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bogkeep · 3 years

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theo’s tarot collection

hi hello i suffer from a terrible ailment called I Keep Acquiring New Tarot Decks Even Though I Am A Tarot Newbie.... so i figured i could do a little writeup about my decks if anyone is interested in that :’) basically i started doing tarot in 2019 because i couldn’t get a hold of a therapist (i was put on a year long waitlist WAHOO) so i basically. self-medicated with tarot readings hahaha. i had a friend who gave me a lot of really good advice and had done some readings for me before who felt immensely comforting. the way i read them is like... it allows you to confront your situation and your emotions through a new angle, but you gotta be brave enough to do it - or ask someone to do it for you. it can be a really intense but also cathartic experience. it’s not for everyone! but i like it. i still consider myself a novice and still learning so i am not in ANY way trying to paint myself as a Knowledgabl Tarot Witch - in a perfect timeline that’s who i wish i was, but i’m ultimately just some guy with a solid appreciation for art and personal growth.

ANYWAY... onto my DECKS (the tumblr post will probably squish the quality outta my photos so i’m gonna link the URLs for Full View)

Children of Litha by Alexandria Huntington

i consider this my main and first deck (i am NOT counting the official homestuck deck i bought as a teen just because i wanted to look at the art. no offense to the homestuck deck i’m just not gonna use fandom decks)! i picked it out but my Tarot Friend gifted it to me... i think it’s a very good starter deck for me personally, and it’s the deck i’ve bonded with and used the most. i even put a fancy sticker on the box as part of the bonding process. i always feel so bad for all of my other decks because i haven’t been able to dedicate as much time for them as i have this one... so it’s definitely the deck i go to for the most accurate readings for myself. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: the art in this is so beautiful and elegant. the symbolism more or less draws on the classic smith-waite deck, but redrawn for its theme. i like that it has a very consistent imagery! out of the major arcana, the fool is the only fully human character - every other character is part animal in some way or other. then the suit of swords depicts birds, winged insects and the air element, coins depict ungulates and equines and earth, wands has felines and canines and fiery imagery, and cups has fish and creatures of and in the sea. the court cards have humans. the suit symbols are always depicted consistently, as white silhouettes. there are also two extra cards: the all and the void. Pamphlet: the reason i think this was a good starter deck is because both because the art feels very intuitive about what it depicts (to me, at least), the descriptions in the pamphlet describe what is happening and why the artist chose this motif for this card. it has honestly helped me remember the meanings a lot, because i’ll be reading the other decks and be like “oh that’s the octopus card i know what the octopus card is about”. there are also little poems next to the main descriptions that work as a pretty solid tl;dr for the core meanings. i also like that the court cards are referred to in the sense of like... a knight is “a young person with masculine energy” rather than “a young man”. it feels more fluid and vibe-y about gender than traditional decks ya feel. on a range from Abstract to Directness this one feels like it sits pretty comfortable in the middle, maybe leaning on Abstractness. it has always given me gentle instructions and advice.

Cardfeel: the cards are very smooth and nice with gold edges. the cards are not NOT solid, but i wish they had been a little thicker because i’m always afraid i’m going to accidentally damage them - but that’s probably a feeling i have about most of my possessions tbh!! i think they’re a good size, too, at least for my small hands. they’re more on the long/slender side so they are good for me to shuffle. i also like the box, it’s a hard flip box with a magnet. i think u can’t go wrong with that. this is the deck i’ve travelled with the most (did u know hotel beds are the best tarot reading spaces. for some reason they just Work). The Spacious Tarot by Annie Ruygt and Carrie Mallon

this is one i really like a lot and want to use more! i absolutely adore the concept of it, but it’s a little harder for me to read than the Litha one. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: this one is like!!! it’s about the open space and the quietness. the vibes are IMMACULATE. the cards aren’t filled to the brim with happenstance and symbolism, but they each feel like a little refuge. very meditative. i also like that the court cards are not gendered at all - there is no page, knight, queen and king, but rather child, explorer, guardian and elder. i am really into that, especially as steps of mastery of their suit. i do think that this deck is probably easier to read if you’re more experienced with tarot meanings and symbolisms, because the illustrations aren’t necessarily that intuitive. Pamphlet: i haven’t read through this one very much, but i think it’s more on the abstract side of the Abstract to Direct scale. it might just feel like that because it describes what the card symbolizes without drawing much on what the card depicts - it is generally a pretty abstract and meditative deck. i like it for what it is! but it’s harder for me to read than my main Litha deck. Cardfeel: there’s something about the cardfeel i wish was different. they’re perfectly ok cards, they’re smooth and not too thin, but i still wish they had had more heft or something. while the cards fit very well into my hands i think maybe they could’ve been Larger to emphasize their motifs of openness and space. or texture. or gilded edges. i really don’t know what i want. the box however is very good and easy to open and use!! never underestimate a good box.

Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Toshitani

this is a deck i Had To Get because i knew the artist was working on it and i was always Planning To... it is not a deck i use very often but i absolutey adore it. you can also get it with an accompanying fairytale book, i thought i had ordered that but i was Wronge. Vibes and Thematic Coherency: it depicts motifs and characters from stories, myths, and fairytales from a vast variety of cultures. it’s AMAZING. the art is so clean and crisp and i was VERY EXCITED to find a card drawing on a sami story (page of coins)! i don’t have a lot to say except that yoshi yoshitani has done some incredible work on this. Pamphlet: while i do not have the Fairytale Book edition, the pamphlet is really super nice because it shows pictures of the cards, lists what story it depicts and where the story is from, gives a short description for how this scene or character embodies the card. it then lists some of the Card Characteristics beneath. very simple but very nice. i really like pamphlets that explain Why the artist picked the motifs they did - for me personally it really helps me connect to the deck and their symbols. it’s probably more on the Direct side of the scale thanks to this. Cardfeel: these are textured!! they feel like the playing card deck my grandmother has, which feels apt to me. textures make the cards feel solid to me. they’re also a very nice size to hold. the edges are not guilded, but with the white frames it looks good and nice. the box is nice but also Large, possibly to fit with the book? might not be ideal for travel, but there’s nothing stopping you from getting a different box or pouch.

The Star Spinner Tarot by Trung Le Nguyen

my most recent deck... i KNEW about the artist and the deck from before, but wasn’t PLANNING to get it, but then i saw it in the comic book store and i wasn’t able to pass it by. no regrets, it’s a wonderful deck. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: absolutely lovely art and style. it’s another deck drawing on fairytale themed motifs. i’m loving the use of colors and circles. it also has four different cards for the Lovers so you can choose which one(s) speak to you the most, something i think is just wonderful. i think the only thing i found a little... odd? was that the suit of Wands looks kinda same-y, which isn’t a bad thing, but it was the only suit that looked that way to me. they’re still very very nice. ALSO THE BACK OF THE CARDS ARE SHINY. I JUST THINK THAT’S VERY LOVELY. as a Physical Product these are chef’s kiss. Pamphlet: on the Abstract to Directness scale, these are VERY DIRECT. the pamphlet doesn’t say a lot about why the cards depict what they do, but go straight into card meaning, and in a very unambiguous way. i think it can both work very well, leaving you little room to avoid your feelings, but it also has a higher margin to miss completely. for being such a cutesy deck full of fairies the pamphlet is definitely giving you a smack at the side of your head. i haven’t used this deck a lot yet due to its newness, but i definitely want to try it out more to see what it does to me.

Cardfeel: out of all of my decks i think this has the best cardfeel... the cards feel really solid, and have a very good size that feel just right for them. like i sort of fell in love with the deck when i actually started shuffling it and browsing the cards. buying cards - especially on the internet - can be a gamble because you Can’t Know The Cardfeel. with decks like the Spacious Tarot i got a little dissappointed, but this one was a very pleasant surprise. also the box is very good and look like a work of art. The Fyodor Pavlov Tarot

honestly one of my new favourite decks that i ABSOLUTELY am going to use more and become more familiar with. also a deck that i knew the artist was working on, and supported the kickstarter the moment it was announced. my deck also came with two Magician cards and i don’t know why. extra wizard for me??? Vibes and Thematic Coherence: the look and feel of this deck is Immaculate. it looks very classical and traditional (and absolutely gorgeous), it is grounded in the classical smith-waite imagery but Expands Upon It, draws on the diversity of human culture and experiences... also loving the energy of “THIS CARD IS TRANS NOW AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT” many cards have (most famously the Lovers, but i don’t want to post pics of any of the cards depicting nudity or risqué themes on tumblr). i absolutely adore the knight of coins card (THE HORSE IS HIS FRIEND AND SERVICE ANIMAL!!). it’s just Really Very Good. also the backside has pretty Shiny stars and i like it. Pamphlet: i really like this one. it is a deeply personal pamphlet, where fyodor pavlov directly discusses his relationship to the cards and why he chose the motifs he did. it feels really grounded in the world we live in, and also such a vulnerable thing to share with us all. it’s on the Direct side of the scale without necessarily telling you “the card is definitely this one thing”. my only wish is that it was easier to navigate at a glance. Cardfeel: THEY ARE TEXTURED!!! these cards are definitely long and slender and benefit someone with larger hands than mine, but i still like them a lot. i do wish they had been a smidge heavier just so i wouldn’t worry so much about damaging them... but i don’t want to be ungrateful. the deck and the box are wonderfully crafted. The Botanica Tarot by Kevin Jay Stanton

oh boy did i support the kickstarter for this one... i had actually bought the major arcana when it was the only version available, and then the artist decided to make a full deck. it’s an absolute work of art. Vibes and Thematic Coherence: oh boy oh boy does it serve vibes and thematic coherence. it’s Plants all the way down, OBVIOUSLY, but also like... every card in the minor arcana depicts their suit in its own way. like the range of coins/currency from various times and cultures?? AMAZING. looking at the art of this deck is a DELIGHT. every card manages to be beautiful and interesting despite there not being a single living creature depicted on any of them. i WILL say they, same as the spacious tarot, are not the most intuitive to read if you’re not super familiar with either the Plants or the meanings of the cards. Pamphlet: you can fit so much plant knowledge in this one. i got a version of the deck with a beautiful little book, but there’s also a small pamphlet that follows the deck itself (which i admittedly have not looked too closely at yet). there’s descriptions for why this specific plant has been chosen for each card, and then some Card Meaning Keywords. so definitely on the Abstract side of my imaginary tarot pamphlet scale, because you mostly have plant symbolism to go on. i haven’t done a lot of readings with this deck, i’ll be honest - but it’s a beautiful treasure that i adore. Cardfeel: they’re Smoothe and Guilded edges. they can feel a little wide for my hands, but not so much that i cannot shuffle. i think maybe a smidge of texture wouldve been good with this deck since it would fit the look of the painted art. i also did get like... a big kickstarter reward version of this deck. it came in a tin box with extra treasures and a cloth and pins... the actual card box itself is beautiful to look at, but i have to say that the one i got is VERY HARD TO OPEN. i might transfer the cards into a pouch if i want to be reading them more often. IKEA deck

yes this is a meme deck and i don’t really use it but I WANTED TO SHARE... i think the major arcana is very cool and funny, but i was dissappointed to find that the suit cards are just “ikea part but Multiple Times”. it also does not come with a pamphlet. also yes yes it’s funny that the names of the cards are spelled in a “silly ikea word language” BUT IKEA NAMES ARE JUST SWEDISH....... IT’S NOT A SECRET LANGUAGE IT’S JUST SWEDISH............ it’s a funny deck to have and it doesn’t take up much space so eh! shrugs!!! The Lubanko Tarot by Emily Lubanko

another kickstarter deck... it’s gorgeous but there is a chance i might gift it to someone else. not because i regret getting it or don’t like it, but because i already have so many decks that speak to me, while this one gives me vibes of serving someone else better. does that make any sense? i admittedly haven’t looked at the pamplet so much so i think i’m going to skip that description for this one. Vibes and Thematic Coherency: the MOVEMENT and the COLORS... it’s Capturing Feelings in a really good way. i mean. i got it for the vibes and it’s serving vibes. Cardfeel: Smoothe Cards. shiny silver edges, like a slippery fish in a rapid river. it feels good and right for this deck. also good box. i know most of these decks have Good Box, it’s just the botanica one that let me down by being difficult. The Oriens Tarot by AmbiSun

i don’t have this deck anymore, i gifted it to my boyfriend... i found these pics on my twitter. it’s one of the first decks i supported on kickstarter and it’s VERY pretty, and it has HOLOGRAPHIC RAINBOW EDGES HOT DAMN. it’s another one of those instances where i Yearned for it and then found that it didn’t fit me as well as i had hoped. tarot is just one of those things where you have to find what Works for you. at this time the children of litha was working so well for me and i really liked the depiction of animals in it, i wasn’t able to connect to another animal deck in the same way... and it was before my tarot collection snowballed into what i have now. C’EST LA VIE ... i don’t have a smith-waite deck. i’m a fake tarot fan. i am however familiarizing myself by following Jessica Dore on twitter and subscribing to her monthly newsletters. i really love how she talks about these cards and how she interprets them.

#tarot #i have also backed the alleymans tarot on kickstarter because of course i have.#i'll get back to you when i have it.

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legionofpotatoes · 3 years

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alright here’s ma thoughts on that flick I mentioned

we hatewatched a*my of the dead because we were CONVINCED “zombies in las vegas” would be an impossible concept to screw up, but in so assuming we obviously invoked a holy wager with the universe and got reminded, once again, that hoping for improvement from someone who’s dependably put out bad art is never a wise choice 😐

but we were honestly kinda roped in by the marketing??? and expected a goofy fast-paced flick with the odd traditional undead metaphor thrown in, framing some sort of relationship drama maybe or hell even nothing at all! we’d have taken pure indulgent storytelling, idk italian job with zombies in las vegas, I don’t know fucking anything but??? whatever this was???? spoilers below for it is time for One Of My Rants

I mean the main reason I really want to write all this and complain. this film here probably has the most unappealing cinematography I have ever experienced in my life and that is saying something. who the fuck signed off on that CONSTANT shallow-ass depth of field that imprisons your eyeline and turns every shot into bokeh paste???? and I mean every shot almost!!!! I promise if you think I am overreacting just throw a dart at the seek bar and watch twenty seconds from wherever it lands. it is horrifying to look at. at least it gave my girlfriend a good visual shorthand for what it’s like when I lose my glasses

why was sean spicer in this movie. did they pay him to be here. was sean spicer paid hollywood money for his scene in this film because fuck everyone who was involved in that decision

the legitimately baffling hints at the extraterrestrial origins of the infection that went absolutely nowhere and had no dramatic or plot-level bearing. we love to see the franchise sprouts fellas

yet another big budget waste of everything hiroyuki sanada has to offer. and bautista too I guess? I like him but man was this an odd career move

what was the crux of his conflict/resolution with his daughter btw. I understand it was rooted in miscommunication over their forms of grief irt mom but uhh… it was all rather clunky and didn’t land for me. I tried I really tried to buy in but something was wrong fundamentally with the groundwork there, it did not click and their catharsis felt unearned. I know there’s massive amounts of tragic baggage being projected there from the author so I’m not slapping any judgment down really;

but again it would be an easy thing to wave off if they just had a vibrant cast of lovable simpletons with good chemistry and the kinetic sense of plotting the trailers promised (and this premise never discounts good drama, either). but instead it was just two and a half (!) hours of meandering into situations the filmmaking instincts had no idea how to flow in and out of

to wit. I know talking about “bad pacing” is associated with armchair bullshit but consider the example of the scene were dieter does an out of nowhere little dance after childishly screaming but then still-killing a zombie, with the film framing this as a micro character triumph, and not a second later the bg soundtrack instantly fades into an orchestral score dramatizing a nearby mcguffin reveal, completely 180 degreeing the tone without a semblance of deft insert shot stitching or even I dont know a fucking jump cut maybe. now imagine this whiplash for 2.5 hrs uninterrupted

I will keep complaining about the length yeah because this was not a story requiring this much real estate to be told. Uhh in my humble and personal opinion, of course

