#take notes this time inshallah

[occamstfs]

Ramadan Recitations

Here's a Arab/Muslim Cultural TF, figured I may as well throw it up for Eid! May not be for everyone, but may those who enjoy have at it! Happy Eid! -Occam

It’s the end of March and Allen’s roommate has been listening to the Quran out loud for the length of Ramadan. He’s out of town for the weekend and Allen is uncomfortable sitting alone in the silence of their apartment. Now that he hasn’t heard the consistent background melodies of a recitation in a couple days he realizes what delight they brought him. He goes to find the playlist that Mo had been using. Suddenly feeling the golden cross that hangs from his neck everyday he briefly reconsiders before deciding to put on the recitation anyway. Jesus is in the Quran right? It’s not like there’s any harm to appreciating someone else’s culture.

Assuming Mo wouldn’t mind Allen using his speakers he throws on the Tilawa, Mo would be playing it now himself anyway. Allen starts to work as the reciter begins his melodic reading. He almost tunes it out as he starts reading and responding to emails in their shared living room. His body sits at ease as the rhythm of the man’s speaking reverberates through him.

Allen doesn’t speak a word of Arabic, but as he continues to type up droll responses to even duller emails he finds himself paying more attention to the verses than work that he needs to get done. As his distraction rises he tabs away from work and decides to take a break and see what exactly the verses that he’s so fond of are saying. He scans a translation but his eyes glaze over as he remembers Mohammad telling him that to really understand the words of the prophet one must read in his tongue. 

Instead Allen just decides to just close his eyes and listen to the deep melodies of the mother tongue. The patterns and unfamiliar tonality provide him a comfort he doesn’t understand. He listens and the song only grows sweeter to his ears, he lies back against the couch as he begins to hum along uncertainly to the music. Allen harmonizes better by the second as he feels some sense of understanding over the distinctively not western scales, however he doesn’t notice as the chain of his necklace breaks, falling to the floor. He doesn’t hear the cross hit the floor instead remaining focused on his serene enjoyment of the man singing scripture to him.

Continuing to hum along, Allen notices that despite trying to keep a steady note, his tone seems to be getting deeper. He clears his throat and finds it’s not only his humming but his voice entire that has lowered in pitch. He rises from his serene reverie to go and find some medicine worried now that he is coming down with the flu. Standing he also notices that the temperature seems as if it’s rising in the apartment as well. Allen goes to grab some medicine, under his breath saying “inshallah I’m not sick eh?” Mo had been teaching him Arabic for some time now, but he always avoiding using it, Inshallah in particular since so many kids who certainly don’t appreciate Arabic culture are throwing it around. At this moment though Allen says it as if it’s an instinct, as if he has been using the language for some time. 

Walking to a medicine cabinet Allen doesn’t notice as the volume increases on the speakers to still reach his ears. Words continue to steadily flow into his mind, standing in front of the cabinet he finds alongside the still increasing warmth there is a soreness starting to appear through the whole of his body. He groans in his deeper voice, feeling his Adam’s apple rest strangely on his throat as he tries to stretch out his soreness. It’s like he hit the gym this morning, though he certainly has not. He takes deep slow breaths as he bends down to work out the pain in his legs and torso, unaware as his body begins to lengthen in height. He feels the aircon blow up his shirt as his midriff is now exposed, he pulls it down in vain before reaching to grab medicine, accidentally overshooting thanks to his added height.

Allen makes his way back to the living room, dry swallowing his flu medicine before sitting back down to enjoy his repose. This time not only does he have an instinctual understanding of the melody and rhythm, but he finds himself knowing what words are to come next in the verses. Surely he hasn’t heard recitations that much right? He doesn’t even speak the language how could he possibly, nevertheless he starts whispering under his breath the words he feels should be next and finds himself right on the money. His whispering slowly grows in volume as he finds himself beginning to sing along with the tapes, “Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim…” he continues on with the verse, singing as if classically trained.

He shoves his hand over his mouth in shock and finds another surprise awaiting him on his face. He is perpetually clean-shaven for work and yet all of a sudden there is stubble growing on his face. Allen rushes to the restroom to inspect his face and finally finds something impossible happening to him. He sees the roots of his hair growing darker, pushing thicker out from his head. Not only has he suddenly grown stubble but the scruff on his face is rapidly approaching a full beard. As he clutches at his hair and beard in inspection he finds that the changes are not isolated to his face.

He sees his arms stretch further from his shirt than they did this morning and feels the awkward gaps on his waist and ankles, and feels the air blow against the dark hairs beginning to spread up his stomach and legs. He sees hair thicker than his pubes begin to grow on his wrists spreading indeterminably up his arms. The reciter’s voice grows stronger as Allen inspects himself, his eyes racing from one part of his body to another seeking any sign of normality. He feels an itch in his pits and on his chest as the song rises in pitch and volume. There is a drive in his chest to continue singing along but as he makes eye-contact with himself in the mirror, seeing the blue eyes he’s always loved swiftly staining themselves the color of coffee before darkening even further he knows that there can be no explanation for this other than that man’s voice.

He clenches his jaw to keep himself quiet as he races through the living room to shut off the speakers. His longer legs trip over themselves as each frantic breath he takes begins to expand his chest. Beyond the physical changes to his body he feels a change begin to take root in his mind. Allin feels he must be big, he must be strong. It is as Allah wills it. He stumbles in front of the speakers as he finds himself torn on what to do. He sees his arms darken under the still growing forest of hair on his arms, his biceps tearing his sleeves as they tan. Growing chest hair tickling his shirt he feels muscle surge from his chest as he raises his hand to yank the speakers from the wall. 

The voice of the man singing grows to a din as it is joined by a chorus of other voices within Alin’s head. Thousands of recitations, of songs, the Quran and countless Hadith surge into his mind in a horrible cacophony. He yanks the power cord from the wall and the dissonant symphony within his mind vacates. And Alin is once more left alone with himself, his ears ringing and his vision blotchy. Slowly recovering and laying on the floor he begins to hear himself groan through the tinnitus. Even his moaning sounds changed as the man begins to lose his English vocabulary to learn the only tongue that shall truly matter to him now, that of the sacred book.

He whines to himself switching between eloquent Arabic vulgarities and English more accented by the second, he sees a cross necklace next to him, calling out quite loudly, “Madha? What is this?” Must be a prank from Mo, ach he needs to work on his material eh. Sitting alone in the living room Alin tries to think of what to do to distract himself, both from the silence surrounding him and from the flood of information storming in his head. Suddenly everything becomes simpler when he decides to just do what he always does, turning to the East Alin sees Mo’s prayer rug, always lying out for convenience’s sake. Alin grimaces and briefly considers phoning Mo for his lack of dedication, but upon seeing the skintight outfit he is wearing to pray he reconsiders. He should focus on correcting himself before fretting over even his friend.

Alin closes his eyes once more, languishing in the quiet for one moment before he begins his own, his deep voice ringing out as he sings verse in praise, “Ah, Allahu Akbar.” His chest growing to hold more breath and his pecs begin to surge large enough to honor Allah with his body. He hugs his stomach as he continues “Subhanakal-lahumma wabihamdika-” He feels his biceps pull against his massive chest and almost smirks as he thinks about them, he feels an urge, a desire to flex the them before clicking his tongue at himself to stay on task.

“Subhanna rabbeeyal adheem-” he bends down, feeling his thighs and ass push out behind him, ripping large tears into his pants At the same time Alin sees the bulge in his pants grow larger, popping his zipper and escaping from his pants. He sharply inhales as he feels everything is suddenly more intense. He feels his body grow beyond the limits of his clothes. He feels his already larger cock begin to grow erect and Alin, continues to sing “Rabbana walakal hamd-”

Finally he prepares to do his favorite part of Rakats, he gets to his knees before fully prostrating himself. Continuing the prayer as he feels his beard grow heavier on his face. His forehead touches the floor and he smiles, feeling a warm itch in his crotch as his briefs strain to contain him, pubes spilling out every way, “Subhanna rabbeeyal ‘alaa”

He rises back to seating, the motion creating an intense pang of pleasure throughout his body as he struggles to maintain control of his senses. He ekes out, “Rabbigh-fir lee…” becores cumming in his briefs. He finishes the Rakat in his solid pants before promptly leaving to regain his dignity and change into actual prayer appropriate attire, changing into a thobe and doing two Rak’a ending with a Tashahhud as one is to do.

Ali smiles as he sits in reflection having finally quieted the chaos within his mind. He feels his strong body hidden under the thobe and comforted in his time spent worshiping. His final thoughts before he decides to do another round of Rak’a is a conviction to thank Mo for sending him that playlist of Quranic Recitations. He does not know who he would be without it. Inshallah he shall get the chance to bring his light to others. He rubs his hands down his powerful body as he stands. Wallah, they don't know what they’re missing.

