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The Rev. Helen Orr, at home in Cambridge

I wanted to share with you some good news, for once. What follows is the text of my last two Substack newsletters, to which you can subscribe here. I use the newsletter to focus on spiritual, religious, and aesthetic interests which is to say, no culture-warring or politics. Though I am unhappy to be a displaced person (Im in the UK, waiting on getting a visa to get back to Europe), graces abound. Read on. RD

[The first one, titled, The Abbess of The Moorings]

You readers are going to get two of these today. Im on my way back to England, having been deported by the Austrian authorities when I tried to return to Vienna last night. My papers werent in order. Totally my fault! And the border police were actually very nice about it. Still, I have to go back to the UK and appeal to the Austrian Embassy in London for a visa. Further bad news: my research trip to France is now impossible, because I cant get anywhere into the EU without a visa.

The good news is that I will now have more time to write. The further good news is that Ill be returning to The Moorings, the Cambridge home of my friends James and Helen Orr, who hosted me there this week. I have to tell you, their rambling home on the banks of the river Cam, north of the town, is an oasis of peace and Benedictine hospitality.

James Orr is one of the bravest men in British public life for instance, he led the resistance to the universitys attempt to crush free speech and keep Jordan Peterson from speaking there but Helen is the happy genius of their household. I had not met her until this trip. She is the daughter of a prominent Anglican bishop, the late Simon Barrington-Ward, and is herself an Anglican parish priest. She and James, and their two children, host Christian student boarders in their house, and have built a kind of Benedict Option community there. The place and its people are so welcoming, and I think its mostly down to Helen.

(Ive added her as a subscriber to this newsletter, so I know she will be reading this and will probably be embarrassed by my praise, but sometimes one has to push on ascetically through such trials.)

When I arrived there earlier this week, Helen took me on a walk through their back garden. One of the best things about England is their gardens. Im an ardent Francophile in most things, but on gardens, I much prefer to messy English approach to the Cartesian severity of the French style. Helen told me of her plans to build a chapel there, and to keep working to make it a real center of art and healing in Christ.

She knew about my divorce situation from her husband, with whom I have been friends for several years. We stood down by the river and she spoke to me about it with directness and pastoral compassion in equal measure. I sure needed to hear what she had to say. In an earlier time and place, she would have been a great abbess of a vast and famous monastery. Today, she is vicar ofthe countryside parish of Bassingbourn, which dates back at least to the 13th century.

Over the past few days, Ive watched Helen oversee people coming and going from her house, feeding us, taking her kids to their activities, running a lodger to the doctor, and so forth. It was really something to see, how much passion she poured into making us all feel at home and cared for. And then when she sat down to talk with me from time to time about life in Christ, her words were always deep, wise, and comforting in fact, comfortingbecausedeep and wise. She has a rare gift of being able to speak with casual cheerfulness about profound things. Helen makes one feel seen. Whatever one thinks of womens ordination I think its impossible for us Orthodox, but the Anglicans can do what they want Helen has a pastoral gift that might be more powerful than any I have ever seen.

It might be that she made such a powerful impression on me because she reminds me of my Aunt Lois and Aunt Hilda, about whom Ive written a number of times over the years. Lois and Hilda were sisters of my fathers grandmother. They were born in the 1890s, and were very old when I was a little boy, and knew them. I would go to their tiny cabin at the end of a pecan orchard every day to visit, and to be dazzled by their presence, and their stories. Here they are with little me, about 1969:

Thats Hilda on the left, and Lois on the right. They were formidable, let me tell you. They had volunteered to be Red Cross nurses during World War I. I trace my abiding love of France to their stories about serving in the canteen in Dijon, and traveling around France after the war. Hilda was especially indomitable. In the great 1927 Mississippi River flood, she wanted to deliver relief supplies to the stranded in rural north Louisiana, but the Red Cross wouldnt allow its female workers to take that risk. So Hilda disguised herself as a man, took command of a supply boat, and went into the wild.

Thats the kind of women they were. So is Helen, I divine.

I wish I had been able to get through the border police and back to my apartment in Vienna. But it is not necessarily a bad thing that Im headed back to Cambridge, and to the home of the Orr family. Last night I bedded down in the airport chapel here in Vienna, comforted by the thought of sleeping where travelers pray. I was thinking that though my interrupted travel is unwelcome, maybe God allowed it to happen because He has something He needs to show me back in England. Helen is so full of life and curiosity about the world God has made that I can easily believe enchanted things are about to happen.

