#this is how i imagine prophets recording their visions in the night

[booze-hats]

Old Dog, New Surprises

Problem Sleuth had been very surprising at first. Spades Slick had expected him to die the first time he sent Hearts out to whack him, but he hadn't. Every single time Slick thought he'd seen it all, the asshole came back with something new to get on his nerves. Or not. It varied by occasion.

Problem Sleuth considered himself a man of the arts. He danced, he sang, he played a few instruments, he dabbled in the occasional paperwork margin doodle.  This was common knowledge to anyone who had ever looked through his office, but it was surprising to Spades Slick at first. After a few years of cat and mouse, though, Slick thought he'd had the guy figured out, he thought that if Sleuth was going to surprise him any more, the detective would have to somehow be physically present for the occasion. Well, he was wrong. 

The surprise came from an unexpected, he'd dare say surprising, place too — Sleuth's planner. Which, he didn't know the guy kept. He decided it must be a new development backdated with asinine occasions like coffee with the Inspector or trips to the DMV or reminders to mail packages to strange names in distant places (like... Missouri? Michigan? Minnesota? Slick didn't remember which one was denoted as MI and didn't really care) because Sleuth was a moron who liked to waste time on stupid shit like that. Of more interest than the past, though, was just an hour and a half in the future. It was karaoke. Sleuth sang, sure, to himself as an idle behavior, when he was trying to remember something, when he got around that woman he liked because he thought he was impressive when he did it, but he never bothered to imagine Problem Sleuth on a stage. Well, maybe the guy would attempt standup, he could see that going miserably because Sleuth wasn't very funny, but karaoke? 

Singing? On a stage? Him? 

Slick would have to see it to believe it. And he would, he'd made up his mind. He returned the planner to approximately where he'd found it, careful to remove the bookmark for Sleuth's fondest inconvenience and turned to see himself out. He knew where that bar was. Sleuth had seen him play before, plenty of times he'd spotted the creep at the back of the bar on a Wednesday night, bouncing his leg to the tune of the Midnight Crew on stage and chatting with someone or other. He had no reason to mind Slick slipping in to watch him perform. He wished the guy had taken down what songs he'd be singing. He'd embarrass him by playing the piano, assuming the bar had someone playing instead of a stereo or whatever places used these days. Droog handled the technicals of the soundtrack when no one was playing live and he paid somebody else to do it for live performances regardless of his involvement in playing. Slick didn't know, nor did he care to know, a single damn thing about sound machines or their workings. 

Killing an hour and a half was easy with enough cigarettes. The newfangled vapes were fun too, he'd taken up carrying one for places it was unacceptable to smoke. It sure came in handy when he was sitting in the back of a bar much too... Contemporary for his taste. A college-aged broad sang some obnoxious pop song, followed by a country hit from the nineties that he knew, but couldn't remember the name of. An older gent sang some blues, a pretty lady with dyed hair sang something that had to have a genre that he couldn't place, and about that point, he stopped drinking to pay attention. An older woman sang Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire, and then, Sleuth hauled his sorry ass on stage. 

He's not dressed for work. That is to say, he's not wearing beige, he's wearing a pair of black jeans and a vest over his white shirt, he's ditched the tie altogether. It's a good look, even if he still needed a hairbrush. Spades Slick hated it. 

It's impressive so far, though, he looked confident, and even more impressive, his choice of song wasn't obnoxious. There's no piano. It's all a sound system, and it's a shame, because Slick knew how to play plenty of Sinatra, he certainly knew That's Life. 

Sleuth did too. He smiled the whole time, even if his brows twitched when his eyes hit Slick. Spades couldn't tell if it was the bright lights in his eyes or if he'd been recognized. His eyes didn't linger anywhere in particular too long, no, and maybe he was drunk, but Slick was almost certain that the guy was moving intentionally. That he was performing properly. It's not just one song either, it's Sinatra and it's something he'd never heard before, something Sleuth said his mom liked and while she wasn't with him anymore, he believed firmly that she was with him in spirit all of the time. He loved her. He'd just sent some stuff up north to his family for her grave, that anniversary had just passed. So it was Sylvia's Mother, because she used to sing it.

It gave Slick pause. He internalized it, thought exceedingly hard about it for a second, and put it out of his mind because that was stupid. What a fucking sap. The song's good, though, he'd have to ask Droog to make him a CD with it for his little radio at home. He'd care to hear the original. 