#male tf #mental change #cultural change #racial change #masculinization #muscle tf #race change

[buniyaad]

didnt wanna hijack someone's post with the Disk Horse, but I just wanna note that bernard being tim's love interest in 2023 is VERY different from him being a side-side-side character in the early 2000s. i think there's definitely a generational divide on how the relationship's perceived bc there's absolutely a difference between how bernard and tim's relationship is portrayed during their time in school versus in adulthood.

part of reading tim's coming out story in the 2020s with relation to bernard is finally acknowledging that we finally broke tim out of his amber glass. this is also, i will note, a SPECIFIC kind of coming-out-story that won't resonate with folks who weren't living through that specific era of homophobia where the fallout of the AIDS crisis overlapped with the rise of mass surveillance and that post-9/11 grimdark take on superheroes across ALL media. it was a weird fucking time. it also won't resonate with anyone who wasn't "growing up" with tim during his time as robin. now, do you HAVE to know every little thing about tim to accept this piece of character development? no, you don't, but you DO have to take into consideration that tim was locked in the time vault for a veryyy long time and a lot of things, including his on-and-off with stephanie, were part of the status quo for his character long before dc decided to pull the trigger with tim's bisexuality.

but what happens when the forever-sixteen isn't sixteen anymore? he grows up! he gets to reflect! he gets to try new things without being held back by the amber glass. time is the key factor here! if you look at tim and bernard's relationship through the eyes of the robin run of that era, of course it's gonna feel weird! that tim could only really take bernard in doses, bc that tim was as much of an asshole teen as bernard was. with the breaking-of-the-amber, we now learn that tim had to do some serious reflection to get to the point where he could say that this guy he used to know COULD be someone special. if you follow tim's story through the lens of a closeted queer raised in the era of when that robin run was being published, tim's just another queer guy who's finally come to terms with the fact that, that dude he went to high school with who he just ran into at the target might not be so bad after all. he's kinda cute, actually. did he think he was cute back in the tenth grade? probably not, but he's not in tenth grade anymore, now is he?

could DC comics have created an entirely new character to serve the narrative purpose of tim's coming out special? sure. then we woulda had ten years worth of criticism from fandom about how tim magically found a guy superhot and thus dumped stephanie over it, and we would circle back to the same argument about whether tim was a douchebag for dumping stephanie for some rando, and that his bisexuality is an asspull versus 'relevant character development'. either way, it would have upset the status quo. now, is that to say timsteph was never real? no! tim and stephanie talking about his erratic behavior and him coming out to her was to SPECIFICALLY address how him being bisexual isn't meant to downgrade their relationship, or that their love wasn't real. for anyone who's still whining about timsteph not being real anymore bc bernbear entered the chat, i've long stopped seeing it as legitimate criticism bc there are YEARS worth of content with them to indulge in. shitting on a coming-out story and a romance that hasn't even had five real-time years to be explored is just straight up crass and highlights much more insidious problems in the fandom aka the rampant homophobia, quick-to-anger behavior of fans who never learned media or litcrit, and motherfuckers who ride or die for status quo like it'll kill them to enjoy something tangential.

long story short, timbern real and so is timsteph, and one of these days, inshallah bartkon will be real too.

#timbern #tim drake #bernard dowd #stephanie brown #timsteph #real talk #dc comics

[alexlovesfanfics]

Hazbin Hotel and DC Crossover

So I’m sure we all know DC’s stupid decision to send Damian to hell right? Well I think I figured out a way to make it sense without undermining Damian's whole arc. And yes I came up with this BC I wanted to see him interact with Charlie BC he would definitely be the only person other than Vaggie to believe in her vision or at the very least hope it would come into fruition.

So back in the day the Waynes struggled with having kids so they made a deal with Lucifer (though Asmodeus makes more sense) that would guarantee them heirs for a few generations.

Fast forward to Damian’s death. He's supposed to get into Heaven but because of the fact that he and a few paternal grandparents were born through a deal with Lucifer, he gets sent to Hell instead BC Heaven wants nothing to do with anything remotely hell related.

So he ends up in Hell and the first thing he sees is the commercial for the Hazbin Hotel. Now remember, Damian has spent months trying to redeem himself and one of the first things he does after coming back from the dead is to go on the Year of Atonement. So he immediately goes there to try and redeem himself.

However the moment he shows up, Charlie as the princess of Hell notes that there's something wrong with his soul and that it doesn't belong there. Despite this she's delighted to have another Patron, especially one who is eager to redeem themself.

However as time goes on, the fact that Damian doesn't belong there becomes more and more obvious. Yeah he can be mean but he's a good person. He doesn't kill and helps in his own way.

This comes to a head when Lucifer comes to visit and he also recognises that Damian doesn't belong. But he actually knows the reason BC he can recognize the magic on Damian and he explains the whole deal thing the Waynes did and admits that Damian should be in Heaven. Then the whole Charlie and her dad reconciliation happens and she gets a meeting in Heaven and she argues for Damian to be allowed into Heaven along with the redeemed sinners. Obviously Adam, Lute, and Sera don't allow it and the whole 'You didn't know' song kicks off.

After the major 'reveal', Charlie comes back to the hotel crushed and Damian has a whole crisis BC while he is glad he should be in Heaven and that he has redeemed himself, the problem is that he can never go to Heaven BC of the way he was born. He talks about it with Pentious and he gives a whole speech about how it doesn't matter whether or not Heaven lets him in, what matters is that Damian is a good person. Damian cheers up and resolves to help Charlie defend the hotel.

The rest of the finale kicks off like normal and Pentious gets redeemed. Charlie wonders if she can convince Heaven to let Damian in too but he tells her it doesn't matter. He likes helping people and wants to stay and help her run the hotel to help more people find redemption like the Batfam helped him. It ends with him being added to the staff of the Hotel.

Idk it's a v disjointed idea but I think it has potential. I might Inshallah write this after my exams

Also sidenote, Damian's demon form would either be very similar to his human form to drive home the fact that he doesn't belong, or it would resemble a robin. No I take no criticism

#damian wayne #charlie morningstar #hazbin charlie #hazbin lucifer #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel lucifer #sir pentious #hazbin pentious #hazbin hotel pentious #angel pentious #hazbin hotel charlie #hazbin hotel #lmk if I should tag anything else #shut up alex

[mrsq8geek]

Ramadan Challenge 2024, Day 4

Day 4: Ramadan is the month of the qur'an. What is an ayah from the Qur'an that has changed your view of things or impacted you deeply (this year)?

وَمَن يَتَّقِ ٱللَّهَ يَجْعَل لَّهُۥ مَخْرَجًۭا (٢) And whoever is mindful of Allah, He will make a way out for them, وَيَرْزُقْهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لَا يَحْتَسِبُ ۚ وَمَن يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى ٱللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُۥٓ ۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ بَـٰلِغُ أَمْرِهِۦ ۚ ��َدْ جَعَلَ ٱللَّهُ لِكُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدْرًۭا (٣) and provide for them from sources they could never imagine. And whoever puts their trust in Allah, then He ˹alone˺ is sufficient for them. Certainly Allah achieves His Will. Allah has already set a destiny for everything.

— Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran Surah Al-Talaq aya 2-3

This isn't from this year, it's actually from April 2013.  I was going through such a hard time and completely losing hope in everything.  It was one of the few times in my life I actually felt ungrateful to god because I couldn't see the point of everything I was going through.  I felt embarrassed for being ungrateful as soon as I felt it, because clearly I was doing better than a lot of people.  I was just lost and couldn't think what to do next.  So I said whatever dua came to mind for guidance, just prayed from the heart because I felt helpless and powerless in my situation.  This was the aya that got me through an incredibly dark time, a crucial fork in the road when I really needed courage to speak up for myself or risk suffering potentially devastating consequences for the rest of my life.

I still keep the ajr in mind for my daily tasks, even if I don't specifically refer to this aya in particular in daily life.  But it's always there for me to fall back on.

Diary for today:

Writing this before I go do the final preparation for futoor.  Today the hunger pangs are working together with PMS cramps.  I can't even cough without feeling it.  The PMS headache and lower back pain aren't helping either.  I have the privilege of being able to be kind to myself today: since I'm too physically weak for much, I mostly slept, then when I woke up, did less than usual.  I have that option and the rest will allow me to recover my strength inshallah.

I saw that the Oscars are trending on tumblr these past couple of days. Listen, I understand celebrating our website-wide certified holiday, the Ides of March, but y'all really said let's not talk about the Oscars and then did.  And you know what?  I get it.  Unless you're the one in the situation, you won't be able to keep on that one note, because you've got a life outside of it. 

Maintenance is hard work.  These fights are marathons, not sprints, although the sprints definitely help, too!  I'm wondering to wear for Eid even as I hold my breath over the inevitable atrocities they're planning for Palestine's Eid.  I just hope that even if people don't turn up for Palestine every day, enough of them do for some change to take place.

