Nick and Nora Go Out on a High Note in Song of the Thin Man

You know this movie might be different when Asta wasn't called out in the opening credits. Turns out, it was a return to form.

The film opens on the S.S. Fortune at a charity gala where a big band orchestra with a singer in entertaining the crowd. A couple of former hoods gives some running commentary, especially about the dames, and we get our introduction to Nick and Nora Charles in 1947. Nick gets the first line: "Boys, boys, in polite society, we don't say, Yoo-hoo. We say Yoo-whom."

And we're back!

I think it's safe to say that if you were to be shown stills of William Powell and Myrna Loy in these six Thin Man films, you'd be able to identify the film just by the hairstyle. Nick now wears his hair combed to the side with way less hair product. Nora's style is much more simple, similar to how she wore it in the fifth Thin Man movie, The Thin Man Goes Home (1945). But it's understandable. Not only are we in post-war America, but Powell is 56 and Loy 42. They are middle aged now and the times have changed.

It doesn't take long before we see some shady dealings. Band leader Tommy Drake is irritated with David Thayer, the charity sponsor, for low wages. Drake's got a new gig: he's going on tour where he can make more dough. The only problem is he owes gangster Al Amboy $12,000. When Amboy hears about Drake's plans, he demands the money right then.

Phil Brant, the owner of the gambling boat, is in love with Janet Thayer. They're ready to elope the next day considering her father, the sponsor of the event, doesn't like him. That's all well and good until they became the prime suspects in a murder investigation. Tommy Drake sneaks into Brant's office to break open the safe and abscond with the money. He is shot dead.  

The next morning, we get our first glimpse of the domestic life of Nick and Nora and Nick Jr., played by Dean Stockwell. As a Generation X guy, I know him best from the TV show Quantum Leap and his roles in movies like The Player and Air Force One. Their New York apartment is just as swanky as you'd expect, but what's quite fun is seeing Nick and Nora now as parents.

What is also quite obvious is the witty dialogue is back after a one-movie hiatus. James O'Hanlon and Harry Crane are both credited with additional dialogue so I suspect director Edward Buzzell brought them in to spice up the old repartee. It shows and it's very welcome.

Nick starts sleuthing (without Nora!) and sneaks onto the gambling ship. He finds a piece of sheet music with a receipt from Amboy for the full amount. Our detective also meets clarinetist Clinker Krause who unknowingly has the sheet music in his clarinet case. Back to the dialogue, Clinker talks jive about the then-current jazz styles in such a way that befuddles the Depression-era Nick and Nora (who has now joined Nick). It's a funny ongoing bit, especially considering Nick and Nora probably frequented jazz joints in the 1920s.

Unfortunately, Clinker burns the sheet music so Nick has to solve the case without a crucial piece of evidence.

When Nick realizes a clue and decides to visit Janet Thayer at 4:00 am, a sleepy Nora says that, "We're in this together" and finally(!) Nick doesn't ditch her. Too bad it took until the last movie for this to happen. In fact, she even takes initiative and circles back to a rest home where our insane clarinetist, Buddy, is holed up. He confesses to killing Drake and even tries to shoot Nora.

One of the aspects of these Thin Man movies is that Nick and Nora rarely are threatened or in danger. However, with this last entry, there’s a sequence where young Nick Jr. is missing while the parents are away. All joking ceases as Nick and Nora worry until he is found and Nick learns the real reason.

If wouldn’t be a Thin Man movie without the final reveal, and this time, it’s back on the S.S. Fortune. It’s great seeing Nick and Nora comment on each of the suspects as they arrive and are seated. Again, Nora shines by noting something her husband missed: the necklace worn by the moll of Amboy matches the earrings of the lady with booking agent Mitchell Talbin. Nick then reckons the necklace was worth $12,000, the exact amount owed.

Teamwork. Man, if we had more of this earlier in the franchise. Frankly, it’s what I expected from the get-go. It’s how I remember the TV show Hart to Hart being and it’s certainly how Castle was in its run. Probably Remington Steele and Moonlighting, too, except those latter three all started with the romantic leads at odds with each other.

The final confrontation is rather violent for this series, another outcome from World War II.

“Now, Nick Charles is going to retire,” Nick says. “From detective work?” Nora retorts. “No, to bed.”

