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multiverseforger · 3 years

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Jennifer Walters, the cousin of Bruce Banner (the Hulk), is the small and somewhat shy daughter of Los Angeles County Sheriff William Morris Walters and Elaine (née Banner) Walters (who died in a car crash when Jennifer was 17).[20] Operatives of Nicholas Trask, a crime boss who had crossed paths with her father, shot and seriously wounded her on the day that Banner visited her to tell her about his transformation into the Hulk. Since no other donors with her blood type were available, Banner provided his own blood for a transfusion; as they already shared the same blood type and DNA, his gamma-irradiated blood, combined with her anger, transformed Jennifer into the green-skinned She-Hulk when the mobsters tried to finish her off at the hospital.[21] She then used her new powers to take down Trask, who was killed when the earth-boring device he rode malfunctioned, taking him to the center of the Earth.[22]

As She-Hulk, Jennifer possessed powers similar to those of her cousin, though at a reduced level. She also possessed a less monstrous, more Amazonian appearance. Initially, the transformation to her She-Hulk form was triggered (as with Bruce Banner's) by anger. Like her cousin Bruce, his counterpart, the Leader, Doc Samson and most other persons mutated by exposure to gamma radiation over the years, her mutated form was originally explained as being molded by her subconscious desire to look like the ideal woman. She eventually gains control of her transformations when Michael Morbius cures her of a lethal blood disease. As a criminal defense lawyer, she defended Morbius in his trial for his vampiric killings.[23]

Eventually, Jennifer decides that she is going to retain her She-Hulk form permanently—preferring the freedom, confidence, and assertiveness that it gave her compared to her more timorous and fragile "normal" form. After her brief solo career, she joined the Avengers.[24] This led to her being transported to Battleworld by the Beyonder and her participation in the Secret Wars,[25] most notable for sparking her long-standing rivalry with the newly empowered Titania.[26] After the heroes returned to Earth, she temporarily replaced the Thing (who, having been repeatedly de-powered during the event, opted to stay in Battleworld for some time as a form of soul-searching) as a member of the Fantastic Four.[27]

During her tenure with the Fantastic Four, She-Hulk met and started a romance with Wyatt Wingfoot.[28] One day, she had to prevent a radiation leak in a downed S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. This radiation exposure had a drastic effect on Jennifer: she could no longer transform back into her original human form.[29] However, this was an agreeable turn of events for her, since she preferred being She-Hulk, and it was revealed much later that the block was purely psychological.

Shortly after that, she appeared before the Supreme Court, where she battled Titania again.[30]

Sensational She-HulkEdit

After her Fantastic Four years, She-Hulk rejoined the Avengers for a while. She became hypnotized by the Ringmaster into becoming a performer in the Circus of Crime, and battled the Headmen.[31] With Spider-Man, she defeated the Headmen[32] and became an assistant District Attorney and began working for New York City district attorney Blake Tower. Here she met Louise "Weezie" Grant Mason, formerly the Golden Age superheroine the Blonde Phantom.[33] She had a long series of unusual encounters, including when she battled Doctor Bong,[34] first contended against Xemnu the Living Titan,[35] encountered "Nick St. Christopher",[36] and encountered "Spragg the Living Hill/Comet".[37]

Sensational She-Hulk #15 introduced a grey version of She-Hulk that appeared at night only and shared a lot in common with the Hulk, such as having a childlike mind, speaking in the third person and divorcing from her Jennifer Walters identity, referring to Jennifer as "puny Jennifer", She-Hulk returned to normal in the following issue, with her green coloration returning in Sensational She-Hulk #17.[38] She-Hulk later discovered that Louise Mason had manipulated Tower into hiring her, so that Mason might again star in a comic book (and thus avoid dying of old age). Later, while doing legal work for Heroes for Hire, She-Hulk spent some time dating Luke Cage.

After a time, She-Hulk returns to the Avengers. Repeated exposure to the presence of her teammate Jack of Hearts, who has the innate ability to absorb radiation that is around him, leads to She-Hulk being unable to control her changes, which resulted in her tearing the Vision in half. It is then revealed that all of the events were caused by the Scarlet Witch. Now, when she is afraid, she not only turns into She-Hulk but her mind becomes maddened by paranoia and rage. Jennifer flees, fearing that she will endanger her friends and others, leading to the "Search for She-Hulk" storyline.

The other Avengers track her to the town of Bone, Idaho, where Jennifer is lying low but the anxiety of being found prompts her to change, causing her to damage much of the town. Her cousin shows up but fails to reason with her; he "Hulks out" and the two fight—the devastation to the town subsequently being blamed on the Hulk.

Psychological limitations inhibit her transformation between her two forms. For a time, as detailed in "She-Hulk" #4 (March 2006), Jennifer works as a relief volunteer helping to repair Bone. She gains confidence after solving a murder mystery, reveals her green alter-ego to the entire town, and then uses her strength to make many more repairs. This, combined with Leonard Samson's new 'gamma-charger', gives her full control over her transformations for, as she said, 'the time being'.

JLA/AvengersEdit

In the DC/Marvel crossover JLA/Avengers, She-Hulk first appears being brainwashed by Starro when the Avengers battle her, grabbing a startled Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers) by her leg, before the latter blasts her away with her powers.[39] She later assists the Avengers in the subsequent hunt for the 12 artifacts needed to trap the DC villain Krona, first battling Aquaman in Asgard, and later in the Savage Land with the rest of the heroes.[40] During the final battle against Krona and his forces, she assists Wonder Woman in her battle against Surtur, and eventually appears at the end as one of the heroes that started out the entire event.[41]

Single Green FemaleEdit

The events of The Search for She-Hulk, combined with her own lack of personal responsibility and the potential legal ramifications of her saving the world swaying juries leads Jennifer back to the legal profession in a more full-time capacity, when she was asked to practice law in the Superhuman Law division of the New York firm of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway (GLK&H).[volume & issue needed] This offer is dependent upon Jennifer remaining human while she worked for the firm.

While practicing at GLK&H, Jennifer gradually becomes comfortable as both She-Hulk and Jennifer Walters, realizing that she has much to offer the world in both forms.[volume & issue needed] During one of these adventures, she realizes her strength as She-Hulk is dependent on her strength as Walters and works out in her human form. Thus, she exponentially increases her powers as She-Hulk.[42]

Civil WarEdit

She-Hulk registered under the Superhuman Registration Act, and is a supporter of Tony Stark (Iron Man). However, as an attorney, she advised individuals on both sides of the Civil War. She agreed to file suit against Peter Parker for fraud on behalf of her father-in-law, Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. Her intention is to keep the suit tied up in the courts indefinitely. She is also the lawyer for Speedball in Civil War: Front Line.

In She-Hulk #14 (2006), Clay Quartermain of S.H.I.E.L.D. informs Jennifer that she has been drafted into the organization as a result of her registration. Her mission is to fight various foes of the Hulk while training heroes under the Initiative. She serves with the Hulkbusters: Clay Quartermain, Agent Crimson, Agent Cheesecake and Agent Beefcake.[43]

World War HulkEdit

Due to her involvement in S.H.I.E.L.D., She-Hulk derives a bit of information suggesting that the organization knows of her cousin's whereabouts. Anticipating a problem, Tony Stark has She-Hulk secretly injected with S.P.I.N. Tech that transforms her to human form. Enraged, she tells Stark that, although he may have taken She-Hulk out of the equation, he still has to face Jennifer Walters, one of the best lawyers in the country. Jennifer informs Stark that he's miscalculated: She-Hulk would have just pummeled him, but Jennifer Walters has the ability to destroy him.

On her way home, Jennifer runs into Amadeus Cho, a young genius out looking for friends of the Hulk. Cho, whom the Hulk once saved, discovered what the Illuminati had done to the Hulk, and he wants help in finding him. Cho temporarily restores Jennifer's powers so that she can take out Doc Samson, who came to apprehend Cho for Reed Richards and Tony Stark. Cho says he can permanently restore Jennifer's powers if she will join him, but she politely refuses, instead directing him to Hercules and Angel.

During the "World War Hulk" storyline, a re-powered She-Hulk assists in the evacuation of Manhattan.[44] She tries to reason with her cousin, who has just destroyed Stark Tower during his battle with Iron Man. The Hulk warns her to leave, but she stands her ground. After she lands a punch squarely to his face, the Hulk smashes her into the ground, creating a crater around her body. As he moves on to his next confrontation, all Jennifer can say is: "God help us all."[45]

Jennifer is held captive with the other defeated heroes at Madison Square Garden, which the Hulk has converted into a gladiatorial arena. The heroes have been implanted with the same obedience discs that compelled the Hulk and his allies to fight one another during their time on the planet Sakaar.

Jennifer returns to the law firm to work on suing Tony Stark for stealing her powers. She is subpoenaed to give a testimony in a case in which Mallory Book is trying to prove that the Leader's criminal acts are the result of a shift of personality induced by his mutation, and an addiction to his gamma irradiated powers, and that he thus cannot be held accountable for his actions. During her testimony, Jennifer realizes that she herself is "addicted" to being She-Hulk; Mallory forces her to admit that she has had a long list of sexual partners as She-Hulk. After the testimony, Pug appears and the two spend an evening together as friends, which cheers her up. She confronts Mallory the next day and tells her that she will put a stop to her Leader case.[46] However, it is revealed that the Leader has been acquitted of his crimes.[47]

There is an apparent inconsistency between the She-Hulk and World War Hulk comics: in She-Hulk #19, the Leader is on trial in New York City, which is being cleaned up after the Hulk's recent attack. The action in the issue takes place during or after the events of World War Hulk. However, Jennifer appears as She-Hulk in the first and second issues of World War Hulk, during which the Hulk is destroying New York City. The discrepancy is resolved in She-Hulk #20: Jennifer explains that Tony Stark temporarily disabled the nanobots to allow her to assist in the battle against her cousin, only to reactivate them when the battle was over. She amends her suit against Stark to demand the permanent deactivation of the nanobots.

Post-World War HulkEdit

At some point after World War Hulk, Jennifer was brought before the Living Tribunal[48] and asked to weigh her universe against a newer, better "cosmic trophy wife" version, described by Walters as "an ultimate universe." Her universe wins, and she resigns from the Magistrati.

After the Leader's trial, Artie Zix reveals himself as RT-Z9 and holds the main staff of GLK&H hostage while asking them questions at the behest of a group of aliens from a corner of the galaxy recently discovered by the Watcher Qyre. The aliens, called the Recluses, wish to keep their existence a secret. She-Hulk earlier decreed that Qyre not reveal knowledge of the Recluses' existence at the meetings of the Watchers.[49] This had serious repercussions: it is revealed at the close of She-Hulk #20 that an evil being has conquered that portion of the galaxy, and is preparing an assault on all of creation. Qyre, who holds knowledge of the plan, is unable to speak of it to anyone else. At She-Hulk's time trial, it was revealed that her actions made a destructive event called the Reckoning War possible. However, comments made by the future Southpaw, divulge that the war, though a terrible and dark time, will be favorably resolved.

A permanently de-powered Jennifer Walters finds that tourists from an alternate universe – designated the Alpha universe – are crossing into her universe – which they call Beta – to gain access to superpowers and comes face to face with her own powered-up doppelganger. Jennifer confirms that her Alpha counterpart slept with the Juggernaut but her anger quickly turns to sorrow as she realizes that without her abilities, the Alpha Jennifer Walters – while unfamiliar with superhuman law – is far better suited to life in the Beta universe. Realizing this, she decides that she will go to the Alpha universe and let the other Jennifer Walters take over for her.

As she steps through the portal, Reed Richards realizes he can use the previously stored configuration of the Alpha She-Hulk to restore Jennifer's powers by purging the nanites from her body and setting the teleporter to loop her back to this reality. Having regained her abilities, Jennifer remains in her home reality, while the Alpha Jen Walters returns to her own universe and reconciles with her boyfriend, the Alpha Augustus "Pug" Pugliese.

At an unspecified time after World War Hulk, She-Hulk assists Tony Stark with Emil Blonsky's murder investigation.[50] While in Stark's Helicarrier, she is attacked and beaten by the Red Hulk who states to her that he's not Bruce. She-Hulk vows to get even for the deliberate humiliation.[51] She later helps to prevent casualties in San Francisco after the Red Hulk caused an earthquake in the area,[52] and assembles Thundra and the Valkyrie together to capture him.[53]

Some months after regaining her abilities, Jennifer was tasked to defend an accused killer named Arthur Moore. While she was successful in defending him, immediately after his freedom was secured he claimed to be guilty and showed her images of the crimes he had been accused of. Jennifer's horror at what she was being shown, combined with Moore's gloating, was enough to push her rage so far that she became the savage She-Hulk once again. She attacked him and threatened to kill him if he was not given the death penalty. She also told everybody within earshot that he was guilty and backed up her accusation by revealing privileged information. This resulted in her being disbarred. Jennifer later found out that Moore really was innocent; the images he had shown her had been false. It was also revealed, albeit not to Jennifer, that Moore had hoped to get her to react exactly the way she did since his employers wanted She-Hulk disbarred for purposes as yet unknown. Unable to practice law any more, Jennifer began working for Freeman Bonds Inc. – a subsidiary of GLK&B – as a bounty hunter with her Skrull partner Jazinda.

She was later recruited by Stark as a member of an Initiative-sponsored incarnation of the Defenders for a short while until Tony Stark disbanded the team.[54][volume & issue needed] Afterwards, she continued to aid team leader Nighthawk for a brief time[volume & issue needed]until she was fully able to join the team on Nighthawk's request and that it would be away from the Initiative.[volume & issue needed]

Together they have several adventures, even encountering Hercules, but they soon ended up involved in the midst of the Secret Invasion.[55]

Secret InvasionEdit

During the Skrull takeover of Earth during Secret Invasion, She-Hulk and Jazinda hunt down a member of the Skrulls who functions as their religious leader. X-Factor initially impedes her progress, but they part ways on uncertain terms. She-Hulk and Jazinda capture the Skrull and the two heroines take the Skrull to New York, where they encounter the Super-Skrull, Kl'rt.[56] Kl'rt came to kill his daughter, Jazinda, going so far as to shoot her in the head. Due to her regenerative properties, Jazinda was still not fully dead. The Skrull religious leader wants to completely remove her regenerative ability, but Kl'rt stops him after She-Hulk pleads to his fatherly nature, tapping into his guilt for not being able to save his son who had died in a previous war.[volume & issue needed]

Lady LiberatorsEdit

Some time after the Skrull invasion is defeated, the country of Marinmer suffers a devastating earthquake. Because the victims of the earthquake are members of a minority religious group, the Marinmer government has confiscated all humanitarian aid packages, and because of Marinmer's strong ties to powerful countries such as Russia and China, other nations refuse to intervene for fear of sparking a war. She-Hulk and several members of the Lady Liberators secretly enter Marinmer, intending to steal the confiscated aid packages and distribute them to the earthquake victims.[57] The Winter Guard attempts to stop them, but gives up after seeing the plight of the earthquake victims.[58] Afterwards, the US government attempts to arrest She-Hulk for her actions in Marinmer, but drops the charges to avoid political embarrassment. With public opinion overwhelmingly in her favor, She-Hulk seems poised to get her legal license back when Jazinda is captured by the Behemoth after he mistakenly attacks her, thinking she is the real She-Hulk.[59] Jazinda is then taken to a government lab and brutally experimented on when her ability to resurrect herself from the dead is discovered. Jazinda contacts She-Hulk telepathically through a secretly implanted mind reading device and warns her that the government will be coming to question her about their relationship. Jazinda tells She-Hulk to say she did not know Jazinda was a Skrull and just before going dead/unconscious tells She-Hulk "I've always l...". She-Hulk tries to keep up the denial, but when she sees Jazinda about to be vivisected, she loses control and breaks Jazinda out. The Behemoth tries to stop her, but She-Hulk defeats him with the help of the Lady Liberators. Later it is revealed that Mallory Book, her former boss, was behind all the bad things happening to She-Hulk along with a group called the "Fourth Wall". Yet when she saw She-Hulk risk herself to save her Skrull friend, Book "cancelled" the plan.[60]

