#its getting real personal out in comfort character central today folks

[comfort-character-central]

The scene from Spongebob Squarepants where Mr Krabs goes "Yes, hello, I was wondering if you could play that song again." but it's just me replaying specific voice lines of my f/o by myself because the way they were spoken made me giggle

#fictional other #comfort character #self ship #f/o community #its getting real personal out in comfort character central today folks #the girlypops who get it will get it #girlypops is gender neutral

[passionate-reply]

This time on Great Albums, I talk about an album that actually isn’t older than I am for a change! Enter the spooky, haunted forest of The Knife with me, and find out why it was Pitchfork’s Album of the Year in 2006! Full transcript after the break.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be tackling an album that’s more recent than anything I’ve done on Great Albums before, but it’s still old enough to start being considered a classic: The Knife’s Silent Shout, released in 2006, and hence seeing its fifteenth birthday in 2021. Silent Shout is a bit special to me, insofar as it was an album I loved as a teenager, back when it was still pretty new, and it was probably the first album I really fell in love with that wasn’t significantly older than I was. I was quite surprised when I eventually learned just how beloved Silent Shout is among music aficionados. This album has been lauded in critical circles, recommended as a “patrician” essential, and even considered one of the greatest electronic albums of all time! So, what’s the fuss about?

Before Silent Shout, The Knife were significantly closer to a conventional electronic pop duo. Their biggest claim to fame was the track “Heartbeats,” which scored some exposure after a cover of it was featured in a TV ad.

Music: “Heartbeats”

I like to think that “Heartbeats” contains the seeds of what’s great about Silent Shout, with its grinding synth backing and vocalist Karin Dreijer’s affecting wail. But its indie-pop brightness is something distinctively absent from their follow-up. Contrary to what might’ve been expected from an up-and-coming pop act, the sibling duo hunkered down in the studio and set about making something stranger and more exotic. On the technical front, they stripped the production down to its bare essentials, using just digital rhythms and two synthesisers to achieve everything we hear on the album. Stylistically, they took their sound into moody, atmospheric territory, imbuing it with this eerie, claustrophobic ambiance. It’s the musical equivalent of Frankenstein emerging from Mary Shelley’s mind, while the dreary “Year Without a Summer” had poisoned the world around her.

Music: “Silent Shout”

The title track here is also the opener, and introduces us to the frightful world of Silent Shout without mercy. This track is dominated by a powerful contrast of sound: low, thrumming bass, and these quick, but delicate and meandering synth arpeggios, carrying a distinctively Scandinavian flair. This bewitching synthesis of musical ideas makes sense in light of the diverse influences of the two siblings who made up The Knife: Instrumentalist Olaf Dreijer was strongly influenced by dance styles like house, trance, and progressive techno, as well as ambient electronic music, whereas vocalist Karin Dreijer was interested in guitar-based popular music, as well as the distinctive folk traditions of their native Sweden. Not unlike the Pet Shop Boys, they’ve got a wide gap between their influences, but that only serves to intensify the uniqueness of their work, which strikes listeners in a way the constituent musical parts of its heritage never could. Perhaps the most significant sonic feature of the album, though, is the extreme electronic distortions of Karin Dreijer’s voice.

Music: “One Hit”

If raw and everymannish vocals make music feel more in line with our everyday reality, the shocking and monstrous ones on *Silent Shout* render it a truly otherworldly work of art. While many people are quick to decry the “fakeness” of electronically mediated vocals--despite the fact that all art is, of course, artificial--I think Silent Shout proves, more boldly than anything else, just how uniquely powerful this musical tool can be in the right hands. Once you get past the sheer sonic force of the vocals, and their peculiar, skin-crawling timbres, you’ll find that most of the lyrical subject matter is actually painfully quotidian. “One Hit,” for instance, is told from the perspective of an all-too-normal “monster”: a domestic abuser, extracting and enforcing femininity and domestic servitude through the force of violence, dealing in “one hit, one kiss.” Sex, gender, and exploitation based upon them are among the album’s most central themes, and expressed harrowingly on tracks like “Na Na Na”:

Music: “Na Na Na”

Perhaps moreso than any other track on the album, “Na Na Na” is rendered borderline incomprehensible by vocal treatment--a trait magnified by its obviously meaningless title and chorus. But “Na Na Na” does have real lyrics, which tell the story of a life mediated by reproductive anatomy, defined by the rhythm of menstruation, coming from within, and the constant fear of sexual violence from without. It’s a tale of hidden anxiety, and experiences that go unseen and unspoken despite how common they are, making the haze of inscrutability laid over them all the more poignant. It’s clear that these issues are of high importance to Karin Dreijer, who has publicly described themself as “genderqueer,” despite both members of the band being remarkably sparing with all personal details. In another of the most striking vocal performances on the album, “We Share Our Mother’s Health,” Dreijer even gets to sing a duet with themself, and embody two distinct characters at once.

Music: “We Share Our Mother’s Health”

“We Share Our Mother’s Health” can be read in the light of gender and sex dynamics, as well, particularly if you’re willing to read its twin narrators as representations of masculinity and femininity. Personally, though, I think that’s a bit too easy, and really, a bit too cisnormative. I think the album is more interesting if we embrace the fundamental uncertainty of identity, and the transgressive queerness of it all. That said, I prefer to think of “We Share Our Mother’s Health” as a piece about capitalism--the endless toiling and scrounging for more material comfort and security, and the emptiness left behind when that proves to be no pathway towards true happiness. Besides, it’s not like sexism and the class struggle don’t feed off of each other in the end. This track’s sense of cacophony, with voices nearly battling to drown each other out, shows its more strident, aggressive, and downright angry side, which it delivers as powerfully as it does those moody atmospheres.

Silent Shout is the perfect title for this album, given its emphasis on voicing internal and private laments that go unheard--and voicing them with this terrifying sense of primal scream catharsis. While I initially wasn’t overly fond of the album art, it’s grown on me a bit now that I’ve seen it blown up to a larger size. This central disc shape is certainly evocative of a record or a CD, and its industrial-looking lattice structure, with a mottled, grimey-looking texture, helps conjure the impression of machine-age ennui.

I think a lot of the enduring appeal of Silent Shout is its sense of mystery. A lot of that mystery is deliberately crafted iconoclasm, and part of the art--while promoting the album, The Knife were photographed wearing sinister, elaborate beaked “plague doctor” masks, and their live performances from this period shrouded the band in darkness to obfuscate their appearances. They’ve refused to accept awards for their music or attend award ceremonies, including one memorable incident in which they sent costumed representatives of feminist organisation Guerrilla Girls in their stead. After Silent Shout, the duo created an opera based on Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species in 2009, and released one more studio album in 2013: Shaking the Habitual.

Music: “A Tooth For an Eye”

Shaking the Habitual received mixed reviews, and so far, has proven to be the siblings’ final work together, though they remain active as musicians independently, with Karin Dreijer recording under the moniker “Fever Ray.” Part of the great myth of Silent Shout is the fact that nothing else in their discography really quite approaches its specific sound, and sharp precision of conceptual focus. It’s like the album is tailor made to stand perfectly alone, outside of context, perhaps even outside of genre.

For many of us, this great legend of lightning-in-a-bottle genius is infinitely alluring. But I’ve never really bought into it too thoroughly myself. I obviously adore Silent Shout, and I think it’s a Great Album. But, unlike many people who have showered it with praise, often claiming that they don’t enjoy “electronic music” overall, I’ve always been interested in a lot of heavy, angry, creepy synthesiser-based music, and so I never thought too much of listening to this and liking it. People praise Silent Shout for being unlike anything else, but I think it sounds like a lot of post-industrial dark wave, like Attrition or Chris & Cosey, and its themes of feminist rage feel like a strong parallel to that of more recent stars of noise music such as Pharmakon and Lingua Ignota. But that’s not to devalue what Silent Shout does achieve! I think it *is* a unique album...in the way that a bat is a unique animal. Much as bats are not the only creatures who fly, but stand out for having developed that ability despite their mammalian heritage, Silent Shout doesn’t actually take direct inspiration from the earlier music it sounds the most like. It ended up there through the aforementioned eldritch alchemy, combining trance and folk and Kate Bush to get something new. That’s still something worth celebrating! Silent Shout needn’t be a perfect enigma to be a stirring masterpiece of an album.