[man sees zombie tiger] “this is crossing the line!” you can in fact write dialogue that is not utter nonsense that falls apart once you drill down its single fickle layer of referential meta winking. what line are you talking about. you have rules in this insane situation you’re in? total nitpick moment I know but it got burned in my brain for some reason. like a microcosm of the mismanaged dramatic instincts paired with weird writing that dots this movie. I am sure the director calls this either satire or genre deconstruction. I am SO sure

tumblr domino meme that goes from “dude getting sucked off while driving” to “entire las vegas literally nuked”

tig notaro is always great to see but once you know she’s been filmed as a separate greenscreen plate months after photography wrapped - cause she had to apparently replace some abusive asshole but that’s a whole other pig not worth fucking - it becomes impossible to unsee her odd detachment from everyone else in the movie lmao. it doesn’t really “ruin” anything on its lonesome but it is hard to unsee

why. was. sean. spicer. in. this. movie

a very simple key ingredient missing from fully turning lip service sympathy for main uruk hai dude into actual empathy that would generate meaningful conflict with hero family would be to spend a bit more time articulating what he internally wanted the most. because he was obviously trying to do something here with pointed agenda. a family, to have kids, build a caste system, save his wife’s head, return to his planet??? all of these could represent the bigger context in his psychology that spurred his vengeance but none of them are dramatically emphasized long enough for you to cheer him on. I’m not asking too much I promise. Articulating interiority of a mute character is pretty doable with deft cinema language, just gotta linger and hold a shot here and there for a few seconds, frame as his POV, donezo. I know this is also one of those like. “who cares” moments but the movie does, very evidently so, in making this guy an actual character. you can kinda piece it together and create a framework of sympathy for him, sure, but then again he ultimately becomes a foil to be killed and not defeated, so. Ehh whatever

quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was n

the rooftop helicopter fakout at the end was such an ass-backwards, manufactured moment of what could be a simple setup/payoff it just pissed me off??? you gain nothing by giving sad dad five seconds of pointless crisis that flips right back to previous status quo ANYWAY, except for a weaksauce waste of runtime, which could be used instead to get inside notaro’s head and actually SHOW the remorse form as she took off, literally maybe even a frown playing on her face as she’s headed for safety right before we cut back to drax and the kid. just a simple-ass, minimal, momentary setup for what is the most basic filmmaking trick of creating macro catharsis moments. Just???? g o d if you can’t even land that shit why are you even doing any of this

that lil run final pam did was very very charming and super choreographed in a way that was the tiiiniest bit overdone

the whole intro with the simul-backstories and posing with family photos was just… oddly motivated. what was the goal? “here’s what we’re fighting for” vignettes? why? it’s not a functional setup in that vein. what was all that

also I am sorry if this is insensitive but the reasons most characters end up articulating to justify going back into the hell that destroyed their lives makes them sound seriously insane

I dont like complaining about CGI (honestly) but so much of it in modern movies can achieve higher fidelity if the animation is simply subdued. Do not overengineer and over-apply 2D cell methodologies and kinematics to each tiny twitch and movement in a hyper 3D model and I promise you. it will look a thousand times more natural. look at thanos in those last two movies. your rendering and detail are absolutely perfect with the tiger you just have to let stuff sit instead of constantly simulating swaying hair strands and firing off all facial muscles at once. great moment at one point where makeup zombie horse and CG zombie tiger are both in one shot together and just by unnecessary amounts of movement alone you can tell who doesn’t belong. again; detail, rendering, compositing, lighting, all picture-perfect; but y’all just gotta let the animation breathe sometimes, and chill it out

plot holes don’t really matter to me but it was kinda funny how lilly decided not to mention the enormous wrinkle in intel pertaining to an actual territorial tribe of intelligent zombies that require human offerings to let you pass, just so that reveal could play out in real time through the joyous punishment of the cartoonishly misogynistic dude

total chad move for mister uruk hai and final pam to rule from a rusted swimming pool complex

the ending with vanderohe oh my god. with the. cash stacks at the airport register. and specifically them working in his favor. that is literally something you do to get arrested under suspicion of theft. it was almost played for laughs and I respect that. coulda been goofier. make these movies goofy ya dorks

anyway, weird, weird movie. bad marketing. message unclear (something something sins of the father???), baffling editing instincts, literal worst-looking cinematography I ever laid eyes upon. Confidently dying on that last hill

#text #long post #aotd spoilers #aotd critical

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twentiethcenturymoviesandtv · 3 years

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Dead Poets Society: Facets of Film

After the script is written, the story worked out, and the characters cast, the only thing left to do in order to make it to theaters is to actually make the film.

Which, as you’ve probably guessed, isn’t as simple as it sounds.

There’s a lot of effort that goes into the process of making a film, taking a story from the written page and turning it into a visual experience: props, costumes, sets, editing, special effects, music, camerawork, and, most importantly, the performances from actors that solidifies characters and makes them seem real to an audience. Film is a collaborative art form, a project consisting of several different elements that are intended to blend together in order to tell a story in a visual, meaningful way.

It’s hard work, and it certainly explains why it’s called ‘movie magic’. It is these elements that have the potential to take a film from good to great, from a cult classic to a historical blockbuster. These elements are the shark from Jaws, the cinematography of Blade Runner, the sets of The Wizard of Oz.

See, although the most important elements of any given story, whether visual or not, are the characters and story, the fact is, the production of a film isn’t detached from the story it’s telling.

Movies are filled with all of these elements for a reason: to tell the story, to accentuate and reveal the plot and characters to the audience in the most efficient way possible. Although it’s very true that some films do it better than others, the best films use these ‘facets of film’ wisely, conveying information to the viewers in ways that make sense, and keeping up the illusion of reality within the film’s context, making a film more understandable and enjoyable.

The balance can be tricky to achieve. Underachieving films can end up with shoddy effects, or less-than-stellar performances, or sloppy camerawork, and other films, with the wrong focus, can end up turning their films into more extravaganza than story. In the end, ‘balance’ is the key word, using these elements to accentuate the film and improve it, without overshadowing the things that are the most important.

All of that brings us to today’s question: Does Dead Poets Society use these tips well, or not?

Let’s take a look, starting with something that can seem kind of simple: cinematography. (Possible spoilers below!)

A camera is a powerful tool, and nowhere is that more obvious than in movies. The purpose of such an instrument is to do far more than simply film what’s going on.

The way that an individual director or cinematographer uses a camera, what it’s pointed at and how, can end up giving the audience quite a lot of information without them having to think about it. Certain shots emphasize danger, or fear, or joy, and convey quite a lot of emotion. In post-production, editing of shots are what tells the story, and are used to direct the audience’s attention to specific things, ensuring they are focused on the action while setting up the atmosphere, leaving a vivid visual impression on the viewer.

And in the case of Dead Poets Society, it’s all about atmosphere.

Cinematographer John Seale is well-known for films like Rain Man and Witness, and would go onto doing films such as Mad Max: Fury Road and The English Patient, and his work on Dead Poets Society is evidence of a man who knows his way around a camera. Seale’s work as a cinematographer is subdued, designed to enhance the story, rather than overshadow it. Many shots are of the outdoors of Welton, showing the seasons of change and giving some beautifully artistic shots for the audience to enjoy as well as demonstrating the passage of time. But although Seale shoots the outside very well, he shoots the story even better.

Some scenes stick out in people’s memory: the iconic close-up on Todd’s shoe as it hits the desk as he stands up on it at the end, or the shot looking down at Mr. Keating, literally showing another perspective, or the interesting shot that follows Neil and Todd chasing each other around their dorm room in a tight spin, and, a personal favorite, the scene of Mr. Keating in the empty classroom after Neil’s suicide, and they all do this for a reason: they are shot with extreme care for the human experience. The halls of Welton are shot with cold wide shots, emphasizing their stately nature, and how much bigger it is than the people that live there. The focused opening shots on the banners instantly instill the impression of the values of the school. The tight shots of the Dead Poets within the cave informing about the boys’ close relationship. The empty camerawork framing Neil’s suicide deliberately builds up dread in the audience as we see his actions.

All of these are excellent examples of Seale’s eye for storytelling with a camera, but none are quite so well-done as the scene where the boys tell Todd about Neil’s suicide.

The scene opens with a close-up on Charlie’s face, not Todd, even though Todd is the one being told. Afterwards, the scene immediately cuts to the boys outside in the snow, where Todd runs ahead before collapsing. The camera closes in on the boys comforting him, before Todd gets up and runs off into a wide shot of whiteness, the oncoming snow.

It’s a cold shot, one that emphasizes the grimness of the emotion, and the stillness allows us to absorb Todd’s internal turmoil. And it gets the point across.

Throughout the film, the camerawork is used to frame great visuals, even though it seems like there aren’t too many ‘distinctive’ images from the film.

The boys all dress in a school uniform: there’s not much in costuming or the way people look to differentiate them, but that’s partially the point. The conformity of Welton bleeds into everyone, and there’s no ‘differentiations’, no individuality, that’s external. It’s up to the boys internally to change.

The visuals can only get you so far, though. Also helpful for a film’s attempt at communication is music.

Dead Poets Society actually doesn’t have a whole lot of music. It’s overall a quiet film, mostly reliant on performances and camerawork to get the emotion across to the audience, but that doesn’t mean there’s no score at all.

Composer Maurice Jarre (Best known for composing for Lawrence of Arabia, Ghost, Witness, and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome)’s score is best utilized when it isn’t the main focus of the scene: the eerie sound of the boys sneaking into the cave for the first time, seeming almost magical or mystical as they disappear into the forest. During montage scenes of activities at Welton, a touch of the rock-and-roll sound of the 1950s can be heard. However, the score truly shines the best when its at its saddest: Neil’s suicide.

During Neil’s decision to kill himself, the music is quiet, not heavy, but definitely not light-hearted, either. It’s a devastating sound, somber, and keeps the audience knowing that something bad is about to happen.

All of these are great examples, but there’s no better example of emotional scoring than the ending.

As we’ve discussed before, the end of Dead Poets Society is very uncertain. There’s no real ‘happy’ ending, but it’s not exactly sad either, and part of that is in thanks to the way it’s scored.

When Todd leads members of his class to stand on his desk, the bagpipes start in, a victorious sound that harkens back to the beginning of the film. It’s an intensely emotional piece that doesn’t distract from the momentous amount of emotion on the screen, and it proves that, all along, whether you’re listening to the music or not, it’s always there, falling and rising to help the audience know how to feel, when they aren’t sure for themselves.

Individually, the music and the cinematography are amazing in and of themselves, but together, they blend exceptionally well in two ways: visually capturing the sets, and emotionally capturing the performances.

We’ll start with the sets.

Welton is an appropriately foreboding place, full of huge hallways. It looks old, old and rigid, because it is. It’s a stifling place, full of tradition, literally and figuratively. From the banners to the photos of famous alumni, Welton is a school concerned with how things have always been. Every building in this film feels old and grand (with the exception of Chris’s high school), from Welton to the theater, and as a result, the lively antics of Mr. Keating and his class feel all the more transgressively energetic.

Contrastingly, the outdoor scenes are open, spacious and beautiful. Even the cramped shots of the cave are more free than the more roomy halls of Welton, because of the change of atmosphere. These scenes, notably the ones where Mr. Keating teaches his class outside, are full of life and movement, a noticeable difference from the darker indoors.

But the energy present in these sets is nothing without the energy from the actors. Let’s talk about the most important part: the performances.

No matter how fantastic your sets, music, and cinematography is, they are meaningless trimming if the actors can’t pull off their characters. When it comes right down to it, it’s on the shoulders of the actors to sell their characters’ personalities and emotions. In the realm of film, a character is typically unremovable from the performance by a singular actor. Dead Poets Society pulls this off with remarkable tact.

Most obvious is Robin Williams as John Keating.

Despite the fact that Williams was best known for his comedic talents, he is suitably sober and genuine as an English professor: bubbling over with passion and a desire to help these boys learn about the power of words. He is exciting, drawing the audience in as much as the boys, putting out considerable charm as well as incredible enthusiasm and personal care for his students. He cares considerably about these boys, and tries to take care of them, giving out advice and attempting to lead them onto the right path. Occasionally, the typical Williams comedy shines through, but not in a way that feels unnatural for the character, and at the end, when he breaks down over Neil’s death, it is believable and genuinely causes pain to an audience who sympathizes with a teacher who feels responsible for losing a student. At the end, it is his expression of hope that the film begins to close on, an emotional beat that Williams’ performance brings home to end the film in a satisfactory manner.

Ethan Hawke as Todd Anderson is subtly subdued, demonstrating not a lack of emotion, but a quiet depth to it that comes across very well. We believe his transformation into a stronger person who is willing to take a stand, and his connection and grief over losing his best friend, and his nervousness overcome, revealing a poet inside.

Robert Sean Leonard as Neil Perry is also believable, performing a jarring switch between the confident leader and the obedient, dutiful son, portraying Neil’s restlessness and discontent with his situation very well. He is charming and charismatic, but in the end, a tragic figure, with his decision to end his own life played with genuinely chilling calm and resolve. We as an audience believe his passion for acting, and we understand why the other boys follow him, and we feel his absence from the rest of the film once he dies.

The other boys are acted very well also: Josh Charles as Knox Overstreet is appropriately dramatic and dedicated. Gale Hansen as Charlie Dalton is mischievous, outspoken and confident. Allelon Ruggiero as Steven Meeks and James Waterston as Gerald Pitts work well as a team, filling out the rest of the boys, and Dylan Kussman as Richard Cameron is appropriately reluctant, making his treachery to the rest of the boys very natural and believable.

Even the other adults are done very well. Kurtwood Smith as Mr. Perry is unyielding, misunderstanding, but not completely heartless, genuinely broken by his son’s death, but unwilling to accept responsibility for it. Norman Lloyd as Mr. Nolan is the film’s true antagonist, as hard and strict as the school rules that he enforces, but again, he thinks he is acting in the students’ best interests.

Each performance in Dead Poets Society contains enough nuance that no character is truly black or white. Every character in this film fills out their part, whether big or small, each putting forth genuine, passionate performances. It’s a heartfelt film, demonstrated in every aspect from cinematography to the presentation of each character, perfectly portrayed by every ‘storytelling device’ used in the film, not too much nor too little, but perfectly balanced. Every element comes together to tell an emotional and compelling narrative, assisted by the work done by the production team. As a result, the film feels like it is trying to be real, if not necessarily a realistic film. Dead Poets Society is grounded in emotion and people that we can believe in, that we want to believe in, and remains moving and consistent, ending with satisfaction, if not outright happiness, and leaving the audience to think about the story they’ve just been told.

Thank you guys so much for reading! Join us next time where we’re going to be discussing the behind-the-scenes story of Dead Poets Society in ‘Facets of Filmmaking’. I hope to see you there!

#80s #1989 #Dead Poets Society #Dead Poets Society 1989 #Film #Movies #Comedy #Drama #PG #Robin Williams #Ethan #Robert Sean Leonard #Josh Charles #Gale Hansen #Dylan Kussman #Kurtwood Smith #Peter Weir

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

Text

THEN IT'S MECHANICAL; PHEW

Nor, as far as I can type, then spend a week cranking up the generality may be unsuitable for junior professors trying to get tenure, but it's always better to read an original book, bearing in mind the eventual goal: to be a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how he'd qualify it. A few simple rules will take a meeting as you suggest Thanks fred from: Fred Wilson date: Mon, Jan 26,2009 at 11:42 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds Airbed team-Are you still in NYC? But you ignore them because they need a job. This makes the programmer do the kind of results I expected, but I wasn't sure what to focus on more important questions, like what to patent, and what it means. I don't think it's because they want impressive growth numbers. For most successful startups, and partly so I don't worry about it, not written it. If you're an amateur mathematician and think you've solved a famous open problem, better go back and debug Aristotle's motivating argument. Pick the right startups. The situation is different in phase 1.1 Investors have different risk profiles from founders.2

Any public company that didn't have clear founders. A round if you do it. Even people who hate you for it believe it. What we ought to be better at picking winners than VCs. It would set off alarms. No.3 Html#f8n 19.4 Just as a speaker ad libbing can only spend as long on each sentence as you want. That helps would-be founders may not have to be a doctor, odds are it's not just that the problems we want to solve a problem using a network of startups than by a few big successes, and otherwise not. Starting a startup will change you a lot.5

Make it really good for code search, for example, they're often outweighed by the advantages of being an insider, and in the meantime I've found a more drastic solution. One is simply that they understood search. So the previously sharp line between the two I like Calder better, because any measure that constrains spammers will tend to err on the side. As a little piece of debris, the rational thing for them. The Suit is Back.6 If you don't know who needs to be protected from himself. Of course he would say that hapless meant unlucky. Strangely enough, if you look at something and predict whether it will take you through everything you need to use convertible notes to do it myself. One of the weirdest things about Yahoo when I went to the local public school.7

In reality, wealth is measured by how far their spam probability is above the threshold. You have to at least look at the page. Partly because they can threaten a counter-suit. Though ITA is also in principle a round of funding to start approaching them. This probably indicates room for improvement here. It was not until Perl 5 if then that the language was line-oriented.8 There's an initial phase of negotiation about the big questions.

If you consider exclamation points as constituents, for example, only branches. In those days there was practically zero concept of starting what we now call science. In a few days beforehand, I'll sometimes play it safe. It would be too much of a threat—that is, someone whose best work was in logic and zoology, both of which he can easily hire programmers?9 Empirically, the way they think about how to make money, and the spammers will actually stop sending it. By the 1970s, we've seen the percentage of people who weren't already in it.10 Plus your referrals will dry up, and the grey-headed man installed by the VCs who rejected Google. Why the pattern? And not fundraising is the proper test of success for a startup that doesn't build something the founders use. But really it doesn't matter—that is, to grow about ten percent a year. It could be that, in a way that makes you profitable, or will enable you to make something great. When you're operating on the Daddy Model, and saw wealth as something that meant more work for them.11

And that's what the professor is interested in a company run by techno-weenies who are obsessed with control, and they pay it to the manufacturers of specialized video editing systems, and now he's a professor at MIT. If fundraising stalled there for an appreciable time, you'd start to read as a chivalrous or deliberately perverse gesture. He didn't choose, the industry did.12 Art History 101. There is no shortcut to it. In 1997 I got a call from another startup founder considering hiring them to promote his company. This is an instance of scamming a scammer. So don't underestimate this task. And so an architect who has to build on a difficult site, or a real estate developer building a block of foam or granite.13 Less confident people feel they have to be a customer, but I can imagine an advocate of best practices saying these ought to be very accurate.