A hand from someone he didn't see helped Sleuth off the stage and this time, to Slick, the gap between performances felt... Exceedingly long. An older woman, Jethro Tull. Problem Sleuth could sing. Nay, he could perform. Those weren't the same skill. Problem Sleuth could perform. 

Locomotive Breath. 

She was good too. 

Spades Slick stood up and adjusted his hat. He knocked back the last of his drink and ordered another shot, he needed it after that. He was out the door and halfway into lighting a cigarette when Sleuth, coat on and hat in hand, stepped out. He looked at Slick and Slick looked at him. Sleuth nodded, but continued on his way without any further accomplishment. 

What the fuck?

That was odd. So of course, Slick followed as casually as he could. Although Sleuth was just a little taller, Slick's stride was naturally faster. It was easy to catch up. He was surprised again, Sleuth was red in the face and not looking too happy at all. So, Slick fell back a step to see if he'd be greeted any more than the silent avoidance of eye contact. He was not, and so, he fell back another step trying to get his cigarettes out. With little effort, he overtook his captive audience and stopped in front of him, holding out a Marlboro. This made Sleuth stop, but he didn't say anything right away. He just kept looking at Slick with his face all twisted up in some way that didn't make any sense. He wasn't sure what to do about this. 

"Take it," was what came out of his mouth, and Sleuth did. It was enough to bring attention to the tremble of his hands while he hunted down his lighter in his pants pocket. He took an uneven breath. 

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

It was quiet for a while. Sleuth didn't seem intent on explaining himself willingly. Obviously, he knew Slick was curious about his condition. Maybe he got hurt while Slick was having that shot and his clothes just managed to look completely put together still by the sheer power of music. 

Slick realized he was going to have to talk again. Sleuth was supposed to do this part. 

"... You do good on stage."

"Yeah."

This was going poorly. He looked around. He was dealing out perhaps the most compliments ever, right now. Sleuth ought to mark his dumb calendar about it. "You sing good." 

Sleuth pushed out a breathy laugh and finally, the asshole looked Spades Slick in his face. The laughter was refreshing after such unusual behavior. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. What else do you sing?"

"Um," another shaky breath. It's strange to watch his eyes dart around like that, he didn't do that. "Just about anything. Everything can be good if you do it right."

"Know any Cash?"

"Of course." Sleuth laughed all uneasy again, but the further he got into that cancer stick, the less he shook. "What do you take me for?"

"Then sing some for me. Home of the Blues, easy and slow, ain't it?"

"What? Slick, no," was not what Slick expected, definitely not with more incredulous laughter. "No. I'm not going to sing for you in the street."

"You're sappy enough. Do it somewhere else then. C'mon, I got somewhere. We'll get you a piano and everything." Without any consideration at all, Slick reached out and grabbed the detective by his forearm, dragging his hostage along happily. He tuned out every single one of his complaints, something about a woman, something about his ass, work tomorrow, he didn't want to, he didn't wanna, let him go, whatever. It'd be good for him. He seemed a little too drunk to get loose, too. All very promising for Slick. He almost got him to the apartment before he managed to get away, at which point, he looked around. 

"C'mon," Slick urged, "I got whiskey. You know you won't hate it. I'll convince you with another cigarette."

Sleuth took a deep breath and Slick looked at his face again, a good hard look. He was having a hard time here. "Why?"

"Because I want you to."

"Why?"

Why? He asked himself. "Because you're acting funny. You ain't allowed to do that. You gotta keep working and you can't do good if you act funny."

Close enough. He returned his attention to finding his cigarettes and when he did, he thrust one Sleuth-ward. Sleuth took it, lit it, and this time, Slick wasn't surprised by the laughter. He did explain that kind of funny. Sleuth took a drag, shook his head, and stepped toward him. Good start. 

"You convinced me with the cigarette. Walk." 

Walk he did. This time, the silence wasn't so miserable. Problem Sleuth followed him into the building and up the stairs and into the little apartment Slick rented. One of them, anyway. There were several, all safe places Slick and his men could go to sleep and drink with somewhere to eat nearby in most of the cases. It was by no stretch nice or well decorated, the bed was unmade just like Slick left it three or four nights or a week or two ago. He wasn't sure. He didn't really keep track of time anymore. He'd never been good at it. That's what he had his right hand man for. 