Final Thoughts

I can’t help but suspect everyone involved knew going in this was likely going to be the final Thin Man film. Being the only one that didn’t make a profit probably sealed the deal. 

Song of the Thin Man is the final Thin Man film and final film for which the pair starred together with equal billing. Loy evidently makes an uncredited appearance in Powell’s 1947 film The Senator was Indiscreet, making it their actual final film. I’ve been wanting to see this entire franchise for quite a long time and I’m glad to have finally done so. I thoroughly enjoyed every one of them, but if I’m being honest, the fifth film, The Thin Man Goes Home, was the weakest one for me. It seemed to have forgotten what made these films special, something the sixth film rectified.

Seeing each of these movies first thing every morning has been a treat, and I’m not shy to say I’d have enjoyed more if there had been more. The way Dean Stockwell portrayed Nick Jr. makes me wonder why no-one has every done a story with Nick Jr. as the detective. The stories almost write themselves.

And I’m curious why there hasn’t been another Thin Man movie made since. Johnny Depp was going to have a modern remake, but that project was cancelled. David Niven and Maggie Smith play Dick and Dora Charleston in the 1976 movie Murder by Death and that’ll be next on my list. I’ve mentioned Castle, Remington Steele, Moonlighting, and Hart to Hart as shows that have taken inspiration from Nick and Nora. Castle is one of my all-time favorite TV shows, but I’m going to go and find some Hart to Hart episodes somewhere. The recipe of a husband-and-wife detective team is too delicious to pass up. I do wish the Nora we saw in Song of the Thin Man had arrived sooner.

I enjoyed these films so much that I’m going to seek out and find the other films Powell and Loy starred in together. But only after watching the documentaries that were packaged with the DVD box set. I’ll review them next year.

Nick and Nora Charles. William Powell and Myrna Loy. Boy, they don’t make ‘em like that anymore, do they?

Quotes:

Nick: Who are they?
Nora: Just the people who invited us.

Nick: If this rampage of respectability persists, we're going to have to get you a bulletproof girdle.

Nora [commenting on Nick's swell attire]: You look just a page out of Esquire.
Nick Jr.: Not the page I saw.

Nick's neighbor [after hearing a gunshot]: Was anybody hurt?
Nick [commenting on the shattered bottle of scotch]: Yes, an old friend of mine went to pieces.

Nick Jr.[at 4 am] : How about a story.
Nick: Not tonight.
Nick Jr.: But your stories always put me to sleep.

Nick: Sometimes I amaze even myself. [And the Star Wars fan in me just then wondered if George Lucas was a fan of the Thin Man films and picked up this line for Han Solo.]

Nick [in the lead-up to the finale]: If this party gets rough, duck under the table.
Nora: I’m ready to do that now, although not the way I like.

Hoover by Kenneth Whyte

Even to a historian, Herbert Hoover was a mystery.

Before reading Kenneth Whyte’s new biography of our 31st president, Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times, I knew three general things about Hoover. After World War I, he was instrumental in helping Europe feed itself and get back on its collective feet. As Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1929, he helped steer the American economy to high levels before the Stock Market Crash of 1929. And, as president, he was unable to stem the tide of Depression. On that last point, I had the general impression Hoover did little other than to say the Depression was just the way of business. It was only when Franklin Roosevelt came into office that the American government possessed a man willing to try anything to help.

But as I listened to the book and read about his energetic performance in just about everything he put himself into, a question began to form: what went wrong during his presidential administration? That is, didn’t Herbert Hoover try to help people?
When one reads a biography of a famous figure, generally you find things you like and can admire. Funny thing with Hoover: he was a peculiar man and, at least until his later life, an almost shy person who didn’t always enjoy the company of some people. In fact, during the early years of this biography, I got to thinking Hoover wouldn’t always be a guy with whom you’d want to just hang out. He was just peculiar. Even his marriage seemed rather perfunctory. The more the biography went on, the more it seemed, as the author noted, Hoover was a mere spectator of his own family.

Yet his engineering mind was fantastic. He worked all over the world which gave him a global perspective on things. In one of the more remarkable events I admired, it took Hoover, then living in London, barely a day to start setting up a group to help stranded American caught unawares at the outbreak of World War I. Many folks were stranded with no means to obtain money to buy a ticket back to America. Hoover started up a committee and did the thing he almost always insisted on: make him the one decision maker and leader. In this capacity, he was able to direct resources where needed and helped get over 100,000 Americans back home.