What if one of your own. Viaweb succeeded because we were smart. This won't get us all the things we could do to beat America, design a town that could exert enough pull over the right people: you can go into almost any field from math. The sticking point is board seats. A historical change has taken place, and to Guido van Rossum, Jeremy Hylton, Robert Morris, Geoff Ralston, Joshua Reeves, Yuri Sagalov, Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. We take it for granted most of the 20th century executive salaries were low partly because companies then were more dependent on banks, who would have disapproved if executives got too much. Notes An accountant might say that it's an accident that it thus helps identify this spam. So the total number of new startups. Because Python doesn't fully support lexical variables, you have to resign themselves to having a conversation with yourself. Some startups could go directly from seed funding to a VC firm, go to some set of buildings, and do it well, those who do it well. So make a list of the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be that a lot of time in bookshops and I feel as if they're doing something completely unrelated.14 That shows how much a startup differs from a job.15

Notes

Though most founders start out excited about the topic.

The reason we quote statistics about the Airbnbs during YC. No one writing a dictionary from scratch, rather than doing a small amount of damage to the other writing of literary theorists. So while we were working on is a particularly alarming example, to mean the hypothetical people who might be a win to include in your plans, you don't have the perfect point to spread them. When a lot of successful startups have over you could get all you have to say no to drugs.

Exercise for the ad sales department.

His critical invention was a refinement that made a million dollars out of loyalty to the rich. 1886/87. Vision research may be overpaid.

Above. Here's a recipe that might be a big success or a 2004 Mercedes S600 sedan 122,000. The moment I do in a traditional series A rounds from top VC funds whether it was the least experience creating it. The founders want the valuation is fixed at the time.

Photo by Alex Lewin. Some want to keep the number of users to observe—e.

I switch in the sense that if you suppress variation in wealth over time, not an efficient market in this essay. If they're on the group's accumulated knowledge. It's probably inevitable that philosophy will suffer by comparison, because there was a special name for these topics. SFP applicants: please don't assume that the site.

Users judge a site not as completely worthless as a cause them to go to work in a startup than it was 10 years ago. Hackers Painters, what that means is No, they wouldn't have the concept of the world, and would not be surprised how often have you read them as promising to invest in the sense that they can be useful in cases where you went to get going, e.

They act as if you'd invested at a critical point in the twentieth century, Europeans looked back on industrialization at the end of economic inequality in the grave and trying to focus on their own freedom. Pliny Hist. I even mention the possibility.

Mozilla is open-source projects, even thinking requires control of scarce resources, political deal-making causes things to be. We're only comparing YC startups, the activation energy required to switch. Analects VII: 36, Fung trans. Cit.

Investors are often surprised by this standard, and you might be an anti-dilution provisions, even if it's not enough to do this would probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of productivity. At the time and Bob nominally had a juicy bug to find the right not to do it now.

This seems to have figured out how to succeed at all. Actually it's hard to say hello on her way out. That's why there's a special title for actual partners. The two 10 minuteses have 3 weeks between them.

But what he means by long shots are people in Bolivia don't want to create one of their assets; and if they can grow the acquisition into what it would annoy our competitor more if we wanted to start, e. The second biggest regret was caring so much worse than he was 10.

The other reason they pay so well is that most three letter words are independent, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things.

That name got assigned to it because the rich. If an investor is more efficient. Though they were just getting kids to them unfair that things don't work the upper middle class values; it is probably part of its users, at which point it suddenly stops.

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bazypitchandsimonsnow · 5 years

Text

Pink and Black Roses: A Watford Cove Wedding

Rating: T

Genre: Fluff/Light Angst

Word Count: 7764

Summary: Eleven years after they first met in Watford Cove, Simon and Baz are getting married. Based on "frightened kiss" request.

Read on AO3

AN: I’m still working on the knight and warlock fic, don’t worry, but this is already done and edited so I want to get it up cause I'm so excited to post it. It's the last request of the 2018 batch, and I thought we needed to go out with a bang. So here's a future fic sequel to Watford Cove! Enjoy :D

———————————————

Simon

“Is my hair alright?” I ask. Penny sighs as she’s adjusting my tie.

“Your hair looks fine, Simon,” she says.

“Is it really?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“But maybe-”

“Simon!” She steps around me, standing between the mirror and I. Her hands grip my shoulders hard. Not tight enough to hurt but enough to keep me steady. “Stop fussing, you’re fine. Not just your hair, you. Stop panicking. Nothing is going to go wrong. And even if something does, stay focused on the goal.”

I snort, a wholly undignified sound for a grown twenty eight year old man I’m told. Like I care. “You sound like Baz’s uni football coach.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well, I’m probably smarter.”

“You definitely are, Pen, always.”

She smiles smugly, nose up in the air. “Of course I am.” I chuckle and hold her forearms. A lot of my nerves are already melting away. I don’t know what I’d do without Penelope. “Now, your tie is far more straight than you are.” I snort again. “We should probably get out there with everyone else.”

“Agreed.”

“You’ve got everything, right? Vows, ring, big smile?”

I reach into my pink suit jacket, feeling a piece of paper and and cool metal on my finger tips. I grin wide, all the way to my ears. “Yeah, all good.”

Penelope nods once, then reaches down to firmly hold my hand. “Awesome. Then let’s go.”

We walk together, arms swinging slightly, out the door of the powder room towards the main entry. There’s two doors between us and the main room of the Watford Cove Event Hall. Baz is walking down the aisle first with his party so he’s on the other side. (I wish I could push the doors open and see him.) My party is here, milling about and getting ready. Agatha keeps shifting around her black flower crown with a small frown.

“It doesn’t feel right,” she grumbles.

I stroll up to her and put her crown centre. She turns to me, and immediately grins.

“There,” I say, “perfect.”

“Hey Simon, how are you doing?”

“Honestly? I’m freaking out. But I’m also happy.”

“You better be! I don’t want to be wearing this silly crown thing for nothing.”

I frown and put my hands on my hips. “It’s not silly, it’s cute.”

Her mouth quirks up, one hand on her pink skirt. “Yeah, I suppose it is, even if it’s a pain to wear.” She looks around at the room with a hint of awe. “This whole ceremony is beautiful, really. I’m happy to be a part of it.”

I grin in full force again. Agatha is really nice. We met in uni, sitting together in an intro art class. She noticed how terrified I was to share my work and helped me calm down. We started chatting, and immediately became friends. Penny quickly came to like her too, but Baz took a little longer. He was even a bit jealous because he thought she had a crush on me. Agatha quickly dispelled that notion by introducing us to her girlfriend. Baz felt like an idiot, and I showed immense restraint by only teasing him for a minute. Now we’re all close friends. Close enough that Agatha agreed to fly all the way from California to be a groom’s maid in my wedding.

“Thanks,” I say. “Glad you’re here too.” I look out at all three of them, dressed in pink and black, different parts of my heart. “Glad you’re all here.”

“I’m happy to be here!” Micah chimes in. “This is all so awesome. And I feel like a pinterest photo in this suit.” He spins around, pink jacket flapping about while his black rose boutonniere flys off. Penny sighs as she picks it up.

“Careful, love,” she says. “Black roses are expensive, you only get one of these.”

Micah leans forward and kisses the top of her head, just under her own black flower crown. There’s nothing but affection in his eyes. “Understood, dear.”

Damn, years later and they’re still so sweet. Penelope met Micah long before she met me, when he was an exchange student at Watford High in Year 10. Apparently their connection was instant. Pen was already talking about marriage in high school, and the two went through with it right after uni graduation. They’re very happy. I hope my marriage is as good as Penny and Micah’s. Though looking at mine and Baz’s relationship for the past eleven years, I’d say that’s pretty well guaranteed. We’ve been through a lot, yet we’re still together. Being married will be fucking incredible.

“Are we all ready?” Gran walks in, dressed like a fancy lady. She looks great in her pale pink skirt suit with her hair all done up like a duchess or something. She’s got a black rose boutonniere too. It’s apparently a wedding thing to have flowers everywhere. Not that I mind, I love flowers. Hence why I’m wearing some on my head.

“As long as I don’t sick up, then yeah,” I chuckle.

Gran sighs, shaking her head. “You’re not going to sick up, Simon. You always say you will and you don’t.”

“Agreed!” Penny oh so helpfully adds in. I glare over my shoulder, and she sticks her tongue out. We may be fully fledged adults, but in some ways, we’re very much still children.

“You’re going to be fine, darling.” Gran reaches up to adjust my crown. It’s the one I’ve had since I was seventeen. Gran bought it for me on my first day in Watford Cove. It’s just a little line of pink rosebuds across the top of my head, simple but pretty. Gran said that the one time my Mum was able to phone her while with my Dad, she called me her rosebud boy. My Mum called me such sweet things, and didn’t even live long enough for me to remember them myself.

“You’re thinking about your Mum, aren’t you?” Gran whispers, snapping me out of it. She’s got a tiny, sad smile on her face. I nod slowly.

“Y-Yeah. Sorta wondering what she’d think and all. It’s inevitable, I guess.”

Gran nods. She moves both hands to my front, holding my jacket. Her smile is still small but very kind. “Well, I think I knew my own daughter pretty well, so I can tell you a few things for sure.” I can see the way her eyes are quivering. She’s trying to keep from crying. “My darling Lucy loved you before you were even born, Simon. So she would be incredibly happy that you have found true love. If she were here, she’d be walking you down the aisle instead of me.”

Fuck, that hits me right in the heart in the best way. I smile, a few tears falling down my cheeks. “Darn it, Gran,” I chuckle, “I didn’t want to start crying until the vows at least.”

“Sorry, love.” She wipes at my face with her silk handkerchief. “Don’t worry, you’ve still got enough tears in you for Basil.”

“Oh definitely. I’m going to be a fucking waterfall.”

“Language, love.”

“Sorry, Gran. I’m just nervous.”

She cups my cheek, running a thumb under my eye to catch a stray tear. “I know, darling, I know. Don’t worry, it will be great.” There’s a thumping on the door, making me jump and my breath catch. That’s our signal. Gran holds out her arm for me with a grin. “Showtime, Simon.”

I nod rapidly, and take her thin arm in mine. “Alright. Let’s go.”

Agatha, Micah, and Penny line up in front of us. Agatha knocks back, and the oak doors swing open. The three start slowly walking forward. I take a deep breath, and follow behind.

The Event Hall is insane. Despite being a small town, Watford Cove apparently expected to host huge galas or something, it’s enormous. The ceiling is high and curved, decorated with a fancy mosaic. The walls are intimidating dark wood with pretty carvings. Though they’re covered up with flower garlands right now. The rose garlands are alternating pink and black, like the rest of our decorations, because we’re cheesy and like to stick to our aesthetics. As Gran and I walk forward, everyone’s standing up from their benches. And I mean everyone. We ended up inviting a lot of people. My aunt and uncle, my cousins, Aunt Fiona, Mitali, Martin, Penny’s siblings, Baz’s siblings, his extended family, his uni friends, my uni friends, Mr. and Mrs. Wellbelove, even Ebb and her twin brother. I can feel all their eyes on me. I gulp down my nervous lump and try to keep smiling at them.

But when I look at the altar, well, I don’t have any trouble smiling at all.

He’s standing right there, right at the end of aisle, grinning from pointed ear to pointed ear under a canopy of black and pink silk. His suit isn’t very traditional either. Malcolm nearly had a heart attack when Baz announced what he wanted to wear to the ceremony, but it looks amazing. A leather jacket pairs surprisingly well with a black button down and slacks. A pink rose is attached his lapel, same as Dev and Niall next to him, while Mordelia has a pink flower crown on her head. Baz’s hair is slicked back, but a few strands falling in front of his pretty face. I have to resist the urge to run up and tackle kiss him. This is supposed to be a serious event dammit. Even though I’m wearing a flower crown and he’s wearing a biker jacket.

Gran walks me to the steps and we stop. She kisses my cheek. I can feel a few saltwater drops hit my skin. I’m pretty sure a few are mine too. I hold her hand as I climb the white steps. Just as I reach the top, I turn back. Gran gives me one last big smile from below. I smile back, mouthing “thank you.” She nods once, and we let go.

But Baz is right there to catch my hand.

He pulls me the last step towards him. We stand facing each other, both hands together. I’m grinning, I can’t stop grinning. My heart is about to burst out of my chest.

“Hi,” I whisper. It’s all I can manage. My brain is too overwhelmed to think of words.

“Hi,” he replies. “Glad you could make it.”

I chuckle. “Same to you.”

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated,” Mr. Kelly, our officiant says, loud enough that I know he means to shut us up. Baz gives me fake look of deference. It makes grin even harder. Christ, I really can’t stop grinning.

“Today,” he announces, “we are here to witness the union between two men I hope you all know.” A chuckle rumbles through the crowd. “And it will be my job to officiate the marriage between Simon Snow Salisbury and Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.” I squeeze Baz’s hands. He squeezes back. “I’ve gotten to know these two wonderful men over the past few weeks. They’re very smart, very kind, and very much in love. They’re one of those rare, beautiful cases of finding true love at a young age. And it’s my honour today to help them celebrate their union and make it legally official. Now, I believe the grooms have their own vows prepared. Who would like to go first?”

Baz and I already decided who would go first. We both know I’ll be a complete mess after hearing Baz’s vows, so I need to go first. Baz and I (reluctantly) let our hands go. I take the folded note paper out of my suit pocket. My hands are shaking but I’m still able to read the words.

“Baz,” I start, “as you and everyone else knows, I’m not that great with words. So it took me awhile to figure out what to say. How can I just, summarise everything about you in words? We’ve been together for a very long time and I I know you better than anyone. So I know that you’re a lot Baz, and I mean that in a good way.”

“I hope so,” Baz says with a smirk. The crowd laughs with us.

“Don’t worry, I really do. You’ve always been a lot in a good way. I still remember the day we first met. You held your head high, like you could take on the world. I couldn’t look away, and I really haven’t stopped looking ever since, I guess. That was just the start though. I soon found out you were ‘a lot’ in other ways too. A lot charming, a lot funny, a lot kind, a lot of just everything good. You’re a really great person, Baz. You amaze me all the time. You’re the strongest, most astounding person I know. Being with you is always a new adventure. Sure, we’ve had our ups and down.” (We have small fights over dumb stuff but only a few big fights really, like our pre relationship fall out or brief break up after uni, aka the worst three months of my fucking life.)

“But ever since high school, I’ve always been happier with you. No one makes me feel like you do, even eleven years later. So, yeah, I don’t want to be with anyone else ever. I just want to marry you. And when we’re married, I promise to listen to your weird music, to repaint your nails when they’re chipped, to hold onto you tight and never let go, and just, y’know, love and care for you for the rest of our lives. I mean that with all my heart, because you’re the best thing in the world. That’s, uh, that’s it.”

I take a deep breath as I put the paper back in my pocket. Slowly, I look back up at Baz. He seems to be awestruck I think. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open slightly, tears welling in his eyes, but also happy. He can’t be too surprised. He must know all this already. I’ve said this stuff before in in pieces at different times. Maybe hearing it all together and in public is weird. I reach out and squeeze his hand. He smiles and squeezes back.

“Dammit,” he chuckles, “I’m supposed to be coherent for this, love.”

I along with everyone else laughs. Baz takes his own deep breath, looking more nervous than I’ve ever seen him. Even as he pulls his own note paper out, he keeps holding my hand. I think he needs to. I don’t mind, I won’t let go.

“Dear Simon,” he says, “I’m writing this three days previous at my desk, trying to figure out what to say on our wedding day, You’re sleeping four feet away from me, curled up with our cat, drooling on your pillow.” I giggle and my face turns bright red. “I look at you and a small part of me is still astounded you want to be with me. You are bright everywhere I'm dark. For awhile I felt unworthy because you were so perfect. But I've learned you aren't this untouchable ray of sunshine. You're even better. You're a real person with problems and fears, who has come out of horrible things tougher but not jaded. And because we’re both messed up, we've learned to be messed up together. We keep each other sane. You're my boyfriend and my partner. l'm more grounded with you by my side. So I’ve realised perfect is too simple a word for you. You’re kind, caring, funny, strong, and incredible, Simon, and I'm amazed by you everyday too. I feel better with you, and I have almost since the day we met. As I write this now, watching you sleep in our bed, there are things I want to make sure you know at our wedding.”

He looks up at me, gazing right in my eye. It’s impossible for me to look away. “I promise to watch your stupid romcoms all the way to the end, to get you sour cherry scones when you’re sad, to support your art even if it means lugging around enormous canvases, and to always help you pick what pastel outfit you should wear. But most of all, I promise to be there for you, no matter what. You’re the love of my life, Simon Snow Salisbury. I already know we’re going to be together forever, but I can’t wait to be married to you as well.”