Slick stepped into the mostly-empty kitchenette and pulled down a bottle of, he turned the bottle to find out, a bottle of Wild Turkey! He pushed it into Sleuth's hands and settled himself at the shitty pawn shop keyboard against the door. "Sit. Bed, couch, pull up the chair, counter, I don't give a shit. Park your ass. You're going to sing for me."

Sleuth laughed some more and took that last option up. With the bottle in his hand, he hopped up on the counter. He took a swig. "I don't wanna sing Home of the Blues. You know Big Iron? Marty Robbins?"

"Dunno how to play it."

"Any of American Pie?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Can you read sheet music?"

"Nope."

Sleuth took another drink and slipped off the counter, grabbing the single other chair in the room and shooing Slick. "Move."

"What?"

"Move. I want it."

Disarmed, Slick complied and he watched Sleuth sit down. He ran his fingers across the keyboard, pressing a few keys seemingly at random. It's a song Slick recognized but didn't know how to play, he didn't pick it up right away though. It's not until the British got to running that he figured out what Sleuth was singing and it made him snicker. He snatched the bottle from his lap and took a drink 

It's... Charming. And it's maybe two or three songs later before Slick was pulling out another bottle, and not that many longer before he realized that he was waking up in bed. Alone. 

It took him a second to figure out that it was all real and not his life flashing before his eyes as he died or something equally absurd. Sure, he felt like death, but he'd woken up in the apartment and there were a few empty bottles. And there was not aspirin, which was a crying shame. He took the other available option and shucked his coat as he stood up, which was to wander over to the sink and drink from his hands like an animal. 

He was going to have Droog write that liquor off as a business expense. 

#intermission #homestuck #hs intermission #problem sleuth #spades slick #ssps #oneshot #slice of life #fluff #i didn't proof read this #i got high and wrote this is a frenzy in the rain #this is how i imagine prophets recording their visions in the night #anyway enjoy

[tblsomedoodles]

Raph is the eldest, the Protector. He was the shield to keep his siblings safe no matter what and a role model to show then right from wrong. They could come to him about anything and he would promise no judgement (well, maybe a little teasing) and his complete support and he had made sure his brothers had known this since they were very young. And he'd been doing a pretty banged up job of it too, bug brothering like a Boss!! At least, that was what he had thought up until this point. Then he discovered Leo and Donnie were a little more special than they'd first thought.

They were a Fated Pair, according to a decidedly smug Draxum. According to yokai legend, every few hundred or so years a pair of seers, usually twins although not necessarily. And he had suspected for quite some time that Leo was one of them, although it was only recently he figured out which. Leon was a doom prophet, someone cursed with prophetic dreams and vision of future disasters, while Donnie was ironically the soothsayer, blessed with visions of fortune.

All Raph had really understood out of that was that his brother's dreams weren't just dreams and his brothers had been keeping soem serious secrets from him. He'd always known Leo had trouble sleeping and Donnie had the uncanny ability to guess good news even before it's told, but he'd never really thought too much about it. Donnie has freely admitted to recording and even spying on his family before so it wouldn't be hard to imagine he'd just overheard it while Leo is... Leo. He's never been much a of a restful sleeper. He'd never thought anything of it until recently.

Then CJ came along.

Raph adored the human boy, they all did, but that's nothing on how downright protective if the time traveler Leo and Donnie were. How they seemed to just know things about CJ that they shouldn't know at all, like his fear of snakes (something shout a crazed snake yokai trying to eat him when he was younger). And of course theirs the stories CJ would tell, about how Leo and Donnie's future selves. Whenever the boy would bring up anything about Leo and Donnies' future selves' uncanny ability to plan ahead for almost any eventuality, even when there was absolutely no foreseeable way for then to tell soemthing was going to happen, the turtles in question would be quick to change the subject, insisting that it must be exaggeration on the part of the apparently prevalent rumor mill of yhe apocalypse.

That was the start of it, and not long after the kid came along and they'd fought their greatest battle yet, the truth was revealed. Raph was concerned, of course, who wouldn't be learning such a terrifying thing about their younger brothers!? Donnie would insist the visions aren't anything to worry about, more a nuisance than anything.