He repeated the feat during the war as he headed another committee to aid in relief of hungry Belgians. What I found fascinating was Hoover’s group, The American Relief Administration, was the only group recognized by both sides of the war. Each side allowed Hoover’s ships—flying its own flag—through enemy lines.

He was a data-driven man in an era just beginning to understand what data was and how it could be used. As Secretary of Commerce (and “under-secretary of everything else” as his detractors said), Hoover took an activist role in government. President Harding encouraged this and, when Coolidge assumed the office, kept Hoover on. He was in prime position to bring his expertise to American when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927. There Hoover was, on the ground, doing what he was most able to do: harness the goodwill of people and direct it to those in need.

He was a logical choice as the Republican nominee in 1928, and he won easily. His help to the poor in 1927 brought a large majority of Americans to his side in addition to the typical GOP voter. In an era of the Roaring Twenties, everyone seemed to like Hoover. Yet the man himself saw the warning signs looming on the horizon. He tried to thwart a potential downturn as Commerce Secretary, but others didn’t share his views. When the crash arrived, Herbert Hoover did what he had always done: gather a team with mounds of data and attack the problem.

It was here where I had my eyes opened. Rather than be the man who seemed to sit idly by waiting for the market to correct itself, Hoover actively pursued solutions. Sure, his personality wasn’t suited to leading the country in its most dire time before World War II, but he wasn’t a bystander. True, he preferred the government not to actively intervene if at all possible. He extolled the virtues of volunteerism, by individuals as well as businesses, seeing it as the best way for Americans to get back on their feet. But when businesses didn’t respond, he led the way. Not all his policies worked—the notorious Smoot-Hawley Tariff being the most famous example—but it is easy to see how Hoover paved the way for the direct government intervention of the Roosevelt years.

It is a rare figure where both sides of the political spectrum can claim a man as their own. The Progressives saw in Hoover a man willing to try things and have, as his ultimate aim, the betterment of his fellow Americans (and humans, as per his work prior to his government service). At the same time, the modern conservative movement can also claim Hoover as their own. After his defeat in 1932, he became a critic of what he saw as the overreach of FDR, and laid down a philosophy picked up by other conservatives in the 1950s and 1960s.

Herbert Hoover was a complicated man, yet there was more to him than meets the eye (or is contained in a Wikipedia article). He was certainly far from perfect and Americans needed a leader more personable than him during the Depression, but Hoover was a more-than-capable man who stands as a unique member of the American presidency. Whyte’s new biography is a fascinating exploration into a man hard to pin down, but is well worth the time.

The Power of Shazam by Jerry Ordway

Movie review? Check.
Treasury comic? Check.
Movie serial? Check.
TV show? Check.
All that's left are the comics. And what better place to start than 1994's graphic novel by Jerry Ordway?

Yet Another Revision to the Origin

The original of Captain Marvel was pretty solid for a large chunk of the character's history up to the early 1950s when Fawcett Comics stopped publication. After DC Comics brought Shazam into the DC universe in 1973, the origin was unchanged. Roy Thomas revamped the origin a bit in 1987, but Jerry Ordway updated the origin again in 1994.

Here's the funny thing: In our modern world of comic book movies trying to live and breathe in the real world, Ordway manages to straddle both the expectations of contemporary 1990s comic readers without jettisoning the sense of wonder from the 1940s. That is to say, he gives some cool backstory to some of the Marvel tropes we know and love while presenting said tropes in a fresh, new way.

Billy Batson's Parents Are Alive...

The story opens with archaeologists C.C. Batson and his wife, Marilyn, are exploring a heretofore hidden Egyptian temple. With them is Theo Adam. What's fascinating is C.C. looks like the future Captain Marvel so much that I had to double back and re-read the opening pages to verify it wasn't the actual Shazam outside his costume. Nope, it was Billy's dad. Already new stuff.

As you can imagine, when the trio uncover the secret tomb of Shazam, Adam gets a tad greedy. He steals a scarab from the crypt, kills C.C., then turns around and hunts down the wife. She's gone, too. Lastly, he kidnaps Billy's sister, Mary.