More later today I have to transcribe and publish here an amazing interview I did with an Anglican ordinand. And I want to share with you some things I read in the Venerable Bede last night, about St. Cuthbert. I had never really thought about the Anglo-Saxon saints until hearing about them this week in England. You just never know who you are going to meet, and what you are going to learn once you step off the everyday path.

The plane is boarding here in Vienna now. Back to Blighty!

[Here is the second one, titled The Pearls Of The Abbess]

Well, the adventure continues. Last night at the vacant terminal at the Vienna airport, I took comfort in the fact that the only place I could find to sleep not on the floor was in the airport chapel. It calmed me deeply, because I was resting where God is praised. It made me trust that despite the unpleasantness of being deported, and losing my pilgrimage to holy places in France next week (because I cant get back into the European Union/Schengen area until I get a visa, for which I have now applied), I felt assured that God was in it. That He has a plan here. I should have been quite distressed and unhappy, but somehow, I was calm, and thought, OK, God, what are you up to?

I arrived back at Londons Stansted airport, and waited in a very long passport control line. Theres a rail strike on here now, so trains were running off schedule. I finally caught a local up to Cambridge, and arrived in the sweltering heat not long after eleven a.m. I couldnt get an Uber none available, unusually so I decided to walk to The Moorings. Only twenty minutes away, though the weather was hot, and I was toting three bags. Still, I just wanted to get a shower and fall into bed, so off I went.

On the way, I began to pray the Jesus Prayer. I usually do when Im walking.Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.I walked a few minutes like that, but then the thought crossed my mind: back in the Before Times, I used to love calling my wife and sharing, in delight, the craziness of things like this (Can you believe it? I got deported! Isnt that just how it goes?). Now I cant do that. I havent been able to do this for about a decade. I miss it so much. That thought settled in, and brought with it sadness, and anger, and suddenly, I couldnt pray any more.

Dont surrender to it, I thought.Keep praying.But I remember making a deliberate choice to poke the sore tooth with my tongue, to linger on my unhappiness, and my sense of dislocation, of exile. I thought about this for the rest of the walk to The Moorings.

I let myself through the gate, and found the Abbess in her living room. I set my bags down, and flopped onto the sofa, while she flurried to the kitchen to get me something to drink. When she sat down, she showed me the handsome strand of pearls she was wearing.

I put them on today to remind myself to tell you the story about them, she said. The Abbess told me that she loved these pearls, but one day, she noticed they had gone missing. She looked everywhere for them, but couldnt find them. She was heartbroken, but figured that was just the way it goes sometimes.

As the year went on, Helen began to doubt whether she was doing the right things with her life. Finally, she prayed, Lord, if I am where Im supposed to be, doing the things Im supposed to do, please bring me back my pearls.

The next day, the Abbess got a call from her sister in Scotland. Did you lose your pearls? the sister asked. My friend found some pearls in the back garden. She thought maybe they were costume jewelry. I told her that no, I think those are my sisters pearls. Are they?

They were! The sister pointed out that her dog had gotten into Helens bag when she, her husband James, and the kids had been visiting last. The dog must have pulled the pearls out, and dropped them in the garden. For a year, people had been treading that garden, mowing it, and tending it, but no one had seen the pearls until that day. Until Helen had asked God to return them to her as a sign.

I wanted to share that with you because its a sign of enchantment, she told me. And of course I agreed.

We talked a bit more. She mentioned her late father, Anglican Bishop Simon Barrington-Ward, and how intimate was his friendship with C.S. Lewis and indeed, how before the bishop died in 2020, had been one of the last people left living who had been close to Lewis.

Soon I apologized to my hostess, and told her, My mind is so discombobulated that I cant form a coherent thought. I need to go down to the room, get a shower, and get some sleep.

At that moment, a neighbor showed up, poked her head in the back door, and gave Helen some information. I cant remember what it was about, but what I do remember was that the neighbor said that she felt so discombobulated. I dont know when I last used or heard that word, but now it had been spoken twice within four minutes. By now in my life, Ive learned to take that kind of thing as a synchronicity, as a meaningful coincidence. It always means, simply,pay attention, God is revealing something to you.

I went down to my room at the side of the garden, and got the last of my clean clothes to take to the bathroom for a shower. Ten minutes later, I was freshly washed and lying in the cool darkness of the room. Before I fell asleep, I looked at my e-mail. There was this from my friend Wesley J. Smith, a fellow Orthodox convert:

Just read of your travail in being barred from the EU.

