LonelyBob's Tumblr @lonelybob - Tumblr Blog

How to install Alt Store on iPad OS26/iOS26 in any region, enabling JIT, and Dolphin iOS

Recently I was reading the announcement that Alt Store would be expanding to more countries, I was reading around on the wiki and came to find that Alt Store (Classic) is already available globally. Where the main Alt Store Pal is available only in Europe for users there, Alt Store Classic, allows users with a Mac or Windows machine at home to install Alt Store app on your iPad or iPhone to access alternative app stores and sideload iOS ipa builds as well. Here are the steps I took for documenting and future reference for: installing AltStore, how to enable JIT (Just In Time) compilation, and testing the Dolphin (Wii/Gamecube) emulator on iPad OS. I have a MacBook so the steps I outline are for Mac below, if you have a Windows computer here is a page that walks you through installing on Windows (Note: I don't have windows, so I didn't try this).

Steps for installing AltStore onto iOS or iPadOS using macOS. 1. Download AltServer for macOS (requires macOS 11 or later). Uncompress the zip file.

2. Copy AltServer.app to your Applications folder.

3. Launch AltServer, which will appear as an icon in the top menu bar.

4. Connect your iOS device to your Mac and make sure it is unlocked. Trust your device on both iPad and the Mac if prompted.

5. Enable "Wi-Fi sync" on your iPad/iOS device, and connect to the same WiFi network as your Mac.

6. Open the Finder app on Mac, then scroll down below Options, and check the checkbox “Show this iPhone/iPad when on WiFi” for your device.

7. Click the AltServer icon in the Mac menu bar, go to “Install AltStore”, then click on your iPad/iOS device.

8. Enter your Apple ID email address and password. This will allow AltServer to authenticate with Apple and configure your account to support sideloading apps. (Note: Your Apple ID and password are sent only to Apple - not to AltServer or anyone else.)

9. Wait a few seconds, then a notification from AltServer should appear on your Mac saying AltStore has been successfully installed onto your device. (Note: If you don't see any notifications from AltServer, check your Mac Notification settings allow AltServer permission to send you notifications in System Preferences.)

10. On your iPad/ iOS device, open Settings app, Tap General, Tap VPN & Device Management (the name on iPadOS 26). Tap Trust [Your Apple ID], then tap Trust again to confirm.

11. Then enable Developer Mode on your iPad/iOS device by open Settings app, Tap Privacy & Security, scroll down and tap on Developer Mode then Enable Developer Mode. iPad/iOS may need to restart to complete turning on Developer mode.

Now AltStore is installed, you can open the AltStore app on iPad/iOS device, open Settings, then sign into the same Apple ID account for signing apps on your device. Note: free Apple ID/App store accounts only allow 3 apps to be installed per account and the apps expire after 7 days, these are limits by Apple. Paid Apple Developer accounts can install more apps for longer activation use.

To renew/refresh an app, make sure Alt Store Classic is running on your Mac, and your Mac and iOS device are on the same Wifi network. Then open Alt Store on your iPad/iOS, long press on the app in the apps list, and select Refresh. If it fails or times out, try force closing Alt Store, connect the iOS device to the Mac by USB then open Alt Store and try Refresh again.

I was curious about the DolphiniOS (GameCube/wii) emulator, so added the OatmealDome AltStore source for downloading Dolphin. OatmeaalDome is the website and user handle of the iOS Dolphin developer.

About Dolphin iOS app versions: From OatmealDome there are 2 versions of Dolphin available. As of this writing you want to install the Beta version, that is compatible with iOS 18 and iOS 26, the current non-beta is compatible with older iOS releases. With the above complete Dolphin can be installed, however in order to fully run games at decent speed you will need JIT enabled so that DolphiniOS can convert the GC/Wii code to iOS code on the fly. So the next steps outline how to enable JIT on iPad OS26/iOS26

Enabling JIT

To enable JIT, you first need to download a program on your Mac or PC that will export information about your device. Note: Apple made changes in iOS26/iPad OS26 that broke JIT. So some apps not work with JIT on iOS 26 even after setup with the below instructions. Fortunately DolphiniOS got JIT working again after an update.

1. Download jitterbugpair for MacOS.

UPDATE: the jitterbugpair app may not work on recent MacOS, an alternative option is to use idevice_pair which also has a GUI so it maybe less complicated as well for some.