...And Now He's an Orphan

Billy's living on the streets of Fawcett City, a town that seems to draw its retro-future vibe from Batman: The Animated Series. You've got art deco buildings and cars seemingly from the 40s yet there's also a car with similar markings of a Ford Mustang. Either way, the city looks great in a timeless sort of way.

Hearkening back to the character's earliest days, Billy's earning meager wages selling papers. A stranger beckons him to follow him into the subway system. This, at least, is a consistent thread through all permutations of the Billy's origins. Surprisingly, the stranger, clad in trench coat and fedora pulled low on the forehead, looks an awfully lot like the deceased C. C.

In the magical caverns, Billy meets the aged wizard Shazam. We get a little backstory, filling in the  gap between his parents deaths and Billy's present living situation. Still, despite everything, Billy says the magic word and boom!

Captain Marvel's Still a Kid Inside

Like the current movie, when young Billy becomes the adult Captain Marvel, he's still got his kid brain inside. And he's really confused. He starts wrecking Shazam's cavern, attacking the old man as the wizard tries desperately to explain everything. He finally gets through, and we move onto the next act.

Sivanna as a Businessman

To jump to a different hero's story for a moment, when John Byrne revamped Superman's story and made Lex Luthor a businessman, it made perfect sense. Perhaps Ordway saw how well that worked for Superman and did the same for Sivanna. He's still the small, scrawny type, but he's like an evil Disney, wanting to use his money to put on a World's Fair. Naturally, we learn Theo Adam is on his bankroll, and, well, things don't go well from there.

A Smart Villain in Black Adam

When Shazam finally makes his appearance, Theo Adam recognizes him as C. C. Batson. And he puts two and two together, especially when he sees the big yellow lightening bolt on the uniform's chest. He returns to his lair and, wearing the scarab amulet stolen from Egypt, actually becomes Black Adam.

This is what I'm talking about when I say Ordway brings a modern sensibility to this story. In an actual 1940s comic, the villain would just be a villain. Here, Adam, an adult, figures things out. He's not just a bad guy trying to do bad guy things.

The Big Fight Feels Familiar

If you've seen the new movie, you realize the villain, Mark Strong's Sivanna, figures out Captain Marvel is really a child inside. He wants the power. Same here. But in 1994, Jerry Ordway did it first. And it's during this fight Billy finally realizes his true potential.

A Great Re-Introduction of Shazam to the DC Universe

In The Power of Shazam, Jerry Ordway gives a modern take on the origin of the first Captain Marvel. He brings modern sensibilities to the  storytelling while laying the groundwork for future stories. His art is, as always, instantly recognizable and gorgeous. He has a way of capturing the true emotions behind the characters at certain times. It can be sadness or, like this panel, remind you Billy is nothing more than a ten-year old kid.

Plus, like the new movie, this story makes you feel like a kid again, with all the whiz-bang verve of a classic comic. As a historian, I also really dug all the nods to the original time period, including the movie serial. Captain Marvel is basically a pulp character come to glorious life in the pages of comic books. Look again at the cover. It's a pulp magazine painting. The interior title page also just rings with a 1940s vibe. It looks like it could have been the title card for the movie serial.

With Houston's Comicpalooza arriving in a month, I'll be on the lookout for issues of The Power of Shazam. My guess is I won't be the only one.

Jerry Ordway Interviewed

Not coincidentally (considering the big movie debuted), Jerry Ordway sat down with Ralph Garman on Garman's The Ralph Report this week. Garman and Ordway chatted not only about The Power of Shazam, but other milestones in comic book history in which Ordway played a role. Great peek behind the curtain with a legendary creator.

The Ralph Report is a subscription-based podcast about which I'll write a full-review in the near future. I listen every day on my commute home. It is a funny, acerbic view of entertainment news, complete with recurring bits. It's not your standard podcast. It's a show, with high production values, and constant interactions between the hosts and the listeners. The podcast is definitely adult in tone, but Ralph and Vice Host, Eddie Pence, deliver every episode with humor and heart.