I sniffle without shame. How the fuck am I not supposed to cry after that? We agreed to both have promises in our vows, but that’s all I knew before today. I want to snog him right now, other people be damned. But Gran would be upset. So I settle for just squeezing his hand. Baz squeezes back, and after putting his paper away, he reaches up to carefully wipe at my eyes. I can’t wait to be married to him too.

“Very beautiful vows” Mr. Kelly says, and he sounds a little teary himself. “My words absolutely cannot follow up, but I’ll try.” Everyone laughs through their quiet crying. “Simon Snow Salisbury, do you wish to be bound in matrimony to this man, till death do you part?”

“I do,” I say without hesitation.

“And Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, do you wish to be bound in matrimony to this man, till death do you part?”

“I do,” he says immediately too.

“Perfect, good to hear. You may exchange the rings.”

Baz lets one of my hands drop and squeezes the other. “You go first, love.”

My throat is still too choked up to do anything but nod. I take the ring out of my pocket. Since our styles clash so much, Baz and I decided to get rings made in the same design but made from different materials. They’re both smooth on each side with braided metal in the middle. (I don’t know how it’s done, but it looks so cool.) Baz’s is black tungsten with a silver braid. It matches his leather jacket perfectly. I easily slip it over his long, bony finger.

“Now your turn,” I say.

Baz eagerly brings out my ring. It’s rose gold on the outside with a regular gold braid. Baz grins at me as he puts it on. The metal is cold right now. But I know eventually it will warm up, because I’m never taking off unless I really have to. And maybe I won’t even then.

“By the power vested in me by the Government of Great Britain,” Mr. Kelly says grandly, “I pronounce you husband and husband. You may kiss the groom.”

Mr. Kelly is barely done speaking before Baz and I are leaning forward. Baz cups my cheeks tenderly, I grip his forearms, and our mouths meet in a simple kiss. But it’s not simple. It’s our first kiss as husbands. And that makes it incredible. I’m so lost in the warm feeling of his lips I barely hear the applause and huge cheers from the crowd. We reluctantly part for politeness sake. Baz and I are both grinning and crying. We probably look ridiculous, but who the fuck cares? We’re allowed to look ridiculous right now.

“We’re married,” Baz whispers.

“We’re married,” I echo, equally shocked and so fucking happy.

Baz weaves our fingers together, then turns us to face the crowd. It’s quite a sight to see. All our family and friends, standing up, cheering for us with big smiles. My eyes meet Gran’s. Her smile is softer, and her claps aren’t as hard, but everything is said in the way she looks at me. Congratulations, she says with no words, I’m so proud of you.

I smile as wide as I can back at her.

Me and Baz step off the riser together. Baz raises our hands together, earning a particularly loud cheer from all our loved ones. The cool metal of Baz’s ring presses hard into my skin.

I’m so goddamn happy.

———————————————

Though it’s a bit tedious, taking the wedding photos is a lot of fun. The edge of the Wavering Wood is right near the hall. It’s a flat field with lots of beautiful trees and flowers in the background. The photographer is one of Baz’s many cousins, and he’s very good. He gets us to do many different poses. Some are serious, like looking at each other longingly under a willow tree branch, and some are funny, like Baz suddenly hoisting me up off my feet while I giggle in shock. I’m pretty sure I’m going to love all of them.

We take a lot of photos with our family and friends too. Gran, the Grimms, our wedding parties, some pictures separate and some together. I notice the that first Grimm photo is, well, a bit grim. I tell Baz to smile more, and he glares at first, but does. The others follow suit. They still look stiff, but it’s better. I’m more than pleased.

Baz is taking a picture with his siblings when my phone buzzes. I look down and don’t recognise the number. But Tibby, fellow community centre employee and indie artist, said she was getting a new number soon.

“Fuck, I have to go get this,” I grumble.

“Simon,” Baz groans, looking at me and probably ruining his photo. “C’mon.”

“It might be Tibby! She said she’d call me if our art got into the New Artist's show at Maureen Paley.” Baz still looks upset. I walk up and kiss his cheek, lightly touching his ring. “Two minutes, okay?”

Baz sighs with affectionate exasperation. “Fine, two minutes.”

I kiss his cheek again then dash off across the field. I answer the phone on the last ring. “Hey, Tibby. Did we get it? I’m a bit busy so can you-”

“Hello, Simon.”

I freeze. My blood runs ice cold. The ground is opening up underneath me, I swear. I can feel my muscles shaking so hard I nearly drop the phone. It takes a good few seconds for me to find my voice again.

“Hi, Dad,” I say shakily. “H-How did you get this number? I changed it last year.”

“You have an artist’s Facebook page, son. It was easy enough.”

Shit. I’m going to delete that the second I get home. “Oh, okay. Why are you calling?”

“I heard you were getting married today.”

“Oh,” I squeak. “Um, yeah, I am. Well, I did. But...how did you find out? You don’t follow me on social media, and we haven’t talked in awhile.” How could he know? He shouldn’t know. Fucking hell, he can’t know.

“I met a member of the Grimm family at an education conference last year. We followed each other on Facebook. He just posted a picture from his cousin Basilton’s wedding, and imagine my surprise when I saw my own son kissing the groom. So, did my invitation get lost in the mail?”

I gulp down the lump that has suddenly formed in my throat. “It’s, uh, small. There aren’t a lot of people...”

“Not enough space for your own father?”

God, I forgot how quick he is. How easily he can turn the conversation back to his side. I pull at my hair almost painfully. “I-it’s just, Dad, I-”

I take a deep breath, reminding myself I’m not that weak kid he can pick on anymore. I’m twenty eight years old now, dammit. I have a life, a job, a wonderful husband, nothing he can take away. I don’t have to be scared anymore.

“Dad,” I say firmly, “you weren’t invited. Whatever bit of good relationship we had is long gone. You don’t approve of anything in my life. Not my profession, not my sexuality, not even my fashion sense. I wanted to enjoy my wedding day. Which meant you couldn’t be here.”

There’s a long pause. My heart beats faster with every passing second, but I did it. I stood up to him. After all these years, I can finally tell him off. At least a bit. But that’s more than ever before. I did it, I did it, I di-

“You insolent little brat, how dare you?” he growls. And all of my confidence blinks away in an instant. “After everything I’ve done for you. All I ever did was try to raise you to be better, but you spit in my face. You’re just bloody useless. You’re a complete idiot, a moron, a leech, Simon!”

He keeps going on, and all I can do is stand there. Just stand and listen to my father tear into me. I can’t move. I’m a kid all over again, listening as my father loudly berates me for whatever new screw up I had done. My whole body is shaking, tears streaming down my face, every muscle in my body shaking. I can’t even put down the fucking phone.

“I wish you were never born,” he yells. “You’ve never been anything but a disappointment, you stupid little f-”

The phone is suddenly ripped out of my hand. A familiar hand holds my shoulder. Baz stands in front of me. His face is completely impassive. I know that face, he’s in cold arsehole mode.

“Hello,” Baz says. “This is the man Simon just married. I’m here to tell you that as long as I’m around, you will not hurt him anymore. And you absolutely will not ruin his wedding day, understood? No,” he growls, cold cruelty turning into fury, “ you listen to me, you prick. The second I hang up I’m going to block this number. Don’t contact my husband ever again, or I’ll use all our family’s considerable wealth and influence to ruin your goddamn life. Goodbye.”

Baz hangs up and blocks the number, just like he said he would. Then he immediately wraps his arms around me. I sink into his embrace and bury my face in his shoulder, racked with full body sobs. Baz just keeps holding me.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s over. He won’t hurt you anymore. It’s alright, love.”

“I’m sorry,” I choke out. “I-I shouldn’t have answered, I’m-”

“None of that, love. It wasn’t your fault. You haven’t heard from him in six years, of course you wouldn’t think it was him.”

I sniffle very unattractively. “H-He saw a photo, of us, today. He asked why he wasn’t invited, and I told me the real reason, a-and he went off at me, and I-

“Shh, it’s alright, I heard. You stood up for yourself, you courageous fuck. I’m so goddamn proud of you.”

“You-You heard?”

“Yes. Well, the last part. I saw you go stiff and I got worried so I got closer, but I didn’t want to step in unless you needed me. I heard the of your amazing speech to him, and I thought everything would be alright. I was walking away when I heard you crying. I don’t know what he said, love, but I don’t care. Whatever it was, he will never talk to you like that again. I promise, okay?”

I nod against his shoulder. “O-Okay.”

We stand there for awhile, me gripping his suit and him stroking my hair. Baz keeps holding me up, like he always has for me, like I have for him too. Without a second thought, I tilt my head up to kiss him. It’s not hard or forceful, just firm. Baz kisses me back, swiping his thumb across my cheek and holding my waist. Our lips slowly slide together. Baz pulls me even closer. With every passing second of him kissing me, all my old fears melt away. They go back into the past where they belong. My father can’t hurt me anymore. He never will again, not as long as Baz is here. I’m glad Baz feels grounded with me. Because I absolutely feel grounded with him too.

We pull apart, even though I’d gladly kiss him forever. “Come on,” he whispers, “only a few more photos and we get to go to the reception.”

I nod, weaving my fingers with his. “Alright. Thank you.”

He places a last peck on my temple. “Anytime, love.”

We go back to the group. Gran notices my face immediately. She takes out her ever present handkerchief and dabs under my eyes and tells me to blow my nose with it. Penny squeezes my hand, Micah puts an arm around me, and Agatha gives me a sympathetic look. None of them why I was crying. I’m very grateful, because if I talk about it I’ll start crying again. I’ll tell them later though. They deserve to know.

The rest of the photos go off without a hitch. Well, not any big hitches. Micah gives me bunny ears in one photo, which makes Agatha snort and Penny roll her eyes with a smile. Dev, Niall, and Mordelia lift Baz up on his side, causing my lovely husband to let out a string of curses at them in both English and Greek. We get a final picture with all our family and friends, who are family too. Not my father, though. I don’t need him. These are the people I care about, and care about me in return, far more than he ever did.

———————————————

The reception is held in the Event Hall dining room. It’s covered in similar decorations, lots of pink and black everywhere. I love it. It's sort of how our flat is decorated, honestly. Our wedding parties sit at the head table, but we have to go “work the room” as Baz calls it.

“I want food,” I whine.

“We’ll get food soon, love,” Baz sighs. “We just have to go be nice to people.

“People are gross.”

Baz giggles, leaning against me. “That’s my line.”

I lean into him more. “We’re married, so what’s mine is yours now, remember?”

He giggles again. It’s a really pretty sound. “I suppose you have a point.”

I kiss him quickly, and we go off towards the tables. Everyone is very nice, congratulating us, wishing us a happy marriage. Ebb is weepy of course, saying how proud she is of me after all I went through, and I thank her for being here and always being my friend. I pick up my little cousin while Baz talks to one of his uncles, and she tries to take off my flower crown and rip my hair out. I don’t mind. She’s too adorable to stay mad at. Baz’s Aunt Fiona gives us both huge bear hugs and messes up our hair. We spent so much time with her during uni she’s pretty much become my aunt too. My art school friends ask if I’m going to make a wedding sketch series like I mentioned. One of Baz’s older relatives asks when we’re going to have a baby, because "the gays can do that now, right?" We get away from her quite quickly. It’s an enjoyable, slightly exhausting whirlwind.

Eventually, we finally get to sit and eat. I fall into my chair with a groan.

“Tired, Si?” Penelope asks with a smirk.

“Shut up,” I grumble.

“Now you know how I felt at my wedding, Si. Bloody exhausting affair, getting married.”

“Amen, Penny.”

The catering staff brings out the first course, French onion soup, and I immediately drink it down. Baz tells me to slow down but I’m so fucking hungry. I was so nervous this morning I barely ate. I wolf down the main course too. It’s chicken cordon bleu, Baz’s favourite. Honestly, it’s sort of become my favourite too. Some of his posh tastes have rubbed off on me in our eleven years, of course. Some of my tastes have rubbed off on him too. He really likes sour cherry scones now, which I find absolutely amazing.

Before the cake, our parents/caregivers go up and do speeches. Gran goes first. She talks about how glad she was to take care of, what a good person I am, and how elated she is that I’ve found happiness in art and with Baz. She says she looks forward to seeing more of the incredible things I do. I hug her fiercely, thanking her again for everything she’s given me. I can never thank her enough for that.

Mr. Grimm goes next. He’s stoic of course but very sweet, saying he’s glad Baz is happy with me. At the very end, he admits that he hasn’t always been the best father, but he’s very proud of the man Baz has become and Natasha would’ve been too. I grip Baz’s hand very tight at that. I can see him holding back a lot of tears. (Years of therapy has helped with a lot of his guilt over his mum’s death, but it’s still a hard subject.) Baz thanks his father, and even hugs him. Wow. That usually only happens at Christmas after a glass of wine.

Penny of course makes a speech too. She’s equal parts sarcastic and kind, saying how she really fucking hated people until she met me. That I'm a very good friend who she's glad she met. And even though she didn’t like Baz at first, she’s seen how happy he makes me, so she’ll let him stick around.

“It’s not like I’ll go anywhere she tells me to,” he mutters with a pleased smile. I sigh heavily. These two, my god, what am I going to do with them?

Dev and Niall make a speech together. They tell embarrassing stories about Baz from their childhood together, making Baz glare and flush. I try to stifle my laughter but it’s useless. They say I'm the best influence on Baz, and he's been far happier since almost the moment he met me, even before we were together. That's nice to hear. The pair congratulates us at the end, wishing us years of wedded bliss. And Baz does smile. So he’s not that mad, really.

“Time for cake?” I eagerly ask.

“Yes,” Baz says with a smile, “time for cake.”

The caterers roll in the huge three layer cake. Keeping with the theme, it’s black and pink with lots of flowers. They’re super realistic looking even though they’re made from sugar. I want to eat all of them. Baz and I cut it together to a round of polite applause. The cake is cherry red velvet. I didn’t know that flavour existed until we started look at different kinds of cakes. Baz and I agreed to it almost immediately. So of course I eat three slices.

“Simon, you’re going to be sick,” Agatha says.

“I’ll live,” I reply, waving my fork.

“Will you really?” Baz drawls sarcastically. “Because I am not dealing with cherry scented vomit. Again.”

My cheeks go bright red. “That was one time! How was I supposed to know cherry flavoured beer was a bad idea?!”

“Because the name itself sounds like regret,” Penelope oh so helpfully adds in.

“Exactly, Bunce.”

I stick out my tongue at both of them. “Like you’re one to talk,” I grumble, “you fell off your motorbike while trying to pop a wheelie on a hill.”

It’s Baz’s turn to look embarrassed, flush crawling up his pretty face. Dev, Niall, and Mordelia all start laughing at him. Not even Baz's glare shuts them up. “That was one time,” he grumbles.

I put my hand over his, spinning his ring around. “Yup. Aren’t we a pair, love?”

He chuckles and flips his hand over, lacing our fingers together. “That we are, darling, that we are.”

Once we’re done the cake, we’re told it’s time for our first dance. I’m a bit nervous because I’m a pretty terrible dancer. Baz and I have been practicing in preparation for today, but I’m still nervous. I hope I don’t fuck it up.

We stand in the middle of the dance floor. The room gets a bit dimmer, replaced with coloured lights, making everything a bit more quiet and romantic. Baz looks at me, half his face illuminated in silver and pink light. His smile is literally shining. As if he could get anymore dazzling. His arm wraps around my waist, I hold his leather clad shoulder, and our hands stick out together. His ring presses into my skin again. I like that, a lot.

“Ready?” he asks.

“No,” I chuckle, “but let’s do it.”

The music starts. It’s an acoustic version of one of Baz’s weird pop punk love songs. I like things soft and he likes things punk, it’s a happy middle ground, like the rest of our relationship. And we start dancing.

Honestly, it’s barely more than swaying. We move in a small circle on the smooth floor. But I don’t step his feet, which is a vast improvement from usual. There’s barely any room between us, just how I like it. The song floats through the air, surrounding us in it’s quiet melody and soft lyrics.

Suddenly, I’m 17 all over again, dancing with Baz in my room to Troye Sivan the night before he might’ve left. I was so terrified back then, desperate to keep Baz with me, and he was desperate to keep me too. That night was such a teen romance cliche, but I don’t regret it at all, and neither does Baz. Thankfully, we aren’t scared anymore. We’ve known for a long time that neither of us are going anywhere. And I’m reminded of that by the way he looks unflinchingly in the eye. I don’t look away either. I quickly realise there’s something I still haven’t said today.

“I love you,” I say, quietly, just as the song ends.

Baz’s grin gets even wider. He leans down, forehead pressed to mine. Everyone is cheering around us, but all I hear is his voice.

“I know,” he whispers, “I love you too.”

We keep our foreheads together for another moment. Unfortunately I can’t snog him silly right now. Maybe later. (Definitely later.) We bow to our adoring friends and family. They all look so happy. There’s barely a trace of Davy’s words left in my mind. He can’t ruin today. He can’t ruin anything anymore and never will again. My life is too strong to let him.