My overall top track on Silent Shout, which I bet will be a popular choice, is “Forest Families.” It’s equal parts bleak and strangely anthemic, defined by both the unease of adapting to a plainer and harsher existence, outside the bounds of society, as well as the release that music itself provides to so many of us as we seek comfort. Since music is so important to me, I’m a real sucker for music about the importance of music, and it feels particularly well-placed on an album that’s a cathartic listen in so many ways. That about wraps this one up; thank you for watching!

Music: “Forest Families”

#music #great albums #album review #album reviews #the knife #fever ray #silent shout

[theonyxpath]

Fresh off the excellent meeting we had with Paradox and White Wolf in Berlin a week or so ago, and a week before we open the tomb of the Mummy: The Curse 2e Kickstarter, I figure it’s a good time to give you a look at some of my thoughts on a bunch of our game lines.

Scarred Lands:

With that lead-in paragraph, I bet you expected WW-IP stuff, but there is just so much happening with Scarred Lands that I wanted to get all that out first. To be honest, the interest in SL has been a real surprise. A great surprise, because there just seems to be a constant stream of folks that remember the setting from years ago and are excited to play and create with our new edition.

Which is wonderfully gratifying. Not only for the love and interest, but because we (I) was slow on the uptake on getting SL back on track after our original Scarred Lands partnership with Stewart Wieck came to an abrupt end with his passing. If I look back, I’m pretty sure I just delayed dealing with it, as jumping in where Stew was originally going to handle things reminded me of my friend too much.

But this year, we made huge strides – in a large part helped by the awesome efforts of all the creators on the Slarecian Vault (SL‘s community content site), our recently finished Creature Collection KS, and next year we’ll be presented monthly releases of Yugman’s Guide to the Scarred Lands, and the Vigil Watch project. There are weekly Twitch actual plays, and the amazing adventures of an awesome ratman (is it not all about him?) by Devil’s Luck Gaming that’s been running for months with all the twists and plot turns you could ever want.

Plus, just today Matt McElroy let us know that we’ll have a “What’s Up with 5e and Onyx Path” panel at Gamehole Con in Madison at the end of the week: https://www.gameholecon.com/events/event/7956 and he is running a “meat grinder” Scarred Lands game after hours at the con. If you’re interested in participating, let him know at our booth.

And then, we also have heard that the Scarred Lands supplement to Expedition, the exciting card and app-based RPG is going on sale the start of November. Here’s a description from Eddy Webb, who has been overseeing the project:

A lightweight, card-based roleplaying game that’s fun for players – and storytellers. Whether you’re playing alone, with a group of friends, your spouse or with your kids – anyone can learn to play in less than 5 minutes! Powered by a free companion app with hundreds of free adventures and new quests every week, there’s always something new to play! For 1-6 players, 20+ minutes, ages 8+

More on this as it’s released! Suffice to say, Scarred Lands has been reborn, and we’re just thrilled with how players have responded to its return!

M20 Book of the Fallen art by Sam Araya

World of Darkness:

We’ll be Kickstarting the traditionally printed and in-stores version of V5 Cults of the Blood Gods soon, and coming out of Berlin, our team has several more V5 projects to get rolling on. While we’ve been finishing the Stretch Goal rewards for several past 20th Anniversary Kickstarters, we also have a few more 20th projects that WW/Paradox is cool with us doing, so keep an eye out for those.

Overall, as WW/Paradox‘s method of handling the licensing of WoD changes as they continue moving to “5th Edition WoD”, we are comfortable with pitching individual projects or whole lines depending on the parameters they use on each line. Right now, if we get an idea we pitch it their way and see if it works with their plans.

Chronicles of Darkness:

Much like with WoD, we pitch interesting CofD projects to Paradox, and they can OK them or not according to their overall plans.

Which works out just fine for us right now, as we’ve got plenty to keep us busy as Dark Eras 2 proofs get finalized and out to backers, which has so many CofD lines in it, and with Geist 2e going to press, and Mummy 2e‘s KS and Hunter 2e‘s not far behind- plus all the attendant KS Stretch Goal projects, plus plus starting a couple of projects not yet on the progress report that WW/Paradox is OK with.

Exalted:

The big books roll along with Lunars and Exigents at different stages and with smaller books/stretch goals also rolling. We’re getting close to wrapping up the two monthly EX3 projects. There’s a very special secret project that we’ve been working on that we’re going to announce at PAX Unplugged in early December, and we’re really looking forward to letting our EX3 audience in on that!

In general, while we know folks might look back at the previous two editions’ release schedules and count the numbers, we are looking at how far our “new” Exalted team has come and the overall quality of the projects seems pretty satisfying. While we’re not aiming to return to the frenetic release pace of old, EX3 looks well positioned to deliver a more regular series of releases in the coming year.

Deviant: The Renegades art by Michael Gaydos

Scion:

For a while I’ve been thinking about how there’s really two tracks for Scion: the Mythic track, which contains Scion: Origin, Hero, Demigod, and God, and the projects that talk about The World and our take on how real-world pantheons would work in it like Titanomachy, and then there’s the Expanded track, which looks at ways to add further ideas on what could be considered a pantheon, or a god, or what else could exist alongside or outside the Mythic track. These would include Scion: Dragon, and Masks of the Mythos.

We’re aiming to create projects that provide value to both tracks, even if they are more firmly situated in a single one, and to release those projects so that everyone into Scion will receive a steady stream of excellent material. Having the Storypath Nexus community content site up and being the repository of even more potential Scion goodness is definitely part of the plan.

Trinity Continuum:

Sort of similar to Scion but the key design decision to build everything as a Continuum helps folks understand that we’re not going to stop with just the original eras but expand the potential eras from the past to the far future and eras in-between what we already have. Plus sideways and upways and downways. I’ve taken to considering the TC not as a linear time track alone, but as one with bubbles of eras that run parallel and drift closer or farther together depending on the interests of our players.

To use my favorite example, the hidden ultra-tech city of the intelligent gorillas may exist in a bubble that in your TC:Adventure! game is very close or even touching your TC:Adventure! era, but that same gorilla bubble may be far away and so unreachable in your TC:Aeon game.

So with the Trinity Continuum Core and TC: Aeon books shipping RIGHT NOW to backers, work progressing nicely on the final TC: Aberrant text, and TC:Adventure! on the progress report chart below, we’ve got all sorts of added Stretch Goal projects that are getting ready to come out, plus unannounced projects for both the Core and the TC itself that we’ll let you in on very soon.

They Came From Beneath the Sea!, Dystopia Rising: Evolution, Realms of Pugmire, and Cavaliers of Mars:

These are all verrrry different games, but all share the same publishing philosophy of launching and fulfilling a Kickstarter campaign to get the books into stores, and of working to provide a first wave of releases that support and add to the game line’s core book(s). Mostly via Kickstarter Stretch Goal rewards.

With Cavs and Pugmire, we try and work within the schedules and interests of the creators, Rose and Eddy respectively, so as they come up with ideas we bat those back and forth until a new project forms out of all of it. For They Came From and DR:E, we’re working on getting the core books created, as well as the supplements from their KSs. From there we’ll see if the interest is there for more projects with the line…but it’ll be a few months before those triggers are pulled and we have anything to announce.

Dark Eras 2 art by Luis Sanz

Legendlore:

This is one that I’m really interested in seeing how it hits. If you listen to developer Steffie de Vaan’s deep dive with Matthew and Dixie on last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, she stresses that this fantasy world that has been around for decades as a comic book series contains a lot of inherent world design that she and her team took and expanded on – always with an eye towards the central premise of the setting: you the player are playing some version of yourself transported to this fantasy world.

This can be a touchy premise for a game, though. A lot of folks who play RPGs are playing to NOT be themselves, but to explore different types of characters. Steffie has that covered too, in much the same way that she has looked at how to make the premise work so that players have options that work for them, for their personal beliefs and ideas as to what sort of character they are comfortable playing.

It’s only one aspect of a rich fantasy world, but it is so intrinsic to the setting (even beyond how important regular character creation is for any game world) that it had to be handled with thought and empathy. If you have the time, take a listen – you’ll also get a chance to hear a lot more about the warring nations, and the skullduggery of appeasing a dangerous aggressive neighboring realm, and that there’s several different types of playable trolls (!), and much, much, more.

There you go – and I’m not even getting into the possible new licenses and other new lines we continue to look into. Truly, we have so:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

The Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition Kickstarter arises next Tuesday, Nov 5th, at 2pm Eastern US time. Be there to witness the majesty and terror of this new version of Mummy: The Curse!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features the recorded Worldbuilding panel from the Save Against Fear convention – Eddy, Dixie, RichT, surprise guest Neall Raemonn Price, and other game creators answer questions from the moderator and the audience as to what challenges creators face in world building for their games. The answers are often surprisingly personal, and no one held back their opinions, that’s for sure!