Daily click as much a reminder for myself.

Day 1 | Day 3 | Day 5

#ramadanchallenge2024 #notetaeker #I haven't thought of that aya in a long time actually #It's been such a long time that I nearly forgot that extremely dark time #I am in a much better place now #You can live under tough circumstances and still be happy #and that's better than the alternative #where I was living in better circumstances but wanted to die rather than have things forced on me #alhamdulillah #alhamdulliah #alhamdulilah

[notetaeker]

Assalamualaikum, hope you are doing well. A fellow muslimah here, I want to start understanding Quran in depth, know and understand it's word to word meaning like Quran journaling. I do listen to online tafseers of Sheikhs but I want to know it myself. I have seen your journals pics about the same. If you don't mind, can you please tell how you do Quran journaling. Like the steps or guides as to how to collect all those tafseers and organise them. Please tell us about the resources too. Books,YT etc you reach out to make those journals.

Please sister, help us in connecting with the Quran. May Allah SWT bless you.

Jazakallah khair

Wa alykum assalam! I hope you're well too! That's so nice to hear that you're interested in Qur'an journaling alhamdulillah it's such a beautiful intention and I pray Allah will put barakah in your efforts.

SOURCES:

I think most of my posts about tafsir are either from my own studies (using translations of Tafsir ibn Kathir, or from Towards Understanding the Qur'an). I personally use those two because they are the ones I'm most familiar with, those are the ones I physically have in my home, and because they usually include all the opinions of scholars about the meanings of things. Like for example if there was ever any discourse about if a surah was makki or madani then they go into who said what and what their evidences were etc. So they're definitely very comprehensive.

I do also often take notes from tafsir classes I'm attending as part of the Miftaah Online program (this semester's tafsir class is for Surah Nur). These are usually done by scholars who have studied in the islamic world and are directly teaching (in english) from the arabic tafsir books.

As for youtube videos/lectures, there's a variety of scholars but I would encourage you to look up the speakers credentials, and what tafsir book they're using as a source etc.

NOTE-TAKING FORMAT

Since I'm in a sisters halaqah group (which i strongly recommend joining if you can find one) many times I'm taking notes with the intention of being able to explain the surah from my notes (which helps when trying to decide what I should write down and what I leave out)

I follow the same format that's found in Towards Understanding the Qur'an which is:

Naming of the Surah - what does it mean? Where does it come from? What is the etymology of the word?

Place / Circumstance of Revelation / Historical Context - Is it makki or madani? Were any parts of the surah/ the whole surah revealed in response to a specific event? What the situation when the surah was revealed? What was the culture, situation etc.

Bigger themes and subject-matter - What does the surah talk about? which ayahs focus on what topic? If you're interested in just the meaning of the qur'an, I would definitely recommend The Clear Qur'an translation by Dr. Mustafa Khattab. It's also divided very nicely into themes and the language is very clear (lol)

Ayah by Ayah explanation - detailed information about each ayah (one of the most interesting parts to me to be honest. The arabic language is so rich with meaning and connotation so even small ayahs have multiple layers of meaning) - This section can be extremeeeely long lol - depends on how many ayahs you want to study at a time - I also use this section to write the meanings of any arabic words I want to remember the meanings of (especially for short surahs)

Personal lessons/Reflections (Considered tadabbur - NOT tafsir) - how do I myself relate to these ayahs? Does an ayah remind me of something? What lesson do I get out of it? How can I possibly apply this ayah to my own life?

Dua - I mean you don't have to write it but it's nice to always make dua that the knowledge you wrote will be useful to you and that Allah gives us the tawfiq to benefit from it and protect us from this knowledge testifying against us.

Inshallah I hope I was able to be of some help! I'm no expert in the matter, just another student of the qur'an just like you, just sharing my experience. May Allah bless you sister for your desire to connect more with the Qur'an. I make dua that Allah makes all of us companions of the Qur'an so that we can be comforted thru it in this dunya, in the grave, and on the day of judgement. May Allah guide us and grant the correct understanding. Ameen.

#🌙 #replies #anon #Feel free to ask any questions about anything I wrote #part of my duties at the halaqah group is explaining to new members how to write up tafsir notes lol #always happy to do it

[fixedfour]

not to sound crazy lol bc astrology can do that sometimes. in august - december of 2019, all 3 of the boys had ridiculously well aspected transits. justin with positive mars/jupiter and sun/mars transits, jamarrs positive jupiter, sun, mars and moon aspects and ofc josephs transits mirrors his wide receivers. now, in the fall of this year - they all have similar energy surrounding them. well aspected jupiter, mars and sun transits riddled throughout their charts. see, if the team hired you and your followers as their astrologers we could bring them 6 superbowls inshallah. sidenote, if jamarrs a purva ashada moon, hes not using his venusian charm for good at all. like how are you possibly a venus and rahu dom but havent conjured up a plan to bring your twin back from k*rk cousins? be sooo fr

the way i am CACKLING!! YESS! 💌 i want to frame this omg 💕🥴

2019 was such .. a fruitful time for them, like. rahu and ketu were transiting through gemini/sag that year !! (joe's sag mercury +jupiter , justin's gemini sun + mercury , and ja'marr's sag moon = 1 perfect college football season)

even coach O has his (sidereal) mercury in gemini!

also, bestie, are you me? tell me why i already have some predictions lined up for this fall 🤭

the nfl really should hire us, we can do for them what gisele did for tom brady tbh. for all we know though, maybe someone is taking notes rn 🤠

(also bestie, please tell me if you have any thoughts on ja'marr's ketu placement, the fact that his venus shares the same house is kind of 👀)

#come off anon let me be your friend OMG #matter of fact everyone come off anon i literally love you #astrology

[lucreziasredwyne]

a letter delivered to @garlandhightower privately within his chambers, shortly following the letter that was received by lady simonetta hightower to lucrezia redwyne, in which she told her of lord dante hightower's early death.

gar,

please do not throw this letter into the fire until you have read this once, and then read it again. ensure your raven is away from your chambers and not causing you further unrest in your ear. i need you to do that for me as you read this.

there is nothing that i could say to you that another cannot: you've heard everything official by now, and i know leyton and gael both intend to come home to be with you in the run up of the funeral. i told auntie i would come too, inshallah; so i will see you soon. i know the apologies will only continue to come, and the notes, and the conversations that seem to go on and on even though your mind wandered elsewhere some time before. i will try to keep this short, and not ramble.

remember i once told you the gods do not punish you in this life? they only test you; and they do not burden a soul with more than it could handle. this is not punishment for anything you have done - it is only a test. that is not supposed be a comfort; no doubt sometimes we wish the test to be over so we can simply handle the punishment. sometimes we want to ask when it will all be over. but this is not happening to you for any other reason than to be tested. and the gods test us in different ways. the gods would not take back what was their own for the sake of punishing another; only to test.

mama once told me when we get to jannah, you will find the mother herself, sitting beneath a tree, surrounded by the children who have been awaiting their parents all those years. their mother specifically. know that the last you see of dante, is not truly the last. know that he lives in ways we all wish to live someday. please have patience, garland. this is not an equation you can work out, or a problem you can create a solution for. it's about taking it a day at a time in these early days, where they seem never ending. days will drag, and then suddenly days will go by so quickly.

trust in the decree of who are closer to us than our jugular vein. we will never rule the world, as much as we try to- for to the gods we belong, and to them we will return. even if you cannot bring yourself to pray yet, organise for them to be held in recitation so they can be heard within the halls. distribute alms to the needy, now more than ever before. please have patience.

you are being tested, not punished garland. i will see you soon, and we can talk about everything. until then, have sabr.

lu

#c: garland

[travelingprincess]

Her Imaan Rises & Falls

Burn out is real, yes. There is no need to overwhelm ourselves with too much or force ourselves to do more than we're able. At the same time, we should not become lazy or negligent—especially with regards to the obligatory acions (fardh salah, fasting during Ramadan, etc.). Islam is about balance.

I've broken my comment out into my general advice to you, and then followed it with my own personal habits and what's worked well for me. Hope this helps!

Obligatory Deeds

My advice to you, is that if your fardh are not strong and you sometimes don't perform the obligatory actions, drop everything and focus 100% on making those second nature. None of the Sunnah acts matter if you're not even completing your fardh properly. As far as Salah, note that only the fardh are, well, fardh. These are:

2 rakat Fajr 4 rakat Dhuhr 4 rakat Asr 3 rakat Maghrib 4 rakat Isha

Everything outside of that is extra. So first make sure you do those. Make sure you preform wudu properly, prior to Salah. Try to make time to recite Qur'an everyday or at least regularly.

