#newsweek magazine 2022 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

theageoftheunderstatement · 1 year

Text

Newsweek Magazine: Arctic Monkeys Change Direction Yet Again on 'The Car'

Written by David Chiu, 24/10/2022

When Arctic Monkeys released their sixth studio album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, in 2018, it was viewed as a dramatic left turn for the British band primarily known for their guitar-charged indie rock and the distinct lyrics of frontman Alex Turner. For that record, the British quartet incorporated ornate psychedelic and lounge-pop influences that leaned toward Burt Bacharach and the Beach Boys, with the piano becoming more prominent than the guitar. Yet, those noticeable shifts didn't appear to alienate the band's diehard fans when Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino became the band's sixth consecutive number one album in the U.K.

After that stylistic detour, fans might have expected Arctic Monkeys—Turner, drummer Matt Helders, bassist Nick O'Malley and guitarist Jamie Cook—to return to the earlier brash rock for their next album. But the band from Sheffield remains determined to evolve and defy expectations, as indicated by The Car, released October 21 via Domino Records. It's a continuation of the trippy and elegant after-hours vibe mined on Tranquility Base, although the music—featuring strings and horns this time—sounds more loose, atmospheric and expansive.

"I think there's this idea of when starting a new record [is the] 'we're-not-gonna-make-it-anything-like-the-last-one,'" the pensive Turner tells Newsweek. "But what I realize more often than not is they all seem to bleed into each other. It's only now when I've got this one under the microscope, I realized how much of that is true. I was probably trying to get away from things we've done on that last record. But I think there's still some of that kind of hanging over here into [The Car], but hopefully not to the extent where it isn't also reaching some new places that we haven't been before as well."

A listen to The Car (produced by longtime collaborator James Ford) immediately draws comparisons to the music of such artists as David Bowie (somewhere between his Young Americans and Station to Station albums), Serge Gainsbourg, Nick Cave and Scott Walker as well as '70s R&B and glam—and yet it still sounds like Arctic Monkeys. "I find it a bit more difficult than I have in the past to draw a line between records of other artists and this thing," Turner says. "I could probably pencil in a few. Perhaps the things I've sort of absorbed for a relatively long period of time now just influenced the process but in a more subtle way than having a discussion saying, 'Let's try and do a song like this' or something. It feels a little more unspoken now. Perhaps I'm just still too close to it in the moment."

Unlike Tranquility Base, whose theme centered on a futuristic hotel on the moon, The Car doesn't primarily focus on a particular subject running through the songs' enigmatic lyrics. "I think there is a theme or feel that runs through this whole record, but I don't think it's exclusive to the words," Turner explains. "It's almost easier to latch on to a theme if I take the words out of it for a minute and focus on what the feel of everything else is doing. I think that the lyrics are sometimes subscribing to that feel. And if there is a theme that runs through it, it's more along those lines than it is about XYZ, if that makes any sense at all."

"The first thing I wrote through it was this instrumental section at the beginning of the album," he continues. "Everything that came after that was written after that. It felt like it has a relationship with what was being evoked in that instrumental section. I wouldn't be leaning into the idea of it's just another 10 songs that aren't connected in any way. But at the same time, I don't think I can pin down a theme, not in a succinct sentence anyway."

The first single released off The Car, "There'd Better Be a Mirrorball," carries an air of melancholy amid the gorgeous strings and prominent piano lines, as Turner sings wistfully: "So if you want to walk me to the car you ought to know I have a heavy heart, so can we please be absolutely sure that there's a mirror ball."

"Obviously, you're describing the lead-up to some sort of goodbye line," Turner says, "and suddenly a mirrorball drops into the middle of that situation, which somehow doesn't seem totally incongruous in my mind. Perhaps on some level, the mirrorball is kind of synonymous with the closing of the show or something like that. But I think what I was imagining is carrying someone's suitcase to the car and then the lighting suddenly changes and the mirrorball drops in the middle of that situation. It's like, 'What's going on there?'I think it does feel like there are a few goodbyes here and there."

Introduced by beautiful acoustic guitar picking, the lyrical setting of "Mr. Schwartz" seems to take place at a movie shoot, which seems appropriate given the cinematic feeling of the song and the album. "There is a feeling of that behind-the-scenes of the production," Turner says. "That idea is not exclusive to or contained within just that song....It feels like there is something going on in the background of all these songs, like sort of a production: There's someone with a clipboard somewhere and somebody's up a ladder not too far from where these things are going on. The character of Mr. Schwartz was something that kind of did present itself to me in very real life, but sort of has been allowed to become a character in a song, I suppose."

The sweeping "Body Paint," the latest single, may be the most brash song of the collection. There are moments of electric guitar bursting through the lush orchestrations, while Turner's vocalizing echoes Bowie's '70s soul boy phase. It opens with a line Steely Dan or Prefab Sprout could have written: "For a master of deception and subterfuge you've made yourself quite the bed to lie in." Explains Turner: "It definitely does get pretty sparkly in the guitar toward the end of that. It's loud...more than I had expected it from the sketches of that song that we had before. I had it down for something that was gentle at the beginning. But during the session, there was something that was more lively that wanted to come out there at the end. I think that songs always continue to reveal themselves even sometimes after they've been recorded. We played the version of that on stage for the first time the other day, and it definitely seemed like it's still got somewhere to go. It's becoming a more exaggerated version of itself."

The Car marks another maturation and evolution in Arctic Monkeys' sound. Its release falls on the 20th anniversary of the band's formation. The hype surrounding Arctic Monkeys' arrival in the post-Britpop era has since become the stuff of legend: their early recordings were burned on CDs and given away at their shows, which prompted fans to upload them online. After signing with indie label Domino, Arctic Monkeys released 2006's Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which hit number one in the U.K. and became that country's biggest-selling debut. Since then, it has been hit albums, touring and festival appearances for the band. On his end, Turner has been engaged with a side project, the Last Shadow Puppets, whose elaborate sounds may have been a prelude to the music of Tranquility Base and The Car.

"It was the summer of 2002 when we first got all the way through the same song at the same time together," he recalls. "We still are friends like we were before it started, and still trusting each other and our instincts in the same way. " The fact that Arctic Monkeys never made the same album twice most likely contributed to their longevity and friendship. It's been a progression that was more natural than calculated.

