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eastcoastzilla · 7 months

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34!!

I'm almost positive no one gets on tumblr anymore so I'm gonna use it like a livejournal from 2005

Crazy to think that person above in the photo is me + I am now 34. Wasn't I just 19 yesterday? How does time do that? Move so fast and not at all, all at the same time..

So much changes, yet also stays the same. Year 5 this Nov at Cowan - I would say I am content there. It works, it is steady, + that's all I can really ask for at this point. Everything in life is super unstable and as I get older I find myself craving that stability more and more. That feeling of peace; that feeling of everything being okay and knowing that whatever comes our way we will be okay. The old saying "we want for nothing" becomes more relatable in my 30's. Don't get me wrong though - I do NOT feel 34. Heck, I don't even feel 30. I still feel like I'm in my 20's. I think my a lot of my generation feels that way until they are in their 40s/50s and I'm okay with it. From working at a retirement home for 10 years, I've come to highly believe that age is just a number. (Check back in with me in five years to see if I have a new opinion. I bet I do.)

Material things don't matter. I don't need things to feel like I've lived a good life. I just want to be happy and find enjoyment with the person I love to share life with :). Things are scary and life can be fucking hard but I'm proud of how far we've come. Never asking for too much but it can feel like the odds are stacked against us/me. I try to remind myself that there are peaks and valleys. Writing shit out helps me get it out and move on - that's how I've always been able to process things.

Rinzler got sick right when we were going away to NY for my birthday. We spent 3 days thinking we were losing our best buddy of 12 years. He ended up pulling through and Perry hall animal hospital saved the day but it was super scary + eye opening. He's getting older and we are trying to appreciate the time we have with him here. It's why I wish I had a pet growing up so I would be more prepared to lose one since it's inevitable. At least we have him for now and he's a great light in our lives.

It's September and very soon it's the first day of fall. I'm super bummed summer is over - I'm always cold so I'm down with the heat! However I can't wait to camp soon.

Friends are grown up, moved away, married + doing the fam/kids thing. I love to see them happy and enjoy meeting their babies. Kae's boys are amazing - I'm always blown that she is a mom just because it will always feel like we are still 16 burning CDs for the first time.

Idk why but there's a weird stigma about people who don't want to have kids. Plus I wish people would stop saying "want". Of course I WANT to have kids. I believe I SHOULDNT have kids for my own personal reason that's no one's business but my own. So even though I have chosen not to at this time, it's not okay to assume that I don't get sad about not having kids or that I hate kids. Neither are true. Sometimes I have to not look too deeply at photos online because I will get into my own head and it will take off from there. I don't think that will ever go away. Maybe it's a natural thing - like a natural "maturnal" thing something within me that can't help it cos it screams HEY YOU SHOULD PROCREATE AND BE A PARENT. Whatever it is, it's le pits. There is an eternal, internal voice war going on in my head - should I feel guilty knowing that sometimes I can't spend too much time online or I get really sad about seeing all the mom photos, knowing I'll never be a mom.. I'll never get those firsts.. It's my choice to not have kids so is it even fair for me to get sad? Uh yes thats how you feel let yourself feel it - then I disconnect and stop looking or thinking about it until the next time I do it all over again. Idk, maybe it's something I'm supposed to work through? It's weird. Logically I know it's a smart decision for where I'm at, where we are at, and things directly relating to the happiness and fullness of the child in question. It's a decision I am content with but at the same time have so many thoughts on. Hopefully it'll get easier. Another part of me hopes that I will finally befriend a human being in my later years and we can chat about it like rory and lane. But clearly I just watch too much TV/movies. At least those are good right now. Except for the internet - XFINITY sucks ass.

That is all. Goodnight :)

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creed-of-cats · 1 year

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Tagged by @heyitswolfman

Favorite time of year: when it's spring and it smells like grass right after rain. When you kneel in the dirt and muddy water makes your knees brown and green, and wets your jeans. When you can lay down and practically feel the earth shaking the frost off its limbs. Thats my favorite time of year.

Comfort foods: When my mom and I feel like having a little snacky snack at night, we love to eat crackers with margarine sandwiches. The crackers are these kebbler ones that are weirdly hard to find in the US. We usually get them in Puerto Rico even if they aren't like...Puerto rican. They just happen to be there.

Do you collect anything?: I collected shells and rocks when I was younger. Now I like to collect postcards. They are little pieces of art that are only a dollar or so. I have them all over my wall, and sometimes I send them to family and friends. ~~I also collect hearts ( ͡▀̿ ̿ ͜ʖ ͡▀̿ ̿ ) 👉~~

Favorite drink?: Fresh Iced coffee and Thai tea are absolutely god tier.

Favorite song/artist: I love Mitski and The Oh Hello's, but my favorite song is probably End of Love by Florence and the Machine.

Favorite fics: so. Many. But these are ones that have Stuck With Me for years:

Warbonds- OFC in Band of Brothers but incredibly well written. It is permanently saved in my overdrive.

Briareus- FMA, Edward Elric through the perspectives of mostly normal citizens. Theres one that's about a tailor making an official uniform for a 12 year old Edward and then immediately asking Mustang to burn it that is imprinted on my brain.

once there was- its like of the book thief and star wars had a baby and it ripped your heart out and ate it every day. Its so good.

The AC novelizations- there are many, many good ac fics but I'm trying to keep one per Fandom. These novelizations, especially for the first, second, and brotherhood novels are extremely good. Again, something that is usually done badly, done well.