General Advice Re: Sunnah Acts

If all of those are in place and good, alhamdulillah, now you should move onto incorporating Sunnah acts slowly, and at a pace comfortable to you. Remember the words of the hadith:

Abu Huraira reported: The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, “Take up good deeds only as much as you are able, for the best deeds are those done regularly even if they are few.”

—Sunan ibn Majah 4240

I've even heard students of knowledge say that the great scholars of the past used to not memorize a verse of the Qur'an until they implemented it in their lives.

So for example, let's say you want to start fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, alhamdulillah that is good. Give it your best effort. But don't beat yourself up if you miss some days. And if you're feeling low energy, you can reduce some of the lectures you're watching those days. Or take a nap. Whatever.

As for watching beneficial content on YouTube, switch it up. Some things require a very academic kind of attention, such as when a Shaykh is going through scholarly books, and you're probably taking notes on your end.

But there are other types of content which is more freeform, and gives you more casual knowledge. Things like:

Q&A's

Chai with my Bhai

Diaries of an Exorcist

On The Road

Signs of the Hour

Learn What Deviant Sects Are Upon

The Muslim Family - Amazing

These are still conferring beneficial Islamic knowledge while being in a more relaxed environment/presentation, thus they don't strain the mind as much. On low imaan days, maybe use these, or pepper them throughout your learning.

Also, and this is a major one: make du'a that Allah keeps you steadfast upon the Deen and seeking knowledge.

Surround yourself with good company, as the friends we have and people around us have a huge affect on our imaan. Good people will get you excited about doing good, and others will only incline you towards evil and straying away from Allah.

What's Worked For Me

Du'a has really been transformative, for me. Truly, it is the weapon of the believer, so I always advise people with it. It's been extremely beneficial in helping me attain my religious goals for myself.

Another thing I like to do is gain a lot of passive Islamic knowledge (watching lectures and episodes without taking notes or straining myself too much, just watching for information) and then if there's a topic or a statement I find particularly intriguing I may do further research on it and dive deeper into that particular thing.

Another important note is that many great lectures can be a bit lengthy—you don't have to watch them all in one sitting. Make use of the pause button, and watch when you have the full focus to give it and benefit properly from the more scholarly videos. If you find you're struggling, pause and do something else. Take a bi of a stroll, stretch your legs, try again. Still not there? No worries, try again tomorrow, inshallah.

There are some lectures that it took me weeks to get through because I paused them for a week before returning to them. There's no harm in it and this is one of the benefits of recorded lectures. Eventually, your attention span should improve such that you may find yourself pausing less and less, even.

Another thing I've found helpful is to set my daily routine around Salah. So I know that there are certain things I do before or after certain Salah and that helps keep my day focused and centered around the remembrance of Allah. If you're able to do this, I highly, highly recommend it.

#0021 #hadith #Ibn Majah #imaan

[incorrectbatfam]

Signal and Ms. Marvel Take On The World (And By The World I Mean New Jersey)

Chapter 5/12: Bendy Girl and Shrimp Boy: Homework Helpers Inc.

Kamala couldn’t lie, she missed the thrill of a case.

Was it short-lived? Yes. Was it relatively straightforward? Of course. But that didn’t take away from the euphoria of doing something good—something useful—without the watchful guidance of her mentors. It was like joining a fandom: once it happens, there’s no going back. Compared to the few days spent intensely tracking down the Prowler, the store robberies of the past couple weeks felt like math class—important, but there was something else she’d rather do. Normal had become… dull.

Her phone buzzed.

Kamala, seriously, what’s going on between you and that Signal guy?!?!? Answer me please!!

And there’s that.

Ever since a photo of her and Signal emerging from the Tunnel of Love began circulating online, Nakia had been texting her nonstop with questions about the boy. It seemed like each time Kamala checked her phone, someone was talking about Signal and Ms. Marvel. She’d even seen fanfics. Why couldn’t people just write single-person character studies for her the way they did with Iron Man (who, by the way, actually dates people).  

People could ship whatever they want, but this “Signal-Marvel” nonsense was the last thing she needed that day.

Sam needed someone to cover his patrol shift but Kamala needed to fill out a study guide for her AP Chemistry test. Her parents would kill her if her grades slipped but someone might be killed if no heroes were watching over the city.

Ergo, she packed her books in an inconspicuous drawstring bag and found a decently high rooftop to set up her homework station. It was in the heart of the city with a clear view of the bank, shopping mall, and city center. If anything happened, she’d be the first on the scene. (Inshallah, nothing will happen.)

She took a deep breath and opened the book.

What the heck is going on here?

Kamala swore she’d been paying attention in class but the words and figures on the page were Greek to her. She flipped open her notes. Kamala must’ve been on autopilot when she wrote these because they were more of the same—numbers and charts without meaning, as though this was the journal of a World War II code-breaker and she had been tasked with bringing together the pieces of their long-lost puzzle.

Great. Time to hang up the shame curtains and pull out the shame hat to go with her shame outfit because there’s no way she’s passing this test. There goes the Khan family legacy out the window because of atomic energy levels.

She groaned. “Someone bury me.”

“Why, you tryna join the Dead Robins Club?”

.

.

Read the rest on Ao3

@dukethomasbigbang 

#duke thomas big bang #duke thomas big bang 2021 #duke thomas #signal #kamala khan #ms marvel #batfamily #batfam #batboys #batbros #batkids #batsiblings #batclan #batman family #marvel champions #dc comics #marvel #crossover #alternate universe #multi-fandom #fandom event #writing #my writing #fanfic #dc fanfic #tw death mention

[rozzes]

Dear Islamophobes,

Virtual hugs and kisses

How are you guys what are you doing how's life been treating you and all that type of things for me college has been a bit of beard I don’t know some days it’s really great allergic I just feel like what is happening right now is what is happening, and I don’t know what is but is getting their awesome I do have some I do write notes that are excellent so if you’re interested in that do put comments down below help I sell it for a very low price is math and Spanish notes if you are interested, do right meet down below until then enjoy this and have a great day-night wherever you are in this world.

Today’s topic might be a bit controversial, and it's Religion. I’m Muslim as I’ve mentioned before and that is a huge part of who I am as a human being my life the way I act everything is related to who I am at the heart and that is a Muslim. I know if we don’t we might not share the same religion we might not share the same beliefs you might not even believe in God you might believe in more than one God, but you might learn something new from this article if you decide to go on reading it. The first thing I think everyone sees when they look at me is my hijab and I feel like that is a Muslim identity on its own you would see a woman wearing a scarf in her head, and you say is a hijab is a Muslim is a visual representation of what I believe in the thing that gets many people angry agitated nervous because of the way it's portrayed on television and the way they’ve made this stereotype of who I am. I get so angry I’m the one who should be angry when I see the things they put on TV the way I am forced to wear it the way I go around shooting people or bombing or taking it off for a very basic white boy who is not even that good-looking like honestly desmosome end like that seen on Netflix where a woman was fasting in Ramadan, and she decided to break her fast by taking a shot and saying BismAllah are you serious????!!! The disrespect, but I have to be the nice person I have to be the good representation of Islam, and we do have it as saying that we always need to be better, always need to show them the best side of us, yet it sometimes hurts to be the nice guy while everyone thinks you’re ******* anyway.

On the other hand, these people are still mad at me because I’m wearing the hijab why because I’m restricted I am forced quote unquote but if anyone is restricted as them, I’m restricting them from seeing things that they're used to from seeing things that they want to see I’m not allowing you because it’s my body my choice, and they’d be the most people supporting her body her choice and then when she decides to cover it no no way you decided to cover it, what if I did what you can do Karen and on what are you going to do nothing get mad spit at me try to pull a hijab off trip someone starts shouting racist slurs out loud because you think I’m not from here because I can’t be from here can I what you don't understand is maybe I am maybe she is but does that matter because if you’re racist you’re Islamophobic that's it.

I’m not just going to talk about the visual identity things that are so you saying all the time sometimes it will slip out of me like MashaaAllah which means wow, but I don’t want to jinx you or InshAllah like I hope God allows it if it’s good for you, I hope he does make it come true or if I say something that is so beautiful, and I use super SubhanAllah like wow how is that even possible or Alhamdulillah which is thanking God for the way I am, or the way things went or things that are going a certain way, and it just always comes to head. Twakul called another word, which means fully giving into the flow that God allows whatever it is the flow of money the flaw success the flow work my life in general just going the way God wants it to go I will have that because if God wants to allow it no matter how hard you work it won’t happen it won’t be for the good so if your heart does not feel like it's a good thing to do just don’t do it, cut it off.

