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paraclete0407 · 3 years

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Stuff I might never get to do (from books I read after I thought I had mastered the Bible / Scripture)

Theories of ‘political vision’ - ex. Obama’s ‘A Promised Land,’ or from someone I miss, UKPM David Cameron’s ‘For the Record.’ Also records of military careers and the consequences and lessons therefrom, particularly Gen., Prof. Stanley A. McChrystal’s ‘My Share of the Task’ - decades of one meal a day, utterly excellent love-letters and wisdom-writings to his wife, sweeping reports, culminating in the operation that ‘extrajudicially or para-judicially executed’ bin Laden. I also never forgot the NYTimes photo of the SEAL operator’s back-muscles. My giant Obama critique, however, was one of those ‘grandfather Hall of Presidents’ books that I want to postpone.

My mistakes and wishes. Ex. the woman I wanted to marry in early 2011; I had cut off my parents for 6 months and called one night my mom; she got really drunk that night, flirted with foreigners from [ultra-mercenary cram-school that hires anyone], got terrorized by [b/Black man of the type who clearly believes ‘As I am b/Black I know everything worth knowing and can terrorize, antagonize, demonize anyone and anything for the greater glory of my own ego / Chairman Mao]. Culminating in me in the ladies’ room telling her to get up and I told her so, going back to the pub-room and threatening the mercenaries, and finally being ‘mogged,’ masculinity-compromised or eclipsed / overpowered, by the man who was either her surrogate father-figure, rapist, seducee-turned-wrist-breaking-controller, no one really knew, and my ex-father-figure who however either a) failed to bait the trap properly and/or b) failed to communicate the true meaning and message and purpose of his love for me, to me. But, it was instrumental in blowing what was probably the best job I ever had, and the only job that ever asked me back.

After that I started honestly trying to live for either a) the younger generation b) ‘just me.’ I also made a number of hard or soft promises to students involving me writing stuff. Don’t say ‘will’ or ‘might’ to Koreans b/c it kind of spiritually translates in to ‘shall’ or ‘must’ or ‘has to.’ They’re the poor in spirit from what I can tell.

I also drove around California for a while, missed a job-offer from a Catholic university in [central Korean city], and thought a lot about F. Scott Fitzgerald. Studied Emmanuel ‘ethics-as-first-philosophy love-of-wisdom-converting-into-wisdom-of-love’ Levinas a bit, read ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother’ and couldn’t sleep

Sundry ‘Teacher Dream(s).’ I’d been hoping in a way that ‘Free Food for Millionaires’ author Min Jin Lee, JD Yale etc, would put this all in her ‘American Hagwon’ but she’s been baking fancy cakes and writing offside / deflective lit. about Japanese gays for like 10 years while NK marched on in real life killing people and Koreans were also dying from numerous causes, running away from home, economically induced suicide, amazing shame- and rape-culture: cashing in. I remember my last night at the hagwon, a time of bonhomie, when I perhaps might’ve even said, ’Y’know, can I un-resign-in-protest?’ Boss, What’ll you miss most about Korea, Korean women?’ Me (playing the fool), ‘There are Korean women in America.’ Boss, (sforzando), ‘Gyopo women.’

My ‘best guess’ anyway at ‘edubusiness’ was sth I labored at off and on for now like 6 years called ‘Three Kings’ which is partly about a white ex-literary agent family named ‘Foch’ after the French Generalissime who actually won WW1, famous for his ‘moral factor’ theory of war as well as his remark, ‘This is not a peace but an armistice for 20 years. He makes 400,000 dollars in his 1st year of college by advising his roommate to publish his ‘freshman’ novel with an extreme ‘point,’ not worrying about winning every possible reader, just let me edit all the sign-post-phrases and tell you what I firmly believe you were trying to write, sell this novel for 2million dollars, marry the Korean girl across the hall, forget RU, cultivate life and love with your stylus, and I’ll continue to march on simultaneously trying to promote love while reading everyone and everything semi-against or [angle / thrust-vector to] their grain (for their own good). Later he starts a school with his two friends, an MD/PhD program dropout from LA and an MBA ex-Samsung Managing Director or something. But in the end his MD/PhD friend can’t stop thinking about [student’s] amazing breasts and [MBA] friend can’t stop hating and short-selling himself w/r/t marriage and self-regard b/c he’s stuck in the other-always-has-more-money-always-more-money-to-make mentality. In the end the protagonist resigns in protest from the company he himself designed, developed, planned, etc. but didn’t have the money to call his own after reaching the position of ‘Joint Department Head’ which is kind of like ‘Chief of Staff’ to a president at a much smaller scale. He’s a devout literal Christian or at least Christianist who wishes the world were Christian and he reflects in the end on the Longfellow poem about the Three Kings who ‘know King Herod’s hate’ and had to travel back to their homelands a different way. There is also a possibly-to-be-deleted ‘Interludio Meridiana’ where he happens across the molested constantly male-gazed student in Nonhyeon (a neighborhood South of the Han River but not at all like the PSY song), starts to hear Palestrina’s ‘Sicut Cervus’ (listen to it on YouTube - Palestrina’s polyphony philosophy is one of the crowns of human art) in his head, wanders down to the bus depot and finds that his thoughts / creativity etc. have become cathected, chained to, or at least led by memory, and he has joined a ‘chain of being’ that connects the past to the future.

‘Bethlehem Dream’ - kind of my homage to the forementioned Kim Minju of IZ*ONE, my last favorite pop-star before assuring Christian friend I’d stop following K-pop (I’m against BlackPink and their entire organization). Connects to all my dreams and theories of education - including my extreme disillusionment with education, and sympathy for anyone made the ‘beneficiary’ of the latest theory or tool - as well my homage to the school that most closely approximates my dream school, Prof,. Pastor, Dr. Chancellor John Piper’s Bethlehem College and Seminary in Minneapolis. And also, women’s desire to have children / babies, even without husbands, men’s desire to bear spiritual fruit with or without traditional fellowship.

Masculinity in novels. Not Norman Mailer Philip Roth stuff but novels that can lens reality from the top down and not get addicted to some or other cupidity or method of endearing / charming the audience, which often makes them stupider or causes them to regard hidden truth as an outright lie and/or triviality. MJL’s ‘Free Food for Millionaires’ was pretty masculine; better is billionaire Michael Kim’s ‘Offerings,’ a novel I wish I could teach someone only I can’t find a good student / reader and maybe I myself missed the point and only thought I got it.

Thinking quitting while ahead - I really don’t know whether adding to people’s minds and knowledge at this point in Time is good or whether writing amounts to feasting the already glutted, furnishing them further excuses for disbelief and inaction and alienating / dividing them from the hungry and poor. I like a song called ‘Love Song for No. 1.’ Remember talking about a walk in the woods I took, understanding something about the Other’s first language the authenticity of this language and its nativity to their understanding and ‘originary’ or ‘birth-mother’ identity or ‘self-system.’ Not something to tell your Anglo-but-ish-they-were-Teutonic biological parents because they will make like they want to backhand your head off then spend years denying they’re either racist, non-believers, or what I have come to call anti-believers; people who amid ‘Delta Covid Summer’ are trying to destroy the beliefs of others. Also Dr. R.C Sproul Ligonier Ministries, ‘Forgetfulness is apostasy.’

‘Flowers on Water.’ Kind of my homage to Krystal Jung Soojung of ‘hieroglyphic’ girl-group f(x) and later IMO excellent actress, her best moment perhaps the final episode of ‘My Lovely Girl,’ a shocking and awesome scene that appears to talk about Resurrection and Eternity. The protagonist is another cynical edubusinessman who is thinking about mass-death, getting mad at mainstream American Christianity for singing songs while people were drowning, and finally on Google Books comes across a teacher-poem from 1881 titled ‘Flowers,’ for a group of rather hapless seemingly American Indian students in California as well as critiques of educational praxis which, in 1881, were identical to what they are today. ‘God is sovereign in all things’ - such a difficult category. I abandoned this novel for a number of reasons such as the belief that I might be able to reverse-engineer Brad Thor or something for a quick buck. Went to Half Price Books (now closed) where they had a picture of the Jackson Five over the toilet in the men’s room. I read a bit of a one-dollar Brad Thor book about Russia but on the way on home I once started once again dreaming mytically about Korean girls / women as it began to snow and thinking about ‘Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming’ (’Es Ist Ein Rosentsprungen) the German Nativity song which Michael Praetorius composed at least in part in response to the appalling Reformation Wars and out of a hope or wish that remembrance of Christ’s birth could somehow reunite the Church. This also made me think about a high school I admire / respect and my old friend and his now-divorced wife with whom I many times fantasized about singing and talking with again; and whom I kind of wish I could tell the author of ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ remarried his first wife eventually but IDK what good it is to give already-dreaming people more dreams either.