"When I cast my mind back to 20 years ago," says Turner, "there's always been something inherently uncooperative. I don't know if that somehow has translated to each time we've been faced with the task of making something new. There's something about not wanting to kind of cooperate with our perception of what we think that should be. I suppose you can arrive at the idea that if one record was successful, the next one should try and emulate or bark up the same tree as that one was. We're not having the board meeting where we're kind of discussing that out loud to that extent. The whole thing in the first place was done on a hunch, on an instinct, and I think that's something we're just still paying attention to, that same instinct all the way along. That's the through line."

Arctic Monkeys will be touring the U.K., Ireland, North America and South America the rest of this year and into 2023. Having branched out on their last two records, it wouldn't be surprising if their next record tackled another genre, perhaps hip-hop or ambient music. Turner says. "Yeah, why not? I'd have to give it some more thought. When I think about my perception of the way people make dance music, I am interested in that approach to it. I'm not saying that it's something I want to do, but I'm interested in watching somebody do it or something for an afternoon."

#interview #arctic monkeys #alex turner #the car era #newsweek magazine 2022 #it's an interview in october but i think it wasn't posted here?#i love how he described there'd better be a mirrorball and mr. schwartz here

34 notes · View notes

gluekit · 2 years

Text

Gluekit illustration for Newsweek, November 2022

#Gluekit #cover illustration #photo-illustration #Trump #Trump magazine cover #Newsweek #2022 #editorial illustration

0 notes

strangebiology · 1 year

Text

10 Years on Tumblr!

This is the 10th anniversary of this blog. I've got a count of 65,000 followers, but I'm sure much fewer people are actually here. Still, I'm happy to get some engagement!

I started this blog because I had applied to an internship with Huffington Post's Crime and Weird News, and the interviewer asked if I had a blog. I figured, why don't I have one if I'm supposed to be a professional journalist, and lots of people have blogs?

I had a lot of fun writing about what I wanted to write about, having been trained with a degree in journalism that focused a lot on stuff I wasn't interested in ("Community Meeting About Pothole on Third Avenue," etc). But man, did it ever start flowing when I could focus on animals and bones and stuff!

So I got a master's in Science Journalism at Boston University, then interned at National Geographic, then freelanced for them, did a fellowship at PBS Newshour, took a job at Newsweek, then a bunch of other little things, then Bay Nature Magazine. You can see some of my writing here.

Social media has always been part of my career. I think that this blog helped me stand out on my application to Nat Geo and launched me into that. Then at PBS Newshour I was a Science and Social Media News Assistant, then at both Newsweek and Bay Nature, I really improved the social media presence of our content. (Among other things, I did @newsweekscience 's Tumblr and Bay Nature's TikTok). I have a list of my social media accounts in this pinned post.

In 2018 I pitched a book called Carcass to MIT Press, and they were interested, but that kind of went to the back burner in the craziness of that time. In 2020 I started a Tiktok (RollBones) which now has more than 190,000 followers. Then in 2022 I revisited the book, got an agent, and now I have a $50k advance book deal with MIT Press. Carcass (@carcassafterlives) should be out in the spring of 2025.

Thanks for sticking around!

#tumblr milestone #tumblr anniversary #10 year tumblrversary #social media #Journalism career

53 notes · View notes

allnightlongzine · 4 months

Text

The Eternal March of the Black Parade

Twenty years after their debut album and more than a decade after the critics dismissed them, My Chemical Romance stands as one of the greatest rock bands of the 21st century. How did we end up here?

Rob Harvilla | Jul 26, 2022 | theringer.com

Illustration by Brent Schoonover

My Chemical Romance is touring again, Paramore and Jimmy Eat World are headlining a major festival this fall, and there’s a skinny, tattooed white dude with a guitar dominating the charts. In case you haven’t heard, emo is back, baby! In honor of its return to prominence—plus the 20th anniversary of the first MCR album—The Ringer is following Emo Wendy’s lead and tapping into that nostalgia. Welcome to Emo Week, where we’ll explore the scene’s roots, its evolution to the modern-day Fifth Wave, and some of the ephemera around the genre. Grab your Telecasters and Manic Panic and join us in the Black Parade.

Our story starts in New York City on September 11, 2001. It just does. Suspend your disbelief; respect his audacity. But is it really so hard to believe, and is it really so audacious, that Gerard Way—then a 24-year-old New Jersey native, NYC art school graduate, and creatively stifled Cartoon Network intern—would choose that awful, vulnerable, crushingly human moment to reimagine himself as something immortal, someone superheroic? “That felt like the end of the world,” he told Newsweek in 2019. “It felt like the apocalypse. I was surrounded by hundreds of people on a dock on the Hudson River, and we watched the buildings go down, and there was this wave of human anguish that I’ve never felt before. Since then, I’ve continued to think about what we would do at the end of the world if we knew we only had a little time left.”

Standing on that dock, what Gerard decided he would do was channel his shock and grief and newfound sense of immediacy into the ultimate rock-star origin story. “Something just clicked in my head that morning,” he told Spin magazine in 2005. “I literally said to myself, ‘Fuck art. I’ve gotta get out of the basement. I’ve gotta see the world. I’ve gotta make a difference!’” So he hooked up with a drummer friend from high school named Matt Pelissier (the first of several drummers, alas) and wrote an anguished, furious, and yet startlingly tender pop-punk song called “Skylines and Turnstiles.” It starts like this.

You’re not in this alone Let me break this awkward silence Let me go, go on record Be the first to say I’m sorry Hear me out

Gerard sang and played guitar, though he struggled to do both at once. (It’s harder than it looks.) Slowly, he found other bandmates: Ray Toro and Frank Iero on guitars, plus his own younger brother Mikey Way on bass. Thanks to his gig working at Barnes & Noble, Mikey also contributed a band name: My Chemical Romance, an improvement on the title of an Irvine Welsh book. The band signed with a tiny label called Eyeball Records and released, on July 23, 2002, their debut album, called I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, produced by New Jersey punk deity and Thursday frontman Geoff Rickly, who’d already mastered the dark art of combining the rawest possible materials into something impossibly gargantuan.