Dark ReignEdit

In the four-issue miniseries All-New Savage She-Hulk, Jennifer fights Lyra, the alternate reality daughter of Hulk and Thundra after she comes to the Earth-616 reality for the DNA of the strongest man.[61] While Jennifer and Lyra were fighting, Sentry tosses her away believing the man Lyra is referring to is him.[62] She-Hulk later returns, enraged, and pummels the Sentry into the ground. She then helps Lyra escape from Avengers Tower.[63]

M.I.A.Edit

In Incredible Hulk #600, Jennifer tasks Ben Urich to discover the identity of Red Hulk. She informs him that she is unable to as she has asked too many questions to the wrong people. She has Urich bring a photographer (Peter Parker), and meets him along with her insider, Doc Samson, and they venture into a S.H.I.E.L.D. base that is actually a front for A.I.M. and General Ross's Gamma Power Super Soldier Program. Leonard Samson then appears to have a breakdown, but in reality he is changing into Samson. Samson claims to be stronger and faster (and is larger in size, has longer hair and a lightning bolt scar) than Jennifer. The clashing duo are subdued by MODOK and the facility explodes in the aftermath of a fight between Red Hulk and Hulk; Jennifer, Samson (who has reverted to Leonard) and Red Hulk are caught in the explosion. Jennifer's status is unknown and Red Hulk does not reveal anything to Urich when the two meet a second time.[64]

While She-Hulk is M.I.A., the Red She-Hulk makes her first appearance where she claims Jennifer Walters to be dead.[65]

It was later shown in a flashback that Red She-Hulk prevented Jennifer Walters from escaping from A.I.M. custody. During this battle, Red She-Hulk brutally beat Jennifer and snapped her neck with a cable. In the last panel, Jennifer Walters appeared to be dead with the Red She-Hulk standing over her body,[66] though the Red She-Hulk claims she did not know her own strength. She then questions Doc Samson whether it was the real She-Hulk or a Life-Model Decoy, to which Samson answers "You're here to follow orders, not to ask questions".[67] Lyra later infiltrates the Intelligencia, where she finds Jennifer in stasis.[68] Following a brief fight with the Red She-Hulk, the three decide to team up to take down Intelligencia's forces.[69]

Incredible HulksEdit

Following the defeat of the Intelligencia, Jennifer begins traveling with her cousin Bruce, Skaar, Korg, Rick Jones and Betty Ross.[70] Shortly after the events of World War Hulks, Skaar becomes aware that his brother Hiro-Kala is approaching and that he intends to crash the planet K'ai into the Earth. She-Hulk is on the team as they manage to successfully avert disaster. Upon returning to Earth, they find the world in flames as it is in the grasp of the Chaos War. They journey to Hell, where they fight and defeat the Chaos King. Returning to a restored Earth, they are greeted as monsters.[volume & issue needed]

At some point before or after these events, Jennifer and Lyra settle in New York, where Lyra begins to attend high school in an attempt to gain an understanding of humanity as it occurs in this timeline. As well as helping to integrate Lyra into society, they are also involved in trying to round up the remaining members of the Intelligencia.[volume & issue needed]

They manage to round up the Intelligencia, but the Wizard is able to escape imprisonment and goes after Lyra at her high school prom, almost killing her before She-Hulk intervenes, knocking out Wizard but not before Lyra's secret identity has been compromised. The rest of the pupils turn on Lyra as a result of her prom date being injured and the endangerment of everyone at the dance. She-Hulk explains to her afterwards that they have to leave and that despite being heroes, the life of a Hulk is often lonely.[volume & issue needed]

Fearsome FourEdit

During the Fear Itself storyline, She-Hulk joins with Howard the Duck, Nighthawk and the Frankenstein Monster to form a four-person team called the Fearsome Four to stop the Man-Thing from its destructive path. They later discover a plot by Psycho-Man to use the Man-Thing's volatile empathy to create a weapon.[71]

Future FoundationEdit

Prior to a time- and multiverse-spanning trip by the Fantastic Four and family, the Thing asks She-Hulk to be a member of the Future Foundation.[72]

Doc GreenEdit

When the Hulk is elevated into "Doc Green" – a version of the Hulk possessing Bruce Banner's intellect – after he is treated for a shot to the head as Bruce Banner by use of the Extremis virus, he sets out to attack and cure other gamma-based mutations. Steve Rogers attempts to order the Hulk to stop before he goes after She-Hulk,[73] but when Doc Green finally confronts her, he instead admits that he has come to recognize that he is coming dangerously close to the Maestro, as part of him enjoyed eliminating his 'rivals', having decided instead to accept the eventual loss of his intellect as Extremis wore off rather than risk that persona emerging. Informing She-Hulk that she is the only gamma mutation whose life he felt had been legitimately enhanced by her condition, Doc Green provides her with the last injection of his cure, asking her to use it on him if he goes too far in his efforts to stop an A.I. version of himself that he created and unleashed.[74]

GwenpoolEdit

In Gwenpool's first Christmas special, Howard the Duck invited her to She-Hulk's Christmas party on the provision that she has not killed any good guys recently. She shows up and karaokes with Ms. Marvel. Also there was a one-shot image of her holding mistletoe over her head and inviting She-hulk to kiss her while Ms. Marvel looked on in girlish glee. There were dozens of superhumans in attendance, proving that whether she is acting as a hero or not, She-hulk keeps strong ties to the super-community.[volume & issue needed]

Civil War IIEdit

During the 2016 Civil War II storyline, after the Inhuman Ulysses predicts Thanos' arrival on Earth, She-Hulk was mortally wounded by a direct attack from the villain in question.[75][76] When Iron Man learns that they used Ulysses' precognitive power to ambush Thanos, he vows to make sure that no one uses it again. Before She-Hulk goes into cardiac arrest, she tells Captain Marvel to fight for the future.[77] After Hawkeye was acquitted for shooting Bruce Banner, Captain Marvel visited She-Hulk, who came out of her coma. When She-Hulk angrily demanded to know the verdict of Hawkeye's trial, Captain Marvel remained silent.[78]

Post-Civil War IIEdit

Following Bruce Banner's funeral, Jennifer Walters left the superhero business and continued to work as a lawyer, where she gained her first client: Maise Brewn, who was an Inhuman descendant. Due to the stress following the fight with Thanos, Jennifer started turning uncontrollably into her version of the Grey Hulk at different intervals. Jennifer helped Maise when she was recovering from the trauma and being evicted by her landlord Mr. Tick. When Maise got impatient with Jennifer and summoned a Fear Golem that killed Mr. Tick and some police officers, Jennifer is nearly killed by it and transforms into the Hulk. She defeated the Fear Golem and prevented Maise from committing suicide when Maise was arrested for reckless endangerment afterwards.[79]

Afterwards, Jennifer transformed into the Hulk and met the Hellcat. After changing back, Jennifer told the Hellcat that she was worried over the fact that her grey color could mean that she is like Bruce (since Bruce also had a grey incarnation). Later, Jennifer was watching a live video on the internet when a baker named Oliver turned into a Hulk-like creature on-camera.[80] Jennifer spent several days trying to track him down, eventually confronting him as the Hulk at the Brooklyn Bridge. During the following battle, she lost control of her Hulk persona, almost killing him, though the Hellcat managed to calm her down. However, the incident left Jennifer worried about losing control again.[81]

Some time later, the Leader kidnapped Jennifer and forced her to transform into the Hulk in order to force her to kill his new assistant, Robyn, who willingly went through a blood transfusion in order to become a Hulk-like monster herself. The Hulk nearly killed Robyn, but Jennifer managed to regain control, before defeating the Leader by electrocuting him. Jen then went with self-help writer Florida Mayer, who used a special pill to transport Jennifer to her subconscious, leading her to confront her Hulk persona and illusions of Thanos and Banner, finally overcoming her trauma in the process. Upon waking, Jennifer reverted to her She-Hulk persona.[82]

During the war against the Cotati, She-Hulk is revealed to have been killed and replaced by a Cotati, attacking the Avengers when they tried to negotiate a truce with their new enemy, the heroes only surviving the attack thanks to the Invisible Woman's forcefield, although the Cotati/She-Hulk then beats down the Thing and retreats.[83] Invisible Woman, Mantis, and Thing are locked in combat with the Cotati-possessed She-Hulk. Back in New York, Jo-Venn and N'kalla release their positive memories which revives She-Hulk enough to break the Cotati off of her and to stop the fighting between the Kree and the Skrull. When the Cotati are defeated, She-Hulk and Thor take Sequoia away.[84] It turns out that She-Hulk was able to return to life thanks to Leader who has mastered the way to control the Green Door.[85

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shakespearesglobeblog · 5 years

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Music Instrument Design for Edward II.

Our wonderfully talented Director of Music, Bill Barclay has built some unique instruments for our production of Edward II. In this blog he tells us about these instruments and the three different worlds of sound he has created for the production.

Christopher Marlowe’s dark history of Edward II still reverberates loudly today both in its powerfully modern assertion that love is love, and in the incompatibility between vulnerability and the corridors of power. To help tell the story of these contrasts that ripple through time, I’ve built two new musical instruments that provide natural reverberation in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, which has a warm yet dry acoustic. These devices play alongside a raft of ethnic and period instruments to create three contrasting palates of sound.

The first world of sound: war, rebellion, dissidents, and political pressure

The first sound world describes the sounds of war, rebellion, dissidents, and political pressure. This is achieved through the creation of a steel cello, which is an instrument I first encountered in Boston built by musician Matt Samolis, also known by his stage name Uncle Shoe. I was infatuated with his creations and had used them in theatre before, but this is this instrument’s debut in the United Kingdom. With Matt’s guidance I’ve constructed a new kind of steel cello bespoke to the Sam Wanamaker.

This is how it works: several large deep ride cymbals and metal rods are bolted to a large stainless steel resonating sheet, which amplifies the metal objects as they are bowed and struck. The instrument is capable of a wide range of sounds which are almost entirely below the frequencies of consonants in speech, making words intelligible over a rash of haunting textures. Amazingly, the instrument often sounds synthesised – digital, even – metallic, industrial, dark, and yet shimmering. Matt and I used to play it for sound meditations in long beautiful drone concerts, and yet it can also distort to provide an incredible lexicon of theatrical punctuation. The whole band takes a turn on it, but it is chiefly played by Music Director Rob Millett, and it is played throughout the production.

The steel cello is complemented by a bass drum, field drum, and Sarah Homer’s contra alto clarinet – a rare instrument lower than the bass clarinet which gurgles at the low end of the hearing spectrum under the steel cello’s reverberant strokes.

The second world of sound: love

The second sound world was meant to contrast with the first as much as possible in order to depict the love between Edward and Gaveston as incompatible with its oppressive cultural antipathy to homosexuality. For this world we lean on Tunde Jegede’s kora – the West African harp, chiefly from the griot storytelling tradition of Mali.(A griot is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, or musician).

The kora melds with a swarmandal, a Hindu harp the characteristic buzzing from its sympathetic strings. To fill out this pan-ethnic texture, we use a hammered dulcimer and a bass dulcimer, instruments that are from all over the world, though perhaps most prominent in music from the Middle East. These three harp-like instruments from around the world emphasise the beauty, the universalism, and perhaps the exotic presence that define love so unabashedly in this play. The textures these strings make with each other seems to chime perfectly with the candlelight, and lend an extraordinary atmosphere to the Playhouse.

The third world of sound: the church

The third sound world is of the church. Here the tubular bells, accordion (mimicking an organ), cello, and contra alto clarinet form a league of ominously low, yet sinuously melodic instruments that collect like vines around the ankles of the play’s characters – powerful yet beautiful. Also in this world is the singers, who at various moments intone the Latin prayers of the Requiem Mass, as if the death of Edward I (Longshanks, Edward II’s father), still looms over the cracked glass of our protagonist’s troubled reign.

The second original instrument is the spring machine. Two long helical springs are attached to the theatre’s back wall, and connect directly to the heads of two frame drums bolted to the face of the music gallery. When the springs are rubbed and struck, we discovered that the sounds that pour out of the drums are unearthly, unsettling, and hard to mentally place. For weeks I had been seeking sounds for the play’s horrible final scenes that were truly original – sounds that could only mean this peculiar horror. We tried attaching a double bass to the springs, and had 4 springs start on each string, going into four drums. The sound was amazing but I could still hear the double bass, and the sound was too familiar.

When we took the bass away and hung the springs to a hook instead, it focused the sound much more on the strange sounds of the springs themselves, which we then tightened to amplify the signal. This revealed the coups de grace: when the drum heads are struck with a mallet in a heartbeat pattern, the heartbeat flows to the back wall and out the drums again, creating an analogue looping system. The intention is to recreate the sound of hearing your own heartbeat thudding in your ears, as you imagine the worst. The secondary intention is to allow the truly horrible parts of the story be truly horrible, by preparing our subconscious with unsettling sounds that have no preconceived identity. We don’t want you to be listening to the ‘music’ here – we want the sounds to unsettle the psychological anticipation of Edward’s grisly demise.

Once the act occur, there is no need, or room, for any more music in its final pages. The stage stays mostly in darkness, the characters have their comeuppance, and silence seems the only appropriate ending. We are still processing the horror, and the tragedy, and after two hours of steady building to this moment, it feels right to go out with these solo odd springs.

Other instruments used in the show include the tagleharpa, a medieval bowed three-string harp made for the Globe by a Russian instrument maker in Karelia. This undergirds the ancient character of Old Spencer and provides a bit of the dark ages as an important colour for the older generation of this world. Paul Johnson also plays several ethnic flutes:

Kaval - a Bulgarian wooden flute

Tambin - the national instrument of the West African Fula

Bansuri - a common North Indian flute

Bombard - a loud double-reed member of the shawm family used to play Breton music

Portuguese and English bagpipes

Occasionally Paul plays the bagpipes against Sarah Homer’s soprano saxophone – an entirely modern instrument but ones whose timbre, when mixed with the pipes, creates the sensation of two fanfaring trumpets.

Finally, the Nyatiti, the lyre from Kenya, makes a few important solo appearances. This instrument means ‘daughter-in-law’, and it is the female counterpart to the maleness of the West African kora. The two harps provide contrasting emotional colours – the kora in act 1 when love is free, and the Nyatiti in the second half when it is not.

The ambitious nature of this score is testament to the dozens of shows played at the Globe by these four incredible musicians; indeed, the score has been composed for their unique multi-instrumentalism. There is no other person in London who could double on kora and cello than Tunde Jegede, nor any other player than Music Director Rob Millett who plays the dulcimer at an expert level, yet can learn how to work magic from something so new as a steel cello. Paul Johnson and Sarah Homer each in turn provide similarly original contributions that speak to their true uniqueness as players.

The overarching goal here was for the Globe to do what it does best – be inventive, embrace the parameters of acoustic music, and lean heavily on the unique experience of its core artists. I remain a student of period music at the Globe, but only in service of bringing period sounds together with improvisation, new instruments, living composers, and surprising orchestrations.

In collaborating in this way, we attempt to fabricate an entirely unique sound world that can only define the world of this play, here, right now.

Edward II is in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until 20 April.

Musical instrument photography by Hannah Yates Edward II production photography by Marc Brenner

#music #edward ii #sam wanamaker playhouse

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oberlinconservatory · 5 years

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In the Practice Room with the 2019 Rubin Scholars

For each of the past 14 years, Oberlin Conservatory has welcomed the legendary American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne for a weeklong residency. And after each of the past six, Horne has awarded $10,000 to outstanding students that she coached during her campus visit. Both the scholarship and the Horne residency are made possible by the singer’s close friend and philanthropist Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt & Co. This spring, Horne named soprano Whitney Campbell ’19 and tenor Shawn Roth ’20 the new awardees, each receiving $5,000 in funding for auditions, travel, and the living expenses that accompany the life of a young artist. While singing for THE Marilyn Horne was a bit nerve-racking for both Whitney and Shawn, they both admit that having fun has backed all their hard work at Oberlin.

When were you first inspired by the human singing voice?

Whitney: As a child, I would go around the house singing at all hours of the day. The first time I was inspired by the operatic voice, was when I heard Renée Fleming live in recital when I was 13 years old. Her ability to touch the soul with her voice alone inspired me to pursue this career!