Many situations come to mind or in certain moments in life and I remember this area or that quote or that draw Anne I feel how beautiful my religion is how connected I am even though I struggle I struggled so much with prayers five times a day you probably know that I struggled so much with it some days I don’t feel like doing it sometimes I skip one, and I keep thinking about it like what if I just prayed it what would have happened to me nothing I would have been happier, and I wouldn’t have felt this guilty, so I try harder the next day because honestly, I feel like this life is not worth it, the things we see on TV the news we see I truly believe that we’ll find something better after this one is done, and I hope it’s done fast, but I want to live, but I hope it’s dumb fast you know I’m saying I’m just incredibly grateful for being who I am believing in what I believe and doing what I’m doing, and I hope you feel the same whatever it is that to feel, believe, do. Just take some time off and really decide to find whatever it is that will make you happy.

Stay safe lots of love

#islamophobia #beautiful #amazing #reading #muslim #quran #allah #religion #beauty #representation #sad aesthetic #hijab #write #writers on tumblr #creative writing #journaling #journey #blograzan

[muslimah-studies]

11.08.21 || 11:42 PM

late night thematic and lexical studies of surat al-asr. i started the bayyinah thematic overview today and i hope to be able to bounce back and forth between the concise commentary and these thematic overview lectures depending on how much extra i am able to put into my studies each day. inshallah by making it easier i will be more likely to study often.

the more i use this website the more i love it. i recently undertook a personal project to import the whole qur'an into my note taking platform of choice so that i can block reference ayat and essentially take notes like these very quickly. it's concise, easy to do, and i really enjoy it because i don't spend as much time getting caught up in writing nice notes that i fail to actually study.

#quran #islam #qur'an #Quran #Qur'an #arabic #al-asr #surat al-asr #notes #study #studyblr #muslim #religion #lexical studies #thematic studies

[chickenisamazing]

I haven't actually made Ramadan plans so here r some thoughts:

As per usual I need to try to read at least ten pages of Quran after Fajr (try for a whole juz though which is 20 pages), and try to read a juz between Maghrib and Isha. I skim the translation and tbh I don't intend to do more than that, I just need the gist. I should keep a notebook around to take quick note of things I want to look into, I tried doing that before but never kept it up past the first couple juz so I need to be consistent with that.

I ought to try to read tafseer, but I also need to take the pressure off myself to keep up with my Quran reading because that will just be overwhelming. Go for daily sustainable habit and not volume. Try to do this after I wake up from my morning nap.

I will make it a goal to read at least one Hadith a day. No more necessary unless I feel like it, but try to memorize maybe and definitely look into it and do reading about it.

Reading with my friends. I think we're trying to read Hayat Muhammad by Muhammad Hussain Haykal, need to confirm with them. A slow pace so that it's sustainable but enough that we have something to discuss. Try to do this after I get home from work/after Asr, when I would normally be eating. I can sit on the swing :)

I'm a bad Muslim n don't pray my sunnah salat (except I usually do for Maghrib and Isha since last Ramadan so like at least I got that out of last year) so my goal will be to build the habit of also praying Fajr and Dhuhr sunnah salat.

This is kind of ambitious for me, the Hadith thing is the least of my priorities so I don't mind if that doesn't happen, but I ought to at least re-memorize the surahs I used to know. Actually this is more important than Hadith but idk I'll see what I feel like doing each day.

I should also try to sleep as soon as Isha/taraweeh is over instead of staying up late. Time is precious, the social media apps I would be browsing are not. Maybe I'll try to catch up with group chats but I should try to reign in my own commentary as much as possible.

Anyway I'll probably be a potato and not be super productive buuuuuut I hope inshallah that I can still accomplish my Quran reading goals and that I can form some good habits.

#T #Overambitious bc I know myself and never fulfill goals I set for myself #I went into Ramadan last year blind and just focused on khatam and was able to do it for the first time bc I did nothing else #But I'm hoping since I did it once I can do it again and add onto it

[the-eldritch-it-gay]

Excited to hear about your takeover of DA4 (lol) Can you explain the qunari/Islamophobia thing to me? Or link me to someone that already has? I've played all 3 games and never really noticed anything that felt that way. I don't think there are parallels between islam and the qun are there? I dont know a lot about any religions anyways so I could just be missing it. That doesnt mean it isnt there tho so I would like to be more well informed if you have the time.

I´ve written a bit about it myself! The Islamaphobia is pretty apparent to me, as a Muslim, but I know it might be difficult for those who aren´t to notice it. The post of mine that originally got some traction is [here], and I also talk about The Mark of the Assassin DLC for DA2 and the Pretty Blantant Cementing of Qunari and Muslims, [here].

Some basic points though:

Qunari is rather similar to the name of our holy book, The Quran

Gaider at one point called the Qunari “Militaristic Islamic Borg”

The Qunari are almost entirely villains, Sten is the only Qunari companions (out of the 2 there are) who remain loyal to the Qun regardless of player choices.

Qunari are portrayed as violent and attempting to take over the world and force their “barbaric” religion onto people, much like how people think Muslims are trying to spread their religion (especially in Europe)

The countries the Qunari are fighting with and invading are Andrastrian, which is pretty blatantly like a fantasy Catholic Church.

Qunari are seen as violent and oppressive much like how many who aren’t Muslim view my faith

The Qunari language has actual arabic words in it

It’s important to note that the Qunari are also Black coded, which is abhorrent.

Overall, the writing of the Qunari is extremely bad and offensive, and incredibly uncomfortable and saddening to see, especially as much of the fandom seems to accept the writing of the Qunari and many fan works I see about Qunari are rather upsetting.

Not to plug more of my own writing, but I did make a post in which I proposed my own rewrite of the Qunari lore, which I’ve received very positive feedback from those who have read it, and I recommend giving it a read! You can find it [here], it’s also the pinned post on my blog!

(I’m planning on doing a post about how I would rewrite The Iron Bull, inshAllah, but since I’m disabled, work 5 days a week, and am a full time university student, it’s been hard to make time to work on it.)

I hope that helps some!

EDIT: I noticed your ask saying I can disregard this, as you’ve found my posts, but I still feel this could be helpful for other people who are curious about it!

#Eldritch IT Speaks #Eldritch IT Answers #Eldritch IT Anons #Anonymous

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 13

Trees

It’s four in the afternoon and already getting dark, a foot of snow on the way. One year is nearly over — and yes, we’ve got some essays on that coming up after the holiday break — and another one is taking shape in our inboxes, mail chutes and hard drives. But for right now, let’s take another look at 2020, doubling back on the records that caught our ears without exactly fitting our schedules, the ones that almost got away. Here are the usual free improvisations and long drones, hip hop upstarts and cowpunk also-rans, a harpist, a cellist, a tabletop guitarist and at least one stellar punk record that has us hoping for sweaty live music again in 2021. Contributors this time included Bill Meyer, Bryon Hayes, Andrew Forrell, Patrick Masterson, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Arthur Krumins, Ian Mathers and Ray Garraty, heck let’s call it a quorum, and see you again in the New Year.

Mac Blackout — Love Profess (Trouble In Mind)

Love Profess by Mac Blackout

Mac Blackout owes his surname to his membership in the Functional Blackouts. That’s a garage combo that was once the subject of an article about how they’d been banned from various venues on account of the destructive chaos of their live performances. But you can’t do that forever, and nowadays Mac’s a painter and solo recording artist. His latest sounds are unlikely to make anyone want to put a chair into the mirror behind the bar, but they might send you flipping through your record collection, looking for the sounds that you and he have in common. Love Profess opens with a burst of piano-pounding, sax-overblowing free jazz, but that lasts for about nine seconds before it gets swallowed by some John Bender-worthy synth throb. Give “Wandering Spheres” a couple more minutes, and Mr. Blackout goes full La Dusseldorf on us. By turns spacy, spooky and seriously compelled to vent nocturnal loneliness, this half-hour long LP is both as familiar and as unknown as a well-shuffled deck of cards.

Bill Meyer

 Ross Birdwise — Perfect Failures (Never Anything)

Perfect Failures by Ross Birdwise

Vancouver-based electronic improviser Ross Birdwise rails against spatio-temporal norms. The concepts of tempo and rhythm are malleable in his universe. Architecturally, Birdwise is Antoni Gaudí, working in fluid lines to build incomprehensible structures. With Perfect Failures, he leaps even further away from the orthogonal grid of musical construction, dissolving beats into grains of sound. The warped rhythms found on Frame Drag are divested in favor of an approach that more resembles electroacoustic composition. As a matter of fact, the title track comes on like a digital recreation of a piece of classic musique concrète. Birdwise avoids venturing into purely ambient territory yet borrows some signifiers from the genre: keyboard melodies, elongated tones, washes of sound. He overlays these seemingly innocuous elements with crashes of noise, oblique jump cuts and hyperkinetic sequences, constantly forcing us to shift focus to make sense of his soundscapes. The febrile nature of the music is what intoxicates, but the discordant melodies are what enthrall.

