Disclaimer: In the following post I outline language from the LDS Temple Endowment, past and present. Nothing disclosed in this post is promised by adherents to remain strictly confidential (names, signs, tokens, and penalties). I can not promise whether the links included disclose what you may deem sacred.
In February of 2023, the LDS Church released a new endowment ceremony that contained a myriad of changes. The changes include adjustments to the visual presentation, upfront disclosures of the covenants, more Jesus, less touching, restructuring of the creation narrative, modifications in character dialogue, omissions, attempts to remove patriarchy, and explicit rewording and explanations of the covenants. Naturally, attendees will notice these differences. The FP added the following quotation to soothe patrons as part of the disclaimer at the introduction of the 2023 endowment (emphasis mine):

You will notice that additional adjustments have been made in the presentation of the endowment, all of which are in harmony with the doctrine of the Savior's restored gospel. The temple covenants and ordinances remain the same.

According to the FP, despite the apparent "adjustments" to the endowment ceremony (bonus points to anyone who can tell me the difference between "adjustments" and "changes"), "The temple covenants and ordinances remain the same." I do not believe this is an honest statement. We can examine the Law of Chastity as it has been presented over the last 100 years in LDS Temples and make a judgement. Below is a table with five different presentations of the Law of Chastity given in the LDS endowment over time (the three oldest from ldsendowment.org and the two newer from transcripts I possess). Each column represents the ceremony of the title period. Each row represents comparable passages in that period. Forgive me for any errors in formatting this information to fit in the table.

Pre-1927	Pre-1990	Post-1990	2019	2023
	A couple will now come to the altar.	A couple will now come to the altar.	A couple will now come to the altar.	Adam and Eve, please come to the altar.
				Brothers and sisters, please consider yourselves as if you were respectively Adam and Eve.
	We are instructed to give unto you the law of chastity. This I will explain. To the sisters, it is that no one of you will have sexual intercourse except with your husband to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded. To the Brethren it is that no one of you will have sexual intercourse except with your wife to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded.	We are instructed to give unto you the law of chastity, which is that each of you shall have no sexual relations except with your husband or wife to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded.	We are instructed to give unto you the law of chastity, which is, that the women of God’s kingdom and the men of God’s kingdom shall have no sexual relations except with those to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded according to His law.	We are instructed to give unto you the law of chastity, which is that God’s sons and God’s daughters shall have sexual relations only with those to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded according to His law.
	Sisters, please arise.	All please arise.
				Brothers and sisters, as invited by Peter, please raise your arm to the square as instructed:
	Each of you bring your right arm to the square.	Each of you bring your right arm to the square.	Each of you bring your right arm to the square.	Each of you bring your right arm to the square.
You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will not have sexual intercourse with any of the opposite sex save your lawful husband, given you by the holy priesthood.	You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar that you will observe and keep the law of chastity, as it has been explained to you.	You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses that you will observe and keep the law of chastity, as it has been explained to you.	You and each of you individually covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses that you will observe and keep the Law of Chastity, as it has been explained to you.	Each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses that you will keep the law of chastity as it has been explained to you.
All bow your heads and say yes.	Each of you bow your head and say, "Yes."	Each of you bow your head and say "Yes."	Each of you bow your head and say "Yes."	Each of you bow your head and say “Yes”.
	That will do.	That will do.	Thank you.	Thank you.
	Brethren, please arise.
	Each of you bring your right arm to the square.
You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will not have sexual intercourse with any of the opposite sex except your lawful wife or wives who are given you by the holy priesthood.	You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar that you will observe and keep the law of chastity, as it has been explained to you.
All bow your heads and say yes.	Each of you bow your head and say, "Yes.”
	That will do.

1927

As Mormonism transitioned, the endowment changed. This was particularly the case when the Church was forced to abandon polygamy at the turn of the 20th century. As generations of active polygamists died off, the endowment language for the Law of Chastity was revised to reflect the iron fist of Grant (ironically) and Clark. All this to squelch any lingering fundamentalists in the Church. A man no longer covenanted to limit their "sexual intercourse" to their wives, but only promised to remain loyal to their legal and lawful wife (emphasis on the legal).

1990

Any changes to the endowment between 1927 and 1990 are insignificant compared to what occurred in 1990. In 1988, the LDS Church issued and distributed a survey to gauge members' attitude toward the temple and other aspects of the church. Some of the instructions/questions included:

Q28: Based on your experience In receiving your own endowment, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
a. I felt prepared for my temple endowment.
b. I had people with me who cared about me
c. I was nervous about what would happen
d. The experience was unpleasant.
e. I was confused by what happened
f. I felt spiritually uplifted by the experience
Q29: Briefly describe how you felt after receiving your own endowment.
Q30: What do you wish you had done or known before you went to the temple for your own endowment?
Q35: If you were unable to participate In these temple ordinances as much as you wanted to during 1987, what are some of the things that made It DIFFICULT FOR YOU to go to the temple?

Evidently, church leadership wanted to know how members felt about the temple. Many believe that a direct result of this feedback was the 1990 adjustments to the temple ceremony. Changes included the removal of the penalties, the removal of the preacher, the removal of explicit phrases in the Adamic language, and removal of the lecture at the veil. These changes reduced the time requirement of the endowment and fortunately blessed us with Michael Ballam as Lucifer. The 1990 version of the endowment is more egalitarian, in that it combines the men's and women's covenant to obey the Law of Chastity (maybe this change was simply for brevity). Also, "intercourse" was replaced with "relations". This ambiguity sure doesn't help when attempting to define what is and isn't restricted in the Law of Chastity. Regardless, the meat of the Law of Chastity did not change in 1990.

2019

2019 is when the endowment changes got really interesting. Here is a summary put together by Jonathan Streeter of all the significant changes that took place. Faithful feminists saw these changes as a massive leap forward. There were significant changes to the wording of the Law of Chastity. Here they are outlined (text=no change, italics=addition, strikethrough=redaction):

We are instructed to give unto you the law of Chastity; which is, that each of you shall have no sexual relations except with your husband or wife to whom you are legally and lawfully wedded. the women of God’s kingdom and the men of God’s kingdom shall have no sexual relations except with those to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded according to His law.

Husbands and wives are no longer the subjects of the covenant. "Men" and "women" of "God's kingdom" are now making the covenant. The Church no longer shares ownership of the titles "husband" or "wife". They were forced to change the Law of Chasity to accommodate this shift in the definitions of these titles and their relationship to one another. After 2015, in the US, legal and lawful husband/husband and wife/wife pairs existed in and out of the Church. It is important to note that, technically, the Law of Chasity, as presented in the temple prior to 2019, accommodated legal and lawful same-sex marriage. Despite this accommodation, the Handbook of Instructions was modified in November 2015 to make entering a legal and lawful same-sex union an excommunicable offense. The temple endowment changes lagged significantly. They did not come until after the Nov 2015 policy was rescinded. The addition of "according to God's law" further galvanized the Church's attempt to fence their heterosexual boundary. These changes have Russell Nelson, Dallin Oaks, and Obergefell v. Hodges written all over them. For example, in 2019 (after the endowment changes), Russell Nelson stated in his infamous "Love and Laws of God" address at BYU (emphasis mine):

Thus our commission as apostles is to teach nothing but truth. That commission does not give us the authority to modify divine law.
For example, let’s consider the definition of marriage. In recent years, many countries, including the United States, have legalized same-sex marriage. As members of the Church, we respect the laws of the land and abide by them, including civil marriage. The truth is, however, that in the beginning—in the beginning—marriage was ordained by God! And to this day it is defined by Him as being between a man and a woman. God has not changed His definition of marriage.
God has also not changed His law of chastity. Requirements to enter the temple have not changed. And our desire for there to be love at home and harmony between parent and child has not changed.

Irony is soaked in his declaration considering he is responsible for changing the meaning of the Law of Chastity as presented in the 2019 endowment. This isn't even considering the changes to the Law of Chastity as a result of Smith's (apparent) denunciation of Celestial Marriage at the turn of the century. Russell Nelson explicitly defines the Law of Chasity being the union between a singular ("a") man and singular ("a") woman. This has not always been so. The Law of Chastity has changed.