Come build in the empty house - the batman beyond fic that shapes my entire view on these characters and series.

Making Sense of Chaos - I love team Red stuff, and it takes a very little known event from the comics and makes it front and center to mcu

Who shall wear the starry crown- Human AU for Warriors, regarding Blackstar and his time serving under tyrants. Its rich with culture and world building, and is an excellent character study of Blackstar.

Domestic- Tron fic about Rinzler, not Tron, settling into a peaceful life. Its wonderful and there's so much thought put into the characterization and voice of Rinzler's narrative.

The Boy Who Killed Time (The Last Love Song Remix) - there are manyyyy excellent doctor who fics honestly. This one is one of the most haunting and creative. The gravity of the situation slowly closes in until you can hear the static of the death of the universe.

I tag @lenroot @incorporealbagelbeing @fencesandfrogs @troutfur @theycallme-ook

#tag game

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bearpillowmonster · 5 years

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Top 15 Animated TV Series!

In a similar fashion to my top 15 movies and games, I came up with a list of animated series. With that 3D or 2D is acceptable and anime doesn’t count because it’s its own type of thing and isn’t the same as cartoons (and potential for another list) Again, no particular order, let’s do this!

House of Mouse: I said no particular order but this is number 1, no lie, it does everything it needs to. You have a crossover event of all the Disney characters at the time in a club. It’s a cartoon character about cartoon characters trying to handle the establishment and watch cartoons...it breaks every wall, it’s something I almost wish was updated just so we could see a new generation of cartoon characters together.

Rugrats: What can I say? What can’t I say? This as well as All Grown Up and the movies it started just click, something about the characters and breaking it down to a child’s perspective is soothing to me.

Avatar: the Last Airbender: A lot of these I’ll admit, I have nostalgia for, but at the same time, a lot of these I didn’t watch until I was older, this is one of them. I knew this existed and watched a few episodes, I liked the concept but never truly got into it (partially because of the live action movie) I thought they were just running out of ideas when they gave Aang hair...then I watched Korra. That’s right, I watched Korra before this too and I liked it, naturally I came back to it after everyone said this was so superior, I was like “Yeah alright sure.” I saw the whole thing and I must say...it’s considered a masterpiece, I realized just how superior it is pretty quickly and I started feeling so sad that the live action movie was like it was but you’ve heard people complain about it to the end and back so you don’t need to hear it from me, nor do you need to hear that I like it, I know that you already know that it’s good.

Infinity Train: I was around when they launched the pilot and it got popular, I liked it and was down for more but everybody acted like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, I wouldn’t go that far...Then it came out and it was, but don’t say “Oh I knew it was going to be that good.” You COULD NOT tell from that pilot alone just how good it was going to be, that was just a taste to get you interested. I like the darker tone and themes it’s not afraid to shy away from such as divorce and loss, I can personally really connect to that.

Recess: I usually take a break after a season of something because I’m afraid I’ll get tired of it and leave it for a year but during all 4 seasons of this, not once did I get tired of it. I liked how the episodes were more compact to fit into a shorter episode. This is another one I didn’t like until I got older, it just grew on me and hit that 12 year old spot (which I’ll get to in a little bit and I was actually in late high school by the time I watched this so...) I mean it’s called recess for crying out loud!

Tron Uprising: It just isn’t a list without Tron on it, is it? It’s only natural that Uprising would be here. I can’t say that I was hooked after just the first or second episode but that’s because it builds you up, each episode gives you more interest than the last and ends on a bit of a climax that left Tron fans in a despair that season 2 was canned. However I can say that even though we all wanted to see Tron turn into Rinzler, what we got was about as good, something we didn’t even know we needed. #TronLives #FlynnLives

The Replacements: One of the wild cards of this list. I remember being fascinated by the idea, just replacing people, but each episode had a valuable lesson that maybe these people don’t need replaced and some problems are sometimes best solved on your own.

Miraculous Ladybug: If you’re a fan then you know, if you’re not then let me explain. I was dating someone at the time and they said they got deep into Miraculous Ladybug, I was like “Are you joking?” and of course they weren’t. I thought it was just Chat Noir as a boy toy and average girl power nonsense that I’m not interested in. She said to just watch it. I did. Oh boy I did. I’m probably more of a fan than that girl ever was now, I wait patiently for the next episode, seeing leaks drives me nuts, I start screaming and cringing and jumping up and down during an episode. I can’t say I’ve had another series get more of a reaction out of me than this because I want to see Adrien and Marinette get together so bad and the way they tease just makes me feel like Swiper “Aww man” but at the end of the day you still get a good action cartoon with good characters that make you feel attached. Look at the chemistry they have, Marinette (Ladybug) likes Adrien but just sees Chat as a friend, Adrien (Chat) likes Ladybug but just sees Marinette as a friend. They don’t know each other’s identities and have to learn to like the other half of that person, it’s genius. All my previous thoughts before watching it were wrong, just because they’re in skin tight suits, doesn’t make it some souped up kink of a fan service. Just give it a try, I don’t care what it looks like, it’s what’s on the inside that matters.

Big Hero 6: The Series: It was either this or Lilo and Stitch: The Series, I have a soft spot for Baymax so I chose this. I’m almost done with season 2 and it’s solid, I would argue that this should be content included in the sequel, the canon as a whole, this is something that carries on the story in an interesting way, if only it was given a little more love and attention but hey sometimes underdogs are the best.