2. Uncompress the zip file. Then connect with USB your iPad/iOS device to your Mac (If requested confirm Trust for connecting)

3. Open Terminal app on Mac. Set executable permission if needed to jitterbugpair: chmod +x ./jitterbugpair

4. Make sure your iPad/iOS device is unlocked at home screen, then run jitterbugpair in the terminal. This will create a pairing file. Note: if Mac doesn't allow it to be run, on your Mac open System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> scroll down to Security, and grant permission for the app to run.

5. Locate the .mobiledevicepairing file, change it to a name representing your device, such as iPad-devicepairing and copy it to your iPad/iOS device via iCloud or Airdrop, etc.

6. Next step is to use StikDebug app with the pairing file to enable JIT. So Download the StikDebug app from Apple's iOS App Store on your iPad/iOS.

7. Open StikDebug, this app has a few settings that need to be configured to enable JIT.

8. Tap Select Pairing File and select the pairing file that was created and copied on the iPad/iOS. Tap Mount Developer disk image

9. StikDebug runs a local VPN to tunnel requests through itself and enable JIT so the app's VPN connection is required. Tap enable VPN if it doesn't automatically appear, and Allow the VPN Configuration to be added when prompted. After the VPN Profile is added, each time StikDebug is launched it automatically connects to it's local VPN tunnel.

10. After the above settings are applied there will be green check marks on each of the settings in the Home screen of StikDebug. To enable JIT in DolphiniOS tap on Connect by App and select DolphiniOS. This launches DolphiniOS and on iPad a PIP window displays the status of the JIT connection.

11. To check if JIT is working. Tap on Settings in DolphiniOS, then Tap Debug. JIT Acquisition should show as Acquired. Then tap on Software and select a game for Dolphin to launch. If JIT is working the game will open and run faster. If JIT is not working or not enabled DolphiniOS usually closes after selecting a game title.

Note: Sometimes StikDebug times out or hangs on enabling. When this happens, force close StikDebug and Dolphin, then launch StikDebug again. Tap Connect by App and select DolphiniOS, then select the game for Dolphin to run. When the PIP window shows a message saying something like, Script Execution Completed You are safe to close the PIP Window. You can tap the X to close PIP.

Conclusions:

Exploring apps on AltStore is an interesting experience, mostly emulators and technical apps that Apple doesn't allow for various reasons on it's App Store but that run well on the platform, but it's good to allow users choice of the software they want to use.

In my experience with games on DolphiniOS with JIT allows for fast emulation performance yet it doesn't increase battery consumption much. Example screen recordings of the performance of Nights for Wii on DolphiniOS on iPadOS26.

Many games are fully playable with a Bluetooth game controller or the touch screen controller, and for Wii DolphiniOS simulates Wiimote IR inputs by using the touch screen for the Wiimote controller pointer. However if the game requires certain motions of the Wiimote in game, such as spinning, rotating or swinging the touchscreen doesn't support those gestures, but they can be done by mapping those control inputs to buttons on a Bluetooth or gamepad controller connected to iOS.

#iPadOS26 #JIT #altstore #ios #dolphinios

Typepad is Shutting down - How to migrate posts to Tumblr

The blogging service Typepad has announced it is shutting down and deleting the data at the end of Sept 2025. In order to not lose my posts from 20-15 years ago I exported the posts from Typepad, which are saved in one txt file in Typepad's MovableType format. However since this is an older and less well known format there is a lack of support for importing the posts into Tumblr.

So I worked with ChatGPT and developed a python script that reads the exported posts and posts them to Tumblr and preserves the date they were originally posted. The script works with Tumblr's OAuth support for apps to post your exported Typepad blog posts to your Tumblr blog.

Note: There is a limit in Tumblr of about 250 posts per Day to prevent spam. So if you have more than that you can use the --start-index and --limit parameters to batch posts each day.

Here is the typepad_to_tymblr.py script that worked for me to help you get started with posting your Typepad export to Tumblr.

You can copy the text from the above and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude and work through the script if you need help troubleshooting how to run it and adding an app with OAuth token.