"Whats the point of a surprise party or dazzling someone if you already going to know what's going to happen!?" Donnie would complain whenever asked about it, "I'd rather not know what my next birthday present will be thank you very much..."

On Leo's end the slider would just shrug it off, likening his visions to just another nightmare.

"I'm used to it, it's jsut more of the same right? Insomnia stops me form sleeping and I get nightmares. Just cuz they come true don't mean much if anything!"

Raph had a feeling that Leo was downplaying how bad his dreams were and that Donnie wasn't being completely upfront in the matter of his feelings about his visions, but considering the circumstances in which they had discovered the visions the snapper couldn't blame them. This was something deeply personal that got thrown out for the world to see after all, and as long as they know to come to him if it gets worse, all is well and good. Besides having brothers who can see the future is actually cool, or at least thats what Raph ahd thought until he had to witness one of them.

Leo had woken him late one night with a terrified scream, prompting him and Mikey to rush to his room. His eyes and markings were glowing as he gasped and whimpered in desperate pain, nails digging into his face as he scratched desperately at his temples and scalp, convulsing with the sheer power of hus uncontrollable visions. He was having a vision, one of the rare waking ones where he wasn't asleep, and Donnie was nowhere to be found! Stuck and unsure what to do, Raph tried to snap him out of it only for Leo to curl up more, more pained cries escaping his beak. Mikey was fumbling with his phone, trying to get Donnie on the line. Nothing they were doing was helping and Raph, desperate, jsut did the only thing he could think of.

He scooped Leo into his arms, sitting in the floor with the convulsing and crying turtle in his lap and wrapping himself around the smaller liek the world's most dense weighted blanket and just held him close, heart breaking as Leo instinctively clung to him, nails digging in as he bit his lip in a desperate attempt to stifle his crying. Donnies voice came on the speaker, held close by Mijey with promises of coming home as soon as possible and telling Leo to hold on.

Donnie sounded breathless, telling stories about good times yet to come as he runs, not hover but actually runs, back to the lair in n attempt to comfort Leo. The sound of his twin seemed to help, but not enough, it wasn't nearly enough and Raph's heart shattered even more as he picked up the panicked tone in Donnies voice as the realization that nobody knew how to handle this set in.

Leo was the expert when it came to this strange future sight... Donnie had freely admitted to only recently even noticing his own powers and beginning to learn them but Leo had been aware of then for far longer and any questions they had would be best asked of the slider or Draxum. Draxum was away on some charity event the school he worked for was hosting to help with the hundreds of people now homeless after the invasion, and Leo was catatonic and suffering.

As Raph sat there waiting for this to pass, Mikey curled against his shell for comfort but unwilling to slide in next to Leo who needed it more and Donnie rushing back, he thought. His many times, he asked himself, how many times has this happened to his brothers and he wasn't there to help!? How much has Leo and Donnie kept hidden from hin because they didn't want to worry him with these visions? How many times was Leo brought to this state, alone and suffering in the dark as he stifled his crying? What was it Leo was seeing, that made it so his strong and thick skinned little brother would cry and weep and convulsed in pain form sheer grief at what he was seeing!?

No more. Raph won't let them suffer alone anymore. He may not get this whole seer thing much but he doesn't have to to understand that his brothers need him. Hours later, when Donnie had arrives and Leo's episode had ended, twins sleeping peacefully once more, Raph carefully traced the yin and yang marks on his brothers' faces before tucking the blanket around them closer. They were in a turtle pile, everyone too freaked by Leo's waking vision to sleep alone.

Tomorrow, Raph will discuss setting up soem ground rules on regard to what the twins do and do not hide when it comes to their visions and ask Leo just what it was he had seen.

This is so great!!! Raph is such a good big brother! I love this so much!

also just

He's going to be talking to them about all this. But tomorrow. (off mikey's getting more blankets and pillows for a proper turtle pile)

THank you!!!