Shawn: Among a few moments that stick out in particular would be the first time I heard a recording of Pavarotti singing “La donna è mobile.” There was just something so other-worldly about it—it sounded too perfect to be of this earth. I thought, “Whoa, opera’s the coolest thing there is,” because nothing remotely came close to listening to it.

What are some of your greatest musical influences?

Whitney: Since first hearing Renée Fleming in that recital, I have always gone back to her as a source of inspiration. I consider her my biggest role model. Her innate musicality and ability to express with her voice is something I aspire to achieve. I have read her book, The Inner Voice, at least three times. Angela Meade, Marilyn Horne, Montserrat Caballé, Eileen Farrell, Mirella Freni, and so many more, also influence my work. In addition to those singing role models, it was my longtime choir director Barbara Walker who introduced me to music and really inspired me to pursue this career. She heard me singing at the pool when I was five years old and recruited me on the spot to join the Livingston Parish Children’s Choir in Denham Springs, LA, where I sang from kindergarten through seventh grade. She is still a major musical influence and mentor to me today. Without her, I probably would not have gotten into music at all.

Shawn: Every day I find another reason to sing, whether it’s because I’ve discovered a new aria or new singer, perhaps I found out something new when I practiced that day, or maybe someone said something I’d like to prove wrong! As far as musical influences go, I’ve had a few constants—one would be Pavarotti. I always go back to him, even if I haven’t listened to him in months. Another would be classical radio programming. I grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with Pittsburgh’s classical radio station WQED. One night, when I was a kid, I was messing with my radio before bed and came across this absolutely, shockingly mesmerizing sound. It was a beautiful symphony—I unfortunately don’t remember what the piece was, but I remember the host saying it was by an African-American composer. Probably William Grant Still’s Symphony No. 1, now that I think of it. But from then on I would listen to the classical station anytime I could, and I credit that with giving me my love for classical music in particular. When I come home I turn the dial as soon as I’m in range!

Shawn performs opposite soprano Alexis Reed ’20 in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up in the January 2019 Winter Term Opera. What have been some of your greatest experiences in Oberlin? Any most valuable takeaways?

Whitney: Having the opportunity to work with Marilyn Horne is definitely at the top of my list! It was an absolutely incredible experience that I am beyond grateful for. During my four years at Oberlin, I was fortunate enough to be cast in all four of the operas conducted by Christopher Larkin. After being in the chorus for the first two, I got to work more closely with him on solo roles in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw and Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. It was such a privilege to work with maestro Larkin during my time here. He was so inspiring with his encouraging words and musical ideas, while simultaneously teaching us how to work with a full orchestra. It’s incredible that Oberlin provided us—as such young singers—with fully staged, costumed, and orchestrally supported opportunities to grow as artists on stage.

Shawn: Getting accepted to Oberlin in the first place was such a thrill, since I really only began studying voice seriously during my senior year of high school. I’ve been incredibly fortunate for what Oberlin’s given to me. I’ve had the chance to work with an amazing teacher, Salvatore Champagne, throughout my time here. As an underclassman I got to listen to incredibly talented colleagues like Olivia Boen ’17 and Cory McGee ’18 before they took off. I’ve been in master classes with world-renowned artists such as Marilyn Horne, George Shirley, Gerald Martin Moore, and Brian Zeger. I’ve worked on operas with two of the best living composers, Du Yun and Missy Mazzoli. And I’ve been invited to sing with the Cleveland Orchestra as a soloist, twice, because they reached out to Oberlin specifically for singers. How can I possibly pick a favorite out of any of those?! And I still have one more year left, which is hands-down the craziest part. Can’t wait to see what happens next year!

Whitney Campbell in Oberlin Opera Theater’s spring 2019 production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites. Singing on the Marilyn Horne master classes is one of the most exciting honors for Oberlin singers. What was that first experience of working with the great American mezzo like for you? Whitney: As I was sitting in the audience, waiting for my turn to sing the “Czardas” from Die Fledermaus for Marilyn Horne, I was the most nervous I’ve ever felt for a performance. However, after getting through the first sing-through, she was so kind—I just knew she was rooting for all of us to succeed! She had such great, really helpful advice for me about pacing the piece. It ended up being one of my favorite performances at Oberlin. To top it all off, I got to have an hour-long lesson with her the next day! I never would’ve thought I would have the chance to casually sing through my repertoire for Ms. Horne. It was a life-changing experience, and I still can’t believe it happened. One of the coolest things she said to me was that I reminded her of herself at a young age, which was the best compliment I could ever wish to receive. I’m still reeling from it! I really hope I can continue to work with her in the years to come! Shawn: Oh god, I’ve never been more nervous than when I was waiting backstage to go on stage for Ms. Horne. As the most established living American mezzo, she’s one of the most intimidating people to sing for on the planet...at first. Once I got out there and she started asking me about my pieces, she made me feel right at home. (I think both of us being from western Pennsylvania probably helped, too!) She’ll ask you to do things no one else will, and as a result, can improve your performance in ways no one else can. Working with her in a private lesson was just as exciting—at the time, I was singing baritone, and had Billy Budd’s aria in my package. To help me out, she told me how the first baritone to sing that role sang it, who just happened to be a friend of hers. That’s the beauty of Ms. Horne’s experience—she’ll tell you things that came right from the mouths of Britten or Stravinsky themselves.

Shawn in Oberlin Opera Theater’s fall 2018 production of Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti with castmate and mezzo-soprano Gabriela Linares ’21. What did your path to music and Oberlin look like?

Whitney: Following my years of experience singing in the Livingston Parish Children’s Choir, I decided to audition for the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, right in my hometown. After being admitted at the high school level, I skipped 8th grade and went straight into high school. I studied classical voice with Phyllis Treigle, expanded my art song repertory, participated in a number of opera scenes, and performed in two full operas. It was in those pivotal years that I discovered that opera was all I wanted to do. Throughout high school, I did summer opera intensives at Louisiana State University and the Brevard Music Center. It was during my junior year that my mom convinced me to go to Oberlin’s Vocal Academy for High School Students, and I fell in love with this school! I could just feel that Oberlin would help me grow into a more well-rounded artist. And, the conservatory immediately became my number-one pick for undergrad. Now, as I approach graduation, I realize how lucky I was to receive such a thorough music education from such a respected institution. I am so grateful to everyone that made my experience here such an exciting one! Shawn: So, although music was a constant in my life since day one, I had a lot of insecurity and anxiety about what to study in college. Where I’m from, the only real “path” for musically-inclined kids was to go to one of three or four state schools, get a degree in music education, and try your luck at applying for teaching jobs in the area. Three of my high school music teachers sat me down with my parents one day to try to scare me out of a performance-based career, because it was just such an “outlandish” idea. Of course, I chose Oberlin anyway. I think it’s worked out pretty well so far. So my advice for anyone who needs to hear it is this: Do what you want to be doing with your time. It’s not anyone else’s, and it’s the only thing you can’t get back once it’s gone. Now for a more uplifting story! The exact moment that I knew I wanted to sing for a living came while I was singing with a regional choir in my junior year of high school, led by an incredibly talented conductor, Chris Jackson. We were preparing Mozart’s Regina Coeli, which features a solo quartet out in front of the choir. Wanting that solo so badly and hoping to stand out, I called upon my official sponsor for this interview, Luciano Pavarotti, and just tried to sound like him as much as possible. It worked, and I got the solo! Singing out there in front of everyone activated the strongest emotional response to music I’ve ever had, and I knew then that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I still get that feeling when I perform, and it’s one of the strongest highs you can feel. I actually ended up running into Chris last summer, when we were both singing at the Yale School of Music’s Norfolk Festival. During a break in rehearsal, I re-introduced myself and thanked him for letting me discover my passion—then we went right back to singing, this time as colleagues. All the more proof that the classical music world is the smallest there is!

“Do what you want to be doing with your time. It’s not anyone else’s, and it’s the only thing you can’t get back once it’s gone.”

Whitney, Shawn, and fellow voice majors with guest master clinician and acclaimed vocal coach Gerald Martin Moore. Do you have any advice for our incoming freshman singers?

Shawn: Have fun, and listen to each other. A large portion of your education comes from classes and lessons, but perhaps the most valuable things you’ll learn will come from your friends and colleagues. Be easy to work with—it will pay dividends in the long run. Even that still boils down to just being receptive to the people around you. Your entire time as an undergrad is an audition for all your peers, because they’ll be the ones who will get you jobs later on. And people who are easy to work with will be easy to employ. So show up with your music memorized, do the things the conductors ask you to do, and have fun with it, because that’s why we all do it at the end of the day. Also, learn German. The Germans already know English.

Whitney: Absolutely don’t forget to learn from your peers! Be supportive of each other—don’t tear each other down! Be a good colleague. Be respectful. Be prepared. Always be on time. It will only help you in the long run to have a reputation of being respectful and dependable. And, lastly, remember why you came to Oberlin. You came here to do what you love: sing opera. You are here to do it for you, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says. Have fun with it!

#opera #singing #classical voice #classical music #music #Marilyn Horne #Whitney Campbell #Shawn Roth #soprano #tenor #bass #mezzo-soprano #music school #Oberlin #Oberlin Conservatory #summer program #Louisiana #New Orleans #pennsylvania

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pain-suffering-even · 7 months

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i almost laughed at work because of this. anyway, my personal take on the question "how do you sleep at night?" and the response from various solo leveling characters lmao

#solo leveling #only i level up #choi jongin #goto ryuji #baek yoonho #liu zhigang #christopher reed solo leveling #thomas andre #sugimoto reiji #lennart niermann #woo jinchul #meme template thing

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i-bring-crack · 7 months

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24/7 Constant thinking of: Brightest Fragment of Brilliant Light! Lee Juhee; Destruction Monarch! Cha Haein; Shadow Monarch! Sung Jinwoo; Absolute Being! Woo Jinchul.

And the added bonus of:

Monarch of Beggining! Goto Ryuji

Beast Monarch! Baek Yoon Ho

Iron Body Monarch! Lennart Niermann

Plague Monarch! Kanae Tawata

White Flames Monarch! Esil Radiru

Frost Monarch! Kei

Destruction Priest! Choi Jong In

Priest of Giants! Reiji Sugimoto

Priest of Plagues! Shimizu Akari

Beast Priest! Park Heejin

4 winged Archangel! Laura

Heavenly messenger! Norma Selner

Ruler of War! Thomas Andre

Ruler of Oceans! Liu Zhigang

Ruler of Magic! Siddhart Bachchan

Ruler of Spirits! Jonas

Ruler of Flames! Christopher Reed

Ruler of Earth! Sung Il-Hwan

Side bonus idea of Jinwoo and Jinchul having a deep conextion due to Ashborn and AB. But then there's also the past yearning of Antares and Ashborn so there Haein and Jinwoo angst, as well as Brightest Fragment and Antares having a close bond due to them seeking to kill and killing AB, but then there's also that angst side of AB and Brightest Frgament, which makes the entire relationship between Juhee and Jinchul be strained— Jesus christ everyone here has a complicated relationship due to past lives ahahah.

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stormdragon23 · 5 months

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No idea if this has been brought up before but was thinking about cards and Solo Leveling, and that somehow turned into thinking about Solo Leveling characters as cards? Like-

Hearts (Korean Hunters):

Ace: Go Gunhee

King: Sung Jin-Woo

Queen: Cha Hae-In

Jack: Woo Jin-Chul

10-2: Sung Il-Hwan, Choi Jong-In, Baek Yoon-Ho, Ma Dong-Wook, Lim Tae-Gyu, Min Byung-Gyu, Eun-Seok, Park Hee-Jin, Lee Ju-Hee

Diamonds (Japanese):

Ace: Goto Ryuji

King: Reiji Sugimoto

Queen: Kanae Tawata

Jack: Minoru Hoshino

10-2: Akari Shimizu‎‎, Atsushi Kumamoto‎‎, Ippei Izawa‎‎, Kei‎‎, Kenzo Tanaka‎‎, Mari Ishida‎‎, Tatsumi Fujishima‎‎, Hanekawa, Matsumoto Shigeo (ran out of hunters near the end)

Spades (Supernatural beings):

Ace: Absolute Being

King: Antares

Queen: Querehsha

Jack: Ashborn

10-2: Architect, Frost Monarch, Beast Monarch, Iron Body Monarch, Legia, Yogumunt, Baran, Esil Radiru, Baruka

Clubs (International Hunters):

Ace: Liu Zhigang

King: Thomas Andre

Queen: Laura (not a hunter, but I like her)

Jack: Christopher Reed

10-2: Lennart Niermann, Siddharth Bachchan, Jonas, Yuri Orloff (is this it?...)

I ran out of ideas near the end-

Take this as a very loose interpretation of my attempt to explain myself. 10-2 characters aren't in any particular order

#solo leveling #cards #it's amazing what crazy ideas you can think of when you're sick

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ljones41 · 6 years

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Ranking of Movies Seen During Summer 2018

During the summer of 2018, I only saw seven new movies. I want to say that I had enjoyed watching each and every one of them. However, below is my ranking of those seven films:

RANKING OF MOVIES SEEN DURING SUMMER 2018

1. "Solo: A Star Wars Movie" - This STAR WARS movie set ten years before the Original Trilogy told the story of the early years of Han Solo as a smuggler and criminal. Directed by Ron Howard, Alden Ehrenreich starred in the title role.

2. "Incredibles 2" - The direct sequel to the 2004 hit Disney animated film follows the Parr family as they try to restore public's trust in superheroes, while balancing their family life. They also find themselves combating a new foe who seeks to turn the populace against all superheroes. Directed by Brad Bird, Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter and Samuel L. Jackson provided the voices.

3. "Mission: Impossible - Fallout" - In this sixth film in the "MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE" franchise, Ethan Hunt and his IMF team are ordered to track down stolen plutonium, while being monitored by a CIA agent after a mission goes awry. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the movie starred Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt.

4. "Ant-Man & the Wasp" - While serving out the last days of his house arrest, Scott Lang aka Ant-Man is recruited by Hope van Dyne aka the Wasp and her father, Dr. Hank Pym to help them retrieve Dr. Janet van Dyne from the Quantum realm. Directed by Peyton Reed, Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly starred.

5. "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" - When Isla Nublar's dormant volcano becomes active, Owen Grady and Claire Dearing mount a campaign to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from this extinction-level event, which proves to be a scam kick-started by a greedy corporate executive. Directed by J.A. Bayona, the movie starred Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

6. "The Avengers: Infinity War" - The Avengers and their allies struggle to prevent the powerful Thanos from collecting all of the Infinity stones and using them to commit genocide against half of the universe. Joe and Anthony Russo directed.

7. "Deadpool 2" - Former mercenary Wade Wilson aka Deadpool Wade Wilson form a team of fellow mutant rogues to protect a young boy with supernatural abilities from the brutal, time-traveling cyborg, Cable. Directed by David Leitch, the movie starred Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson aka Deadpool.

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sosation · 3 years

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Volume is Power

The following is a transcript of my "Audio Liner Notes" for Volume is Power, the album I released earlier this year under the project titled Temporal Distortions.

The album can be purchased for free on my bandcamp here: https://temporaldistortions.bandcamp.com/

and it is available on all streaming services:

-https://open.spotify.com/album/3983Bepp9uxIv1pb9qaEwY?si=qWpTAozTS2ujMQ79R_FZZg&utm_source=copy-link

-https://music.apple.com/us/album/volume-is-power/1557283830?uo=4

and music videos are up on the Local Famous Records Youtube page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRIjOlGfx0M

Volume is Power

Transcript of Audio Liner Notes and Recommended Readings

Hi. My name is Anthony Sosa and you have just listened to Volume is Power. I hope you enjoyed it. I began actively writing for this record in December of 2019. Some of the musical ideas were written in previous bands going back as far as 2009 and others were written after I had started working on the record. As you know, 2020 was an insane year. So, as you can imagine, it affected the writing and conception of what we were working on. When I began writing lyrics it was the middle of the democratic primaries for President. I was a Bernie Sanders volunteer. I wanted to talk about issues in the US and around the world. But then COVID happened and George Floyd happened, and I had to talk about those things as well--If anything, to document this moment in time. Honestly, those events backed up what I already wanted to say with this record: Our system is broken.