Bryon Hayes

 C_G — C_G (edelfaul recordings)

C_G by C_G

Belgium-based French electronic artist Eduardo Ribuyo (C_C) and Israeli drummer Ilia Gorovitz (Stumpf) join forces on C_G, a one-take collaboration of molecular machine noise and improvised percussion. It opens as a slow creep, Gorovitz playing minimal rhythms that sound like someone walking through the pre-dawn streets of an awakening city. Ribuyo accretes whirrs, cracks and electrical pops to evoke the dread of a night not over. On “Normalising Cruelty,” for instance, the discomfort builds, the drums tumble in flight, the noise intensifies. The relative conventionality of the percussion tracks seems intentional and serves to focus attention on the granular details Ribuyo conjures from his machines. Think the experiments of similarly minded Mille Plateaux and Raster Norton artists. When played through headphones at volume, its full queasy Room 101 buzz and grind squirms most effectively into the brain. Easy listening this is not, but if and when home gatherings resume this would be an ideal way to clear the house.

Andrew Forell

  Che Noir — After 12 EP (TCF Music Group)

If you’ve been paying attention to hip-hop in the last few years, Buffalo’s Griselda camp has dominated the “old heads” conversation away from whatever the kids are vibing to on TikTok. But there’s life away from an Eminem partnership, and not just in the form of Benny the Butcher: Witness Che Noir, who has been on fire throughout 2020. After starting off the year with the 38 Spesh-produced Juno and following it up with the Apollo Brown-produced As God Intended, Che’s closing things out with this self-produced seven-song EP that covers a wide range of territory without dipping into tales of street hustling, just the age old struggle to get some respect. “Hunger Games” is an early highlight that shows her chemistry with Ransom and 38 Spesh, while she completely takes over in speaking to the times on “Moment in the Sun,” which is the clear emotional highlight of the EP. Amber Simone’s pleading chorus on closer “Grace” is another stylistic turn and closes things on a high note. The last words you hear are Simone’s as she sings, “Imma go get it”; the lingering effect is that you know Che Noir is already showing you as much. Miss this one at your own risk.

Patrick Masterson 

 Cong Josie — “Leather Whip” b/w “Maxine” (It Records)

Leather Whip / Maxine (AA single) by Cong Josie

Frankie Teardrop rides again in this smoking synth punk single from Australia’s Cong Josie. “Leather Whip” is about as menacing and minimal as synthesizer music gets, braced by the hard slap of gate-reverbed drums and a claw-picked bass sound (maybe electronic?) and Cong Josie’s whispery insinuations. “Maxine” is just as stripped, with blotchy bass sound and swishing drum machine rhythms framing a haunted rockabilly love song. It’s very Suicide, but isn’t that a good thing?

Jennifer Kelly

   Divine Horsemen — Live 1985-1987 (Feeding Tube)

Divine Horsemen “Live”1985-1987 by Divine Horsemen

With Divine Horsemen, Chris D of the Flesh Eaters had a brief but memorable run in vivid, gothic, country-tinged punk. This disc commemorates two red-hot live outings from 1985 and 1987, the first at Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach, California, the second at Boston’s The Rat. A sharply realized recording shows how this band’s sound fit into the cowpunk parameters set by X, with strident guitar clangor and hard knocking rock rhythms (the ax-heavy line-up featured in this recording included Wayne James, Marshall Rohner and Peter Andrus on guitars, the Flesh Eater’s Robyn Jameson on bass). The secret weapon, though, was the ongoing and volatile vocal duel between the front man and his then-wife Julie Christensen, a classically trained soprano with an unholy vibrato-laced belt. You can hear how she transformed his art by comparing the Flesh Eater’s version of “Poison Arrow” with the one here. It’s as aggressive as ever, musically, and Chris D. is in full florid, echoey, goth-punk mode. Christensen, however, is molten fire, letting loose cascades and flurries of wild vibrating song. There’s a scorching, stomping romp through the vamping “Hell’s Belle,” and a lurid rendering of mad, howling “Frankie Silver,” and, towards the end, a muscular take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.” Christensen later made a mark as one of Leonard Cohen’s favorite backup singers, and Chris D is still knocking around with a reunited, all-star Flesh Eaters, though there’s some talk of getting this band back together as well. I’d go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger — Force Majeure (International Anthem)

Force Majeure by Dezron Douglas & Brandee Younger

Harlem harpist Brandee Younger and bassist Dezron Douglas faced down New York’s early months of quarantine with a series of live broadcasts recorded in their apartment on a single microphone. This document of intimate resilience collects highlights of the Friday ritual. Younger and Douglas perform covers of spiritual Jazz, soul and pop songs as well as the delightfully titled original “Toilet Paper Romance.” The music is so close you feel the fingers on the strings and frets. Younger’s harp playing is a revelation, pianistic on John Coltrane’s “Equinox”, pointillist yet robust on his “Wise One” which they dedicate to Ahmaud Arbery. Douglas provides vigorous and sympathetic accompaniment and his solo rendition of Sting’s “Inshallah” is a tender tough exploration of his instrument. Along the way there are lovely versions of pieces by, amongst others, Alice Coltrane, Kate Bush and Clifton Davis. Douglas closes with the words “Black music cannot be recreated it can only be expressed” and Force Majeure demonstrates that the same goes for humanity and creativity.

Andrew Forell

Avalon Emerson — 040 12” (AD 93)

040 by Avalon Emerson

It’s been a big year for Avalon Emerson, who started 2020 prepping a move from Berlin to East Los Angeles and ends it back home stateside with an almost universally acclaimed DJ-Kicks entry to her credit. This three-song 12” for the label fka Whities is a nice way to close out a triumphant year, illustrating her penchant for bright melodies and percussive detail. “One Long Day Till I See You Again” is a welcoming slice of beatless percolation to close; “Winter and Water” leans heavily on rhythmic tricks in the middle. That makes A1 “Rotting Hills” the ideal lead as a balance between them. There may not be so obvious a gimmick as a Magnetic Fields cover, but that makes it no less valuable for showing what Emerson can do. Call it one more fluorescent rush.

Patrick Masterson

 End Forest — Proroctwo (Self-released)

Proroctwo (The Prophecy) by End Forest

For some of us, the fusion of folk music forms with crust and metal mostly issues in obscenities like Finntroll (yep, a Finnish band that makes folk metal songs about…trolls) or in politically toxic, Völkisch nationalist fantasias. But some bands get it right; see Botanist’s remarkable work, and see also End Forest, an act just emerging from Poland’s punk underground. Singer Paula Pieczonka employs a traditional Slavic vocal technique that roughly translates to “white singing” — but before you get creeped out by any potential fascist vibes, please know that the “whiteness” at stake in the phrase is purely an aesthetic value. And her voice is really great, open and soaring. “Proroctwo (The Prophecy)” has the sweep and drama of a lot of contemporary crust, and all of the genre’s interest in symbolic violence. The lyrics envision a future wrought and wracked by social conflict, a coming conflagration of torn bodies and of piles of dislodged teeth housed in some horrific archive of viciousness (that’s quite an image). It’s harrowing stuff, big guitar chords accented by sitar and flute. The track is available on Bandcamp, along with several inventive remixes by Polish musicians and DJs, like Tomek Jedynak and Dawid Chrapla. End Forest indicates that a full record is forthcoming sometime in spring. Looking forward to it, y’all.

Jonathan Shaw

 Lori Goldson — On a Moonlit Hill in Slovenia (Eiderdown Records)

On A Moonlit Hill In Slovenia by Lori Goldston

Goldson creates movement and tension in an arresting way with a rough-hewn approach to the cello. This could be a good entry point to her solo work, which is varied and bridges the gap between DIY attitude and elevated levels of musicianship and considered approach. The flow of her playing here evokes the almost brutal scrape of the strings, which gives a welcome texture to the melodic squiggles.

Arthur Krumins

Hot Chip — LateNightTales (LateNightTales)

The LateNightTales series of artist-curated mixes has seen a fair bit of variation over the years since Fila Brazilia first took up the torch in 2001, which makes a certain amount of sense; how we spend our late nights can differ wildly, of course. Hot Chip’s instalment in the series hits some of the expected notes (at least one cover, in this case a deeply moving one of the Velvet Underground’s “Candy Says” they’ve been playing since Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard were in high school together; a closing story track, in this case Taylor’s father reading a bit from Finnegan’s Wake) and otherwise depicts the kind of late night Dusted readers might be more familiar with than most; one where a clearly voracious and eclectic listener is keeping their own private party going just for another hour or so, but always keeping things just quiet and subtle enough to not wake up anyone upstairs. The three other, non-cover new Hot Chip tracks all make for standouts here but there’s plenty of room for accolades, whether it’s for the smoothly groovy (Pale Blue, Mike Saita, Beatrice Dillon), the more avant garde (Christina Vantzou, About Group, Nils Frahm) to just plain off-kilter pop (Fever Ray, PlanningToRock, Hot Chip themselves). The result works as both a wonderful playlist and a survey of the band’s sonic world; and it does work best when everyone else is in bed.  