If you are in England for a while, please spend a day or two at theMonastery of St. John in Essex.Founded by St. Sophrony the Athonite. Experience the Jesus Prayer service. Imagine hours of the JP chanted in different languages. It has to be experienced, it cant be described. I prayed at his tomb, and I have never felt the Holy Spirit so strongly. Completely off the grid. You have to call. Do. It is sublime.

Well, turns out that that monastery is not too far from where Im staying in Cambridge. Maybe I can get there.

Then there was a letter from another reader of this Substack, a priest, who sent this video. Its from eight years ago, with Helen interviewing her father, the late and much beloved Bishop Simon about the Jesus Prayer! I started watching it, and look, here is the first image, of Helen introducing her dad:

Shes wearing the pearls.

I thought, okay, this is a real synchronicity. I need to watch this video, but only when Im in my right mind. I closed my laptop and fell asleep.

A few hours later, when I woke up, I watched it. Here it is:

It is plain and gentle and like cool, clear water. The bishop who, Helen told me, wrote two books about the Jesus Prayer talks about what it is and why its so important. He mentions going to the Monastery in Essex, becoming close friends with the Abbot Sophrony, and learning the Jesus Prayer from him. In the video, the bishop holds a prayer rope that the future canonized saint gave him. Bishop Simon simply tells how to pray the Jesus Prayer, and why (e.g., he explainstheosis). None of it was new information to me, but it was like being stopped wandering off the road, and pointed back to the straight path by this dear old Christian Englishman, the father of my new friend the Abbess.

Do I even need to tell you that I am going to do my very best to get out to that Monastery this weekend, or at least while I am in England waiting on my visa problem to get sorted? I am so sorry to be missing Mont-Saint-Michel and Rocamadour next week, but I will get there eventually. There is something God has for me to learn here, in England, at St. Sophronys monastery.

When I finished the video, I came up to the house, and found the Abbess finishing her sermon for this Sunday. She told me that she has never watched that video of herself and her dad, but maybe now she should. What if it is, for Helen, another strand of pearls, lost in the garden, but now turned up at just the right moment?

I asked the Abbess if I could photograph her with the pearls. Yes, she said, but do so in front of this colorful painting hanging in her living room. She bought it many years ago, after a painful crisis in her life, one that she was coming out of with some professional success (before she became a vicar, Helen was a recording artist). She explained that she was walking in Notting Hill one day after signing a recording deal, saw the painting in a shop, and was so moved by the brightness of it, the warmth, and the life in its colors. But she figured it would be too expensive. It wasnt, so she bought it.

Helens husband James, a Cambridge professor, commented, That painting has enlivened every house we lived in, no matter how Dickensian. And there is the happy genius of her household, wearing pearls, in front of the painting.

Later, she loaned me one of her late fathers prayer ropes (not the one from St. Sophrony, which is with a friend at the moment), so I can pray the Jesus Prayer on it while Im here. I will pray it tonight, and ask for Bishop Simon and his friend St. Sophrony to join me in prayer. Im onto something. Turns out I was right to be calm in the airport chapel last night, and to trust that God was going to use that crisis to show me something I needed to see.

But what? Ill soon find out. And you know Ill report back!

Helen just showed me something she wrote down a while back to comfort her husband in a time of stress, and has kept near to hand in their bedroom. She wants me to share it as the Abbesss pastoral message to you all this evening:

Read more:
The Abbess Of The Moorings - The American Conservative

Jarra Anderson is getting ready to start a tour of official visits and it will begin with Kansas.

Anderson who goes by the name Bear, has been talking with Kansas assistant coaches Jordan Peterson and Jim Panagos.

Peterson started recruiting him and when Panagos joined the staff he helped as the position coach. Anderson said his relationship has been solid with both coaches.

We have a really good relationship and I felt like it just grew stronger throughout the time that we've been talking, he said.

Peterson recruits the area and Panagos coaches the defensive tackles.

Coach Peterson is a really cool guy, and I really like him and the vibe he gives off, Anderson said. Coach Panagos is a good coach and has a defense that he's going to build. If Im going to be a part of the defense he's trying to build, I would be in the position that I want to be in.

One thing Panagos has told Anderson is the fact he likes how many different positions he can play along the line.

He told me he likes that I can be a hybrid d-Lineman going from a zero tech all the way out to a five tech, Anderson said. He told me he likes my twitch and my ferocity off the line. He said I'm fast and quick to the ball.

