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northlandian · 5 years

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Undertale Questions & Answers!

Proven with FACTS and Evidence from the game.

This is something I wrote a little over a year ago. Never got around to posting till now.

(Obviously, this was before the release of Deltarune and the Switch/PS updates so some info might be missing.)

(Also yes I’m aware that most of this is common knowledge by now, lol. Still wanted to put it out there.)

When did Chara fall into the Underground?

Well, we know from the calendar we see in New Home during both True Pacifist and Genocide routes that Chara fell down near the end of the year 201X.

In New Home, a calendar can be found that apparently is from the end of 201X. During a Genocide route, Chara comments on the date circled in the calendar, saying that it was the day they arrived.

The Mt. Ebott we see in the intro to the game is also from 201X, implying that the intro is showing Chara’s fall, not Frisk’s. This is supported at the end of the True Pacifist route when we are fighting Asriel. He believes that we are Chara (due to his phone call after the true lab: “Chara? Are you there?” etc…), even though we are not, however, they are there with us (they are proven to be the “narrator” as we see near the end of the Genocide route when they start talking about themselves. This possibility is explained by them at the very end of a Genocide as them being reawakened by our Determination). Since they are there with us, they can help us recall a memory from Asriel just as Frisk had been doing with his friends to save them - and it’s the memory of when Chara fell into the underground, identical to the intro.

This same year, a memorial fountain was built in the MTT hotel, however, the statue of Mettaton erected on it was only added a week before your arrival.

Okay, so when did Frisk fall into the underground?

The year can’t be definitively pinpointed, however, there is enough evidence to give us a good idea.

Between the time that Chara and Asriel died, and Frisk fell into the Underground, six more humans fell. We are told during a Neutral route the story of Asriel and Chara, their death caused by the humans, and Asgore’s pledge to kill every last human who falls into the underground in order to break the barrier (because seven human souls are needed to break a barrier made by seven human wizards). This is also why Toriel flees to the Ruins. We also know that Frisk is human #7 because Undyne tells us so and because we can see the number of souls collected thus far when we go to fight Asgore. Finally, this is supported by the number of filled coffins we see in the basement.

Papyrus was born between the time the sixth human fell and between the time that Frisk fell (since he’s never seen a human before, and since all humans made it to Asgore’s castle, they must have passed through Snowdin) - however his age is a mystery except for one lead - his UnderNet username, CoolSkeleton95. It is possible that that “95” stands for his birth year, meaning that he could have possibly been born in the year of 2095 - almost 100 years after Chara’s fall. It would also make sense for him be born in 2095 because there is an explanation for why Toriel and Asgore would still be alive after so many years - as Gerson tells us at the end of a pacifist route, boss monsters only age as their children age. But Toriel and Asgore’s only son, Asriel, had died, therefore they wouldn’t age (Gerson also makes sure to tell us that if their child was human, it wouldn’t affect their ageing, so Chara has no impact on that).

Considering this timeframe of about 100 years, it also explains why the humans were chill with the monsters return, as we see them live out their lives on the surface in the Pacifist ending credits - they don’t really care about events that occurred over a century ago.

There’s a trophy found in Asgore’s home that states he and Toriel were the “#1 Nose Nuzzlers of ’98”, most likely 1998, as this obviously took place while they were still together, meaning before Chara’s death.

What all this means (if true) is that there are about 100 years between Chara’s fall and Frisk’s fall.

Why were the monsters banished to the Underground?

The whole “war broke out” thing is pretty vague, but there are hints throughout the game suggesting why they were really banished.

In Waterfall, there is a story about why the humans attacked. It explains that their one weakness is the strength of their soul, meaning that if a monster were to defeat a human, it can absorb its soul and become “a horrible beast with unfathomable power”. There is also a picture description. Later in Waterfall, there is also mention that no human has ever absorbed a monster soul before, however, nothing is said about the vice versa. This all points to that a monster has absorbed a human soul in the past, besides Asriel with Chara, since the glyphs are ancient. This is said to be why the humans attacked. The question is, which monster absorbed which humans soul, and there is no evidence to figure that one out, except for the fact that it was not Asgore (because we see him in the intro in what we can assume is his normal form).

It is also clear from the intro that Asgore was alive during the war times, and so was someone who strongly resembled Frisk and Chara, yet as an adult.

The barrier requires the strength of 7 human souls to break because it was created with the power of 7 human wizards.

What are the other traits besides Determination?

Believe it or not, despite the very strong evidence that points towards 7 traits of Justice, Kindness, Patience, Perseverance, Integrity, Bravery, and Determination, it’s all still technically speculation.

When we reach the Throne Room, there is an option to go into a basement where we can find 7 coffins with 7 different soul colours on them - yellow, green, cyan, purple, blue, orange, and red. All coffins are filled except the red one, which we find out through the story told during the Neutral route and what Chara tells us in the Genocide route that it was Chara’s coffin before Toriel took their body with them to be buried in the Ruins. The colours on the coffins directly correspond with the colours and trait descriptions that show up on the flags in the ball game in Snowdin - yellow is Justice, green is Kindness, cyan is Patience, purple is Perseverance, blue is Integrity, and orange is Bravery. We can assume that these are the other traits.

Although these souls may have “traits” it is not wise to assume that these souls are limited to said trait - they might just be their strongest or most defining feature. For example, a human with a Kindness soul might not necessarily be impatient.

We also know that each human soul did have a bit of Determination in it - it was extracted during the Determination experiments.

There is no proof to say that Determination is a more “rare” kind of soul - in fact, out of the eight humans that fell into the Underground, the majority had a Determination soul (2 of them - Frisk and Chara). It just happens to be very unique and powerful, but then again, we are not aware of the abilities of the other traits either.

It is unknown if these are the only traits, but the snowball game only outlines the six.

What’s the deal with the Determination experiments?

The Determination experiments were experiments and analyzations done on determination souls in order to break the barrier.

There is evidence to support that the DT experiments were not started by Alphys and that they were started by none other than Doctor W. D. Gaster, the previous royal scientist. By reading Mettaton’s diary entries, we find out that he used to be a ghost, and that he was friends with the monster Shyren. He writes about how her sister “fell down” recently, and then a few entries later writes about meeting Alphys at a human fan club meeting. In the true lab, we can actually see Shyren’s sister as one of the Amalgamates, meaning that she was used in the DT experiments. But here’s the thing - Mettaton was a ghost and did not even know Alphys when she fell down, and we’re told by Bratty and Catty that Alphys only became Royal Scientist after she showed Asgore her plans to make Mettaton a body. This means that Alphys was not the Royal Scientist at the time when Shreyn’s sister fell down and was being experimented on. So it had to be the previous Royal Scientist, which we are told by the Gaster Followers is Gaster. The only thing that contradicts this is the fact that Alphys straight up tells us that she was the one to start the experiments.

When we read from the lab entries, we find out that the plan was to unleash the power of the soul on the barrier in order to break it. This power cannot be created artificially, however (contrary to what we’re told by Alphys in-game), and must come from what once was living. The only things he had to work with were the monster souls and the human souls. The only problem with using a monster soul, however, is that besides boss monsters (the breed of Toriel, Asgore, and Asriel), monster souls disappear immediately after death. They had to figure out a way to make monster souls persist - and they did. It says, using the blueprints of his, they created the DT Extraction machine to extract “it” from the human souls. The substance that allows a soul to persist after death, a substance called “Determination”. The plan henceforth is to inject “Determination” into the bodies of monsters who had fallen down. The goal is that by using a vessel to support the human and monster souls, they will be able to either gather enough by keeping them alive or have enough strength within the souls to equate to a human soul, thus being able to break the barrier along with the other 6 human souls. They then need to find a vessel that will be able to absorb the human and monster souls at the same time to break the barrier when the time comes - but the catch is that humans can’t absorb human souls, and monsters can’t absorb monster souls. Therefore, he needs something that’s not human or monster. He decided to choose a flower that he believes is “special”, because it was the first one that grew, it was apparently from the outside world, and it grew right after Toriel left. They then question what will happen when something without a soul gains the will to live.