We invite everyone to come to the dance with us. The music picks up into one of my favourite pop tunes. I’m almost immediately jumping to the beat. My crown nearly flies off I’m so enthusiastic, making Baz snort with laughter. Soon everyone is dancing happily. Agatha is actually literally swing dancing with her girlfriend, laughing loudly. I dance with everyone I can. Swanning about with Gran, jumping with my groom’s maids and man, letting my little cousin stand on my feet. I see Baz doing similar things with his friends and family. He’s doing a sort of waltz with Daphne, and I’m chatting with my uncle. We smile at each other. It may just be my mind tricking me, but I swear my ring warms up a bit.

———————————————

“Have you got enough clothes?” Gran asks.

“Yes, Gran,” I reply.

“Toiletries?”

“Yes.”

“Food? You do get hungry-”

“Gran,” I hold both her hands firmly, “I’m fine. I’ve got everything we need, alright?”

She takes a deep breath, though her mouth is still a thin line. “I’m just unsure how you and Basil can fit all you need in that backpack.”

She indicates my camping bag, which is, in my opinion, quite large enough. “I promise you, Gran, it’s fine. Plus we’ve got Baz’s enormous tail bag too. You could fit a country in there.”

“No complaining about the tail bag when it’s going to hold all your snacks, Salisbury,” Baz says from where he’s sitting on his bike. He was talking to Dev and Niall, but he has damn super hearing, the wonderful bastard. I stick my tongue out at him.

I look back at Gran, who’s still nervous. I step closer. “We’ll be fine. If we don’t have something we need, we’ll just pick it up along the way.”

“Will you be safe though?”

“I’ve ridden on Baz’s motorcycle many times before and I’m still here.”

She frowns, obviously annoyed. “Not for three weeks straight across the UK and Ireland. What if it breaks down?”

“Baz just got a tune up, but if there are any problems, he'll fix them. He's got his toolkit in the infinite tail bag.”

"What about your jobs?"

"The community centre loves me. They were more than happy to give me a month off for my honeymoon. And Baz isn't teaching any summer courses this year so the university doesn't need him until late August."

"What if you get lost?"

"Baz has stuff memorized and we've got GPS, but," I pat my enormous bag, "I've also got a physical map in here with our route drawn out in case our phones die."

“Alright...”

She still looks very nervous, because of course she is. Gran shows her love by fussing. The day I moved to London she was a nervous mess. I wish she wouldn’t worry, but I appreciate her caring. I kiss her forehead.

“I’ll be alright, Gran,” I say. “We'll be back here having dinner with you and everyone else before you know it. Okay?” Watford Cove is our last stop before going back to London, of course. We’ll be having a big feast with both sides of the family. It’ll certainly be a good end to a long trip.

That makes some of the tension fall from her body. “Okay. Call me when you can?”

“Of course.” I look to my left, at Penny, Micah, and Agatha. “And you guys will keep the flat in order right? And make sure Cherry is good? He gets jumpy so you’ve got to play with him for a little while. And he needs two meals a day. And-”

“We know, Si,” Penny says, rolling her eyes.

“We’ve got your checklists,” Micah adds in.

“First week and a half will be mine and Felicia's job,” Agatha says, repeating what we agreed on. “Then we'll go back to California and I’ll hand off cat and house sitting duties to Penelope and Micah for the next week and a half.”

“And I’m taking yours and Basil’s suits home for safe keeping,” Gran says cheerily.

I grin. Of course I already knew all that, but it’s good to hear it again. “Awesome. We’ll call to check in, and call us if you need to.”

Penny waves dismissively. “Don’t call us, Si. Everything will be fine. Go enjoy your honeymoon. We’ll clean up the reception, hold onto your fancy clothes, and take care of your nightmare pet well, trust us.”

I pout. “Cherry isn’t a nightmare, just energetic.”

“Mhm, right.” She pushes lightly on my shoulders. “Now go have fun. And don’t crash into anything, please.”

“Don’t insult my driving, Bunce.” Baz calls back. “I’ve had a motorbike for over a decade and haven’t crashed once.”

“But you’ve almost crashed more times than I can remember.”

Baz glares harder. But he holds out his hand, and Penny takes it. They shake once. “See you in three weeks, Bunce,” he says with a small smile. “Thank you, for everything.”

She shakes back, smiling too. “You’re welcome. Now get on with your honeymoon.”

“Will do, if Simon can get going.” He raises his eyebrow at me. I huff, blowing hair from my eyes.

“Hold your horses, we’ve got time”

“It’s getting dark, love. And we should get to the first hotel soon if we want to stay on schedule.”

“There’s a schedule?” Agatha asks a bit astounded.

“Oh yeah,” I snort. “Baz has our road trip planned down to bathroom breaks. For a punk, he loves to be all structured and shit.”

Baz holds his nose up, looking extremely snooty. “I like to know where I’m going, sue me. And you liked the trip schedule when I showed it to you, so fuck off, love.”

“I don’t think marriage is going to change much for you too,” Penelope chuckles quietly.

“Yeah,” I sigh dreamily with a big grin, “I know.”

Even though he’s a prick (I adore him, but he is), Baz has a point. We need to get going. I hug Gran, Agatha, Penny, and Micah as tight as I can. Baz hugs Malcolm, Daphne, Dev, Niall, Mordelia, and his other siblings. They stand together in front of the Event Hall, the lights from the end of the reception still shining from the windows. I zip up my floral leather jacket (20th birthday present from Baz) all the way up, put on my riding gloves over my ring, and secure my pale blue helmet. Baz throws on his own jet black helmet. It has silver vines that I painted on. I’m very proud of it. I sit on the bike and wind my arms around his waist, like I have a hundred times before, and like I will a hundred times more.

Baz looks at me over his shoulder, a glint in his beautiful eyes and a playful smirk on on his mouth.

“Ready to go?” he asks.

I almost say, I’d go anywhere with you, but that feels just a bit too cheesy. Maybe I’ll say it later. For now, I just nod, and say, “yeah, let’s get going.”

His smiles wider, and puts a hand on his visor. “Allons-y,” he says.

He still says that all the time, eleven years after our first kiss. I’m reminded of that night every time he says it. And I love it.

“Allons-y,” I reply.

We flip down our visors, give one last wave to our loved ones, and drive off into the dying light of the late of the evening. Baz drives us through Main Street. I recognise the places. Ms. Pritchard’s Bakery, the drug store with my favourite nail varnish, the park where I asked Baz to be my boyfriend, the ice cream parlour we all went to after graduating high school and then later uni, and a familiar hill in the distance; Where Mt. Olympus is, where I first kissed Baz, and where he proposed to me last Christmas. The memories race through my mind as we race through the streets.

Baz takes us up a hill. I get a lovely view of the entire town. It looks beautiful at night, with lights like stars and the sparkling lake in the distance. I hold Baz even tighter. I’m so unbelievably grateful for what I found in Watford Cove.

———————————————

Awwwww totally cheesy, I know. They deserve cheesy goodness after all the shit they went through. And here's a little insight into their future lives: yes, Baz is a university professor, but he refuses to change his fashion sense. He teaches a first year English 101 course (his hell) and a third year queer literature course (his heaven). He's everyone's fave prof because of how badass and sarcastic he is. Simon works at a community center with little children while still doing art on the side. He loves making kids happy and tries to be the kind of person for them that Ebb was for him growing up. For art, he does showings at local galleries, sells prints at hipster markets, and posts stuff on his tumblr blog. Simon and Baz are obviously still pretty damn in love. They have a date night once a week, drive around London on Baz's motorbike all the time, love to snuggle on the couch together to watch TV, all while living in a pastel pink flat covered in punk posters along with their nightmare cat, Cherry. In summary, they're very happy.

Two other things: this is the design I based their rings off of, and this is the song they dance to. Y'all might recognise it as the song where the title for one of the chapters of Watford Cove came from :) It's one of my fave songs ever so I'm absolutely projecting lol.

Thanks for reading, hope you liked this glimpse into the future of my punk/pastel Simon and Baz. I certainly enjoyed writing it. Watford Cove has always been one of my faves so returning to that world was nice. So that's it for the requests. Black Swan will keep updating, I'm currently working on the warlock and knight fic and that will hopefully be finished in a couple weeks, baring any school or health complications, and I'll def be opening requests again in May. Thanks a million to those who requested stuff. And just as big a thanks to everyone who liked, reblogged, commented, and/or left kudos on the fics. It's been a blast. See you guys next time :)

#carry on #snowbaz #simon snow #baz pitch #penelope bunce #agatha wellbelove #micah #ruth salisbury #watford cove #fluff #light angst #mysnowbazfic

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kitto-toberu-sa · 6 years

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Sailor Moon The Super Live Report - August 31st (first performance, heart team)

Place: Aiia Theatre Placement: Row 10, Seat 42 (middle, far right)

First, I swore I wasn’t going to buy merch and am SO glad they had so little on offer ;; I bought the pamphlet (which is basically a double sided poster, one of the main image and the other side being info with pics of the different teams) and the light stick.

Second, the show isn’t sold out. Sure, it started a little early (7pm) but it was a Friday night and opening night of a mega popular franchise? Strange for it not to have been sold out, especially since the theatre isn’t that big. (For reference, I was in row 10, seat 42, and the seat next to me was empty, as were others around me). There have been a lot of events and new merch recently though, so I can understand.

They’re also still selling tickets at the door, and are giving out freebies. Little bookmark things of the Inner Senshi with manga art (one of each Senshi, randomly given). They’re quite nice! Another enticement is different events happening after each performance. On opening night they randomly selected about twenty people to have photos with the cast. There is also a high five event on other nights, and it looks like they give out goods on other nights.

The show is VERY dialogue light. As in, there is maybe five minutes worth of dialogue the entire show (not including the live performance part). And that’s incredibly generous. This is understandable – this show is only doing two showings in France, so the effort to translate would be a lot. It’s not cost effective. The audience also more than likely knows the story. The story is the first arc, hugely condensed. I think it worked quite well without a whole lot of dialogue. The cast had to work that much harder on facial expressions and their body language to make up for not speaking.

The show is 80 minutes long. There is no interval. After the play part, there is a song part.

Now, onto the show!

We start off with Queen Beryl and her minions. She’s controlling them and their dancing. Like, SeraMyu is great and I love it, but there is still part of it that’s stuck in years gone by. This is very modern. I don’t really know or care who Takahiro is, but he did a good job! The music and dance throughout the performance is really good! It’s very modern. Perhaps because it was opening night, sometimes the music felt too loud. Not in a good way, but in a it sometimes makes the cast hard to hear way.

Anyway, they’re dancing, kinda like cool zombies? The scenery changes on a screen behind them, showing the battle for earth. Kunzite appears and shows off his sword before taking command of the troops. Unfortunately, the sword was almost dropped… We see a screen of Usagi running – it’s kinda clumsy and ugly, but it reminds me of the live action show, which I’m very fond of, so I can’t be too harsh on it. Beryl then attacks this screen, and we come to earth, present time.

Usagi yells about being late and runs through the audience. Her entrance is GORGEOUS! Why? She’s got glitter in her school bag, so as she runs, glitter is flying everywhere. It’s super shojou and anime. Very simple and cheap, but literally everyone was smiling. I feel bad for the staff who had to clean it up though haha

She stumbles on stage and drops her brooch, and keeps going. Mamoru picks it up, teases her and as she grabs it, they start to remember their old lives. Of course, that’s weird and Usagi’s late, so she grabs her brooch and goes. They part, but then stop, turn to look at each other, and are about to go back to each other when the music starts and sends them on their way. An instrumental version of Moonlight Densetsu plays. As it plays, it shows the characters and gives their names – interestingly, the names are Romanised instead of being in katakana, and the images shown are manga panels. It makes sense not to use the live images, as there are three teams, but I wonder why they choose manga over anime. I honestly think it was a great choice though.

We get a brief scene of Sailor Moon fighting a monster. She’s dodging and crying, but she also fights back. She also cheers for herself when she gets a good hit in, which is super cute. Makes her a very human character. Tuxedo Mask does save her and gives her a chance to fight back, and she runs off after him.

It’s time for school! Miss Haruna makes her appearance~ Honestly her look is iconic (the pink suit) and I love that they brought her back. The students do a dance as they start their daily routine and test results are returned. It’s pretty cute, though too long for me to care about. Usagi rushes in, gets scolded, realises she doesn’t have her textbook, is scolded again, isn’t able to share with her friends, steals Haruna’s book, and joins in on the dance while doing all of this.

Of course, things are going fine until everyone is suddenly infected with Dark Energy (a la Kunzite lurking in the corner). Cue zombie dancing again. This, again, went on slightly too long. It wasn’t particularly good, and the costumes were a little tacky – essentially the stage was mostly dark and certain parts of the zombies/infected people lit up (glow in the dark socks and so on). Usgai basically runs around screaming for a while until Tuxedo Mask comes to save her. Understandable – she doesn’t want to hurt her friends or transform in front of everyone.

Unfortunately, Tuxedo Mask dropped their cane and stepped on it, almost falling. She caught herself really well, so props to the actress there. (I believe it was this scene – could have been the arcade scene)

She fawns over Tuxedo Mask again and after the day is saved, class is over. Everyone leaves as Usagi daydreams with these ridiculous heart eyes. A scene that reminded me of the theme park episode from the 90’s anime – they have a sort of carousel thing going on, and it’s very fairy tale like. It was very nostalgic to see it and remember the old anime.

Afterwards she meets up with everyone who scolds her for being late. They sing about how they met – a very cute and sweet song. Then suddenly we’re in Harajuku!

This part is sort of odd if you live in Japan. Since this production was made for showing Japanese culture abroad, for the Japanese audience, this didn’t have a lot of meaning for the home audience. It was also horribly outdated. The gothic Lolita outfits were ugly and super outdated, and I don’t really associate Harajuku with gothic Lolita. Nowadays it’s a variety of different looks and it would have been super nice to see a variety of styles shown, as well as styles that are from this decade ;; The outfits that the Senshi changed into were ugly clown like outfits and I hate them too.

However, it was a nice attempt in showing off a variety of Japanese things. For example, the girls do a bit of traditional dance (fitting for Bon Odori at this time of year) and also eat fairy floss (cotton candy) and crepes that Harajuku is famous for (at least on Instagram ;p). They also have the dancing with the light sticks, which… isn’t a Harajuku thing ;; More of an Akiba thing, but it’ll slide!

Usagi is separated from the group and ends up the arcade. Mamoru teases her for being so bad, and plays himself. He gets a high score and they high five, before they both remember they’re meant to hate each other. Kunzite is in a mascot outfit, shakes his bottom at Usagi who touches it and shows her a new game to play. I’m… not sure why this was necessary? I mean, it’s low key great, and bizarre, especially because Kunzite initiates it? I just… don’t understand it…

Mamoru is sucked into the Sailor V game, and keeps getting beaten up because Usagi sucks so much. He’s trying to get her attention but she’s too focussed on trying to win ;; She gets better in the second round and Tux is pleasantly surprised. He then promptly dies ;;; On her third attempt, Kunzite throws her into the game too.

The Senshi appear to fight. Their introduction song is honestly a fave of mine. I believe it (and all of the songs) are remixes of old songs (both anime and musical). If I find out which ones they are I’ll edit this post (I currently don’t have internet at home..). This scene is pretty good. Unlike some of the other dance scenes which drag, this scene, through song, tells about the characters and their powers.

Tuxedo Mask is taken away, and everyone is unsure of how to comfort Sailor Moon. I think it’s fitting that Venus is about to step in, but Mercury ends up talking to her first. And by talking, I mean singing Otome Policy. A lot of the performances are predictable in that they go by the order of which the Senshi appeared, so it would have been nice to have that shaken up a bit, but it’s not that big of a deal.

In Beryl’s world, Tuxedo Mask is possessed. Beryl is very pleased and they start to tango. The actress is wonderful – Tux is possessed, but isn’t fully under Beryl’s influence, so there’s point he tries to break free or doesn’t follow along. This was pretty believable! Beryl, on the other hand, is unconcerned – she’s in control and enjoying having the man she wants with her. Meanwhile, Kunzite lurks in the corner.

They teleport to Beryl’s world where they fight Kunzite and his creepy zombies. Honestly if someone aggressively danced their way at me I’d be terrified lol! Kunzite is super strong, and takes down all of the Senshi. Venus gets her sword and fights Kunzite, but they both remember their past. Beryl isn’t impressed and he ends up dead.

This scene was really touching. I felt a lot for her. They show Kunzite’s soul floating away, and her following it briefly, trying to catch it. She realises it’s no use. Everyone goes to comfort her, even though they don’t particularly know what’s going on.

They then have to fight monsters and Mask. Honestly, everyone except Moon and Venus should have been stronger than they were. Venus just got an unwelcomed flashback from her past life and lost her former boyfriend, so it’s understandable when she fails. Moon is fighting the love of her life. Everyone else felt a bit weak.

The Senshi end up dying, and Beryl kills Mask when he responds to Usagi.