What a week we have in store for you on the Onyx Path Twitch channel! Matthew has already hosted the Onyx Path News today in a bumper, hour long edition, and we’ve got games of V5, Scion, Pugmire, Hunter: The Vigil, Aberrant, Changeling: The Lost, Mage: The Awakening, and Scarred Lands all to come! Check us out and give us a follow on twitch.tv/theonyxpath

It really helps us to have subscribers on our Twitch channel, and you can do so for free and catch premieres as they go up if you have an Amazon Prime account. Just type Twitch Amazon Prime into Google and you’ll be shown how to subscribe for free.

Do you follow us on YouTube? Well, if you haven’t subscribed to us on Twitch, do not despair, as a couple of weeks after each episode on Twitch we transfer the videos over to YouTube right here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzN5jRB35OvnC-6gxnRY4gQ We already have episodes of Aberrant and Changeling up, with more to come!

Meanwhile, our fans keep creating excellent content for us, not limited to:

Occultists Anonymous continues with their fantastic Mage: The Awakening game right here:

Episode 54: A Marrow Escape The cabal travels into this strange Atlantean temple and tries to decipher the purpose of the building. The ancient defenses still work though…https://youtu.be/_6asdJMHo00

Episode 55: Judgment Call Shaking the remains of the Temple’s defenses off of themselves, the cabal begins to discover the heart of the Temple and it’s possibly dark purposes…https://youtu.be/S9eSLKTnUR8

Plus, the Story Told Podcast posts another episode of their fantastic Exalted: Dragon-Blooded series right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-17-welcome-to-daric

Do not miss Devil’s Luck Gaming with their superb Scarred Lands content: https://www.twitch.tv/DevilsLuckGaming

Watch Geek & Sundry‘s Eric Campbell discuss his love of Geist: The Sin-Eaters right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es7G-P9iou8

Twin Cities by Night continue their fantastic Chronicles of Darkness chronicle right here on Podbean: https://twincitiebynight.podbean.com/

Did you miss the Ragnarok & Roll podcast’s coverage of Scion Second Edition and their actual play spanning first edition’s Hero to Ragnarok? If so, please check them out here: https://ragnarokandroll.podbean.com/

If you want a fresh new take on Chicago by Night, complete with animated opening, please give the fine folks (with superb voice acting) a look at Windy City Kindred right here: www.twitch.tv/wickedstudiosllc

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

The big Halloween Sale on DriveThruRPG and Storytellers Vault continues until Halloween.

Most of our Chronicles of Darkness PDFs will be on sale on both sites, plus there will be some Halloween Treats (i.e. free PDFs) hidden around the sites.

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’ll be resplendently releasing our monthly Exalted 3rd PDFs on DTRPG!

Conventions!

GameHoleCon: This week: October 31st – November 3rd in Madison, WI! PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th, in Philadelphia, PA. 2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th, in Milwaukee, WI.

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Second Draft

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Post-Editing Development

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle – Sent out contracts.

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Trinity RMCs – Finals in.

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Mark finals rolling in.

Chicago Folio – Finals rolling in.

Mummy 2 (KS) – Ready for KS.

City of the Towered Tombs – Contracted.

Let the Streets Run Red – Figuring out probable page count.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Awaiting artnotes.

Scion Mythical Denizens

Deviant

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

In Layout

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Template created… system chapter done.

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

VtR Spilled Blood

Geist 2e Screen – Putting it together.

Pirates of Pugmire

Proofing

M20 Book of the Fallen – At WW for final approval.

Memento Mori

Dark Eras 2 – First dev pass ready to go back to designer.

At Press

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2 – shipping to backers.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2 – shipping to backers.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – At Studio2 – shipping to backers.

Trinity Aeon – At Studio2 – shipping to backers.

V5: Chicago – Printing.

Aeon Aexpansion – PoD proofs ordered.

W20 Art Book – On sale next week.

W20 Auspice Gift Cards deck – Backer PDF out to backers, PoD proofs ordered.

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Getting print files ready.

DR:E – Getting print files ready.

DRE Screen – Getting print files prepped.

C20 Cup of Dreams – Backer PDF with backers.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – PDF out to backers.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Eight years ago, I let the ever-optimistic Impish Ian Watson know that Onyx Path had purchased the Trinity IP from White Wolf/CCP. And that we were going to bring it back and he was going to be as involved as he wanted, after all his years of keeping the flame lit. Today, Ian received his KS copies of the Trinity Continuum Core, and Trinity Continuum: Aeon. Took longer than either of us expected, but the dream is now real!

#Onyx Path Publishing

[redscullyrevival]

N(ot)stalgia: DISCO 2.0

Something I’ve not personally seen anyone talk about with Star Trek Discovery, although I’ve no doubt many are, is the role nostalgia plays in the series. 

Sometimes at war, sometimes a crutch, sometimes reflective but mostly deconstructive; nostalgia is near constantly present within DISCO’s production. Present within the media as it is created and relayed to its audience as well as present within large portions of the audience themselves, from within their own expectations and beliefs on what Star Trek “is” (and perhaps most vocally on what the franchise “is not”). Star Trek Discovery is not all that concerned with restorative nostalgia, the series does not excessively lean on invoking comforting throw-back feelings with the intent of recreating the franchise's past tone. And then there’s season 2 episode 8 “If Memory Serves”. 

OH BOY. Oh wow. Okay.

“If Memory Serves” is a double down boot stomp of an episode that I’m sure has been turning heads for its use of interweaving, updating, and altering the classic two parter “The Menagerie” (and thus the un-aired-but-widely-known pilot episode “The Cage”) and I’m positive some misguided individual is out there referring to all this as a “reference” and yes I kind of want to die a little knowing that’s happening but I’ll struggle through. Sigh.

The first season of DISCO dug deep and did some drastic nostalgia tweaking and even (dare I say) went so far as to weaponize nostalgia and all the expectations audiences brought with them about what Star Trek “was” and “means” and “does” as a pop culture storytelling institution.  

It was a long-term re-haul of many, many aspects of the Star Trek TV franchise and it made many, many people very uncomfortable. Not me, I friggin’ dug it, but I am admittedly a contrary asshole. 

Blahblah lots of folks right now are probably thinking about Captain Lorca and for good reason - so lets look at Lorca and how he was used to snap the audience’s nostalgic Trek lens. Spoliers ahead.

Captain Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) was revealed to be from the Mirror Universe, as in the slap-on-a-beard-and-be-mean-universe. If you know Star Trek you know the Mirror Universe.

But in the beginning, we all sat around ho-humming over Lorca’s motivations and choices. Over what we wanted to believe about him. The viewership was VERY busy interpreting Lorca and working the character into our own individual understandings on what we know and want from a Star Trek television show.

As it happens Captain Lorca is one of the most Trekkie characters ever by default of his universal origins while simultaneously being an approach to the evils of the Mirror Universe (AKA What We Don’t Want Humanity To Be™) as we’ve never seen it before.

Hating other races and being aggressive and enjoying war and breeding a society hostile towards ideas of equality, justice, cooperation, and peace are pretty straight forward no-nos. Turns out though, and this is the real kicker, that the initial unease Lorca brought onto Discovery wasn’t just (entirely) the writers getting through their sea legs but a nice long con: 

The evils of the Mirror Universe have now been expanded to psychological and emotional abuse with sexual predatory behavior and unsustainable environmental practices thrown in for good measure. Which was a much-needed update my friends.

And I say “update” but in a lot of ways it’s an insertion. A clarification. Or, as I first sated, an expansion. We could look at DISCO as re-writing Star Trek lore because that’s, ya know, what it is doing - but we can also more specifically look at DISCO as a project in nostalgic alteration.

Hey, guess what?! Spock’s sister has always been a black woman.

From our outward understanding yes, we know Michael Burnham is a ~new~ character in a ~new~ Star Trek show. None of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. These are new stories. 

The function of these stories though? I can’t help but think the audience is pretty torn up on that front.

Something inherent in experiencing Star Trek Discovery is how the show’s narrative future hails from our actual historical past. The utopia of the original series is dated and stale and disingenuous without a nostalgic/contextual lens firmly set in place. The function of many Star Trek Discovery stories is that of a much-needed blood transfusion: Bringing new life to old withered limbs.

