used to Great Effect for Maximum Drama, which is why it is so jarring to go from this very dramatic stylized animation to being dropped directly into an episode of ReBoot.
Anyway. Our Hero Duke Togo has a fight with everyone even though Leo Dawson has finally realized that his son put out a hit on himself
G I R L
I R R I L R I G
Rich people are really out here doing the damn most at all times. After this fun revelation, Leo Dawson jumps out of his high rise building, but Golgo 13 still shoots him between the eyes anyway.
The End?? Girl what did I just watch???
RIP to Rita, the real MVP
Of course, this was the pride and joy of the week: But wait, there's more: Sometime long ago I bought a lot of artist trading card boards. It had to have been before I went to div school, so maybe five years ago? I pulled those out this week and have had a grand time. They're perfect for poscas.
Hi and welcome back to Short Story Saturday! Here's a little ghost story that I wrote a few months ago. I would do anything for her, and so when she asked me to meet her at the crossroads at ten minutes to midnight, I didn't hesitate.
The night was warm and humid, and the mosquitoes were out in full force. They feasted shamelessly on my bare legs, but I didn't reach to swat them, because my friend seemed unbothered. She held in her tiny hand a white glass encased candle, and her hair looked almost white in the light from the candle's flame and the moon. She looked so captivating that I had to ask her to repeat what she'd just said. "A ghost appears at this crossroads every month," she whispered, "and I want to catch it this time." She had a small video camera in her hand. "When did you get that?" I asked. We both had the same job - scooping ice cream part time for tourists and their snot-nosed brats - and there was no way she'd made enough to buy something like that. "Rory got it for me. Shh! It's almost time. Did you bring the salt?" Rory was Chloe's neighbor. He worked in a Wal-Mart - he was two years our senior - and he was constantly stealing from work. One time, he'd made off with a three-person tent and a Sega Dreamcast. Normally, I'd have been jealous if anyone else had given her something that pricey, but I knew that the only reason Rory would give Chloe a nice video camera is that he'd succeeded in lifting a newer, better one for himself. I also had a camera, courtesy of Rory - it was in my bag, with the salt. "Here," I said, and handed Chloe a box. She wrinkled her brows. "What's Mal-don salt? I knew you'd bring something weird." My mom was a chef. I shrugged. "Salt is salt." (My mother would vehemently disagree.) Chloe also shrugged. She checked her watch - five minutes until midnight. "Hold this," Chloe said, thrusting the candle into my hands. She opened the box of salt and shook out a circle of thin flakes around us. I watched her, so determined, fully concentrated on her task. Our bicycles lay in a heap by the side of the road - a dirt road, far from even our small town. Thick pine woods surrounded us. Crickets and frogs sang in the darkness; mosquitoes danced around my shins and ankles. There's no place I'd rather be, I thought. Chloe straightened, tucking a stray strand of hair behind one ear. "Okay," she said, and we traded salt for candle. My camera now hung on a strap around my neck. Chloe had her video camera in her right hand, the candle in her left. "It's supposed to come from the south," she whispered, gesturing to her left. "What kind of ghost is it?" "Whad'ya mean?" "I mean, like…what is it supposed to look like?" Chloe scrunched her nose, a giveaway that she was uncertain about what she'd say next. "Well," she said, "I heard it's different for everyone." She fidgeted with the video camera. "Robert said it's just kind of, like, a green cloud." I turned my face and stifled a cough. Robert was a notorious liar. "But Avery said it looked like a man dressed all in black," she continued. "Shh! It's almost time. Get ready." We crowded into the center of our salt circle. I flicked the switch on my camera, its familiar hum now eerily loud. The crickets and frogs had stopped their songs, and the crossroads was silent. Electricity ran down my spine. Chloe was intent, staring southwards, occasionally stealing a glance at the second hand of her watch. "I see it," I breathed, but no sound actually escaped my lips. It wasn't a cloud or a man in black. It was a woman, or the blurred suggestion of one; her legs ended before I could glimpse her feet, and she floated in the crossroads' center. She shone like a morning fog, her hair fluttering around a smooth, blank oval that perched on her long neck. No face, I thought. My mouth couldn't make words. I wasn't even sure if I was breathing or not. The ghost turned its smooth, featureless head to my gaze. I was rooted to the ground. Vaguely I sensed Chloe next to me, fiddling with her camera - it wasn't working, she was switching out the batteries - something told me that Chloe couldn't see what I saw, that she hadn't seen anything at all. The ghost was still looking at me - can something look at you when it doesn't have eyes? - and it slowly turned towards me and extended its handless arms. Two ghostly stumps. I pressed the shutter on my camera; I heard the lens retract and the camera shut off. The ghost floated closer. Chloe had changed the batteries and somehow gotten her camera back on. She turned to me with her face against the viewfinder. I didn't see Chloe at all. I only saw the ghost, who floated slowly closer. I watched her hair making patterns against the night sky. Once I had a bad cold and my mother had given me two different kinds of medicine, and when I'd closed my eyes I could see what looked like a black kaleidoscope. The ghost's hair reminded me