2023

In 2023, there was yet again more changes made to the endowment ceremony. These changes were not minor, they were significant. The tone of the entire ceremony shifted. Part of this shift in tone is an emphasis on covenants (Russell Nelson's finger prints). Wherever covenants could be inserted, they were added. In some places these changes were awkward and alter the meaning of the original endowment. For example (text=no change, italics=addition, strikethrough=redaction):

Narrator: Brothers and sisters, through the ages Heavenly Father has sent messengers to communicate with His children. In the endowment, Peter, James, and John symbolically represent such messengers.
Peter: Good morning.
Satan: Good morning, gentlemen.
Peter: What are you doing here?
Satan: Observing the teachings of these people.
Peter: What is being taught?
Satan: I am teaching the philosophies of men mingled with scripture.
Peter: How is this teaching received?
Satan: Many receive it very well, except but these people do not seem to believe what is being taught.
Peter: Good morning. What do you think of this teaching?
Adam: We are looking for messengers from our Father to teach us.
Peter: That is good. Have you any tokens or signs? Have you been true to the covenants you made in the Garden of Eden?
Satan: Have you any money?
Peter: We have sufficient for our needs.
Satan: You can buy anything in this world with money.
Peter: Do you sell your tokens or signs for money? You have them, I presume. Have you been true to your covenants?
Adam: We have them, but we do not sell them for money. We hold them sacred. We have been true to our covenants and are looking for the further light and knowledge Father promised to send us.
Peter: That is right. We commend you for your integrity. Good day. We shall probably visit you again.
Satan: Now is the great day of my power. I reign from the rivers to the ends of the earth. There is none who No one dares to molest or make afraid oppose me.

Satan's famous interjection directed at the Apostles makes no sense with the replacement of "covenants". The find and replace function was used a little too liberally when redrafting the script this time around.
Two significant revisions to the wording of a specific covenant during one administration (Nelson) seems unprecedented, but it happened. The Law of Chastity was affected in 2023 (text=no change, italics=addition, strikethrough=redaction):

We are instructed to give unto you the Law of Chastity, which is that the women of God’s kingdom and the men of God’s kingdom God’s sons and God’s daughters shall have no sexual relations except only with those to whom they are legally and lawfully wedded according to His law.

The parts that were added in 2019 were redefined in the 2023 version. This flip-flop is unprecedented (just as unprecedented as the Nov 2015 policy flip flop). The subject of the covenant is no longer the men and women of God's kingdom, but "God's sons and God's daughters". Also, the Law of Chastity is no longer presented as an exception, but an expectation to follow. The requirement of adhering to "His law" remained.
The reasoning behind the 2019->2023 change to the Law of Chastity remains a mystery to me. The "legally and lawfully wedded according to His law" remained the same. This is the primary refutation of same-sex marriage. The change in subject and restructuring of the covenant serve what purpose? Is the Law of Chastity only applicable to those in God's Kingdom, meaning members of the Church? Are non members not accountable to the repercussions of breaking the Law of Chasity? Did the FP realize this and change back to the generalized sons and daughters of God to encompass all people? Who knows. I would appreciate feedback and insight here.

Summary

What is the Law of Chastity? Do words define the Law? If so, have the words not changed? More importantly, has the meaning of the law changed? If the meaning of the law did not change, who determined the words that define the law? Prophets? Does man really direct God? Do man's words define God's laws? Do we not have the vocabulary to define God's laws? Did God not have the LGBTQ community in mind when he revealed the Law of Chastity to his prophets in 1990? 2019? 2023? Is the text of the explanation of the Law of Chasity as presented in the endowment the ultimate definition of the Law of Chastity? If not, then what is? If we make a covenant to keep the commandments at baptism, why do we need to make an additional covenant to obey the Law of Chastity in the temple? Why is the explanation of the Law of Chastity so trite in the temple when the explanation for the Law in the Church Handbook is so long? Are we not bound by the specificity in the Handbook?
I finished this exercise with more questions than I did when I started. One item became abundantly clear though, the explanation of the Law Chastity has changed. One could argue that the meaning behind the explanation has not changed, but they would then need to explain why the explanation has changed. Do the words matter? The words seem to matter in every other ordinance (i.e. baptism). The leaders of the Church are in such a state of suspension, that in the last 5 years, we have had three different explanations for the Law of Chastity presented in the temple. Things are in motion. This will be the topic of the decade. Irrefutable declarations, such as Nelson's, will not be treated well in the annals of history. Absolutes only become regrets as maturity and nuance grow through experience. This is why we are discouraged from discussing what happens in the temple.

Notes:

For a general summary of the changes made between the 2019 and 2023 endowment ceremonies, refer to this post. For a really enlightening summary of changes made to the Law of Obedience over the decades, check out this post by u/AscendedScoobah.
For additional study of the Church and LGBTQ rights, refer to Prince's Gay Rights and the Mormon Church, Petrey's Tabernacles of Clay and Toward a Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology, and Ostler's Queer Mormon Theology.
For additional historical study of the evolution of temple worship, refer to Anderson's The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History and Buerger's The Mysteries of Godliness: A History of Mormon Temple Worship.
Edit: 6/7/2023: Transcription error in Pre-1990 script. I apologize.

Half sister Ginger passed away.
https://www.post-journal.com/obituaries/2023/06/ginger-lee-carte

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Today is 188 days since I stopped drinking. 58 days since I stopped smoking weed. I haven't had a ciggie since the first September of the Pandemic.
I'm grateful for all of that time and am hopeful to keep banking days on all 3 fronts.
My sobriety is bookended by death at the moment. Death and a deep grief that I can't even properly express out loud without feeling like wailing. My step-father (1 of few stabilizing forces in my youth) died unexpectedly in November 22'. I spent the whole month getting drunk and shutting down any conversation about him with "it's fine, I'm fine." I hadnt seen or spoken to him in the months leading up to that and the guilt was/is immense.The people around me believed me when I said "it's all good" and that was that.
Thanksgiving (after a few too many) I got into a huge fight with my partner and something just happened...idk how to explain it or what dots finally connected but I woke up the next morning and decided I wasn't going to drink any more. I haven't since, but I was smoking weed all day, all the time. For whatever reason, April 3, I woke up and was just done getting high. I have been fully, clarifyingly sober for 58 days and have spent every moment of every single day since trying to stuff this grief into the deepest recesses of my soul. It was "working" as long as I took a 5 mile walk first thing in the morning and slept for 2 hours in the afternoon but that was a hard pace to maintain and I stopped doing the walk and extended the sleep.
On May 25 I got word that my Godmother was in the ICU and was not going to make it through the weekend. I hadn't seen or talked to her in quite some time either but I went to her as soon as I found out. Her son & I held her hands until she died just after midnight on the 26. I've never sat with someone while they died or consoled a person while they watched their mother slip away. I showed up fully though and am proud that I could be there for them in those hours. But she was the last stable adult I had from before, and now even though I am going to be 37 years old in a few days, feel like I am floating untethered into the ether. This is the saddest I think I have ever allowed myself to be in my life, and please trust me without making me explain, that I have endured some things that warrant destabilizing sadness. This is just the first time I've not exhausted every effort to sidestep the work.
I regularly see a therapist but she couldn't see me last week or this week bc she is out of town. I go back Jun 8. I tried to start a walking practice but haven't had any motivation what-so-ever for close to 3 weeks now. I started journaling but find it hard to literally do anything except eat and lay down with a heating pad even tho it's 80 degrees outside. I hate crying, it feels so unproductive but sometimes I just can't stop. I still don't want to drink or get high but it would be so easy to just let everything go that way.
I think my partner thinks I'm fine and I'm not trying to minimize his own life experience but he has no gage for recognizing how agonizing this is. I tell him I am sad, I am not okay but will be, that I just need some space and time and he looks at me with these sweet gentle eyes like "what do you mean you don't want a birthday dinner?" It is infuriating. I don't get impatient with him because it is not his fault, it is not A fault even. It is a genuine blessing that his understanding of loss is a single unexpected death of someone he knew casually in high school. But all the chapters of my entire life begin with the death or dying of someone or something close to me and it is difficult to navigate around someone who's life is unchanged in this moment.
I am grateful to have the space to grieve. I am grateful that I keep showing up for this life in sobriety. I am grateful to be in a place of stability in all other ways so that I can collapse into this sadness without upending the life we have built together. It does not escape me the amount of privilege I have to feel this deeply and to be able to give into it in hope the healing everyone talks about does eventually come.
But it is hard. And it is painful. And it is lonely. I know "this too shall pass". I read the literature and listen to the podcasts and try my damndest to at least get dressed. I haven't today but will, I think. And I try to go for a walk and to journal, tho neither of those things came to fruition today, unless this counts (it should).
There was no funeral or obituary for my step-father. My Godmothers has yet to be printed, dates have yet to be chosen. I don't know if its worse to announce it to the world or not but both are excruciating realities. Both are people who I loved, who's lives were complicated by addictions and mental health struggle and dysfunctional family dynamics and because both were part of a "found family" that grew up around my needing safety as a child and not from biology or even legality (he was my moms longtime partner, not her legal spouse), I have no say in anything that does or doesn't happen. I have a lot of complicated feelings about that last bit. I have a lot of complicated feelings about all this.
Anyway, if you've made it this far into my rant, please know I appreciate your time. Reddit is a saving grace for me and I'm grateful to write here when I can't seem to pick up a pen or the phone or myself.
Today has been the hardest for me. In my experience time does not heal but it does teach and I'm hoping today is teaching me how to have an easier tomorrow. ♡