Usagi is left with Beryl, and kind of… interpretative dances her feelings out? The start is a little long and messy, but as she starts to go from no confidence, I’ve lost everything, why try?, to I have to do this, I can do this… it’s amazing. She’s taking all of Beryl’s hits and throwing them off and is the strong Sailor Moon we all love.

Beryl tries to suck her up with her darkness, and Sailor Moon walks straight in. She comes back out with her new Moon Stick, glowing brightly. She beats Beryl and dies? But Tuxedo Mask brings her back with a kiss. The other Senshi return as well.

Unfortunately, Mask accidentally turned the Moon Stick back on ;;; I don’t think it really need to be turned off in the first place. (Especially because it looks very ugly and cheap turned off – it’s also silver, when I think pink would be better suited) But that marks the end of all the obvious mistakes. For a first try, it isn’t so bad! I think they could have been fixed easily, with perhaps a bit of design done differently.

From here, there are some quick bows before the song portion.

Song part When it comes to singing, everyone was really good. However, Sailor Venus (Sena) stood out. Perhaps I’m a little bit biased, as Sena is the reason I chose this team over the others, but still. The others faltered a bit at times, or their mics weren’t properly in position, or their voices weren’t loud enough. Sena wasn’t perfect, but out of everyone, her voice was the clearest and most confident.

The songs were all really good choices. There were a few repeats of what was already in the show, most notably Otome Policy in a more pop version rather than the piano version from earlier.

Of course, I’m incredibly biased, but the best song was La Solider~ It’s honestly one of my favourite songs and I’m so so so glad they played it!

They left the stage to come back briefly for a few more songs. In between some of the songs were the dancers getting a bit of stage time, which was nice. Those girls do some really cool stuff, so it’s nice for them to get their dues.

Of course, everything ended with Moonlight Densetsu. Most the characters got solo or duet lines. This is the part where they ran around the audience, giving high fives. I was so close, yet so far T.T Buuuuut Sailor Venus blew me a kiss, so nothing else really matters haha~

We all got a little gift (clear bookmark?) and I got Moon. Some people in the audience were allowed to take pictures with the members. About twenty people I think? How lucky! I waited around with other fans to try and see the actresses as they left, but gave up in the end. It was a good night, and I’m really glad I went!

Summary Enjoyable: 5/5 Worth the ticket price: 5/5 Re-watchable: 4/5 If this was sold on dvd, would I buy it: 3.5/5

#Sailor Moon #Sailor Moon The Super Live #Sailor Myu #The Hoopers

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kathleenseiber · 3 years

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Game-changing GM crop finally planted in Nigeria

After decades of research, Nigeria’s farmers are growing a GM version of their staple legume that will help millions combat hunger and poverty.

Last July, for the first time, subsistence farmers in Nigeria planted a new variety of genetically modified (GM) cowpea – and it promises to bolster food security for over 200 million Nigerians.

This follows a decision made in December 2019, when Nigeria became the first country in the world to approve the commercialisation of GM cowpea.

Cowpeas are a staple food and an important source of protein, mostly grown in West Africa. Credit: CSIRO

The protein-rich cowpea, commonly known as “poor man’s meat”, is the country’s staple legume. This new variety took a team of African and international devotees 40 years to develop: 20 years to improve its traits through traditional breeding and another 20 using genetic engineering to develop resistance to the destructive Maruca pod borer.

Mohammad Ishiyaku, a geneticist and cowpea breeder at Ahmadu Bello University in Northern Nigeria, says the new variety is a game-changer for farmers.

“The demand is outstripping supply,” he says.

Farming families comprise about 70% of the Nigerian population, with most living on half-acre (about 2000 sq m) lots where they grow sorghum, millet, cassava, yams, plantain and – most importantly – cowpea. Most families consume cowpeas daily either boiled and eaten with rice or fermented and cooked in oil to provide a tasty local dish known as akara. The stalks are also nutritious fodder for livestock, and any extra harvest can bring in cash at the local market.

But what farmers grow is what they put on the table and when their crops fail, their families starve. Some 91 million people are considered at risk; most can’t afford fertiliser and chemicals, there’s no irrigation or power, and life has only gotten tougher in recent years due climate change and conflict.

Researchers expect that the GM cowpea will not only increase food security, but also give farming families a leg up out of poverty. Ishiyaku estimates that by lowering their spending on pesticides and raising yields, the crop could enhance farmers’ income by close to 30%.

The new variety should also help the country’s bank balance. While Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cowpea, it still needs to import 500,000 tonnes per year.

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The long road to GM cowpea

Cowpea is a hardy legume, well adapted to the dry conditions and poor soils of the tropical savannah. But while handed down the generations from farmer to farmer, it had been left behind by the breeding programs that dramatically improved the yield of staples like rice, corn or wheat.

Improving cowpea has long been the holy grail for Nigerian plant breeders.

Read more: Gene-edited plants aid food security

Their journey began in 1979 when plant breeder B B Singh joined Nigeria’s International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Singh was known as ‘Mr Soybean’, for breeding high-yielding soybean varieties in the US and introducing them to India. In Nigeria he was soon to become ‘Mr Cowpea’.

Dr BB Singh in the greenhouse with cowpea plants at Texas A&M University in College Station. Credit: Texas A&M AgriLife photo

Like a racehorse breeder, Singh appraised the traits of 15,000 varieties of cowpea from around the world, plying his art to mix and match desired traits. When he began farmed varieties of cowpea sprawled along the ground using up precious space and took five months to ripen their pods. Sixteen years later his ‘racehorse’ variety grew upright so more could be packed into the farmer’s field. Their time to ripen was shortened to two months, safeguarding a harvest if seasonal rains failed, an increasingly common occurrence. And to top it off, he bred in resistance to thrip, aphids, bruchids and striga – a pretty pink parasitic weed.

After 16 years Singh’s efforts increased the yield of cowpea grown in the greenhouse from 0.2 tons per hectare to over two tons per hectare.

But out in the fields, those gains could be obliterated by a little brown and white moth: Maruca, whose caterpillars routinely devour between 20% and 80% of the crop.

For the die-hard cowpea breeders, it was a call to arms.

The only weapon was spraying with pesticides up to eight times over the growing period. But besides being prohibitively expensive for farmers living on $1.50 per day, spraying was dangerous for those unfamiliar with pesticide use and lacking protective gear.

Pod borer moths lay their eggs on cowpea plants and the emerging caterpillars feed on the plant, drastically reducing yield. Credit: Carl Davies

Singh knew that the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis offered an organic solution to the Maruca problem. When the bacterium infects caterpillars, it kills them because one of its genes bores a hole into the caterpillar’s stomach. Organic farmers spray the bacterial soup directly onto crops. It’s ecologically friendly because bees and other insects are unaffected. But sprays don’t reach caterpillars inside pea pods. The most effective approach was to supply the plant with an inbuilt version of the bacterium’s gut-boring gene through genetic engineering.

The bacterial gene, commonly referred to as Bt, had been successfully introduced to soybeans, corn and cotton, but success in cowpea had been elusive. Singh’s comrade-in-arms in the Maruca wars, entomologist Larry Murdock at Purdue University, Indiana, had tried for years. But Murdock knew a scientist from Australia’s national research agency, CSIRO, who might succeed. “Higgins was my secret weapon,” he says. Murdock arranged a conference in Senegal in 2001 and invited T J Higgins as keynote speaker.

Higgins was famous for having used genetic engineering to improve legumes for the benefit of sheep. Unaware of the reason for being honoured as keynote speaker, Higgins regaled his audience with his feat of improving livestock fodder. His audience was singularly unimpressed. When they asked him to turn his efforts to improving ‘poor man’s meat’, Higgins, the son of a poor Irish farmer, could not refuse.

He took up the punishing task of introducing the bacterial gene into cowpea. It relied on hijacking the operations of yet another soil bacterium, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which induces gnarly tumours around the roots of plants. It does this by sneaking its own DNA into plant cells to turn them into factories for producing its preferred nutrients.

But while Agrobacterium readily infects roses and fruit trees, it shows little inclination for grains and legumes. To infect them requires tissue culture. That means mincing plant tissue into clumps of cells, incubating them in a cocktail of Agrobacterium, plant hormones and nutrients, selecting out plant cells that had taken up the bacterial genes and then trying to generate a complete plant from those cells.

Every step of the procedure is “hit and miss” and success is often hard to replicate.

Large companies like US agricultural and chemicals company Monsanto (acquired by German company Bayer in 2018) ultimately succeeded for soybeans, cotton, canola and corn – the huge investment justified by the profits.

TJ Higgins with African colleagues. Credit: AAAS

But Higgins was a public sector scientist – his day job was deputy head of CSIRO Plant Industry – and he was on a modest budget.

At first it was a night-time affair. While CSIRO space and infrastructure was allotted for the African cause, Higgins had to get grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and then USAID in order to fund manpower and material.

By 2006, the team had their first success at coaxing the reluctant cowpea to accept new genes from Agrobacterium tumefaciens. It was a slow quest – only one in a thousand baby plants accepted the new gene.

By 2009, Nigerian scientists were testing GM plants in the field at Ahmadu Bello University. Compared to non-GM plants, they were highly protected against Maruca.

The plants are ready – but the public isn’t

Developing the GM cowpea in Higgin’s lab took a decade. Carrying out the necessary safety studies – along with navigating Nigeria’s biosafety regulatory hoops – took another.

In most African and Asian countries, campaigns led by anti-GM groups have blocked genetically modified crops from being approved. This is despite more than 30 years of testing by the world’s food safety regulators, which has consistently found that the consumption of genetically modified crops such as corn, soybeans, rice or papaya to be as safe as consuming conventional crops.

Arguably, GM crops are safer because of the stringent testing required. GM produce must be tested for potential allergenic or inflammatory effects. But while traditional breeding or organic farming can produce foods with harmful health effects, neither are subject to the same high bar of safety testing.

Watch: Cosmos Briefing: The Future of Food

Testing GM foods is based on a commonsense approach, explains Don MacKenzie, head of the not-for-profit Institute for International Crop Improvement at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St Louis, Missouri, which contributed to the testing of GM cowpea.

MacKenzie illustrates the basic logic of food safety testing with a simple question: “Is there a study that’s looked at the safety of rice?”

The cowpea. Credit: Gabriel Vergani / EyeEm

(There isn’t.)

“It’s impossible to prove absolute safety,” MacKenzie says. “All you can do is show the GM food is as safe as the food that we have a long history and familiarity with.

“Our mission is to do what we can do to shorten the time it takes to put good safe technology in the hands of smallholder farmers. The number of hungry people in the world is going up.”

Testing focuses on the known differences between the traditional variety and the GM version. These differences are the protein products of the introduced genes. GM plants are tested for their effects on human or animal health, as well as their performance in the field to see if the inserted genes affect the plant’s growth. There are also ecological tests, to assess the risk of whether a GM plant might interbreed with another variety to create a super weed, or take over from wild varieties reducing biodiversity.

The GM cowpea variety produced by the Higgins group passed all these tests. They showed that the insertion of the foreign genes in the cowpea did not result in a toxic or allergenic effect. Neither did the genes alter the growth or nutritional composition of the plant. Hundreds of studies with other crops (including those organically grown) attest to the safety of the Bt protein for human and animal consumption. And finally, tests showed that the GM plant was unlikely to interbreed. As a self-pollinator, cowpea keeps its genes to itself.

Finally, after a decade of testing, in December 2019 Nigeria became the first country to approve the commercialisation of GM cowpea.

Cowpea of the future

Over the last year, the seeds (which go by the trade name SAMPEA 20-T) have been multiplied by three certified local growers and sold to farmers across the country.

“The cost is on par with traditional varieties,” says Ishiyaku.

Farmers are free to re-sew their seeds just as they do with traditional varieties.

At the end of July this year, Ishiyaku says almost all the stock of GM cowpea had gone and farmers were clamouring for more.

“They are excited by what they have seen in planted demonstrations in the north and southwest,” he says.

Scientist Kafayat Falana tries to test the viability of cowpea germinated seed in the laboratory at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Ibadan, southwest Nigeria, in 2017. Credit:TAFP PHOTO / PIUS UTOMI EKPEI / Getty Images.

Plans are being made to increase the supply of the seed for the next season.

Improved seed can make a real difference to subsistence farmers, just as it did in Asia, when high yielding wheat and rice varieties lifted millions out of poverty during the Green Revolution of the 1970s.

According to a recent estimate, Nigeria’s producers and consumers could gain US$350 million (AUD480 million) over 25 years if 15–45% of farmers take up GM cowpea. If adopted at 100% in Nigeria, Niger and Benin, the gain would be at least US$840 million (AUD1.15 billion) per year across the three countries.

For the cowpea scientists, this is their dream. But it is not yet complete.

B B Singh continues his work on improving the traits of the cowpea, splitting his time between Texas A&M University and G B Pant University in northern India.

Meanwhile Higgins is working on an upgrade to fortify the cowpea in its battle against Maruca.

The arms race between plants and pests is never-ending and sooner or later Maruca is likely to develop resistance to the Bt gene in the cowpea.

Jose Barrero, Higgins’ heir apparent for the CSIRO cowpea project, is now leading the effort to equip cowpeas with two different types of Bt resistance genes – a hurdle that will be much harder for Maruca to overcome.

“We’re working like crazy,” says Higgins. He expects it will be ready in another five years.

And then, says the 77-year-old, “I can retire.”

Game-changing GM crop finally planted in Nigeria published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

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sinceileftyoublog · 6 years

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Alasdair Roberts Interview: What News? Nae News.

Photo by Alex Woodward

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Earlier this year, Scottish singer-songwriter Alasdair Roberts released one of his finest albums to date--one that’s not even a solo record. What News is a collaboration between Roberts, pianist David McGuinness, and electronic artist Amble Skuse. If it sounds contemporary--the clicks of Skuse’s laptop interweaving with McGuinness’ keys and Roberts’ voice and occasional guitar--the songs are not. They’re traditional Scottish ballads that the three make sound more alive than ever.

Speaking to me from Glasgow earlier this year, Roberts detailed to me how hard it is for him to find a U.S. booking agent. “It’s a difficult time for English folk music,” one facetiously told him (not realizing Roberts sings undeniably Scottish songs). But what What News proves is “same as it ever was.” The songs are riddled with sad tales of death rooted in a world with oppressive gender norms, a world we’re always threatening to return to. In some ways, we already have. The familiarity of the songs is eerie, and it makes them all the more powerful.

Check out the rest of my interview with Roberts, edited for length and clarity, below. He reveals the process behind making What News, the problematic nature of many of the songs, and his take on Drag City’s much publicized decision to make much of their catalog available for streaming.

Since I Left You: What overall inspired you to embark on the What News project?

Alasdair Roberts: I had these traditional Scottish ballads--I love them--that I had been singing for a while. I wanted to do something with them. But I was kind of growing a bit frustrated with my customary guitar accompaniment. I had worked with David McGuinness before on a few things, so I thought about a piano accompaniment on these songs with him playing. He’s a great pianist, obviously, and I knew he’d have some good ideas. Also to free me up from singing and expressing myself vocally and concentrating on the songs without having to play an instrument at the same time. I thought it might be an interesting challenge and way of developing as a vocalist.

SILY: These songs had been kicking around in your live performance, but had you ever recorded any of them in a traditional way before?

AR: [For the album] No Earthly Man, the song “Long A-Growing”, we actually recorded in that session. In a studio in the middle of nowhere in rural Aberdeen. We had a bonfire one night and set up some microphones around the bonfire, and I recorded that song that night. But we didn’t put it on the record. Some of them I’ve been singing for a long time. Some I haven’t performed live. Some I’ve performed live before with guitar and bass. Some just unaccompanied vocals.

SILY: Did you ahve to narrow down a larger group of songs, or did you know you wanted the record to be these specific songs?

AR: There were a couple of songs that we tried playing, but they kind of fell by the wayside. One was a song called “Lord Donegal” that I ended up putting elsewhere. Essentially, I felt really strongly about these particular songs.

SILY: Where did you put “Lord Donegal”?

AR: It’s on this record called Missed Flights and Fist Fights that I made with a couple of guys from Chicago--Bill Lowman and Brad Gallagher. It came out three years ago, self-released.

SILY: How do you go about deciding the arrangements for traditional songs?

AR: In this case, it was pretty organic. At first, it was David and I, and then Amble got involved later on. But David and I would meet a few times in Glasgow, and I’d just sing him the song, he’d think about it for a while and come up with a piano accompaniment. We’d just organically do that process of back and forth between the two of us and then between the three of us.

SILY: Did you give Amble and David free reign to interpret and add to the songs?

AR: Pretty much. We all gave each other free reign, really. I kind of like that, when the people I work with have good ideas and are free to express them rather than someone saying, “Play these notes” or “Do it this way.” I’m very happy with how it all came out. I don’t regard being 100% happy with everything as necessarily a good thing or a victory. It can be just as valid to have your aesthetics, ideas, and assumptions challenged. Something that may be a bit uncomfortable or that you may not enjoy.