After this entry, which is entry 8, everything about the journals change. The writing style from here on out is different - less sophisticated, more panicked. It’s also in all lower case. It is my belief that this is where Alphys started taking over the DT experiments. She explains that things aren’t going well, and she’s anxious as to what to say to the families that want the bodies back to get the dust for the funerals. She also asks, “what do I do?”, further proof that she is now taking over, as she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Why she takes over here, or Gaster’s current presence in the experiments is a mystery. She then explains that the experiments on the vessel failed. After this, we can safely assume that it is definitely Alphys writing, as she talks about Mettaton and how he wants his body finished. She doesn’t know what to do, so she keeps injecting everything with “Determination”, until they open their eyes, and are alive again. It explains that they think the research is a dead end, but at least they got a happy ending out of it. They plan on sending the bodies back the following day, but then something goes wrong (“no, No, NO, NO, NO, NO”). This could be one of two things: one, the bodies of the monsters have now melted together to become the amalgamates, which does definitely happen at some point after this. This is also supported by Alphys’s entry 17, and by what she tells us when we find her, which is that monster bodies can’t handle “Determination” like human bodies, and that they melt into creatures because they can’t support it - we even see it happen to Undyne after her fight during a Genocide route; he body literally can’t handle her Determination. This is why monsters can’t be determined as well. The second thing is that Gaster has now disappeared, as evident by his journal 17. It reads in WingDings (said to be his “font”): “DARKER. DARKER. YET DARKER. THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING. THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER. PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE. THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT. SEEMS. VERY. VERY. INTERESTING. WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?” These “two” leads me to my next point - entries 14 and 15, which take about the fallen monsters reawakening, the research being a bust, and how they were going to send the bodies back. These entries are written differently than both Gaster’s and Alphys’ because they use proper grammar, but they’re not as sophisticated as Gaster’s. It’s my belief that these two entries belong to the one other scientist, Sans. Although he does only speak in lower case letters, he does have a past unknown relationship with Alphys, as hinted at the end of a pacifist ending. He also has blueprints and an unknown machine in his secret lab, and he is known for loving physics and astronomy. An excuse for the proper grammar is that this is before Flowey’s reawakening, and before the time when Flowey would continuously reset. Since Sans was one of the only characters who is aware of the multiple timelines (as he eludes to during his Genocide battle with us), he could have become lazy and careless after all that time, hence why he didn’t bother with proper grammar when we speak to him. The only other lab entries after the entry 17’s discuss how the flower had gone missing, and how the families are still waiting on the bodies. Alphys then mentions how she spends all her time in the garbage dump, which we see in the Pacifist route is true, as that’s where she takes us on a date.

We know that the DT experiments with the monsters still haunt Alphys until the time we meet her. During a True Pacifist route, she leaves the note before entering the true lab to discover “the truth”. She also eludes to it during a near-Genocide Neutral route end of game phone call with her.

The DT experiments prove that all human souls can possess Determination since they’re extracted from the other human souls that are NOT Chara’s.

What is “Fun” Value?

Fun Value is an RNG between 1-100 the game rolls every time you start a new run.

In theory, it looks like each number represents a different timeline, sort of similar to the “many worlds” theory (where there is an infinite number of universes for every choice and decision made). In each “timeline”, one little thing is different than the rest.

The known different occurrences to happen due to the fun value are as follows: 2-39 have a 100% chance of having a “Wrong Number Song” played to you in Snowdin; 40-45 have a 100% chance of Sans prank calling you in Snowdin; 46-50 have a 100% chance of Alphys calling you trying to order a pizza in Snowdin; 56-57 have a 100% chance of giving you nightmare mode puzzles in Snowdin; 61 has a 20% chance of having the NPC G Follower 1 show up in Hotland in front of elevator R1; 62 has a 50% chance of having the NPC G Follower 2 show up in Hotland in front of elevator L3; 63 has a 50% chance of having the NPC G Follower 3 show up in Hotland in front of elevator L2; 65 has a 50% chance of opening up a sound test room, which has a room with 4 different soundtracks, and it also includes the “Shadow Ghost Man”; 66 has a 100% chance of opening up the fake hallway but a 10% chance of giving the door that leads to “Mystery Man”; 80-89 have a 100% chance of having Clam Girl show up in Waterfall (if you speak to her at the right time, this somehow unlocks a part of Sans’s photo album in his basement if you were to get the key. Butterfly effect much?); and finally, 91-100 have a 100% chance to have “Goner Kid” show up in the moving platform room in Waterfall while Undyne is chasing you. The rest of the fun value numbers do not change anything specific.

Who is Doctor W. D. Gaster?

There is a very slim chance of encountering 1 of 3 NPC’s in the game that mentions a man named Doctor W. D. Gaster. And boy, with very little said, there is still so much to know about this guy.

The dialogue from the NPC’s, who are named G Followers 1, 2 and 3, explains that Gaster was the royal scientist before Alphys. Even though he was a slower worker than Alphys, he was brilliant, very difficult to replace, and he was responsible for creating the Core, the source of electricity for the entire Underground. But one day, he vanished without a trace; he fell into his creation and shattered across time and space. GF1 asks is Alphys will end up the same way, GF2 says he's literally holding a piece of him, and GF3 claims that he is listening.

The GF’s are found in Hotland, near the Core, outside elevators R1, L3, and L2.

As mentioned above, there is evidence to believe that Gaster is responsible for starting the DT experiments.

The “Mystery Man” sprite is believed to possibly be Gaster. If you touch him, his eyes widen and then he vanishes.

GF1 says that Gaster “fell into his creation”. This could either be the Core, or the DT extraction machine or possibly something else we don’t know of.

In the True Lab, there is no entry 17, and it can only be accessed by manipulating the game files. The entry is written in WingDings (Gaster’s “font”, which is also what the “W. D.” in his name supposedly stands for), which we can strongly assume means that Gaster wrote it.

There are many hints throughout the game and in the game files that suggest that Gaster is from a timeline that was lost. First of all, in order to even encounter the GF’s your “fun” value has to be very specific. Even to encounter the “Mystery Man”, you must roll a 66, and even then, you only have a 10% chance of even finding him. This can suggest that he was somehow erased from history. The quote from GF2 “he shattered across time and space” can also suggest that he is literally scattered throughout time, that only hints of him can come up in various timelines. Another hint is that if you are to try and name yourself “Gaster”, the game will literally either restart or crash, suggesting that it is not possible to be in any of the timelines whatsoever.

It is very hard to find a lead on how Gaster could have vanished from time by falling into one of his creations unless he created something else that we are unaware of.

It is possible he injected himself with Determination, which is why Mystery Man might appear a bit goopy (since monsters aren't capable of withstanding Determination), and why GF2 could possibly hold a piece of him.

It is claimed in the journals that there were blueprints used to create the DT extraction machine, however, if he really did write the journals, where he got these blueprints or if he created them is a mystery.

There is a possible link to Gaster with Sans. As speculated above, there is a chance that Sans was another scientist just like Alphys, at the time when Gaster was Royal Scientist, since he loves physics, and possibly wrote some of the journal entries. In the Genocide route when you fight him, he uses a weapon called a “Gaster Blaster”, another possible invention of theirs or Gaster’s. Sans also has a secret basement with a workshop, only accessible is you prove to him that you can go back to your save point. He then gives you a key to the basement (after pulling a prank on you across time and space, apparently). In it, you can find blueprints written in either an unknown language, or symbols (possibly WingDings), a broken machine, and a photo album. In the photo album, there’s a picture you can access only if you talk to the Clam Girl where it describes Sans standing with people, with the words “Don’t Forget” on it. These people could possibly be Gaster and Papyrus, or maybe Gaster and Alphys.

On Toby Fox’s twitter, he shared his original character designs for a few characters in the game. On Papyrus’s, it reads: “Has a brother named Comic Sans (aka just Sans), and a — named —”, with the —’s being blacked out. There is tons of speculation saying that it reads “Gaster”, and that he was their father, since Mystery Man resembles a skeleton, and since he also has his own font (WingDings) just like Sans and Papyrus.

There is another possible Gaster sprite, which looks like a ghostly sort of figure, who only appears once you approach him. If you attempt to talk to him, it reads *[redacted]* in wingdings. “Redacted” would imply that there was going to be a conversation there, but it was removed. If you exit the room he is found in, you end up in the sound test room, with four songs, one being “Gaster’s Theme”. If you choose to play Gaster’s Theme, you won’t be able to play any of the other songs. Once the song finishes, the game will crash.

Sometimes when you ride with the River Man, he will tell you to “beware of the man who speaks in hands”. This can refer to the man who speaks wingdings because hand symbols represent some letters in wingdings. He can also tell you to beware of the man who came from the other world.

If your “fun” value is over 90, you can encounter “Goner Kid” in Waterfall. They ask you: “Have you ever thought about a world where everything is the same… except you don’t exist? Everything functions just fine without you… Ha ha… the thought terrifies me.” This can reference the fact that the world in the Underground is going on with no mention of Gaster, as he is possibly wiped from the timelines. He then says, if you’re still holding an umbrella: “An umbrella…? But it’s not raining.” This can be referencing one of Sans’s themes, “It’s Raining Somewhere Else”, which relates to the speculation of Sans’s ties to Gaster.

How did Flowey come to life?

The story of Asriel’s death is quite sad, but Flowey’s reawakening is almost sadder.

It is revealed at the end of a Pacifist route that Flowey is, in fact, Asriel Dreemurr, King Asgore and Queen Toriel’s son. Using the 6 human souls plus literally every soul in the Underground (to equate to the strength of another human soul), he transforms into Asriel, God of Hyperdeath. The souls of your friends become memory heads, and the only way to save them is by jogging their memories with things that happened throughout the game. Once this is done, you save Asriel from himself by replaying the memory of Chara’s fall. With this, he transforms back into himself and finds out that you’re not Chara, but your real name is Frisk. He then returns the souls, but not before breaking the barrier. The monsters leave and eventually, he transforms back into the soulless Flowey.