Today is 188 days since I stopped drinking. 58 days since I stopped smoking weed. I haven't had a ciggie since the first September of the Pandemic.
I'm grateful for all of that time and am hopeful to keep banking days on all 3 fronts.
My sobriety is bookended by death at the moment. Death and a deep grief that I can't even properly express out loud without feeling like wailing. My step-father (1 of few stabilizing forces in my youth) died unexpectedly in November 22'. I spent the whole month getting drunk and shutting down any conversation about him with "it's fine, I'm fine." I hadnt seen or spoken to him in the months leading up to that and the guilt was/is immense.The people around me believed me when I said "it's all good" and that was that.
Thanksgiving (after a few too many) I got into a huge fight with my partner and something just happened...idk how to explain it or what dots finally connected but I woke up the next morning and decided I wasn't going to drink any more. I haven't since, but I was smoking weed all day, all the time. For whatever reason, April 3, I woke up and was just done getting high. I have been fully, clarifyingly sober for 58 days and have spent every moment of every single day since trying to stuff this grief into the deepest recesses of my soul. It was "working" as long as I took a 5 mile walk first thing in the morning and slept for 2 hours in the afternoon but that was a hard pace to maintain and I stopped doing the walk and extended the sleep.
On May 25 I got word that my Godmother was in the ICU and was not going to make it through the weekend. I hadn't seen or talked to her in quite some time either but I went to her as soon as I found out. Her son & I held her hands until she died just after midnight on the 26. I've never sat with someone while they died or consoled a person while they watched their mother slip away. I showed up fully though and am proud that I could be there for them in those hours. But she was the last stable adult I had from before, and now even though I am going to be 37 years old in a few days, feel like I am floating untethered into the ether. This is the saddest I think I have ever allowed myself to be in my life, and please trust me without making me explain, that I have endured some things that warrant destabilizing sadness. This is just the first time I've not exhausted every effort to sidestep the work.
I regularly see a therapist but she couldn't see me last week or this week bc she is out of town. I go back Jun 8. I tried to start a walking practice but haven't had any motivation what-so-ever for close to 3 weeks now. I started journaling but find it hard to literally do anything except eat and lay down with a heating pad even tho it's 80 degrees outside. I hate crying, it feels so unproductive but sometimes I just can't stop. I still don't want to drink or get high but it would be so easy to just let everything go that way.
I think my partner thinks I'm fine and I'm not trying to minimize his own life experience but he has no gage for recognizing how agonizing this is. I tell him I am sad, I am not okay but will be, that I just need some space and time and he looks at me with these sweet gentle eyes like "what do you mean you don't want a birthday dinner?" It is infuriating. I don't get impatient with him because it is not his fault, it is not A fault even. It is a genuine blessing that his understanding of loss is a single unexpected death of someone he knew casually in high school. But all the chapters of my entire life begin with the death or dying of someone or something close to me and it is difficult to navigate around someone who's life is unchanged in this moment.
I am grateful to have the space to grieve. I am grateful that I keep showing up for this life in sobriety. I am grateful to be in a place of stability in all other ways so that I can collapse into this sadness without upending the life we have built together. It does not escape me the amount of privilege I have to feel this deeply and to be able to give into it in hope the healing everyone talks about does eventually come.
But it is hard. And it is painful. And it is lonely. I know "this too shall pass". I read the literature and listen to the podcasts and try my damndest to at least get dressed. I haven't today but will, I think. And I try to go for a walk and to journal, tho neither of those things came to fruition today, unless this counts (it should).
There was no funeral or obituary for my step-father. My Godmothers has yet to be printed, dates have yet to be chosen. I don't know if its worse to announce it to the world or not but both are excruciating realities. Both are people who I loved, who's lives were complicated by addictions and mental health struggle and dysfunctional family dynamics and because both were part of a "found family" that grew up around my needing safety as a child and not from biology or even legality (he was my moms longtime partner, not her legal spouse), I have no say in anything that does or doesn't happen. I have a lot of complicated feelings about that last bit. I have a lot of complicated feelings about all this.
Anyway, if you've made it this far I lnto my rant, please know I appreciate your time. Reddit is a saving grace for me and I'm grateful to write here when I can't seem to pick up a pen or the phone or myself.
Today has been the hardest for me. In my experience time does not heal but it does teach and I'm hoping today is teaching me how to have an easier tomorrow. ♡

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1570-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-10/
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Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:

X

I cannot think that any two men ever bore names more appropriate to their characters than Bouvard and Pecuchet, not even Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Are not the vanity and kindliness and stupidity of Bouvard set forth in the two heavy syllables? And do not the three little snappy syllables represent with equal clearness Pecuchet's narrow intellect ... and cunning on occasions? Again, the dissyllable Bouvard evokes indistinct outlines, pale, perplexed eyes, and a vague and somewhat neglected appearance, whereas we naturally associate Pecuchet with a neat necktie, a pointed beard, and catchwords rather than ideas. Bouvard has tried to think out one or two questions, but Pecuchet was content from his early youth with words. He began with Nationalism, and when he met Bouvard he picked up Co-operation—the word; and when he got into the Department he discovered Delegation; and Heaven only knows how the word Co-ordination got into his head; but it stuck there, and he could not get it out of his talk, bothering us all with it. But nothing lasts for ever, and when he wearied of Co-ordination he happened to meet the word Compromise; and this word must have been a great event in his life, for it revealed to him the Pecuchet of his dreams, the statesman which he always believed to be latent in him, and which more fortunate circumstances would have realised. It was a great treat to hear him on the subject of statesmanship the day that Sir Anthony MacDonnell found himself forced to resign. I led him round Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square, over many bridges, through Herbert Street, round again, and on again; and on leaving him I should have rushed to the scrivener's, but could not resist the temptation to run up the steps of Plunkett House to tell AE all about it, regretting all the while that my weakness would cost me many admirable pages. I shall never be able to improvise it all again. My memory is wonderful, I admit, but Pecuchet's slumberous phrases, tall, bent weeds, and matted grasses, with the snapping of an occasional aphorism, a dead branch, should be dictated at once and to the nearest scrivener. I am paying dearly for the pleasure of your company.
I can see you, AE answered, his imagination enabling him to see us in our walk, and his wit putting just the right words into his mouth—I can see you stopping at the pavement's edge asking Pecuchet to repeat one of the dead branch aphorisms; I can see you hanging on his words with a sort of literary affection; and I could listen to you for a good deal longer, but I am due tonight at the Hermetic Society, and must get home. Won't you walk a little way with me?
The proposal that we should walk a little way together reminded me that the old bicycle that had carried Bouvard's ideas all over Ireland so valiantly was now enjoying a well-earned rest in some outhouse or garden shed. AE would not like to sell it for scrap-iron or to buy another; or it may be that he thinks bicycle riding unsuited to a fat man. He has fattened. A great roll of flesh rises to his ears, and his interests have gone so much into practical things that we think the AE of other days is dead. We are mistaken, the AE of our deepest affection is not dead, but sleeping; an unexpected word tells us that he has not changed at all. Relieve him, we say to ourselves, of his work at The Homestead, loose him among the mountains, and in a few weeks he will be hearing the fairy bells again. And happy at heart, though sorry to part with him, I returned home to a lonely meal, hoping to find courage about eight to do some reading.
A lecture was stirring in me at that time—a lecture showing that it is impossible to form any idea of the author of the plays. We can see Virgil, I said to myself, Dante, and Balzac, but Shakespeare is an abstraction, and as invisible as Jehovah. We know that somebody must have written the plays; but of one thing only are we sure—that Sidney Lee is always wrong. But I will think no more, I will read. I took down the dreaded volume, and a smile began to trickle round my lips as a picture of the dusty room at the end of many dusty corridors rose up before me, with AE sitting at a small table teaching that there is an essential oneness in all the different revelations that Eternity has vouchsafed to mankind.
I returned to my chair, and, falling into it, listened, hearing his voice getting calmer every minute, solemn and awe-inspiring when he commended toleration to the Hermetics. You need not be, he said, too disdainful of the essential worshippers of lacchus-Iesus, better known in Dublin under the name of Christ.... He, too, was a God. There were moments when it seemed to me that I could hear his voice refuting Colum, who had ventured to remind him of Diocletian. It was not for its Christianity that the ancient creed had persecuted the new, but for its intolerance and profanity.
There never was anybody like him, I said, and my thoughts melted into a long meditation, from which I awoke, saying: His conversion, or whatever it was, gave him such an iron grip on himself that, when Indian mysticism flourished in No 3, Upper Ely Place, he submitted his genius to the directors of the movement, asking them if they would prefer his contributions to the Theosophical Review in verse or in prose. The directors answered: In verse, and AE wrote Homeward Songs. But even these would not have strayed beyond the pages of the review if his friend, Weekes, had not insisted that the further publication of these poems would bring comfort and peace to many, and it appears that these poems consoled the beautiful Duchess of Leinster in her passing as no other poems could have done. AE could have been a painter if he had wished it; but a man's whole life is seldom long enough for him to acquire the craft of the painter; and, setting life above craftsmanship, he had denied himself the touch that separates the artist from the amateur, and he had done well. Accomplishment estranges from the comprehension of the many, and for the first time in the world's history we get a man stopped midway by a scruple of conscience or love of his kindred—which? If he had devoted all his days to art, his Thursday evenings at the Hermetic Society would have had to be abandoned, and the editing of The Homestead too. He could not be a painter and write eight or nine columns of notes and a couple of articles on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. A man must have a terrible hold on himself to pursue the routine of The Homestead week after week without hope of reward, and it is this uncanny hold that he has on himself that makes him seem different from other men, for though in many ways more human than any of us, he wears the air of one that has lived before and will live again. How shall I word it? A demonic air, using the word in the Goethian sense, a Lohengrin come to fight the battle of others. One day he announced to us that he was going to publish the verses of his disciples, with a preface by himself, and we muttered among ourselves: Our beloved AE is going to stumble. But the volume was received by the English press as a complete vindication of Celtic genius. Contrairy John answered all the effusive articles that appeared with one sentence: The English have so completely lost all standard of poetic excellence that any one can impose upon them. A very materialistic explanation which we were loath to accept, preferring to attribute the success of the volume to the demonic power that AE inherits from the great theosophical days when he sat up in bed with his legs tucked under his nightshirt.
He was offered some hundreds of pounds by Lord Dunsany to found a review, but he had not time to edit it, and proposed the task to John Eglinton. Contrairy John wanted to see life steadily, and to see it whole; and Yeats came along with a sneer, and said: I hear, Lord Dunsany, that you are going to supply groundsel for AE's canaries. The sneer brought the project to naught, and Yeats went away laughing, putting the south of Ireland above the north and the east and the west, saying that Munster was always Ireland's literary portion. The first harpers of Ireland and the first story-tellers were Munstermen, and his own writers came to him from Munster. He had gotten nothing from Dublin. Murray and Ray and Robinson had all begun by writing for the Cork Examiner and the Constitutional. And AE may search the columns of Sinn Fein for ever and ever without finding, I said, a blackbird or thrush, skylark or nightingale.
The portentous critic giggled a little in his stride down the incline of Rathmines Avenue, and was moved to change the conversation from Sinn Fein, that journal having spoken of him disrespectfully since he had accepted a pension from the English Government. Griffith, the editor of Sinn Fein, or Ourselves Alone, had butted him severely in several paragraphs—butted him is the word, for in appearance and mentality Griffith may be compared to a ram. He butts against England every week with admirable perseverance, and while he butts, he allows all the poets of Rathmines to carol.
A pretty banner, I said as we crossed the bridge, for Sinn Fein would be a tree full of small singing birds carolling sonnets and rondeaux, ballades and villanelles, with a butting-ram underneath, and this for device: Believe that England doesn't exist, and it won't.
Yes, there is an element of Christian Science in our friend Griffith, Yeats answered, and we crossed the bridge.
You don't think that AE will ever discover any one in Sinn Fein comparable to Synge?
Yeats threw up his hands.