Does this mean that Star Trek Discovery is seeking to recontextualize Star Trek? Yes and no but mostly no in my opinion. LOL, sorry, but it’s complicated! As most nostalgia driven works are.

Nostalgic Cinema is a real subset of critical film studies and has only grown in recent years but nostalgia isn’t anything new to media or the human experience. The general consensus is that nostalgic media tries to visually replicate time periods in human history (or the markers of media from a particular time period, what Marc Le Sueur dubbed “deliberate archaism”), but primarily acts as a bridge to idolized youthful emotionality and/or simplified “truths”. 

Marc Le Sueur’s “Theory Number Five: Anatomy of Nostalgic Films: Heritage and Method” was published in 1977 and was one of the first major academic and critical looks into the role nostalgia plays in cinema and by extension our connection to and perception of art. In the 1990s Svetlana Boym and Fredric Jameson further pushed ideas of nostalgia in literature and late capitalism respectably (which of course made its way onto visual media).

Le Sueur and Boym saw nostalgia as two classifiable categories, restorative or reflective. Restorative nostalgia attempts to recapture and revitalize an imagined past while reflective nostalgia is marked by a wistful longing for what has been lost to time.

In “The Future of Nostalgia” Svetlana Boym wrote “Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.” She goes on to suggest that our attraction to nostalgia (either restorative or reflective) is often times less about actually trying to reclaim a vanished past but rather a conscious resistance to an unknown and potentially threatening future.

The bulk of nostalgic media can easily be seen to tie into Boym’s observations; most media isn’t concerned with or about the personal and effective uses of nostalgia as a lived experience/real feeling among individuals but instead more focused on a particularly stylized, sanitized, and simplified view of history. Nostalgia in media is typically a presentation on the present day's romanticized fantasy of the past, void of contradictions and unsolvable uncertainties of the focused time period's lived reality, so as to soften or even avoid the creator’s and audience’s confusing present and unknown future.

In 2005 film critic and historian Pam Cook explored nostalgia in her book “Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema” which collected seventeen of her short essays from 1976 to 1999 that focus on memory, identity, and nostalgia not only within their subject matter but within Cook’s viewpoint of revisiting her own body of work. Early on Cook laid out a more optimistic outlook on nostalgia in media:

“Rather than being seen as a reactionary, regressive condition imbued with sentimentality, it can be perceived as a way of coming to terms with the past, as enabling it to be exorcised in order that society, and individuals, can move on. In other words, while not necessarily progressive in itself, nostalgia can form part of a transition to progress and modernity. The suspension of disbelief is central to this transition, as nostalgia is predicated on a dialect between longing for something idealized that has been lost, and an acknowledgement that this idealized something can never be retrieved in actuality, and can only be accessed through images.”

The Star Trek of 1966 didn’t air in a peaceful time free from social and political turmoil. In fact, the original series itself was a kind of attempt at Future Nostalgia: A projected desire for what humanity could be if we survive and make changes to the then-contemporary world the show was directly commenting on. 

Star Trek’s original series today, as media that has survived and gained weight within the American pop cultural landscape, certainly feels warm, inviting, and reflective of an America long gone and shattered - and that’s because, now, it is. 

Time moves forward and warps and bends our media and our experiences to media and the most warped and most bendy of all are those storytelling institutions that outlive and outlast the era and people who first created and first experienced it. 

Recreating Star Trek visually, tonally, and thematically would be straight nostalgic vampirism and is obviously not what DISCO is doing. But that doesn’t mean Star Trek Discovery is not not a nostalgic piece even though it looks, feels, and is thematically different than the 1966 original show.

Real quick, let’s get back to this week’s episode, “If Memory Serves”!

... Honestly though, do I need to connect these dots? We all get it right? We’re all on board with this entire thing from the name of the episode, to its direct use and alterations of the original series, and then the not-so-subtle reveal that the season’s big plot point, the Red Angel, is a time traveler re-writing history. Like. We get it, right?

This is where Discovery has yet again doubled down on its storytelling functionality; this is Spock y’all. This is Pike. This is for real happening. Michael has helped shape the Spock character we will see later on in the “future” (our collective past).

And while we’re here, check out Mr. Spock! The Spock of Discovery is not dripping with nostalgic slime, he’s sharp and clean to an almost shocking degree. The series makes little effort in acting as though we should have a pre-determined fondness for the character outside of his relationship to Michael. Which is absolutely NUTS. But in a good way, in my opinion! 

The search for Spock (lawl) within Discovery has been on a surface level the literal search for the character within the narrative space of this new series. They gotta find that dude.

The search for Spock within Discovery has also been a form of re-defining the character not through audience expectation of What They Know and Remember but What They Don’t Know and Have No Basis For.

And the series accomplished it within the framework of places, characters, and events that are old, new, the same, and different all at once. I believe that’s a lot of intentional wibbly wobbly timey wimey paratextual stuff taking precedence for the sake of promoting a new view on Star Trek’s (and our own) past, primarily for the sake of moving beyond it. 

I don’t think it’s just ‘haha, reference!’ that the first shots we see of Vina (an original series character) in Star Trek Discovery’s “If Memory Serves” is that of her high heeled glass slippers. It’s jarring and weird and even laughable. Vina’s hair and makeup are also deliberate archaisms within the series the character is currently in, airing in the year it is. It reminded me of another nostalgia ridden TV series that would often implement a similar absurdist approach towards viewer nostalgia.

Mad Men had a lot of fun presenting a visually accurate but sterile version of the past not so as to suggest things were better in the 1960s but so that the series could better magnify (and even exasperate) American disillusionment.

One of my favorite examples of nostalgic absurdity in Mad Men is when Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) stands in a crowded office building jokingly pointing a gun at unflinching women.

What's the goal of having Pete do this? Is it to show we were... better then? We were more innocent? Is this deeply inappropriate "joke" suddenly OK because it's 1960, or is it even within context creepy, horrifying, and in incredible bad taste? Do we need the characters to recognize the absurdity of Pete's actions for us to validate them as absurd or are we being invited to make that evaluation ourselves in the here and now outside of the character's reality?

What Pete does is creepy and weird if the characters acknowledge it or not just as much as it is, admittedly, darkly humorous for the audience to witness at all.

But that's because it's not really a set up for comparing and contrasting how much we as a country have lost or gained in the wake of mass shootings but rather that of an audience being able to recognize a total D-bag, even through time.

Pete and his gun aren't a direct focus of the show's nostalgia but they are certainly a product of it and a bit of the point is that Pete gets away with doing what he does because it's a story, yeah, but PRIMARILY due to the audience assumption of "well, it was the 1960s". Its within that suspension of disbelief living at the core of all the many absurdist moments that make up Mad Men where the series bit by bit wedges in its most critical theme: Nostalgia is bullshit.

Through its intentional juxtaposition of accurately ‘recreating’ the past and high co-dependency on its contemporary audience’s views, Mad Men suggests that the best we can do as a society, as a country, is see the similarities between the past and now and decide what is worth keeping, progressing, or discarding entirely. The series delights in uncomfortably positioning the audience to view the weird ass shit it's characters do (littering, chain smoking, drinking and driving, slapping women's butts, letting children play with plastic bags over their heads to name a basic few), not so as to suggest that the past was "better" than today but so as to highlight the ways that we as a society have already deemed the past to be inefficient, ineffective, and cruel.

The series uses the same audience awareness principle to highlight the ways in which nostalgia cannot hide nor brighten our shortcomings and continued failures. There are just as many (if not more) moments in the series that are not presented as contrasting absurdity but comparative harrowing familiarity; those areas of our cultural makeup we have not adequately progressed or left behind.

Sure, in the 1960s everyone could smoke everywhere (very ew, look how far we’ve come) but women still had to internally balance if they could afford looking like a humorless bitch when confronting workplace sexual harassment (haha, whoops!). 

America’s past in Mad Men is terrifying and weird as well as frustratingly still present, as smoke soaked into our current attitudes and culture. What America’s past isn’t in Mad Men is purely seductive nostalgia for the sake of simplifying the present.

Le Sueur, Boym, and Cook all propagate that the cinematic image/use of nostalgia is that of double exposure, two images projected onto an audience’s perception and experience (1. contemporary recreation 2. of the past) - and that sure as hell makes up the building blocks of Discovery even though we’re all cognitively aware every aspect of the series is new and it takes place “in the future”. Discovery uses the franchise’s past as an adaptive functional mirror with which to compare and contrast our contemporary reality rather than merely repeating experiences and ideas reflective of a time long gone.