This broken city sky Like butane on my skin Stolen from my eyes Hello angel, tell me Where are you? Tell me where we go from here

“Skylines and Turnstiles” is not, by a long shot, the highlight of MCR’s least-great album. The raw materials are there, of course: the scabrous and shimmering guitars, the breathless downhill-sprint propulsion, the throat-shredding screams to bolster the chorus and punctuate Gerard’s unguarded and brutal horror-flick lyricism. But your first song is never your best. Here, the one called “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us” is better. And the one called “Vampires Will Never Hurt You,” and the one called “Demolition Lovers,” and the one called “Drowning Lessons,” and even the one called “Cubicles.” But as an opening salvo, as the gritty first panel in a dense and ludicrously ambitious comic-book-punk saga, as an achingly sincere attempt to break the awkward silence and roll back the wave of human anguish, as a macabre but heartfelt attempt at genuine connection, Gerard Way’s first song got him where he needed to go, which was firmly on the road to leading everyone where they needed to go.

And after seeing what we saw Can we still reclaim our innocence? And if the world needs something better Let’s give them one more reason, now

It’s the rousing, heartbreaking vocal harmony on the words the world needs something better that shows you what Gerard and his vampiric cohort is really about. Look beyond the eyeliner, the hair dye, the ghostly pallor, the extra-macabre marching band outfits, the wholesale mall-goth hijacking of this band’s whole look, its whole ethos. Don’t flinch at the lyrics no matter how gnarly and nihilistic they seem to get; don’t get too wrapped up in the surreal sensationalism of their flames-and-chaos music videos. Buy the album tie-in comic book or don’t. Just never forget that the closer we get to the end of the world, the tighter Gerard Way means to hold us, to make however much time we have left just that much more bearable.

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love just celebrated its 20th birthday, and inspired some very excellent anniversary pieces despite being, well, MCR’s least-great album. Their next record was a gleaming and snarling major-label-debut colossus that crowned the fellas as Warped Tour royalty; the record after that was a hilariously overblown rock-opera funeral march and consensus masterpiece that now stands among the greatest emo albums ever born, any era, any wave; the record after that is my personal favorite. Then MCR broke up in 2013, to appropriately operatic dismay, going out as close to On Top as a youngish rock band possibly can.

There was no explicit tabloid-roiling catalyst, no real drama, except no drama is not exactly this band’s vibe. Gerard’s farewell letter, posted to Twitter three days after the news broke and titled A Vigil, On Birds and Glass, is my personal favorite Rock Band Breakup Explanation Letter, any subgenre, any era, precisely because it captures this band’s precise and fantastic combination of galactically overwrought and unabashedly intimate.

We were spectacular. Every show I knew this, every show I felt it with or without external confirmation. There were some clunkers, sometimes our secondhand gear broke, sometimes I had no voice- we were still great. It is this belief that made us who we were, but also many other things, all of them vital- And all of the things that made us great were the very things that were going to end us- Fiction. Friction. Creation. Destruction. Opposition. Aggression. Ambition. Heart. Hate. Courage. Spite. Beauty. Desperation. LOVE. Fear. Glamour. Weakness. Hope. Fatalism.

And then he expands on the fatalism part as a way of explaining why, exactly, this band broke up after only 11 years and four albums.

That last one is very important. My Chemical Romance had, built within its core, a fail-safe. A doomsday device, should certain events occur or cease occurring, would detonate. I shared knowledge of this “flaw” within weeks of its inception. Personally, I embraced it because, again, it made us perfect. A perfect machine, beautiful, yet self aware of its system. Under directive to terminate before it becomes compromised. To protect the idea- at all costs. This probably sounds like something ripped from the pages of a four-color comic book, and that’s the point. No compromise. No surrender. No fucking shit. To me that’s rock and roll. And I believe in rock and roll.

He goes on at great length. It’s wild, it’s lovely, it’s absurd, it’s genuinely moving. The fellas found stuff to keep them busy post-breakup, and Gerard most prominently, of course: the solo album, the ongoing and relentlessly off-kilter Netflix series based on his comic book. And then, inevitably, MCR reunited—tentatively in late 2019, and full-throatedly here in 2022, headlining giant festivals and packing arenas as what certainly feels like the first rock-band reunion that anybody’s actually given a shit about in years. Put it this way: If you are a remotely young person who, like Way himself, still believes in rock and roll, My Chemical Romance is very likely why, and it’s worth ruminating on how, exactly, this profoundly strange and desperately necessary band has inspired such belief. Anybody who listened to I Brought You My Bullets in 2002 couldn’t have predicted any of this. But the guys who made it did.

Emo is back, baby! In honor of its return to prominence—plus the 20th anniversary of the first MCR album—we’re diving deep into all things emo.

Grab your Telecasters and Manic Panic and join us for Emo Week.

The most striking song on I Brought You My Bullets—the most Gerard song, the most MCR song, The Most in general—is called “Early Sunsets Over Monroeville.” It begins as a woozy but deceptively gentle waltz but darkens by ominous degrees, and soon Gerard is wailing the line “If I had the guts / To put this to your head,” and maybe you worry for a second that this is the 200,000th uncouth and unnervingly violent post-breakup emo song. And then you find out that Monroeville is in Pennsylvania, and parts of George Romero’s 1978 zombie-flick classic Dawn of the Dead were shot there, and oh, wow, suddenly you realize this is actually a very grim, very romantic song about an inconsolable man realizing he has to kill his no-longer-human wife:

And there’s no room in this hell There’s no room in the next And our memories defeat us And I’ll end this duress

Not the best song, but the most. My Chemical Romance would get truly dangerous, and truly great, when their best and their most intertwined. They signed to a major label; all the coolest kids do. Deal with it. Deal with this, while you’re at it.

“You like D&D, Audrey Hepburn, Fangoria, Harry Houdini, and croquet,” Ray Toro informs Gerard Way at the onset of “I’m Not Okay (I Promise),” one of several monster singles from their 2004 Reprise Records debut, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. “You can’t swim, you can’t dance, and you don’t know karate. Face it: You’re never gonna make it.” Cue the high-school-outcast histrionics, the cuddly arena-punk viciousness, Gerard’s destabilizing magnetism as he practically screams in your face, the vintage airbrushed-van metalhead radness of Ray’s guitar solo, and, before the final bone-crushing chorus, a truly bonkers Gerard buildup/breakdown for the ages:

But you really need to listen to me Because I’m telling you the truth I mean this I’m okay (Trust me)

And, boom. There are days when this is the best song ever written. And there are other days when it’s not even the best song on Three Cheers: “Helena” has a majestic Mötley Crüe meets the Misfits chorus, the power chords ascending a stairway to hell, an infinite legion of demons pumping their fists along to every word: So long and good night / So long and good night. Or maybe the power-ballad pyrotechnics of “The Ghost of You” do it for you, the classic quiet-verse-loud-chorus dynamics, Gerard’s unapologetic controlled-screaming melodrama (“At the top of my lungs in my arms / SHE DIES”), the extra-luxe video that recreates D-Day down to the puking soldiers landing on the beach. Tell me these guys aren’t spectacular, and not driven by friction, ambition, LOVE, glamour, and fatalism.