It would be better, he said, if all his little folk went back to their desks.
When this remark was repeated to AE, he said: Colum was earning seventy-eight pounds a year when he was at his desk at the Railway Clearing House, and now he is earning four or five pounds a week. So Willie says that I shall never find anything that will compare with Synge. Well, we shall see.
And every Thursday evening the columns of Sin Fein were searched, and every lilt considered, and every accent noted; but the days and the weeks went by without a new peep-o-peep, sweet, sweet, until the day that James Stephens began to trill; and recognising at once a new songster, AE put on his hat and went away with his cage, discovering him in a lawyer's office. A great head and two soft brown eyes looked at him over a typewriter, and an alert and intelligent voice asked him whom he wanted to see. AE said that he was looking for James Stephens, a poet, and the typist answered: I am he.
And next Sunday evening he was admitted to the circle, and we were impressed by his wit and whimsicality of mind, but we thought AE exaggerated the talents of the young man. True that all his discoveries had come to something, but it was clear to us that he was anxious to put this new man alongside of Synge, and this we could not consent to do. He was a little distressed at our apathy, our unwillingness, our short-sightedness, for he was certain that James Stephens was a new note in Irish poetry. Our visions were not as clear as his. I was conscious of little more than harsh versification, and crude courage in the choice of subjects. Contrairy John was confused and round about, and at the end of many an argument found himself defending the very principles that he had started out to controvert. It was clear, however, that he did not think more of James Stephens than we ourselves. Yeats was the blindest of us all, and it was with ill grace that he consented to hear AE read the poems, giving his opinion casually; and when AE spoke of the advantage the publication of a volume would be to Stephens, he answered: For me, the aesthetical question; for you, my dear friend, the philanthropic. AE was hurt, but not discouraged; and to interest us he told us stories from the life of the new poet, who was a truer vagrant than ever Synge had been. Synge had fifty pounds a year; but Stephens, a poor boy without education or a penny, had wandered all over Ireland, and would have lost his life in Belfast from hunger had it not been for a charitable apple-woman. AE was delighted at the thought of the material that his pet would have to draw upon later on when he turned from verse to prose, for AE divined that this would be so.
James Stephens has enough poetry in him, he said to me, to be a great prose-writer.
But when he left the apple-woman? I answered, always curious.
AE could not tell me how Stephens had picked up his education, or had learnt typewriting and shorthand and got employment in a lawyer's office at five-and-twenty shillings a week—well enough for a girl who has a home, but a bare sufficiency for a man whose head is full of dreams and who has a wife and child to support. His life must have been very hard to bear, without the solitude of a room in which to write his poems or intellectual comradeship, until he met AE, a friend always ready to listen to him, to be enthusiastic about his literary projects. What a door was opened to him when he met AE! Of what help AE was to him in his first prose composition (no one can help another with poetry) none knows but Stephens himself; AE forgets what he gives, but it is difficult for me to believe that Stephens did not benefit enormously, as much as I did myself. How much that was I cannot tell, for AE was always helping me directly or indirectly. Shall I ever forget the day when, after three weeks' torture trying to write the second chapter of Ave, I went down to Plunkett House to see if he could help me out of my difficulty?
I am waiting for proofs, and am free for an hour. If you like we will walk round Merrion Square, and you can tell me all about it.
We turned to the east and walked along the north side, and it was opposite the National Gallery that he told me my second chapter must be in Victoria Street; and after a little argument, to which he listened very gently, he led me as a mother leads a child. I saw the error of my ways, and said: Goodbye; I see it all. Goodbye.
As well as anything I can think of, this anecdote shows how we run to our good friend in time of need, and never run in vain; but now I find myself in a difficulty out of which he will not be able to help me. He is not satisfied with his portrait, and complains that I have represented him in Ave and Salve as a blameless hero of a young girl's novel.
Why have you found no fault with me? If you wish to create human beings you must discover their faults.
Wherefore I am put to discovering a stain upon his character. I cannot accuse him of theft, and he never speaks of his love affairs; he may be a pure man; be that as it may, it is not for me to cast the first stone at him; lying and blackmail—of what use to make charges that no one will believe? If he will not sin, why should he object to my white flower in his button-hole? And feeling that humanity was on the whole very difficult and tiresome, I fell to thinking.... But of what I cannot tell; I only know I was awakened suddenly by a memory of a young painter in London, one who brought imagination and wit and epigram and laughter into our midst, and when he left us we rarely failed to ponder on the unmerited good fortune of his wife, for to live with him always seemed to us an unreasonable share of human happiness. But one day I made the acquaintance of this woman whom I had only known faintly during her married life, and heard from her that her husband did not speak to her at dinner, but propped a book up against a glass and read; and after dinner sat in his chair composing, and often went up to bed forgetting to bid her goodnight. If she reproached him, he assured her there was no other woman in the world he loved as much as her; but being a man of genius his mind was away among his works. But what proof have I, she said, that he is a man of genius? Of course, if I were certain, it would be different.... All the same, it is a little trying, she added. And her case is the case of every woman who marries a man of genius. A trying tribe, especially at meal-times; ideas and food being apparently irreconcilable. I have often regretted that our good friend did not leave some of his ideas on the landing with his hat and coat, for it is distressing to hear a man say that he could not tell the difference between halibut and turbot when you have just apologised to him for an unaccountable mistake on the part of your cook. This painful incident once happened in Ely Place; and I reflected, duly, that if he were indifferent to my food he might show scant courtesy to the food that his wife provided—excellent I am sure it is—but a man of ideas cannot be catered for by friend or wife. I followed him in imagination all the way up the long Rathmines Road, and saw him picking a little from his plate, and then, becoming forgetful, his eyes would rove into dark corners. (His definition of ideas are formless spiritual essences, and the room in 17 Rathgar Avenue is full of them, economic, pictorial, and poetic.) I have it at last! A blemish, and one is enough for my portrait; a little irregularity of feature will satisfy my sitter; in the eyes of the world absent-mindedness is a blemish. But if it be none in his wife's eyes then there is no blemish, and I remembered that he chose her for her intelligence, and it is no mean one. She had abandoned papistry before he met her, and had written some beautiful phrases in her pages of the Theosophical Review; and these won his heart. A very gracious presence and personality, too distinct to seem invidious to her husband's genius, or to deem it an injustice to herself that he should be beloved by all. But in his indifference to money we may seek and find cause for complaint. It is possible that in the eyes of women who have not succeeded in marrying men of genius he should apply his talents to increasing his income, for the common belief is that a man's life is not his exclusive possession to dispose of as pleases his good will, but a sort of family banking account on which his wife and children may draw checks. This is not AE's view. He has often said to me, I came into the world without money or possessions, and have done very well without either. Why shouldn't my children do the same? His life is in his ideas as much as Christ's, and I will avouch that his wife has never tried to come between him and his ideas. As much cannot be said for Mary, whom Christ had to reprove for trying to dissuade him from his mission, which he did on many occasions.... But again I am hoeing and raking, shovelling up merits instead of picking out the small but necessary fault. If I dig deeper perhaps my search will be rewarded. He gives his wife all the money she asks for, but she does not know what money he has in the bank. AE does not know himself, and feeling that AE was about to be born into my text, a real man rather than an ideal one, my heart rose, and I said: It is not long ago since he told me that he had given a man who had asked him for a contribution a long screed for which he could have had thirty pounds from a certain magazine. In giving his screed for nothing he acted as all the great dispensers of ideas have done, and the many will find fault with him, for though they would like to have prophets and poets they would like them domesticated, each one bringing home to a little house in the suburbs a reel of office chit-chat to unwind for his wife's pleasure, the poet on one side of the hearth, the wife on the other, the cat between them. Jane and Minna would listen attentively, but Violet's thoughts would stray and she would find herself very soon with Cuchulain, Caolte, and Finn, and picking up from the table her beautiful book of fairy tales, I read them until I was awakened by a knocking at my front door. The servants had gone to bed. Who could this be? AE perhaps. It was John Eglinton.