For the initial setup you can use the --dry-run parameter to check if your python environment and the python script can run properly before it attempts to post to Tumblr.

python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 10 \ --dry-run \ --limit 5

For example, the below parameters would post from the 10th blog entry in your Typepad export and post the next 5 entries: python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 10 \ --limit 5

Next you would start with the 15th blog entry in your export and post the next 5 entries, so you can change the --start-index and --limit values to fit your needs: python3 typepad_to_tumblr.py \ -f /path/to/TypepadExport.txt \ -b yourblog.tumblr.com \ --ck YOUR_CONSUMER_KEY \ --cs YOUR_CONSUMER_SECRET \ --assume-tz Asia/Tokyo \ --start-index 15 \ --limit 5

#typepad #blogging #python #migratedata #import data

typepad_to_tumblr.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3

""" Import Typepad/Movable Type export (.txt) into Tumblr as Text posts, preserving original timestamps where possible.

v4 highlights:

Correct entry/section delimiter handling:

'--------' (8+ dashes) => entry boundary

'-----' (5+ dashes) => section boundary

Case-insensitive headers; scans every line in a section (so DATE: on line 2, after UNIQUE URL:, is captured)

Robust date parsing with --assume-tz (python-dateutil)

Fallbacks: BODY date, UNIQUE URL (/YYYY/MM/DD/ or /YYYY/MM/), --default-date

Dry-run, batching, resume; OAuth 1.0a flow with local token storage

Optional --log-unparsed to review items that lacked a header date """

import argparse import os import re import sys import time import webbrowser import html from dataclasses import dataclass from typing import List, Optional, Dict, Tuple from datetime import datetime from email.utils import format_datetime

import requests from requests_oauthlib import OAuth1, OAuth1Session from dateutil import tz from dateutil import parser as dparser

TUMBLR_API_BASE = "https://api.tumblr.com/v2" REQUEST_TOKEN_URL = "https://www.tumblr.com/oauth/request_token" AUTHORIZE_URL = "https://www.tumblr.com/oauth/authorize" ACCESS_TOKEN_URL = "https://www.tumblr.com/oauth/access_token"

#---------- Typepad (Movable Type) parsing ----------

@dataclass class MTEntry: title: str date: Optional[datetime] body_html: str tags: List[str] unique_url: str had_header_date: bool # whether a header DATE-like field was present & parsed

ENTRY_DELIM = re.compile(r'^\s-{8,}\s$', re.MULTILINE) # '--------' => entry boundary SECTION_DELIM = re.compile(r'^\s-{5,}\s$', re.MULTILINE) # '-----' => section boundary

def smart_parse_date(s: str, default_tz: str = "UTC") -> Optional[datetime]: """Parse a wide variety of date strings. Return UTC-aware datetime or None.""" s = (s or "").strip() if not s: return None try: dt = dparser.parse(s, fuzzy=True) if dt.tzinfo is None: tzinfo = tz.gettz(default_tz) or tz.UTC dt = dt.replace(tzinfo=tzinfo) return dt.astimezone(tz.UTC) except Exception: return None

def date_from_body_html(body_html: str, default_tz: str = "UTC") -> Optional[datetime]: """Try to find a date embedded in BODY/EXTENDED BODY HTML.""" if not body_html: return None text = html.unescape(body_html) # Common pattern:

… m = re.search(r']class=["\']?date["\']?[^>]>(.?)', text, re.I | re.S) if m: dt = smart_parse_date(m.group(1), default_tz) if dt: return dt # Fallback: a “Month dd, yyyy …” snippet m = re.search(r'([A-Za-z]{3,9}\s+\d{1,2},\s+\d{4}[^<\n])', text) if m: return smart_parse_date(m.group(1), default_tz) return None

def date_from_unique_url(url: str, default_tz: str = "UTC") -> Optional[datetime]: """ Infer a date from the permalink path: …/YYYY/MM/DD/slug -> that exact day @ 09:00 local …/YYYY/MM/slug -> month start @ 09:00 local """ if not url: return None tzinfo = tz.gettz(default_tz) or tz.UTC # Try YYYY/MM/DD m = re.search(r'/(\d{4})/(\d{2})/(\d{2})/', url) if m: y, mo, d = map(int, m.groups()) local_dt = datetime(y, mo, d, 9, 0, 0, tzinfo=tzinfo) return local_dt.astimezone(tz.UTC) # Try YYYY/MM m = re.search(r'/(\d{4})/(\d{2})/', url) if m: y, mo = map(int, m.groups()) local_dt = datetime(y, mo, 1, 9, 0, 0, tzinfo=tzinfo) return local_dt.astimezone(tz.UTC) return None