By 2005 MCR are headlining the good ol’ Warped Tour alongside Fall Out Boy, and early-2000s third-wave emo—undaunted in its embrace of pop-punk, of the mall, of teenagers both actual and perpetual—has its very own Queen, and/or Led Zeppelin, and/or Pink Floyd. Suspend your disbelief; respect their audacity. “The main thing that we’ve always wanted to do was to save people’s lives,” Gerard informed the magazine Alternative Press in 2004. “That sounds Mother Teresa–ish and outlandish, but it really does happen. It does make a huge difference. We’ve seen it in action.”

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, by the way, is a semi-derailed concept album involving two lovers, a man and a woman, who both seemingly die in a gunfight: The man goes to hell, is informed by the Devil that the woman is still alive, and agrees to kill 1,000 evil men in exchange for the chance to reunite with her. I say semi-derailed because during the writing process Gerard and Mikey’s beloved grandmother died—“Helena” is about her—and Gerard considered scrapping the whole thing. “When that happened, I was like, ‘Fuck. Oh, God. How am I going to deal with this story? Does it even matter anymore? Is it just fucking pretentious? Is it bullshit?’” he told Alternative Press. “And then I came to grips with it and said, ‘Fuck it. I’m going to write the songs that I want.’” Even the song called “You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison” has a certain funereal poignancy to it.

Even for a band already operating at this scale in terms of both ungodly rock-star bombast and naked emotional intimacy—Gerard has gotten increasingly forthright in interviews about his struggles with mental health and substance misuse in this era—My Chemical Romance’s third and biggest and most extravagantly beloved album, 2006’s The Black Parade, struck like a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky. There is an awful lot to absorb here; the marching-band outfits are as good a place to start as any.

The Black Parade is a classic leveling-up record, the fairly conventional tale of a young, ferocious rock band hitting its commercial peak (the album debuted at no. 2 on the Billboard album chart, behind a Hannah Montana soundtrack) with the help of some new big-shot collaborators. It was produced by Rob Cavallo, who probably also produced your favorite Green Day album; the screaming-and-fire video for “Famous Last Words” was directed by Samuel Bayer, who also directed your favorite Nirvana video. (I’m just assuming your favorite Nirvana video is “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”) Several members of the band got severely injured while shooting this, by the way, and somehow you can just tell.

The Black Parade is also an unprecedented and not-at-all-conventional narrative flex credibly described by The New York Times as “a stricken tour de force about coming of age in the post-9/11 era.” It’s a not-at-all-derailed concept album about a man (“The Patient”) dying of cancer while wracked by fear and regret; Gerard decided to add to the verisimilitude by cutting his hair short and dying it a stark silver. (“I wanted to appear white and deathlike and gaunt and sick-looking,” he cheerfully told the NYT.) Liza Minnelli (“I love those guys”) drops by to portray a grieving mother; musically, the klezmer parts somehow hit harder than the heavy metal parts. Influences range from David Bowie to KISS to the Beatles; there is also, as the marching-band uniforms might suggest, a marching band. The scale of this, in every sense, is nearly overwhelming, so if you’re new to it all maybe start out by just putting the caustically hilarious goth-blues anthem “Teenagers” on repeat for six hours.

They said, “All teenagers scare the livin’ shit out of me” They could care less as long as someone’ll bleed So darken your clothes, or strike a violent pose Maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me

Even five years ago, this record was an easy fan favorite but not necessarily an agreed-upon, era-defining masterwork. “The Black Parade, though well-reviewed at the time, hasn’t accrued the same reputation as other classic albums,” the critic Jeremy Gordon wrote in 2016 in a 10th-anniversary piece for Spin. “It was almost entirely ignored in lists of the best albums of the ’00s run by tastemakers and canon-formers like Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Stereogum, Billboard, Paste, Complex, NME, and, yes, Spin.” By this record’s 20th anniversary, however, it might be universally hailed as the pop-punk Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: In 2020, when Rolling Stone unveiled its updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, there was The Black Parade at no. 361, not quite as good as Funkadelic’s One Nation Under a Groove, but just a little better than Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much.

You could argue that rock critics ruin everything. You could regard The Black Parade’s steady ascent on lists like this as proof that something essential—a life-affirming secret shared only between MCR and their Day One fans—is being lost. As a Late Pass–holder myself, out of respect/trepidation, I have decided not to argue that the band’s fourth and last album, 2010’s Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, is actually their best album, even though I love it profoundly for both the reliable audacity of its concept (now MCR are Mad Max–esque rebels battling an evil corporation in postapocalyptic California, with the Gerard-penned comic book to prove it) and the chaotic scope of the songs themselves. Get acclimated by putting the song “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)” on repeat this time.

Danger Days probably includes one too many songs that blatantly reach for Coldplay-style arena-rock uplifting grandeur, but what I will say is that this record’s final attempt at volcanic sentimentality, “The Kids From Yesterday,” totally works, and the album ends with an extra-caustic and extra-hilarious trashing punk tirade called “Vampire Money,” in which Gerard politely declines to contribute a song to the soundtrack of a Twilight movie.

(Come on!) When you wanna be a movie star (Come on!) Play the game and take the band real far (Come on!) Play it right and drive a Volvo car Pick a fight at an airport bar The kids don’t care if you’re alright, honey Pills don’t help, but it sure is funny Give me give me some of that vampire money, come on!

“Originally, what we did was take goth and put it with punk and turn it into something dangerous and sexy,” Gerard explained to the NME. “Back then nobody in the normal punk world was wearing black clothes and eyeliner. We did it because we had one mission: to polarize, to irritate, to contaminate. But then that image gets romanticized and then it gets commoditized.”

This is all delightfully but decidedly rude: There’s an excellent argument that the Twilight universe is every bit as vital and inclusive and life-affirming as any of the rock bands it attempted to romanticize and/or commoditize. But I will laugh at the line Pick a fight at an airport bar forever.

As for MCR’s breakup, and the failsafe doomsday device that triggered it, within a few years Gerard was opening up about it: In 2014 he told the NME that he’d relapsed into alcoholism after Danger Days, and worried that his daughter would grow up without a father; the choice, he concluded, was “Break the band or break me.”