of that black kaleidoscope that had played behind my closed eyelids. I rose from my crouch, fixated on the ghost woman, whose garment flowed around her like a stream flowing around a rock. It felt like the ghost was beckoning me, even though she had no hands with which to gesture. I stepped forward, dazed, dazzled. "Meredith," Chloe hissed. I wouldn't have believed that she'd called my name if I hadn't seen the video. I used to be able to hear Chloe's voice across a crowded cafeteria, separating her sound from the voices of our classmates. Now we were alone, crouching silently at a dirt crossroads in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn't hear anything at all. My body moved on its own. The air around me felt crisp. The white sole of my sneaker breached the circle of salt. "Meredith." An urgent whisper that I wouldn't hear until a week later, when I was better. My heart seemed to hum. I stepped across the line of salt. A warmth spread from the soles of my feet to the back of my neck. It tingled as it spread, and then my mouth finally released a sound: a deep laugh, two octaves lower than my own. An unrecognizable voice, which I'd never heard before or since. Suddenly, I couldn't stand. I fell on the road, still laughing in the voice of a stranger, the rocks of the dirt road piercing the skin of my knees. The ghostly woman floated high above me, her kaleidoscope hair swirling in front of her blank face. I could no longer even kneel. I fell on my side and turned onto my back, the unearthly laugh still emanating from my mouth, resonating in my chest. I felt my back arch and my arms and hands twist and writhe. (When I saw it later, on the video, I had to turn away.) Chloe laid her camera on the ground beside me and grabbed me under my arms, dragging me to the best of her ability. My body was now back in the salt circle, but I'd broken the boundary. Chloe shook more salt flakes over the spot where I'd walked through the circle. The ghost's hair flew back from her smooth face, as though a sudden wind had sprung up. I felt tired, so tired, as though I'd run a marathon or stayed up all night at a slumber party. Exhausted, I exhaled, my eyes closing. I felt a stinging on my face and cracked my eyes open just enough to see Chloe, blonde hair shining in the moonlight, flinging the contents of a holy water bottle in every direction beyond the circle of salt. She still can't see her, I thought. Then I closed my eyes for the night. When I woke up, it was the following evening. Chloe's house had a den where she would host sleepovers. Her mother would line the floor, already thickly carpeted, in old blankets and sheets and sleeping bags. Soft pillows were piled here and there. Chloe sat by my feet, facing the TV. The light from the television in the dark room made a blue halo around her head. Piles of VHS tapes were at the edge of the blanket - old scary movies, courtesy of Rory, who'd worked at Blockbuster two summers ago. I couldn't tell what Chloe was watching, some old vampire movie. I never knew how old the movies actually were, because she would turn the color off on the TV and watch them all in black and white. She was absent-mindedly eating pizza rolls dipped in sour cream. The pillow smelled like her hair. I just wanted to lay there forever. "Hey," I said. My voice was a feeble croak, but at least it was my voice this time. "Hey!" Chloe whispered back. She smiled. "Are you okay?" "Yeah." "You scared me," she whispered, but I thought: Nothing scares you. "Oh," I replied softly. I was confused. This was not a situation I was prepared for. "It scared me, too," I finally said. "Well, no worries. Rory picked us up and got our bikes. My mom called your mom and told her you were staying the weekend. She's working a lot. She doesn't know what happened." Chloe's mother was a security guard and worked an unsteady schedule. I closed my eyes and covered my face with a blanket. Deep breath. Exhale. The first breath of air outside of the blanket felt cold and fresh. I stretched. "Do you…" Chloe trailed off. I could tell she felt awkward, and it almost embarrassed me, because Chloe never felt awkward. "Do you want to watch something?" she asked quietly, not making eye contact. Suddenly I was tired, but not physically; just tired of carrying the weight of the midnight ghost encounter. Enough, I thought. Back to normal. "Yeah," I said, trying to sound nonchalant. "Um. Do you have The Craft?" Chloe beamed. "Always!" She turned back to the tape stack. I opened a can of soda and watched her rummage through the tapes. Pizza rolls with sour cream? Gross, I thought. But still, there's no place I'd rather be. Monát sent me Brujas: The Magic and Power of Witches of Color for my birthday. I love it so far. It has familiar territory: making altars and connecting with ancestors, but it's very modern (it came out last month, so it does go into quarantine and other current events), has a big community aspect (every chapter ends with resources), and it's so nice to read a witch book by someone who grew up in Florida! We're in a whole different world and it's hard to get that same perspective from non-Floridians. I went to the library yesterday and got a huge book stack: Luckily for me, I bought a backpack not long ago for the express purpose of carrying all these books back from the library. The Surf Culture book was a surprise browse: I was walking through the Fine Arts library looking for an open desk and that book was misshelved and it popped out to me immediately. I actually already own Crossing the Water and Hearing the Mermaid's Song, but they're both in Florida. (I also own Yemoja, but as a Kindle edition, so I never finished it...I have a lower ratio of finishing ebooks now that we're out of quarantine.)