We find out in New Home during a neutral route that Chara was the first human to fall into the Underground. Asriel finds them and brings them back to the castle. They are raised as Asriel’s brother, and Asgore and Toriel’s child. But what we didn’t know, until Asriel tells us at the end of a Pacifist route, is that Chara hated humanity and that they wanted to free monsters. The way we are told it by monsters is that Chara got sick and died, but we find out in the True Lab tapes that Chara poisoned themselves in an attempt at suicide so that Asriel could absorb their soul, cross the barrier, and get 6 more souls to break it. The power to control Asriel’s body was split between them, so Chara was the one that carried their body across the barrier into their town, to lay on the golden flowers. When the humans saw Asriel holding Chara, they thought he killed them, so they started to attack. Knowing they were capable, Chara wanted to attack back, but Asriel didn’t want to kill them, so they were stuck, taking blow after blow. Finally, they took the body back, crossed back through the barrier into the Underground, and Asriel died, his dust spreading across the golden flowers in the garden. This is when Asgore pledged to kill every human who fell into the Underground, and Toriel, appealed by this, left him to the Ruins, taking Chara’s body with her to bury in the exact spot that we fell.

This is where things get interesting - Asriel’s dust spread across a golden flower; the exact golden flower chosen for the DT experiments. We are told this story by him in New Home during a Genocide route: after injecting the flower with Determination, he reawakens because he gained the will to live. Asriel was eventually found by Asgore but was surprised to see that he was feeling absolutely no emotion for his father. At first, he tries to kill himself, but at the last second decides he doesn’t want to (because he has the will to live aka his Determination) and ends up right back at his save point. This leads into a downward spiral of trying every single possible route - from Pacifist to Genocide. He did this up until we fell into the Underground because our Determination was stronger than his - proving that the person with the most Determination gets control over the timeline.

It is likely that Sans found out about this ability of his, since he knows about past timelines. This is why the line Flowey says at the end of a neutral route about Sans (“Don’t let him find out anything about you. He’s caused my fair share of resets”) makes sense. What Sans did to him is a mystery.

How was Chara Reawakened and Able to Take Over Frisk’s Body?

Unlike the rest of the fallen children, Chara had a Determination soul. Because of this, their reawakening was possible.

Chara tells you at the end of a Genocide route that they were only able to be reawakened with your human soul, and your Determination - otherwise, it would’ve been impossible.

The point that people miss regarding their reawakening is that fact that no matter which route you take - Neutral, Pacifist, or Genocide, Chara is reawakened. This is proven due to the fact that Chara is the second-person speaker in the game: the narrator. Every time you do an action, Chara is the one that describes it. This is proven by what the “narrator” says during a Genocide route; speaking directly as who they are in some instances. We can also tell Chara is there because of the memories that are recalled. Every time you die, Chara remembers Asgore’s voice talking to them right before they die (“Chara! You have to stay determined”). While in Waterfall, there is a point where Undyne knocks you down into the garbage dump, and you are sort of “knocked out” for a second. During that brief moment, Chara remembers the moment they fell into the Underground and met Asriel. Finally, during the fight with Asriel, the only way you’re able to save him is with the help of Chara, recalling Asriel’s favourite memories with them, which brings him back to his true form.

Chara only starts to take over your body once they see your intentions of eradicating everything from the Underground (their first “take over” is in Snowdin, when they refuse to stand behind the conveniently-shaped lamp. We don’t get control in that moment). The question is, why wouldn’t they try to stop us from killing everything in the Underground if they hated humanity but cared about monsters enough to sacrifice themselves for them? It’s possible that it was because, unlike all other traits, Determination is not limited to good or evil - it can be both. Since in a Genocide route we chose the latter, and Chara fed off our Determination and our human soul, that’s why they turned into a demonic destructive child.

What makes Determination so unique then if it’s not rare?

Determination can somewhat be considered an outlier from the other traits - it has qualities only it can have.

Determination souls are the only souls that can save, load, and reset. We know this because of when Flowey tells us during a Genocide route that before we came, HE was the one who had the most determination, that he had the power to “go back” to his save point in the garden.

Determination is the only trait that can be used for both good and evil. Take the trait patience for example; it has one objective to itself, and that it to just be patient. If your patient, the soul is strong, and if you resist, the soul will grow weaker. However, as we see in the game, Determination can be used to offer hope and love, or create a Genocide and grow LV. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, as long as you’re determined, the soul will be strong.

Determination can rewake a dead Determination soul, as we see with Chara.

Determination can allow both a human soul and monster soul to persist death. We see this with both Frisk and Undyne, and we also can tell by what was found through the Determination experiments.

Determination is one of the strongest traits, even going so far as to melt monster bodies that possess too much of it. We see this with the amalgamates, with Undyne, and we can read about it in Alphys’s journal entry 17. It’s treated more so as something physical than a trait like the others.

It is possible that a Determination soul is defined as a soul composed of an equal amount of the 6 other traits, creating physical Determination. This theory is based on the ball game in Snowdin, where we establish the six traits with the corresponding flag colours. However, should you get a red flag, it reads: “Bravery, Justice. Integrity. Kindness. Perseverance. Patience. Using these, you were able to win at ‘Ball Game’”. This can imply that these six traits create the “red”, which is the colour of our soul, which we assume is Determination.

Is there a difference between “Fallen Down” and DEATH?

Absolutely.

Whenever we kill a monster, it immediately turns to dust, and we get XP for killing it. However we read that there is another term used if we read Mettaton’s diary, and it’s called “Fallen Down”. He writes about his friend, Shyren, and how her sister had “fell down”, also explaining how she no longer has her sister to stand up for her. This sounds like it implies that she’s dead, however, when the True Lab journals describe the monster bodies that are “fallen down”, it describes them as comatose, and that they haven’t turned to dust yet. Therefore, “fallen down” means that they are in a coma, likely to never rewake, and dust = death.

#undertale #theory #facts #evidence #frisk #chara #questions #answers #determination #gaster

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emilysarsam · 6 years

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Taking back the market: An auditory dérive through Pueblito Paisa

Dérive (“drift”) in psychogeographic terms, suggests to derive the meaning of a place by passing through its varied ambiences with a playful and constructive awareness of the space and the encounters which it facilitates (Debord 1958). The concept offers a lens through which I will explore microclimates within the Seven Sisters market in Tottenham. My approach to this study was heavily influenced by spacial theorists such as Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey, whose book “Rebel Cities” I happened to be reading at the time of discovering the market. Pueblito Paisa, strongly resembles Harvey’s idea of a “microstate”, which he describes as an autonomously functioning fragmented state, that is born out of the stark polarization of wealth in highly urbanized cities (Harvey 2013, p.15). In the market, I’m also reminded of the concept of heterotopia, which according to Foucault, is a non-hegemonic space of “otherness” and, in the case of Pueblito Paisa, illustrates the result of social heteronomy, a product of class systems within urban capitalist centers. In this heterotopia however, “ethnic, gender and language inequality are key factors in encouraging agency and entrepreneurship which contribute to a sense of belongingness, identity and self-representation” (Roman-Velazquez 2013).

This fieldwork project, in the shape of diary entries and a sound map, reflects an exploration of the market through dérive. It aims to shed light on the complex social fabric that forms Pueblito Paisa’s community and illustrate the important role that such communities play in today’s urban context.

The market (When referring to the market, the names “Latin Village”, “Seven Sisters market”, and “Pueblito Paisa” are used interchangeably.)

Latin Village, located at 231-243 High Rd., contains 39 shops, of which 23 are owned or leased by Latin American retailers (Roman-Velazquez 2013). After Elephant & Castle in Southwark, The Seven Sisters market has the second highest concentration of Latin American business in London (Cabrera 2017). Since 2004, Haringey Council and Grainger development company have been negotiating a regeneration scheme for the area which requires the demolition of the market to make way for 196 non-affordable residential units and 40,000 sq. ft of retail space. Although the developers promise to provide a new long term home for the Seven Sisters Market within this space, the market community fears that it will disintegrate and be unable to afford the rent in the new development (https://tottenham.london/WC).

1. December: My first visit to Pueblito Paisa

I’m sitting in Latin Village’s Peruvian restaurant, “Pueblito Paisa Café”, which looks out on to the Seven Sisters station, allowing a glimpse of the outside world and reminding me that I’m in London. The restaurant is the only place I’ve spotted any other “gringxs”, by which I’m referring to people like myself. Regarding most of the market community is Latin American and speak little to no English, I completely forget my geographic location.