def parse_single_entry(entry_text: str, assume_tz: str) -> Optional[MTEntry]: """ Parse one entry block (between '--------' lines), aggregating its sections split by '-----'. This version scans every line in a section, so secondary header lines are handled. """ sections = [s.strip("\n") for s in SECTION_DELIM.split(entry_text)] fields: Dict[str, str] = {} body_lines: List[str] = [] ext_lines: List[str] = [] in_body = in_ext = Falsedef end_sections(): nonlocal in_body, in_ext in_body = False in_ext = False def val_after_colon(s: str) -> str: p = s.split(":", 1) return p[1].strip() if len(p) > 1 else "" for sec in sections: lines = sec.splitlines() for ln in lines: head = ln.strip() up = head.upper() # Header keys (case-insensitive) spread across lines if up.startswith("TITLE:"): end_sections() fields["TITLE"] = val_after_colon(head) elif (up.startswith("DATE:") or up.startswith("PUBLISH DATE:") or up.startswith("CREATED ON:") or up.startswith("UPDATED ON:")): end_sections() value = val_after_colon(head) if value and not fields.get("DATE"): fields["DATE"] = value elif up.startswith("TAGS:"): end_sections() fields["TAGS"] = val_after_colon(head) elif up.startswith("CATEGORY:"): end_sections() fields["CATEGORIES"] = (fields.get("CATEGORIES", "") + "," + val_after_colon(head)).strip(",") elif up.startswith("UNIQUE URL:"): end_sections() fields["UNIQUE_URL"] = val_after_colon(head) elif up.startswith("BODY:"): end_sections() in_body = True elif up.startswith("EXTENDED BODY:"): end_sections() in_ext = True else: # Content lines belong to the current BODY/EXTENDED section if in_body: body_lines.append(ln) elif in_ext: ext_lines.append(ln) # otherwise ignore metadata noise title = (fields.get("TITLE") or "").strip() # Tags: combine TAGS + CATEGORIES raw_tags = ",".join(filter(None, [fields.get("TAGS", ""), fields.get("CATEGORIES", "")])) tags = [t.strip() for t in re.split(r'[;,]', raw_tags) if t.strip()] # Body HTML body_html = "\n".join(body_lines).strip() ext_html = "\n".join(ext_lines).strip() if ext_html: body_html = body_html + ("\n\n<hr/>\n\n" if body_html else "") + ext_html if not body_html: body_html = "" # Date (robust with fallbacks) header_date_str = (fields.get("DATE") or "").strip() parsed = smart_parse_date(header_date_str, default_tz=assume_tz) had_header_date = parsed is not None if parsed is None: candidate = date_from_body_html(body_html, default_tz=assume_tz) if candidate: parsed = candidate if parsed is None: parsed = date_from_unique_url(fields.get("UNIQUE_URL", ""), default_tz=assume_tz) unique_url = fields.get("UNIQUE_URL", "") return MTEntry( title=(title if title else ((body_html[:60] + "…") if len(body_html) > 60 else (body_html or "(untitled)"))), date=parsed, # may still be None for truly undated items body_html=body_html, tags=tags, unique_url=unique_url, had_header_date=had_header_date )

def parse_mt_export(path: str, assume_tz: str = "UTC") -> List[MTEntry]: """Read the export, split entries on '--------', then parse each entry.""" with open(path, 'r', encoding='utf-8', errors='replace') as f: text = f.read() raw_entries = [blk for blk in ENTRY_DELIM.split(text) if blk.strip()] entries: List[MTEntry] = [] for blk in raw_entries: e = parse_single_entry(blk, assume_tz=assume_tz) if e: entries.append(e) return entries

#---------- Tumblr OAuth + posting ----------

def oauth1_authorize(consumer_key: str, consumer_secret: str) -> Tuple[str, str]: """3-legged OAuth 1.0a flow; opens browser; user pastes verifier.""" oauth = OAuth1Session(consumer_key, client_secret=consumer_secret, callback_uri="http://localhost/callback") fetch_resp = oauth.fetch_request_token(REQUEST_TOKEN_URL) resource_owner_key = fetch_resp.get('oauth_token') resource_owner_secret = fetch_resp.get('oauth_token_secret')auth_url = oauth.authorization_url(AUTHORIZE_URL) print("\nA browser window should open for Tumblr authorization.") print("If it does not, open this URL manually:\n", auth_url, "\n") try: webbrowser.open(auth_url) except Exception: pass verifier = input("After approving, Tumblr shows a verification code (oauth_verifier).\nPaste it here: ").strip() oauth = OAuth1Session( consumer_key, client_secret=consumer_secret, resource_owner_key=resource_owner_key, resource_owner_secret=resource_owner_secret, verifier=verifier, ) tokens = oauth.fetch_access_token(ACCESS_TOKEN_URL) return tokens['oauth_token'], tokens['oauth_token_secret']