Vina’s shoes, her entire aesthetic down to her backstory aren’t just counter to the tone and aesthetic of Discovery but to the sensibilities of the contemporary audience; we are all very aware that Vina hasn’t literally been plucked out of 1966 and plopped into this new series. Again, none of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. We’re aware these are new stories. But what is the function of Vina in this new story? What is the purpose of all the unease her presence brings into “If Memory Serves”?

Vina, way back in 1966, was written to choose a life of illusion among aliens siphoning her memories and emotions rather than accept and become a part of the present. The Keeper tells Pike, “She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant” as they once again cover up Vina’s hunched back and scarred face with youthful and desirable 1960s beauty standards. As we all know Pike himself will go on later to choose this exact fate. He will succumb to the same choice.

“When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating," Vina tells us of the Talosians in “The Cage”, episode zero of Star Trek. “You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.”

I’m having a serious and very real Look-Into-The-Camera-Moment here my friends. We’re all on board, yeah? Are the dots sufficiently and fully aligned? God I hope so. “If Memory Serves” is pulling a helluva fine “To Serve Man” word play pals:

If our memories perform our duties and live our lives for us, we become trapped. Discovery’s purpose for pulling in original series characters, and these characters in particular and all the narrative context sliding along in with them, is to suggest that we (and the franchise itself) need to move past our attachments to the original series and its rusty ideas and simplistic hopes for the future.  

Vina and Pike are already lost causes, we know this. We gain power in knowing this. The re-framing of these characters as being more tragic than romantic, with Discovery reflecting their longing as kinda creepy and disconnected with Vina more siren than innocent the series can push past the past and grab on to a new understanding of this classic episode’s elements and what it can mean for us watching Star Trek made in 2019.

A purely DISCO inversion of all this is poor Dr. Culber who has a complete lack of emotional connection to the past, who can remember moments and events but can’t make them give off any feelings of relevancy or incorporate them into who he is as a person. Culber is just as trapped as Vina and what Pike will (possibly?) become. The inch by inch nature of his recovery will depend on, as a pissed off Burnham tells the Talosians, if he can learn to “survive another way.” 

Yeah. That might be some thematic intent we’ve picked up on skip. We’re legit through the looking glass now huh? Up is down and down is up and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be! Hype.      

As such, in its own way, Discovery is fairly critical of Star Trek and by extension a bulk of its audience and their personal reasons and motivations for tuning in. It makes a lot of sense that Lorca and “If Memory Serves” among many other production choices and aspects chafe some viewers. 

I’m of the opinion that the shiny pristine nostalgic pedestal sculpture that is STAR TREK should be filed and chipped and shaved and grated here and there just as much as more contemporary substance should be added and stuffed back into it. 

What’s the goddamn point of any of this if not to further progress the bar of reflecting and projecting the human experience onto a future better than that one envisioned in 1966? In 1987? In 1993? And, at the end of the day, isn’t THAT more authentically “Star Trek” than simply an episodic narrative structure, glitter effect transporters, and a captain’s log? 

#star trek discovery #star trek #discovery #disco #fandom talks #brain puke

[emilyl-b]

12 Reasons You Shouldn't Invest in best keyboard for beginners

Correction Appended

On an album of bittersweet childrens music that she wrote greater than ten years in the past, the lady who arrived to become known only because the piano Instructor provided what, in hindsight, looks like an eerie glimpse of her very own upcoming.

Im moving away these days to a place so far-off, the place no person understands my title, she wrote while in the lyrics of the music named Shifting.

When she wrote that music, she was young and vivacious, a piano teacher and freelance audio writer who beloved Beethoven and jazz, sunsets and river Seems, lengthy walks and every thing about New York.

On a kind of beloved walks, by Central Park in the bright Sunlight of the June day in 1996, a homeless drifter beat her and attempted to rape her, leaving her clinging to daily life. Following the assault, the terms to her tune came real. She moved away, out of Ny city, outside of her old lifetime, and all but her closest close friends did not know her identify. To the rest of the environment, she was — just like the additional renowned jogger attacked in Central Park 7 several years before — an anonymous image of an urban nightmare. She was the piano Instructor.

Now, about the tenth anniversary of your attack, she is celebrating what seems to be her complete recovery from brain trauma. She's forty two, married, with a little boy or girl. She is Kyle Kevorkian McCann, the piano Trainer, and she wants to explain to her story, her way.

Her medical professional informed her it would acquire 10 years to Recuperate, and Sunday was that talismanic anniversary. I really feel my lifetime has actually been redefined by Central Park, she said numerous days back, her voice comfortable and hopeful. Before park; right after park. Will there at any time be a time After i dont Assume, Oh, This is actually the tenth anniversary, the 11th anniversary?

She spoke in her modest ranch household in a wooded subdivision within a Big apple suburb. She sat within a dining place strewn with toys, surrounded by images of her cherubic, dim-haired 2-yr-previous daughter. A Steinway grand loaded fifty percent the home, and at just one point she sat down and performed. Her taking part in was forceful, but she seemed embarrassed to play quite a lot of bars, and shrugged, instead of answering, when requested the identify of your piece. She questioned that her daughter and her town not be named.

She calls that working day, June four, 1996, the working day After i was harm.

Hers was the 1st in a very string of assaults by a similar guy on four Girls above 8 days. The last victim, Evelyn Alvarez, 65, was overwhelmed to Loss of life as she opened her Park Avenue dry-cleansing store, and ultimately, the assailant, John J. Royster, was convicted of murder and sentenced to existence in prison.

Still the attack around the piano Instructor could be the one particular people today look to keep in mind by far the most. Section of the fascination should do with echoes of the 1989 attack around the Central Park jogger. But In addition it frightened folks in a method the attack within the jogger didn't mainly because its situation ended up so mundane.

It did not happen inside of a distant Component of the park late in the evening, but in close proximity to a well-liked playground at 3 while in the afternoon. It might have occurred to any individual. The tension was heightened by the secret of the piano teachers id.

For three times, as police and doctors tried using to see who she was, she lay within a coma in her hospital bed, anonymous. Her parents have been on holiday vacation and her boyfriend, also a musician, was in Europe, on tour. Eventually, among her students recognized a law enforcement sketch and was ready to discover her from the healthcare facility by her fingers, for the reason that her confront was swollen over and above recognition. The police didn't release her name.

The very last thing she remembers about June 4, 1996, is providing a lesson in her studio condominium on West 57th Avenue, then putting her extensive hair inside of a ponytail and heading out for just a walk. She will not don't forget the assault, Despite the fact that she has heard the accounts of the law enforcement and prosecutors.

To me its just like a fact I learned and memorized, she said. As if I were a scholar in school studying record.

She would not think of The person who did it. I might need been angry for a second, although not a lot longer than that, she said. How could I be angry at John Royster? He was declared not insane, but I suppose by our standards he was.

Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, her medical doctor at The big apple Healthcare facility-Cornell Healthcare Center, as it was recognized in 1996, told reporters that she had a ten per cent chance of survival. Doctors experienced to remove her forehead bone, which was later changed, for making space for her swelling Mind. When her mom built a community appeal to pray for my daughter, thousands did.

Soon after eight times, she arrived out of a coma, 1st in a vegetative condition, then in a childlike condition. As she recovered, she slept tiny and talked continually, at times in gibberish. I had been having mad at persons if they didnt respond to these text, she stated.

Like an Alzheimers affected individual, she had minor limited-expression memory and would neglect site visitors as soon as they remaining the room.

Above a number of months, she had to relearn ways to stroll, costume, read through and publish. Her boyfriend, Tony Scherr, visited every day to Engage in guitar for her. He inspired her to play the piano, towards the recommendation of her Actual physical therapists, who believed she might be annoyed by her inability to Perform how she after had. Mr. Scherr played Beatles duets together with her, actively playing the left-hand section when she played the ideal.

Which was my most effective therapy, she said.

In August, she moved back dwelling to New Jersey, together with her father, an engineer, and mother, a schoolteacher. She frequented old haunts and known as mates, hoping to revive her shattered memory. I was very obsessed with remembering, she claimed. Any memory decline was to me an indication of abnormality or deficit.

Her therapists imagined her development was wonderful, but her two sisters protested that she wasn't the deep thinker she were.