SILY: On the Bandcamp page, you mention, “Amble Skuse's electronics keep the 21st century in the picture, which unfortunately, seems necessary.” What did you mean by “unfortunately seems necessary?”

AR: That must have been Drag City that wrote that. I don’t think it’s a comment about Amble’s music making but about the 21st century. That unfortunately we still have to remain in this century. That’s what I understood it to be. Right this minute seems like a particularly rough time. But I don’t think the past was much better, really.

It’s easy to look back on the past. A lot of these songs detail a very tough existence. Tough situations which obviously happened in the past just as much if not more so than now. Particularly for women. The gender politics of these songs are quite questionable. That was a thing that came up a lot in discussion between the three of us making it. It’s always the woman who suffers or gets done in. How do you sort of deal with that in the present day when you’d like to believe you have liberal attitudes?

SILY: How did you deal with that?

AR: I’m not sure if we did, really. [laughs] I suppose just by thinking that they’re a reflection of attitudes and experiences that existed, and it’s important to remember that they did, lest they should persist.

SILY: That’s one of the good parts about living in the 21st century.

AR: That’s one of the good things, but there’s always that counter struggle against forces of liberation, and so on. Like the rise of the Alt-Right or whatever. The back-and-forth seems inevitable.

SILY: Do you have a favorite track on the record?

AR: I don’t think I do. [laughs] I was laughing because when David and Amble and I were rehearsing, I think Amble asked David a similar question. And he said, “I’m trying to free myself from my likes and dislikes.” And we were like, “Shut the fuck up.” [laughs]

A lot of people seem to like “Clerk Colvin”. That seems to get a lot of attention. The one that’s 10 minutes long.

SILY: It’s about a fifth of the album.

AR: That seems to be a standard favorite. I can understand why. I don’t think it’s necessarily my favorite. I like them all.

SILY: Was the title taken from a line in “The Dun Broon Bride”?

AR: It was, but I think it also comes up in the second track. It’s kind of like a stock phrase in these ballads. “What news, what news.” Some point when something exciting has happened, someone will ask this question. The answer, invariably, is, “Nae news, nae news.”

SILY: It’s a question, but it almost seems like an exclamation of exasperation, too.

AR: I see what you’re saying. It could be read as that. But it’s “nae news, nae news” because nothing really changes. The human condition now is the same as it was long ago when these ballads originated.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?

AR: There’s a woman called Amy Whiten who is a friend of Amble’s. The three of us were discussing artwork, and Amble said, “We’ll get my friend Amy.” She sent examples similar to this one, a variety of work, and we all liked it, so we commissioned Amy to make 8 individual pictures for each track. She had free reign over it. We gave her a month, and she came up with what she came up with with minimal input from the musicians. It’s how she envisioned the songs.

SILY: Did you have an opinion on Drag City’s choice to stream the large majority of their catalog?

AR: I had mixed feelings about Spotify. Before Drag City put my music on Spotify, there was some of my music on there. I felt kind of weird about it because it wasn’t representative of what I do now. Some of it was very old or atypical of what I do. I know a lot of people go to Spotify to check out new artists or artists they’ve never heard, and I was partly worried I was being misrepresented there. In a way, I’m happy that the Drag City stuff--the core of my work--is there for people to hear. At the same time, I’d obviously rather people buy physical copies.

Roberts, McGuinness, and Skuse have a few UK live dates lined up for the fall, as does Roberts solo and with other collectives.

#alasdair roberts #Interviews #music #what news #alex woodward #david mcguinness #amble skuse #alasdair roberts amble skuse & david mcguinness #drag city #no earthly man #missed flights and fist fights #bill lowman #brad gallagher #alt-right #amy whiten #spotify #what news? nae news.

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sussex-nature-lover · 3 years

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Wednesday 21st October 2020

Scotney Castle Part 2 History and Architecture

Completely random fact - today has been National Apple Day. It’s a day to celebrate apples and orchards, which seeing as I live neighbouring The Garden of England with its very many orchards, is appropriate. Apple Day is always on 21st October. I Thank you.

Back to Scotney. It’s not really a castle you know.

From 2007 the house has been open to visitors. It was left to the National Trust in the 1970s sometime, but not opened to the public until after Betty Hussey died (2006) In normal times you can tour the property which is presented mostly as a 1950s time capsule and you can go inside the ruins of the ‘Old’ moated Castle. You can roam the grounds and the wider estate and enjoy the walled kitchen garden. At the moment much of it is sleeping, you can only walk the gardens and estate, but that doesn’t stop us looking at how the castles came to be.

The first records of an Estate in this attractive part of the Weald landscape go as far back as 1137 but we’ll fast forward some 240 years to the building of a fortified manor house by Roger de Ashburnham (remember that last name for a later blog)

The Old Castle itself had various extensions and modifications, which are a story all of its own belonging to new owners of the Estate, but moving on again I bring you to the end of the Darrel family ownership where years of arguments, upsets and legal wrangles resulted in selling off various parts of the Estate to settle their accounts and the eventual disposal of the property in 1778 to one Edward Hussey, which is where the modern day history begins.

Above the entrance you see the family motto – “Vix ea nostra voco” – which is Latin for “We scarcely call these things our own”

1837 the new build began

It’s hard doing blogs about National Trust visits, I find so much to say, far too much really, but then again the story of Scotney really does reflect the motto as it’s a prime example of ‘guardians’ not ‘owners’ and every generation usually leaves its mark.

Edward Hussey, who was one of ten siblings born in nearby Burwash, must have been a wealthier man than you’d think because he firstly began reacquiring the old Estate lands over a five year period up to 1792. Trained as a barrister, my guide book says he was much more interested in cricket than he was in the law and that he frequently played for the MCC from when it was founded in 1787. I’m still digging to see where the money came from. Not much is said about him in the guide book. He married Elizabeth Sarah Bridge three years before buying Scotney and their son, Edward Hussey II was born three years after purchasing the property. All very measured. I believe they had another son and two daughters and I imagine they had a rather nice life...for a time.

Tragedy hit the family when Edward, a Magistrate, committed suicide, reportedly ‘blowing out his brains with a blunderbuss’ Fortunately the Coroner recorded a verdict of ‘melancholy’ which avoided the social disgrace and having the deceased’s estate forfeited to the Crown, but further distress and sadness hit when his heir, also Edward of course, died just a year later leaving behind his widow, Anne and their eight year old son, the third Edward plus two siblings.

I’ve spent some time falling down a rabbit hole on the internet looking into the family and of course, as these things do, it all got very complicated, but in a nutshell, there was money, occupations in the law and in royal service and interests in the arts, painting, travelling, architecture and gardens.

Anne apparently took her family and decamped to live in nearby(ish) St Leonard’s. How they got on is a mystery, but suffice to say they didn’t have to dispose of the Estate, so they must’ve been well heeled and it was this Edward (the third one: 1809-1894) who, later (much later, it was 18 years after he’d moved back to Scotney) married the Honourable Henrietta Windsor Clive, the great granddaughter of Clive of India. I love it when an interesting fact just drops in there.

Edward Hussey III continued his family tradition of expanding the Estate, paying £20,000 to purchase nearby Finchcocks - and this was in 1863! See what I mean about monied?

All the above is background to get to the nature part of the Blog, but it’s important to know background I think. We’re at the point where Edward Hussey III, at a young age was again extending the Estate and critiquing the damp and inhospitable Old Castle. He started to interview architects and after 33 meetings with a young Anthony Salvin, appointed him to design a new house on the site. Edward, as you can gather, was very involved in the process.

I’m quite astounded that they actually quarried the stone for the new house from the grounds and today that site is the Quarry Garden. like the Standen quarry garden, access is closed at the moment due to the ground conditions and falling rock. When you think about it quarrying the ground and then planting around is bound to cause its own problems, but, the Quarry site itself has a fascinating history and despite many visits I had no idea until I did my research this week...

‘Please Keep Away From The Edge’ the Quarry Garden below is currently closed

Scotney Castle Quarry

Somewhere I read about this part of Kent being connected by sea to Belgium and that the exposed floor of the quarry is effectively the preserved ripples in the sand as the tide ebbed and flowed. How romantic a thought. Obviously that’s a throwaway phrase really which describes millions of years of activity, but you get the gist.

For anyone who, like me, is unfamiliar with types of dinosaurs, this one’s the source of the preserved footprint

Iguanodon

It’s incredible that I started writing about the 12th century and then it quickly morphs into thinking back millions of years. I also have to say, the stone is very attractive. A few years back the new house was scaffolded and lots of maintenance, cleaning and restoration work was taking place. It’s a Grade I listed building and in the Autumn sunshine looked absolutely glorious this week. The stone is mellow sand and golden tones and you can really see the link with the sea bed colours and ripples and the harmony with its surroundings. How incredible that is.

The ‘new’ castle, rear view and below, the vista beyond

The day out was very pleasant and it’s stood me in good stead today to go over some photos and spill out some thoughts, it’s done nothing but rain and be dark as night here and so it was a welcome relief. TBC.

♦ not checked yet for proof reading or even to see it makes sense, be prepared for edits tomorrow

♦ outside links in bold are not affililated to this blog

#nature love where you live National Trust Scotney Castle nature photography

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incomethrone · 4 years

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13 Passive Income Ideas to Make $1000K per Month

Everyone loves to have multiple streams of income. Its because there is no security of a present job and no satisfaction or enough earning to have a dream lifestyle. But today with the internet and Passive income awareness we not only can get a dream lifestyle also but can help others in society. Passive income online and offline is a great idea to work as a side hustle part-time and increase your monthly income. Another great thing about these passive income streams that they bring value even though you don't have to work your like job. But in the beginning, it will need focus and commitment with hard work to start earning from these income streams. Below is the list of 13 ideas to start earning Passive Income as Part-Time and full time. Invest in Real estate Almost all wealthy and rich people have a portfolio in real estate. Its because it brings value in different forms. With time its value increases and 2nd thing, until you sell it back, you can use it for the rental, agricultural and stock store. Yes, you will need a lot of money to start investing in real estate bu there 3 options to generate for real estate investment. You can take a loan from the bank or other related organizations for a low interest. Let your property for rentals and pay the monthly interest with rental income and after five years you will be the owner of gold land. You can also borrow money from family and friends for six months and buy land. After six months sell the property for profit. Take the profit into business and pay back the debt money. Another great way to start investing in real estate is with partners. There will low conflict of interest in property partnership because no operational work and just buy and let it for rentals. And, then after some time sell it for profit. Silent Business partner If you have money but don't time for another business. You can invest money with other Partners as a silent partner and just get the profit. Other partners will manage the business and will take care of all things. You will be busy at your own main job or business and your money will be working for you. Selling Printable Design on the red bubble Redbubble is well known on print on demand eCommerce platform with daily visits around 8 million. Indie artists worldwide sell their art and designs on t-shirts, phone covers, wallpaper, meg prints, bag and may other daily items. Anyone in the world can make a cool design for free on Canva and upload it on Redbubble. Each sale of your design can make you a profit of up to $10. It's great to start making Passive income as a side hustle just with a laptop and internet. Create an app If you have an idea about apps and software but you don't know coding or programming Language. Don't worry you can make an app with low many and can start making money just with little investment. There are two ways to make apps. First, you can hire a programmer from Fiverr or Upwork, People per hour, etc. Another way to you can create an app with custom coding websites like Appsgeyser, Ibuildapp, Appypie, and App Yourself, etc. Just create the app and upload it to the Google store or Apple store and start making money. Rent Out Your Car Most of the time we stay busy in a job or business and our car will be Parked for the whole day. We can rent out our car to a food company, retail delivery business, post business, etc can earn good money. We can hire a driver for some percentage of daily profits and drive a car with uber etc. Purchasing and selling of websites & Softwares If you don't want to start the business from zero. You just want the running business fo money, then you can buy a lot of digital Busine online from Flippa, Trustiu, etc. On these platforms, you can buy running blogs, websites, youtube channels, software, etc and can sell it as your own product and business. Dropshipping World wide e-commerce and online Shopping is on the boom. And Shopify dropshipping is the biggest platform after Amazon. Dropping is actually selling the third party produced Products for profit by Marketing and advertising You will create accounts with Shopify and will start promoting third part products by own websites. As you sell something you will take the profit and order the main company to send the product to the buyer. In dropshipping, you have nothing to do with packing and sending. Your man's work is marketing and brings orders. Creating videos Youtube is 2nd biggest Search engine after google on the web. Millions of people daily visite Youtube looking for different information, knowledge, and entrainment. You can crat any kind of video channel like training, teaching traveling, cooking, make-up, pets care, etc and can earn money from ads and sponsorship brands, etc. Sell ebooks on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing Amazon is the biggest online shopping platform. Billion people daily visite to Amazon for buying and selling. Books are an important part of the Amazon business. With Amazon KDP anyone in World can sell their books on amazon and can make money as a passive income. There are millions of indie writers uploading books on amazon and making money. Selling courses With the huge use of the internet and growth of the e-commerce industry, people are moving from jobs to entrepreneurship. And, with this growth, demand for traditional education and degrees are going down. Businesses can only be run by skillset and Practical technical experience knowledge. If you have any kind of knowledge, expertise, experience and want to share it with the world. Just make videos tutorial and upload it a platform like Udemy, Skillshare, Lynda, etc and you can earn a good amount of money as a side hustle. Selling photos Today the majority of the people have smartphones with a good quality camera. Just taking quality pictures in around and uploading it to websites like Istock, Stock Shutter, Getty Images, etc you can earn a good income a side hustle. There are different apps and free software available to edit pictures. With a little bit of editing, you can make your photos more professional, creative and attractive. It's just an easy way to take pictures and upload them on the websites for sale. You can take pictures of your office building, Garden, weddings, Lawn, old buildings, street, neighbors, river, friends, and parties, etc. You can upload up to a hundred pictures every day for sale on these sites. Affiliate Marketing Affiliate marketing is promoting other business products and services for the purpose of selling. When someone makes a purchase from your Promoted links or site you will get a percentage of the sale price. A company like Amazon, Microsoft pays 5 to 10 % commission per sale. Products and companies On JVzoo, Clickbank and commission junction pay from 20 to 70 per sale of products. In the beginning, it will take little time to start making money but its great tools for side income. Start Instagram & TikTok as an Influencer Instagram and Titok have the biggest number of users and its increasing every month. Most people come here for entertainment. But still a great way to promote and monetize the user's eyeball. Start a free TikTok account and use free music to start making different kinds of funny, entertaining skits and engaging videos. Upload these videos to Instagram and grow your followers. As you get the fans around 1000+ contact different local brands and businesses for free product promotions. After one month of promotions, you can start charging them a low fee and contact other local brands. In this way, you can earn a good amount of money as a side hustle. I hope this post will help you in starting the best suitable side hustle. But just keep one thing in mind that doesn't start or try all in one time. just focus and start working from one idea and after getting income these move to another and grow your first income source. Also, check these posts about Passive income Earning. Peace. Read the full article

#bestpassiveincoemidea #bestwaystomakemoney #newpassiveincmeideas #newbestdealsfoemakingmonwyonline #passiveincoem #passiveincoemidea #passiveincomebestidea #passiveincomesideidea #passivemoneyidea #vbetdeafoemakingmoneonline

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jeffsalbumoftheweek · 7 years

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The Bitter Roots Waning Days Interview

As it happens, my would be band, The Bitter Roots will be releasing our 5th Album, Waning Days, on October 27th. Whenever I put out a new album I like to blog a few words for those lucky few that may have the time or inclination to read more about what went into making the album. Despite what some folks may believe, it does not take 3 minutes to record and produce a 3 minute song. An album usually takes me a few years to write and record. Art is the labor of love. So if you might indulge me...

This time around, instead of aimlessly ambling on of my own account, I thought it would be fun to do an interview. With all the fake news floating around out there, who better to trust, who better to conduct this important interview, than my old friend Yale Kaul. All star drummer, fellow Missoulian, Go Griz, former moderator of the most excellent pre-social media blog Yalestar, and also a frequent contributor to the former Missoula music scene, fanzine, Shat Upon. So take it away it Yale, give me your best shot. Order Up.

Y: Congratulations on the new album. What is this, your fourth or fifth one with this band?

J: Thank you. Yes, this is the 5th full length TBRs record in 10 years now. I really like to stay busy writing new songs. I love to make and record new music, and so does Ben.

Y: Where's that on the cover? It looks like Central Washington perhaps?

J: You have a keen eye. That photo was taken looking due north off the I-90 overpass at the Templins exit just east of Ritzville. I took it through the windshield with a cell phone. I was driving back to Seattle by myself shortly after the death of my Mother in Law as it so happened. I think the image captures the state of our crumbling and adrift former American Empire rather nicely.

Y: Is our crumbling empire a theme of the album overall?

J: You know, at first it was, because the album started to come together around the tracks Informed Consent, I am Nobody and Cuddly cats. We had been jamming those out live quite a bit before they went to tape. They are all pretty dark on subject matter lyrically, heavy rock sounds, and you have to remember this album was recorded in the 1st 6 months after the disastrous election. But as we added more tunes to the album I think it went more from the Dark to the Light.