[Anderson talks about his nickname "Bear"]

This will be Andersons first official visit and what will be a busy ending to the month.

I just want to get a feel of the city and the school and all the players and just the atmosphere of KU football, he said.

Following his trip to Kansas he will take official visits to Colorado and Washington State. He does not have a specific time where he will make decision but will use all his visits to compare each school.

Im looking for that place that feels like home, he said. Because that's where I'm going to be for the next three to four years. So, I want to have that place that I can call home and it feels that way.

Read more from the original source:
JayhawkSlant - Bear Anderson will start his slate of visits with Kansas - Rivals.com - Kansas

A photo of Roddy Ricch in the desert.

Social media has been a mixed bag since it came on the scene; it has been a force for immense good and a home for some of the most harmful interactions.

Process exposure refers to social media activities where influencers and users consistently reveal the creative process behind their successes and outcomes to their audience.

Social media has frequently been used by millions of influencers and celebrities as a way to show off the good life and flaunt their successes. While celebrities flaunted their Grammys and Oscars, their followers were usually left with an insatiable hunger for the same results without understanding the process behind it.

This gross lack of process exposure has tainted the legacy of the biggest social media platforms and made them a purveyor of insecurities rather than a powerful tool for education and inspiration. However, a lot of positive change has gone unnoticed.

Since 2011, when YouTube introduced its live streaming function, Live video has exploded on the scene and become the favorite content consumed by most social media users. Statistics show that people spend three times longer watching a live social video than a prerecorded one.

The unintentional effect of this shift towards live video has been a drastic increase in process exposure. Going live as opposed to creating videos has dramatically increased the ability of content creators, influencers, and celebrities to bring their viewers along through every step of the journey. It has become the reality TV of social media.

Grammy Award-winning, and Forbes 30 Under 30, artist, Roddy Ricch, has not just observed this shift towards live video; he has also observed the craving among the average social media user for more process-inclined content in general.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 26: Roddy Ricch (R) and guest attend the 62nd Annual GRAMMY Awards ... [+] at Staples Center on January 26, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

After making his mark in the music industry with his multiple awards ranging from the Grammys, BET, and the American Music Awards, amongst others, Ricch decided to venture into the tech space and build his brand portfolio. Ricchs search for the next big tech disruptor has led him to the team at Roll, a new digital platform that promises a new and unique connection experience between celebrities and their followers.

Ricch explained why he instantly saw the potential in the Roll project; "Being invited to be part of the creative process of developing the Roll app, was a big eureka moment for me, because it put in action, what I have been feeling for so long; people are tired of watching the outcome of all our hard work on social media, they want to see all the steps that led us there. This is the only way people can leave educated and inspired.

There have been far too many aspiring artist who thought they could just jump, pick up a mic, and start rapping because they were inspired by one of my songs, they didn't know the process behind the outcome. That's what Roll is showing".

The digital platform is designed to allow artists, creators and celebrities to share an inside look at their personal lives as well as the process of creating content and music with their fans and followers. With Roll, users can access the insights of making an album, from the late nights to the early mornings, building beats, laying verses, and the music video shoot. Roll's vision speaks to the larger benefits of process exposure.

Ricch is adamant that process-oriented content is the future of social media content. According to Ricch, process exposure will turn followers into leaders by providing direction, education, and inspiration.

Direction

Today's youth are heavily inspired by social media creators, celebrities, and influencers, sometimes more than other influences. However, loving a person or art does not automatically translate to possessing the ability to replicate the person's art or results. As process exposure becomes mainstream, young people will likely make more informed decisions after being exposed to the processes behind what they admire.

Education

From academics like Jordan Peterson to athletes like LeBron James, today's social media users are exposed to a wide gamut of solid influences.As process-inclined videos and content continue to explode, users can gain more step-by-step education in many areas of interest.

CAMBRIDGE, CAMBRIDGESHIRE - NOVEMBER 02: Jordan Peterson addresses students at The Cambridge Union ... [+] on November 02, 2018 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire. (Photo by Chris Williamson/Getty Images)

The number of Americans choosing to go to college is steadily declining; perhaps process-inclined content can become a source of quality informal education.

Inspiration

Ricch stated, the most significant impact of the Roll app is its inspirational value. In his words, "It is one thing to know if you should do it, it is another thing to know how to do it, but inspiration is the most powerful part of what we are doing. Exposing an audience to both the highs and the lows of process inspires them to know that the best of men are just men at best and that if anyone can do it, certainly they can too."