Music is ubiquitous. Almost every shop has its own speakers, playing a selection of Bachata, Salsa, Merengue and Cumbia tracks. Multiple tv-screens hang above the aisles, displaying the, mostly Youtube, playlists. Music is a vital element of the market’s soundscape and its impact on people’s uplifted mood is striking. Conversations are interrupted by familiar tunes, when spoken dialogue turns in to a song, whistle or dance. While wandering through the market like a tourist, I meet Alejandro Gonzalez Gortazar, a Cuban journalist and artist who’s been in the UK for 10 years and has known the market equally as long. He’s helping his friend Fabian, who owns the restaurant “Monantial”, with renovations. Having heard that the market would soon be moved to a temporary location, I am surprised to see people investing time and money in improving a space which developers were threatening to demolish. He happens to break for a cigarette so I take the chance to approach him and introduce myself, hoping he would be able to tell me more about the market. Luckily, he’s eager to speak and begins to talk about Pueblito Paisa’s foundation. According to Alejandro, a group of Colombian immigrants discovered the market about 20 years ago, which then was a half vacant market run by mainly African traders. Noticing they could rent stalls for cheap, they took their chances and started businesses, sending out for kin in Colombia to join in on the opportunities.

All of the market’s stalls have a commercial purpose, but still people seem to be using the space as a community center. There’s a notion of informality and inclusiveness at Pueblito Paisa which allows the general public access to and usage of the space without the pressure to consume or spend money. I think that markets function as important places of integration and solidarity for diverse communities and vulnerable people, where they can find affordable (and sometimes even free) food, social networks and even job opportunities. So why talk about Pueblito Paisa? And why through my eyes and ears, a gringa who has no prior connection to the market or the Latin American community.My sense of “rootlessness”, having been raised in Austria by a Canadian mother and an Iraqi father, has sparked my interest in the formations of “homes away from home” by immigrants and displaced peoples. At Latin Village, sound strikes me as one of the most powerful stimulants in recreating this sense of home. The omnipresence of Latin-American music, Spanish speaking voices, the sizzling of empanadas in the deep friers. Modern technology has enhanced the mobile notion of sound, allowing displaced people to reclaim space through sound and reestablish a sense of “home” wherever they go.Pueblito Paisa offers a fascinating location to study sound’s capacity to communicate impressions of a vibrant community’s social dynamics which is experiencing a period of transition. The Seven Sisters regeneration plans will uproot a well established community and possibly eliminate its collective memory. All I feel that my project can achieve is to exhibit the importance of this market to the livelihood and wellbeing of a community which is overlooked by developers interested in little more than reproducing capital wealth. To create documents that will allow the continuation of Pueblito Paisa’s existence, if only in people’s memory.

6. December: Second visit with Rita

(Screenshot taken of Seven sisters market through Google Maps Street View)

We’re sitting in Pueblito Paisa Café’s conservatory again, juxtaposed between two realms, Latin Village and Seven Sisters. The market is invisible, hiding in plain sight behind trees and vegetable vendors on High Rd., making it hard for passersby to assume what lays behind. This invisibility has offered the community a safe place to establish and express itself freely but the market’s lack of visibility has also made it hard for the community to gain the support they need to protect it.

This time with Rita, my Spanish speaking friend who’s offered to help with translation, we meet Fernando and his colleague Nixon of El EstanQuillo, Pueblito Paisa’s most dynamic hang-out, functioning as a grocery store, butcher, bakery, café, bar, and dance club. Nixon is a baker from Colombia who came to London and found work in Fernando’s shop two years ago. The space is a melting pot of sounds, where the noise of a juice mixer blends with Colombian christmas music and the chopping of meat. All the while kids, sipping on their hot chocolates, watch their parents dance with Corona bottles in their hands. Just across the aisle, we find Fabian from “Manantial”, replacing the carpet in front of his restaurant, completing the renovation process that Alejandro started last week. Later I find out through Mirca Morera, the founder of the Social Enterprise Latin Corner UK and one of the leading women fighting to save the market and protect the rights of its traders, that Fabian is a victim of the 7/7 bombings and is currently facing eviction charges on false accusations by the council appointed market facilitator, Jonathan Owen.

Just next door is the salon of a lovely Portuguese hairdresser, who is repainting her storefront and invites us to the reopening of her shop the following Saturday. Mirca will later tell me that she has a heart condition relies on the income and stability that the market can offer her, to ensure her health and livelihood. While she chats to us about family and work, her warm and welcoming spirit makes us feel like she’s always known us. Some in the market recognize me and wonder how I am and where I’ve been. Many traders tell me that their customers to them are friends before potential income-sources. “When a frequent customer doesn’t show up for a couple of days, I begin to worry and, if possible, call them to see if they’re alright”, Victoria Alvarez tells me. Vicky is the president of the association El Pueblito Paisa Ltd, owns two businesses in the market and is the face of the current crowd-funding campaign striving to raise 7,500 pounds towards a legal defense fund to preserve the market and its community.

9. December: Third visit with Paul

We’ve decided that Latin Village reveals elements of the failing system we live in.

Pueblito Paisa succeeds in protecting individuals who have fled economic hardship and possibly persecution, by offering them job opportunities and social networks. Rather than just facilitating economic reproduction, the space functions as a safe place guaranteeing the community’s happiness. Here, individuals do not self-maximize for the sake of reproducing their own wealth, but rather self-sustain for the sake of reproducing their own and community’s happiness. In an ideal reality, where governing systems enforce city development to improve the life quality of its citizens, particularly minorities and the most vulnerable, the protection of spaces, like Pueblito Paisa, woul be of highest priority.

Upon arriving at the market we head straight to El EstanQuillo to visit Nixon and Fernando. “Bomba En Navidad” by Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz, who Nixon adores, is playing while customers dance beneath the christmas decoration. We go over to see the Portuguese hairdresser who’s celebrating the reopening of her shop. She invites us in for snacks and drinks and to dance to some Reggaeton tunes together with her family and friends. After getting in touch with Latin Village UK over Facebook in the hopes of learning more about the organisation’s activities, Mirca invites me to the market to chat this evening. I find her sitting at her little community desk which she has set up in her stepfather’s video and music shop, “Videomania”. Her table is surrounded by artwork made by children from the market community, for who she organizes regular field trips to universities and museums. A trained educator, Mirca adores and is adored by the market community. With slogans and hashtags like, “take the Victoria line to Latin America”, she’s targeting the anglophone community through Latin Village UK’s campaigns. She’s also taken her plead to the UN triggering an intervention by the UN working group on business and human rights. Mirca and Vicky Alvarez seem to be the informal mayors of the market. They know the names and stories of everyone and fight restlessly to make their stories heard. They tell me that half of Pueblito Paisa’s business owners are female and that the market plays an important role in offering women, especially from Latin America, the opportunity of employment or entrepreneurship. These opportunities have raised their self-esteem and empowered their agency in a city which makes it extremely difficult for migrants, particularly female, to integrate into the job market.

Above: Images from Latin Village UK’s crowdfunding campaign: https://www.instagram.com/savelatinvillage

Below: Video still from Latin Village UK’s campaign video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luEy65Y5n7s

16. December: Fourth visit alone

I’m on the tube heading back South, siting across from three men who left the market the same time as I did. They recognize me, smile and start speaking to me in Spanish, the market’s notion of community clashing with London underground’s nature of anonymity. It’s an incredibly precious feeling, realizing that inside this vast city, a sense of familiarity amongst strangers is possible.

Back at the market, I sit inside Vicky’s salon, chatting to her and Mirca while outside the market begins to fill up for an evening full of music and dance. Vicky tell her life story, of how she arrived in London from Colombia about 30 years ago. It was only until her father was murdered due to the Colombian conflict, that the UK granted her asylum and she was able to flee the country. She lost four of her siblings during the war and has undergone immense trauma, making her a very anxious person today. She tells me that the current market facilitator, Jonathan Owen, uses harassment to tear apart the market community and make way for developers to start working on the regeneration project. Many community members are Colombian refugees and suffer from PTDS. Vicky fears for the mental health of the community and is convinced that Jonathan’s bullying and threats may evoke anxiety and flashbacks of the terror they lived through in Colombia. “We are not just a shopping market, we are like a psychological clinic, a therapeutic market.” (Roman-Velazquez 2013). I am deeply humbled by Vicky and Mirca, who fight day and night to protect the market. Not to ensure their own livelihoods, but to defend their community’s right to existence, free cultural expression, and mental health and stability.

In the bathroom, which goes dark after 9PM when electricity is cut, I meet Lorena who is holding up her phone to illuminate the bathroom. She notices that I’m new to the market and asks me how I like it here. “I love it, what about you?”. She laughs, “me? I am Colombian, of course I love it! It’s the best place in London”. We continue to chat about life in the city while she holds the flashlight over the sink while I wash my hands.

Pueblito Paisa is a place of casual heart-warming encounters like this, a public space in its purest form, which is open to all and is shaped by the diverse people who use it. These are the spaces we need most in increasingly urbanizing cities like London where urban commons are reclaimed by profit-driven developers who are privatizing the city for their own economic benefit. It is places like Latin Village that remind us that cities can exist for people and not only for profit. It is places like this that make me feel “at home”.