Dexter’s Lab: I wanted to pick one of my late night shows, the stuff that came on around 8-9 as a kid, this was one that I liked. I always kind of had an inventive side to things and this was that come to fruition.

Spectacular Spider-Man: This is one of the best art styles I’ve seen, done by Sean Galloway, it has a pleasurable atmosphere and design to these characters that we already love. This takes stuff and plays around with it, they dabble in a little bit of everything in a measly 2 seasons and somehow make it some of the best in Spider-Man history.

Sofia the First: Another wild card that I knew people would question. A Disney Junior show though? As much as it pains me to say it, yes...a Disney Junior show. Sofia is just a girl in a village doing alright then she becomes a princess overnight, now she has to figure out how to do it right, so much to learn and see. It’s all right there in the opening theme, it has the crossover element of some of the famous Disney princesses while building on Sofia (Ariel Winter) it’s interesting to see her adjust to her new life and these new people, and yes it’s past my generation but my sister watched it and now I can’t get it out of my head. The music is actually really good as well as some of the fantasy elements, I can’t help but compare stuff to it. It may say Disney Junior on the cover but dee down it’s just another show, similar to the Dragon Prince actually, except not as keen on squashing creatures, they skip that part which in my opinion makes it superior (yeah I said it).

Regular Show: I said earlier about the 12 year old spot, well this is it. It’s very much something that 12 year old me would like, it’s got weird jokes, cool characters, awkward romance, what’s not to love? Me and my friends would reminisce about the episodes (especially that coffee one) then when my parents would walk in they would be like “What even?” especially with Muscle Man, a whole character based on ‘my mom’ jokes instead of ‘your mom’. It’s just enough weird without going into adult swim territory.

Ben 10: Alien Force: Yep, ACTION. CARTOON. It was either this or the original but when I got into the first series whenever ‘Race Against Time’ came out, I still missed quite a bit so I had to catch up. I was there for the whole thing whenever Alien Force came out and I would consider it just as good, Ultimate Alien was still good (maybe not as high) but I came to that late to the party because Alien Force seemed like it was on hiatus so I kind of forgot about it and then Ultimate Alien comes out and I thought it was just a new Alien Force I missed, turns out I watched all of Alien Force and it was technically a new series. It also introduces a majority of my favorite aliens, Spidermonkey, Echo-Echo, Rath...

Phineas and Ferb: What? You think I wasn’t cultured? I was there when this came out in 3rd or 4th grade and people were getting those Subway toys, we were all like “104 days of summer vacation so 104 episodes?” Nope! We were all bamboozled, this was one for the generation because of the amount it introduced and by the sheer worth that it went on past that original 104 and was still good. It’s iconic, it’s crazy, it’s inventive, it’s...Ferb. Then they came out with Across the 2nd Dimension and had Slash!?! Like it’s a phenomenon at that point.

I’ll give an honorable mention to Sponegbob for being Spongebob...thank you.

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deathchasing · 5 years

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(@programregulator cont’d from here bc tumblr is broken)

❘▒ ▬ ꞋꞋDo take into consideration the only reason you have that title is merely because of the fact you’ve not yelled at my crouch like some legend I was paired up with before, rather, his decoy’s choice to try and scare me while Elliott was downed.ꞋꞋ

The enforcer chuckles, no, he was not about to go and let Mirage live it down. Never. To know it happened live during a match for all to see was embarrassing, and the fact he had it clipped was even better…Including the online jokes that followed after the event, it was too humorous not save some of them. Watching Pixel mouth open to nip and kick at Octavio’s hand, to shortly after jumping away from him, the bundle of fluff was spoiled. Nothing like his little street cat, although their felines did get along.

ꞋꞋTo satisfy your need for my to truly hurt you would be wasted time and wasted energy, aside, you’d be much too happy if I killed you with any sort of emotion behind it…She’ll lay on you and dead-weight you if she really doesn’t want you to move, quite the fickle girl.ꞋꞋ

Watching the daredevil sway away to brush his teeth, the program could not help but chortle. A hand gently petting at his favorite companion, being met with an impossible to keep up with love given back with how she rubbed her head against his hand to then wanting him to pet her back.

ꞋꞋHe picks at her tail, she swipes and hisses, he screams right back. They don’t try and kill each other, they just bully one another for the fun of it. If you think that’s bad, should see when the avian picks on Eco…You can get Arthur to behave, he likes zippers a lot. If he get’s too bad, I put him in the cage on the counter.ꞋꞋ

Pointing to the cage over yonder.

“Dude, why was Elliott yelling at your dick? I thought my kinks were weird.”

He snorted, though his amusement was short-lived; Pixel kicked away from his excessive doting in favor of Rinzler’s affections instead. The cat twined incessantly around his legs, teasing Octane from afar, drawing a dismayed whine from the daredevil. He supposed he could get up and go after her, but exhaustion fast took its toll on his body. The only way, he found, to get a good night’s sleep was to shoot up and drink until physically incapable of running himself into the ground anymore. Tonight had been a success, even if he’d somehow dragged himself to Rinzler of all people like a scorned animal seeking shelter from the rain. He should have gone home. Why didn’t he go home?

“Mira, so what if dying to you would be awesome? That’s a bad thing why? If you’re gonna kill me, just kill me, or imma kill you first, and boy would that make you look stupid.”

He listened distantly to Rinzler recount the chaos of Pixel and Arthur’s squabbling. Octavio’s gaze slowly wondered to the cage on the counter when prompted. He closed his eyes, overcome with an uncomfortably sudden streak of cold irritation. It passed quietly over his face-- an alarming slip without his mask, but one he was simply too tired at this point to correct. He’d been sitting on this feeling for some time, a grit that built up a bit more with every mention of the enigmatic hunter the enforcer so clearly adored.