The band first reunited for a single show in 2019 in Los Angeles: “That was definitely the most fun I’ve ever had playing on stage with My Chemical Romance, for sure,” Gerard told the NME, adding that “to me, the new version of My Chemical Romance and the way I want to go about it is exercising less control.” (The NME loves this guy.) The band’s festival-headliner status now is in part a reflection of pop-punk’s bizarrely ascending reputation in the past five years as both a commercial and critical proposition, from Olivia Rodrigo to Machine Gun Kelly to Juice WRLD. But however many sonic and stylistic precedents there might be, there has never been a rock band quite this courageous, spiteful, beautiful, desperate, glamorous, hopeful.

I believe Gerard when he says that this band’s original mission was “to polarize, to irritate, to contaminate,” but that was never their only mission. MCR was born in an apocalypse, and designed to help us all survive it. Us meaning actual teenagers, not critics, but we caught on eventually. We are all bandwagoners on the Black Parade now. Meanwhile, the apocalypse is closer than ever, but at least we can all huddle together in the glow.

#the ringer #outside #swarm

3 notes · View notes

noaasanctuaries · 2 years

Text

Learn how to photograph stunning marine life with Jesse Cancelmo 📸

Have you ever wondered how to capture amazing photographs of marine life? Are you interested in improving your photography skills or trying something new? Jesse Cancelmo is here to help. An accomplished diver and underwater photographer, Cancelmo made his first scuba dive in 1969 on a coral reef in Bermuda. Since that plunge, he has stoked his passion by diving around the globe from World War II wrecks off the New Jersey coast to the coral reefs of Papua New Guinea. Cancelmo’s photography and articles have appeared in leading wildlife, diving, and news publications including Dive Training magazine, BBC Wildlife, National Geographic, USA Today and Newsweek. Cancelmo is the author of four books: Diving Bermuda, Diving Cayman Islands, Texas Coral Reefs, and Glorious Gulf of Mexico, which features images of the coral reefs and marine life of the three countries with shorelines on the Gulf—Mexico, Cuba, and the U.S.

May 25, 2022 at 1 pm Hawai`i / 4 pm Pacific / 6 pm Central / 7 pm Eastern

#EarthIsBlue #GetIntoYourSanctuary #UnderwaterPhotography #Webinar #NOAA

67 notes · View notes

fashionbooksmilano · 1 year

Photo

Music in the ‘80s

Lynn Goldsmith

Rizzoli, New York 2022, 352 pages, hardcover, 33 x 25,4 cm, ISBN: 978-0-8478-7225-1

euro 72,00

email if you want to buy :[email protected]

Chances are you’ve seen numerous iconic pictures by award-winning portrait and documentary photographer Lynn Goldsmith at some point in your life. Her images have graced the covers of magazines worldwide from Life to Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, People and many more. She has also published 14 monographs of her photographs, including the New York Times best-selling photobook New Kids (Rizzoli, 1990). Over the past 50 years, Goldsmith has photographed hundreds of musicians in studio portrait sessions, at live concerts, on the road and at home. Her new book, Music in the ‘80s, showcases an incredible range of artists during a decade when many new forms of music were gaining popularity: New Wave, Electronica, Rap, Metal, and Ska had chart topping success, as did R&B and Pop. Michael Jackson, Philip Glass, Run DMC, Miles Davis, Judas Priest - these are but a few of the names that during this period became icons. The 80’s was a time like no other in history, and the photographs chosen for this book are as diverse in their style as the music and dress of the decade. The book also features quotes from many of the people featured in Goldsmiths’ photographs—including Iggy Pop, Tina Turner, Keith Richards, Alice Cooper, Elvis Costello and more—as well as those who were influenced by the tremendous cultural importance of the decade, proving that Music in the ‘80s is sure to hit the right note for all lovers of music.

27/12/22

orders to: [email protected]

ordini a: [email protected]

twitter: @fashionbooksmi

instagram: fashionbooksmilano, designbooksmilano tumblr: fashionbooksmilano, designbooksmilano

#Music in the '80s #Lynn Goldsmith #Diana Ross #Miles davis #Iggy Pop #Alice Cooper #Carly Simon #Tina Turner #Elvis Costello #photography books #fashion books #fashionbooksmilano

8 notes · View notes

midnightfunk · 1 year

Text

The SPLC’s report also highlighted some interesting event attendees, such as Peter Brimelow, Jack Posobiec, and Josh Hammer.

In case you’re not familiar, Brimelow runs the white nationalist site VDARE. Posobiec is best known for pushing the #Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Hammer is the opinion editor of Newsweek, once considered a premier news magazine, and an advocate of “national conservatism” (which raises the question of whether it’s going too far for me to connect the dots between national conservatism and white nationalism).

#vdare #white nationalism #mtg #marjorie taylor greene #peter brimelow #newsweek #jack posobiec #josh hammer #MAGAts

2 notes · View notes

cinquecolonnemagazine · 4 months

Text

Ucraina, F-16 sono già in guerra? Gli indizi e le news

(Adnkronos) - Gli F-16 già sono in Ucraina? I jet promessi a Kiev dalla coalizione occidentale potrebbero già essere a disposizione delle forze armate ucraine. E' l'ipotesi che il magazine Newsweek rilancia sulla base di informazioni acquisite dopo gli ultimi sviluppi della guerra con la Russia, iniziata a febbraio 2022. Le indiscrezioni filtrano dopo una serie di news che non sono passate inosservate. Nelle ultime settimane, Kiev ha reso noto di aver abbattuto una serie di caccia russi - sarebbero almeno 8 dal 5 dicembre - e poco più di 24 ore fa è stata in grado di colpire la nave Novocherkassk ormeggiata nelle acque di Fedosia, in Crimea. In assenza di annunci e conferme ufficiali, Newsweek 'unisce i puntini'. Gli alleati occidentali hanno promesso da mesi la fornitura di F-16, i jet di fabbricazione Usa. Non sono mai state indicate, però, specifiche date di consegna degli apparecchi. Il presidente ucraino Volodymyr Zelensky da sempre evidenzia l'importanza di contrastare la Russia anche in cielo, per garantire maggiori difese e per sferrare attacchi più efficaci. Negli ultimi giorni, gli F-16 sono stati protagonisti anche nei messaggi diffusi su Telegram da profili e canali filorussi, che hanno fatto riferimento all'impiego dei jet. Da Kiev, nessuna conferma ufficiale. Newsweek, intanto, ha bussato ad una fonte americana. Risposta: è probabile che l'Ucraina abbia ricevuto i primi jet promessi. Il 22 dicembre, Zelensky ha genericamente fatto riferimento ai 'preparativi' dell'invio di F-16 da parte dell'Olanda, che ha promesso un pacchetto di 18 aerei. In diversi paesi oltre agli Usa, compresi Regno Unito e Romania, i piloti ucraini sono stati accolti per l'addestramento. Gli F-16 sono differenti rispetto ai jet che l'aviazione di Kiev ha avuto a disposizione e i velivoli con ogni probabilità dovranno essere anche adattati alle esigenze dei piloti. Per Kiev, ovviamente, i caccia potrebbero rappresentare una svolta in una fase particolarmente complessa della guerra. La controffensiva non ha prodotto i risultati auspicati da Zelensky. La Russia è in grado di mandare al fronte migliaia di uomini e preme soprattutto lungo il fronte orientale, dove ha recentemente rivendicato la conquista di Marinka, una città ormai inesistente e ridotta ad un cumulo di macerie. ---internazionale/[email protected] (Web Info) Read the full article