“Dériving” in Pueblito Paisa: A sound map

Follow the link for the soundscape and its description (to trace the dérive, refer to the map above):

https://soundcloud.com/emily-sarsam/pueblito-paisa-an-auditory-derive

Follow the link for a Spotify playlist of music heard at Pueblito Paisa:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1111197818/playlist/1y5DaUkpu0nnBbowCwv2hM

References:

Cabrera, Maria. “We need to recognise the latinx community in the UK: Save Pueblito Paisa.” http://www.gal-dem.com/latinx-community-pueblito-paisa/ (accessed December 30, 2017)

Costa-Kostritsky, Valeria. “‘I won’t be displaced again’: the fight to save London's latin market.” https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/valeria-costa-kostritsky/fight-to-save-london-latin-market (accessed December 30, 2017)

Debord, Guy. “Theory of the Dérive”. 1958. http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/2.derive.htm (accessed December 30, 2017)

Harvey, David. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Paperback edition. London: Verso, 2013.

Roman-Velazquez, Patria. Valuing the work of small ethnic retail in London: Latin retail at E&C and Seven Sisters. Presentation given at Department of Sociology, UCL. 23 March 2013. https://latinelephant.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/valuing-small-ethnic-retail-space_ec.pdf (accessed December 30, 2017)

Photographs & Map:

All Photographs and the map are my own.

Photo 1 (cover) : An aisle in Pueblito Paisa, 2017.

Photo 2: El Pueblito Paisa Café, 2017.

Photo 3: El EstanQuillo, 2017.

Photo 4: Tiendas Manuelita, 2017.

Photo 5: Horvipan, 2017.

Photo 6: El EstanQuillo, 2017.

#latin village #pueblito paisa #colombia #london #tottenham #haringey #gentrification #soundscape #seven sisters

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offbeat-pipedreams · 6 years

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for personal use and reflection, i think i will start putting some diary entry esque things here, if anyone wants to read them, feel free but it’ll probably be boring

half of this is about my parents and the other half is about a girl

my parents hurt my feelings today it really irks me that they still can and do so it was decided i was being disrespectful but from what i gather the reasons my mother was upset were /sean didn't wake up early today/ /sean didn't get a long term job this summer/ and my father was upset because my mother was and they both take out frustrations on me

i can dissociate from anyone else that exhibits such behaviours but i live with my parents and they pay for me to go to school they often demand unwavering respect that i guess probably upsets them that i don't give them also rather, they demand what they call respect but is unquestioning ignorant loyalty and obedience at all costs without trying at all to earn either

i don't respect them because they are stupid and childish in the worst ways they don't listen to the opinions of other people with anything resembling an open mind they don't change their outlooks or opinions if someone isn't directly helping them they may as well be an enemy

it bothers me that i live here there is such a negative aura that i never feel like doing anything productive, and i know that this is not just my laziness because it doesn't happen anywhere else, and i try not to spend much time here these days even though i don't have much to go to most of the time i guess i could try to work more for compass, i sent a text asking about that earlier today there is light solace in the thought that if i pass, i only have one remaining year in college, so will most likely be away from here soon ish it's fairly alarming to think that i will have to be a functioning adult soon but i will just have to suck it up

i don't know what to do in regard to my current romantic involvement we don't have very much in common and i am not fond of her speaking voice or taste/ sense of style which i guess is a little harsh but so much is so grating and lots of what drew me to her in the first place has stopped being true or shifted, for example an energetic nature has turned to lethargy, and a youthful curious friendly nature has turned to youthful self centredness and oblivion ignorance stupidity i don't know how to communicate any of this, and most of me thinks that i should not, as all it would do to the person in question is hurt her feelings most of our kinship seems to just be around 'i make her happy' i don't enjoy intimacy much when i don't feel close with the person, and suppose to do with it being of a sexual nature, it feels worse than masturbating does in such a case, which is somewhat sad in my eyes however, i crave non sexual intimacy fairly strongly for someone that so seldom actively courts it, so i suppose it is pleasant to be in the company of someone that i don’t feel strange about hugging regularly i feel a little bit conflicted as to whether or not to continue these interactions but i guess it’s nice to make others feel good but i’m not sure if the amount of time and effort is worthwhile to the amount of good being done i guess some of the conflict comes from the novelty of feeling wanted also, as i am seldom sought out, and i like to be it has been the first time in quite a while that someone has been on at me to meet up regularly as opposed to me having to instigate social contact, which i am usually hesitant towards, which leads to involuntarily hermit esque behaviour /he'll yea/

#diary

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isobelhigginbotham · 4 years

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10/05/20 Posting the Transcript

PART 1: The Ship’s history and the artefact’s comparison to the original ship.

This artefact is a uniquely Korean sculpture; universally know as the turtle ship, identified by the Koreans as a “Geobukseon”. This museum artefact is modelled upon the famous warship predominantly associated with the Imjin Wars between the years of 1592 and 1598. Follow us as I discover the rich history of the turtle ships dating back to the 16th century of the Joseon dynasty and association with Admiral Yi Sun-sin. I also explore the reason why the turtle ship was gifted, through an insight into national pride and Korean legacies.

The turtle ship is mostly connected to Admiral Yi Sun-sin who is one of the most celebrated figures in Korean history, for leading the victory against Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s Japanese invasion. Korea’s strength lay with its navy and the turtle ship was far superior to its ancestor the P’anokseon. Let us look as some of the more groundbreaking elements of the turtle ship’s design.

The turtle ship is unusual and best known for its removal of the castle from the deck, which was replaced with roofing, certainly resembling a turtle shell as the ship was completely enclosed. The South Sea between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese Isles is known to be rocky with sudden changes of the current. The turtle ship was designed with a wide keel, enabling it to have an incredible 360’ manoeuvre and suppleness against these changing currents as well as being fast and agile.

The most distinguishable feature was the dragon-shaped head at the bow of the shop. Through much of my reading, I came to the conclusion that the dragon’s head could also be used to confuse the enemy with the aim of striking fear into the hearts of Japanese sailors. Filled with sulphur, the smoke could effectively hide the ship’s movement and act as a form of psychological warfare. It could also fit a small canon called a hwangja-chongtong. More visibly, the ships became capable of shooting cannonballs directly ahead and behind themselves. The Gobukseon represented a multitude of advancements in shipbuilding.

The ship featured iron spikes on its back to deter the enemy from boarding the ship. Sources vary as to whether or not the spikes were attached to protective metal or wooden planks. The case can be made either way as no one knows for sure. But the name ‘ironclad warship’, I find can often be misleading, since evidence strongly suggests the theory that the turtle ships designed in 1592 had only wooden roofs with iron spikes. In his book Haeng Rok, Yi Bun – nephew to Admiral Yi Sun-sin described the vessels in detail, explaining “the turtles back is a rood made with planks”.

I wanted to consider how similar the museum artefact is compared to the original ships. The turtle ships featuring in the 16th century disintegrated in the Inch’on Harbour, therefore it is difficult to see how it really compares. However, through dedicated research I found some evidence to suggest an earlier turtle ship existed before Yi’s remodelling, but these were never used in war. It is then, Yi’s model that is the most prominent in all recent attempts to replicate the boat. The diary entries from Yi’s memorials publishing in 1795 described numerous important details about the ships, and also features illustrations of the ship itself. The artefact from the Durham museum looks far more like the second illustration in Yi’s diary, which features the improvements Yi Sun-sin made, in comparison to the earlier style ship associated with King T’aejong’s reign. Yi’s ship has less oars and the dragon’s head is much more prominent, just like the one in the museum. This model is made of bronze, featuring 14 bronze oars, canon ramparts, a large anchor and a dragon’s head. This replica of the full size ship is a sign of technological innovation, highlighted by the fact it also features on the presence of the 5 Won coins. The turtle ship was a product of unprecedented industrial design. What was truly ground breaking was that the design was based on a turtle, evidence of Korea’s ingenuity and creativity. The ship bears witness to the cherished place, which this reptile came to hold in Korean life as a symbol of longevity and good fortune and as a guardian against evil. Due to its involvement in the Imjin Wars under the allegiance of Yi Sun-sin and the ingenuity of the ship’s design, it has most definitely earned itself a very important sport in maritime history and worthy gift to the donor.

(Roughly 3.8 minutes)

Part 2: Bishop Richard Rutt, his involvement in Korea and the history at the time of gifting

I wanted to delve deeper into why Bishop Richard Rutt was given this artefact. English Roman Catholic Priest and former Anglican Bishop, Rutt spent almost 20 years of his life serving as a missionary in South Korea, spending much of his time studying the language, culture and history. Rutt moved over in 1956, but the most important date is 1968, where Rutt succeeded as Bishop of Taejon. Rutt is well remembered as a Korean scholar and to give some examples, Rutt wrote a book of his life in Korea called the ‘Korean Works and Days’ in 1964. During his time in Korea, Rutt was also involved in the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea branch, which was based in Seoul and established in 1900. Founded to provide a platform for scholarly research on the history, culture and natural landscapes of the Korean Peninsula, Rutt was a leading figure there and published articles in their journal such as Chinese Learning in 1960 and the Flower Boys of Silla 1961 just to name a few. The society is heavily connected with diplomats and other officials in Korea, undertaking trips and excursions. Taking Rutt’s life into account and the fact it was presented to him by Admiral Kim Yong Kwan, who was the chief of Naval operations at the time, it is reasonable to conclude that the gift was either given to him on account of his missionary, academic or ecclesiastical work.