Octavio couldn’t figure why it bothered him so much; it wasn’t as if he envied the mundane everyday tedium of a more domestic life. He was perfectly happy with his choices, would sooner leap in front of a train than give up what he had now, no matter the cost. Every moment not spent on living in overdrive was one wasted to him - why should he care who Rinzler wanted to spend his time with? What value was there in settling? In peace, stillness?

A question yet unanswered.

“I can’t move. My legs won’t work. Maybe I lost my arms too,” he mumbled. “Guest room’s too far. Why is it so far--” He buried his face in the pillow beneath him, muffling his exasperated groan. “--‘m just gonna-- rest my eyes for a sec.”

#; WHAT A RUSH #(ic.)#programregulator

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amer-ainu · 5 years

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In 1973, three young activists in New York City recorded A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America. Singing of their direct lineage to immigrant workers as well as their affinity with freedom fighters everywhere, Chris Kando Iijima, Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto, and William “Charlie” Chin recorded the experiences of the first generation to identify with the term and concept Asian American—a pan-ethnic association formulated upon a shared history of discrimination. They sought a connection to their cultural heritage; to claim their historical presence in the United States; to resist their marginalization; and to mobilize solidarity across class, ethnic, racial, and national differences. Music provided a powerful means for expressing their aspiration to reshape a society reeling from a prolonged war, ongoing struggles against racial inequity, and revelations of the Watergate cover-up. As writer and activist Phil Tajitsu Nash would state many decades later, A Grain of Sand was “more than just grooves on a piece of vinyl,” it was “the soundtrack for the political and personal awareness taking place in their lives.” Equal parts political manifesto, collaborative art project, and organizing tool, it is widely recognized as the first album of Asian American music.

A Grain of Sand was produced by Paredon Records. Over the course of 15 years, Paredon founders Irwin Silber and Barbara Dane amassed a catalog of 50 titles reflecting their commitment to the music of peace and social justice movements. In 1991, to ensure its ongoing accessibility, Silber and Dane donated the Paredon catalog to the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, through which these recordings and their original liner notes remain available to the public.

THE MUSIC While the message of the album was by no means mainstream, the music through which Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie expressed their political and social convictions was reflective of the popular genres of the period. The 12 songs on A Grain of Sand were shaped by the American folk music revival, blues, soul, and jazz. For instance, “The Wandering Chinaman” is in the form of a traditional ballad. “We Are the Children” is more of a folk-rock anthem. “Divide and Conquer” and “Free the Land,” with their bass and percussion lines, are driven by a soul groove. “Something About Me Today” and “War of the Flea,” are instrumentally stark, emphasizing Nobuko’s voice against the counterpoint of Chris and Charlie’s guitar lines. All of their songs are notably written in the first person and directly encourage the listener to action: “Hold the banner high...”; “Will you answer...”; “Take a stand....”

Intending to take their music on the road, they kept their instrumentation simple—two guitars and three voices. For the album and in some performances, they were backed by conga and bass, and other instruments such as the di zi, a Chinese transverse flute that Charlie played.

A Grain of Sand was mostly compiled over a two-day period from first or second takes. Charlie compares their 4-track recording process to more technically sophisticated commercial productions as the difference between “a folding chair and a Maserati.” And perhaps because of these conditions, the recording is animated by the spontaneity and energy of a live performance. Arlan Huang, who created the artwork for the album jacket, remembers, “It was fresh as can be. There was nothing else like it. The power of their lyrics was aimed at people like me. They were saying things that I had thought about but hadn’t put into words or painting. And they were GOOD. It wasn’t like seeing your buddies at the neighborhood hootenanny strumming a guitar. Nobuko could actually sing.”

THE ARTISTS Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie, who were in their twenties and thirties in the early 1970s, arrived at their collaboration via routes that reflect the legacies of migration and exclusion.

Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto (b. 1939). Nobuko’s mother was born in the United States, the daughter of Japanese immigrants; her father was the son of a Japanese immigrant father and a White Mormon mother from Idaho. The family was living in Los Angeles when World War II broke out and all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast were forcibly removed from their communities. To get his family out of the Santa Anita racetrack where they were initially confined, Nobuko’s father volunteered to harvest sugar beets in Montana. From there the family moved to Idaho and then to Utah before they were allowed to return to Los Angeles after the war. Despite this instability, Nobuko was encouraged by both parents in her study of music and dance. By the 1960s, she had been a scholarship student at the American School of Dance in Hollywood; performed with Alicia Alonso’s ballet company; and performed in the original Broadway production of Flower Drum Song, as well as in the film adaptation of West Side Story, where she was cast as one of Maria’s Puerto Rican dress-shop companions. She had also discovered the limitations of being an Asian in the mainstream entertainment industry. In 1968, she helped Italian filmmaker Antonello Branca to document the Black Panther Party for his film Seize the Time. Through this project, she met Yuri Kochiyama, a Harlem community activist and friend of the late Malcolm X, who subsequently introduced Nobuko to civil rights organizing in the local Asian and African American communities.