Sonically, Volume is Power has a lot of specific influences that influenced specific songs. For each track I tried to lean into whatever influences were present at the time and treat each piece almost as a genre study, though the genres span a narrow spectrum along the “rock” continuum. Time -- was, and will continue to be, an important aspect of the project. Temporal Distortions are happening all around us all the time. This record is essentially a series of distortions, or songs, that span, temporally, from the mid 1990’s to the late 2000’s. There are also audio clips from the 1950’s and 60’s as well as from this historic summer of 2020. Songs from my past still inspire me in the present to create an album for the future which is now here. Now, this album will exist in the past for me but for you this is your present. Maybe, if I did my job right, and you are so inclined, it will inspire you to create something in your future.

I had intended to make this album available for free everywhere, but youtube and bandcamp are the only platforms where I can achieve that. You can always email [email protected] and we will send you a free digital copy.

In this Audio Liner Notes track I intend to give credit to all of the amazing artists who helped me create this record. I am honored and privileged to know and have the pleasure of working with so many amazing people and to all of you thank you for giving me your time and energy. Chief among these is Dale Brunson, my colleague and compatriot. I met Dale in 2009 when he was playing in Werewolf Therewolf and I was playing in Housefire and The Raven Charter. We’ve been friends ever since and in 2012 we started a Top 40 cover band called Sweetmeat who is still together as of this recording. Dale mixed and co-produced this record with me and without his patience, insight and guidance this record would have been impossible. I definitely threw him some curveballs throughout this process and he has handled all of it graciously.

I, now, am going to give a track by track breakdown of the record but I am not trying to spend too much time explaining or discussing lyrics. Those are for you to interpret how you will. I’m not great at insinuation, anyway, so I’m sure you get the point. I’d rather discuss the people on the tracks and the musical influences behind them. So:

Track 1 is titled Our Streets and begins with the voice of Rod “Teddy” Smith whom I met on the streets of Fort Worth during the protests this May-July. Rod and I, as well as Defense Attorney Michael Campbell, Christopher Rose and my wife, Amber, started a non-profit organization in the wake of these protests called The Justice Reform League with the goal of advocating for evidence based socio-economic and criminal justice policies at the municipal, state and federal levels and to empower impacted communities through civic education. I, personally, believe that there needs to be more effort put toward educating our community on how local politics actually works, how it impacts us, and how we can get involved and change things. So that is what we are trying to do. I also feel that music, or art in general, can be an educator and is one of the reasons I was inspired to write this record.

In regards to the opening clip with Rod, I actually have hours of footage from weeks of protests in May and June but this clip stuck out to me particularly because it evokes Fort Worth and the particular sentiment I was wanting to express with this record. The piano was played by me, recorded here at my house. At the end of the track are protest chants from one of the larger protest-days this past summer here in Fort Worth. My wife, Amber, and I marched for about 3 weeks before actually beginning to organize. On those later days of the protests I started carrying a battery powered PA speaker on my back in a doggie backpack with a mic and using that for chants and to further project those giving speeches. The album cover is a photo by local photographer Zach Burns capturing me doing just that. Zach being another awesome person I met this past summer. Before I move on, the real first voice (and last) you hear on the album, and multiple times throughout, is of Jordan Buckly of Every Time I Die- my favorite band. Early in the pandemic I paid Jordan $30 on Cameo to say “Temporal Distortions” and to “purchase” a shitty riff idea. I didn’t use the riff, it was god awful like he said, but I made some clips of him because it made me smile.

Track 2 is Daring Bravely.

This song was intended to be a The Raven Charter song and was introduced to the band near the very end of our time together. For those who don’t know, The Raven Charter is the most serious project I have ever been a part of. It was the most important thing in my life for many years. I am not going to use this time to give a history lesson on TRC, though that would be fun. Go check out our stuff if you’re into Prog Rock. So this thing kicked around on my hard drive since 2015, I recorded multiple demos with guitar, bass and drums, over the years and finally settled on a bridge. I didn’t actually write the lyrics until I began working on this album proper in Dec of 2019.

I had the awesome pleasure of doing this song with my boys Daniel Baskind and Erik Stolpe of TRC. Daniel wrote a beautiful solo for this track. It was exactly the energy the song needed and also sounds quintessential Daniel. As I stated at the beginning, I was leaning into the genre for each track and the genre on this track was “Ravencharter” and Daniel nailed it. And Erik, I truly feel, did an amazing job in making this song more than it was. The orchestration and production aspects of his writing for this track are spot on. He really got the vibe I was going for and took it even further. It was great to get to work with both of them again to recreate some of that magic we used to make. The audio clips are from Dr. Brené Brown and her TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” from Jan 3, 2011. Funny story about that. When my wife Amber and I first saw Brené’s TED Talks we really enjoyed the concepts she covered. We both came away from watching those remembering the phrase “Daring Bravely,” which is why I named the song that. I like those two words together and the concept they elicit. However, when researching for these Liner Notes I discovered that all along she was saying “Daring Greatly.” She even has a book with that title. So, we’ve been saying it wrong the whole time. Regardless, I prefer “Daring Bravely” because it requires bravery and courage to dare greatly and have confidence and believe in yourself. So be brave. Dare Bravely.

Track 3 is titled Division of Labor.

What radicalized me? Working in the service industry and learning history. This song is essentially an amalgamation of that. The line in the bridge is an Oscar Wilde quote. This was just a rando idea on the guitar that I recorded into my phone on new year's day 2019. Musically, the main guitar riff seemed to me Every Time I Die influenced but when I put drums and bass to it it ended up sounding more like At the Drive In or something, to me. My demo leaned into that a lot more than the finished product. This song definitely ended up in a different place than when I started working on it which is always fun and surprising. Workers rights are very important to me and I tried to put that into this song.

Track 4 is Pay for your own Exploitation.

This is another relatively recent idea recorded into my phone on the acoustic in October 2019. I remember when I did it because my friend and fellow musician/producer Randall C. Bradley from Delta Sound Studios came over and before we could even really greet each other I had to stop and say “hold on I have to record this idea before I forget.” It kinda had an Aerosmith vibe to me when I put it all together in the demo process for the record. Like 90’s Aerosmith. I dunno. I guess really the 90’s are smeared all over this album. Another temporal distortion. And then from the bridge on it goes all ETID. The “sex organs of the machine world” line at the beginning of the song is a Marshall McLuhan quote. The bridge vocals “Politics is war without bloodshed. War is politics with bloodshed,” I heard from Adolf Reed Jr. but I don’t know if he was quoting someone else.

I had the pleasure of working with Double Bear on this song - my Local Famous Records brethren. The gang vocals in the song are myself, Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond, Matt Bardwell, Glenn Wallace, and Dale Brunson and we’re having a lot of fun, if you can’t tell. It makes me happy that we got to work together on this project and I imagine there will be more collabs down the road.

Track 5 is We Make the Past.

This song is essentially a Bush song, or was when I wrote it. Very Pixies influenced. Dale’s production took this a lot further than I imagined in the best way possible. I also showed up to the studio thinking my lyrics were finished but realized I was missing a second verse. The demo version was just like a minute and a half and I extrapolated the rest and got it wrong. Once that started I essentially re-wrote all the lyrics on the spot. The lyrics are meant to be scattered and random, like Gavin Rossdales’, though they come from a book by the late Hatian anthropologist and historian Michel-Rolp Trouillot. Bush was one of my favorite bands growing up in the mid-late 90’s and early oughts. I’ve always liked their raw energy and lyrical strangeness. (The same could be said for my love of The Mars Volta.) So this was my homage to Gavin, Nigel, Dave and Robin and shitty guitar playing. Also, I pronounced “His-tor-icity” wrong. I said histori-ocity and I don’t know why I didn't notice it until really late in the process. Same with “commodozation” instead of “commoditization” Oh well. Making up words is fun too.

Track 6 is Serve-Us Industry. This song was fun. It originally was going to be a new Huffer song. I had the pleasure of being a part of Huffer from 2015-2018 with Chea Cueavas and Jeremy Nelson, and we were working on a new album in 2017. Between Chea and myself we had about 10-13 ideas kicking around. This was one of the ones I had thrown out there. To me it had a Foo Fighters vibe, which makes sense because Chea and I were also playing in The Foo, our Foo Fighters cover band, a lot around that time. I just thought it would be fun to sing about all the mistakes that happen while working in the service industry and having to deal with customers. These lyrics made me laugh and sometimes that’s all you can do.

Track 7 is an interlude titled Employer vs Employee. This is a clip of David Griscom from the Michael Brooks Show episode 145 - Police & the ANC & We Need a Liberation Theology ft. William Shoki & Ronan Burtenshaw recorded on June 23, 2020. I really enjoy David and even though at the time of recording he has been living in Brooklyn for several years he has never forgotten Texas. His insight on economic issues and worker’s rights is immensely important. The underlying music on this track is just myself playing bass and guitar. A bass riff I had laying around for almost a decade.

The Michael Brooks Show has greatly impacted and influenced my life since I became a Patron in Dec of 2019. I wanted to take what was I learning from Michael, David and Matt and their guests and put it into music. Since Michael’s passing in July 2020, David and Matt Lech have gone on to create their own show Left Reckoning. Check them out for leftist theory and international news and analysis regarding the global left. As Americans, we all need a lot more international and historical perspectives.

Track 8 is titled Class Struggle.

This song was influenced by Silverchair's 1997 and 1999 albums Freakshow and Neon Ballroom. At least that’s kinda what I was going for tonally. The quote being shouted by Karl Marx from his Communist Manifesto, with a slight edit. In hindsight I probably should have use “their” instead of “his or her,” but it was an effort to use more inclusive language. I feel like most people hearing this will know that that was Marx, but if you don’t now you do. This track was originally written and proposed to Huffer as an idea in July 2017 but didn’t make it further than that. Dale plays the double stops in the middle of the song.

I suppose I should take this moment to say that this album is my first lyrical endeavor. I have written personal things in the past but never anything for any of the various bands and projects that I have been a part of, save one short lived hip-hop project back in 2010 I did with Aaron Anderson which was never released. So any idea that I “proposed” to any previous band was just music not lyrics. When trying to decide what to write lyrics about it became clear to me that politics and history was what I felt I needed to talk about. As a History teacher, and someone who studied history at the graduate level, I understand that not everyone learns history by reading historical monographs--but rather through pop-culture. So this is my contribution to pop-culture and I hope some people do learn some things by listening to this. And perhaps, then inspired to do some of their own research.

Track 9 is the Stoop Romans interlude.

These are 2 clips from two different performances of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The first is from the 1970 film and the second, I believe, is from the 1953 production. I got them from youtube and you ideally, got this for free, so hopefully no harm no foul. The piano is a repetition of the piano at the beginning of the album. And these clips, to me, summed up the sentiment of many in America in 2020.

That is another thing I want to take a moment to say. The creation of this record and the method of its release is a statement. I do not want to profit from this. That is not why I made it. I made it for the message and I want this message spread as much as possible and the best way to do that is to make it free. So it was a labor of love and I tried to reject the capitalistic game of “the hustle” that most musicians, and artists, are forced to play with their creations as much as possible. It is my gift to you and example that things can be done differently.

Track 10 is Imperialism get Fucking Bent.

Soooo I was reading a lot of Noam Chomsky at the time, what can I say. If you don’t know who that is look him up. He is an important intellectual whose perspectives on recent American history and economics are invaluable. This song was heavily influenced by ETID, though a lot more simple, and was written on the guitar in 2018.

Initially, when I began writing lyrics I wrote stuff about Magic the Gathering, of which I am an avid Commander player, at least before the pandemic. But the tone of the song didn’t match the lyrics so I scrapped them and started over. The clip in the middle of the song I got from the Congressional Dish Podcast hosted by Jen Briney, of who I am a Patron. She got it from the Senate Hearing: United States Strategy in Afghanistan, United States Senate Armed Services Committee, February 11, 2020. The two men speaking are Sen. Angus King (Maine) and Jack Keane: Chairman of the Institute for The Study of War who was appointed by John McCain when he was Chairman to the Congressional Committee on the National Defense Strategy.

If you want to know what congress is up to, which you should, then you should listen to that podcast, it is invaluable. The point of the clip is to demonstrate that these men acknowledge that we will be at war “indefinitely.” They said the quiet part out loud in an untelevised hearing of which at the end of they say essentially “let's not discuss this again publicly.” I’m not a journalist but this is me trying to do my part of getting this information out there. We, the American People, shouldn’t want “preventative war,” eternal war. IMO we should want no war unless all other options have been exhausted. Take those trillions of dollars of our money and give it back to us in the form of Medicare for All, a Green New Deal and free college. Then there will be plenty of money left over to rebuild our infrastructure and provide Universal Basic Income. I believe a healthy and educated populus is crucial to a democracy. We need that in America, desperately. And it would be a lot easier to pay for all of that if we weren’t in Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. And that is just for drone strikes. The U.S. military currently operates in 40% of the world’s nations including most of Africa and Central Asia. Check out the Smithsonian Magazine website for info on this. And read Chomsky. Book Recommendations are at the end.

Track 11 is Ka’s Dance. This is a straight up Stephen King love song. He wrote all the words and it’s the 2nd, 5th, and 8th stanzas from Song of Susannah, the 6th book in the Dark Tower series. The clip is from the audiobook narrated by George Guidall (gwidell). This song was another one that was influenced by ETID. Energetically, it reminds me of Jefferson Colby--the band I was in with Matt and Danny Mabe from 2010-2013. Those two have absolutely influenced the way I play and view music, as well as their father Mark Mabe-who taught me how to play bass. Anyway, that is a story for another day, I hope to collaborate with them again in the future. The clip at the end is Captain Janeway and Chekote from Star Trek Voyager.

Track 12 is You Opened My Eyes. I had the honor and the privilege of working with 3 amazing artists on this song: Tornup, Chill, and Canyon Kafer. Christopher Hill, AKA Chill, and I have known each other for years via Dale Brunson and we briefly worked together on a collaborative musician lottery competition thing titled DIG back in 2017 that never happened. I have always wanted to record with him and had a lot of fun doing so. He is one of the best drummers I know and his pocket gave this song the life it needed. Torry Finley AKA Tornup and I met on the streets this past summer of 2020 during the protests and I heard him speak at the public speaking event we held at Trinity Park-- and he moved me. Eventually, we started talking music and I found out he is a fellow musician and bass player as well, I thought “I definitely want to collaborate with this dude.” Fortunately, this opportunity presented itself and, as I am sure you can tell, this song wouldn’t be what it is without him. He performed the first verse. Canyon performed the sick bass solo before the final chorus and I am truly humbled and grateful to have all of these guys on this album.

Track 13 is Fight the Hegemony. This is by far the heaviest track on the album and I essentially shout out some of my influences in the lyrics. Thrice, Glassjaw, and The Used, Dream Theater, Cohoeed and Cambria and other early-mid 2000’s bands still have a big influence on me. My friend and colleague Chris Musso performed the drums on this track. Chris and I played together in Silverlode in 2004 and in The Raven Charter from 2005-2008. We still play together in the aforementioned Sweetmeat, with Dale, and I am super happy to get another opportunity to collaborate together again. As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered and canvassed for Bernie Sanders during the Democratic Primaries in 2020 and the lyrics in this song were inspired by his movement. Now that I am writing these Liner Notes in early 2021 I want to take a moment to reiterate and clarify-- in the wake of the attempted insurrection on January 6th--this song is NOT aiming to inspire violence nor an overthrow of the system by using violence. It is crystal clear to me now how people can read into things and take what they will. These lyrics are about the Bernie Sanders movement. Period.

Track 14 is Simp for the System (Free Market Capitalism Love Song). This is another one of those songs that, musically, was originally written for Huffer, well the bass part anyway. Chea and Jeremy, both had written completely different stuff but I didn’t want to rip them off so I rewrote it and made it as emo as possible. Brand New, was the band I had in mind, circa Deja Entendu. The lyrics are a joke. I was laughing out loud when I wrote them. I had considered just making it instrumental because for the longest time I couldn’t think of any lyrics to go with it. I didn’t want to do “real” emo but I couldn't think of anything else. Then I was like “ well, often these emo songs were about a girl. What if the girl wasn’t a girl but a system that people simp for all the time?” Ta-da. It was actually Dale who suggested the “Hey girl…” rant in the bridge and I think he was onto something. I hope you thought it was as funny as I did.