It’s 9:35 AM and my ‘insomnia’ type notebook-postings haven’t made me any new friends in a while. My last thing is just, if you care about Education or young girls / American women / culture / schools, achievement, heroines, stories, or for that matter Bible-translation or the latter-day odysseys of the nominal Episcopalian Church, with trembling heart, try to reflect on Headmaster Josiah Bunting III’s ‘All Loves Excelling.’

One of my favorite Christian songs is ‘The Death of King David’

And God said that day shall dawn

to bring that flow’r newly born

from thy stem in fullness growing

in fragrance sweet night and morn

all My people shall adorn

with Breath of life bestowing

Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

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tzigone · 3 years

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Swift Deer (DC Westerns) - where to be

Obviously, silver-age western comics don’t have much to do with reality. For a headcanon reboot thing, though, what should his band do?

He is Cheyenne, and it seems to be the first half of the 1880s (at least by some references) and thus I’ve placed Johnny Thunder in Montana. Should his group leave the vicinity of Mesa City to join the Northern Cheyenne at the Tongue River - I understand it mattered to a good number that all their people be together? Should I create a third (and fictional) Cheyenne reservation, instead, since we already have lots of fictional cities in DC? Or is that too much like creating a whole new Native American culture instead of using the real one? I’d really make them another band of Northern Cheyenne, though, not separate.

I like the idea of a third location for something a bit less depressing than real history for the Cheyenne, and so that I can create Indian Agents good or bad to serve the needs of the story. I like a happy ending, but I cannot diverge so far back in time as to have them continue on their own, living their way, and not on a reservation. It’s just a bridge too far for me, it changes the present too much. “Not as bad” is about the best I can go for, with Swift Deer himself, at least, being fairly happy. And them surprisingly near a town that mostly at least tolerates them, if not accepting them.

I’m not one for grimdark at all, and am not looking for real realism, either (though that’s pretty grim dark). But some flavor of reality would be good. Just not to the extent that while John Tane is getting electric lights and running water, Swift Deer is getting starved by withheld rations, etc.

Then there are the difficulties that come with Swift Deer. He is very much trying to learn some things from white people. I don’t want him with the idea that “white is right” but neither do I want him to be unwilling to change or adopt better technologies, and it’s a hard balance. Obviously, historically, the Cheyenne traded very much and did use elements of technology more recently from white people (though sometimes through intermediaries). And even before dealing with white people, they changed and adapted through time. No culture is static. And that’s what I’m going for. Swift Deer knows the world has changed, the old way is dead, the bison are going or gone, and now the decision is what to do next, given the realities of this world. Plus, at first he still just a kid who wants to cover himself in glory - can’t deny that. :)

Swift Deer will stay among his people. I’m considering him becoming a writer of boy’s adventures stories for magazines or dime novels once he’s older. Westerns were popular at the time, but I thought instead of writing about Indians, he might write those horribly incorrect stories about adventurers in Egypt, with mummies and all. If a culture is to be badly misrepresented, it doesn’t have to be his own. And he’d have loved those sorts of thrilling tales as a boy. If he was born a bit later, I’d probably have him on the rodeo circuit.

Also, was considering his one of his sons going off to WWI and then later leaving the reservation. Because not everyone stays, and he’s traveled and seen big cities and liked it. And even with the discrimination, there seems a better economic future elsewhere (plus modern conveniences). Obviously, they weren’t all citizens then, with freedom to travel. And the vast, vast majority did still live on reservations, so maybe it’s too soon a time in history for that. But I don’t want that to seem like some natural superiority of his descendant adopting white culture or a sell-out abandoning his home, family, and identity. Just a person making the choice he thinks best for his own future.

Edit: Turns out writer’s wages went up and up during this era (from 1 cent per word to 3) while prices were generally going down, so he could live rather well and have excess, even when helping family. He invested a little (as a form of 100% legal property tax avoidance at first), and wound up very very well off. Not sure if I want to accept that or avoid him investing in a car company so he doesn’t get too rich. Several of them just grew so very much in that era (over 1000% profit in 15 years). But production numbers were going up, so it seemed a logical place for him to invest.

#dc Comics #In-my-head-reimagining #headcanon-reboot #Swift Deer #Johnny Thunder #John Tane

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killian-whump · 6 years

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Okay, since you need some whumpy asks: what's your take on whump in westerns? Since this maaaay be significant, what kind of whump do you think we have to look forward to, or at least fantasize about? I'm betting there's lots of rope. And possibly whips.

Okay, lemme talk to you guys about WESTERNS because they’re actually super duper important in the history of whump!

Waaaaaaay back in the days before whump, people who appreciated men in peril used to enjoy what they called ‘get’ books and films. It was short for “Get ‘im!” which was frequently what the bad guys would shout before they all took off after the protagonist for some good ol’ fashioned whumpin’.

‘Get’ books were often pulp fiction novels - hard-boiled PI stories, westerns, science fiction or adventure tales in exotic places. ‘Get’ movies and shows, however, were most often westerns. That’s why, if you check out a site like RoperMike’s Guys in Trouble, you’ll find a lot of the earlier content contains a high percentage of westerns.

In fact, tying guys up is more or less a trope in westerns. Somebody, somewhere, usually does get tied up in those things. I think it’s partly due to the convenience of rope - every cowboy seemed to have some on him, so why not use it? There’s also the lawlessness of the era, with everybody being their own judge, jury and executioner. And, of course, there’s something to be said for the fact that once they got away with it and people enjoyed it… Well, they’re gonna keep right on doing it as often as possible ;)

So! Westerns have a loooong and glorious history as being full of what we now call WHUMP! As for the kinds of whump… You’re right about the rope! Westerns always have a lot of rope bondage and rope whump. Lots of tying people up, hangings, forcing people to keep pace walking behind a horse, tying people to railroad tracks, tying people to stakes and abandoning them to the elements… all kinds of primitive bondage and whump scenarios to enjoy. There’s also a lot of cleave gags and over the mouth gags in westerns, too. Bandanas, like rope, were everywhere in the west - and cowboys liked to use ‘em!

Old school westerns often relied on the bondage alone as the “height” of the peril a cowboy would face. Back in those days, violence wasn’t depicted as graphically - or as often - as it is these days. Whips were around, yes… but there’s also a lot of horse and cow related whump. Like rope, branding irons were as common as mud - and many a tied up cowboy was threatened with one! There was also the common punishment of being dragged behind a running horse. And, of course, there were plenty of hangings and gunshot wounds.

Older westerns would also employ all sorts of “Indian Savage” stereotypes that provided a lot of more barbaric whump tropes, like scalpings, ritualistic torture, skinning, or other “inhumane” violence. You’re not going to see this done the same way in modern westerns, of course, but older westerns were more interested in the shock value of painting Native Americans as savage monsters than in presenting a realistic portrayal of a proud people defending their land from interlopers. Obviously, that wouldn’t pass muster today.

So what CAN we hope for if Colin’s in a western? Well… I gotta be honest with ya. If he’s in a Dolly Parton TV film about one of her songs… probably not a lot XD I mean, most of her songs are about love and loss and relationships and not, you know, cowboys tying each other up and playing with red hot pokers. I mean, I reeeeeally don’t have high hopes if that’s the western Colin’s in ;)

Still, you never know! I mean, where there’s a western, there’s rope - and where there’s rope, there’s a chance someone will get tied up in it. We could also get some cute quasi-bondage, like maybe the heroine lassoing herself a stud. We could also get some hot outlaw action with some old timey shackles or a jail cell. We’re also guaranteed some hot, dusty atmosphere - which makes for hot, dusty actors. Mmmmmmmm, dirty Colin. And, of course, swagger. Cowboy boots. Southern drawl. Butt double. LOOOOOOORD HAVE MERCY.

So the whumpcast for this isn’t looking so great at the moment, but the weather forecast is calling for a HOT, HOT, HOT time ahead, anyway ;)

#whump meta #heartstrings #whumpcast #wyntereyez #kw ask box

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picturebookmakers · 6 years

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Peter Elliott & Kitty Crowther

In this post, Peter and Kitty talk about their collaboration on ‘FARWEST’ – a wildly original picturebook which is based on an old French expression. First published in French by Pastel–l’école des loisirs, there are more foreign editions to come.