Are you sure you aren't busy? If you are, don't hesitate—
I was sitting by the fire thinking.
I am loath to disturb a thinking man; and he stopped half-way between the armchair and the door.
I assure you I had come to the end of my thinking.
On what subject?
One that you know very well—AE. Among my portraits he is the least living, and that is a pity. He does not silhouette as Yeats does or as dear Edward. Edward's round head and bluff shoulders and big thighs and long feet correspond with his blunt mind. And Yeats's solemn height and hieratic appearance authorise the literary dogmas that he pronounces every season. He is the type of the literary fop, and the most complete that has ever appeared in literature. But AE! I wonder if we could get him into a phrase, John. After a while I said: He has the kindly mind of a shepherd, and ten years ago he was thin, lithe, active, shaggy, and I can see him leaning on his crook meditating.
That is just what I don't think he does. He talks about meditation, but his mind is much too alert. There is this resemblance, however: the shepherd knows little but the needs of his flock, and the other day, at Horace Plunkett's, I heard that AE exhibited a surprising ignorance in an argument with some English economists. He did not know that Athenian society was founded on slavery.
I am glad to hear it, for if he knew all the things that one learns out of books I should never get him into a literary silhouette.
You admit, John said, inspiration in his painting, but you think it lacks quality; and in your study of him you will explain—
Of course, a most important point. AE has come out of many previous existences and is going toward many others, and looks upon this life as an episode of no importance.
An interesting explanation, but the real one is—
Is what? I asked eagerly.
He is too impatient. I told him so once, but he answered indignantly that there was no more patient man than he.
I prefer my explanation, I answered.
It is the more poetic, but temperament goes deeper than belief, John replied.
Not deeper than AE's belief in his own eternity, I said; and my answer had the effect of rolling John for a moment out of his ideas. He'll soon be back in them again, I said to myself. At the end of another long silence John told me that somebody had said that AE was an unhappy man.
It never struck me that he was unhappy. He always seems among the happiest. And I began to wonder if John Eglinton looked upon me as a happy man.
You're happy in your work, but I don't know if you are happy in your life.
And you, John, I said, are happy in your thoughts.
Yes, he answered, and my unhappiness is caused by the fact that I get so little time for enjoying them.
It was pleasant for two old cronies to sit by the fire, wondering what they had gotten out of life; and when John bade me goodbye at the door he admonished me to be very careful what I said about AE's home life.
But he has asked me to tack him on to life, and now you think, since he has been tacked on, he won't like it.
Damn these models! I said, returning to my room. Models are calamitous, and it would perhaps be calamitous to be without them. Shakespeare, too, is a calamity. And, dismayed by the number of plays I should have to read, my thoughts turned to dear little John Eglinton, to the little shrivelled face and the round head with a great deal of back to it, to the reddish hair into which grey is coming, to the gaunt figure, and I fell to thinking how his trousers had wound round his legs as he had walked down the street. It seemed to me that I should never find anything more suitable to my talent as a narrator and as a psychologist than this dear little man that had just left me, dry, determined, and all of a piece, valiant in his ideas and in his life, come straight down from the hard North into the soft Catholic Dublin atmosphere, which was not, however, able to rob him of any of his individuality. The Catholic atmosphere has intensified John Eglinton—boiled him down, as it were—made him a sort of Liebig extract of himself, and I seemed to realise more than ever I had done before how like he was to himself: the well-backed head and the square shoulders, and the hesitating, puzzled look that comes into his face. I had often sought a reason for that look. Now I know the cause of it: because he gets so little time for his ideas. He does not wish to write them out any more than Steer wishes to exhibit his Chelsea figures; he rearranges them and dusts them, and sits among them conscious of familiar presences, and as the years go by he seems to us to sink deeper into his armchair, and his contempt of our literary activities strengthens; he is careful to hide the fact from us lest he should wound our feelings, but it transpired the evening I ran over to the Library to tell him of Goethe's craving for information on all subjects, including even a little midwifery. So that he might continue a little dribble of ink in the morning, he said, for John never lacks a picturesque phrase, but that is neither here nor there; the sentiment it expresses is John Eglinton—a lack of faith in all things. Of late years he seems to have been drawn toward Buddhism, and goes out to a lonely cottage among the Dublin mountains in the hope that the esoteric lore of the East may allow him to look a little over the border. I shall never find a better model than John Eglinton. It seems to me that I understand him; and what a fine foil he would make to the soft and peaty Hyde, the softest of all our natural products, a Protestant that Protestantism has not been able to harden! A moment after I sat pondering on his yellow skull floating back from the temples, collecting hugely on the crown; his black eyebrows and a drooping black moustache; his laugh, shallow and a little vacant, a little mechanical; and his words and thoughts, casual as the stage Irishman's. We would pick him out for a Catholic in a tram, and if there were a priest in the tram Hyde would be interested in him at once, and he would like nothing better than to visit Clare Island with a batch of ecclesiastics, a dozen or fifteen parish priests, not one of them weighing less than fifteen stone, and the bishop eighteen. It would be a pleasure to Hyde to drop the words Your Grace into as many sentences as possible; whether he would kiss the bishop's ring may be doubted—being a Protestant, he could hardly do so—but he would fly for a pillow to put under His Grace's throbbing head. On Clare Island the parish priest would have prepared legs of mutton and sirloins of beef, chickens and geese, and Hyde's comment to His Grace would be: The hospitality of the Irish priest is unequalled. He will crack a bottle of champagne with any visitor. A gathering of this kind is very agreeable to the Catholic Protestant, and the Catholic bishop likes to do business with the Catholic Protestant better than with anybody else. The Catholic might stand up to him; there are one or two, perhaps, who would venture to disagree with His Grace, but the Catholic Protestant melts like peat into fine ash before His Grace's ring. But Hyde was not always Catholic Protestant. In the old Roscommon glebe there was sufficient Protestantism in him to set him learning Irish. He has written some very beautiful poems in Irish, and it is to Hyde that we owe the jargon since become so famous, for the great discovery was his that to write beautiful English one has only to translate literally from the Irish; his prose translations of the Love Songs of Connaught are as beautiful as Synge's, and it is a pity he was stopped by Father Tom Finlay, who said: Write in Irish or in English, but our review does not like mixed languages. And these words and his election to the Presidency of the Gaelic League made an end to Hyde as a man of letters. I took his measure at the banquet at the Shelbourne Hotel, his noisy demonstration in Irish and English convincing me that the potential scholar would be swallowed up in the demagogue, for the Gaelic League must make no enemies; and that the way to success is to stand well with everybody—members of Parliament, priests, farmers, shopkeepers—and by standing well with these people, especially with the priests, Hyde has become the archetype of the Catholic Protestant, cunning, subtle, cajoling, superficial, and affable, and these qualities have enabled him to paddle the old dug-out of the Gaelic League up from the marshes through many an old bog, lake, and river, reaching at last Portobello Bridge, where he took on board two passengers, Agnes O'Farrelly and Mary Hayden, and, having placed them in the stern, he paddled the old dug-out to the steps of the National University. He gallantly handed them up the steps, and so amazed were the three at the salaries that were offered to them that they forgot the old dug-out; and worn and broken and water-logged, it has drifted back to the original Connemara bog-hole, to sink under the brown water out of sight of the quiet evening sky, unwatched, unmourned save by dear Edward, who will weep a few tears, I am sure, when the last bubbles arise and break.