0 notes

harvest-moonie · 11 months

Text

cheese part 8

Layton, Thomas Arthur (1973). The Cheese Handbook: Over 250 Varieties Described, with Recipes. Courier Dover Publications. p. 130. ISBN9780486229553. Archived from the original on February 17, 2023. Retrieved February 1, 2023. the caseus helveticus mentioned by Columella was probably a Sbrinz"The History Of Cheese: From An Ancient Nomad's Horseback To Today's Luxury Cheese Cart". The Nibble. Lifestyle Direct, Inc. Archived from the original on May 8, 2019. Retrieved October 8, 2009. "British Cheese homepage". British Cheese Board. 2007. Archived from the original on May 12, 2019. Retrieved July 13, 2007. Quoted in Newsweek, October 1, 1962, according to The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations (Columbia University Press, 1993 ISBN0-231-07194-9, p. 345). Numbers besides 246 are often cited in very similar quotes; whether these are misquotes or whether de Gaulle repeated the same quote with different numbers is unclear. Smith, John H. (1995). Cheesemaking in Scotland – A History. The Scottish Dairy Association. ISBN978-0-9525323-0-9.. Full text (Archived link), Chapter with cheese timetable (Archived link). Cecil Adams (1999). "Straight Dope: How did the moon=green cheese myth start?".Archived May 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved October 15, 2005. Nemiroff, R.; Bonnell, J., eds. (April 1, 2006). "Hubble Resolves Expiration Date For Green Cheese Moon". Astronomy Picture of the Day. NASA. Retrieved October 8, 2009. "A Brief History of America's Appetite for Macaroni and Cheese". Smithsonian Magazine. Archived from the original on December 17, 2022. Retrieved December 17, 2022. Thom, Charles (1918). The Book of Cheese. New York: The Macmillan company. "History of Cheese". traditionalfrenchfood.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2012. Retrieved October 21, 2011. McGee, Harold (2004). On Food and Cooking (Revised ed.). Scribner. p. 54. ISBN0-684-80001-2. In the United States, the market for process cheese [...] is now larger than the market for 'natural' cheese, which itself is almost exclusively factory-made. Barkham, Patrick (January 10, 2012). "Why is cheese the most shoplifted food item in the world?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on April 10, 2022. Retrieved April 10, 2022. "World production of cheese (from whole cow milk) in 2014; Browse Data/Livestock Processed/World Regions/Production Quantity from pick lists". United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Statistics Division (FAOSTAT). 2017. Archived from the original on November 12, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2017. Workman, Daniel (April 12, 2016). "Cheese Exports by Country in 2015". World's Top Exports. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved June 2, 2016. "Carbon footprint of meat, egg, cheese and plant-based protein sources" (PDF). p. 24. Archived (PDF) from the original on July 18, 2022. Retrieved July 18, 2022. "Cheese Consumption – Kilograms per Capita". Canadian Dairy Information Centre. March 13, 2014. Archived from the original on January 14, 2016. Retrieved June 2, 2016.

#cheese #justcheese

0 notes

louisianaprelawland-blog · 11 months

Text

Warhol Foundation’s Loss In SCOTUS Case Rocks the Art World

By Lauren Barrouquere, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Class of 2024

May 25, 2023

In 1981, world-renowned photographer Lynn Goldsmith was commissioned by Newsweek to take photos and at the time up-and-coming rockstar [2]. Goldsmith took several photos of Prince in concert and did a studio shoot with him, putting him in makeup and adjusting the lighting to highlight his eyes [2]. Though Newsweek did not use the studio photos, Goldsmith kept them for future licensing [2].

Cut to 1984, Prince became a household name, and the magazine Vanity Fair wanted to capitalize off of this fame, so they commissioned artist Andy Warhol to create an illustration based on one of the studio photos Goldsmith took of Prince back in ‘81 [2]. Warhol did so, and Goldsmith was compensated with $400 and an agreement that that particular magazine issue will be the only issue in which the image was used [2].

There is no evidence that Warhol was aware of the agreement that the image would only be used once, and so he went on to create sixteen silk screens of Prince, all inspired by Goldsmith’s photograph [2]. Warhol, being a famous artist, sold silk screens and reproductions of them for millions of dollars [2].

Prince died in 2017, causing Conde Nast, Vanity Fair's parent company, to organize a tribute to the musical artist, including the Warhol piece inspired by Goldsmith’s photograph, and did not compensate Goldsmith [2]. After some time, Goldsmith sued the Warhol Foundation, the foundation responsible for the licensing of Warhol’s works, saying that they had infringed upon her copyright and owed her thousands as compensation [2]. The Warhol Foundation responded by saying that Warhol’s treatment of the photograph was “transformative” due to the cropping, coloration, and changes to the angle and outline of the photo, and therefore did not cause issues with copyright law [2].

The case bounced around the court system for several years before traveling up to the United States Supreme Court [4]. As of May 18th, the Warhol Foundation has lost the case [1]. The Court, in an opinion penned by Justice Sotomayor, found that whatever “degree of difference” was instilled into the work by Warhol was not transformative enough to sufficiently distinguish it from the original photograph [1]. The Court also focused heavily on fair use and found that the manner in which Warhol’s portrait of Prince was being used did not fall under any fair use protections, and this was compounded by the blatantly commercial nature of the portrait’s use [1].