Track 15 is Cold War Nostalgia. This song is the oldest one on the record and has gone through the most changes- creating nostalgia for me on multiple levels. I wrote the original version in 2009 for my band Housefire. That version was more upbeat and the main verse riff was a dotted 8th note delay melody...very 2009… and Housefire broke up before it was properly recorded. I really liked the song and re-worked it several times on my own over 7 or 8 years until Huffer began working on our new record. I rewrote the track again to be more “Huffer'' sounding by making the bass carry the melody in the verses rather than the guitar. I also slowed it down quite a bit and went for a more rough sound (thinking Refused-esque) rather than polished, uber-compressed late 2000’s scene music. Chea and Jeremy weren’t that into it, and honestly even with the changes it didn’t sound like Huffer so we dropped it. Then, I picked it up again when I started working on this record and tried to put some words to it, and it has now become this sprawling lengthy piece. The original version was a tad over the 3 minute mark and it is now close to 7.

Lyrics were difficult at first. But because the song, for me, was oozing with nostalgia it seemed like a good topic to start with. I had written a paper in my final semester of Grad school in 2018 for a transnational history class about the Cold War- my area of study for my history degree. That paper is my proudest academic achievement to date, titled “National Narratives in Post Cold War America and the Former U.S.S.R.'' and was about the stories we tell ourselves. The ones we tell ourselves at the interpersonal level and the ones our culture, society and leaders tell us at the macro level--and how the totalitarian can affect those stories. This looked at Nostalgia of the Cold War and how that nostalgia is different for the US and the former Soviet states. All the lyrics from this song are taken from that paper- particularly from certain quotes that I quoted throughout. The first verse, starting with “Nostalgia then…” is either Olga Shevchnko or Maya Nadkarni (both are cited) in 2013 from Kevin Platt’s article “Russian Empire of Post-Socialist Nostalgia and Soviet Retro at the New Wave Competition” published in the Russian Review issue 72 no 3. The second verses’ “Does human nature undergo a true change in the cauldron of totalitarian violence?” is from a book titled “Life and Fate” by Vassilli Grossman-- an epic novel about Stalin written in 1960 from someone who lived under him. The only reason it was published was because a friend of Grossman smuggled a copy out of the USSR into the west. One of the few published examples from that period of people questioning the totalitarian state from the inside.

I encourage anyone interested in the full paper to read it, it can be found on my Tumblr blog- Sosations Transmissions.

Now, you may notice that there is phenomenal guitar playing on this track. That is the work of my very good friend Glenn Wallace. Glenn is one of the best guitarists I know. He and I met back in 2004 via Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe and Chris Musso from Silverlode and The Raven Charter. The only time we have had the pleasure of playing, or sharing the stage together was in Housefire, so I was thrilled when he agreed to do this song. Glenn was our 3rd and final lead guitarist in the band before we broke up, (following Eddie Delgado and Dusty Brooks). There actually is a video on youtube of one show we played at The Boiler Room in Denton from mid-late 2009. Getting him on this track was something that I had been thinking about for a while but the opportunity finally arose when Glenn, Dale and myself, along with the Double Bear guys: Michael Garcia, Brandon Tyner, Garrett Bond and Matt Bardwell, as well as Erik Stolpe and the resourceful Tanner Hux, decided to start our own record label: Local Famous Records. Now that this relationship has solidified you can expect much more collaboration from all of us as well as more records like this one. Starting a record label with friends has been one of the most enriching experiences of my life and I highly recommend that you try it.

Track 16 is “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” - is the final track on the album and is a brief quote from the late Michael Brooks from his talk at Harvard University titled: “Michael Brooks MLK Jr. and Love and Power | Class Warfare | Harvard” from the Harvard College YDSA youtube page, recorded on Feb 1st. 2020. I had written a blog about Michael’s passing and how important he was to me personally and to the progressive movement in America today and in the world , and it can be read at the aforementioned Tumblr. I had set this clip aside to put on this record back in May or June of 2020 but after Michael’s passing in July it became clear to me that I would close the record with this sentiment. “Be ruthless with institutions, be kind to each other” is an affirmation I will carry with me for the rest of my life and I will proselytize this message wherever I go. Humans over entities. Always. “The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over all laws and institutions.” As far as the music for this track, it was just me pulling something out of my ass to go under the quote and I did it in one take, on an untuned shitty acoustic (for those familiar, the one from high school and college with the Albino squirrel sticker on it.) I recorded the guitar without any accompaniment into a handheld recording device and just got really lucky that it was an appropriate length. I was going for a Dashboard Confessional vibe and I think I got it.

So that is Volume is Power. Thank you to everyone who helped me create this thing and to those who supported me along the way. I am forever grateful.

Thank you to my wife, Amber, for without her this would not be possible. You are my superhero-bird-watcher, my anchor, my guiding light, my soulmate. Thank you for inspiring me to dare bravely.

Thank you to my parents for allowing me to follow my dreams and drop out of college to pursue a career in music. I know it didn’t make you happy at the time but you believed in me anyway. And thanks for not saying “I told you so” when I decided to go back to school 3 years later.

Thank you to my brother David for all the love and support over the years. For your artistic contribution on Daring Bravely. And for always having the courage to be you.

Thank you to Samantha, Lauren and Matt, for being so supportive all these years. I couldn’t ask for a better step-family.

Thank you to Dale for making this record happen, putting all the work into it that you did, and for putting up with my bullshit.

Thank you to every musician I have had the pleasure of playing with, on or off the stage.

Thank you to Aaron Anderson, Jason Dixon, Andrew Del Real and Anthony Davis for being the first band of dudes I got to do real shit with.

Thank you to the Silverlode/Solace Prime/ The Raven Charter guys: Daniel Baskind, Erik Stolpe, Brandon and Garrett Bond, Brian Christie, Chris Musso, Stephen Thacker, and Brandon Bailey. You guys are my brothers.

Thank you to the guys in Dreams Like Fire, who I only had a brief stint with in 2007 but learned so much from: Alan Mabe, Dathan Martin, Ryan Moody, and Kyle Istook.

Thank you to the Mabe Family for treating me like family and for--literally--teaching me how to rock: Mark Mabe, Matt Mabe, Danny Mabe, Chris Mabe and the beloved Terri Mabe.

Thank you to Chea and Jeremy from Huffer for bringing me into your lives and music. I am so glad we got to do what we did.

Thank you to Neal Todnem and Justin Jordan for being awesome roommates and apart of memories that I will always cherish and for our Tsegull Tsunami.

Thank you to Ben Napier for being a good friend, and at times mentor, and for asking me to be your Bogus “Green Day” cover band. I appreciate our time together.

Thank you to Ansley Dougherty, Nick Wittwer and Scott White for making our rage Against the Machine cover band a real thing, even if only for 2 practices. And to Scott for being my headbang partner at our The Foo and the Kombucha Mushroom people shows. And for trusting me to record some of your demos.

Thank you to Randall Bradley for being such a good friend. I value our talks and our jams and always look forward to hearing that you are in town from Argentina. Your perspective is unique and important.

Thank you to Cody Lee and the 27’s for involving me in your record and to Jaryth Webber for being a badass academic colleague, a badass musician, and for introducing me to Congressional Dish.

Thank you to Ben C Jones for the opportunity to work together on your music.

Thank you to Daniel Kunda for the opportunity to be apart of what you’re creating and for, at times, letting me be your sensei. Your future is bright.

Thank you to Chill, Torry Finley and Canyon Kafer for taking You Opened My Eyes above and beyond where I possibly ever could have. I hope we can do it more in the future.

Thank you to all my Local Famous brothers: Dale, Garrett, Michael, Brandon, Glenn, Matt, Erik and Tanner, for believing in this thing with me and making it a reality.

Thank you to Collin Porter for being a good friend and letting me bounce creative and political ideas off you. I truly value our conversations.

Thank you to Ryan Smith for always being a good friend and for our jammy jams.

Thank you to the bands that invited any of my bands on the road with them over the years--you guys helped make my dreams a reality: Matt and Mike LoCoco, and Danny Borja from Transit Method in Austin; Nick Barton, Trey Landis, and Justin Huggins from Sleepwalking Home in Tulsa, and Johnny Hawkins, Mark Vollelunga, and Daniel Oliver from San Antonio’s Nothingmore. The memories I have from those shows and trips are truly priceless and I am thankful to have those experiences to look back on.

Thank you to Dr. Johnny Stein, Dr. Joyce Goldberg, Dr. Christopher Morris, Dr. Patryk Babiracki, and Dr. Andrew Milson at the University of Texas at Arlington for greatly influencing my historical knowledge and thought that has influenced the making of this record.

Thank you to all co-founders of The Justice Reform League: Amber, Christopher Rose, Rod Smith, and Michael Campbell. And to Thomas Moore from no Sleep till Justice. I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to start a nonprofit with and I look forward to our future.

Thank you to Michael Brooks, Hank and John Green, Dr. Cornel West, Slavoj Žižek, Dr. Kevin Dunn, Dr. Richard Wolff, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Fred Hampton, Rita Starpattern and Edward Snowden for being my exemplars, always daring bravely and inspiring me to do the same.

And thank YOU for taking the time to listen to the songs, and this Audio Liner Notes track. If you are unfamiliar with any of the influences I have mentioned over the course of this I encourage you to go listen. And if those bands resonate with you, find out who influenced them- you’ll find more awesome music, more temporal distortions, if you will. I hope you find some inspiration to create your own work, whatever that may be, and to put it out into the world.

Dare Bravely. Salut.

Anthony Sosa

12-6-2020

(Updated 2-6-2021)

Recommended Readings

Global Punk by Kevin Dunn (2016)

The People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980)

Permanent Record by Edward Snowden (2019)

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolp Trouillot (2015)

Reason in History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1953)

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)

Welcome to the Desert of the Real by Slavoj Žižek (2002)

Humankind by Rutger Bregman (2020)

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman (2017)

The Hawk and the Dove by Nicholas Thompson (2009)

Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (2005)

Tribe by Sebastian Junger (2016)

Give them an Argument: Logic for the Left by Ben Burgis (2019)

Against the Web by Michael Brooks (2020)

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher (2009)

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization by Thomas Homer-Dixon(2006)

The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens by Bernard E. Harcourt (2018)

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (2014)

Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff (2019)

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century: by Timothy Snyder (2017)3

Totalitarianism by Abbot Gleeson (1995)

Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post 9/11 World by Noam Chomsky (2004)

Profit Over People by Noam Chomsky (1999)

How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr (2019)

The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom (1995)

The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (1977-2003)

0 notes

gudlyf · 4 years

Text

Confirmation [Short Story]

[Edited original photo by Elviss Bitans]

I will never forget the sound Evil made when it died in the Baxter’s house one night in the fall of 1982.

—

The basement of the rectory of St. Ambrose had that smell. The one that appears to be common amongst cellars of houses of the Lord. Of decades-old candle wax and spent wicks, mold-imbued books. Of rotted flowers and palm reeds. That smell. I’d once thought it unique to our chosen parish at the time. It’s not. And any time I happened upon it in some other basement, sometimes in another church, I’d be reminded of CCD.

Some people call it Catechism. I suppose it could have been called Sunday School, except in our town it was held on Tuesday nights. Tuesday School? Not the same ring to it, I’d say. So, CCD. Sounds like some kind of mental condition, now that I think of it. Apropos, if you don’t mind me saying so.

Needless to say, I did not look forward to Tuesday nights.

The last year of CCD for me was centered around preparing for Confirmation. I won’t get into the details of that for you non-Catholics, and to be quite honest I can’t remember what to tell you about it anyway. I suppose it was to “confirm” one’s faith in God and the church. Confirm beliefs. Confirm that you bought the whole damn thing. One of “them.” One of the flock. For me it served only as confirmation that, following that fall, my Tuesday nights henceforth would carry with it only the aroma of glorious, sweet freedom. Thank you God, Hallelujah, Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong, Amen.

Father Jacobs, the presiding priest at the time, did not conduct CCD at St. Ambrose. The old guy would show up from time to time, sure, when he wasn’t busy doing God-knows-what on a Tuesday evening. Probably better off pulling numbered letters out of a bingo cage, really. But for the most part it was just us ten kids and Mr. Baxter.

Of all the teachers I had for CCD throughout the years, Mr. Baxter won the prize for being, shall we say, the most devout. This includes the likes of Sister Estelle, a decrepit, miserable thing harkening from the days of when my own mother attended Catholic school in a neighboring town. No lie, Sister Estelle — or Sister Est-Hell, as we called her — carried a yard stick along her back like a rifle on a cattle rancher. I’ve learned since then that it served more as a bullshit deterrent than anything else. God save the poor soul warranting its unsheathing. Thankfully, I never bore witness to it.

Warren Baxter’s boys, Mark and Jason, attended this particular CCD class along with me and seven others our age. They were homeschooled, so I can’t say any of us knew much about them beyond the walls of that basement, and that the poor bastards had their dad as a teacher. Not just Tuesday nights, but every fucking day. Mr. Baxter sorta reminded me of Christopher Cross. Y’know, “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind”? Not to mention he carried a beaten acoustic guitar with him anytime I saw him. He certainly wasn’t an old guy, but he sure had what I guess you could say was an old way of thinking when it came to the education of religion. He had a habit of taking it upon himself to detour from the illustrated Jesus textbooks and remind us of all the things that could make up a mortal sin. You might think that means killing, stealing, raping — that sort of thing. No. He’d remind us weekly that masturbating was a mortal sin that was a sure ticket to Hell. Even thinking about jerking off. It was like you might as well give Satan himself a handy, because, son, it’s just like knocking on his door with that hand.

I guess Mrs. Baxter was a sure help of keeping her husband Heaven-worthy, at least before their divorce.

Mr. Baxter was a parishioner at the church, but he also sang and played guitar at Sunday mass. Considering the limited source material, he wasn't half bad. I’d been taking guitar lessons at the time and knew he wasn’t just some two-bit hack. He played for us a couple of nights at class, which was a welcome reprieve from mundane bible verse analysis, even if it wasn’t exactly Clapton we were listening to. The man dug music; no question of that. And on the second-to-last class of the year, he took it to a new level.

The record player sat in the center of the largest table. Not an odd sight, really. We’d listened to hymns and such before, and even been forced to — dear God — sing along to them. But there was something very different about it this time. Something special. When my eyes caught it, I couldn’t restrain myself.

“Zeppelin!”

Paul Morley, my best friend at the time, saw it too. Led Zeppelin IV, its unmistakable album cover featuring that painting of an old man lugging a bundle of sticks, sat among a few recognizable others. AC/DC’s Highway to Hell. Queen’s The Game. Classics today — purely defining, then. A few kids started in with “Stairway to Heaven” before Mr. Baxter shut them down.

“And she’s buy-uy-ing a-”

“Sit down, everyone. Yes, I’m going to play some of these — just a little. But then I have an important story for you.”

He slipped Led Zeppelin IV out of its sleeve and placed it onto the turntable. Man, I thought, this is gonna be great. I prepared myself for the sweet sounds of Robert Plant, belting out his “Hey hey, mama,” rolling into Jimmy Page on the ax and Bonham on skins. It was already playing in my head.

Instead, we got something else entirely.

Mr. Baxter turned on the player and moved the needle up a bit onto the platter. He put it down a few times, giving us a little tease here and there of what we could have — should have — been listening to in entirety. He finally got to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and let it play. Sweet release.

About midway through the song, he turned the player off. What is this, another lesson about not beating off? I thought. To 14-year-old me, it may as well have been.

“Now, listen to this.”

We all knew what was going to happen. Playing “Stairway” backwards wasn’t new. And then it all became painfully clear. Zeppelin. AC/DC. Queen? I hadn’t heard about that one yet. But most of us knew of the supposed hidden messages within the latter two, and now Mr. Baxter was going to play them. Here. In the basement of a church.

He spun the record counter-clockwise, slowly, by hand. Eventually he got to the money shot, where Plant’s voice seems to sing out the words “my sweet Satan,” along with some other things that don’t sound so Heavenly when you over-analyze the shit out of them.