Visit Peter Elliott’s website Visit Kitty Crowther’s Instagram page

Peter: Since I was a kid, I’ve been a musician. I write songs. And since childhood, I’ve received a great deal of pleasure from drawing. So I carried on as a musician and became an illustrator, and then later, an author.

I wrote FARWEST as I write lyrics for a song. It always starts with a simple idea. In this case, it was the French expression, ‘qui va à la chasse perd sa place’ (why this expression, I don’t know). The literal English translation is ‘he who goes hunting loses his place’, though I think ‘move your feet, lose your seat’ works better in English.

I simply asked myself what would happen for real if somebody leaves their place and another one takes it...

I thought it would be nice to welcome the guy back anyway, like: “Hey dude, take a seat; you’re welcome!”

Very quickly, I realised this is a perfect way to meet people. And I love to meet people. So... Thinking of all this, I let the rhythm of the words lead the game. I wanted to make the text sound like music.

And finally (the same night) I made sketches for the illustrations. At that moment, I was making the book on my own.

A few days later, I sent ‘Qui va à la chasse’ to Kitty (only the text, not my sketches). I wanted to know her opinion on what I wrote and if she thought it was good enough to present to Odile, our publisher at Pastel.

Kitty and I have known each other for a long time. We were at the same art school, Saint Luc in Brussels, and we’ve shared the same publisher for over twenty years.

Also, I’d seen Kitty dancing back when I was playing live with my band, Busty Duck. This is the reason why I asked her to illustrate the cover of our album ‘Zoomorphic’ in 2009 (our third and final album; the band isn’t together anymore).

I think that Kitty and I have a particular relationship to music. Maybe this is why she felt the rhythm in my text so strongly.

I was really surprised when Kitty asked me if I was okay to let her illustrate the story. I replied: “you’re welcome!” And Kitty decided to do the story with cowboys and to name it FARWEST.

During the making of the book, Kitty and I were with our publisher Odile at Kitty’s house, to see the sketches for FARWEST. It was amazing to discover how my words had been interpreted by Kitty’s brain. How her imagination had devoured the story.

On that day, I met this magnificent red horse and Jonas, a funny dog who is the link between the humans. I also saw this sketchbook page with Jeff, Jim and Koko playing music around a fire:

Odile and Kitty suggested that I compose the music from that picture. Kitty illustrated my words with pictures, and now I could illustrate Kitty’s picture with music. I loved the idea!

A few days later, my father gave me a tenor banjo. That night, I sat on the floor of my workroom, which is also where I record my songs. I lit a candle (my fire), played a few chords and I started to sing. With the lyrics, I wanted to talk about refugees and all the lost people. And to claim that the only possible answer is “welcome.”

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Today, I just can’t believe how beautiful the book is. And I’m dazzled by the strength and the truth that I feel in Kitty’s pictures – just as I was back at art school, when I first saw her work pinned to the wall of the studio.

FARWEST. I wrote a story. Kitty made a world of it.

Kitty: It’s nice to be back on Picturebook Makers. Thank you for inviting us to talk about this wild, crazy cowboy book. I am super-proud of it.

As Peter mentioned, we have known each other for a long time. We often write to each other. I’ve always loved the way Peter writes his emails and I encouraged him to write novels. So one day, he asked me to read one of his texts and tell him what I thought. I fell for it. I loved the rhythm.

He sent it in March 2015, so thank you for your patience, Peter!

When I read a text, I must be able to see the pictures in my head. It has to take me on a journey; I have to travel. And it has to be very different from what I do with my own books. I love writing; I always feel it’s a different muscle that’s working. And I think that one lifetime won’t be enough to write all the stories that I want to tell. So, I’m not usually keen to illustrate other people’s words, even if they’re nice. With FARWEST, I didn’t say yes to please Peter, but because I believe very strongly in this story. I need a lot of freedom and Peter knows this.

I thought it would be too obvious to have ‘Qui va à la chasse perd sa place’ as the title, and Peter agreed to change it to FARWEST. I’m a big fan of Tarantino, old Westerns, trappers, wildlife, Jack London, Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, and all the others. And now the Westworld TV series.

In this book, there’s an accumulation of people. And it can be read on different levels (I hope).

You could see it as an immigration story. Or the fear of losing your seat. I remember as a child, it was always hard for me to find my seat. To find my place.

During the recent American election, I felt sick. So much hate. So much lack of wisdom. Hardly any empathy. All my bones were hurting, thinking of my ancestors invading America all those years ago. The descendants of those people. Hunger for gold and land. Escaping misery.

Millions of Native Americans died. Pushed out from their lands. Killed or consumed by illness. They were treated the worst way you could imagine.

I recommend reading the beautiful words of Russell Means, a Native American activist and actor (1939-2012): ‘If You’ve Forgotten the Names of Clouds, You’ve Lost Your Way: An Introduction to American Indian Thought and Philosophy’.

It’s frightening that we hardly take care of nature’s guardian tribe. We just create eager people. More is never enough.

The story of FARWEST starts on the title page. A Native American, drawn in charcoal, sitting on his horse. Beside him is his dog. It’s a black and white page, like this would have happened a long time ago.

(I asked Peter to add a horse and a dog. It amused me so much to see this supposedly loyal dog changing master all the time!)

So, you have to create the link between the title page and the following page. I’ve always been fascinated by the passing of time in books. Page one and page two; what happens in-between?

You have three characters at the start of the story. Two white people and one Native American. It made me smile to draw the Native American with a costume – almost like he would be more educated than the other two. Playing with visual language.

I wanted to draw big landscapes. I think it’s very good for your spirit to see far into the distance. It opens your brain up to possibilities.

I had to choose the person who replaces the little hero of the book when he goes out hunting. It was hard to find this person. An African boy? A Native American boy? A Chinese boy? A girl?

Then I was looking at this incredible animation film from Max Fleischer...

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I am totally fascinated by how Koko the Clown moves and dances. Such beautiful art!

Anyway, inspired by Koko, this yellow guy showed up.

My Koko has an emoji face, or smiley. People all around the world use them.

With the way he’s dressed, Koko seems to come from the music hall.

Peter insisted on no guns in this book. You think of cowboys and you see guns. But when you see the situation with gun laws in the USA, it’s really frightening. It’s easier to buy a gun than to publish an edgy book for children. Ha! Guns are like drugs/tobacco/alcohol/petrol/human trafficking and all the rest, just to feed the appetite of angry-black-suited greedy men and women (I’m sure these are shortcut thoughts, but hey!).

The next character who arrives is a woman. Rosa Parks.

For the ones who don’t know her, she is a famous African-American civil rights activist. She sat at the front of a bus where African-American people were forbidden to sit at that time. She refused to give up her seat. Very brave her.

With the next ‘names’ that arrived in the story, we tried to find people who work/worked for freedom and humanity.

So there’s Russell Means (read about him earlier in this post).

Then there’s Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman (1864–1922; her pen name was Nellie Bly). She was known for her pioneering journalism, including her 1887 exposé on the conditions of asylum patients at Blackwell’s Island in New York, and her report of her 72-day trip around the world.

Patti Smith. Because she is such a beautiful punk.

Martin Luther King. Because he had a dream.

Calamity Jane. The letters to her daughter – even though it was later discovered that they weren’t really written by Calamity Jane – are amazing.

Django from the Tarantino film, based on the legendary African-American Marshall, Bass Reeves.

I love it that the sweet cowboy says: “At the end of the day, I may have lost my seat, but there’s still plenty of space.”

(You might have noticed that all the characters in FARWEST have something in common: their nose! Little round black noses, like Micky Mouse or in Picsou magazine, the Beagle Boys or Felix the Cat. It made me smile to do this.)

Okay, to finish, I'd like to talk a little bit about the animation I made for Peter’s song (see the video earlier in the post).

Peter suggested we use the picture of the gang singing and playing music, and that we could make the fire move...

But I was afraid we would get bored after a while.

I really love animated GIFs – hypnotic ones, like the bison by Eadweard Muybridge.

Muybridge was an English photographer. I recently discovered that he emigrated to the USA in 1850. And in 1868, his large photographs of Yosemite Valley made him world-famous!

But Muybridge is best known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion in 1877 and 1878. A few years before this, a French physiologist and inventor called Étienne-Jules Marey wrote that a galloping horse had all four hooves off the ground for a brief moment, and that the way horses were depicted in some paintings was wrong. I always find it fascinating when art mixes with science and discovery.