What bothered her most was that she experienced misplaced the opportunity to cry, as if a faucet inside her brain were turned off. One particular night time, nine months just after she was hurt, she stayed up late to watch the John Grisham Motion picture A The perfect time to Get rid of. Just soon after her father had long gone to bed, she viewed a courtroom scene of Samuel Jacksons character on demo for killing two Males who experienced raped his younger daughter.

The faucet opened, as well as the tears trickled down her cheeks. I considered my mothers and fathers, my father, and what they went by, she said. Little by minimal, my sensation returned, my depth of brain returned.

Urged by her sisters, she went again to highschool and received a masters diploma in new music schooling.

Not every little thing went well. She and Mr. Scherr split up five years once the attack, though they continue to be mates. She dated other men, but she constantly instructed them with regard to the assault without delay — she couldn't enable it, she explained — they usually hardly ever referred to as for any second date.

We have now to locate you anyone, her Buddy David Phelps, a guitar player, said four a long time ago, just before introducing her to Liam McCann, a computer technician and newbie drummer. For at the time, she didn't say nearly anything concerning the attack till she got to be aware of Mr. McCann, then when she did, he admired her energy.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who had frequently frequented her at her bedside though she was in the medical center, married them in his Times Square Workplace. She wore a blue costume and pearls. Though she was pregnant, in a very burst of creativeness, she and her buddies recorded Though Were being Youthful, an album of childrens tracks that she had prepared prior to the assault, such as the music Shifting. Her ex-boyfriend, Mr. Scherr, manufactured the CD. On it, her spouse plays drums and she plays electrical piano.

Is her lifetime as it was? Not precisely, however she is reluctant to attribute the dissimilarities to her accidents. Her final two piano students left her, without having contacting to elucidate why, she claimed. She has resumed playing classical new music, but straightforward pieces, because her daughter would not give her time for you to practice. As for jazz, I dont even consider, she explained.

She would want to travel extra, experience stranded while in the suburbs, but she is definitely rattled. She tries to be articles with keeping residence and caring for her daughter.

Dr. Ghajar, a medical professor of neurological surgical procedure at what on earth is now referred to as Big apple-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Heart, who operated on Ms. Kevorkian McCann following the attack, stated last week that her amount of Restoration was exceptional. Shes mainly ordinary, he stated.

Other professionals, who are not personally aware of Ms. Kevorkian McCanns circumstance, tend to be more cautious.

Regaining the ability to Participate in the piano may perhaps entail an Nearly mechanical system, a semiautomatic recall of exactly what the fingers must do, claimed Dr. Yehuda Ben-Yishay, a professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at Ny University Faculty of Drugs. After brain-injured, you happen to be generally brain-wounded, For the remainder of your lifetime, Dr. Ben-Yishay said. There isn't any remedy, there is only intensive payment.

The greater telling Component of a Restoration, in his perspective, is psychological, and on that score he counts Ms. Kevorkian McCanns relationship and boy or girl as a significant victory.

For her element, the piano Trainer is familiar with she has changed, but she has made her peace with it. I used to be form of a hyper —— I dont know if I used to be a Type A, but I used to be formidable, she claims. Why was I so formidable? I used to be a piano teacher. I dont really know what the ambition was about. I actually did come back to the individual Im speculated to be.

[max-cant-dream]

i should also sleep

1.Who was the last person you held hands with? zach-o

2. Are you outgoing or shy? I don’t know, shy I think

3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? MY GECKO 

4. Are you easy to get along with? Don’t tread

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? and clean the puke up too

6. What kind of people are you attracted to? people who are open to any lifestyle, people who have weird schedules. 

7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? yes 

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? from the same gender? zach and murc

9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? nah

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? e-lise

11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? “also I gave the awful din 2 bucks cuz I’m a whimp for small bands”

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now? -folk punk by awful din   -lowlives by the dirty nil   -fuck shit up by ghost mice    -beach community by joyce manor     -believe by TUI

13. Do you like it when people play with your hair? yes pls

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? I believe it can give you a mindset that helps

15. What good thing happened this summer? fuck man it’s been so long. Grad?

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? absolutely

17. Do you think there is life on other planets? for sure

18. Do you still talk to your first crush? sometimes. preschool was rough.

19. Do you like bubble baths?  hell no

20. Do you like your neighbours? mostly

21. What are you bad habits? rushing and overreacting

22. Where would you like to travel? everywhere but like Europe, Australia, and central Africa, and maybe a US roadtrip.

23. Do you have trust issues? do I?

24. Favorite part of your daily routine? cereal 

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? my back or legs

26. What do you do when you wake up? take 50 years to turn off my alarm

27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? idk

28. Who are you most comfortable around? elyse

29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? lol 

30. Do you ever want to get married? don’t knoe

31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail? not even close

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? john cena and john cener 

33. Spell your name with your chin. cvweoler

34. Do you play sports? What sports? snowboard, skateboard, hockey(?), tennis

35. Would you rather live without TV or music? tv 

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? yeah

37. What do you say during awkward silences? you’re supposed to say something?

38. Describe your dream girl/guy? Will destroy me in the pit and then help me back up

39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? The source, sloth?

40. What do you want to do after high school? Already out, I wanna chill and go to shows.

41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? Most people

42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean? I’m probably thinking

43. Do you smile at strangers? yeah

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? space

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? My alarm out of reach

46. What are you paranoid about? The world hates me right

47. Have you ever been high? yeah

48. Have you ever been drunk? yeah

49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? no

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? Red and black

51. Ever wished you were someone else? probably

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? My fucking LISP

53. Favourite makeup brand? nadda

54. Favourite store? Sloth

55. Favourite blog? stonequake (stole this from her)

56. Favourite colour? purple

57. Favourite food? poutine?

58. Last thing you ate? old cake

59. First thing you ate this morning? cereal

60. Ever won a competition? For what? nope

61. Been suspended/expelled? For what? nope

62. Been arrested? For what? no but sidenote go call a peace officer a shithead today

63. Ever been in love? without a doubt I am

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? preschool, got heated under the train in the red room. 

65. Are you hungry right now? I always am

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? People do that?

67. Facebook or Twitter? no thanks

68. Twitter or Tumblr? tumblr

69. Are you watching tv right now? no

70. Names of your best friends? I love all my friends

71. Craving something? chocolate

72. What colour are your towels? purple and black

72. How many pillows do you sleep with? 4

73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? yeah

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? 3

75. Favourite animal? wolf probably

76. What colour is your underwear? red

77. Chocolate or Vanilla? chocolate

78. Favourite ice cream flavour? cheesecake

79. What colour shirt are you wearing? grey

80. What colour pants? black

81. Favourite tv show? lie to me 

82. Favourite movie? idk 

83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? 1

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? 21 jump street

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? The lil quiet one

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? seagulls

87. First person you talked to today? elyse

88. Last person you talked to today? also elyse

89. Name a person you hate? one guy at bt

90. Name a person you love? ez

91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? yeah

92. In a fight with someone? no

93. How many sweatpants do you have? 1

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? 600000

95. Last movie you watched? zootopia lol

96. Favourite actress? idk

97. Favourite actor? ^

98. Do you tan a lot? a bit

99. Have any pets? soon :)

100. How are you feeling? happy

101. Do you type fast? no

102. Do you regret anything from your past? it’s not like I can change it

103. Can you spell well? w-e-l-l

104. Do you miss anyone from your past? yeah

105. Ever been to a bonfire party? and hosted

106. Ever broken someone’s heart? don’t know

107. Have you ever been on a horse? never will be

108. What should you be doing? sleeping

109. Is something irritating you right now? no 

110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? i think

111. Do you have trust issues? do you?

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? elyse

113. What was your childhood nickname? didn’t have one

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? yeah

115. Do you play the Wii? yeAH

116. Are you listening to music right now? no

117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? yes

118. Do you like Chinese food? yeah

119. Favourite book? civilization and its discontents

120. Are you afraid of the dark? no I embrace

121. Are you mean? I’m an asshole not a douchebag

122. Is cheating ever okay? Depends on the situation but not with intention

123. Can you keep white shoes clean? No shoes are safe

124. Do you believe in love at first sight? a bit

125. Do you believe in true love? for sure

126. Are you currently bored? yep

127. What makes you happy? going to shows, my friends and gf, skateboarding, editing, waking up early

128. Would you change your name? nah

129. What your zodiac sign? the fish one lol who cares

130. Do you like subway? fuckin yes

131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? chill them out

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? zach

133. Favourite lyrics right now? “When I’ve had all that i could stand please burn this body down to ash. Take me to the gulf of mexico, open the lid and let me go”

134. Can you count to one million? what a waste

135. Dumbest lie you ever told? I played for the Calgary Flames in kindergarten 

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? closed

137. How tall are you? 5′10

138. Curly or Straight hair? straight

139. Brunette or Blonde? yes

140. Summer or Winter? summer i think

141. Night or Day? night

142. Favourite month? may

143. Are you a vegetarian? lol no

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

145. Tea or Coffee?

146. Was today a good day?

147. Mars or Snickers?

148. What’s your favourite quote? 

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line? “Arnett quized the prisoners on the rules.”