But for the playing record, the room was silent. I don’t think we quite knew what to make of it. Mr. Baxter — a guy who’d preached that the simple pleasures of alone time in a long, hot shower was sinful — was playing verses about the Devil. In the Lord’s house! What was next, a Ouija board?

Once he was through with Zeppelin, he went onto Highway to Hell. The album cover alone should have burst into flames the moment it entered the parking lot, but he played it just the same. For a few minutes, singer Bon Scott became Scott Bon. Or maybe it’s Ttocs Nob. You’re supposed to hear something like “my name is Lucifer” somewhere in that backmasked garbage, but all I heard was blasphemy to some wholesome, British-borne rock and roll.

Queen was an interesting one. Played backwards, the lyrics “another one bites the dust” becomes “it’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Oh great, so now that’s evil too? My older brother’s days were numbered.

Mr. Baxter let the chuckles and high-fives among us slide and stopped the turntable.

“Alright. Why did I play these for you tonight?”

I dunno, to thank Jesus these classes are almost over, I thought.

Paula Spencer spoke up. “Because they talk about the Devil…?”

“Not exactly.”

We all looked at each other, clueless. That wasn’t it? Besides Freddie Mercury soloing in reverse about weed, what else was there? And I was sure as shit stinks that Baxter had his fair share of ganja in his days. Hell, at that moment, I was thinking he’d smoked a bowl before class.

“A couple of reasons. First, it’s to make you aware. The things your generation is listening to — on the radio, on records, and tapes — are deceiving you into falling out of love with God.”

“But on the radio, it’s not backwards,” Paul said.

“I don’t even have a record player,” said someone else.

Mr. Baxter shook his head, in that these-clueless-kids sort of way.

“It’s doesn’t matter. You heard it for yourself. It’s still there. And the Devil — he hid it there.”

We learned years ago: you don’t groan at a teacher in CCD. But the restraint in the room was palpable.

“So … Robert Plant … is Satan?” I asked.

“No. He’s just one of many instruments.”

“Like a guitar?” Randal asked. Now that let loose a volley.

“Alright, quiet down. Not like that, no, Randal. I mean they serve the anti-Christ. Though they may not know it. But, because we can play this … music this way, the Devil’s tricks are revealed. And they are in all of the music you’re listening to. All the rock and roll, all the heavy metal. It’s there, and he is trying to use it to deceive you into falling out of grace with God.”

“So … what are we supposed to do?” I asked.

“Stop listening to it. Forwards. Backwards. On the radio, or at home. These are all the new instruments of Evil. And you should shun them just as you would any other mortal sin you’ve learned about in this class. You’ll think you have control over what you believe until it’s too late, and you stop coming to mass. You stop loving Jesus and God and everything else that will bring you to everlasting life in Heaven.”

Well, I was going to Hell. Before he’d finished his bummer of a diatribe, I’d started to think that if everlasting life in Satan’s parlor meant a lot more Zeppelin, Rush, and everything that was candy to my ears, I might just be okay with that.

“The second reason I played these for you — and this is very, very important. You listening?”

Most of us nodded.

“Never — and I mean never — do this on your own. I know it’s tempting — a fun trick to show your friends. But do not do it. I played this here, because we’re safe in God’s house. But at home, or anywhere else, you are not. And the Devil does not like when his tricks are revealed. And he will let you know.”

“How?” Paul asked.

Mr. Baxter pulled out a chair, sat down and leaned in. “I’ll tell you how. Because it happened to me. Mark and Jason can tell you — they were there.”

All eyes were on the two Baxter kids. Their eyes told us that either they were mortified or terrified. After what their father had to say, I’d go with the latter.

“A night a few months ago, Mark was playing one of these records in the cellar at home. I told him what I told you, many times before — none of that music. The work of the Devil. Sins against God. But he couldn't help himself. That’s how it works: You let him in, and he won’t let go.

“So I decided to show him what was hidden in those songs. I did the same thing I did here tonight. I stopped the record, and slowly I began to play it in reverse. And those same, hidden messages were revealed.

“And then … he walked right through the room.”

“Who?” someone asked.

“The Devil,” Jason whispered. In the ensuing silence, you could hear a guitar pick drop.

Mr. Baxter nodded. “He did. A dark figure. Dressed in the darkest cloak I'd ever seen, he passed into the room. No face, just nothingness. Tears were streaming down our faces. We couldn’t move. He glided closer to us, and we still could not move. He stopped just ten feet away from us, and he pointed, right at me. And in a voice I’ll never, ever forget he said …”

He let the sentence hang in the air. This was some real campfire-story shit, and I’m betting I wasn’t alone in hankering for some roast marshmallows right about then. What a showman.

“… ‘No’.”

No? That was it? Not “come with me, you’re going to hell” or “turn it up, man?” I say that now, but to be quite honest with you, I was shitting bricks.

I’d been taught for years every manner of how the grip of evil might drag me down into a fiery pit of doom. You bet your ass I was saying the rosary every night and had a small shrine to Virgin Mary in the corner of my bedroom. Now I was learning that this Satan fella came in a physical form like the Grim-fucking-Reaper if you pissed him off.

I glanced over at the Baxter kids. My look said “this shit real?” Their look was “this shit real.” That did it. After an extra lap around the beads before bed that night, sleeplessness would be unavoidable.

—

The following Sunday morning, I was once again packed hip-to-hip between my mother and brother within our usual pew at St. Ambrose. The usual congregation was there, including Mr. Baxter on guitar, and front-man Father Jacobs. Paul, a four-years-running altar boy, was on the bells with Mark Baxter.

I hadn’t forgotten the story Mr. Baxter told earlier that week. How could he just continue on like that, seeing what he saw? Or worse, what load of horse shit he fed to a mess of God-fearing — and now, for certain, Devil-fearing — kids? I wasn’t sure what was worse: That he went so far as to convince his own boys to play along so convincingly, or that they actually did see something that night.

Paul caught up with me in the parking lot, as the adults meandered around shaking hands with one another and secretly hoping they’d get home in time for football.

“What’s up?”

I shrugged. I had nothing.

“Hey, I talked to Mark earlier. About what his dad said.”

“What, about masturbating?”

He pushed me. Hard. I guess I deserved it.

“That Devil shit.”

“Paul! We’re still at church!” Paul’s mother hissed from somewhere in the crowd. That woman could hear a hummingbird fart in a bison stampede.

“It’s the parking lot, Mom! God, relax.”

If I’d talked to either of my parents the way Paul did, all the prayers in the world wouldn’t protect be from the sure evil that would ensue. The Devil would walk right in and applaud. But Paul’s exposure to the dictionary from Hell came from none other than his own mother’s mouth, and with certain regularity. I became fluent in the language by the time I was eight, from weekly summer sleepovers at the Morley house.

“He still swears it’s true.”

“You make him swear to God?”

Paul laughed. “No. But he’s not changing his story. Said a big person in a cloak sorta floated into the room, and then back out again.”

“What did he sound like?”

“I dunno. I didn’t ask him. Probably like ‘STOP THAT SHIT NOW!’”

His impression sounded more like Froggy from The Little Rascals than some dark being from the netherworld. Come to think of it, that would be pretty terrifying. Would someone please get that poor boy a cough drop, for God’s sake?

“Paul!”

“Sorry, Ma. I tried it, y’know. The record thing. Nothing happened. It’s a bunch of buuuuull shit.”

“Well, duh, yeah. You thought it was real? Creepy story, but no way is that gonna really happen. He was just trying to scare us. Don’t you think we’d hear of it happening to someone else already? I did it at my cousin’s house a few months ago.”

“What happened?”

I gave him a look that told him that his stupid question was going forever unanswered.

Paul pointed to the parking lot behind me. “Look, there he is.”

Mark Baxter was still clothed in his altar-boy whites, carrying his father’s guitar case to their station wagon. Paul gave me a nudge and started in his direction.

“Hey. Mark.”

Mark was a quiet kid, but not shy. More of a rebellious sort, I guess you could say. If he’d been in traditional school like the rest of us, no doubt he’d be one of the “cool kids” who took no shit from anyone and gave a pile of it to the teachers. There were few occasions you’d see him without bruises or a black eye, a sure sign he hadn’t backed down from trouble. It was that attitude that made the story he was holding onto so compelling.

“What’s up? Hey Keith.”

I held up a hand in greeting.

“Swear to God that story is true,” Paul said. The equivalent of a religious double-dog dare.

Mark shut the rear door and leaned against it.

“I’m not doing that. You know I won’t do that.”

“So it’s a bunch of buuuuull-”

“I don’t care if you won’t take my word for it. It’s what I saw.”

“How come it never happened to Keith? He said he did it at his cousin’s house, and nobody creepy came drifting through the room. Except maybe his Aunt Helen. Sorry Keith, she’s, like, a witch or something.”

Mark shrugged. “I guess you’re lucky. Maybe it’s the house.”

Paul seemed to back down at that. Then the wheels started to turn.

“Let’s do a sleep-over, then,” he said.

“A … sleep-over? What are we, ten?”

“Well then just have us over at night. Your dad’s got the records already. We just play them in the same room, on the same record player. If the Devil doesn’t show up, then it’s a bunch of crap.”

Mark’s cool demeanor warmed at that. “My father really doesn’t like people over. And it’s not a bunch of crap.”

“I wanna see for myself. So do you, right, Keith?”

I did my best to hide my real answer to that one. Instead, Mark did the honors.

“No. You don’t. And I don’t either.”

“Psssh. B.S. Whatever.”

Paul turned and walked away. I gave another silent wave to Mark before taking off as well.

—

I was only just getting ready for bed when something rapped against my bedroom window. It was early, but it was a school night, and I knew just who it was.

I opened the window to Paul’s shit-eating grin.

“Let’s go.”

“Now? Where? It’s a school night, man.”

“Baxter’s.”

“What, Mark wants us over? I thought his dad wouldn’t let us.”

“We’re just gonna go visit. Come on.”

I shut the window in his face. Paul kept right on talking.

“If you don’t come out now, I’ll go knock on your parents’ window and tell them you called me over.”

I flung the window back open.

“No you wouldn’t. And they’re not even in bed anyway.”

“Fine, then I’ll go knock on the door.”

He wasn’t bluffing. He’d done this to me before, and my folks fell for his Eddie Haskell routine every single time, hook line and sinker. As usual, Paul was going to get his way. I, as usual, was not.

—

The Baxter house was walking-distance away, but since Paul had his bike with him, I took mine as well. There’s something about walking while someone rides circles around you that feels a bit degrading.

We threw our bikes onto the Baxter’s lawn. I headed for the front door, but Paul started around the back.

“Where are you going?” I said.

“Mark’s window.”

“Jesus Christ! He doesn’t know we’re coming?”

“Nah. You heard him. He wasn’t gonna have us over. So we’ll just come over.”

I really should have made for my bike and headed back home. I started to weigh the punishment I’d get from my parents due to Paul’s threats against Mr. Baxter’s wrath, should we knock on the wrong window. Once I got home, Paul would make good on what he said, I’d be grounded for a week — and more — and the process would repeat until he got his way. I thought it better to see it through and put an end to Paul’s obsession right then.

None of the shades were drawn in the Baxter’s single-story ranch, and we found Mark hanging out in one of the rooms alone with its door shut. The lights were on and he was laying in bed, sort of huddled in a ball, back to the window. He was still clothed and clearly not sleeping. I tried to convince Paul otherwise.

“He’s sleeping. Let’s go.”

Paul ignored me and gave the window a knock.

Mark sprang up from the bed and turned to the door.

“I- I’m just praying, Dad. I promise.”

Paul knocked again. Mark stiffened, snapped around, and was greeted by Paul’s smart-assed wave. My look said, “I know. I’m sorry. What can ya do, it’s Paul.”

The window unlocked and opened.

“What are you doing here?”

Mark licked at a cut below his lip, and his face was sunburn-red. Always meeting trouble.

“Man. Who’d you fight this time? Did you finally fight Felix?”

“Maybe I’ll fight you for coming here knocking on my window. What do you want?”

“Play us the records.”

“Go play them yourself.”

“We wanna see what you saw. Come on.”

“You really don’t.”

“Just let us in. If you don’t, I’ll just go knock on the door and tell your dad you called us over.”

Right from the Morley playbook.

“No! Just … Fine. Meet me at the back by the bulkhead.”

Mark lowered the window. Paul was already on his way to the back of the house, but I watched Mark push his bedroom door open carefully, looking around before edging himself into the hallway, and pushed the door shut without a sound.

The bulkhead was a rusty, two-door entryway set into the house’s foundation. A few minutes passed before the inside latch was screeched open like a prison lock, and one of its doors creaked open. I could barely make out a person standing in the dark. I sure as Hell hoped it was Mark. Paul nudged me ahead of him. Either his night sight was better than mine and he was sure of who it was, or he just as blind and I was his shield.

“Get in,” Mark whispered.

The bulkhead led into concrete-floored basement, pitch black but for a crack of faint light from beneath a closed door. The smell of mildew and machine oil was unmistakably workshop-ian. I confirmed this when I bumped into what I figured was a long workbench. A few tools clattered onto wood and clanged against the floor.

“Shhh! My dad’s room is right above here.”

“Where’s Jason?” I asked.

“He’s staying with my mom.”

Mark opened the door into a finished part of the basement. All was dark but for a single lamp on an end table against a torn couch. Grey berber carpeting covered the floor from wall-to-wall, stained in the corners with water damage. French drains were always an afterthought back then, and not one easily or cheaply rectified. An old pool table took up the place of honor, consuming most of the room. Against one wall a Radio-Shack-brand Realistic stereo. Of course, it had a turntable.

Mark shut the door behind us as quietly as he had his bedroom door.

“We’re under the living room here. We should be okay.”

Paul already had the turntable cover off and was flipping through the sleeved albums stacked vertically beneath it.

“Which one did you play when you saw that thing?”

Mark hurried over and pushed Paul aside.

“Get out of there! My dad has them all organized. He’ll kill me if we mess it up.”

Marked pulled an album from the shelf and looked at its cover. Admiring it? Fearing it? One couldn’t tell.

“This one.”

“In this room, right?” Paul asked.

Mark nodded.

“Where did he come from?”

Mark pointed to an opening without a door. “The laundry room.”

“At my house, that’s where my dad keeps his booze,” I said.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just your mom?” Paul said.

“What? No! My parents are divorced, stupid.”

“So maybe it was your mom.”

Mark said nothing, but the seething in his posture was palpable. At that moment, I felt sorry for both of them.

Mark eased the platter out from the sleeve and placed it on the turntable, then turned the receiver on. He grabbed the needle and halted before placing it down.

“I don’t think you want me to play this backwards. It ruins the record, anyway.”

“No, we want you to play disco so we can dance,” Paul said. “Just play it. I want to see the Devil you said you saw.”

I finally spoke up. “But what if-”

“But what if what?” Paul snapped. “We see him and he tells us ‘no’ again? So what. Then we know and we won’t do it again.”

Mark looked back at us both, then placed the needle down. He seemed to know just where it had to go.

“This can play the record backwards on its own. I don’t need to do it by hand.”

He flipped a lever on the turntable and stepped far away, eyes not leaving that laundry room door. At first, seconds of silence, but for the popping and crackle of worn vinyl, then the speakers came to life. Sure enough, the words of Robert Plant from Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” began to blast in reverse. I was caught off-guard at how loud it was, on account of Mark’s fear of alerting his father to the goings on. It caught Mark by surprise as well.

“Shit!”

Mark stumbled to the stereo. Someone stood in the doorway to the dark laundry room.

Mark froze. We all did. Satan had come. And then he spoke.

“What did I tell you.”

We said nothing. I felt the urge to run, but my legs were no better than bowling balls on Twizzler sticks. Paul backed up and was stopped short by the pool table. The record kept on playing.

“What. Did. I. Tell. You!”

Mark spoke. “N- No?”

“No! Nobody over! Nobody!”

Mr. Baxter stepped into the room. He was seething. He was nothing like I’d seen him before. And he was clearly loaded.

“And are you … are you playing that again?! After what happened last time?!”

“Dad? I … I’m sorry. They just showed up. I didn’t know-”

“Shut up! You two, get out of here the way you came!”

Through this all, the record continued to play, but all I could hear was Mr. Baxter’s rage.