Through his pioneering work, Muybridge proved that Marey was right. So thank you to Mr Muybridge (even if it’s said that he killed the lover of his wife and was never punished). And thank you, Monsieur Marey. Because I think that the horse is one of the hardest things to draw, and I always wanted to try to understand it. In fact, horses run on their nails!

With my animation, I wanted to make it as easy as possible to do, and I used the same technique as the wonderful artist, William Kentridge: repeatedly erasing and reworking charcoal drawings.

That’s all folks!

Content © Peter Elliott and Kitty Crowther. Post edited by dPICTUS.

‘Wonderful People’: Lyrics and music by Peter Elliott. Animation by Kitty Crowther and Sam McCullen. Music recorded by Peter Elliott at Constellation 8. Mixed and mastered by Fabrice Lefèvre at Born2Groove studio.

Buy this picturebook

FARWEST

Peter Elliott & Kitty Crowther

Pastel–l’école des loisirs, Belgium, 2018

The weather was beautiful that morning. “I am going hunting,” I announced. As I went out, followed by my dog, Jonas, I greeted Jeff and Jim. It was my very first time hunting and it wasn’t that easy!

Later that day, I returned home, opened the door... and I realised that someone had taken my place!

Jeff said it plainly to me: “Move your feet, lose your seat! There’s no two ways about it!”

#belgium

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armeniaitn · 4 years

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Franklin has always been Haiastan

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/franklin-has-always-been-haiastan-52551-26-08-2020/

Franklin has always been Haiastan

In this year of no summer camps, Franklin is still home to “the best place on earth” as generations have long described Camp Haiastan. What started in 1951 as a novel idea by the first generation of Armenians born in America has become an iconic fixture for decades. Lifelong friendships, first dances and even many marriages have emerged from those hallowed grounds on Uncas Pond. A unique blend of socialization and culture in a rustic environment (it has become much more comfortable with incredible facilities over the years) offers our children a special opportunity to build an Armenian identity with hundreds of other Armenians kids in a safe and exciting environment. The facilities are superb, and the programming is excellent. But what makes Camp Haiastan so attractive is the relationships our kids form. It is here at camp that they build the “dual identity” that Armenian American youth enjoy. They have their American life in their hometowns, and they build a lifelong identity with their fellow Armenians at camp. The geographic diversity makes it unprecedented in their lives. How many 11 or 12 year olds can say they have actual friends (not the kinds on social media) from the midwest, New York or New England? The key to the success of our camp comes from its record of “regeneration.” Campers become CITs, who become counselors and some become teachers or directors. When they become parents, they send their children; many end up serving on the board or committees advocating for a better future. The process has clearly worked out. Attendance records are broken, and new innovative programs, like teenage sessions and day camps, are instituted. When I was young, our parents sent my three sisters and I to the camp. My older sister went many years as a camper and staff. She met her husband through the camp. My wife and I are proud that our children attended for many years. Driving to camp was always a special experience as we rounded Summer Street to the front entrance. I returned as a volunteer teacher in Armenian history and politics during the Baron Pete administration and experienced such joy in seeing that same excitement on the faces of a succeeding generation. Unlike most affiliated with Camp Haiastan, going to camp was not my first experience with Franklin. Although I am from the Indian Orchard Armenian community, my second “home” was Franklin. There has been a small Armenian community in this little piece of Armenia since the post-genocide era. After settling in this country my maternal grandmother’s (Turfanda Yergatian Piligian) sisters and brother lived in Franklin. They all lived in the Chestnut Street area within a quarter mile of each other. The one exception was Uncle Setrak’s chicken farm on Route 140 (where the 495 exchange is today) just up the street from Mr. Bedirian’s farm. My grandmother raised her boys in Indian Orchard, and my grandfather worked in the Chapman Valve Foundry. With their two oldest boys returning safely from the war and weary from the conditions of foundry life, they decided to move to Franklin in 1947 and run a chicken farm. It was located on several acres in the middle of the family neighborhood on Chestnut Street. So began what was known as the Piligian Poultry Farm. It was purchased from a family member, and my Uncle Paul was enlisted to move to Franklin ahead of time to learn the business from relatives.

“My sister and I relaxing with Grandpa Stepan with how I remember him…cigar, wire rimmed glasses and farm clothes.”

This was my summer paradise. At the age of six, I started living with my grandparents during the summer months and worked on their chicken farm. I collected eggs, inspected, graded and packed the various sizes in the “egg room” located off the kitchen. I spent precious time with my grandfather in the barns studying his every move and learning the finer points of gardening in his “garden of Eden.” Most of the eggs were sold wholesale, but on weekends we had an egg route in the Boston area. I would ride in the station wagon on Saturdays with my uncle delivering to homes. One of our customers was Curt Gowdy—a former broadcaster for the Boston Red Sox. As my grandfather’s oldest grandson and namesake, I felt a special responsibility which would only grow into my adult years. I adored my grandparents. My grandmother was a strong Armenian woman with clear opinions. I woke each morning very early to the smell of coffee for grandpa. She was always up when I went to bed leading me to ask her when she slept. She would laugh and say, “When you aren’t looking.” My bedroom had a clear view of the bathroom, and I would race there to watch Grandpa lathering his shaving cream from the mug and shave with his straight edge. Sometimes he would brush some cream on me and “shave” with the back side of the razor. Years later I used the same method with my own son. After a morning in the barn, lunch was served under the big “toot” (mulberry) tree. There were always at least half a dozen families for lunch. Under the tree, there was a large granite stone where I used to sit on Grandpa’s lap to listen to his every word. I had several cousins in the neighborhood: Yergatian, Piligian, Torosian and Kamishlian. There were enough of us to play innings of baseball in between egg work. The Torosians had four boys and a girl. Uncle George was also a chicken farmer, and we all played baseball until we were called back to the barns. Egg collections were twice daily, but we always found time to be mischievous and explore the woods, ponds and railroad tracks. Incredible times were had and further supplemented on weekends when other cousins would visit “the farm.” A few times we played pickup games against other kids from Franklin who went to school with my cousins. It was the Armenian cousins versus the kids of Franklin. We always seemed to prevail. There were very important Armenian identity experiences in Franklin. In the evenings, my grandfather (who did not drive) would go to the camp to play cards with other local men or those who stayed at the cabins at the top of the camp by the entrance. Some of these folks would come from New York or elsewhere for the summer. My grandfather would ask if I wanted to come with him. Of course, my response was affirmative. Anywhere he went, I was game. During those days, there was an older building for the caretaker where the current house resides. It was there that I would sit in silence for hours watching the intensity of these older men. They would talk politics and recall their days in Western Armenia. If they upset each other, it was quickly forgiven as they embraced at the end of the evening. I will never forget those evenings as I learned about the importance of long term friendships and my special bond with my grandfather. There was an Armenian Relief Society (ARS) chapter or “garmeer khatch” in Franklin. My grandmother was a lifelong member continuing her service after the move to Franklin. A few times a year they would hold dinners with programs. We would always attend driving from our home since these events were held during the school year. The events were held at the Parmenter school cafeteria which was a local Franklin elementary school. My cousins and their parents also attended, and our extended family made up probably half the attendees. We were “excused” from the program part and were supposed to go directly to my cousins, the Kamishlians, who lived directly across the street. The rest of the school was off limits; a custodian was on hand to ensure compliance. Of course, we took this on as a challenge and created havoc in the dark hallways before innocently retreating to the refuge of our cousin’s house.

A crowded dance floor at a Camp Haiastan picnic. Stepan’s mother Bea is leading on the far left, wearing his father’s aviator glasses.

With summer stays and family holidays, Franklin was endless fun. Summer Sundays were unique. We always attended the picnics at the “upper” camp. When we asked my grandmother on Sundays, “Where are we going today,” she would always respond “Haiastan Camp!” It was in that order the founders would say the name. With the use of English, it evolved to Camp Haiastan. Our Sundays at the camp were memorable. We went to all the picnics because I was “local.” We visited my older sister at the AYF camp, and by the time I became a camper, I was well acquainted with the layout. The picnics were exciting because we were free to roam around the safe “upper” and “lower” confines all afternoon while enjoying the delicious kebab and ice cream from the truck always parked by the main hall. We had the freedom to experience all that Camp offered until 4 pm. That is when my uncles or father would take us back to the farm (only about three miles away) to work the egg sales. My grandfather had a good business selling eggs to picnic attendees who would stop by on their way home. For my grandparents, it was a social experience greeting old friends. For me it was a few hours of shuttling egg crates to the driveway area and an opportunity to watch this marvelous generation live their friendships. At the end of the day, everyone returned home, and I would stay at my second home…the farm. It was years later that I came to know the remarkable life that my grandparents and their Franklin siblings experienced in their native Koch Hisar and Adana. My grandmother was nine years old when the Adana massacres happened in 1909. She was sent with her siblings to live with relatives in Egypt for two years. She returned to survive the first wave of the Genocide from 1915 to 1917 only to experience the trauma of the Kemalists and French withdrawal in 1920. This strong woman with a deep love of her family was a three-time survivor before she was 20. Grandpa met her as a legionnaire stationed in Adana from 1918 to 1920. These remarkable people and their peers were the people that made Franklin a piece of Armenia for me in my youth. I had my “baseball team” cousins, my first generation relatives, and we all had Camp Haiastan as our Armenian sandbox. Here’s to today’s youth that enjoy our “Haiastan Camp” and a return in 2021.