Shazam: Serial Part 1 and 2

I am a comic book reader and a degreed historian, and being in a Shazam mood (both the new movie and a favorite comic), I thought I'd take a look at the 1941 Shazam serial, The Adventures of Captain Marvel. It's a 12-part serial, all available on YouTube (here's the first episode). From what you can read on the internet, this serial by Republic Pictures was the high-water mark of the form and serves as the first live-action depiction of a super-hero.

Far-Off Mysteries in a Smaller World

The story starts in the Valley of the Tombs in Siam. An expedition by white men (and one woman, Betty) is posed to open the ancient tomb. The natives do not want this to happen and attack. The expedition fends off the attack with the agreement to leave the area at once. Naturally, they don't.

They strike into the tomb and uncover the Golden Scorpion inside a sealed crypt. Young Billy Batson (twenty-five year old Frank Coghlan, Jr.) heeds the warning and leaves. That act of propriety earns Billy a visit from the Shazam wizard. Like he does in every incarnation of the character, the wizard imparts his powers to Billy as long as the lad can say the magic name: Shazam. But the old man has a warning: Billy must only use the power to help people.

Coghlan portrays young Billy with a lot of gee golly gosh youthful enthusiasm you'd later see in Jimmy Olsen in the Adventures of Superman TV show. But he's still a man of the times. He carries a gun and returns fire when the natives, led by Rahman Bar, again attack the expedition.

Captain Marvel comes to the rescue.

The 1941 Special Effects

Here in 2019, we are used to our super-heroes looking like real people even when they are CGI. Gollem was the first CGI character who was so good, you often forgot he wasn't really there. We've come a long way, just in my lifetime. Heck, just in the last eighteen years.

The movie makers in 1941 had none of that, but dang if they didn't work with what they had and make a pretty darn good convincing super-hero.

When Shazam (Tom Tyler) flies, the actor jumps, often diving into a bush or behind a rock. With a quick cut, you see what is in reality a paper mache mock-up of Shazam, ramrod straight, with the costume and flapping cape. The figure is attached to wires, allowing Captain Marvel to fly in the daytime. Then, with another quick edit, you see the actor again landing or smashing into fleeing bad guys. It was pretty good, at least giving the viewer the verisimilitude of watching a super-hero in action. Frankly, it's better than the 1950s TV Superman.

Similarly, when the bad guys shoot at Shazam, the bullets ping off the costume, leaving little pock marks that are, naturally, gone in the next scene.

When Billy and Captain Marvel say the magic word to transform back and forth, there is enough flash powder to mask what's really going on behind the smoke.

The Cliffhanger

This is a movie serial and it's designed to bring viewers back week after week. As such, when the bad guys dynamite the wooden bridge with one of the two cars containing members of the expedition fleeing, you want to know what happens. As soon as the car begins to fall, there's a title swipe and the admonition to come back next week for Chapter 2.

Knowing what I've seen in other serials, I expected to get a new scene of Shazam actually having flown up to the car, snatched out his two friends, and fly off to safety. Nope. The car crashes into the river below...and only then does Shazam save the day.

Later, after everyone has come back to America, the plot of the serial takes shape. A masked man, complete with a dark hood and robes with the scorpion symbol stitched on his clothes, is in command. He's the Scorpion. He directs standard-issue suited gangsters to start capturing the members of the expedition. You see, inside that crypt was a golden metal scorpion. In the legs of each were crystals that, if you line them up in a certain way, can turn stone to gold or create a weapon. The members of the Malcolm Expedition divvy up the crystals, dividing them so that only all of them in agreement can use the power of the scorpion.

Naturally, the Scorpion wants to collect the missing crystals. Boom! You've got your plot.

In Episode 2, the guillotine is introduced. It's a conveyor belt (natch) that electrically stuns a person who is then carried along to the guillotine. They introduced it early in the episode with a wooden chair being the victim as a threatening means to get one of the expedition members to cough up the location of his crystal. You know Captain Marvel's going to find himself on that belt.

He does. Right before the title swipe to remind viewers to come back next week for Chapter 3, "Time Bomb."

And I will. Might be a two-episodes per week thing, but I'm in, both for the historical nature of the serial, but the story is pretty good. It also easy to see how the 1966 Batman series--with its two-part episodes, the first ending with the Dynamic Duo in some elaborate trap--is indebted to the movie serials of the 1940s. Who knows? I'll likely watch the Batman serials this year, too.

Detective Comics 1000

Did you get yours yet?