def post_text( blog_identifier: str, consumer_key: str, consumer_secret: str, oauth_token: str, oauth_token_secret: str, title: str, body_html: str, tags: List[str], dt_utc: datetime, dry_run: bool = False ) -> Dict: """Create a Tumblr text post, preserving publish date.""" url = f"{TUMBLR_API_BASE}/blog/{blog_identifier}/post" if dt_utc.tzinfo is None: dt_utc = dt_utc.replace(tzinfo=tz.UTC) date_rfc2822 = format_datetime(dt_utc)payload = { "type": "text", "state": "published", "title": title, "body": body_html, "tags": ",".join(tags) if tags else "", "date": date_rfc2822, } if dry_run: print("[dry-run] Would POST:", {"url": url, "payload": {k: (v if k != "body" else f"<{len(v)} chars>") for k, v in payload.items()}}) return {"dry_run": True, "ok": True, "id": None} auth = OAuth1(consumer_key, client_secret=consumer_secret, resource_owner_key=oauth_token, resource_owner_secret=oauth_token_secret) resp = requests.post(url, data=payload, auth=auth, timeout=30) try: data = resp.json() except Exception: data = {"meta": {"status": resp.status_code}, "raw": resp.text} status = data.get("meta", {}).get("status", resp.status_code) if status not in (201, 202): raise RuntimeError(f"Tumblr error: HTTP {resp.status_code} {data}") return data

def save_tokens(path: str, token: str, secret: str): with open(path, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f: f.write(token.strip() + "\n" + secret.strip() + "\n") os.chmod(path, 0o600)

def load_tokens(path: str) -> Optional[Tuple[str, str]]: if not os.path.exists(path): return None with open(path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f: lines = [l.strip() for l in f.read().splitlines() if l.strip()] if len(lines) >= 2: return lines[0], lines[1] return None

def parse_iso_or_none(s: Optional[str], tzname: str) -> Optional[datetime]: if not s: return None try: dt = dparser.parse(s) if dt.tzinfo is None: dt = dt.replace(tzinfo=tz.gettz(tzname) or tz.UTC) return dt.astimezone(tz.UTC) except Exception: return None

def main(): ap = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Import Typepad/Movable Type export to Tumblr (as Text posts).") ap.add_argument("-f", "--file", required=True, help="Path to Typepad/Movable Type export file (.txt)") ap.add_argument("-b", "--blog", required=True, help="Tumblr blog identifier, e.g. myblog.tumblr.com") ap.add_argument("--ck", "--consumer-key", dest="consumer_key", required=True, help="Tumblr Consumer Key") ap.add_argument("--cs", "--consumer-secret", dest="consumer_secret", required=True, help="Tumblr Consumer Secret") ap.add_argument("--tokens", default=os.path.expanduser("~/.tumblr_oauth_tokens"), help="File to store OAuth access tokens (created after first auth)") ap.add_argument("--assume-tz", default="UTC", help="Timezone for naive dates (e.g., 'Asia/Tokyo').") ap.add_argument("--default-date", help="Fallback date if none can be parsed (e.g., '2001-01-01 09:00'). Uses --assume-tz if naive.") ap.add_argument("--start-index", type=int, default=0, help="Start at this entry index (for resuming)") ap.add_argument("--limit", type=int, default=0, help="Post at most N entries (0 = no limit)") ap.add_argument("--sleep", type=float, default=2.0, help="Seconds to sleep between posts (respect rate limits)") ap.add_argument("--dry-run", action="store_true", help="Parse & show payloads without posting") ap.add_argument("--log-unparsed", help="Write entries that lacked a header date to this TSV file") args = ap.parse_args()# OAuth: load or obtain tokens toks = load_tokens(args.tokens) if toks is None and not args.dry_run: print("No OAuth tokens found; starting authorization flow…") atok, asec = oauth1_authorize(args.consumer_key, args.consumer_secret) save_tokens(args.tokens, atok, asec) toks = (atok, asec) print(f"Saved access tokens to {args.tokens}") elif toks is None and args.dry_run: toks = ("", "") print("Parsing export…") entries = parse_mt_export(args.file, assume_tz=args.assume_tz) print(f"Found {len(entries)} entries.") # Diagnostics unparsed_rows = [] default_dt = parse_iso_or_none(args.default_date, args.assume_tz) if args.default_date else None start = max(0, args.start_index) end = len(entries) if args.limit == 0 else min(len(entries), start + args.limit) posted = 0 for idx in range(start, end): e = entries[idx] # Finalize date fallback policy for any truly undated entry dt = e.date if dt is None: if default_dt is not None: dt = default_dt else: dt = datetime.now(tz.UTC) print(f"[warn] Could not parse DATE '', using now for this entry. (title='{e.title}')", file=sys.stderr) if args.log_unparsed and not e.had_header_date: unparsed_rows.append(f"{idx}\t{e.title}\t{e.unique_url}") print(f"[{idx+1}/{len(entries)}] {e.title} — {dt.isoformat()} ({len(e.tags)} tags)") try: resp = post_text( blog_identifier=args.blog, consumer_key=args.consumer_key, consumer_secret=args.consumer_secret, oauth_token=toks[0], oauth_token_secret=toks[1], title=e.title, body_html=e.body_html, tags=e.tags, dt_utc=dt, dry_run=args.dry_run ) if not args.dry_run: post_id = resp.get("response", {}).get("id") print(f" -> posted OK (id={post_id})") else: print(" -> dry-run OK") posted += 1 except Exception as ex: print(f" !! error posting entry {idx}: {ex}", file=sys.stderr) if idx < end - 1 and args.sleep > 0 and not args.dry_run: time.sleep(args.sleep) if args.log_unparsed: with open(args.log_unparsed, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f: f.write("index\ttitle\tunique_url\n") for row in unparsed_rows: f.write(row + "\n") print(f"[info] Wrote {len(unparsed_rows)} rows to {args.log_unparsed}") print(f"Done. {'Dry-run ' if args.dry_run else ''}Processed {posted} entries from index {start} to {end-1}.")