It may be impossible to lower the internet's amount of unprofitable content being released, but the gradual push for more process exposure does hold some promise. Perhaps, social media might finally fulfill its true potential.

Read more:
How Roddy Ricch Is Impacting The Tech Landscape - Forbes

Comic artist Cline Keller explains complex climate problems - such as the Energy Charter Treaty - ... [+] in graphic form.

Climate experts are worried: the urgency of climate change isnt getting through to the general public. Increasingly dire warnings and the growing ferocity of extreme weather events seem to elicit little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Perhaps this isnt surprising: the scale of the climate crisis can seem too huge, and far beyond our control. In many ways, simply switching off is a rational response.

In the face of news fatigue and its byproduct of indifference, visual artists are turning to alternative methods to spread climate awareness where news stories have failed.

I try to show that while this stuff is complicated and super important, its much easier to understand if you get the context, says German comic book artist Cline Keller. Explaining a topic is much easier if we tell stories. And the stories are there, if you look.

As it turns out, graphic novels and comics are becoming an important tool in the climate communicators arsenal. From the sci-fi of Dark Horse comics Shifting Earth to Philippe Squarzonis Climate Changed, an all-in-one crash-course on the subject, theres something for everyone.

Keller has just released Dawn of the ECT, a self-published comic that deals with the fiendishly complex Energy Charter Treaty. In the West it might seem unconventional to see such weighty topics dealt with in a comic format. But in Kellers view, the more complex the problem, the more valuable the graphic artform becomes; narrative images, she thinks, have a way of cutting through that news headlines and social media no longer can.

In these times, with one scandal chasing the next, its important to arrange stuff in relation to its history. I think comics are great for that, she tells me. Getting activists and communities up to speed on a topic with a comic instead of a pile of articles can help.

In Dawn of the ECT, Keller narrates the story of an international agreement so obscure that most mass media outlets have avoided discussing it. Yet the ECT is important: it enables companies such as oil firms to sue countries for billions of dollars in compensation in secret tribunals, often in response to government attempts to pass climate legislationlike, for example, when Italy tried to ban offshore drilling near its coastline.

Legal advocacy groups such as ClientEarth have called for the EU to abandon the ECT, saying it jeopardises Europes climate goals. Whistleblower and climate researcher Yamina Saheb, who initially worked at the body overseeing the ECT, has described it as an ecocide treaty.

In Kellers version of the story of the ECT, the heroine, a personification of the European Green Deal, exclaims either we kill this treaty, or the treaty will kill us, as a zombified monstrosity representing the energy firms looms overhead. Corporate lawyers in the guise of Mafia-esque hoodlums explain how, by using a mechanism called an investor state dispute settlement, they intend to exert a chilling effect on climate action by challenging any decision that affects an investment by the energy sector.

The complexity of the subject-matter didnt discourage Keller from illustrating it. In fact, it rather appealed to her.

Keller's Discourses of Climate Delay, released in 2021.

It was super stressful but exciting, she says. I love deep-diving into something and trying to figure out how to make it work as a story. Dawn of the ECT, Keller says, is a collage of research and bits of articles I put together in a way that hopefully make up a story that draws you in.

Its not the first time Keller has dealt with a complex climate topic: in 2021 she released Discourses of Climate Delay, a comic based on an influential academic paper of the same name. That research looked at a shifting of the fossil fuel industrys climate strategy, from simply denying the existence of climate change, to introducing delaying tactics intended to justify climate inaction. The comic version offers a visually striking breakdown of the key takeaways from the report, telling the story of how the oil industry and complicit politicians do everything in their power to prevent meaningful change.

Though largely ignored by the mass media, Discourses of Climate Delay made waves among numerous academics and activists, with university and high school climate educators employing the comic to help explain why climate inaction persists.

A freelance artist and animator, Keller, 45, is self-taught. I did apply to art school, but none wanted me, she says. She dabbled in theology for a time, but realized thats not where a queer person should be. She found associating pictures with information to be a useful memory aid, and a way to organize her ideas. Then, a story about sea level rise threatening Miami threw a switch, and she got involved with climate activist group Extinction Rebellion.

A couple years ago I still thought tech billionaires and their fearmongering about the Singularity were the biggest threat. I didn't know much about climate change, she recalls. She reveals she has a comic still in the works (already over 60 pages long) about Elon Musk, Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson and social Darwinism ... it turns out, even if the topic changes, its still the same billionaires getting on my nerves.