Stepan Piligian

Stepan was raised in the Armenian community of Indian Orchard, MA at the St. Gregory Parish. A former member of the AYF Central Executive and the Eastern Prelacy Executive Council, he also served many years as a delegate to the Eastern Diocesan Assembly. Currently , he serves as a member of the board and executive committee of the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR). He also serves on the board of the Armenian Heritage Foundation. Stepan is a retired executive in the computer storage industry and resides in the Boston area with his wife Susan. He has spent many years as a volunteer teacher of Armenian history and contemporary issues to the young generation and adults at schools, camps and churches. His interests include the Armenian diaspora, Armenia, sports and reading.

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#Armenia #Armenians #Politics

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totravelistoliveco · 7 years

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Vegas serves a certain function, without a doubt. It’s a place to let your hair down, roll some dice, and blow line after line off a stripper’s bare bottom (if that’s your thing). It’s fun, at first. Then you come to know how the city works and what to expect. The thrill becomes monotonous, like a favorite roller coaster you’ve ridden one too many times.

Or maybe neon lights and chain-smoking geriatrics with dollar signs and desperation in their eyes was never your thing. To each her own.

All I’m saying is don’t give up on the region and don’t give up on the infamous Vegas road trip, as exploring the outskirts of the City of Sin can prove as fruitful as a trip up the California coastline or a dune buggy ride through Baja.

From a West World-like motel (sans sexy robots) to the best pancakes in the world, here’s my top five favorite things to do in the region, in no particular order.

Stay at the Bonnie Springs Ranch

To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to tell you about the Bonnie Springs Ranch. I don’t want you coming here. I’m perfectly content to keep this gem to myself, because, like Gollum with his ring, she’s precious to me. She’s beautiful, odd, affordable, fun, and only twenty minutes from the Vegas strip.

I’m actually at the Bonnie Springs Ranch right now, sitting in front of the pool with a cold beer within easy reach. There’s a trio of iridescent peacocks roosting in a nearby tree, and on the not-too-distant horizon, blood red mountains jut into the bright blue sky.

The ranch is located in the heart of the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area (another favorite on the list), and everything about this place is gaudy and kitsch and wonderful—particularly, the themed rooms at the Bonnie Springs Ranch Motel.

Choose from one of five: the Spanish Room, the Indian (i.e. Native American) Room, the Peacock Room, the Covered Wagon Room, or the 1890s-themed Room. Each comes with an enormous Jacuzzi tub (advertised as a “luv tub”) and each tub is surrounded by mirrors. There are mirrors on the ceiling above the bed, as well. And they give you complimentary champagne when you check-in.

Which is to say, this place screams sex. Kinky sex. Hilarious sex. It’s the perfect destination for a weekend fling or a tongue-in-cheek getaway with an old beau.

The adjacent Old Nevada Western Town, a replica of an 1880s mining town, is worth visiting at least once. Head there in the afternoon if you want to see a “good ol’ fashioned town hanging,” or check out the petting zoo if you want to see the saddest wolf in the world and the happiest miniature pony.

Better yet, skip the mining town and head straight for the restaurant-bar. That’s where the gold is. Every Friday night, ancient crooners in silver-tipped boots and Stetsons sing cowboy karaoke while the fireplace crackles in the corner. Locals hang out and shoot the shit.

The ranch also offers guided horseback rides, if you’re into horses. But even more amazing is the Bonnie Springs Zombie Paintball Express, in which you board an old train car and kill live zombies (i.e. sad suckers dressed up as zombies).

Come, you’ll love it! Or don’t come. Forget I mentioned anything. We’d happily keep this place to ourselves, as one of its greatest charms is that it somehow feels undiscovered.

Hike or drive Red Rock Canyon at dawn

Half an hour from Vegas and a stone’s throw from the Bonnie Spring’s Ranch, the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation is astoundingly beautiful.In fact, writing about it seems almost silly—in the way that writing about a rainbow in no way gives justice to the beauty of light and water mixing to create a multicolored arc in the sky. Just look at the photo. Now imagine winding through those red rocks on a skinny two-lane highway, or walking to the top of them on a thin trail. The canyon engulfs you like a warm hug. Your neck starts to hurt from peering toward their peeks.

The Red Rock Scenic Drive is a thirteen mile loop that’ll give you access to any trail you might want to hike. Thing is, you’ll want to get on the trail early as it gets hot in the middle of the day. Plus, that’s when the colors shine brightest.

Better yet, head to the Valley of Fire

If I had to choose between the Red Rock Canyon and the Valley of Fire, I’d try and do both. But if I could really only do one, I’d go Valley of Fire all the way. Not only does it have the red sandstone formations and great hikes of Red Rock Canyon, it also offers views of prehistoric petroglyphs and sherbet-colored rock formation that may very well be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

It’s no wonder they shot the Mars scenes from Total Recall there. The place is otherworldly. I mean, seriously — there’s a rock that looks like a giant wooly mammoth, an arch swept smooth by relentless wind, and a rock formation called the “Fire Wave” that’s hard to put into words (think enormous swirl of orange and white soft-serve).

As with Red Rock, the whole place glows in the early mornings and late afternoons.

Get wet

If you’re eager to get out of the city and looking to cool down in the middle of the day, the Ringbolt Hot Springs trail is the way to go. And yes, I realize I just suggested you go to a hot springs in order to cool down.

That’s because the springs are only one of the features on this hike. There’s also the freezing cold Colorado River, which mixes with spring water to create a perfectly tepid wading pool. Move toward the springs to heat up. Move toward the river to cool down. Or strip off your clothes, leap into the crystal-clear water, crawl onto a rock, and bask in the sun.

Just make sure to bring drinking water and plenty of snacks. The hike is a six-mile loop that carves through a canyon, past a trickle of a waterfall, down boulders, until finally arriving at the river, where you’ll want to hang out and munch until you’re ready to head back.

Route 66 Detour

Speaking of heading back, eventually you’ll probably need to leave the Vegas area—unless you live there, in which case you should be writing this list and adding to it—and if you happen to be heading to Los Angeles, there’s a few more things you need to know about.

Ostriches, America’s greatest pancakes, and the Antique Station.

All of these gems can be found on a quick detour that veers you off Highway 15 around Barstow and reconnects you in Victorville (which adds only ten minutes to your journey, not including your pancake break), and bonus: they’re all on the historic Route 66.

The Bird’s the Word Ostrich Farm is the most difficult to find, but is worth the search. Even if you don’t care about the world’s largest fowl, the place is worth visiting. Because it’s weird—like, really really weird. Ostriches (i.e. gigantic relatives of dinosaurs) fluff their feathers and side-eye you as you approach. Trains rumbles past behind you. Both times we’ve visited, we’ve also met the keepers of these animals: one a soft-spoken man happy to speak to any human as he’d been surrounded by birds for far too long, the other a tobacco-chewing senior straight out of a Steinbeck novel. Stop here, it’s definitely worth it.

Then cruise over to the Antique Station, which presents room after room of trinkets and treasures. Retro cameras. Old-school advertisements. Vintage clothes. Vintage furniture. The place feels as if every cool thing from Route 66’s classic past has been caught and trapped in the walls of these 30+ vendors.

Finally, grab a meal at Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Café—a Route 66 icon that’s been around since 1947.

This place is the real deal, not some tourist trap living off its storied past and definitely not a Denny’s. Locals sit at the Formica tabletops sipping coffee and reading the paper. The pancakes, made from a secret family recipe that’s been around longer than the café itself, are the fluffiest I’ve ever had. It’s tiny as a time machine and by far the best food you’ll find on the drive back to L.A.