“And you! Get over here!”

Paul and I turned tail and blasted through the door into the workshop. Paul shut the door behind him.

“Holy shit! His dad is … he’s crazy! Let’s get the hell outta here!”

For once I was willing to following Paul’s lead. As the bulkhead lock slid open, I heard Mr. Baxter’s anger turn up to eleven, while Robert Plant carried on.

“How many lessons do I need to teach you, Mark?! Another one?! And another?! I guess it’s time for one more! Come here!”

Mark started to cry. “No, Dad. Please.”

I couldn’t move. I knew that plea all too well. To leave, or stand idly by, knowing what was sure to come next, would be as damaging as what that bastard was about to do.

“What are you doing? Let’s go!” Paul said, and then flew out into the yard.

I turned and opened the basement door. Mr. Baxter had Mark pinned against the wall by the stereo, his arm cocked back with a fist. The record skipped. I’d say it was comically timed to my entrance, but the situation was anything but.

I’ve carried on a lot about how strange Mr. Baxter was. How he seemed to thrive on using the fear of damnation as a demented teaching tool, to kids who had been taught throughout their lives that Hell was no place to wind up. Throughout lessons failing in everything but illustrating the absurdity of it all, he had been kind. He had been patient and good. A seemingly willing volunteer to God. In that moment, the fog had lifted. Like with the ridiculous things he preached, he had fully veiled the truth of himself.

Mr. Baxter’s head snapped in my direction.

“I thought I told you to-”

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. My breath caught in my chest. My eyes were no longer looking at Mr. Baxter or Mark. The anger that had blazing within them turned to absolute terror, trained on the open laundry room door.

The being floated into the room.

Mr. Baxter dropped his arm and flattened himself against the wall next to his son. The record played on.

Tattered dark brown robes draped over what was mostly human-shaped, drifting about it within a nonexistent wind. Swirls of debris and filth floated within the gaps of the cloth. Though they could have been flies, as the sounds of Led Zeppelin seemed drowned out by a skittering, hissing sound that bordered on radio static. There was no face, no real body parts at all. Just a thing. I would say it stood about seven feet tall, but that wouldn’t be quite accurate. Because the best I could tell, it was floating. The thing drifted closer to the Baxters. Mark continued to cry. Mr. Baxter looked as though he might start. Neither one said a word.

A long piece of the thing’s robe lifted, as though carried by an arm that wasn’t there, pointing, at the abusive wretch against the wall. It spoke.

“NO.”

Mr. Baxter broke down and slid to the floor. His mouth moved the words of “Our Father,” though I couldn’t hear him over the hissing, the music, and the throbbing in my head.

Mark didn’t follow suit. Instead, he ran over and stood beside me.

“NO,” it hissed again.

“Please.”

“NO.”

“No. I know. I know,” Mr. Baxter whimpered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know you said no. I won’t do it again. I won’t do it again. I won’t!”

“COME.”

The specs floating within the swirl of robes darted to where Mr. Baxter lay huddled on the floor. There was no music, only the sound of what had begun to consume Mark’s father within a cloud of black, black which became solid, almost gelatinous and liquid. He screamed as the mass took over the man’s shape, writhing on the floor in what appeared to be pure agony.

The screams became grotesque, muffled gurgles before ceasing as abruptly as the thing had appeared in the laundry room doorway. Mark turned his face away. I still couldn’t move at all.

I have no idea how much time had passed before what had overcome Mr. Baxter once again became a cloud of airborne debris. On the floor, only another stain to match those in the corners of the room, filling the room with the odor of stale urine. As though called back to their master, they drifted to where the robed thing hovered, wafting about it as they’d done before.

It didn’t go back into the laundry room. Instead, it was just gone. Just as was the music. Just as was Warren Baxter.

—

Outside, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Paul and his bike long gone. I’d been inside with Mark for a long while after what had happened. He was a raw mess, as anyone would be. I helped him give a call to his mother, who lived about an hour away. I stayed for about that long before walking my bike home — I was in no condition to ride.

“I’ll say he just left me here,” Mark said. “Nobody would believe me if I told them what really happened.”

“What about his car?”

“He walks a lot. Usually to the bar down the street. They’ll believe that. I know Mom will.”

I could tell you I was terrified, walking that stretch of road alone late at night, after what I’d seen. In truth, I was relieved. For so long I was told of mortal sins I thought frivolous as being the true path to Hell. That simple “impure thoughts” would destine me to a horrible eternity only a young, teenage boy could imagine. How could such things measure in defiance of all that is good to the monstrous acts of murder, or of rape, or of beating one’s own child? There was a comfort in knowing that once the Devil truly is in someone, he comes looking for that piece of him to take home.

—

My house was in complete darkness. I threw my bicycle into the garage and entered through the back door, into the kitchen. At that hour, I was sure everyone was asleep.

“Where’ve you been?” It was my father. The son of a bitch was standing in the doorway from the basement, in the dark. Ice cubes tinkled from his highball glass.

“I … was just putting my bike away.”

“No. You were out. All night.”

“Dad, I-”

“Get in your room.”

There was no point in carrying on. I did as he said and shut the door behind me.

It was a school night, but I wasn’t about ready to sleep. Sleep, I knew, wouldn’t come at all. Not after the Baxter’s. Not after Dad. It would be another day of looking tired, looking terrible. All under the guise of looking tough.

“What are you doing?” I heard my mother ask from down the hall. “What time is it?”

“Your son. I’m getting my belt.”

“Steven, no…”

I turned on the small stereo in my room. Led Zeppelin IV was already mounted on the turntable, affectionately played countless times in the past as I fought to sleep through a shroud of tears and pain.

I placed the needle down, and as the door to my room opened, I began to turn it counter-clockwise by hand.

#the nosleep podcast #nosleep #horror #short story #short fiction

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Religion and Society

HERETIC, THE

Directed by Andrew Morgan

Follows Rob Bell, founder of a megachurch in Michigan, and now an influential writer and speaker, as he spreads a message of love and inclusion and searches for what it means to be human.

There is perhaps no figure in American Christianity as polarizing as Rob Bell. Once a pastor of the fastest growing church in America and heralded as the next Billy Graham, that all changed when he began challenging the traditional understanding of hell and suggesting that heaven might be open to all.

The film follows Rob with unprecedented access over several years as he challenges deeply held conservative ideals while grappling with some of the most important questions of our time: Can faith and science coexist, or do belief and progress stand in opposition? Is religion insufficient for explaining the complexity of our modern world, or does it give language to something even greater? And do spiritual traditions simply serve to further divide our world, or can they offer real help and hope for a better tomorrow?

Surprising, inviting and disarmingly beautiful, The HERETIC is a story about the eternal and the here and now. A poetically unorthodox portrait that offers new language for a bigger, more expansive conversation about faith.

DVD / 2018 / (Grade Level: 10 - 12, College, Adults) / 71 minutes

SUNDAY SESSIONS, THE

Director: Richard Yeagley

The Sunday Sessions is an intimate portrait of one man's struggle to reconcile his religious conviction and sexual identity. The feature length documentary follows Nathan Gniewek, a gay man in his late twenties, as he seeks counseling from conversion therapist Christopher Doyle.

Conversion therapy is the controversial, non-scientifically based process which aims to convert an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Although it has been discredited by all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations, some therapists still offer the service for reasons almost exclusively rooted in a conservative religious belief system.

The filmmakers had unfettered access to individual therapy sessions, family sessions, and a collection of weekend camps, and have crafted an emotional and psychological thriller which chronicles two years of Nathan's journey from acceptance to skepticism, all leading to a profound epiphany.

DVD / 2018 / 89 minutes

AMISH AND THE REFORMATION, THE

Discover the roots of the Amish people...

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Beginning with Luther's 95 theses, the program describes the advent of the Reformation, the establishment of a reformed state sponsored church in Switzerland and the formation of the breakaway Anabaptist Movement.

From its Anabaptist origins the Amish developed as a unique sub-group under the leadership of Jakob Ammann. Host, Joseph Graber, a former member of the Amish Church traces his family origins back to the Reformation era and gives unique insights into how Amish beliefs have changed over the centuries.

DVD (Color) / 2017 / 55 minutes

IN THE LAND OF POMEGRANATES

Director: Hava Kohav Beller

In the Land of Pomegranates, a suspenseful, multi-layered documentary centered on a group of young people who were born into a violent and insidious ongoing war.

They are young Palestinians and Israelis invited to Germany to join a retreat called 'Vacation From War' where they live under the same roof and face each other every day. In highly charged encounters they confront the entrenched myths and grievances that each side has for the other. Woven into this intense footage are the stories of other embattled lives in the Occupied Territories and Israel: a mother and four children living in the shadow of Gaza's border wall; an imprisoned Palestinian and the subsequent path he's taken; a traumatized Israeli survivor of a suicide bombing; and a daring Palestinian mother whose son's life is saved by an Israeli doctor.

They are all caught in the duality of the pomegranate: will they embrace rebirth and each other's humanity, or will they pull the pin on the grenade?

DVD (Arabic & Hebrew with English subtitles) / 2017 / 125 minutes

ISAAC HECKER AND THE JOURNEY OF CATHOLIC AMERICA

The United States was founded on the ideals of religious liberty and individualism, concepts that to many seemed diametrically opposed to Roman Catholicism. But one man sought to show that Catholicism and Americanism are not incompatible.

Using popular communication methods of his day, Isaac Hecker became a courageous voice for Catholicism in nineteenth-century America. Given the hostility between the Old World and the New, Hecker's ministry earned the derision of both his fellow Americans as well as many in the Catholic hierarchy in Rome.

"Isaac Hecker and the Journey of Catholic America" features the voices of Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Matt McCoy (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), Bob Gunton (The Shawshank Redemption), Jay O. Sanders (JFK, The Day After Tomorrow), and David Ushery (WNBC, News 4 New York) as well as interviews from some of the leading historians and clergy in North America.

DVD / 2017 / 52 minutes

JOURNEY INTERRUPTED

In Journey Interrupted, five individuals share their personal stories of struggle with sexual identity in relation to how The Bible interprets their challenges. It is a comparative between gender identity and faith.

This 2017 documentary addresses two key questions:

What does the Bible say about gender identity and homosexuality;

How should Christians respond to these divisive issues?

These questions are explored with candor and sensitivity through the lens of personal testimony. This important film is refreshingly transparent, deeply honest as it offers hope for healing and wholeness through Jesus Christ.

DVD (With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 61 minutes

NANA

Director: Serena Dykman

Directed by 25 year-old Serena Dykman, NANA documents her journey with her mother Alice as they retrace her grandmother's Auschwitz survival story. Born in Poland, Maryla Michalowski-Dyamant survived Ravensbruck, Malchow and Auschwitz - where she was the forced translator for the "Angel of Death," Josef Mengele. Maryla dedicated her life after the war to publicly speaking about her survival to younger generations.

Alice and Serena, daughter and granddaughter, explore how Maryla's outspoken activism continues today, in a world where survivors are disappearing, and intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism are on the rise.

"I was inspired to make this documentary after reading my grandmother's memoir a couple of years ago," said director Serana Dykman. "I realized that she was more than a survivor, more than a Polish Jew. The reason she went back to Auschwitz and told her story publicly thousands of times was so that it should never be forgotten, and would never happen to anyone again. Her activism and fight against intolerance lives on today, 14 years after her death, through the thousands of people she touched, and now through NANA."

DVD (French and English subtitles) / 2017 / 100 minutes

STRANGERS ON THE EARTH

Director: Tristan Cook

Europe's most popular pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago attracts wayfarers of all stripes to walk its ancient paths in search of meaning. One such pilgrim is Dane Johansen, an American cellist who ventured to walk the Camino with his instrument on his back, performing music for his fellow pilgrims along the way. Accompanied by the vast landscapes of Northern Spain, the haunting music of J.S. Bach for solo cello (performed by Johansen), and the very personal struggles and joys of the many pilgrims encountered along the way, 'Strangers on the Earth' examines the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the concept of 'journey' and the vital role it can play as part of the human experience.

DVD / 2017 / 97 minutes

THIS CHANGED EVERYTHING: 500 YEARS OF THE REFORMATION

This Changed Everything: 500 Years of the Reformation celebrates the fruits of the Reformation while exploring difficult questions about the cost of division: Could schism have been avoided? Is there hope for reunification? What did Jesus really mean when He prayed for His followers to be "one"?

In this visually rich, three-part documentary series hosted by actor David Suchet, leading church historians share fascinating insights and pose vital questions about unity, truth, and the future of the Christian church.

2 DVDs (Color) / 2017 / 180 minutes

COME BEFORE WINTER

Director: Kevin Ekvall

Key cast: Gus Lynch, Aubrey Wakeling, Sefton Delmar, Rebecca Summer, Scotty Ray , Kelly Reed

Come Before Winter tells the true story of two longtime foes of Adolf Hitler; Sefton Delmer and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During the dying days of the Third Reich these two men, in very different ways, helped bring about the fall of Hitler's regime.

In Germany, Bonhoeffer spoke boldly against the evil of Nazism and called the church to turn away from its complacency. In England, Delmer, ran a secret operation, transmitting "black propaganda" into Germany in order to demoralize the Nazis.

The stories of these heroic men and their companions intertwine as they work to end the war.

Filmed in Berlin, Buchenwald, Flossenburg and various locations in England and the United States.

DVD / 2016 / 75 minutes

OPEN BETHLEHEM

Directed by Leila Sansour

The filmmaker comes home to Bethlehem to find the city being strangled by the wall and ongoing Israeli settlements, and starts a campaign to keep Bethlehem open to the world.

Reports predict that if trends continue the Christian community of Bethlehem, a city that provides a model for a multi-faith Middle East, may be unsustainable within one generation. The enormous wall and ongoing Israeli settlements are strangling the city. Leila Sansour's plan to stay a year stretches to seven, and is only resolved when she realizes that, sometimes, the biggest dreams take flight from the smallest places.

OPEN BETHLEHEM is a story of a homecoming to the world's most famous little town. The film spans seven momentous years in the life of Bethlehem, revealing a city of astonishing beauty and political strife under occupation. The film draws from 700 hours of original footage and some rare archive material. In fact the making of this film has led to the creation of the largest visual archive of Bethlehem in the world and plans are currently being discussed with University College London (UCL) to turn the collection into a museum.

While telling a personal story, the film charts the creation of a campaign, named Open Bethlehem, to compel international action to bring peace to the Middle East.

DVD / 2016 / (Grades 10-12, College, Adults) / 90 minutes

AMONG THE BELIEVERS

Directors: Hemal Trivedi & Mohammed Ali Naqvi

Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz Ghazi, an ISIS supporter and Taliban ally, is waging jihad against the Pakistani government with the aim of imposing Shariah law. His primary weapon is his expanding network of Islamic seminaries for children as young as four. Among the Believers follows Aziz's personal quest, and charts the lives of two of his teenage students who are pawns in his ideological war.

DVD (English and Urdu with English subtitles) / 2015 / 84 minutes

EXPLORING EPHESUS: CITY OF APOSTLES

Join hosts, Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Andrew Jackson, leading experts on biblical Turkey, as they journey to this important hub of the early church.

Ephesus is one of the best reconstructed Greco-Roman cities in the world, and was once the hub of Christianity in Anatolia (modern Turkey). This impressive city was not only one of the seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation but was also the headquarters of Paul's three-year ministry to the roman province of Asia. From here Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians and in Ephesus's theater the infamous riot recorded in the Book of Acts broke out against the Christians. Here too, the Apostle John traditionally wrote his Gospel and epistles and where he spent the last days of his life after returning from exile on Patmos.

Ephesus was the launching point for the gospel's continuous expansion into the western world. For decades biblical Turkey has been the focus of study for distinguished historians, Dr. Mark Wilson and Dr. Andrew Jackson. Now these old friends reunite and travel together on the road to Ephesus. Along the way they share their combined historical, archaeological and biblical expertise to bring the scriptures to life for modern believers.

Walk in the steps of the apostles along ancient Roman streets and pass through marble gates into the wonderfully excavated city of Ephesus whose extensive ruins resound with millennia of history. Take an excursion by boat to the Isle of Patmos where Christ revealed his apocalyptic vision of the end of days. Visit the ruins of pagan temples once dedicated to the gods of Greece and Rome and explore a hidden cave where early Christian believers worshiped the one God.