There were also a couple of books I picked up but did not check out: Phyllis Galembo's Maske, which I saw in the photography section while I was browsing (I really just wandered in and out of the stacks yesterday in the Fine Arts library; I had to remember her name because I knew her work from Divine Inspiration: From Benin to Bahia). Everything she does is phenomenal. I will have to revisit that book when I start making masks again... I love, love, love Maria Abramović and there were several books that I found while I was browsing, but I told myself I could come back and get them...I wound up wearing myself out yesterday cleaning and running errands, and today I'm recovering. I think it might be chai time... After a lot of "What Goes In This Panel?", this one is finished. I really like it. It's a companion, in a way, to this older piece, Sinto Falta: Sinto Falta was the final piece I did in my Drawing II class. I'd been drawing birds in a nest all semester, and then John Dure Morgan saw my sketchbook and said I should be making these instead of drawing birds in a nest. He also said I should add red to these compositions, and this is the first one that has red in it. I was so afraid of it, and that's why there's only a little bit.
It's been a busy week! I have been energized by roller skating and being angry.
I am working on a new piece now that I will post when it is all finished. I've been neglecting my reading, but Monát sent me a book for my birthday, so I'm going to make some time for reading this week. The weather is cold and wet and it's wreaking havoc on my sinuses, so as a result it's a lot easier for me to get a headache from looking at a screen.
I'm obsessed with this video:
Hi and welcome to Short Story Saturday! This first story is VERY short, but I like it a lot, so here it is. Last night I was having trouble sleeping, and six bats flew in my window and sang this story to me, so that's how you know it's true.
Once there was and once there wasn't a man with skin like burnished brass. He lived by the sea and hated it; it made him feel like an egg that had been cooked too long. Besides, he was covered in verdigris. "I'll go to the mountains," he said to himself. "Roland," said his mother. "Stop talking to yourself and come eat dinner." Roland's mother was Parvanderina Nelson, and she was an accomplished cook. She had cooked a whole duck that had been wrapped in puff pastry and stuffed with spiced fruit. "You know I don't like fruit," said Roland. "Don't be ridiculous," said Parvanderina Nelson, who was carving the duck with a sharp knife. "If you'd eat more fruit, you wouldn't be covered in moss." Roland walked out to the road to hitchhike to the mountains. A grey dire-wolf stopped for him. Everyone else was going to the sea, not away from it. The dire-wolf was taller than Roland, which was not saying much. It was a frightening beast, but Roland was only afraid of apple-head chihuahuas, so he climbed on the dire-wolf's back and they went off on their journey. After a day and a night, they had made it to the mountains. Roland was already beginning to look more lustrous. His skin shone in the cold sunshine. (Also, the dire-wolf had been licking off the verdigris whenever they had stopped to rest.) "This is great," said Roland. "No more ocean, no more ducks in pastry, no one telling me not to talk to myself." At that moment Roland felt the earth shake. He had never felt the earth shake before, but as he only feared apple-head chihuahuas, it didn't alarm him as much as perhaps it should have. A giantess plucked Roland from the ground. She was at least three times Roland's size. Her hair was black, the texture of lamb's wool, and she had one eye. She dropped Roland delicately into her breast pocket and continued on her way. Roland fell asleep to the sound of the beating of the giantess' heart. When he woke up, he was on a table in a large cave. There was food and drink all around him: cheeses, bread, grapes, chalices of wine. A fat bird hopped around Roland as he ate. "She's going to eat you," sang the bird. "She's going to roast you in brown butter." But the giantess didn't eat Roland. When she returned, she fried the fat bird in breadcrumbs and milk. Then she put Roland back in her breast pocket and walked out of the cave. Roland peered over the edge of the pocket and breathed in the crisp night air of the mountains. The giantess and Roland gazed up at the stars. Roland's skin gleamed in the moonlight. The giantess slept with Roland in her breast pocket. After twelve days, she dreamed the dreams Roland used to dream, but Roland never dreamed again. I am really angry lately. Really angry. Angry is not necessarily what I want to be, so I have to distract myself from being angry. Yesterday I went roller skating and I was angry during the skating, which is fine because it gives me energy. At one point I was having an imaginary screaming match in my head and looked up to see someone walking home, which was startling and kind of shocked me out of the imaginary argument (which, I'm sure, recommenced at another time). Well, I thought maybe if I was listening to music while skating that might be distracting enough. I have an older iPhone and there is usually no room on it whatsoever - I have no idea how people have so much stuff on their phones - and so I just deleted most things from my phone and finally put some songs on it. It was good to go out and skate to music. I did about forty minutes with some Michael Jackson and of course, Bittersweet Orange. But then the sun started to set, and so I went home with my skates and my bad attitude. I wanted to stay off social media and I wound up making a desktop wallpaper of the Huna Principles and then I made this guy: I hope everyone hates it.
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AuthorArtist, essayist, divinity school dropout. Here for a good time, not for a long time. Archives
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