[martechadvisor-blog]

Interview with Steve Lok, Head of Marketing & Technology for Global Digital Acquisition at The Economist

This Q&A is part of an interview series for the upcoming MarTech Conference, May 9-11 in San Francisco, covering the agenda topics to be discussed at the event. Read on for an exclusive sneak peek from the presenters

1. How have you seen marketers evolve in their understanding of martech in these last five years? What are the gaps (maybe in exploiting technology, attitudes, approaches, strategies etc) that events like these address for newbies as well as veteran marketers?

The good news is that we’ve made some progress; but folks are still in discovery mode where there are just as many new questions as there are answers. There is still a serious gap in empirical technology knowledge which must be filled by better education and/or training. It may be an unpopular point of view, but there’s some dangerous “blind leading the blind” behavior which is exposing many organizations to a high level of real risk.

Marketers are still adjusting to the surplus of customer data available to them – it’s all at our fingertips yet many still struggle to find a way to act on it at all, never mind doing it in real-time where the revolutionary value is. The reality is that we are now at the point where we can fully realize the one-to-one marketing opportunity – after talking about it for a long time, we finally have the tech to do it.

Events like MarTech are invaluable in allowing a marketer to gain exposure to the breadth in this space, as well as the opportunity to dive in deeply to areas important to a particular person’s business needs.

2. At what stage would you say is the ‘ad tech meets martech’ state of affairs at present? Would you say businesses today need to have a consolidated advertising strategy that includes all formats be it Search, Social, Display, Native and of course, Video being a key entrant or does the character of the business decide the approach?

Firstly, so many traditional industries are still suffering withdrawal symptoms from the decline of ad-based revenue dependency! In many ways, the small-to-medium businesses are in an ideal position today; not too big to move to new paradigms, but with some real capability and resources to invest in a new tech stack to service their needs. Realizing what, where, and why adtech and martech need to be joined up and symbiotic however, is the real challenge, and that challenge requires a real understanding of both the business and tech requirements in concert with each other. Knowing what capabilities your particular organization needs – and what it doesn’t – is key to shaping the right strategic decisions for your particular business.

A brand needs a consistent and holistic approach across all advertising and marketing tech, and the goals of the business must define that approach. That said, no matter what your business or ad tech strategy, it all starts and ends with a solid understanding of your customers, who they are and how they engage with your brand across channels. And technology is the key driver for that.

3. 2016 was the year of data-driven marketing. This year, AI was added to the data mix. Where do you see the changes in technology taking data next – be it for data capture, analytics and insights? Considering the above data cycle, where do organizations lack in proficiency the most?

As a coder and systems design guy at the core, it pains me to see the difficulty that folks are having on the core marketing side of businesses. There’s a natural reluctance to fall back to known ways of understanding the world around us – that’s just human. But marketers need to become more comfortable moving away from traditional marketing heuristics to a world where data allows us to ‘be more’ and ‘get more’ of the other humans around us, with machine learning and data science-based approaches.

There is certainly a place for marketing intuition and strategy of course, but AI and lookalike modeling give us an opportunity to go beyond a single human brain’s assumptions and evaluate all kinds of data sources and patterns.

That isn’t to say it’s all our fault – the plethora of tech platforms out there all growing organically to cover a lot of ground are selling everything, to anyone. Foundational to our efforts, is being able to resolve your customer data fragments across all channels to gain a more holistic user view that you can act on in real-time.

Start there.

Build on the customer data at the core

At The Economist, we chose Lytics’ customer data platform and are taking advantage of the behavioral insights and other predictive information that they surface. It’s both making our marketing more efficient as well as opening up new opportunities on a regular basis by serving as the stack ‘hub’ to our tool ‘spokes’.

4. What are areas you commonly see where businesses are getting stuck from transforming themselves to optimal customer-centricity – excess of to-dos to achieve this, lack of aligning all stakeholders on a common platform, lack of initiative to know a customer as a person rather than a statistic? How much can data help this transformation?

When The Economist was making its first real investments in martech, we grabbed whatever seemed like it would work to solve a particular need, and connected whatever data pipe was available to feed fuel to whatever engine we’d bought. This happened in series and created a Super Mario Land-worthy tangle of pipes which caused a huge strain on internal resources, from implementation to integration to maintenance (then, to sunsetting). Since then we’ve moved to more of a hub-and-spoke model.

Understanding what data can really do for your business is an exercise in economy, as much as it is in vision. There will always be a dozen or so platforms in the martech stack, however there does need to be one source of truth from which these tools reference. You do not need to put money against every acronym out there. Over the past couple of years, customer data platforms have emerged to fill this role of a centralized customer data hub to sync information to our different brands, channel partners, marketing tools, etc. Start there – then really learn what you need, and if you don’t really understand it, get someone who does.

5. How can marketers get a buy-in from their organizations to invest in digital transformation of their businesses? What are the timeframes that a small business should expect for complete digital transformation and how important is it to record each of the marketing and sales process’ digitization?

Pilot, pilot, pilot. Find one or two small, winnable business cases – nothing that will take longer than a couple of months to prove out – and prove them out. ROI will always drive stakeholder buy-in. Have a plan and a strategy to talk about at the ready. Typically, there is one team that leads the charge at the beginning, but once the ball gets rolling it will move due to its own inertia. Just be ready to steer it the right way once it does, so it doesn’t lose momentum – this is the tough part!

6. How can digital transformation become a strategic thought process for a business rather than just being a mere means to an end to enhance customer experience? Please suggest some processes that organizations can put in place so that internal stakeholders move in sync with this makeover?

Good customer experiences are fundamental to building your business when times are good, and sustaining it when they aren’t 

They will allow you to create emotional bonds with customers to build real equity in your brand.

Step one is assessing your customers across all of your touch points – discover the customer journeys humbly and learn where they are engaging with you.

Step two is bringing all of that disparate customer data into one place to find some purchase from which to steer the ship.

Step three is trusting that data, fusing it with instinct, and taking a brave step to admit that you may not know your customers as well as you think you do.

The discovery process can be illuminating and change-driving in and of itself.

7. Could you share for our readers a sneak peek on the topic of your presentation?

At The Economist, we’re using data science and predictive modeling to better understand our readers -  and prospective readers - with the goal of giving them a more personalized and relevant experience (and increasing subscriptions, of course). I’ll discuss use cases and map out the role that customer data platforms such as Lytics have played in helping us execute better ad and web campaigns using behavioral insights and individual reader affinities. We’ve smashed revenue records in the last three years with some smart investment in martech – people and platforms – and I’d love to help more companies get there too!

MarTech | May 9-11, 2017 | San Francisco, CA

Join the largest vendor-agnostic gathering of marketing technologists, data scientists and digital innovators at the intersection of marketing, technology and management: MarTech — The Marketing Technology Conference. Register for MarTech San Francisco and adopt proven strategies that provide the ultimate customer experience.

An incredible agenda packed with case studies, strategic insights, networking opportunities, and vendor demos and solutions await you! Lock in the lowest rates using promo code 100mtmta (case sensitive) and get $100 off All Access Passes. Register today!

This article was first appeared on MarTech Advisor

#martech #marketing #technology #business #cmo

[durenjtmusings]

Poly Representation Matters

[Theft of intellectual material below the cut]

My husband sent me a link to a New York Times Review of an new off Broadway play “Yours Unfaithfully”- the premier of a play about polyamory written by Miles Malleson back in 1933. Based on the review, the situation sounds a bit simplistic as far as modern poly goes, but the emotions, confusion and explorations do not. The review was favorable about both the writing and the production, although the reviewer felt that the writer’s messages about poly were a bit muddied. I was pleased about this on so many levels - both that the play existed so long ago, and that it was being well produced today.