if name == "main": main()

#python #typepad #blogging #vox

<br/> Com Truise: "Smily Cyclops" [In Decay] "Hellraiser: Bl…

Com Truise: "Smily Cyclops" [In Decay] "Hellraiser: Bloodline" by Alan Smithee from Vimeo http://bit.ly/2pmXEzl via IFTTT Redirecting to actual pageredirecting tohttps://vimeo.com/193965410

EXCERPT: KEYWORDS:

<blockquote><div style="float: right;"> <img src="https:…

Amazon has announced that its new sci-fi anthology series Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams will premiere on Friday, January 12, exclusively on Prime Video. Based on various writings from author Philip K. Dick, each of the ten standalone episodes are set in a different and unique world - some which lay in the far reaches of the universe, and others which are much closer to home. While the stories may be worlds apart, central to each is the poignant and warm exploration of the importance and significance of humanity. From five to 5000 years in the future, each compelling tale will both illustrate Philip K. Dick's prophetic vision and celebrate the enduring appeal of the prized sci-fi novelist's work. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams will be available as a Prime Exclusive Series in the U.S., as well as in select territories globally, including Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Latin America, Spain and Turkey, among others. Dick's Emmy award-winning The Man in the High Castle, the most-watched scripted series in the history of Prime Video, will begin its third season in 2018.

via scifiandtvtalk.typepad.com

Awesome cast! I'll be checking this out when it's released.

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flanaganfilm

Good day Mr Flanagan. please what does "the rest is confetti" mean to you and in the context it was used in hill house??

Okay, here we go. Buckle up for a long read.

To answer this, I've got to explain a little bit about what was happening and where I was when I sat down to write episode 10 of The Haunting of Hill House.

Hill House was not a fun shoot. The picture above is from very early in production, when I was still chubby and happy.

It was my first foray into television. I was absolutely terrified that I'd mess it up. So I'd opted to direct all of the episodes myself, figuring that - if nothing else - I'd have no one else to blame if it went south.

It was the most grueling professional experience of my career. The shoot was by no means a smooth one, every day was an uphill battle from a budgetary perspective, and between the three giant production entities involved with the production, I spent a lot of time fighting over the creative and logistical elements of the series.

I began losing weight. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.

By the end of the shoot, I had dropped almost 40 lbs.

I was very depressed. Every day was a battle, and for the first time in my career, I wasn't excited to go to work in the morning. We were fighting for basic resources, fighting for the show we wanted, and even fighting amongst ourselves by the end. It was grueling.

We hadn't written all of the scripts when we started production. I believe we had finished through episode 7, but the rest of the scripts had to be finished while we were already shooting.

We'd mapped everything out in the writers room, and I had great support on the other episodes, but I was writing the finale solo. I'd thought I'd be able to juggle it with everything else. I quickly fell behind.