Chris Kando Iijima (1948–2005). Both of Chris’s parents, Americans of Japanese ancestry, were originally from California but raised their family in New York City, where they resettled after their World War II incarceration. Their example and consciousness significantly contributed to A Grain of Sand. Chris’s father was a musician and choirmaster, who took his children to the 1963 March on Washington. His mother—inspired by the educational and cultural activities integral to the Black Power movement—co-founded the organization Asian Americans for Action (Triple A) in 1969 to instill the same kind of pride in local Asian American youth. Chris attended the High School of Music and Art in Harlem, where he studied French horn, though he also played guitar.

Chris and Nobuko met in Triple A; and they wrote their first song and performed together in 1969 at a conference of the Japanese American Citizens League, where they joined other young people in urging the organization to oppose the war in Vietnam. Nobuko recalls, “We sang a song that was the collective expression of our Asian brothers and sisters to stop the killing of people who looked like us. The electricity of that moment, the realization that, until then, we had never heard songs about us, set the course of my journey.” When they returned to New York, Chris and Nobuko wrote more songs and began to perform locally and in California. A year later they met Charlie Chin.

William “Charlie” Chin (b. 1944). Charlie’s father came to New York City from Toisan, China; his mother, who was of mixed Chinese, Carib, and Venezuelan ancestry, was born in New York but raised in Trinidad. Growing up in Queens, Charlie’s musical upbringing was comprised of the Trinidadian forms played by his mother’s relatives and those emanating from the American folk music revival. Inspired by Pete Seeger, Charlie took up the banjo, but he also played cuatro, auto harp, and guitar. In the late 1960s, he toured the country with Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys. After he left the group, he returned to New York, where he worked as a bartender. In 1970, he ended up backing Chris and Nobuko by chance at a performance for a conference of new Asian American community groups, student organizations, and activists at Pace College. He recalls, “I’m at the conference, and all the things they are talking about—Asian Americans, how history impacts us, how we have been apologetic about being Asian. And there’s been this hanging question for me, ever since I had taught Appalachian 5-string banjo at a folk music camp, ‘Where is my history? Where is my culture?’ So I go on with them. And I’m listening—I have never heard this stuff before. This is amazing. So the first time I ever hear them play, I’m playing with them.”

For the next three years, the trio performed at Buddhist temples, churches, colleges, community centers, coffeehouses, rallies, prisons, and parks in New York and across the country. “We became like griots,” Nobuko says, “Moving like troubadours from community to community—we’d say, ‘This is what is going on in New York…and we have this Chinatown health program going on,’ and we would carry this news to Sacramento and L.A. and Stockton and San Francisco. And then we’d gather stories from there and carry it back to New York. We were like the YouTube of the times—spreading the news.”

THE MOVEMENT Coming of age during the civil rights and anti-war movements, the children and grandchildren of Asian immigrants unleashed a whirlwind of grassroots activism beginning in the late 1960s. Around the country, they protested the war. They demanded ethnic studies curricula. They organized against urban renewal projects that displaced the residents of old Chinatowns and Japantowns. They formed literary workshops, art collectives, and social service centers. A Grain of Sand was a direct extension of Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie’s collaboration in the Asian American Movement.

One important community that provided support and inspiration for A Grain of Sand was Basement Workshop, an Asian American collective in New York’s Chinatown. Formed in 1970, they ran a creative arts program, a resource center for community documentation, and a youth employment program; produced a magazine; and offered language and citizenship classes. In 1971, Basement Workshop undertook a project to illustrate and publish the music of Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie. Titled Yellow Pearl, after one of their songs, it grew into a larger compilation of writing, art, and music. Public artist Tomie Arai emphasizes the importance of Basement and A Grain of Sand during this period: “You have to understand. There wasn’t anything at all out there. There was no music. No published poetry, music, recordings. Nothing. It was through Basement that people began to refer to themselves as artists. I didn’t know any artists. I wanted to be one—but I didn’t know what that meant.”

Fay Chiang, who served as director of Basement for 12 years, recalls that for their programs and direct actions, they also looked to the examples of other communities: “We were influenced by what was happening in the Black and Puerto Rican communities. Why not us? Who are we? It was very basic: Who are we? There was a hunger, a need to figure that out, where we felt like it was a matter life and death. The second and third generation Japanese Americans had come from the camps—and this feeling of not belonging in the society, racism, and displacement was visceral.”

Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie’s association with activists in other communities was reflected in their music. For example, “Somos Asiaticos” was inspired by their involvement with squatters’ organizations Operation Move In and El Comité. These activists opened a coffee shop on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the Dot, which was regularly visited by singers, performers, and poets from Cuba, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. The Asian Americans who had taken over a storefront for a drop-in center down the street also congregated here. Nobuko recalled, “We were all there—artists and poets—listening to and influencing each other. We had a whole set, five songs, that we did in Spanish. One year, I think it was 1973–1974, we did more gigs for Latino groups than for Asian groups.” In fact, their first recording was done for a Puerto Rican company, Discos Coqui. Invited by two Puerto Rican Movement singers, Pepe y Flora, they recorded “Venceremos” and “Somos Asiaticos,” which were released as a 45 disc in Puerto Rico. Later, they were invited to perform at Madison Square Garden for Puerto Rican Liberation Day.

“Free the Land,” another song on A Grain of Sand, was written by Chris for the Republic of New Africa. This organization, established by a group of Malcolm X’s associates after his 1965 assassination, was the first group to call for slavery reparations—in particular in the form of an all-Black homeland in the southern states of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and South Carolina. Atallah Muhammad Ayubbi and Dr. Mutulu Shakur, both Republic of New Africa members, performed on A Grain of Sand. Atallah worked in the Black and Puerto Rican communities in the Bronx where he grew up. He was also a conguero and sometimes accompanied the group in live performances. Dr. Mutulu Shakur, who is the godfather of Nobuko and Atallah’s son, provided background vocals on the album. He often played the album at home, and his stepson, the late rapper Tupac Shakur, grew up listening and singing along to it.