There you have it – a guide to Vegas for people who hate Vegas. Follow this itinerary and I bet you’ll find a sweet spot for the City of Sin, too.

Vegas for People Who Don’t Like Vegas | Words: Cotton Walters | Photos: Ali Mitton & Cotton Walters | Originally published on livefastmag.com

Vegas for People Who Don’t Like Vegas

#list #photography #road trip #travel #united states #wanderlust #traveling

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readincolour · 7 years

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New Books Coming Your Way, May 2, 2017

This Is Just My Face: Try Not to Stare by Gabourey Sidibe 256 p.; Biography Gabourey Sidibe—“Gabby” to her legion of fans—skyrocketed to international fame in 2009 when she played the leading role in Lee Daniels’s acclaimed movie Precious. In This Is Just My Face, she shares a one-of-a-kind life story in a voice as fresh and challenging as many of the unique characters she’s played onscreen. With full-throttle honesty, Sidibe paints her Bed-Stuy/Harlem family life with a polygamous father and a gifted mother who supports her two children by singing in the subway. Sidibe tells the engrossing, inspiring story of her first job as a phone sex “talker.” And she shares her unconventional (of course!) rise to fame as a movie star, alongside “a superstar cast of rich people who lived in mansions and had their own private islands and amazing careers while I lived in my mom's apartment.” Sidibe’s memoir hits hard with self-knowing dispatches on friendship, depression, celebrity, haters, fashion, race, and weight (“If I could just get the world to see me the way I see myself,” she writes, “would my body still be a thing you walked away thinking about?”). Irreverent, hilarious, and untraditional, This Is Just My Face will resonate with anyone who has ever felt different, and with anyone who has ever felt inspired to make a dream come true.

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan 320 p.; Fiction On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities. A Small Revolution by Jimin Han 196 p.; Fiction On a beautiful Pennsylvania fall morning, a gunman holds college freshman Yoona Lee and three of her classmates hostage in the claustrophobic confines of their dorm room. The desperate man with his finger on the trigger—Yoona’s onetime friend, Lloyd Kang—is unraveling after a mysterious accident in Korea killed his closest friend, Jaesung, who was also the love of Yoona’s life. As the tense standoff unfolds, Yoona is forced to revisit her past, from growing up in an abusive household to the upheaval in her ancestral homeland to unwittingly falling in love. She must also confront the truth about what happened to Jaesung on that tragic day, even as her own fate hangs in the balance. Hadriana in All My Dreams by René Depestre 160 p.; Fiction Hadriana in All My Dreams, winner of the prestigious Prix Renaudot, takes place primarily during Carnival in 1938 in the Haitian village of Jacmel. A beautiful young French woman, Hadriana, is about to marry a Haitian boy from a prominent family. But on the morning of the wedding, Hadriana drinks a mysterious potion and collapses at the altar. Transformed into a zombie, her wedding becomes her funeral. She is buried by the town, revived by an evil sorcerer, and then disappears into popular legend. Set against a backdrop of magic and eroticism, and recounted with delirious humor, the novel raises universal questions about race and sexuality. The reader comes away enchanted by the marvelous reality of Haiti's Vodou culture and convinced of Depestre's lusty claim that all beings--even the undead ones--have a right to happiness and true love.

No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal 400 p.; Fiction In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can’t pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. Harit, a lonely Indian immigrant in his mid-forties, lives with his mother who can no longer function after the death of Harit’s sister, Swati. In a misguided attempt to keep both himself and his mother sane, Harit has taken to dressing up in a sari every night to pass himself off as his sister. Meanwhile, Ranjana, also an Indian immigrant in her mid-forties, has just seen her only child, Prashant, off to college. Worried that her husband has begun an affair, she seeks solace by writing paranormal romances in secret. When Harit and Ranjana’s paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears. Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura 464 p.; Fiction Mitsuki Katsura, a Japanese woman in her mid-fifties, is a French-language instructor at a private university in Tokyo. Her husband, whom she met in Paris, is a professor at another private university. He is having an affair with a much younger woman. In addition to her husband’s infidelity, Mitsuki must deal with her ailing eighty-something mother, a demanding, self-absorbed woman who is far from the image of the patient, self-sacrificing Japanese matriarch. Mitsuki finds herself dreaming of the day when her mother will finally pass on. While doing everything she can to ensure her mother’s happiness, she grows weary of the responsibilities of a doting daughter and worries she is sacrificing her chance to find fulfillment in her middle age. The Leavers by Lisa Ko 352 p.; Fiction One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon—and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. But far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind. Told from the perspective of both Daniel—as he grows into a directionless young man—and Polly, Ko’s novel gives us one of fiction’s most singular mothers. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another. Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig 368 p.; Fiction Miss Burma tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of Benny and Khin, husband and wife, and their daughter Louisa. After attending school in Calcutta, Benny settles in Rangoon, then part of the British Empire, and falls in love with Khin, a woman who is part of a long-persecuted ethnic minority group, the Karen. World War II comes to Southeast Asia, and Benny and Khin must go into hiding in the eastern part of the country during the Japanese Occupation, beginning a journey that will lead them to change the country’s history. After the war, the British authorities make a deal with the Burman nationalists, led by Aung San, whose party gains control of the country. When Aung San is assassinated, his successor ignores the pleas for self-government of the Karen people and other ethnic groups, and in doing so sets off what will become the longest-running civil war in recorded history. Benny and Khin’s eldest child, Louisa, has a danger-filled, tempestuous childhood and reaches prominence as Burma’s first beauty queen soon before the country falls to dictatorship. As Louisa navigates her newfound fame, she is forced to reckon with her family’s past, the West’s ongoing covert dealings in her country, and her own loyalty to the cause of the Karen people. The Book of Phoenix by Nnedi Okorafor 288 p.; Science fiction Phoenix was grown and raised among other genetic experiments in New York’s Tower 7. She is an “accelerated woman”—only two years old but with the body and mind of an adult, Phoenix’s abilities far exceed those of a normal human. Still innocent and inexperienced in the ways of the world, she is content living in her room speed reading ebooks, running on her treadmill, and basking in the love of Saeed, another biologically altered human of Tower 7. Then one evening, Saeed witnesses something so terrible that he takes his own life. Devastated by his death and Tower 7’s refusal to answer her questions, Phoenix finally begins to realize that her home is really her prison. But Phoenix’s escape and destruction of Tower 7 is just the beginning of her story….

Confessions of a Domestic Failure: A Humorous Book About a not so Perfect Mom by Bunmi Laditan 336 p.; Fiction There are good moms and bad moms-and then there are hot-mess moms. Introducing Ashley Keller, career girl turned stay-at-home mom who's trying to navigate the world of Pinterest-perfect, Facebook-fantastic and Instagram-impressive mommies but failing miserably. When Ashley gets the opportunity to participate in the "Motherhood Better" boot camp run by the mommy-blog empire maven she idolizes, she jumps at the chance to become the perfect mom she's always wanted to be. But will she fly high or flop? Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab by Shani Mootoo 310 p.; Fiction/Trinidad Jonathan Lewis-Adey was nine when his parents separated, and his mother, Sid, vanished entirely from his life. It is not until he is a grown man that Jonathan finally reconnects with his beloved lost parent, only to find, to his shock and dismay, that the woman he knew as "Sid" in Toronto has become an elegant man named Sydney living in his native Trinidad. For nine years, Jonathan has paid regular visits to Sydney on his island retreat, trying with quiet desperation to rediscover the parent he adored inside this familiar stranger, and to overcome his lingering confusion and anger at the choices Sydney has made. At the novel's opening, Jonathan is summoned urgently to Trinidad where Sydney, now aged and dying, seems at last to offer him the gift he longs for: a winding story that moves forward sideways as it reveals the truths of Sydney's life. But when and where the story will end is up to Jonathan, and it is he who must decide what to do with Sydney's haunting legacy of love, loss, and acceptance. One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter: Essays by Scaachi Koul 256 p.; Essays In One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Scaachi Koul deploys her razor sharp humor to share all the fears, outrages, and mortifying moments of her life. She learned from an early age what made her miserable, and for Scaachi anything can be cause for despair. Whether it’s a shopping trip gone awry; enduring awkward conversations with her bikini waxer; overcoming her fear of flying while vacationing halfway around the world; dealing with internet trolls, or navigating the fears and anxieties of her parents. Alongside these personal stories are pointed observations about life as a woman of color, where every aspect of her appearance is open for critique, derision, or outright scorn. Where strict gender rules bind in both Western and Indian cultures, leaving little room for a woman not solely focused on marriage and children to have a career (and a life) for herself. April 28, 2017 at 11:00AM from ReadInColour.com http://ift.tt/2pcAviP

#Books #ReadInColour #WeNeedDiverseBooks A Small Revolution #Confessions of a Domestic Failure #Ha

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iamnotthedog · 6 years

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THE HOH RAINFOREST: AUGUST 11-12, 2001

I walked up the road a ways, wondering what the hell I was doing. I felt like I could have just kept walking forever. Then, right up around the bend, I saw a sign. Leaning at a diagonal angle like an unmanned oar attached to the side of a boat was a sign that read “Dennis’s Friendly Salvage.”