As for her influences, Keller namechecks Jessica Abel, author of Out on the Wire, a graphic novel about radio and podcasting, and Swedish illustrator Liv Strmquist. Shes also greatly influenced by U.S. author Mary Annase Heglar and the investigative journalist Amy Westervelt, who has pioneered the narrative podcast in the climate space, taking the format of non-fiction true crime and applying it to the fossil fuel industry.

Much like podcasts, Keller believes, comics can help non-specialist audiences access otherwise challenging topics in a way that seems less like hard work. But shes also found that academics have responded positively to having their work reflected back at them in a visual medium.

I don't write for a special audience, she says. But apart from activists and curious people, I think comics might be a good way for academics to give an overview of their field, or communicate it with other academics, who might be inclined to read something other than a paper in their free time. It could make interdisciplinary research fun.

Nevertheless, Keller understands her core mission as something more practical.

I hope to inspire action, she says, and understanding the problem is the first and most important step for action. I wish more creative people would start thinking about how to use accessible ways to spread the info people need in this fight for climate justice and human rights.

We have to hang in there, because none of the fights will be short or easy.

View original post here:
Why Comic Books Could Be A Powerful Weapon In The Climate Fight - Forbes

Margaret Ratliff only agreed to appear on camera two decades ago, for Jean-Xavier de Lestrades documentary series The Staircase, under extreme circumstances.

In 2001 the woman Ratliff called mom, Kathleen Peterson, was found dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs in the familys Durham, North Carolina, home. Sixteen years prior, Ratliffs birth mother, Elizabeth, died under similar circumstances in Germany. After that tragedy in 1985, Elizabeths friend Michael Peterson took Ratliff and her younger sister, Martha, into his home, eventually becoming their legal guardian.

Following Kathleens death, though, Michael could not do much to protect his adopted daughters, then ages 20 and 18. He was busy planning his defense trial after being charged with his late wifes murder. (Michael was found guilty of the crime in 2003. He has since been released from prison after being granted a new trial and submitting an Alford plea.)

A novelist who had run for mayor in Durham, Michael was leery of getting a fair trial. He had publicly attacked local officials on their handling of criminal matters in newspaper columns, and told his children that he felt having cameras document the trial might safeguard the legal proceedings.

At that time, we were afraid he was facing the death penalty, recalls Ratliff in a phone interview with Vanity Fair on Saturday. Before patching Michael into the phone call, Ratliff remembers, I thought, Okay, this is going to help my dad

As Ratliff makes clear in Subject, a documentary she coproduced that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival this past weekend, she had no reason to believe that de Lestrades resulting docuseries, The Staircase, would be widely seen. She consented to participating in the project in 2002years before the advent of streaming.

In 2003, Michael was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. With their father behind bars, Ratliff and her siblings did their best to forge ahead, she saystrying to put the disturbing details of Kathleens death, the harrowing trial (one of the longest in North Carolina history), and the docuseries behind them.

We were parent-less in a way. I was just trying to go through the world and go through my masters program and not talk about The Staircase, says Ratliff of the impact of de Lestrades docuseries, which earned rave reviews after its relatively quiet U.S. premiere on the Sundance Channel in 2005.

Everything changed, she says, when Netflix acquired the docuseries in 2018. Immediately, it became accessible to more than 120 million subscribers around the globe. The family had already been recognized because of the docuseries when it was a cult true-crime favorite. (During a surreal sibling holiday spent in Denmark, the only thing showing on the TV at the hotel was The Staircase in English. We felt so strange going to breakfast because people would just stare at us, Ratliff remembers.) Netflixs reach would make them recognizable to a new demographic.

Making matters even more complicated for Ratliff: She had been interested in documentary filmmaking before Kathleens death. After The Staircase debuted on Netflix, Ratliff says she had job interviews where the person questioning her recognized her from the docuseries. The strangest professional experience for Ratliff occurred four years ago, she claims, after she applied for her dream job within Netflixs own documentary department.

There was this amazing assistant position in the documentary department at Netflix, and I had a great call with H.R. and I was super qualified, really excited, says Ratliff. The H.R. person was really excited about me and escalated me very quickly. And then they realized who I was.

More:
The Staircase: For Michael Peterson and Daughter Margaret, the Nightmare Continues With HBO Max - Vanity Fair