I finally got to the script about halfway through production. I'd work on it between takes at the monitor, and then get home to our tiny rental house in Atlanta, where Kate was waiting with our baby son. (One of the rare bright spots of this shoot came when Kate found out she was pregnant about halfway through production. We even named our daughter Theodora, in honor of her origins.)

I'd typically fall down from exhaustion when I got home, but I had to push through it and work on the script. My weekends were spent shotlisting and prepping for upcoming episodes. We didn't have enough time to stay ahead of prep, so every available day was used for that... I went three months without a single day off at one point.

I'd sit up late staring at the script. I was in a dark, dark place. Overwhelmed, exhausted, and feeling like I lived in an eternal present. Each day bled into the next and it didn't feel like there was an end in sight. That feeling of unreality was heightened because we kept returning to the same sets, same locations, and even the same scenes throughout the 100 shooting-day production. Stepping back into the exact room we had shot in days or weeks or even months ago made the whole thing feel absolutely surreal. Making moves is always an non-linear experience, but this one felt particularly so... it was like the days of our lives were happening to us all out of order.

I remember feeling something like despair creeping into my daily experience on the show. And I remember dwelling on that when I got into the scene work of episode 10.

As I worked through the draft, I recall that despair coloring a lot of what was on the page. My filter was breaking down. There's a monologue at the beginning of the episode where Steven's wife Leigh (played by my dear friend Samantha Sloyan) spews out a torrent of eviscerating insults about Steve's value as a writer. That is just me vomiting onto myself. She was voicing all of my deepest insecurities about myself at the time, and of what I was doing with this series.

She says "Is anything real before you write it, Steve? The things you write about, they're real. Those people are real, their feelings are real, their pain is real - but not to you, is it. Not until you chew it up, digest it, and shit it out onto a piece of paper and even then, it's a pale imitation at best."

This was the mindset I was in for a lot of the shoot. The writing became a reflection of a lot of that turmoil, and I knew who I was referring to in that monologue - I was talking about my family. I was talking about how much of their lives I'd used as building material for this show. I was talking about the fact that I'd lost two loved ones to suicide, and seen what it had done to my mother in particular. And I knew I was using - possibly even exploiting - those people for this series.

There's a lot of despair in this episode. The Red Room, as we conceived it, was a place that would feed upon those emotions. Grief, sadness, loss... those were the real ghosts of our series, and where our characters find themselves at the start of the finale. They're being slowly digested - eaten alive - by those feelings.

So finally, it came time to write Nell's final scene with her siblings. I knew from the outline we'd constructed in the writers room what this was supposed to accomplish - she was supposed to be their salvation. She was supposed to take all of these feelings that we'd been wrestling with and finally provide catharsis... finally say something that would free everyone.

I remember sitting with a blinking cursor for a long time. The Crain siblings had just turned and seen Nellie standing by the door, and suddenly were able to hear her speak. But what should she say? What would I say? What would I want someone to say to me?

What she ultimately says lays bare a lot of what I was thinking about when it comes to grief. It exists outside of linear time, much as I felt I existed at the time. That sense of eternal present, that sense of a nonlinear eternity of moments and memories - it all came out in her speech to her brothers and sisters.

I remember feeling, looking at my insane present and looking back at my past, how strangely overwhelmed I was by memories. That I wasn't experiencing time in a straight line, and hadn't been for a while - for the better part of a year, I'd felt more like I was standing in a whirlwind of moments. "Our moments fall around us like..." Nell said, and I recall sitting back and trying to find the words.

"Rain," for certain, but there was something too uniform about that. The moments of life as I experienced them weren't that orderly, they weren't that small. They didn't fall the same way. Some sailed by, fast and unremarkable, while others lingered in front of me, twisting and stretching. So it was a good word, but not the right word. I left it on the page though.

"Snow" was my next attempt. Better, in that I imagined the snow blowing in the wind, swirling and dancing and feeling more organic. More chaotic. More like life. But for some reason, the word that stuck with me, the word I felt Nell Crain would connect with was...

"Confetti."

And that was because I was thinking not of Victoria Pedretti at this point, but of Violet McGraw.

Violet played Young Nell, and I wondered what she might have said if she experienced time this way. As an adult, Nell was despairing. Nell was overwhelmed. But as a child... there was an innocence to the word. There was a joy to the word.

I imagined moments falling around her, this little girl with the big smile and the wide eyes. Her moments would be colorful. They would be of different shapes and sizes, some falling fast and some falling slow, flipping and turning and dancing in the air, independent of the others. Sparkling, whirling, doing lazy summersaults as they sauntered down to Earth.