Ian Mathers

Annette Krebs Jean-Luc Guionnet — Pointe Sèche (Inexhaustible Editions)

pointe sèche by Jean-Luc Guionnet, Annette Krebs

Annette Krebs and Jean-Luc Guionnet recorded the three long, numbered tracks on Pointe Sèche (translation: Dry Point) over the course of three days at St. Peter’s Parish church in Bistrica ob Sotli, Slovenia. Location matters because this music couldn’t happen just anywhere; Guionnet plays church organ. Krebs was once part of the post-Keith Rowe generation of tabletop guitarists, but since 2014 she has abandoned strings and fretboards in favor of a series of hybrid instruments called konstruktions. Konstruktion #4, which appears on this record, includes suspended pieces of metal, a handful of toy animals, a wooden sounding board, vocal and contact microphones and a couple touch screens that manage computer programs. While both musicians have extensive backgrounds in improvisation, this recording sounds more like an audio transcription of a multi-media collage. Guionnet plays his large instrument quite softly, extracting machine-like hums, brief burps and dopplering tones that flicker around the periphery of Krebs’ fragments of speech, distant clangs and unidentifiable events. The resulting sounds resolutely defy decoding, which is its own reward in a time when so much music can be reduced to easily identifiable antecedents.

Bill Meyer

 KMRU — ftpim (The Substation)

ftpim by KMRU

If you happened to catch Peel, Joseph Kamaru’s wonderful release on Editions Mego in late July, but haven’t paid attention before or since, early December’s half-hour two-tracker ftpim done for (and mastered by) Room40 leader Lawrence English is a Janus-faced example of the Nairobi-based ambient artist’s power. As Ian Forsythe put it in his BOGO review of both Peel and Opaquer, “Something that can define an effective ambient record is an ability to disintegrate the perimeter of the record itself and the outside world,” a line I think about every time I listen to KMRU now. “Figures Emerge” feels more immediately accessible to me as a relatable environment where the gentle, pulsing drone is occasionally greeted by sounds outside the studio, while “From the People I Met” is more difficult terrain, a distorted fog of post-shoegaze harmonic decay — no less interesting, but perhaps more metaphorical in its take on the outside world. (Or not, given how 2020 has gone.)

Patrick Masterson

  Paul Lovens / Florian Stoffner—Tetratne (Ezz-thetics)

Enough years separate drummer Paul Lovens and guitarist Florian Stoffner that they could be father and son, and Lovens membership in the Schlippenbach Trio, and Lovens role as drummer in the legendarily long-running Schlippenbach Trio establishes him as an august elder of free improvisation. But the partnership they exhibit on this CD is one of equals committed to making music that is of one mind. Whether matching sparse string-tugging to purposefully collapsing batterie or burrowing sprung-spring wobbles to an immense cymbal wash, the duo plays without regard for showing us one guy or the other’s stuff. The point, it seems, is to how they imagine as one, and their combined craniums generate plenty of imagination. They operate in a realm close to that occupied by Derek Bailey and John Stevens, or Roger Smith and Louis Moholo-Moholo, but their patch of turf is entirely their own.

Bill Meyer

  Mr. Teenage — Automatic Love (Self-Release)

Automatic Love by Mr. Teenage

Melbourne, Australia’s fertile garage punk scene has squeeze out another good one in Mr. Teenage, a Buzzcockian foursome prone to short, sharp riffs and sing-along choruses. A four-song EP starts with the title track, whose arch talk-sung verse erupts into rabid, rip-sawing guitar, like Devo meeting the Wipers. “Waste of Time” piles palm muted urgency with explosive release, with a good bit of the Clash in the crashing, clangor. “KIDS” struts and swaggers in a rough-edged way that’s close to the violence of early Reigning Sound or Texas’ Bad Sports. “Oh, the kids these days,” to borrow a phrase, they’re pretty good.

Jennifer Kelly

 Nekra — Royal Disruptor (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Royal Disruptor by Nekra

Remember punk shows? Remember half-lit, dusty basements and fully lit, dirty kids? Remember your sneaker soles sticking to scuffed, gummy linoleum? Remember greasy denim battle jackets and hand-drawn Sharpie slogans? Remember warm beer (watery domestic suds in cans and cups) and cold stares (angsty bravado and bad attitude for its own sake)? Remember anarchists arguing with nihilists, and riot grrrls arguing with rocker boys? Remember people laughing and people smoking and people shouting and people spitting, all without masks? Remember the anticipation that crisps the air when the amps switch on? Feedback from the cheap-ass mic stabbing your ears? Beefy dudes elbowing through the press of flesh? That volatile, stomachy mix of happiness and truculence? Those warm-up thumps of the bass drum and the initial strums of crackling guitar? Remember all that? For the time being, in the United States of Dysfunction, here’s the closest thing you’ll get: an EP of feral, fast punk songs that sound like they’re happening live, right in front of your face. Thanks, Nekra — I really needed that.

Jonathan Shaw

 Neuringer / Dulberger / Masri — Dromedaries II (Relative Pitch)

Dromedaries II by Keir Neuringer, Shayna Dulberger, Julius Masri

Yes, Dromedaries II is a sequel. It follows by three years a debut cassette which was sold in the sort of microquantities that 21st century cassettes are sold. So, it’s more likely that you have heard another of the bands that the trio’s alto saxophonist, Keir Neuringer, plays in — Irreversible Entanglements. While the two combos don’t sound that similar, they share a commitment to improvising propulsive, cohesive music that will put a boot up your butt if you get in the way. While IE focuses on supplying music that frames and exemplifies the stern proclamations of vocalist Camae Ayewa, the trio plays instrumental free jazz that balances individual expression with collective support. Neuringer, double bassist Shayna Dulberger and drummer Julius Masri play like their eyes are on the horizon, but each musician’s ears are tuned into what the other two are doing. The result is music that seems to move in concerted fashion, but usually has someone doing something that pulls against the prevailing thrust in ways that heighten tension, but never force the music off track.

Bill Meyer

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song (Smalltown Supersound)

One of the distinctive things about Kelly Lee Owens’ marvellous debut LP a few years ago, as noted here, is that it felt so confident and distinct that it could have easily been the work of a much more seasoned producer. That impression, of a deftly skilled hand at the controls and a keen artistic sensibility and taste shaping it all, certainly doesn’t recede on Inner Song, whether it finds Owens homaging the grandmother who provided support and inspiration (“Jeanette”), gently but firmly rejecting unhealthy relationships (the utterly gorgeous “L.I.N.E.”) or teaming up with John Cale to make some bilingual, deep Welsh ambient dub (“Corner of My Sky”). And that’s one pretty randomly chosen three-song run! Owens continues to excel at both crafting gorgeous, lived-in productions and maybe especially with her handling of voices (her own and others), and she’s comfortable enough in her own skin that if she wants to open up the album with an instrumental Radiohead version (“Arpeggi”) she will, and she’ll make it feel natural, too.  

Ian Mathers

San Kazakgascar — Emotional Crevasse (Lather Records)

Emotional Crevasse by San Kazakgascar

You won’t find San Kazakgascar on any map, but give a listen and you’ll know where this combo is coming from. Geographically, they hail from Sacramento CA, where they share personnel with Swimming In Bengal. But sonically, they are the product of a journey through music libraries that likely started out in a Savage Republic and sweated in the shadow of Sun City Girls. They likely spent time in the teetering stacks of music collections compiled in a time when the problematic aspects of the term world music were outweighed by the lure of sounds you hadn’t heard before. More important than where they’ve been, though, is the impulse to go someplace other than where they’re currently standing. To accomplish this, twangy guitars, rhythms that straighten your spine whilst swiveling your hips, bottom-dredging saxophone and a cameo appearance by a throat singer who understands that part of a shaman’s job is to scare you each take their turn stepping up and pointing your mind elsewhere. Where it goes after that is up to you.

Bill Meyer

     John Sharkey III — “I Found Everyone This Way” (12XU)

Has Sharkey mellowed? This early peek at the upcoming solo album from the Clockcleaner legend and Dark Blue proprietor suggests a pensive mood, with liquid jangle and surprisingly subdued and lyrical delivery (albeit in the man’s inimitable hollowed out and wounded snarl). But give the artist a power ballad if that’s what he wants. The song has a graceful arc to it, a doomed romanticism and not an ounce of cloying sentiment.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sky Furrows — Sky Furrows (Tape Drift Records/Skell Records/Philthy Rex Records)

Sky Furrows by Sky Furrows

Sky Furrows don’t take long to match sound and message. As Karen Schoemer drops references to SST Records and Raymond Pettibone, bassist Eric Hardiman and drummer Philip Donnelly whip up a tense groove that could easily have been played by Mike Watt and George Hurley. Mike Griffin’s spidery, treble-rich guitar picking is a little less specifically referential, but does sound like it was fed through a signal chain of gear that would have been affordable back in the first Bush administration. The next track looks back a bit further; Schoemer’s voice aside, it sounds like Joy Division might have done if Tom Herman had turned up, pushed Martin Hannet out of the control room before he could ladle on the effects and instead laid down some space blues licks. Schoemer recites rather than sings in a cadence that recalls Lee Ranaldo’s; pre-internet underground rock is in this band’s DNA. The sounds themselves are persistently cool, but one drawback of having a poet instead of a singer up front is an apparent reluctance to vary the structure; it would not have hurt to break things up with some contrasting passages here or there.