Of this time in the early 1970s, Nobuko recalls, “It was like jumping into the pool of revolution…. Every day there was organizing going on at many different levels. It was powerful. You see something wrong, you have an idea how to fix it, you put it into practice.” And about this period living on the Upper West Side, she says, “that was the first time I ever felt like I was part of a community. You would walk down the street and see people you knew, and they would ask if you were going to be at such-and-such event and could you bring food or perform. It was a dynamic moment. We were crossing borderlines, and the music helped us to do that.”

THE LEGACY The intensity of purpose and activity during this period succeed in reshaping academic, cultural, and political institutions. It also gave rise to ideological conflicts and violence that sometimes destabilized organizations and efforts. For instance, Basement Workshop was shaken internally by the accusations and criticisms of members of the Communist Workers Party. And several months after A Grain of Sand was recorded, Atallah was killed in an ambush at a Brooklyn mosque.

Charlie remembers, “We were all moving so rapidly…. Everyone believed that things could be changed if you worked on it. We in our very young innocence thought that there actually would be a revolution in this country. I assured people it would happen. And when it didn’t, I felt bad: ‘Sorry, man’, ‘Sorry, dude.’”

By late 1973 when A Grain of Sand was released, Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie were beginning to hone their sense of purpose in ways that drew them in different directions. And the album marks, in effect, one of the group’s final collective efforts, though each in their own way continued the work they had started together.

Nobuko returned to southern California. In 1978, she established the organization Great Leap, Inc., through which she initiates multicultural community performing arts collaborations in Los Angeles, as well as nationally and internationally. She continues to perform, lecture, and provide workshops based on her new music as well as on reinterpretations of the songs from A Grain of Sand. In recent years her residencies and special projects have focused on facilitating dialog across spiritual differences and on environmental issues. Active in the Senshin Buddhist Temple, she has composed music and dances that are now a regular part of the annual Buddhist observance of obon (Festival of Lanterns) in temples from California’s Central Valley to San Diego and nationally.

Charlie focused his attention in New York’s Chinatown, becoming involved in the Chinatown History Project, which became the Museum of Chinese in the Americas. He later apprenticed to a master Chinese storyteller, learning the traditional teahouse style, which he has adapted and continues to perform throughout the country. In 1991, he moved to northern California, and he now works for the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco, driven by the conviction that “we know that people can be whipped into hysteria and xenophobia—we’ve seen it happen before, and it could happen again. And the only thing you can do is be vigilant and educate, educate, educate.”

Chris directed his energies to New York’s Upper West Side, where he had grown up. After 10 years of classroom teaching at Manhattan Country School, he studied and practiced law, and later became a professor in Hawai`i, where he fought for Native Hawaiian rights and mentored a generation of social justice–minded law students. He passed away in 2005 at the age of 57.

In the years just before Chris’s passing, Tadashi Nakamura, a young fourth-generation Japanese American filmmaker, began producing a documentary about him, A Song for Ourselves: A Personal Journey into the Life and Music of Asian American Movement Troubadour Chris Iijima. His film is an inspiring and melancholy portrait of Chris, covering his participation in A Grain of Sand, his reflection on his life as he confronted terminal illness, and the impact he had on others. For the film’s premiere in 2009, Nakamura invited Nobuko and Charlie to perform—and he also enlisted several young hip-hop artists. He explains: “Grain of Sand paved the way for many progressive Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders [API] to not only become musicians but cultural workers—artists who use their creativity to further a political movement. I feel very much a part of a present-day movement of API artists that are trying to document, articulate, and tell the stories of their people through their work. A talented new set of artists—such as Geologic and Sabzi of Blue Scholars, Kiwi, Bambu and DJ Phatrick—are creating the soundtrack to my generation’s movement. They are continuing the work that Chris, Nobuko, and Charlie started back in the 1960s. So when I premiered my film, I invited them to perform. I wanted to show that the legacy of A Grain of Sand is very much alive today.”

#A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America #Asian American #Chris Kando Iijima #Nobuko JoAnne Miyamoto #William “Charlie” Chin

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keytextsfromkh · 5 years

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Dream Drop Distance: The World That Never Was/End Game

- Look who's back with a brand spanking new theme song.

- And this is why I enjoy Gothic!Dick Roman, he's nice enough to walk us through his entire plan. There'll be no getting confused tonight.

- That move I just did there? Took hours of practice, but the look on the players face? Totally worth it.

- I don't like this Kingdom Hearts: VR experience game.

- Oh boy, looks like Sora's heart is kind of going through a breakdown.

- It's ok Sora, she's used to being forgotten.

- Hey, look who's here just for the paycheck.

- (Roxas thinking Sora is the more important of the two) And honestly, I kind of wish it was the other way around.

- (Roxas deserving his own self and identity) A sentiment that people are still rejecting to this day.

- That's right Sora, listen to the black sky, don't go chasing your dreams, wait until they come to you.

- I don't know if this game is trying to out-mindfuck the previous games but it sure is succeeding

- And in one cutscene, a good chunk of pre-2012 fanfic suddenly becomes hilarious in hindsight.

- (Why lie to the original Organization) Easy, for the lulz.