On the back of this, one area of investigation that I really wanted to pursue, was the question of why was Rutt gifted a turtle ship? So, I considered the context of the time in 1969. In Korean society and culture more generally, after the Korean War (1950-52), there was a consistent movement towards establishing an illustrious Korean history. As part of this reclaiming of Korean history, things like turtle ship and heroic figures like Admiral Yi Sun-sin respectively became symbols of Korean ingenuity. At one time, during the 1970s, statues of the Admiral were erected in key places around South Korea to inspire patriotism. An example of this is the statue of Yi in Seoul erected in 1968 alongside his infamous turtle ship. It is considered one of the major landmarks and symbols of rebuilding Korea. President at the time, Park Chung-hee looked to use Korean history to bolster certain elements of his policies and to provide commentary on the state of the nation. The port town of Yeosu have long celebrated their status as the home of the turtle ship, and there stands another statue of Yi. So, it is likely the turtle ship was chosen as a gift to Rutt as a representative symbol of Korea’s proud history and statement of Korea’s military might.

Throughout the 20th and 21st century, the naval community, especially the Royal Navy of Korea founded in 1945, has made significant efforts to reclaim Yi’s legacy. The Royal Navy of Korea, through Yi, was attempting to remind the public of the necessity of naval power highlighting the fact that it was the Korean naval forces that saved the country in the 16th century during the Japanese invasions. This goes a long way in explaining the replica of the turtle ship that is on display at the Korea Naval Academy opened in 1975, and also a long way into providing the reason why it was a model of a turtle ship that Admiral Kim Yon Kwan gifted to Bishop Richard Rutt in 1969, since it was during a time of rebuilding Yi’s legacy.

The great victory of the Imjin War is transfigured in the statues and models of the turtle ship, acting as a sign of perseverance. As quoted by Admiral Heihachiro Tog – “If ever there was an admiral worthy of being called the God of War, that one is Yi Sun-sin”. According to Kenneth Swope, gift shops throughout Korea are filled with figurines of Yi and his famous turtle boat. This is significant evidence for the argument that Rutt was gifted the turtle ship as a symbol of national pride and patriotism.

The statues of Yi and his ship act a source of identity and strong military might. Rutt spent much of his time in Seoul and so by presenting him with the turtle ship in 1969, does not seem unusual, since it serves as a ubiquitous symbol found in shops and statues across South Korea. This then solves the reason why he was given a turtle ship, seen as a reinstatement of Korea’s proud history. It also resembles a beautiful object of desire and one would be ‘hard pressed to find another four-hundred-year-old conflict anywhere else in the world with as much contemporary visibility’. The turtle ship then, is an ingenious gift to Richard Rutt, as a reinstatement of impressive Korean history and defeat of the Japanese. ‘For a technology level equivalent to the early Renaissance, the Korean turtle ship stands out as a master of its domain and a worthy object of desire’.

Script reads as 8 minutes and 4 seconds

Direct sources from the Transcript:

Joseph Cummins, The War Chronicles: From Chariots to Flintlocks (Beverly: Fair Winds Press, 2008)

Kenneth M. Swope, “A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598″ (USA: University of Oklahoma, 2009)

Online resources:

Gwangju & South Jeolla’s International Magazine: <https://gwangjunewsgic.com/arts-culture/korean-myths/behind-the-myth-the-turtle-ship/>

The Mariners Museum: <http://www.marinersmuseum.org/blogs/civilwar/?p=1873>

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healthmasterlove-blog · 6 years

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Soap nuts for hair

Spoiler alert: I threw in the towel after 11 days. KAT-S JULY 10, 2015 TAGS: Ecofriendly, SHAMPOO, ALTERNATIVE BEAUTY, SOAP NUTS SPONSORED STORIES by Back in June I ran a hair experimentation I resolved to wash my own hair with soap blossoms for fourteen days. I've a pixie cut, so I presumed. My own hair ostensibly replaces itself every 4 weeks. What's the worst that may happen? I actually don't mind using shampoo, but that I really like beauty experiments. I had first seen soap nuts in my regional Intense Hippy Shop, that sells wooden toothbrushes, menstrual cups, and also additional ecofriendly products. Intrigued, I did just a small research. Works out this banana nuts are now berries which grow in India and Nepal. They truly are full of pure saponin, making them exemplary soap replacements. It is possible to use these to clean your laundry ... or your own hair. The soap opera nuts presented with an intriguing option to pulp: they're ordinary, simple, and economical. A 14-ounce jar could endure for weeks. Granted there was not a great deal of advice regarding using soap as pulp, but only caused me enthused. This is really a true experimentation, my participation into no-poo science! I browse a whole lot of contradictory advice regarding ways to generate soap nut "shampoo" therefore that I sort of winged it. Generally, you create a banana nut extract by massaging the soap in plain water. You massage the water in your own hair, make it for 5 to 10 minutes, then wash out it. A great deal of sources assert you wont require purification. Additionally they warn you never to receive it on your own eyes. Here is the recipe that I moved together: Drink 10 soap nuts in two glasses of water to half an hour. Allow liquid cool completely. Voila: you finally possess a jar of plain water soap nut extract. I don't really advise using this particular recipe, for reasons which you will browse below. The simplest way to employ will be always to put 1/3 cup into a squeezable plastic jar and shake it lightly to create it watertight. Squeeze the foam on your own roots and then work it out throughout your endings. Allow it to sit in your own hair for five full minutes, then wash. Soap Nut Diary: Day 1 Alright, washing your hair with warm soap nut tea really is a nuisance. I tried to utilize my partner's almost-empty shampoo jar, however, he refused me had been "still deploying it" So as an alternative I squeezed the liquid to a empty bourbon bottle. I shook it up, but your suds wouldn't emerge (I figure this is exactly the reason why you want a plastic squeeze bottle). I simply wound up hammering a palmful of liquid on my mind while I stumbled on the sink. I wet my entire own hair, rubbed my entire scalp somewhat, then decide on a timer. I saw 5 minutes of Ru Paul's drag-race from the restroom to remind myself this beauty takes attempt. The extract smelled strongly like peppermint, however, the smell did not linger after repainting. I believe I've left the extract overly strong: my own hair feels very fresh but a very small bit ironic. It had a clarifying effect: some co worker asked when I had dyed my hair blonder. NOPE! Simply banana nuts. I informed her to continue to keep your eye on my own hair at the weeks ahead of time. Day 3 My own hair looks nice. I am sort of digging my brand new, weird early morning pattern. This is quite a superior method of washing your hair in the event that you dwelt at which you'd to store water. Day 4 Now I realized I left my soap nut shampoo manner overly strong. I diluted my recipe using the same number of water. At this time, my hair resembles day-2 hair shortly after washing however it's much less greasy. I actually don't have to place any product inside it. It appears a little ironic, so I put a few argan oil onto it to nourish it (it's sexy, so I have been washing it each single day). Day 5 My own hair gets very dry. It's stressing me out. My scalp is itchy. Day 6. I broke down and used conditioner. My own hair looked slightly better later, however it appearing dull. Maybe I will wash it even less? Except it is summer and I am attempting to exercise alot and that I haaaaaave to. Day 8 I had dry shampoo. Tremendous mistake. Rather than consuming the acrylic, the sterile shampoo simply added into the mess. I actually don't believe that it will wash away. Day 10 My own hair is tender and lacklustre. I deep-conditioned with a coconut oil, I fear that the soap nuts aren't strong enough to scrub out the oil. Day 1 1 I would like to scrub my own hair poorly. It's dry, however, maybe not wash. My scalp is just like there is stuff stuck into it. My husband said it looks "waxy." This is really a enormous mistake. Why did I believe I really could emotionally handle three weeks of terrible hair? I wrote that entry in my phone over the road home from your work. As soon as I got home, I wanted my husband to shoot one final photo of me snapped and washed my hair with pleasant, lovely, paraben and sulfate-filled shampoo. I am interested to find better ways to look after my own hair, however I doubt I will chase the soap nut path farther. In the long run, my own hair suffered no permanent harm. The one thing hurt was my soul. I completely caked my capability to suffer though darkened, itchy hair loss. I'd lousy hair because of my whole childhood and adolescence, therefore that I presumed I would be an expert! Ends up it's tough to return back again. Have any one of you tried using soap nuts? What is the strangest attractiveness regime you have ever tried? Read the full article

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how2to18 · 6 years

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FOR A WRITER, reading Karl Ove Knausgaard is a master class in creating reader-writer intimacy, as devotees of his six-volume, 3,500-page autobiographical novel, My Struggle (2009–2011), well know. Even when he writes in a formal mode, as in the novel A Time for Everything (2004), which investigates the existence of angels through the retelling of biblical stories in a Norwegian landscape, we are thrust into the primordial psyche, as if standing in a circle around a communal fire and passing a live, beating, bloody heart.