What struck me, however, was how much I wanted to go see this play. Really wanted to see it - like idly considered if it was possible to get to New York before Feb 18th and how much the tickets might cost. Surprised with myself, I poked at this feeling and realized that I wanted the validation that seeing the play in person would bring. I wanted to see my issues, feelings, and experiences represented up on that stage in a room full of folks who may never have understood. I want to be able to say “See?! That - yeah, THAT.” 

In general, I live my life as a cis het white middle-class female surrounded by empowering friends and working in a fulfilling female-dominated field. Despite being comfortable with many similar folks representing a wide range of sexual diversity, I worry a lot about my level of privilege and lack of understanding for others. I got a twinkling of insight today. Representation matters.

Here is a link to the NYT review: “Yours Unfaithfully,” NYT Critics Pick Text of the NYT Review below the cut - in case you can’t access via the link.

Review: ‘Yours Unfaithfully,’ on an Open Marriage and Its Pitfalls

YOURS UNFAITHFULLY  NYT Critics’ Pick  Off Broadway, Comedy, Play  2 hrs. and 30 min. Closing Date: February 18, 2017 Theatre Row - Samuel Beckett Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St.  212-239-6200

By ALEXIS SOLOSKIJAN. 26, 2017

Anne has the perfect cure for her husband’s writer’s block. Not a change of scene, not a change of topic, but a sexual adventure. “Go and get into mischief,” she tells him. “Any sort of mischief! I shouldn’t mind what you do, as long as you get happy again, and start working.”

“Yours Unfaithfully,” Miles Malleson’s 1933 play, now receiving its world premiere at the Mint Theater, is a refined, rueful and often shrewd comedy about polyamory, written decades before open relationships were quite so openly discussed. In some ways, it’s surprising that it went unproduced for so long. Its subject is no more scandalous than those of several plays by George Bernard Shaw or Harley Granville Barker, another Mint favorite. But the shock of its content, the gentility of its form and its strong links to Mr. Malleson’s own life must have made it a chancy undertaking.

Stephen (Max von Essen, a recent Tony nominee for “An American in Paris”) is a writer perhaps too interested in questions of virtue and vice, and Anne (Elisabeth Gray), is his elegant, broad-minded wife, with whom he runs a progressive school. They have been married eight years and have two children. (The almost total absence of these children, even in conversation, is one of the play’s peculiarities.)

When Anne sees Stephen mired in marital and intellectual doldrums, she encourages him to have an affair with their beautiful friend Diana (Mikaela Izquierdo). Stephen is persuaded, Diana is willing, and everything’s just dandy until it isn’t.

“Yours Unfaithfully” is both a daring play and a highly conventional one. Under the polished direction of Jonathan Bank, and in the hands of a fine team of designers, its arguments remain provocative, while its structure feels familiar, its tone decorous. Maybe that only makes it more unusual. It’s a bit like a sex farce with real sorrow instead of slammed doors, and something like a drawing room comedy with moral conundrums peeking out beneath the cushions. It is often very funny; it is also very nearly a tragedy.

Ultimately, the play’s insistence on the sanctity of open marriage, a stance that apparently reflected Mr. Malleson’s own beliefs and practices, isn’t all that persuasive. If the central claim, that to “live effectively” you must walk the line between “a great slope of complacence on one side” and “rather a mess-up of promiscuity” on the other, sounds reasonably plausible in the moment, that is a credit to the dapper Mr. von Essen. Does the road to moral enlightenment and matrimonial contentment absolutely lead into the beds of selected others? Is there really no other way? Separate vacations, maybe?

But what is extraordinary about Mr. Malleson is his ability to create characters who are capable of feeling several things at once, or who don’t really know what they’re feeling at all. Both Stephen and Anne seem genuinely surprised that their hearts and minds aren’t as orderly as they had believed. (Ms. Gray is especially adroit at rendering these intricate emotional shadings.)

In one scene, Alan (a first-rate Todd Cerveris), a friend of the couple’s, tells Stephen to bring Anne to dinner, so that they can all say exactly what they think. “What we feel,” Stephen corrects him.

“What we think we feel!” Alan replies. “That’s as near as most of us get.” Certainly, “Yours Unfaithfully” gets closer than most stage comedies. When a playwright can manage that, you might as well say “I do” to seeing it.

#poly #representation matters #poly representation #self-awareness #self-development #wants #theater #nyt article

[manage-management]

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Help for Catching Up on Dazzling Developments in IT

4.0 out of 5 stars The rapid changes in digital technology (every cool device we are using in 2050 A major theme of this book is that we can't stop the future: The author says, “We can't stop artificial intelligence (AI) and robots from improving, creating new businesses, and taking our current jobs.” For the most part, the author projects his vision of what the new gadgets will be and how everyone will be dependent upon them in most aspects of their lives. Our lives are changing and shifting from centralized to decentralized services and control because the internet permits massive collaboration efforts by the people. Our unexpected willingness to share our thoughts, habits and personal affairs (Facebook, other social media, and Amazon- style marketing techniques) with the world means that “Massive tracking and total surveillance is here to stay," Kevin Kelly opines. Similarly, he says that “virtual reality is becoming real.” AI will be the focus for most of the larger companies, including Google, now and in the future.The rapid changes in digital technology (every cool device we are using in 2050, will have been invented after 2016) will keep us all in “newbie” status.“The highest-earning professions in the year 2050 will depend on automatons and machines that have not been invented yet.” Our moods, travel destinations, love interests, health, fun agendas and other emotions will be detected by our “screens” and shape our lives, Kelly thinks. The author's futuristic predictions aside, the book reads smoothly (his excellent writing style accomplishes this), is entertaining and educational. I highly recommend this book. Go to Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars If you're looking for profound insights into technology and it's impact on everyday life, then you need to read this book Most books on technology become embarrassingly dated after a couple of years. This is not one of them. Kevin Kelly has written an important book, one that dives beneath the choppy waves of the endless roll-out of new stuff. Kelly takes us down below the surface to where the big currents flow. Those currents are like the Gulf Stream. They are the deep background ideas that will drive technological change for many decades to come. Even more importantly, Kelly shows the reader how these big currents will change societies and individuals. Some will push back against his analysis. Perhaps not wanting to let go of a comfortable and known present. Others who know that change is hard and demanding will embrace Kelly's insights and wisdom. They will benefit greatly over the decades to come. Skeptics should consider that even if Kelly is only forty percent right, that is an astonishing amount of change headed our way. Kevin Kelly has written one of the most important books in a long time on technology innovation and it's impact on society and culture. Read this book. Go to Amazon

1.0 out of 5 stars This book is completely substanceless. Every trend he cites ... This book is completely substanceless. Every trend he cites is something that is already happening and obvious to anyone paying attention. The Cloud? Really? We're going to get more of that, are we?More importantly though, the book is peppered with mild inaccuracies that demonstrate how little the author knows about his subject matter. He refers to Tor as a 'ubiquitous file sharing site'. Really man!? You're the editor of Wired and you don't know what Tor is? Or similarly, on Bitcoin 'Six years ago some shady characters who wanted to sell drugs online...and some admirable characters championing human rights...came up with Bitcoin'. Wildly inaccurate on both counts. Bitcoin was created by a single person who is completely anonymous and his motives mostly unknown - though we can say with reasonable certainty they had nothing to do with selling drugs.This book is a joke. Go to Amazon

4.0 out of 5 stars Internet elder's crystal ball for the next 30 years Kevin Kelly is at it again with this book that looks at what the future has for us in the next 30 years, with each of the 12 forces described being a broad theme (i.e. Sharing, Screening, Accessing, etc.) that we can easily recognize today as happening but he explains in a broader context and outlines where it will take us. Unlike other authors, who only look forward and disregard what has been said before, Kelly was actually a pioneer of the Internet when it was at its embryonic stage in the 1980s and reflects on how wrong the 20-30 year predictions from that time were, including his own. So when, after all that he has seen, when seemingly all the valuable Internet real estate has been taken, he makes the bold statement at the end of the first chapter that "Right now, today, in 2016, is the best time to start up...This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say 'Oh, to have been alive back then'", he grabs and holds your attention for the rest of the book.This is a book that whose ideas are meant to be slowly pondered on, not to be gobbled up quickly. As in his previous works there is an underlying sense that technology has a will of its own, it wants to go in a certain direction which we would do well to align with. What I found most illustrative were the scenarios at the end of each chapter where he shows what life in the future looks like after the technological force described in it has had enough time to play out, a positive take on what popular TV shows like Black Mirror paint in a very dark way.The optimism that pervades the book requires the reader to take the long view, to look beyond the present state.Read more › Go to Amazon