Y: About that baritone guitar: is this the first time you've used one on an album?

J: It is. For the uninitiated a regular guitar has a 25 1/2" long neck and is generally in standard tuning of EADGBE. The Baritone has a considerably longer neck, mine is 28 5/8" and is tuned to CFA#D#GC. The main driver for it is to create more space in the mix for my vocal range, which tends to have more contention with standard tuning. Also tuning down 2 full steps from E to C allows me to appear to have a larger upper vocal range, it is easier to hit the high notes when you tune down. Led Zep did that for that last big reunion show to make it easier for Robert Plant to sing some of their tunes. As you age, there is no escape for it, your vocal register tunes lower.

Y: Yeah, your voice definitely sounds lower, especially on the first song. So do you guys play live as a two-piece, i.e. bassless? If so, I'd imagine the baritone guitar can fill in a lot of the lower frequencies?

J: We have played out as a duo quite a bit, but not in 6 years, because we had bass players. I have played the baritone out as a trio and it sounds rad. For the Duo live, the best rig we came up with is an Acoustic brand 100 watt head, a mesa 4x12 slant cab, using just my acoustic guitars which are a '78 Guild F50 and a '87 Guild JF-55. Those are big concert grand guitars, it can be hard to manage the feedback live, but we dialed it in a few times to good crowd effect. Neither us much prefer the duo live, there is something about needing that separate low end to really lock with the drum kit, we prefer it with 3 pieces and 2 voices. I also have a lot of harmonies I need someone to sing with me for the full intended effect in the live setting.

Y: The recording itself sounds very pro! You guys did the whole thing in your home studio right?

J: Thank you. We do the tracking in my studio which is 24 track tape, it is a good sized studio, it takes up the entire basement of my house. It has separate rooms for guitars and drums as well as a control room. Then we take the tape and the machine to Studio Litho where we dump it to pro tools and mix it down from 24 tracks to stereo 2 track using Litho's gorgeous vintage API console. We do no digital editing or correcting, nor do we use any auto tuning. We master the mix as well at a separate room that is now called Resonant here in Seattle, where final volume level and EQ adjustments are made on the stereo mix down. The advantage to tracking at my place is that we can do it as many times as we like because we are not on the clock, under pressure, spending money to use another room.

Y: So when we were younger men, back in the Burnin' 80s™, I knew you were big into Hendrix, Bad Brains, Soundgarden. Obviously your music palate has developed over the years. What's turning your crank these days?

J: Excellent Punk Rock Talk question right there. I try to check out newer stuff as much as I can. There is a rock band from Scotland, Biffy Clyro, they sell out arenas in Europe in minutes, they are very very talented, and fun to see live too. There is a band from Bend OR called Larry and his Flask. They are the craziest punk bluegrass rag time rockabilly thing. The Rev Horton Heat are big fans of those guys too, we saw Larry open for both The Rev and Fishbone, so that is saying something right there, they do fish style durges too, its super cool. But with streaming, I have been able to delve deeply into catalogs of one artist or another. We could not dream of such access as kids when records were 7 bucks, that was a lot of money back then. Renting at Rudy's was what 2 bucks? With streaming I can listen to for instance lately in chronological order as I prefer, the entire back catalogs of Steely Dan, Tom Petty, David Bowie, B-52s, REM. All the Fat Wreck chords bands Strung out and Lagwagon, those are great bands. Stiff little Fingers, Smiths, System of A Down, Audioslave, Rage and others.

Y: Also, Ben: he and I went to high school together, although I never knew him back then (he's 3 years ahead). Where's he coming from musically? Is his use of the traditional drum grip any indication? [I may have that wrong, but I thought I recalled him using that grip in early Silkworm shows... And is he involved much in the song smithing?

J: Ben has super eclectic tastes in music. He loves the Rock, loves to play Rock, also a huge Soundgarden fan, Tool, Stone Temple Pilots etc... But he also listens to a lot of classical and plays a lot of classical music on the piano as well, J.S Bach is his favorite, he also follows all the session drummer dudes and he goes to the clinics and demos they do in music stores when they come around Seatown, guys like JoJo Mayer for instance. He switches his grips depending on his mood or the song, he also switches at will, left and right handed orientation to the snare and hi hat, sometimes in mid tune, he is that good. In albums past I have gotten some fine keyboard parts and bass parts from him as well, but for this record I did all the music and words and then as always we collaborate on the drum parts, the tempo and the final arrangements.

Y: So the album is called Waning Days, which immediately reminded me of the book "Dark Age Ahead," Jane Jacobs' last book before she died, where she goes deep on five areas where the west (but mostly the US) is pretty much clusterfucking itself into oblivion (culture-wise, financial, higher education, climate, etc). The book is just over 10 years old and it's looking more and more like she was spot-on. HOWEVER: it must be noted that aside from the album title and cover photo, there's not a real pessimistic outlook in the songs, or at least not that I could detect. So I ask you: am I missing some overarching theme of cultural and institutional decline among the songs?

J: Perhaps. Track 1 Informed Consent is a song about sexual assault and in particular the demise of Bill Cosby, and Trump pussy grabbing, so there is that. Track 2 I am nobody is about how as you age and your youthful self aggrandized importance in society wanes, as you just become another average Joe going to the mall and getting loaded too often, the lament of many as you grind into middle age and realize, yup, this is it, this is living, this is all there is. Whatever you make it or can afford to make it. Track 4 Cuddly Cats is a direct statement against the music business and the music business in the internet age, where music itself has become window dressing after thought for other commercial ventures, where kitties get more attention than actual artists trying to convey a meaningful message, where fake and sexy imagery is all that matters, trying to sell you stupid crap you don't need anyway. Those messages are there in the lyrics, however subtle. So there is some darkness but on the whole the message of the record is counter. Yeah we are in some Waning Days, but there is hope and light, all is not lost.

Y: You've been at this a long time. Inasmuch as you're able to say, what are some of the lessons you've learned about navigating the music industry, especially now as a man in his 40s with a job and family and so forth? Obviously until about the 2000s people still made a living playing music, but now that number is vanishingly small, and those people make most of their money playing live shows and slinging merch. But at least nowadays it's easier than ever to at least get your stuff out there, right? So what's a person to do?

J: I have never had a record deal, never had a manager or an agent, and although I have played a ton of shows and used to promote out of town shows even in Missoula back in the day, recorded now 11 albums, I never felt like I was part of the music industry. I have never made any real money from music. I think of myself the same way I am pretty sure most of my good friends think of me too as just an artist and a huge music fan, a recording artist.

There is no budget in the music industry anymore. Floyd, our Mix and Master friend of many years now, he is one of 2 guys left in Seattle makes a living just recording people as a hired engineer on a project. There is no investment in new talent anymore. Way way back for instance, Journey put out 3 records before they got Steve Perry and then became huge. Today no record company would give you budget for 3 records in the hopes you hit on the 4th one, no way. You would be surprised how little playing live pays these days as well, even for artists with hits in their back catalogs. There are only a few corporations that control nearly every live venue of any size in the entire country who book pre-paid package tours at venue capacities of 250 all the way to 40,000 people. These companies take a lions share of the revenue, especially in the smaller rooms. It is corporate parasitic control of the medium and the media, fuck them all.

Despite the relative ease of self publishing these days, It may surprise you that It is not really easier to 'get your stuff out there' anymore because of the complete information overload now, music is just 1s and 0s just like all other commodified information, entertainment and or otherwise. It is just not worth much anymore because there is just too damn much of it out there, new and back catalog alike. A small needle in a million haystacks. You can have the #1 record in America buy selling a mere 50k copies in a week. To contrast, when Nevermind came out in the weeks to follow they were selling 100K an hour, dig it.

So the thing to do is just to be your creative self and do it because you love to do it, because it is a part of you, and be glad you don't have the pressures of an industry telling you what you should sound like. If you don't get famous in your 20s, chances are, you are not going to get famous playing rock music, so just don't worry about it, don't quit, keep playing, keep creating. As Tolkein said in the beginning there was light, and there was music. We are of light and music. There will always be new songs to write and share.

Y: Well yeah, by 'get your stuff out there' I meant anyone can put their entire creative output somewhere where 3+ billion people could potentially get it, and with very little upfront capital outlay, but then of course it's effectively commodified. And whether anyone ends up giving a shit... that's another matter of course. It's a paradox of unforseen consequences.

J: Totally.

Y: Well hell, I don't have any other specific questions other than the usual "what's next for the Bitter Roots?" So what's next for the Bitter Roots? Any other hard-fought wisdom you'd like to impart to other independent artists, or to the world in general?

J: What is next for us is more songs and more recording. We have already started in on a new set, probably take a few years to put out. No shows planned at this time, maybe in the future, who knows. I don't have any profound words of wisdom other than, as an independent artist trust your own judgement and don't worry too much about external validation, cause these days the state of shit is as hollow as Facebook. Stay positive, Trump's days are numbered and we the good, the meek, the thoughtful, the artistic and domestic alike will rise again and steer us all toward a more equitable future in the fashion of MLK and Obama.

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schpiedehl · 7 years

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An open letter to Hamilton (etc) fan artists, Re:whitewashing

Hello. Time for another ill-constructed rant on probably already well-tread ground. Specifically whitewashing in fan art (even more specifically Hamilton art though this could be applied to any fandom) and when it is ok. lol jk it’s never ok. PLEASE NOTE: I am an (amateur) artist. I am not ragging on artists because I “don’t understand how hard making art is,” “how hard artists work,” or what have you. These are legitimate problems of representation in fanart (that I have witnessed firsthand) and this is my earnest attempt to elucidate these issues. Feel free to interact with this post as you see fit. I am always free for debate if you disagree, would like clarification, or have anything to add.

+Look out for those embedded hyperlinks for more content

Preface: I am a member of far too many fb Hamilton groups. Sometimes people post their art, apparently forgetting that when you post things online you open yourself to critique. Hilarity ensues.

I often see Hamilton characters (generally portrayed as original Broadway cast members - Lin-Manuel Miranda, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos, etc.) who have been horrifically whitewashed - complete with lightened skin, bizarrely red or light brown hair, lightened eyes, and so forth. The most common defenses for this misstep, from both artists and fans, are personal style and apparent inability to approximate accurate skin tone (“I tried but skin color is hard”). Here’s why both of those excuses are utter bullshit.

1. Personal Style:

A lot of things in life are open to interpretation and all art is inherently interpretive. But the racial and cultural identity of a real life person is not one of these interpretive things. [PAUSE: before anyone says that this is precisely what Hamilton is doing with its casting, don’t.] First of all, I get it, personal style is important to art. Some people trend toward realism while others prefer more abbreviated, abstracted, and/or cartoony styles and part of that is selecting stylized color palettes, interpreting color in new and inventive ways, and playing with light, value, line, form, etc. This is NOT what I am talking about. It is entirely possible to honor a person’s background using relative or approximated shading/tone/coloration and to create beautiful art in the process [example: Chris Vision’s color series]. This little rant is specifically directed at people who "attempt" to depict Hamilton (etc) actors/characters using realistic/semi-realistic color palettes (as in, how they appear irl, accounting for abstraction, drawing style, etc) but fall short when it comes to depicting the actors, particularly in regards to racial background. You can find excellent examples of what I mean at Calling Out Whitewashed Hamilton Art and I’m positive you can find far too many examples in this and many other fandoms simply by scrolling through the tags on Tumblr and Instagram. So without further ado, lightening a person/character’s skin in fanart is racist. There’s really no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Foremost, the practice of editing a person of color to appear more European (skin, hair, eyes, even facial features) intentionally erases the cultural, racial, and ethnic background of the person in question. This is incredibly disrespectful to the actors who portray these characters and works to undermine what Hamilton as a whole is trying to build. If Hamilton is trying to reclaim American history for People of Color, stripping the racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds from the actors represents a rejection of conceit and, perhaps, even a form of appropriation. It is as though “fans” are saying that they want the art that is made by and for POC while simultaneously rejecting the distinctly racialized aspects of that art. When artists depict Lin!Hamilton as white, they are rejecting the Nuyorican background which Lin brings to the character in both writing and performance and projecting faux whiteness upon the character. In doing so, whether consciously or not, they are rejecting the actor’s race as well. Lin is beloved because of the art that he makes which allows many fans to look past his racial and cultural identity rather than accept it as an intrinsic aspect of both the man and his art. Moreover, the ubiquity of this whitewashed art also reveals a lot about what “fans” find visually appealing and acceptable - e.g., the Eurocentric standard of beauty. Whitewashing in art represents not only a rejection of POC’s culture but, obviously, their physical attributes as well. Dark skin is lightened and or whitened, hair is often straightened and/or lightened to a light brown or red hue (with the exception of Laurens, whose features, hair in particular, are often feminized as a form a queer fetishization but that is a rant for another day), and features are changed to appear more European. Often, depictions of characters are changed so much it is nearly impossible to tell that the art is based on any particular actor. In addition to being, again, extremely disrespectful to the actors, this further perpetuates the extremely harmful notion that beauty only exists in European features and sends a direct message to POC fans that their appearance is neither beautiful not accepted by the fanbase of a piece of media that was made by other POC specifically to appeal to them. This seems especially true of dark skinned black individuals who are often completely stripped of the melanin in fan art, further driving home notions of ingrained cultural colorism and anti-blackness. With Hamilton in particular, it is fine to “change” a character’s race if and only if you are depicting a character as a different actor. For instance, while Lin!Hamilton is Latino, Michael!Hamilton is a black man and depicting Hamilton as such, while uncommon among fan communities, is better than fine [*the lack of art of dark skinned actors is another point of contention. Not only are dark skinned actors frequently whitewashed, many are ignored altogether]. Depicting Michael!Hamilton as light skinned or white, however, is obviously not fine. Having established that lightening a character’s skin or depicting them with more European features is inherently racist, the claim that whitewashing is a stylistic choice is invalid. If you make the “stylistic choice” to depict a POC as white, you are racist. End of story. And if you want to do better but find yourself wanting to draw Lin!Hamilton as white, remember that this guy existed and just draw him instead. It’s not that hard. 2. Technical Difficulties:

One of the most unfortunately common excuses for whitewashing in fanart seems to be that, for some reason or another, artists have difficulty accurately approximating actors’ skin color so they presumedly just make something up, This results in Lin!Hamilton and Phillipa!Eliza looking a bit like Snow White, Oak!Mulligan looking a little tan, and so forth. As an artist, I understand that approximating realistic skintones can be rather hard, especially with traditional mediums, but it is glaringly obvious when artists don’t put in any effort. With traditional mediums such as paint, markers, or color pencils, artists can blend to create the colors which accurately (or as accurately as possible given the limitations of certain mediums like watercolors) approximate actors’ skin tones. If the colors dry lighter than intended, the artist generally layer and blend more to achieve a better approximation. If they then scan their image, they can use a photo editor to fix or correct any mistakes. It might not be the easiest to find good matches (speaking from experience, there aren’t a ton of good warm brown toned markers and thus a lot of blending is sometimes required) but, as previously stated, it’s generally easy to tell when someone at least tried to get close to a correct skin tone. With digital art, it’s even easier. Fact: Nearly all art programs have a nifty eyedropper tool which can be used to pull color swatches directly from a reference picture. Even MSpaint has this function. By pulling multiple swatches from a variety of reference images (to account for different lighting conditions), an artist can build a relatively accurate gradiented palette for skin tone. It’s really that simple! And if an artist notices that the color isn’t quite right, it’s nothing a few tweaks to hue and saturation can’t fix! If my tone seemed a bit sarcastic/passive aggressive in that last paragraph, it’s because it totally was. I see this excuse so much more often than I see any other excuse for whitewashed fan art and it is incredibly frustrating but also, as an (extraordinarily mediocre) artist myself, it rings incredibly inaccurate, especially for digital art. I completely understand that it sometimes takes a lot of time to get used to a medium but when an artist’s color palette is literally limitless, there is absolutely no reason (aside from personal, possibly subconscious/implicit but no less real, biases) for an actor/character to be depicted as white/light skinned when they are not. As previously discussed, that is disrespectful and harmful, and really only serves to make the artist (and those that support work) look like a jackass. And look, if you find yourself making whitewashed art, it’s not as though it is impossible to change. When someone criticizes your whitewash-y art, don’t get defensive. Don’t claim that it’s your style or that you don’t know how to color POC. It looks and sounds really fucking ridiculous. Instead, evaluate your art and place it into a cultural context. Take it as an opportunity to improve. And maybe also take the opportunity to learn a little about yourself and your biases. This wasn’t meant to be a call out post and I’d like to end this on a positive note so here are a few wonderful Hamilton fan artists who are worth a look: terror-in-a-dream zzzoehsu linmanwhydididothis mikiprice thegentlehoneybee dorothywonderland maeng

#hamilton #lin-manuel miranda #fanart #fan art #whitewashing #racism #longpost #rant #daveed diggs #Okieriete Onaodowan #phillipa soo #alexander hamilton #anthony ramos #lams #discourse #Renee Elise Goldsberry #john laurens #michael luwoye #jasmine cephas jones

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