I thought of myself, and of the members of my family. I thought of those we'd lost. I realized what I hoped for them, and for us all, in the end... was to look upon that mosaic of experience, that avalanche of days and minutes and moments... and to smile with some of the joy we had as children.

And this, I thought, was something that gave me hope. This gave me a glimpse of some kind of salvation for them. This was also how I hoped my life might seem if I was a ghost - a cascade of color and light and shape and movement, something I could dance in.

So Nell smiled and said... "or confetti."

It stuck with me. The rest of her monologue gets heavy again, and gets to the real point of the show - the point of the whole series, if I'm honest - and that's forgiveness.

I figured the only thing that would let the Crain children out of the Red Room was to be forgiven. I thought of the losses in my own family, and I thought of what I wished for my mother and for my aunts and uncles and cousins and I tried to pour that into her final words.

"I loved you completely, and you loved me the same," she said, "that's all." And this was the point I wanted the most to make. That at the end of our life, if we can say this about each other, the rest doesn't matter. The rest is that rainstorm, or that blizzard, that fell around this one central truth, and maybe built itself in piles around it, to the point we lost sight of it along the way.

And I thought again of that little girl, and almost as an afterthought, wrote "The rest is confetti."

I liked the way it sounded, but I was insecure about the line. I almost took it out, in fact. I remember asking Kate to read the scene and talking about that last line with her. "Is it too cute?" I wondered. She was on the fence. "Depends on how it's acted," she said, and I figured she was right. We could always take it out if it didn't work. The scene could end with "I loved you completely, and you loved me the same. That's all."

Why not shoot it and see what happened.

I turned in the script, we published it quickly so that we could start breaking it down and prepping it. And the next morning I was back on set. I'd deal with episode 10 when it came down the pipe again, sometime in the coming months. We had a lot of shooting to get through before I had to worry about it.

I recall Netflix asking me to cut a lot of that monologue, and I remember them also having questions about the "confetti" line. I pointed out that it didn't cost us any extra to shoot it all, it was only words, and fought to keep the script intact.

Ultimately, they insisted I make a series of cuts on the page. I begrudgingly agreed, but left Nell's speech alone. I made superficial cuts around it, throughout the draft, and even considered changing the font size to fool them into thinking it had gotten shorter (I ultimately was told I wouldn't fool anyone and not to risk starting a war). But Nellie's final goodbye stayed intact.

It must be said - Victoria Pedretti SLAUGHTERED this scene.

By the time we got around to filming it, things had never been worse for the production. There was almost nothing left for a lot of us. Tensions were sky-high, resources had been exhausted completely, and we were all ready to give up.

Filming in the mold-ridden Red Room was depressing, morose, and led to a lot of arguments and unpleasantness. The room itself just felt gross, always, and we were in there for days at a time. The last thing we had to shoot in there was Nellie's goodbye.

Victoria came to set having to push through pages of monologue, and she did so with captivating bravado. I recall being teary-eyed at the monitor watching her work. And when we finally made it to the last line, I watched her deliver it with... a smile. A sincere, innocent, longing, joyful smile. A smile informed by the sadness, grief, and loss of her own situation, of her own life... but a smile that finds forgiveness and grace after all. Pedretti knew how to say the line, and how that word would work.

And as she said it, I knew it would stay in the show.

Over the years, that sentence has become something of a tagline for The Haunting of Hill House. I'm always a bit mystified and touched when I see people approach me with the line on T-shirts, or even tattooed on their bodies.

I started signing it with autographs back in 2020 after enough fans asked me to. Now it's my go-to when I sign anything related to Hill House.

The line, for me, represents a lot of things.

It's about the insane, chaotic, non-linear experience of making that show. It's about trying to find and hold onto joy, even in the grips of despair.

It's about the way the moments of our lives aren't linear, not really, and how we may be unable to understand them as we exist in their flurry. It's about finding hope, innocence and forgiveness in the final reckoning.

And it's about how, outside of our love for each other, the rest is just... well, it's fleeting. It's colorful. It's overwhelming. It's blinding. It's dancing. And, if we look at it right, it's beautiful. But it's also light. It's tinsel. It flits and dances and falls and fades, it's as light as air. The rest is the stuff that falls around us, and flits away into nothing.

It's the love that stays, though.

lonelybob

Long read on the behind the scene challenges of making a successful TV series.

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