I walked into the yard. By that time it was around six in the evening, so I wasn’t even sure there would be anybody there. But a big Native American fellow was behind a little shed, filling up a bucket with water from a spigot. He was wearing blue overalls with a plaid shirt, and had a braided grey and white ponytail that hung down to the small of his back. There were chickens bouncing around, clucking stupidly, and this tall, dilapidated aluminum fence was swaying and creaking in the breeze. There were car parts strewn all over the grass and the gravel lot.

I walked up to the guy and told the guy my dilemma. He introduced himself as Dennis, patted me on the back with a huge hand, then waved for me to follow him and started walking up the highway, back to the Olds. I followed him, watching his ponytail sway back and forth, and neither of us said a word. There was still smoke in the air around the car when we got to it, and it smelled like burning rubber. Dennis shook his head, lifted the hood, and checked out the engine, humming to himself in low tones.

He eventually told me the deal—said something about the radiator, and showed me a bracket that had broken in the engine, causing something—maybe the alternator—to drop, and causing the timing belt to hit the cooling fan. Something like that. I don’t really remember. But it looked bad. Surprisingly, though, he said it wasn’t a lost cause. He told me he’d tow it into the yard and fix it for three hundred bucks.

Despite the fact that it seemed as though Dennis was offering me a pretty good deal, I didn’t really feel like spending my last $300—literally all the money I had left to my name—and I didn’t feel like waiting around the salvage yard while he got the parts and fixed the Olds, anyway.

“How about if you give me $300, and I just let you keep the car?” I asked him.

Dennis put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky, which had taken on all the colors of a sunset on the Pacific Ocean. Deep blues fading into reds, with oranges and yellows on the horizon, over the trees. Then he kicked at the dirt and clapped his big hands together and said “I’ll give you my truck for it.”

I smiled, and Dennis smiled back, knowing that he probably had me. And he did. Driving a junkyard truck with Washington plates back to Joe’s place would be worth it just for the absurdity of it all.

Dennis walked back behind the tall aluminum fence, and I heard a hood pop open and a loud engine roar to life, and then a door creaked open and slammed shut, an engine revved up, and the big Indian came cruising around the far side of the fence, out onto the highway, in a tiny blue pickup truck.

The thing was hilarious. It looked nice enough at first, but upon closer inspection it had really just been put together with spare parts from the yard. The exhaust pipe was the exhaust pipe from a car, not a truck, and poked up in the middle of the truck bed and spewed exhaust into the air, like the steam from a steam engine. And there was a sunroof in the cab, but it was just a hole cut out of the roof, and then a piece of fiberglass duct-taped over the hole. The steering wheel was huge, like it had come out of a big rig. And the upholstery on the seats looked like the kitchen rug from the house I grew up in.

“I don’t have any papers for it,” Dennis said, cutting the engine. So you’ll have to get those yourself. And here...” He leaned into the driver’s side door and grabbed a crowbar from the floorboard. “Let me show you how to start it.”

Dennis popped the hood, lifted it, and touched the pins on the starter together with the crowbar. The thing sputtered, and then started. “Pretty sweet, huh?” he said, smiling at me.

“What’s wrong with the ignition?” I asked. “There’s no key?”

“The key’s in there right now. It has to be in there for it to start. It just doesn’t turn over.”

I sat in the driver’s seat.

“Fuck,” I said.

“What?” Dennis asked.

“I don’t know how to drive stick.”

Dennis struck the same pose he had struck before: his hands on his wide hips, his face turned up to the sky. Then he walked around to the passenger side and hopped in.

“Well shit,” he said, pounding his fists on the dash. “Let’s go.”

Dennis and I drove west and south down Highway 101 through the town of Forks and inland to the Hoh Rainforest where I learned how to drive stick.1 We stuck to Highway 101 and Hoh Valley Road for the most part, but we occasionally turned off onto the narrow, fern-choked side roads to practice stopping and starting on hills, or doing three-point turnabouts in shadowy, pine-covered parking lots. Dennis was patient with me until it got dark, then he got a little salty and told me to take him home. I was still pretty jerky with the clutch, and I couldn’t get the damn thing going on steep inclines without rolling backwards quite a ways, which I saw as being a possible problem when I got back down to California and the Sierra Nevada. Sometimes rolling backwards in Yosemite will roll you right off a cliff.

“You’ll be fine,” Dennis said, his big face and pointed cheekbones shining in the dashboard lights. He patted me on the leg, then got out of the truck and went into his house without even asking me where I was going, or if I had a place to stay.

I stopped by the Olds to say goodbye to it forever and grab my pack and my book, then drove for a couple of hours back west and south to a turn-out by Kalaloch Lodge, right there on the driftwood-strewn coast, where I slept in the cab of the truck.2 The following morning, I awoke to a dark gray sky and rain pattering on the windshield. I dug through my pack for my army green hooded jacket, threw it over my head, popped the hood, grabbed the crowbar from the floorboard, and got out of the cab to start the truck. Some tourists in a van that had pulled into the parking lot to snap pictures of the rugged Pacific coast looked at me curiously, as if I was hotwiring the truck to steal it or something. I smiled at them, and lifted the crowbar over my head.

“No ignition!” I yelled. Then I jumped back in the driver’s seat and headed due south on the 101, back to Olympia.

Forks has always been a sleepy little tourist town, serving as a central lodging and dining destination for travelers planning daytime excursions to the Pacific beaches or the rainforests on the western edge of Olympic National Park. The city’s economy was fueled by the local timber industry until the efforts of various environmental groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—along with the Northern Spotted Owl’s categorization as an endangered species and President Bill Clinton’s subsequent Northwest Forest Plan—substantially reduced timber harvest in the area in the early ‘90s. The economy suffered following the local timber industry’s collapse, with most jobs being sourced by two nearby corrections centers until the success of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series brought tourists to the town in droves. If you can count yourselves among the few lucky ones who have never heard of Twilight, well then, allow me: Twilight is a series of four vampire-themed fantasy romance novels that concern themselves with the comings and goings of a clumsy and dim-witted girl with low self-esteem who a handsome and much more capable vampire falls in love with for some reason, anyway. The girl gets herself into all sorts of trouble and the vampire leaves because he feels like it’s his fault for some reason, and then the girl gets involved in a less steamy and more platonic relationship with another equally handsome vampire. But eventually the first vampire returns, and she sticks with him for some reason until they eventually get married and she has a half-vampire/half-human baby that I think is supposed to be a metaphor for Jesus Christ or something. I don’t know. I haven’t read any of the novels or seen the movies, I’ve only heard about them. What I’m getting at, though, is that the novels are set in Forks, and when the first movie based on the series came out in 2008, tourism rose from 10,000 annual visitors in that tiny town to 19,000. In 2010, the number was up to 73,000, and I’m sure it’s even more today, as the series’ fifth movie came out on November 16, 2012. ↩︎

Olympic National Park is actually comprised of four separate regions: the drier forest on the east side of the park, the glaciated Olympic Mountains in the center of the park, the temperate rainforests on the western side of the park, and the sixty-mile-long, three-mile-wide stretch of coastline that runs from the Makah Indian Reservation in the north all the way down to the Quinault Indian Reservation to the south. The coastal strip of Olympic National Park is also home to two other Indian Reservations: the Hoh Indian Reservation lies at the mouth of the Hoh River, and the Quileute Indian Reservation lies at the mouth of the Quillayute River. Both reservations have been there since the Quinault Treaty of 1855, long before President Teddy Roosevelt created Mount Olympus National Monument in 1909, or before Congress voted to re-designate the monument as Olympic National Park in 1938. “Kalaloch” is a corruption of a Quinault word meaning “a good place to land,” which refers to the Pacific inlet in the community being one of the only safe places on the coastline in which to land a dugout canoe. ↩︎