Hello! Looking for the obituary of Mary Nafus in The Akron Beacon Journal , Wednesday, August 3, 1955. Thank you!
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/150006249/

1. Why do many people find slow motion appealing?
   
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3. News stripped of all hype and emotion, by AI. And new tool for co-authoring long form articles with AI.
   
4. “We find that because of default risk, the welfare cost of the pandemic is about a third higher than it is in a version of the model with perfect financial markets.”
   
5. Everleigh? Nova? Good to see that “Tyler” is dropping in popularity. Rising and falling baby names.
   
6. Why you should visit Ravenna.
   
7. The Straussian that is Magnus Carlsen (WSJ). Thanos!
   

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Original Thread::
https://www.reddit.com/HobbyDrama/comments/mtkwxfurry_fandomwebcomics_four_for_the_price_of_one/
Hi, I'm the rdewalt referenced heavily in the above article. And the one who did the majority of the investigative work and have been the primary fandom liason with Albert's family. I also started a Telegram channel back when he passed away so people could have one common location to find out information.
Those who know me, know to validate that I am who I say I am. This story is always popping up on my radar every six months to a year since his death.
I knew Albert for 20 years, mid 97 until his death. I thought I knew him. Heck, He was one of the groomsmen in my wedding. He'd crash on my couch in DC when he came through the area for reasons. I knew what I thought was all about him. I had only the surface knowlege he let me know. But I was able to piece together the rest.
> This saga primarily spans from 2000 to 2017 but reaches as far back as the late 1980s. As such, much of the story has been lost to the Graveyard of Early Internet. I've done my best to dig up original sources as much as possible, but some parts have been left to hearsay.
As the original source for the majority of the material presented, I'll fill in where I can. I have items that were never shown publicly. And out of respect for his family's wishes, I will not be revealing -every- tiny detail.
The majority of the post is accurate, the information mostly public anyway.
>Shirley Chessler-Wakefield, who went by Shirleemouse online, was Katellis's wife.
They were not actually married "yet". For the remainder of this document, I'll use "CW" for Catswhisker and KE/S for Katellis and Shirley (They basically were a 'couple') Other minor characters will be named in full.
> To date, the comic hasn't been continued.
And unless his brothers have something planned that they have not brought up in the past six years, it will not. Al kept -no- notes. Nothing was written down. He didn't have to work with a collaborator because he WAS his collaborators. I gained full access to his websites and made a copy of everything, so nothing has been lost. However at his brothers' wishes nothing is posted online. Al also may not have had a fullly detailed ending planned. Al -HATED- endings. I'd be in collaborations with him on various things, and rather than a simple "okay, lets wrap the story up here." he was -always- wanting stories open ended. BUT for Gene Catlow, he was starting what would actually be the Final Chapter.
He had spoken with Cecil, my spouse, and they were scheduled to collaborate on the post-Gene-Catlow stories that would have primarily focused on the side characters. He was planning on wrapping up the final bits of the comic, or at least BEGINNING the wrap up of the final when he passed away. In fact, one of the last pieces of art Gene posted was of Cecil's characters. So... there is that weight with us to have.
>Immediately after Albert's death Catswhisker, KatEllis, and Shirleemouse went silent as well. No comic updates, no art, no comments, not a single word from any of them. This was understandable for a time, as they clearly needed time to grieve the loss of a loved one. But the silence went on, and on, and old suspicions began surfacing again.
This actually happened within hours, not weeks or months. It was in the immediate after-shock of Albert's death that I began hunting down his real life family as well as CW & KE/S. Within the hour even. I'm one of those people online that your mother warned you about. I basically "Doxxed" everyone ever involved with Albert that I did not have definitive phone numbers of or had met in person. From my friendship with Albert, I had the full names, ages and where they all lived of CatswhiskeKE/S (As well as the others not mentioned here). Or where they supposedly lived. I won't go into details of my methodolgy, since the information could potentially point people into methods to "Doxx" someone. But basically given the information I had available as well as the resources and connectons I had built up over the decades of my career, I came to answers.
Albert WAS Catswhisker, Shirley, Katellis, Badgerton, Burlington, Moonlight...
> A number of people expressed concern over Catswhisker, but nobody had her contact information. At this point it seemed that everyone was reaching the same conclusion but nobody wanted to say it aloud.
Albert was "living" as anywhere from eight to ten people in JUST the furry fandom alone. Not just Gene/CW/KE&S but there were many others who, strangely, only interacted through gene, or through e-mail.
>>It was verified to me by Rdewalt after I learned that KatEllis supposedly lived in Eugene, Oregon (Eugene is also Gene and CW’s son) and there is no record of a Richard Katellis living in that town.
Ad revenue checks for Katellis's comic were on Al's desk. One of his Laptops was logged into Shirley's mail, another in various IM clients as various people. Every piece of information pointed to Albert's condo, or to mail boxes he owned "for them"
> I wouldn’t say deceived horribly. I’m not upset by it. This is why Rdewalt asked me to not say anything, because of fear of trolls that might soil Al’s memory.
Al was at the very worst, only lying in the fact that he didn't tell us the whole truth. As everyone says, at the end of the day, it was innocent.
> Kiwifarms
I read the Kiwifarms drama, I refused to participate. I felt unclean even looking at that site. I responded to nobody there. Even the truth, trolls would manipulate in troll ways.
>It bears reiterating that this wasn't as simple as one person with a few sockpuppet accounts. Albert cultivated four different personas,
Closer to a dozen. Gene/CW/Katellis/Shirley were the four Most Commonly Known.
The images about Catswhiskers I have. And two more that Al never posted publicly. Image analysis shows they were all different women. Face features, eye colors, eaeye/nose/mouth shapes all different. They were scans of film photos (Al was very much a film camera fanatic, even when many of us were using digital.) Every photo I shared with his family, none of them knew who the women were. I met his family in person at Al's wake held after his death. I had met his brothers in passing years before at conventions, but never more than a casual handshake and hello. They told me he -had- no girlfriend, let alone someone as serious as CW. You'd think he'd tell them about her?
Albert compartmentalized his life VERY strongly. Family, fandom, work? Each got a distinct Albert.
I met his boss of 20 years. The man didn't know Al could draw, could play several instruments, knew NOTHING about Al. He was at the wake, hearing stories, and said he had no idea who he was working with all those years.
The REAL proofs to me was in working with his family. His personal cellphone was accessible and contained -no- photos of CW, nor Jamaica. THAT was the biggest key in this. What guy in a long distance relationship has NO photos of his girlfriend on his phone? Nothing in his phone had any indications it had EVER been to Jamaica. Also? Her story didn't make sense. Why was she in Jamaica? "Witness protection program" he told me. That's not possible, the federal witness protection program doesn't relocate you to other countries. ADDITIONALLY, you don't GET to keep your old contacts and interact with everyone from your 'old' life.
Also, if she was forced to live in Jamaica? Why was Al still in the US? Why did he have NO plans to move there? What guy THAT devoted to his love, would have stayed in the US for 15 years, only going once or twice a year to visit? That never set well with me.
>The only halfway convincing explanation I can come up with is that one of Albert's (allegedly numerous) computers was still logged in to Catswhisker's Furaffinity when his brothers were clearing it out, and they left that message as consolation to the fans. But that would ultimately be a cruel joke.
He was an avid technology collector. I've spent my entire career in similar, so we talked a LOT about them. He had easily two or three hundred computers in his condo, of which a dozen were kept in active use AND unlocked. Those were the true proofs since he was logged into multiple e-mail accounts of the people we didn't know he was. I offered my skills to his brothers in digging through any locked computers for archival purposes. He was their family's computer guru. But it was the only skill I had that was beyond his. He was good at ANYTHING he set his mind to. I knew He did not have encrypted drives since he never used an operating system on a computer newer than Windows 98. This was something I had talked to him at length on. So it isn't a surprise to know they were all wide open, not even a password.
> (faked his death mention in a comment)
I would love for this to have been true. I was the one who made the calls to his local police for a wellness check. I was on the phone when he was found. I have seen his autopsy report, I will not detail it here. There was a LOT about him that he hid even from those of us who felt we were Real Close Friends.
Three weeks before his death, he was at my house, no big deal, we'd get together every other month or so for a day of drawing, comics, geeking out on things, you name it. My last photo of him is him sitting next to my son at lunch the month before that. I had jokingly brought up the "Gene is Katellis" line of thought. His reaction was genuine enough brushing it off, that even after finding the truth, he pulled one over on us all. The subject changed, and I thought nothing else of it. I didn't think at all he was lying.
>This was a monumental undertaking, and the man kept it up for decades.
And not just one person, a dozen. Many felt as real as if I had known them in person. I'd "talked" to most of them in IMs. Not knowing it was Al in every case.
> There was no obituary and, as mentioned earlier, no follow-up on the whole "continuing Gene Catlow once Albert's brothers wade through his notes" thing.
Obituary is by the family. I do not know why they did not run one.
The lack of follow up? I have information (80% confidence) that they found nothing, and what they did find was such that they have chosen to close it as is. Let us remember what we had.
> Anyone who seems to know anything solid fell silent pretty quickly.
He had a heart condition. He collected computers, having an almost literal personal museum of personal computers spanning literally ALL of technology.
> Aside from the Rdewalt journals, all information I gathered about Albert's death and the aftermath was second- or thirdhand sources.
I will answer any questions if anyone still has any. I have significant primary sources I cannot share due to his family's requests, and I am for this post a primary source as well.
>I've wanted to share this story for some time; not to mock the people involved, but to document one of the strangest and most poignant stories I've found on the internet. I don't know if the full truth will ever be known at this point. Maybe it's better that way?
He was multiple people online. His "why?" answer died with him. His family lost a brother. The Fandom lost a van full of people. Gene was so nice and kind, he had enough kindness to be ten earnestly kind people.
It was a bit of a shock to find this old thread. Thank you everyone for being respectful. Al did a lot for us, the death and finding out that he was so many people was traumatic. To this day, we're still in disbelief.
EDIT:: Additional story writeup of the actual "finding his passing"
Everyone knows he did the GeneCatlow comic. He obsessively did it. His comic was seventeen YEARS 3 days a week, never ONCE did he miss an update. He was Obsessively ON TIME with that comic. Like set-your-clock levels of update regularity.
The fact that he missed an update (a monday) was the first hint something was wrong. Al NEVER missed an update. Like, the world could be collapsing, the ground upheaving, aliens vaporizing entire towns, and he'd stop and update his comic.
He missed a second update. (Wednesday) . THAT was what made us start to worry. Even when on travel, he had strips queued up. So something was WRONG. I called his cellphone, his work cellphone. One mutual lived 20 min away (My house was a good two hour drive to his, he lived north of Oakland, I lived south of San Jose.) And found his car in the parking lot, covered in recent tree debris. (That from piecing together neighbor stories meant his cars hadn't moved since Saturday.) His mail box was STUFFED with mail, and none of his neighbors had heard or seen anything of him in days.
Did some digging around, and there was NOTHING indicating he was on travel or had left town.
I called the local police, put in a "Wellness check" and given his age (he was 60 at time of death) and the rest of information I could provide, they sent a patrol to check. The corroborating evidence at the scene and a check of local hospitals, and the decision was made to breach his front door. Friend on scene provided a photo of Al, and the police gave us the news. (We never saw his actual body, the police immediately sealed the scene and checked for foul play, of which there was none.)
From there, I began hunting people. I knew his brother's first name, and went from there to start finding people.