In contrast, Knausgaard keeps the reader at a friendly distance in his Season quartet’s first two collections of essays, Autumn and Winter (2015–2016/2018), which are both presented as “Letters to an Unborn Daughter,” for whom he philosophically muses on topics of home and the world. In Spring, the third, he does something entirely different; he narrates a single day of life with that daughter, now three months old, during which they drive to the hospital where the mother of his four children is being treated for bipolar depression. The book is a bare-knuckles psychological thriller, sprung from the flashback of his interview with Child Protective Services. The fourth volume, Summer, is less propelling — a combination of musing on his quintessential subjects and diary entries. Midway through the book’s June diary, Knausgaard writes about having once considered crafting a religion-themed thriller under a pseudonym, giving me reason to anticipate some genre fun after the great tease of Spring.

The quartet’s parts, which are fragmentary and epistolary, do not have the stand-alone world-building weight of, say, the individual volumes of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet; Summer, in particular, is uneven and uncategorizable. Ingvild Burkey, who so capably and poetically translated Autumn, Winter, and Spring, has returned to finish the series; Scandinavian artists Vanessa Baird, Lars Lerin, and Anna Bjerger, respectively, illustrated the first three books, while German painter Anselm Kiefer provided Summer’s art. Each month is organized by topics — Lawn Sprinklers, Fainting, Ground Wasps, and the recurring subject The Bat (one of my favorites) — with June’s and July’s lists followed by diary entries. The diaries comprise his day-to-day activities, such as going to the doctor for a checkup on his bloody stool (a cliff-hanger from Spring) only to find himself on the table studying his own nakedness, embarrassed by what he considers to be a disappointing penis size. As always, he is unflinching in self-examination.

Surprisingly, in these diaries the first-person narrative is taken over by the voice of a 73-year-old Norwegian woman remembering her affair with an Austrian soldier during World War II. Based on an actual woman his grandfather knew, her narrative is underwhelming, and not nearly as interesting or courageous in its revelations as Knausgaard himself. Taking on a female perspective is refreshing, but he fails to give this character equal gravitas. He also rather disappointingly leaves out an ending diary for August, though his final chapter “Ladybirds” brings a sufficient conclusion by considering the Anthropocene — when every part of the globe seems to either be freezing, flooding, or frying at any given time — and thus suggesting the inevitable world’s end.

Despite his despondency, Knausgaard is, finally, an optimist; his way of seeing in the quartet most often leans toward description of nature’s inexhaustible beauty, such as this rhapsody in praise of birches:

[H]ow in winter they lost their volume entirely, like dogs or cats with shaggy fur who seem to shrink when they get wet; how their thin twigs were covered with pale green buds in spring, which no matter how old the trees were — and some of them must have been my grandparents’ age — made them look young and bashful; how their small sequin-shaped leaves hung in dense garlands in summer, so that their foliage resembled gowns; and how in the early-autumn storms they could look like ships with sails stretched taut by the wind, or swans beating their wings as they rose from the water.

Beauty abounds. Here, on the subject of Summer Night and disappointment in love, Knausgaard gently sets the scene at a hotel with a woman he loved:

We didn’t say anything, we didn’t need to say anything, I thought, it would just spoil it, for the silence was like a vault above the landscape. From here we could see the moon suspended high above the forest, perfectly round. With no competition from mountains or cities it owned the sky. Though the water around us was still and smooth, it seemed to well up, I thought. Now and again a faint splash sounded, from fish feeding near the surface. Isn’t it beautiful, I said. Yes, she said. It’s very beautiful. And soon it will start to get light, I said. Yes, she said. Neither of us knew then that it would be the last night we spent together, but over the next two days everything that had lain unspoken between us came out, and we found no other way to handle it than to break up. It still hurts to think about it, that we were together that night, which is the most beautiful night I have experienced, and that we can’t have shared any of it, as I thought we did. The “we” I had felt so strongly held only me.

In a February 13, 2018, BBC News interview, Knausgaard insists that he’s the opposite of the narcissistic brooder some readers assume he is: “I am a very positive and optimistic person,” he says. Despite all that is happening politically in this world, “there are more good people than bad people […] more clever people than stupid people.” He proclaims his happiness, asserts that writing brings life to him. When asked what purpose or message this quartet may hold for his daughter, he answers, “Life can be and will be incredibly hard, but it is always worth living.”

This may come as a surprise to his steady readers, and to those who feel the world is falling apart. For the past six years, one of my oldest, closest friends has been answering calls at a suicide hotline from staggering numbers of those who increasingly believe the opposite about life. My nephew’s bar mitzvah fell only a few days after the Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain suicides, and his group of seven finished their respective presentations with the stats on American suicides and those hospitalized for attempts. The audience gasped.

This also might be the kind of moment we have come to expect from Knausgaard — from Norwegian writers, in general. Hanne Ørstavik’s 1997 novella, Love, which was published this year in English with a translation by Martin Aitken (co-translator of Knausgaard’s My Struggle: Book Six), follows a young mother and her 10-year-old son as they wander separately at night through a carnival in the town to which they have just moved without knowing that the other is also out alone in the snow. The pacing of their inner turmoil, loneliness, and psychological dread never lets up — it’s a relentlessness reminiscent of Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s Thelma (2017) and Oslo, August 31st (2011), as well as an endless succession of these countries’ desolate works. We assume Scandinavian artists favor bleak inner landscapes, and they appear especially adept at portraying the kind of despair so many feel, all over this globe.

In Knausgaard’s Spring, he flashes back to a singular happy trip to a festival in Sydney with his (now ex-)wife during which they discuss the particular relevance of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage to their own relationship. Teased with this comparison, I wanted to read Knausgaard’s specific Scenes, rather than the beautifully protective interstitials and enclosed miniatures (I assume to shield his daughter) that are meant to foil what the reality of living with mental illness has otherwise been for them. I wanted to shake each scene like a snow globe for more fascinating possibilities, even if his periodic restraint throughout Spring serves the tension between darkness and the romance of living.

Whenever he opens wide in the dark, where things are seriously falling apart, he always returns, like a mindfulness teacher, to the idea that if he is still and notices what is around him — nature, objects, sound, or even just the room he sits in — he can find infinite and inspiring awe. I have found myself painting leaves in frost, seaweed, and pebbles on asphalt, then wondering would they be my subjects had I not read him. He brings it all alive in his prose, makes it shimmer. Whether intellectually parsing for meaning or playing this existential video game of political turmoil, horror, and heartache, his writing flows easily from quiet, thoughtful engagement to ecstatic communion with the world.

Early in the Summer diary entries, Knausgaard is reading the Swedish scientist-cum-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg to try and understand how his transformation occurred and observes,

The shift from the outer to the inner world is so abrupt, and the inner world so chaotic and heavy with meaning that at first it is nearly impossible to orient oneself in.

What is happening with him?

When I was reading his journal earlier this evening it struck me that my inner being, the person I am to myself, has changed in recent years, and how often I get the feeling that I am no one, that I am merely a place which thoughts and feelings pass through.

These thoughts and memories no longer belong to him, he concludes, because others have now read them — he has given them away. He decides that ultimately there is freedom in that, since the writing process becomes a self-less state:

When the person writing about him or herself has moved out of the self, thus incorporating an external gaze, a strange kind of objectivity arises, something which at one and the same time belongs to the inner and the outer, and this objectivity makes it possible to move around in one’s own self as if it belonged to another, and then we have come full circle, for that movement requires empathy.

Over lunch in a beautiful cabin overlooking the woods, a good friend, also a writer, blurted out, “I have a great relationship with my mind!” As this seemed to come out of nowhere, I burst into laughter. It felt impossible; I experience constant subconscious chatter within mine. I wondered if having a great relationship with one’s mind is a necessary ingredient in constructing a solid self-narrative, as well as in achieving a hint of serenity. Knausgaard’s deeply personal, bracing internal explorations surely suggest that it is. He may be done with this quartet, the My Struggle series, and autofiction altogether, but I still want more of it. That kind of passionate literary intimacy is rare. And wanting more and even more — isn’t that just like being in love?

Lisa Teasley is the author of the acclaimed novels Heat Signature and Dive, and the award-winning story collection, Glow in the Dark. She is senior fiction editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

The post Ecstatic Communion: Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Seasons Quartet Conclusion, “Summer” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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lifeonashelf · 6 years

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CAVE IN

Confession: I don’t have any especially deep insights about Cave In. Honestly, I essentially forgot Cave In even existed until I trotted to my shelf to pull the next band in my queue and found out that band is Cave In. Though as I sit here listening to them for the first time in over a decade, their credentials are gradually coming back to me: they earned a solid reputation on the indie-label circuit, which led to them being scooped up by RCA and receiving a heavy promotional push for their first major-label offering—2003’s Antenna, the disc I am playing right now to make things about Cave In gradually come back to me.

Bereft of any nostalgic association with the band, I suppose I should craft some sort of proper critical analysis of Antenna to justify this piece’s existence. I can’t readily compare this disc to the band’s previous releases since I’ve never heard any of them, but Antenna certainly boasts some sturdy material: nuanced, slightly-proggy dropped-D rock with nice thick riffs and enough big-chorus melody to allow the songs a soaring, anthemic quality that makes each one memorable. There’s enough nifty shit going on here to make it difficult for me to comprehend how I completely disremembered that Cave In was a thing.