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sherristockman · 6 years

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Child Prodigy Astounds Music World With Full-Length Opera Composition Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola I am so pleased to post this video and I hope it gives you as much joy as it did me when I first viewed it on 60 Minutes. It is beyond extraordinary to have a glimpse into someone as exceptionally talented as 12-year-old Alma. My only regret is that there is no way to post this without exposing you to a minutelong drug commercial, which I’m sure you realize I don’t endorse. For some of you, it may be the only time you see these commercials so let them entertain you. Most of us are gifted with some degree of natural talent — something we do better, or with greater ease, than the average person. And then, there’s the true prodigies; people with seemingly unnatural talent. Their gift is so profound, and comes from God-only-knows-where. Alma Deutscher, from Basingstoke, England, is a perfect example of the latter.1 There are a number of musical prodigies out there, but Alma has most of them beat. She was able to name notes on the piano at age 2 and began playing piano and violin at the tender age of 3. Within a year of tutoring, she was playing Handel sonatas on the violin. She’s now considered a virtuoso of both instruments. By the age of 4, she’d already begun composing her own melodies, and by 6 she’d written her first piano sonata. This was followed by a violin and orchestra concerto at 9. In December last year, her full-length opera, “Cinderella,” premiered at the Casino Baumgarten Theatre in Vienna,2 the city of music, performed by the Viennese opera group, Oh!pera — an unattainable dream even for many adult composers who’ve spent a lifetime perfecting their craft. Alma, who wrote the score for every single instrument, and the lyrics, was 11 years old. The 2.5-hour long opera, with a musical score running 237 pages, received standing ovations. Cinderella Reinvented by 11-Year-Old Prodigy Many were also wowed by her creative reinvention of the classical tale of Cinderella. Rather than being matched with her true love by the way of a lost glass slipper of a particularly minute size — an idea Alma found to be “quite silly” — Cinderella is a talented composer and the pining prince is a poet. The tale is set in an opera production company run by the evil stepmother. The two stepsisters are divas with little talent and much vile. Cinderella, with a natural talent for composing, is not allowed to perform. Meanwhile, the prince writes a love poem that ends up in Cinderella’s hands. Not knowing the identity of the poet, she falls in love with the words and sets them to music. After having her composition stolen by her evil stepsisters, who do their best to sing it at the ball, Cinderella finally gets her chance to perform for the prince. The prince is enthralled by the enchanting melody, and sets out to discover who wrote the music to his poem. As in the classical story, he travels the land searching for his soulmate, but instead of looking for the foot that fits into the slipper, he sings a portion of the melody, knowing only the true composer can properly finish the song. So, the prince falls in love with Cinderella not because of her physical beauty or tiny feet, but because of her talent, and because “he understands her,” to use Alma’s explanation. In other words, he recognizes his soulmate as a talented equal. “I didn't want Cinderella just to be pretty. I wanted her to have her own mind and her own spirit. And to be a little bit like me. So, I decided that she would be a composer,” Alma explains.3 “Cinderella” made its American sold-out debut December 16 at the Opera San Jose.4 Where Does the Music Come From? Most interviews with Alma include the same question: Where does her music come from? In a recent 60-Minutes interview, Scott Pelley received the following answer:5 “I don’t really know, but it’s really very normal to me to … walk around and having melodies popping into my head. It’s the most normal thing in the world. For me, it’s strange to walk around and not to have melodies popping into my head. So, if I was interviewing you, I would say, ‘Well, tell me Scott, how does it feel not having melodies popping into your head?’” Oftentimes, the music comes when she’s most relaxed, either playing outdoors with her younger sister, or skipping rope. Her father, Guy Deutscher, a linguistics professor and amateur musician, taught her to read musical notes, but questions the influence of his role in her immense ability to create music, including scores for instruments she does not play. He tells Pelley, “I thought it was me [that taught her to read music]. I hardly had to say [any]thing — and, you know, her piano teacher once said ‘it’s a bit difficult with Alma; it’s difficult to teach her because one always has the sense she’d ‘been there’ before.’” Alma also says she has “lots of composers” inside her mind, in a special “country” she created in her imagination. These imaginary friends provide her with the emotional juices her tender youth lacks. Each one has their own emotional style of composing. One of them, Antonin Yellowsink, helped her compose a “dark and dramatic” violin concerto. “[S]ometimes when I’m stuck with something, when I’m composing, I go to them and ask them for advice. And quite often, they come up with very interesting things,” she says. Would Rather Be Original Alma Than Second Mozart Many compare Alma to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791),6 one of the few childhood prodigies that can even compare to Alma’s talent. However, while flattered, Alma insists she would rather “prefer to be the first Alma than the second Mozart.” That said, she has a great affinity for the famed composer and musician, and “would have loved” to have him as a teacher. The question is whether Alma wouldn’t have ended up teaching Mozart a thing or two. In a concerto in Israel, Alma performed one of Mozart’s piano concertos with a cadenza — a musical interlude where the orchestra goes silent, allowing the soloist to perform his or her own music. But in this case, Alma didn’t just perform Mozart’s solo. She created her own. “It's something that I composed because, you see, it's a very early concerto of Mozart and the cadenza was very simple. It didn't go to any different keys,” she tells Pelley. “And I composed quite a long one going to lots and lots of different keys doing lots of things in Mozart's motifs,” Alma says. “So, you improved the cadenza of Mozart?” Pelley asks, to which she replies, “Well, yes.” Robert Gjerdingen, a professor of music at Northwestern in Chicago who has acted as a “consultant to Alma's education,” had the following to say about his star protégé: “It's kind of a comet that goes by and everybody looks up and just goes, ‘Wow.’ I sent her some assignments when she was six, seven, where I expected her to crash and burn, because they were very difficult. It came back, it was like listening to a mid-18th century composer. She was a native speaker … It's her first language — she speaks the Mozart-style. She speaks the style of Mendelssohn … She's batting in the big leagues. And if you win the pennant, there's immortality.” The Many Benefits of Music As for why she composes, Alma says her inspiration is to “make the world a better place,” and she believes beautiful music can do that. She is undoubtedly correct. Music is a form of emotional communication, an emotional protolanguage of sorts, and like emotions it can have a tremendous influence on psychological and even physical health. For example, music has been found to: Help you exercise harder, while making it feel easier Help Alzheimer’s patients reconnect with people around them, remember past life events and reduce agitation associated with dementia Allow patients with Parkinson’s disease move more freely.7 The music appears to provide an external rhythm that bypasses the malfunctioning signals in the brain Improve your mood; calm nerves; reduce stress and/or invigorate and energize Facilitate connection and unification between people. Despite individual differences in musical preferences, classical music has been shown to elicit a very consistent pattern of brain activity in virtually all listeners. Areas activated include those involved in movement, planning, memory and attention. This brain activation creates a sort of unifying force that synchronizes and unifies people together8 What Happens in Your Brain When You Hear Music? When you listen to music, much more is happening in your body than simple auditory processing. Research shows that music triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of your brain that releases the feel-good chemical dopamine and is involved in forming expectations. At the same time, the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which makes possible abstract decision-making, are also activated.9 Based on the brain activity in certain regions, especially the nucleus accumbens, captured by an fMRI imager while participants listened to music, the researchers could predict how much money the listeners were willing to spend on previously unheard music. As you might suspect, songs that triggered activity in the emotional and intellectual areas of the brain demanded a higher price. Interestingly, the study’s lead author noted that your brain learns how to predict how different pieces of music will unfold using pattern recognition and prediction, skills that may have been key to our evolutionary progress. As reported by Time:10 “These predictions are culture-dependent and based on experience: someone raised on rock or Western classical music won’t be able to predict the course of an Indian raga, for example, and vice versa. But if a piece develops in a way that’s both slightly novel and still in line with our brain’s prediction, we tend to like it a lot. And that, says [lead researcher] Salimpoor, ‘is because we’ve made a kind of intellectual conquest.’ Music may, in other words, tap into a brain mechanism that was key to our evolutionary progress. The ability to recognize patterns and generalize from experience, to predict what’s likely to happen in the future — in short, the ability to imagine — is something humans do far better than any other animals. It’s what allowed us (aided by the far less glamorous opposable thumb) to take over the world.” Alma’s future passion project is to write a book, turn it into a film and write the musical score. I hope you’ll take the time to view the featured 25-minute documentary about Alma Deutscher, and revel in her musical talent. You will not regret it. Then, if you’re eager for more, you can listen to some of the “Cinderella” performances in the 1.5-hour-long recording above. May she inspire you to help make the world a better place, every day.

#VitalityPath

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