Name Mrs Jennie Bruna Death Date 30 Aug 1980 Death Place Springfield Birthplace Coal City Event Type Obituary Event Date 31 Aug 1980 Event Place Springfield, Illinois Event Place (Original) Springfield, Illinois Newspaper State Journal Register

I don't even know what to say about this

Hi! Here's a list of reliable news sources that I've compiled for finding out news about the murders in Moscow and the on-going court actions.
Being a current student and in a sorority at WSU, (I have mutual friends with XK's sister) I've heard a lot of like, rumors and stuff from friends. Some of the rumors have turned out to be true, some turn out to be well, just rumors. So I decided to make a list of some news sources which have a history of being reliable!
(I've included both local sources, such as from the Moscow-Pullman Newspapers, State of Idaho Judicial Branch, and national news sources. Clicking on the links will bring you to that news outlets published list of articles that are related to the Moscow Murders and the current court proceedings, including the recent attorney filings)
State of Idaho Judicial Branch - https://coi.isc.idaho.gov/ (up to date on court proceedings)
Moscow Pullman Daily News (Local Moscow & Pullman area news) - Moscow Pullman Daily News Moscow Murders related news articles
The Daily Evergreen (WSU Student Newspaper) - The Daily Evergreen Moscow Murders related news articles
Idaho Statesman (Reports on Idaho news statewide) - Idaho Statesman Moscow Murders related news articles
Spokesman Review (Spokane based news outlet) - Spokesman review Moscow Murders related news articles
Argonaut (University of Idaho Student newspaper) - U of I Student newspaper articles on the case
The Seattle Times (Seattle based Newspaper) - Seattle Times Newspaper Moscow Murders related articles
KHQ (Spokane local News NBC Affiliate) - KHQ Moscow Murders related news articles
CNN - CNN Moscow Murders related news articles
MSNBC - MSNBC Moscow Murders related news articles
Fox News - Fox News Moscow Murders related news articles
CBS - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/idaho-murders-bethany-funke-speak-bryan-kohberger-lawyers/
New York Times - The New York Times Moscow Murders related news articles
Northwest Public Broadcasting (PNW News source, Reporter is from Moscow) - Northwest Public Broadcasting Moscow Murders related news articles
​
I'll continue to update this as time goes on!
(I didn't include Newsnation, the Daily Mail, the New York Post and a few other publications due to them being a tad bit rumor based and not having as many official sources in their citations)
If anyone has any more reliable sources feel free to comment and I'll look into adding them! (While I'm not a journalism major, I've taken a few media ethics and journalism related courses in college if that counts for anything :) I may have missed some up to date first person sources as well. Also any extensive interview sources with officials or locals from the Pullman Moscow area would be much appreciated!

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Hello! Please remove this if this isn't an appropriate place for this post, couldn't find a more suitable sub.
Long time lurker, so I'm not sure why this just occurred to me right now, but I have a journal in my possession of a guy I've never met. For a little background, I moved into my house in 2012. The house was sold as-is I guess with a bunch of things inside. I'm not 100% sure of the technical stuff because I was 15 . The important thing to know is that it is basically a house with a small apartment section, and when we moved in the "house" was empty as you would expect, but the "apartment" was full of personal belongings, like someone still lived there.
I have no idea who the guy is, I consider myself pretty savvy when it comes to google but I could never find anything out about him. I have his passport (that expired in 2016!) so I know he was born in 195X (I don't know if this guy is still alive so I'm gonna try to censor doxing details.)
Anyways! One thing he left behind was a journal. It goes from January 1973 to December 1975, mostly written entries with a few drawings and photos sprinkled in. I found it pretty interesting and wanted to see if anyone else would. Here's a few random pages, out of maybe 50-70 in total. I have a scanner, so if anyone wants to read the full thing I can upload it at a much higher quality.
​
EDIT: Seems like at least some are into this so I'm gonna scan and upload the whole thing. It's a bit slow-going and I share the scanner so I'll do it in parts. Here's the first 20ish pages.
Jeff's Journal Part 1
​
EDIT 2: still scanning away, but I learned a few things in the meantime. Not sure when it started, but Jeff and his elderly parents both lived where I do now, them in the "house" and him in the "apartment." I managed to find Jeff's Dad's 2020 obituary after a lot of searching. It includes the line "Beloved husband of XXXXXXXX. Predeceased by both of their sons, Jeff and XXXXX (last name from journal)" So it looks like Jeff is no longer with us. That kind of makes me feel better, like this is honoring his life somehow rather than spying into it. Haven't been able to confirm, but my guess is he died before we moved in and his parents never had the strength to clear all his stuff out. :( EDIT 2.5: Just talked to my mom. She never told me because she thought I would be freaked out, Jeff died in my old bedroom and wasn't found for weeks. It's why the apartment has new floors.
EDIT 3: Part Two

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2023/04/17/austin-american-statesman-awards-uvalde-shooting-coverage-medicaid-failures/70122297007/

Austin American-Statesman journalists have received some of the state’s highest honors for their groundbreaking coverage of the Uvalde school shooting, an investigation into the state’s broken Medicaid waiver program, and news analysis and storytelling.
Texas Managing Editors announced the honors last weekend in Galveston at its annual conference.
Investigative reporter Tony Plohetski was named Star Reporter of the Year for the second time in three years and also will receive the Texas Headliner Foundation’s Charles Green Star Reporter of the Year Award for his Uvalde law enforcement accountability coverage.
“He rose to the challenge and produced scoop after scoop for the Statesman with gripping stories that provided not just the news, but important context and heart,” judges said. Plohetski “produced work that has influenced the national dialogue over school shootings.”

IMO: This is interesting, if by interesting you mean, sickening, sad and indicative of the demise of good journalism. Tony Plohetski greatly upset and insulted the families of Uvalde's slain children by broadcasting the hallway camera from Uvalde (in a specific way) days before a scheduled private screening arranged by the three-member House Committee to Investigate Uvalde. Yes, it was an "exclusive" for his tv station/ newspaper (Both owned by Gannett, not a good corporation where journalism is concerned) and yes, the public got to see something the powers that be were previously opposed to, but it came at a cost.
It's my personal opinion based on many factors surrounding this overall event that the leaker of this KVUE version of the hallway ISD cam was orchestrated by DPS director McCraw. The likely motive was that once the hallway cam's release became a fait accompli, from the House Committee who would not bow to pressure from Abbott and DPS McCraw, the only option left to McCraw was to spoil the release by making the news a split headline: "shocking new cam footage,' AND, "parents upset at media." it worked to blunt the force of the video's impact on the public that way. A small temporary stab as they retreated, but an action of a defiant loser determined to carry on the fight, which they most certainly have done.
Poletski later continued to carry water for DPS and McCraw, most notably when McCraw was at his lowest, last fall when CNN's Shimon Prokupecz buttonholed him in Brownsville after KXAN - not KVUE - caught McCraw's promises to the troopers in a meeting that "no one is getting fired here." At the moment when eyes were on DPS, Phohetski served him up a softball tv interviews and USA Today, gannett's flagship paper ran a straight up puff-peice profile.
I've written all of this up previously in real time in this sub-reddit, just search Plohetski's name here to review them.
Now I need to look into who this group is that gave this award, and see what the heck they are all about. They are rewarding the sort of journalistic behavior that is IMO is just shameless sucking up to corrupt power here.
"Texas Managing Editors, " look out. I'm coming for you next. Something rotten there in the state of Denmark. And by Denmark, I mean Texas.