DVD / 2015 / 60 minutes

LA VIE DE JEAN-MARIE

By Peter Van Houten

A brilliant, bold and refreshingly irreverent documentary shot in the style of cinema verite. LA VIE DE JEAN-MARIE is a feel-good portrait of a spirited 75-year old priest.

A beautiful, poetic story of an aging Dutch pastor who-probably as the very last one-watches over the spiritual life of about 25 villages in the French Pyrenees and does so with an unprecedented vivacity, sincerity and sensitivity for female beauty.

It is also about a man torn between two loves: women and Jesus...

DVD (French & Flemish with English Subtitles) / 2015 / 166 minutes

NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM

Director: David Gaynes

Choosing life in life's final chapter is the poignant subtext of this new powerful documentary, a lyrical portrait of eight nursing home residents who make a pilgrimage to Israel.

Offered a seat on the bus for a 10-day tour, the viewer accompanies individuals with various personal theologies in and out of museums, crossing Israeli landscapes from mountains to desert. But Next Year Jerusalem is less a story about tourists in a foreign land than it is a meditation on the sanctity of human experience and a tribute to the wisdom acquired in the course of a lifetime. Earnest and nuanced, it is a true exploration of living and dying, hope and fear, travel and memory. A celebration of and a reverent tribute to life's eldest travelers.

DVD / 2014 / 72 minutes

GOD LOVES UGANDA

Director: Roger Ross

With God Loves Uganda, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (Music by Prudence) explores the role of the American evangelical movement in Uganda, where American missionaries have been credited with both creating school and hospitals and promoting their ideas about sexuality identity and expression. The film follows politicians, young missionaries, and evangelical leaders, including Pastor Robert Kayanja, Pastor Martin Ssempa, Pastor Scott Lively, Lou Engle, and Bishop Christopher Senyonjo (winner of the 2012 Clinton Global Citizen Award) as they attempt the radical task of eliminating "sexual sin" and converting Ugandans to evangelical Christianity.

As an American influenced bill to make homosexuality punishable by death wins widespread support, tension in Uganda mounts and an atmosphere of murderous hatred takes hold. Thanks to charismatic religious leaders and a well-financed campaign, these draconian new laws and the politicians that promote them are winning over the Ugandan public. Through interviews and hidden camera footage and with unprecedented access on the ground, the film allows American religious leaders and their young missionaries that make up the "front lines in a battle for billions of souls" to explain their positions in their own words. Shocking and enlightening, touching and horrifying, God Loves Uganda will leave you questioning how closely this brand of Christianity resembles the one you think you know and contemplating the repercussions of ideological colonialism in developing nations.

DVD (With English subtitles) / 2013 / 83 minutes

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

Directed by Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman

A personal essay revealing the passionate debates over identity and generational change inside today's American Jewish community.

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS is a groundbreaking personal exploration of the community and family divisions that are redefining American Jewish identity and politics. The filmmakers' own families are battlegrounds over loyalty to Israel, interpretations of the Holocaust, intermarriage, and a secret communist past.

Filmed in the United States and Israel, this first-person documentary begins with a near riot at a Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, reveals the agonizing battle over divestment from Israel on a university campus, and shows the crackdown on dissent in Israel itself.

DVD / 2011 / (College, Adult) / 70 minutes

MY FATHER'S HOUSE (JIAO TANG)

Directed by ZHAO Dayong

The troubled story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.

In Nigeria, Pastor Daniel Michael Enyeribe has a revelation to bring the word of God to China. He joins a booming community of African merchants who have settled in the southern city of Guangzhou and established the Royal Victory Church for both Africans and Chinese to worship. The church functions as the spiritual center for the ever-growing African trader community, who struggle with cultural, personal and financial challenges. After being raided by police enforcing strict laws regulating religious practice, Pastor Daniel flees to Hong Kong, where he uses video conferencing to lead his congregation from afar. His colleague Pastor Ignatius assumes daily management of the church, while struggling to support his Chinese wife and their young child.

With My Father's House, documentary filmmakers Zhao Dayong (Ghost Town, New York Film Festival) and David Bandurski capture a complex subculture thriving within a seemingly homogeneous society where immigrants and evangelical religion are kept from view.

DVD (Color) / 2011 / 77 minutes

WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON

Director: Kate Davis, Franco Sacchi, & David Heilbroner

America's 50-million strong Evangelical community is convinced that the world's future is foretold in Biblical prophecy - from the Rapture to the Battle of Armageddon. This astonishing documentary explores their world - in their homes, at conferences, and on a wide-ranging tour of Israel. By interweaving Christian, Zionist, Jewish and critical perspectives along with telling archival materials, the filmmakers probe the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between Evangelical Christians and Israel...an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls "World War III."

DVD / 2009 / 74 minutes

WOMEN OF FAITH: WOMEN OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SPEAK

By Rebecca M. Alvin

This absorbing documentary examines women's decisions to lead religious lives in the Roman Catholic tradition in the post-feminist era. Throughout history, nuns were given certain advantages over other women, while still oppressed within their vocational pursuits. They were taught to read and write, encouraged to pursue music, literature, art, philosophy and spirituality, and officially allowed to escape marriage's powerless role of wife. But why would a woman choose a nun's life today?

Individual interviews with seven women provide answers - and explore how rebellion can happen within and outside the Church, how women in the Church reconcile conflicting, religious, personal, and political beliefs, and how they view official Church positions on contraception, homosexuality, and women's ordination as priests. The diverse group includes Poor Clares, contemplative nuns who spend most of their days in prayer, Maryknolls who have served in Central America, and a Roman Catholic Womanpriest. Both timely and insightful, the film provides a rare look at their experiences and current controversies over tradition, change and power within the Catholic Church.

DVD (Color, Black and White) / 2009 / 60 minutes

LIFE 6: EDGE OF ISLAM

Directed by Alex Gabbay

Three Muslim students face a choice between their faith and their future.

On the beautiful island of Lamu on the eastern coast of Kenya, three young footballers have just graduated from school summa cum laude, but cannot get hold of the school certificates they need for university or to find jobs until they pay their hefty school fees arrears. Until then, the certificates remain locked in a rusting filing cabinet in the headmaster's office.

They could get work in Lamu's booming tourist industry, which has brought an influx of pop stars, models and glitterati-and much needed income-to the island over the past 15 years. But tourism has also introduced alcoholism, drugs and soaring house prices that are threatening the local Islamic culture and way of life.

One of our young protagonists, Arafat, isn't worried. His faith is strong enough, he claims, to withstand the lure of the West, and he's happy to earn money providing boat services for tourists on the dhows that ply their trade along Lamu's coast. But his schoolmates, and fellow footballers, Adbulkarim and Abubakar, are reluctant to get involved with the tourists whose dress and habits they regard as corrupting and opposed to Islam.

But how else will they earn enough to secure their precious certificates-and their future? And can the West really offer a model of globalization that will win over Lamu's young men? What future will our three young protagonists choose?

DVD (Color, Closed Captioned) / 2008 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 25 minutes

SALATA BALADI (AN EGYPTIAN SALAD)

By Nadia Kamel

Award-winning Egyptian filmmaker Nadia Kamel's heritage is a complex blend of religions and cultures. Her mother is a half-Jewish, half-Italian Christian who converted to Islam when she married Nadia's half-Turkish, half-Ukrainian father. Prompted by the realization that her 10-year-old nephew Nabeel is growing up in an Egyptian society where talk of culture clashes is all too common, she urges her feminist, pacifist, activist mother, Mary Rosenthal, to share their diverse family history.

But, as she and Mary weave their way through the family's multiethnic fairytales, they bump unexpectedly into the silence around old prejudices concerning the estranged Egyptian-Jewish branch of their family living in Israel since 1948. Bravely inspired to further challenge the boundaries between cultures, religions, and nationalities that are used to divide people, Kamel embarks on an amazing personal journey with her mother and nephew to Israel and Italy, confronting with an open heart, fears and prejudices along the way.

DVD (Arabic, Color) / 2008 / 105 minutes

CONSTANTINE'S SWORD

Director: Oren Jacoby

Constantine's Sword, the latest film by Oscar-nominated documentarian Oren Jacoby, is an astonishing exploration of the dark side of Christianity, following acclaimed author and former priest James Carroll on a journey of remembrance and reckoning.

Carroll, a National Book Award winner and columnist for the Boston Globe, is a practicing Catholic whose search for the truth leads him to confront persecution and violence in the name of God - today and in the Church's past. He discovers a terrible legacy that reverberates across the centuries- from the Emperor Constantine's vision of the cross as a sword and symbol of power, to the rise of genocidal antisemitism, to modern-day wars and conflicts sparked by religious extremism.

At its heart, Constantine's Sword is a detective story, as Carroll journeys both into his own past - where he comes to terms with his father's role as a three-star General in the U.S. Air Force preparing for nuclear war - and into the wider world, where he uncovers evidence of church-sanctioned violence against Jews, Muslims, and others. Visiting the Air Force Academy, he and Jacoby expose how some evangelical Christians are proselytizing inside our country's armed forces and reveal the dangerous consequences of religious influence on American foreign policy.

Warning of what happens when military power and religious fervor are joined, Constantine's Sword asks the timely question: Is the fanaticism that threatens the world today fueled by our own deeply held beliefs?

DVD / 2007 / 95 minutes

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO

Director: Daniel Karslake

Does God really condemn loving homosexual relationships? Is the chasm separating Christianity from gays and lesbians too wide to cross? Is the Bible an excuse to hate? These questions and more are answered in this award-winning documentary, which brilliantly reconciles homosexuality and Biblical scripture - and reveals that religious anti-gay bias is based almost solely upon a misinterpretation of the Bible.

Through the experiences of five very normal, Christian, American families - including those of former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt and Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson - we discover how people of faith handle the realization of having a gay child or family member.

Offering healing, clarity and understanding to anyone caught in the crosshairs of scripture and sexual identity.

DVD (Color) / 2007 / 98 minutes

PRAYING WITH LIOR

Director: Ilana Trachtman

Praying with Lior asks whether someone with Down syndrome can be a "spiritual genius." Many believe Lior is close to God - at least that's what his family and community believe - though he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration and an embarrassment, depending on who is asked and when. As this moving and entertaining documentary moves to its climax, Lior must pass through the gateway to manhood - his Bar Mitzvah.

DVD / 2007 / 87 minutes

SERMONS OF SISTER JANE, THE: BELIEVING THE UNBELIEVABLE

By Allie Light, Irving Saraf and Carol Monpere

From Oscar and Emmy Award-winning filmmakers Allie Light and Irving Saraf (Dialogues With Madwomen and In The Shadow of The Stars), in partnership with Carol Monpere, also an Emmy Award-winner, comes their latest film, The Sermons Of Sister Jane: Believing the Unbelievable. This documentary is an engaging portrait that sparkles with the courage, wit and humanity of Sister Jane Kelly, who combines her deep spiritual faith with her equally powerful commitment towards resistance and change.

When Sister Jane discovered that a priest in her church was molesting young men and stealing from the congregation, and when the evidence was ignored by the church, she contacted the press, creating a scandal. Throughout the film she shares her progressive views on issues such as birth control, homosexuality, and women priests. She impels the Catholic Church to return to egalitarian roots of community. The scenes filmed at Plowshares, an organization she created to feed and serve the poor and homeless, demonstrate Sister Jane's powerful ability to translate her faith into profoundly meaningful action. This touching documentary, skillfully produced by these acclaimed filmmakers, reveals Sister Jane's long struggle to speak out against what she believed was wrong, and how this ongoing battle ultimately has heart-breaking results.

DVD (Color) / 2007 / 53 minutes

DREAMING OF TIBET

Directed by Will Parrinello

Looks at the lives of three Tibetan exiles, and at the recent history of their country which forced them to flee.

In isolated communities around the world, particularly in India, Nepal and the United States, Tibetan exiles have created a 'virtual Tibet,' where they have endured and even flourished in the face of overwhelming adversity. DREAMING OF TIBET follows their arduous journeys from Tibet into exile over a 19,000 foot Himalayan pass. It's a flight that the Dalal Lama took in 1958 and over 150,000 of his followers have taken since then. Most have only minimal clothing and meager provisions to make the life-threatening trek. Many die along the way.

This intimate documentary is about the resilience of the human spirit under the most dire circumstances. The film looks at the lives of three extraordinary Tibetan exiles who have survived in exile and are deeply involved in working for the survival of their culture. They are, in short, Ms. Tseten Phanucharas, a political activist, who is one of the Dalai Lama's press coordinators in Los Angeles; Ms. Tsering Lhamo, a nurse working with recent refugees in Kathmandu, Nepal; and Mr. Ngawang Ugyen, a monk in the Mt. Everest foothills.

DREAMING OF TIBET captures the difficult challenges they each face and conveys the sense of hope they bring to their day-to-day lives in spite of great hardship and loss.

Also features His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and author/climber Jon Krakauer, with appearances by actors Richard Gere and Goldie Hawn.

DVD (Color) / 2006 / (Grades 7-12, College, Adult) / 58 minutes

RAISED FROM DUST (JU ZI CHEN TU)

By GAN Xiao Er

A heartbreaking story told with compassion, RAISED FROM DUST sheds light on the unexplored lives of the approximately 40 million Christians in China.

Xiao-Li (Hu Shuli) is a devoted housewife and an active member of her local Catholic church in the Henan farmlands of southern China. Her faith is put to the test as her husband (Zhang Xianmin) is hospitalized with respiratory illness due to unsafe working conditions, leaving his life clinging to an oxygen machine. Forced to work simple jobs to pay for her husband's hospital care, Xiao-Li takes her young daughter (Lu Shengyue) out of school, unable to pay for tuition. She finds support only from fellow members of her congregation. But will her faith and devotion be enough to save her family?

Filmed with a beautiful eye for both vast rural landscapes and human intimacy, RAISED FROM DUST explores the lives of those rarely seen in modern-day China, and announces Gan Xiao Er as a new major talent in world cinema.

DVD (Henan dialect with English subtitles, Color) / 2006 / 102 minutes

FANGSHAN CHURCH (FANGSHAN JIAOTANG)

Directed by XU Xin

A fascinating look into the inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.

A lively community of Christians inhabit Fangshan, a remote rural town in Jiangsu Province. At the start of the millennium, a church was built there with support of local inhabitants' relatives from Taiwan. On Sundays, up to 900 people gather to worship, while spending most of their days maintaining a modest living as farmers. Their faith governs how they handle family conflicts, illnesses and other difficulties. Still, they must contend with constraining forces in their community, from ancient folk religious practices to laws forbidding evangelism.

With Fangshan Church, filmmaker Xu Xin (Karamay, Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival) offers one of the most vivid portraits of Christian life in China to date. Filming over two years, Xu presents a richly detailed chronicle of religious practices, from weekly worship services to home prayer visits, as well as intimate interviews with individuals, filmed with a painterly eye. The result is a keenly observed reflection on the different forces - social, cultural and personal - that shape a religious community.

DVD (Color, Mandarin & Jiangsu dialect with English subtitles) / 2005 / 80 minutes

THAT PARADISE WILL BE MINE

By Merel Beernink

Why would a woman in one of the most liberal Western European countries choose to become a Muslim and faithfully follow the demands of her new conviction - including wearing the veil? This eye-opening film follows the lives of three women dealing with the consequences of their choice to convert to Islam. Rather than pressing the women for the reasons behind their choice, director Merel Beernink takes a close look at their day-to-day lives, letting them speak candidly about how they feel in their new cultural and religious context.

Issues of marriage and relationship loom large for all three women. Astrid, who had a brief but unhappy arranged marriage, is now living with her parents and looking for a husband. Inge is considering a move to Cairo to marry her Egyptian fiance. Rabia is married to a Muslim man and struggling with matters such as polygamy and homosexuality. Their perspectives are complemented by revealing and often touching interviews with their parents.

Capturing these women's struggle to reconcile the expectations of their families and friends with the demands of their new conviction, Beernink's intimate portraits offer fascinating insight into the choices made by these women to lead a different kind of life.

DVD (Dutch, Color) / 2005 / 54 minutes

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