- Well at least this story is open about it's whole assimilation plot rather than trying to be vague about it like Mass Effect was.

- Oh no, you've angered Dick Roman, now you've really fucked up.

- Oh shit, he's going all Magneto on your ass.

- I would love if the game just ended there. Sora has been taken by the Darkness, his Heart has been protected by Ventus and we have to wait until the next game to see how he gets saved. It would have gone totally "Infinity War" on us and I would have been happy.

- But sadly no, now we get Riku's little journey.

- (Anti-Black Coat) And winner for creepiest fucking thing in this entire series...this guy.

- Well I guess it's better than belonging to the fattest part of my ass.

- Something tells me that Nomura saw Inception before writing the plot of this game.

- (The Dream Eaters helping Riku get to the castle) Well that just ruined the mood

- I know this place. It brings back memories.

- Organization XIII-2

- (In Mickey voice) It's fine now. Why? Because I am here!

- I guess it was kind of silly to use time powers against a Chronomancer.

- I'm starting to wonder if the Mysterious Figure we fight in Birth By Sleep wasn't /this/ version of Xehanort but a slightly older one, one who existed between this version and Ansem. Because while this Young Xehanort can use the same time powers, he's not nearly as overkill with them as he was in BBS. So maybe we fought a more experienced version of him.

- Mad Watch! There's only one way to stop a mad watch.

- Two days slow, that’s what it is.

- Old Man Xehanort, back from the dead.

- Fuck, now's not the time for a big damn heroes moment. This is all meant to end on a downer note.

- (Lea has the worst timing) Yes, the worst!

- Well, everyone else is here. Why not, let's bring these guys in too. Maybe Pence and Olette will join us in a few minutes.

- I thought it was Muriel

- Welcome to Sora's Heart, the happiest place not on this Earth. Please be aware that in the interest of quality, your journey may be recorded If you know your party’s Heart, please call for it now For Roxas, press 1 For Xion, press 2 For Ventus, press 3 For Vantias, press 4 To repeat this menu at any time, press 5

- So now it comes down to this, who will win, a former asshat or one inky boi.

- I guess we'll call this one Symbiote!Sora or possibly Symbiote!Ventus, it's a bit hard to tell.

- And the winner is, the asshat.

- He is pure pureness in it's purest form.

- So does that mean that between the events of Chain of Memories, right up until the end of KH2, Ansem never knew Riku by name?

- No, it's drink your /goddamn/ tea. Get it right. You of all people should know better.

- All good questions that won't get answered I'm sure.

- Yeah Donald, why don't you just shut the fuck up for once?

- Called it

- But that wouldn't be very "Dark Rescue" of you.

- And that's probably the biggest twist in the game.

- The more I think about this game, the more I can see how it could have been greater and more sinister and unsettling, especially considering the end. The general plot seems to be about breaking Sora down mentally while lifting Riku up and showing him how much of a hero he really can be. This is sort of reflected in the stories of each world but falls short with the bosses. I think the only time they get it right is during one of the few actual Disney villain fights with Sora against Rinzler. Imagine if Traverse Town worked to show Sora that not everyone who works with him is going to help him, Hunchback could have shown him that through Frollo, not everything that's considered "morally right" is actually good. They get it right with The Grid by having both something (the world) and someone (Tron) that he developed a connection to being corrupted and twisted. Prankster's Paradise would have been the idea of Sora's child-like personality being perverted and a dark take on the concept of childish innocence. The Musketeers comes across like a breather episode when you think about it, it's not too harsh and it does drive the point home that Riku is more of a hero than he believes he is. The Fantasia world seems to be a culmination of it all and as others have pointed out, the symbolism of Sora and Riku's worlds reflect their characterization; Sora goes from being in the clouds, in a heavenly location to the ground below while Riku goes from a dark, secluded wooded area into the open, beautiful snowy night (the music helps this even more) and then they just drop all sense of subtlety and have him fight the Devil. You could even view the final bosses that Sora and Riku fight as more of this, Sora fights Xemnas (and to a lesser degree Xigbar/Braig) while Riku fights the Anti-Black Coat, Ansem, Xehanort and finally "Sora". With Sora's battle, he faces against two characters who were also corrupted by Xehanort, Terra and Braig (although how evil Braig was to begin with is up for debate) and in fighting Xemnas, Sora becomes corrupted himself (or at least is placed on the edge and saved at the last possible second) while Riku's battles are him fighting manifestations of corrupted Darkness and Xehanort himself in a series of sequences that feel like Riku is finally dealing with his inner demons. The battle with "Sora" at the end could even be seen as a reflection of the Riku fight in KH1.

#Kingdom Hearts #Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance #Mock Liveblog

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angel-with-a-pipette · 5 years

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The Grid

Oh dear God. Thankfully, DDD wasn’t out back when I was a teenager, because damn, Riku would’ve made me swoon so bad xD Look at this savage bad ass, he pulls himself free from the guards in a “Yeah I’ll come with you but don’t touch me” kind of way, he rides something like a MOTORCYCLE yeah I know Sora did before but damn, it’s hot for Riku, especially when I imagine him wearing his Supergroupies outfit okay? and the way he escapes the light cycle race? Dang boy, stop being so cool XDDDD Also I appreciate the hole being in a heart shape Kingdom HEARTS xD

The Grid marks also my first death(s). For the love of God, I was not able to defeat the Dream Eater Boss during my Dive into the world x_x I had to look up a video to learn how to defeat him, apparently, as soon as you take damage in the first phase, he cannot be damaged? IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO KNOW THAT, GAME.