Notably, this case was highly controversial, having caused more than 35 amicus curiae briefs to be filed arguing for one side or the other [2]. The decision to rule on the side of Goldsmith will certainly strengthen laws in favor of original artists but may prove difficult for artists and filmmakers who derive their work from existing bodies of art [2]. What impact this ruling will have on the art world as a whole remains to be seen.

______________________________________________________________

Lauren Barrouquere is currently a third-year undergraduate at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette studying political science and specializing in pre-law studies. Lauren hopes to attend law school upon graduation to become a civil rights attorney.

______________________________________________________________

1.https://news.justia.com/u-s-supreme-court-rules-in-favor-of-photographer-in-copyright-dispute-over-andy-warhols-prince-series-prints/

2. https://www.npr.org/2022/10/12/1127508725/prince-andy-warhol-supreme-court-copyright

3.https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/18/andy-warhol-copyright-prince-paintings-lawsuit

4.https://www.reuters.com/legal/warhol-estate-loses-us-supreme-court-copyright-fight-over-prince-paintings-2023-05-18/

0 notes

volumeofvalue · 1 year

Text

Code Name Blue Wren

BOOK REVIEWCode Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy―and the Sister She Betrayed by Jim Popkin 2022 About the AuthorJim Popkin is a journalist and writer whose work has appeared in Washington Post Magazine, WIRED, Newsweek, Slate, The Guardian, Washingtonian and on National Public Radio. He was a senior investigative producer at NBC News as well as an on-air…

View On WordPress

#Biography #CIA

0 notes

erikacousland · 1 year

Video

youtube

Vlog: How China involves Chinese people in policy-making process - YouTube

As I'm once again covering China's annual most important political meeting, the Two Sessions, I will show you some of the on-the-ground footage, and take this opportunity to explain how China's whole-process people's democracy actually broadly involves Chinese people of every group into the policy-making process.

Tandyawan Chen

The West be like "This isn't democracy, the representatives should be shouting at each other, throwing chairs, pig intestines, and various objects, even better if they brawl like Taiwan parliament or ours".

Got Milk

China is the world’s biggest democracy : "A new study published by the Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation and Germany-based Latana data tracking firm explores public opinions of democracy under the metric of 'Democracy Perception Index' across 53 nations and territories, including China and the U.S.; surveyed in spring of 2022 - 80% of Chinese (PRC) people believe their government represents democracy, while less than 40% of Americans (USA) believe their government represent democracy (article printed in May 2022 issue of Newsweek magazine) "

Vini SThrill

This makes a lot of sense and you can see the results, in the west they focus entirely on Xi but it doesn't explain the progress unless he's some really big brain mastermind but when you take into context the entire process it makes more sense. Plus people from other countries can come and see what's going on that's really good.

I do not understand that why they translating Xi's title "主席" as "president" in English. It’s literally means "chairman" and it is all about it.

#李菁菁 #Li Jingjing #Random roaring

0 notes

basilwb · 1 year

Text

Reference list:

Di Petsa. (n.d.). AW22 Mother Persephone. [online] Available at: https://dipetsa.com/blogs/collections/aw22-mother-persephone [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

Di Petsa. (n.d.). SS22 Nostos Touch. [online] Available at: https://dipetsa.com/blogs/collections/ss22-nostos-touch [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

DivePhotoGuide. (n.d.). Underwater Photographer Stan Bysshe’s Gallery: Contest: Lettuce Sea Slug - DivePhotoGuide.com. [online] Available at: https://www.divephotoguide.com/user/smbysshe/gallery/contest_6/photo/3745/ [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

Earth.com. (2018). Deep ocean trenches are holding much more water than had been thought • Earth.com. [online] Available at: https://www.earth.com/news/deep-ocean-trenches-holding-water/ [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

Fine Art America. (n.d.). Water Streaming Between Rocks In River by Dirk Ercken. [online] Available at: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/water-streaming-between-rocks-in-river-dirk-ercken.html [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

HELLESSY. (n.d.). Pre Fall 2021. [online] Available at: https://www.hellessy.com/pre-fall-2021 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

Hypebae. (n.d.). Di Petsa’s SS23 Collection Is an Ode to Earthly Healing Powers. [online] Available at: https://hypebae.com/2022/9/di-petsa-ss23-collection-london-fashion-week [Accessed 2 Dec. 2022].

Kendam. (n.d.). Frederick Anderson Spring Summer 2023 Fashion Show. [online] Available at: https://kendam.com/photos/album/ljayilyslrrpqv [Accessed 13 Dec. 2022].

Kim Kardashian West Gets Fitted for Her Waist-Snatching Met Gala Look | Vogue. (2019). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk0G1f4DpCM [Accessed 24 Dec. 2022].

Meet Di Petsa, the Designer Making Waves With Wet-Look Fabrics. (n.d.). W Magazine. [online] Available at: https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/di-petsa-dress-designer-interview [Accessed 8 Dec. 2022].

Nast, C. (n.d.). Balmain Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. [online] Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2023-ready-to-wear/balmain/slideshow/collection#11 [Accessed 7 Jan. 2023].

Nast, C. (n.d.). Meryll Rogge Spring 2023 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. [online] Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2023-ready-to-wear/meryll-rogge/slideshow/collection#31 [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

Nast, C. (2021). Mugler Spring 1998 Couture Collection. [online] Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-1998-couture/mugler [Accessed 24 Dec. 2022].

Nast, C. (n.d.). No. 21 Pre-Fall 2023 Fashion Show. [online] Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/pre-fall-2023/no-21/slideshow/collection#15 [Accessed 7 Jan. 2023].

Nast, C. (n.d.). Vionnet Spring 2018 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show. [online] Vogue. Available at: https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2018-ready-to-wear/vionnet/slideshow/collection#37 [Accessed 9 Dec. 2022].

Newsweek. (2019). Huge Reservoir of Fresh Water Discovered Hidden Deep Beneath the Ocean. [online] Available at: https://www.newsweek.com/hidden-reservoir-fresh-water-us-coast-1445500 [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

Sciencing. (2011). List of Deepest Ocean Trenches. [online] Available at: https://sciencing.com/list-deepest-ocean-trenches-8330243.html [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

University, S. (2018). Why deep oceans gave life to the first big, complex organisms. [online] Stanford News. Available at: https://news.stanford.edu/2018/12/12/deep-oceans-gave-life-first-big-complex-organisms/ [Accessed 22 Dec. 2022].