Bill Meyer

  Soft on Crime — “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind” b/w “Rubyanne” (EatsIt)

7'' by Soft on Crime

These Dublin fuzz-punks kick up a guitar-chiming clangor in A-Side, “You’ve Already Made Up Your Mind,” which might have you reaching for your old Sugar records. Sharp but sweet, the cut is an unruly gem buoyed by melody but bristling with attitude. “Rubyanne” is slower, softer and more ingratiating, embellished with baroque pop elements like flute, saxophone and choral counterpoints. “Little 8 Track” fills out this brief disc, with crunching, buzz-hopped bass and a bit of guitar jangle under whisper-y romantic vocals. It’s a bit hard to get a handle on the band, based on such disparate samples, but intriguing enough to make you want to settle the matter whenever more material becomes available.

Jennifer Kelly

Theoxinia — See the Lapith King Burn (Bandcamp)

See the Lapith King Burn by Theoxenia

Students of Greek mythology will grasp it right away, but in the internet age, it doesn’t take anyone long to figure out that when you name your record See the Lapith King Burn, you’re casting your lot for better or worse with the party animals. The Lapiths were one side of a lineage that also involved the considerably less sober-sided Centaurs, and the two sides of the family had a bloody showdown at a wedding that has been taken to symbolize the war between civilization and wildness. Theoxinia is Dave Shuford (No-Neck Blues Band, Rhyton, D. Charles Speer & the Helix) and his small circle of stringed instruments and low-cost repeating devices. If you were to dig through his past discography, it most closely resembles the LP Arghiledes (Thrill Jockey) in its explicitly Hellenic-psychedelic vibe. But, like so many folks in recent times, Shuford has decided to bypass the expanse and aggravation of physical publication in favor of marketing this LP-sized recording on Bandcamp. If that fact really bugs you, I guess you could start a label and make the man an offer. But if fuzz-tone bouzouki, sped-up loops and unerringly traced dance steps that will look most convincing when executed with a knife between your teeth and the sheriff’s wallet poking mockingly out of the top of your breast pocket sounds like your jam, See the Lapith King Burn awaits you in the realm of digital insubstantiality.

Bill Meyer

 Trees — 50th Anniversary Edition (Earth Recordings)

Trees (50th Anniversary Edition) by Trees

This boxed set presents the two original Trees albums from the early 1970s, The Garden of Jane Delawney and On the Shore, with the addition of demos and sundry recordings from the era. Here the band took the UK folk rock sound emergent at the time and drew it out into its jammy and somewhat arena rock guitar soloing conclusion. It’s good to have all of this in one place to document the myriad ways that Trees wrapped traditional material into new forms and with a bracing, druggy feel.

Arthur Krumins 

 Uncivilized — Garden (UNCIV MUSIC)

Garden by Uncivilized

Guitarist Tom Csatari presides over NYC-based large jazz ensemble known as Uncivilized, whose fusion-y discography stretches back a couple of years and prominently incorporates a cover of the Angelo Badalamenti theme from Twin Peaks. This 27-track album was recorded live at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works space in 2018 with a nine-piece band, who navigate drones and dances and the multi-part Meltedy Candy STOMP, a sinuous exploration of space age keyboards and surging big band instruments. Jaimie Branch, who lives next door to Csatari and was invited on a whim at the last minute, joins in for the second half including a smoldering rendition of the Lynch theme. It’s damn fine (though not coffee). Later on, Stevie Wonder gets the Uncivilized treatment in a pensive cover of “Evil,” led by warm guitar, blowsy sax and a little bit of jazz flute.

Jennifer Kelly

 Unwed Sailor — Look Alive (Old Bear Records)

Look Alive by Unwed Sailor

Johnathon Ford, who plays bass for Pedro the Lion, has been at the center of Unwed Sailor for two decades, gathering a changing cohort of players to realize his lucid instrumental compositions. Here, as on last year’s Heavy Age, Eric Swatzell adds guitars and Matthew Putnam drums to Ford’s essential bass and keyboard sounds. Yet while Heavy Age brooded, Look Alive grooves with bright clarity, riding insistent basslines through highly colored landscapes of synths and drums. The title track bounds with optimism, with big swirls of synth sound enveloping a rigorous cadence of bass and drums. “Camino Reel” is more guitar-centric but just as uplifting, opening out into squalling shoe-gaze-y walls of amplified sound. Ford, who usually leans on post-punk influences like New Order and the Cure, indulges an affinity for dance, here, especially audible on the trance-y “Gone Jungle” remix by GJ.

Jennifer Kelly

 Your Old Droog — Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (Self-released)

Dump YOD: Krutoy Edition by YOD

American rapper Your Old Droog has been releasing solid music for years. He never had ups for the same reason he never had downs: he never left his comfort zone. Dump YOD Krutoy Edition (where “krutoy” stands for “rude boy” or “badass”) may be his breakthrough album. He always kept his Soviet origins in check, and here for the first time he draws his imagery from three different sources: New York urban present, Ukrainian folk and Soviet and post-Soviet past (even Boris Yeltsin makes an appearance). In this boiling pot, a new Your Old Droog is rising, among balalaikas and mean streets of NYC, matryoshkas and producers with boring beats, babushkas and graffiti writers.

Ray Garraty

#Dusted magazine #dust #mac blackout #bill meyer #ross birdwise #bryon hayes #c_g #andrew forell #che noir #patrick masterson #cong josie #jennifer kelly #divine horsemen #dezron douglas #brandee younger #avalon emerson #end forest #jonathan shaw #lori goldston #arthur krumins #annette krebs #jean-luc guionnet #paul lovens #florian stoffner #mr. teenage #nekra #keir neuringer #shayna dulberger #julius masri #San Kazakgascar

[dabbiya]

Chitral- A journey of hope

Ok long text post coming

When I was four years old ( my brother was 5) we went to Kalam (Swat Valley, then NWFP now KP province ). ( My sister was not yet born/ side note all our family stories are like that before my sister was born after my sister was born, she hates it, equates it to before nuclear blast vs after nuclear blast) My dad was driving his 1986 white Toyota Corolla. We stopped halfway through somewhere. My Baba ( dad in Urdu) asked someone, where is Chitral, and the person pointed towards snow capped mountains on the side and said behind them is Chitral, you have to take this road and it will take 24 hours. Baba said ok we will come here next year.

It’s been more than 30 years since that moment. This time it’s me who is driving my grey 2015 Honda City Automatic. I am married, with a 9 yo , working full time and year is that of COVID-19. Lowar Tunnel is finished ( longest tunnel in Pakistan), the trip is reduced from 24 hours to 6 hours, the road is much less rugged, even Prince William has visited it last year. Pareek told the story of Kalash in winters.

I don’t know how, my work is way too much at this time of year, I have very little budget( dipping into my savings of last year) but this is the moment. This is the year . This is the week when I will go there. I know it’s not lush green which is a typical tourist beauty criteria for many Pakistani men who are out for tourism. I know it’s not a shopping capital for goods.

But , it’s October. I have never been on a vocation in October . School year limitation. But this year all bets are off. It’s low tourist year due to COVID. It’s a year of rethinking life. It’s a year of regrouping thoughts. It’s a year of finding courage and hope where you can’t seem to find any.

This year, Chitral is the destination. For a lot of adventurous men/boys going to chitral is like sheesh , “ you should go to Shamshal valley/ Kumrat valley/ this track that trek”

Sorry

With a 9yo and a woman who wants privacy and safety when going to loo, I prefer a little bit of urban civility i.e. a functional clean washroom.

This journey is personal. My brother does not even remember this story. My dad did.usually he discourages me to go to various adventures. But this time I think secretly he loved it that I am fulfilling his wish of “ ok next year”. But I am also doing this trip as a precursor to settling over there forever. Finding a place to grow my own food. Writing my own book.

I have to sort/complete at least 30 office tasks along with packing / making sure car is fixed and attend an online series of class, host a webinar, set up an office studio. All the while keeping this a secret from my 9yo that we are going in four days. He thinks we are going in a month when it’s his birthday.

But I know I will be able to pull it off. Because each year I leave home to find Allah. This year it was aitakaf at home. And now this year Allah is calling me to Chitral. This year is my ‘next year’.

InshAllah!

#inshallah #chitral #roadtrip