The music surprised me a little. I disliked the Space Paranoids music a lot, but the battle music of the Grid is actually pretty awesome. It’s kind of creepy and I enjoy it. But I don’t enjoy the world flashbacks. I think the story flashbacks that explain more about the Mark of Mastery are good and I think the fact they give us more background info on the former games is great (I suppose KH3 will do it in a similar way), but the Disney? No. Please try to find a way to do it differently :/

And now the plot. Oh gosh the plot. I am so freaking confused. Soooooooooo. Young Xehanort claims this isn’t a dream world, it’s real?

How? I know this seems to be the original program that Ansem the Wise then adjusted to make Space Paranoids, right? But somehow, Tron got corrupted to Rinzler here? So does this being an old “copy” of the world qualify as being a “Dreaming world” (since this is technically an old save-state from the past) and they’re just lying (because obviously this is a thing now in DDD that the villains just lie about everything :))) Thanks DDD -.-)? But then how does Rinzler recognize Sora? Because their hearts connected? :DD

Or is it really, truly the real world and not a sleeping world? If so, how did Sora end up there? Why is he his 14 year old self? I mean now that I think about it, he and Riku are in their past selves in The World that never was, too. Are THEY in the past? Are they time traveling in the real world?

WHAT IS GOING ON? WILL THE GAME EXPLAIN IT??

Maybe I’m just stupid and it’s obvious to everyone else lol

Another thing I want to add: Now, I neither saw Tron, nor Tron Legacy, but these light barriers that block off parts of the rooms? That feels so much more natural than the boxes did in Traverse Town and la Cité des Cloches. Like I said, the latter can just use soldiers to block off parts of Paris instead of boxes. And just lose the boxes in front of closed doors in Traverse Town.

#DDD playthrough

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meret118 · 6 years

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Thanks to screenshots, a wide audience is now aware that Israel Broussard, who stars in the buzzed-about Netflix film To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, has a history of broadcasting racist, homophobic, and generally intolerant messages from his Twitter account.

Buddhist author loses ‘How to Be Decent’ book deal after ThinkProgress covers alleged sex misconduct. Lodro P. Rinzler's publisher just backed out.

Les Moonves, The Most Powerful CEO To Face #MeToo, Is Winning. So Far. With CBS chief Les Moonves, the Me Too movement is facing a critical test of its strength. [The women working there should go on strike unless he steps down.]

How a Woman [Mary Stone Ross] Disappears from the History Books. The New York Times Magazine recently published a lengthy cover story on “The Unlikely Activists Who Took On Silicon Valley—And Won;” it’s about the battle to pass a privacy law in the country’s most populous state. It’s great and definitely worth reading, but it forgot something: the woman who helped win the battle.

Minnesota DFL Endorses Keith Ellison for Attorney General Despite Abuse Allegations

George Miller [Mad Max: fury Road] Called Cher After Her 40th Birthday to Tell Her She Was 'Too Old.' So he said, ‘I just wanted to call and tell you that I don’t want you in my movie and Jack Nicholson and I think you’re too old and you’re not sexy.’ Good morning, 40!” ... “He didn’t want to hang up. He just wanted to tell me everything: ‘I hate the way you walk, I hate the way you talk, I don’t like the color of your hair, I don’t like your eyes.’”

Pro women’s soccer team still doesn’t have working toilets 1 month after damning reports. It’s been more than a month since reports first surfaced in The Equalizer and Once A Metro about the abysmal training, living, and traveling conditions endured by players at Sky Blue FC, a pro women’s soccer team based in New Jersey that competes in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL).At the time, owners of the club — including majority owner and state Governor Phil Murphy (D-NJ), and minority owner Steven Tamares, CEO of retail giant Bed Bath & Beyond — acknowledged the conditions were “not acceptable,” and that the players “deserve better,” while insisting management must “improve” the situation. (Murphy has a daughter, after all! He cares!)Four weeks later and — spoiler alert! —nothing much has changed.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is trying, once again, to defund Planned Parenthood.

Allegations that Richard Nixon beat his wife, Pat Nixon, have circulated for decades without serious examination by the journalists who covered his presidency. It’s time to look more closely at what’s been hiding in plain view.

This Is How You Erase A Woman [Courtney Smith] From Her Own Story. Courtney Smith has said, repeatedly, that she feared her ex-husband, Zach. She said he physically and emotionally abused her, in court documents, to police officers in two different states, to two reporters, including one interview on camera, and now to Ohio State investigators. All this became public knowledge because she went to court to get a restraining order; in her request, Courtney Smith wrote that Zach Smith stalked her, threatened her, and hacked her email. What Courtney Smith wanted was something every human being craves: to feel safe.

. . . On Wednesday night, Ohio State announced that Meyer will be suspended for the first three games of the football season. At the press conference that followed, viewers got what anyone with a tinfoil hat and internet access could have predicted: a lot of talk about football, even more talk about how all parties involved respect women, the bare minimum in punishment, and almost no mention of Courtney Smith. Her name wasn’t even mentioned by any of the men who took to the podium until one of the questions near the end when ESPN producer Greg Amante asked Meyer what he would say to Courtney Smith. Meyer gave this pithy answer: “Well, I have a message for everyone involved in this. I’m sorry we’re in this situation. And, um ... I’m just sorry we’re in this situation.” He couldn’t even be bothered to say her name.

#misogyny #trigger warning #rape #abuse #To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before #george miller

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