Wikipedia Contributors (2019). Summer of Love. [online] Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love [Accessed 24 Nov. 2022].

www.celine.com. (n.d.). RUNWAY LOOKS. [online] Available at: https://www.celine.com/en-gb/cm/celine-collections/womens-winter-2022/runway-looks [Accessed 13 Dec. 2022].

www.wgsn.com. (n.d.). WGSN Login. [online] Available at: https://www.wgsn.com/fashion/article/92532?show=image.35177974#page10 [Accessed 1 Dec. 2022].

0 notes

newswireml · 1 year

Text

Meghan Markle 'Narcissist' Story Sparks Avalanche of Anger#Meghan #Markle #Narcissist #Story #Sparks #Avalanche #Anger

Meghan Markle ‘Narcissist’ Story Sparks Avalanche of Anger#Meghan #Markle #Narcissist #Story #Sparks #Avalanche #Anger

Meghan Markle’s inclusion alongside the likes of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kanye West and Elizabeth Holmes on a list of narcissists “should hurt” Politico magazine, a guest on the duchess’s Netflix show told Newsweek. Boston-based writer Joanna Weiss has been criticized over an opinion piece originally titled: “Is 2022 the Year We All Finally Got Over Narcissists?” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry…

View On WordPress

0 notes

thecavavoice · 1 year

Text

Teens Turn Outside-In

by Mariel S.

Students struggle with a post pandemic disconnect between worlds. (MC Sheets/The CAVA Voice)

When the pandemic pulled the plug on education worldwide, most CAVA students seamlessly continued their studies. But now that COVID-exile is ending nearly everywhere, a new CAVA Voice survey reveals that our students didn’t fare nearly so well regarding social interactions. It is a universal problem not just for “brick-and-mortar” students forced into online learning, but also for online schools.

Newsweek Magazine’s current cover story, features the impact of decreased Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) just prior to, and during the pandemic. According to Newsweek, one in three teens experienced debilitating feelings of “sadness or hopeless” in 2019. One in six had considered suicide. Experts say that loneliness has become an epidemic among teens, and was made worse during the pandemic. Genevieve Brantley, a long-time US History and Sociology teacher at CAVA, has seen her students become increasingly isolated over the last few years. She agrees that the situation is getting worse. “I am finding myself recommending that some students go back to brick-and-mortar… I am seeing students really suffer from the monotony of being home all day, every day. There is a disconnect between the inside world and the outside world, and people are becoming afraid to interact in person. It’s kind of becoming a crisis.”

According to a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report released in March, 2022, 37% of US high school students reported having poor mental health during the pandemic, and 44% reported “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.” Anxiety and depression are on the rise. The CDC attributes this trend to a lack of “School Connectedness,” or a “feeling of being cared for, supported, and belonging at school.” This sense of community is vital to student productivity and good mental health, but has been severely lacking in online schools. Attending Zoom classes alone in your pajamas, is obviously not ideal.

A recent CAVA Voice survey measured the level of school connectedness at CAVA, as well as the mental health challenges students face in online school. Over 50% of students reported that attending CAVA has positively impacted their mental health, yet the majority also reported struggling with a lack of social interaction. One 11th grader said that the lack of direct socialization “…makes it easier to feel lonely, although I know there are still ways to interact with classmates at CAVA.”

Ms. Brantley says that teachers feel this isolation too. “Not being able to see [students’] faces or hear their voices, makes it very challenging to connect with… and provide what they need.” Having taught in “brick-and-mortar” schools—talking with coworkers and students face-to-face—she found the online school community more difficult to engage with. “Sometimes in the virtual classroom, the students aren’t responding at all. You’ll say hello six times, and just… nothing.”

Ms. Brantley has also watched her two “brick-and-mortar” children wrestle with the challenges of staying motivated as they attended virtual school during the pandemic. Her daughter, “Sally” (not her real name), began schooling at home during what they were told would be a two-week shutdown. She was unable to return to in-person learning until two years later. Sally described waking up in the morning as the most challenging thing about “Zoom learning.” “I was very unmotivated. We got to do our classes in bed… I felt like school was kind of optional, and that was a very bad perspective to be taking.”

Now that she is back to in-person learning, her school has put forth an enormous effort to support students as they get used to social interaction again. This includes rebuilding their sense of school community. They offer after-school tutoring both for academics and SEL, and have focused on helping students bond.

“…people are becoming afraid to interact in person. It’s becoming a crisis.” (MC Sheets/The CAVA Voice)

Although Sally thinks that her school could have offered more personalized support in addition to community-building resources, she still believes they have done well.

Unfortunately, not all schools offer Social and Emotional Learning activities. Some believe that mental health should not be under the purview of schools. However, the CDC’s position is that schools teach much more than academics, and that SEL goes hand in hand with cognitive learning.

Ms. K. Morlock, a first-year CAVA English teacher, agrees. She completed her teaching credential online due to the pandemic, and has a Masters Degree in SEL. She believes that SEL is a critical part of teaching, and that teachers must make an effort to communicate and connect. “The biggest challenge both as a learner or as a teacher, is making authentic connections with my colleagues and students…. I don’t see most of my students on-camera. Not all of them will participate in chat or come see me [during] office hours, and… it’s difficult to… vulnerably and emotionally connect…. It is something that you have to strive for.”

CAVA teachers do spend time talking with their pupils, and greeting each by name. CAVA Students have access to mental health seminars and hotlines such as “988” (the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline phone number). Information is available via guidance counselor newsletters and shared in Homeroom. Learning coaches receive a regular SEL newsletter. According to Ms. Morlock, all teachers are rigorously trained to recognize and address mental health issues in students. However, CAVA students still say that they are struggling.

The CAVA Voice asked students what they think CAVA can do to better support their mental health. One senior fondly remembered doing “mindful breathing” in homeroom, and asked teachers to bring it back. Another student requested that teachers encourage communication between students, instead of discouraging discussions during Class Connects. Another student suggested that “CAVA can be supportive by acknowledging that everyone is not the same and accommodating [each] person’s needs.” Most students surveyed feel that there has been a positive shift in the last few years, regarding mental health support, but that there is still much more work to be done.

After a year of being back in brick-and-mortar, Sally had this advice for students still online: “Try something outside of school that you’re interested in, like art classes or a hobby, that would allow you to socialize and make friends!”

#news #by Mariel S.#Archive

0 notes