I headed to Houston's The Pop Culture Company yesterday with the intention of picking up not one but three copies of Detective Comics 1000. Why? Because I wanted to covers.

Yet, each issue was priced at $10.

I had second thoughts and decided to go with the 1940s variant cover. Bruce Timm channeling Dick Sprang. Basically two for the price of one.

But that 1930s cover? Oh, man, does this check off basically all the pulp-era goodness I've come to enjoy. Gothic. Strange people wearing masks doing stranger things. Fire. Mystery. A damsel in distress. The hero about to save the day.

And this 1950s cover? Embraces all the goofiness of that decade.

The rest of the covers are decent. While I appreciate the artists behind both the 1960s and the 1970s covers (Jim Steranko and Bernie Wrightson respectively), the images don't exactly scream the decade in question. You can check out both of them and the rest at the always excellent 13th Dimension.

The Stories

Art is only one half of what goes into a comic book story and, as a writer, I'm always keen to know the authors behind the stories. Not every tale from this landmark issue listed the creators' names on the first page, so sometimes, you just started reading not knowing who penned the story. That was interesting.

"Batman's Longest Case" by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Batman follows clues across the world to reveal... [no spoilers] This one is fun and benefits from the dramatic page-turn where you finally see who is behind the trail of clues. Enjoyed the deep dive in this particular comic title's history.

"Manufactured for Use" by Kevin Smith and Jim Lee

Smith's tale and Lee's art turn in a darn good story. Specifically, when you get to the end of the tale and find out what it's really about, you turn back to the opening panels and re-read it again. The clues were there all along.

"The Legend of Knute Brody" by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen

If the first story had some humor in it, then this one is likely the funniest of the bunch. Again, like Smith's story, this one will have you go back and scan the earlier panels to get more of the in-jokes.

"The Batman's Design" by Warren Ellis and Becky Cloonan

One of the neatest things about the modern Batman post-1990s is the Bat-God. If Bruce Wayne isn't super-powered, then his brain is. And he's usually twenty steps ahead of anyone. This story proves it.

"Return to Crime Alley" by Denny O'Neil and Steve Epting

This one is interesting and, based on interviews I've heard and read over the years by O'Neil, completely understandable. This one surprised me, and in a good, real-world way.

"Heretic" by Christopher Priest and Neal Adams

Of all the stories, this one was just decent. Adams' art is good as always, but I wasn't too sure about this one.

"I Know" by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev

There was more humor in this issue than I was expecting, and this one had a great ending. There's a sequence where Maleev just does a head shot of Penguin thinking. Thinking. The realization struck and he grinned. Loved it. And was that a smile on Bruce Wayne's face?

"The Last Crime in Gotham" by Geoff Johns and Kelley Jones 

Kelley Jones! Great to see his art again, and Johns, as always, delivers a good, heart-felt story. And another smile.

"The Precedent" by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez-Bueno

A nice story about the biggest decision Bruce Wayne ever made...after that first one. More smiles!

"Batman's Greatest Case" by Tom King and Tony S. Daniel & Joelle Jones

I've not read a lot of King's work, but darn, this one had a lot of personality. And humor. And character interactions. And yet another smile! So good to see something you don't always see.

For readers of the current Bat-titles, what's a good story arc by King?

"Medieval" by Peter J. Tomasi  and Doug Mahnke

This one appears to be the prologue to the upcoming new story arc starting in Detective 1001. I don't read comics monthly anymore, but I'm curious to see if, like Snyder and Capullo's Court of Owls masterpiece, there can be something new in the Bat-World.


All in all, it was a solid issue with only a couple of stories not landing for me, but that's likely personal preference. Loved seeing all the villains, especially the random ones, and the inclusion of Talon. The historian in me would have liked some sort of essay talking about Batman over the years, but that's likely coming in the hardback book. Still, it would have been a nice addition to the single issue more people will purchase than the bigger, more expensive book.

But what can one really say about Batman that hasn't already been said? If this single issue did one thing and one thing only, it proved that Batman isn't a single thing. The types of stories and the depictions of the characters varied with each writer and artist. Much like I commented yesterday, Batman is a canvas over which myriads of creators have painted with pictures and words.

And that makes the character, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane eighty years ago, timeless.