As I soak the music in, I’m realizing that Cave In most readily reminds me of Failure (the band, not the antonym of “success”). This is mostly because all of the tunes and tones on Antenna strongly resemble the tunes and tones on Failure’s sophomore release, Magnified, a sludgy gem of the highest order which features some of the tastiest guitar playing ever committed to disc. The similarities aren’t even subtle: I’ve heard plenty of music that sounds like Failure mixed with some other bands, but Antenna-era Cave In mostly sounds like Failure mixed with more Failure. I don’t intend that as an insult at all—Failure is fucking awesome; as far as I’m concerned, mirroring their approach is an artistically judicious course of action. Really, the only injudicious thing about Antenna is RCA’s ostensible prediction that Cave In would reach next-level success by mirroring the approach of Failure.

That reads like an insult too, so allow me to clarify. I’m sure you don’t need me to explain to you that ginormous record conglomerates don’t ultimately give a shit what the records they put out actually sound like, just as long as lots of people spend money on them. The music industry has always placed its focus squarely on the “industry” end of things; it’s mainly just a happy accident when the “music” component is supplied by talented, interesting, or even listenable, artists. So it would be fair to suppose that the primary reason RCA decided to sign Cave In is because they believed the band might prove to be a profitable acquisition. Yet in this instance, their dice-roll involved signing an outfit that sounds uncannily like Failure, a group which disbanded and subsequently withdrew into a 15-year hiatus shortly after putting out their magnum opus, 1996’s Fantastic Planet—a record that didn’t even crack the Billboard Top 200 album charts despite being an unequivocal masterpiece. Now, Failure was-and-is an amazing band, and if you’ve never heard Fantastic Planet you should absolutely stop reading this bullshit and go listen to it immediately (and then you should check out Magnified, because that one rules too… hell, their 2014 reunion disc The Heart is a Monster is also killer, and so is their first album, Comfort—truthfully, everything they ever recorded is better than anything you’ll find in these pages, so I can’t fathom why you’re wasting time with my nonsense when you could be listening to Failure instead). The thing Failure was NOT was commercially successful, which seems to indicate that RCA was grossly misguided in expecting Cave In to ignite the charts by mining strikingly comparable musical territory seven years after their muse’s own major label debut went criminally ignored by the masses.

Since Cave In didn’t get huge either, I’m assuming the RCA money-men deemed this particular procurement a failure (this time I am referring to the antonym of “success,” not the band). However, the more I listen to Antenna, the more I’m concluding it’s a pretty excellent disc that reasonably should have been heard by far more people than it evidently was. A quick read-up on the band’s history has informed me that this effort is an anomaly in their discography, which was previously characterized by far more ferocious fare, and that many of their fans received the outfit’s RCA-branded stylistic shift with cries of “sell out” (which becomes somewhat ironic when you consider that the album didn’t sell a gaggle of copies and the band quickly went back to playing shows at small gen-ad clubs for the same people who called them sell-outs). I’m certainly game to hear Cave In’s screamier stuff, but even if Antenna is the most placid entry in their canon, there’s plenty of evidence here that these dudes rock plenty hard. Though I could do without the obligatory lighter-waver “Beautiful Son” and the meekly-poppy “Penny Racer”, the opening cut “Stained Silver” is a bombastic minor-chord maelstrom, “Joy Opposites” seethes with somber beauty and lush guitar flourishes, and the absorbing “Woodwork” closes out the disc in satisfying and stridently epic fashion. There are some real choice tracks here that would have likely grabbed a lot of ears back in 2003 if those ears had been given due exposure, so it seems rather shitty that the mainstream mostly left Cave In out in the cold while that insipid “wake me up inside” song by Evanescence was being spewed from half of the goddamn radio stations on the goddamn dial every four goddamn minutes. When all was said and done, Cave In was summarily dropped by RCA when the label’s spit-polish netted the band little more than a cameo on the Billboard register at #167, while the members of Evanescence banked enough cash to fuel a lifetime of Hot Topic shopping sprees.

Of course, this begs the question: if people weren’t buying Antenna when it came out, what records were they buying (besides the Evanescence disc with that fucking “wake me up inside” song on it)?

I did a little investigative journalism (actually, I just did a Google search—I’m a terrible journalist) to get an overview of some of the hit releases from 2003 and ascertain what the multitudes were passing over Antenna for. What I learned both surprised me a lot and didn’t surprise me one bit. The part which did the first thing was discovering that the records which Soundscanned their way to #1 on the Billboard list that year suggest a fairly favorable marketplace for Cave In’s wheelhouse: of the 34 albums that topped the charts in 2003, 6 of them were by rock bands. The part that didn’t arrive as a bombshell was finding out that most of the rock albums which sold a shit-ton of units in 2003 were absolute garbage (the antonym of “quality,” not the band).

Droves of folks eschewed the more thoughtful approach of Antenna to instead listen to Aaron Lewis whimper about how his daddy didn’t hug him enough on Staind’s 14 Shades of Grey and root on Godsmack as they plodded through a dozen retreads of the same dimwitted WWE pay-per-view theme song on their appropriately-titled Faceless. Rock fans also purchased a lot of copies of the dullest entry in Marilyn Manson’s catalog, The Golden Age of Grotesque, and of Metallica’s 80% unlistenable St. Anger—an interminable series of throwaway riffs without songs whose shoddy patchwork assemblage suggested that ProTools had as much to do with the album’s construction as Metallica did. Granted, Antenna isn’t necessarily mandatory listening, but it’s undoubtedly a far more appealing record than any of those offerings, and has aged far better (an aside: I recently spun St. Anger in its entirety for the first time in over a decade to reassess it; I discovered that even with the benefit of fresh ears the record still sounds just as abysmal as it did then, and this encounter merely served to remind me that Metallica was a really awful band for a few years).

The rest of the releases that reached the top slot during Antenna’s annum were about what you’d expect: a few hip-hop sets (by 50 Cent, DMX, Outkast, and Eminem), factory-constructs from a host of mostly-disposable female pop stars (Monica, Ashanti, Hilary Duff, Britney Spears), CD-shaped product-placement trinkets from American Idol alumni (Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, and Kelly Clarkson), and a smattering of appearances from the requisite country icons of the era (Shania Twain, the admittedly-diggable Dixie Chicks, and Alan Jackson with his eloquently-dubbed compilation Greatest Hits Volume II and Some Other Stuff). Additional dubious notables from that year were issued by Madonna (whose American Life shot to #1 the week it came out, then subsequently plummeted progressively down the charts once people started actually listening to it), Toby Keith (whose Shock’n Y’all plagued mankind by being christened with the lamest pun of all time and by being a Toby Keith album), and R&B’s most talented lunatic, R. Kelly (whose Chocolate Factory was rendered icky in retrospect as gradually-revealed details of his personal life suggested the record’s title was probably a reference to defecating on adolescent girls—an association which could only possibly be more insalubrious if Chocolate Factory had hit the charts at number two).

Sure, there were some bonafide standouts on that year’s roster—Jay-Z got a lot of mileage out of his superb Black Album, while Alicia Keys reached the apex slot with her dynamite LP The Diary of Alicia Keys—but I can honestly say I would much rather listen to Antenna than roughly 30 of the discs which shifted enough units to reach #1 in 2003. I’m not sincerely suggesting Cave In’s tunes boast the extensive cross-demographic appeal of something like Come Away With Me by Norah Jones (released the previous year, but still going strong and occasionally wandering to the top of the charts throughout 2003) or John Mayer’s Heavier Things (a compendium of sultry bedroom-eyed blues that mesmerized legions of sorority girls, their desperate-to-be-hip cougar mothers, and men with vaginas). Nonetheless, I’ve heard Antenna a half-dozen times now and I’m not sick of it yet, which indicates to me that it’s a thoroughly respectable outing. And when compared to the material it was most directly competing with, Cave In’s neglected opus certainly stacks up well against most of the dreck that was dominating the alternative charts during a year when trifling acts like Chevelle, Dashboard Confessional, and Three Days Grace inexplicably had hit records.

I know I didn’t help matters by forgetting Cave In existed. However, I’ve resolved to at least partially make up for that now by adding them to my mental list of bands I need to seek out more work from very soon. By the time you read this, I predict that I will have augmented my Cave In library with several more of their albums, and I further predict that I will enjoy them.

And I also predict that my library will still be blessedly devoid of the Evanescence disc which features that idiotic “wake me up inside” song with the sulky Vogue-Goth piano intro and the melodramatic dear-diary lyrics about being nothing inside and the lame-ass two-note quasi-industrial juh-jun juh-jun juh-jun guitar riff that runs through the whole fucking track and the dipshit in the background who keeps fruitlessly trying to sound like a badass when he snivels his “can’t wake up” part on the chorus and then raps out a pathetic bridge where he sounds just like that other dipshit from Papa Roach.

Seriously, fuck that song.

February 4, 2016

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