#asks #tmnt #rottmnt #seer twins au #ficlet #my doodles

[dinaive]

The Hadith of Gabriel (Part 2)

BY: SACHIKO MURATA, WILLIAM C. CHITTICK SOURCE: ISLAMICITY DEC 1, 2021 24

"Then the man went away. After I had waited for a long time, the Prophet said to me, "Do you know who the questioner was, 'Umar?" I replied, "God and His messenger know best. "He said, "He was Gabriel. He came to teach you your religion. "To begin explaining the meaning of this hadith let us flesh it out by adding some background information that would be obvious to the original listeners but not to a reader situated many centuries and miles away.Try to imagine the situation. The Messenger of God, at the time the greatest human being on the face of the earth (as far as his companions were concerned - and the historical record bears them out), is sitting at the edge of an oasis in Medina with a group of his companions, that is, people who have accepted that he is the mouthpiece of God. Suddenly a man appears whom no one recognizes.Medina, at the time, is a tiny community in the midst of the desert (with a population of several hundred or perhaps a few thousand). Everyone knows everyone. If a traveler arrives, it is no small event, given the difficulty of travel and the small population. Everyone learns about new arrivals within hours. The system of personal relationships established by familial, tribal, and other bonds ensures that news is spread around much more efficiently than can ever be accomplished by today's six o'clock news. A man appears whom no one knows, but no one has arrived in town for several days, except the uncle of so and so, whom several of them have already seen.Not only do the companions fail to recognize the man, but he also shows no signs of travel, which is very strange. If they do not know him, then he must be a newly arrived traveler. Someone would not be able to freshen up that quickly after several days of travel in the desert, even if he had traveled only by night on the back of a camel. (You think you feel bad after six hours in a car-think of six days in the hottest and dustiest environment you can imagine, with no air conditioned rest stops for coffee or soda.)As soon as the man arrives, everyone is all ears. Who can this person be, and how did he get here without our knowing about it? Next strange fact: The man is obviously on familiar terms with the Prophet of God. He comes right up to him and kneels down in front of him, his knees against the Prophet's knees. Notice that the Prophet himself is kneeling, not in prayer as modern Westerners might kneel, but simply because kneeling is, for most Orientals, the simplest and at the same time the most respectful way to sit. Remember that, even in houses, chairs were unheard of. People sat on the ground, as they still do in much of the world-and this includes some of the richest and most sophisticated parts of the world, such as Japan. For most of the ancient world, chairs were the prerogative of kings.You would not go right up to a person and kneel with your knees touching his unless he were, for example, your brother or a very close friend. The normal procedure, even if the person sitting there was just an ordinary person, would be to greet him from a respectful distance and keep the distance. But the stranger from the desert obviously knows Muhammad very well. He even places his hands upon Muhammad's thighs, which would be an unheard of piece of effrontery if the man were a stranger.

Excerpted from the book "The Vision of Islam" by Sachiko Murata and William C. Chttick

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 4

Axel Ruley x Verbo Flow

A little bit of optimism is creeping into the air as Dusted writers start to get their shots. We’re all starting to think about live music, maybe outside, maybe this summer. But as the spate of freak snow storms demonstrates, summer’s not here yet, and in the meantime, piles of records and gigs of MP3s beckon. This early spring version of Dust covers the map, literally, with artists representing Pakistan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, and stylistically with jazz, rock, punk, rap, improv and many other genres in play. Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Patrick Masterson, Tim Clarke and Bryon Hayes.

Arooj Aftab — Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam)

Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab is a classical composer originally from Pakistan but now living in Brooklyn. Vulture Prince, her third full-length album, blends the bright clarity of new age music with the fluid, non-Western vocal tones of her Central Asian roots. “Last Night,” from an old Rumi poem but sung mostly in English, lilts in dub-scented syncopation, the thump and pop of stand-up bass underlining its bittersweet melody. An interlude in some other language shifts the song entirely, pitting vintage reggae reverberation against an exotic melisma. “Mohabbat” (which is apparently Urdu for sex) soothes in the pristine instrumentals, lucid guitars, a horn, scattered drumbeats, but smolders and beckons in the vocals. None of these tracks feel wholly traditional or wholly Western and modern day, but sit somewhere in a well-lit, idealized space. Timeless and placeless, Vulture Prince is nonetheless very beautiful.

Jennifer Kelly

 Assertion — Intermission (Spartan)

Intermission comes from an alternate timeline. Founding drummer William Goldsmith started his musical career in Sunny Day Real Estate and had a notable stint with Foo Fighters. To cut the biography short, Goldsmith took a decade off from the music industry. He's returned now with Assertion, joined by guitarist/vocalist Justin Tamminga and bassist Bryan Gorder (both of Blind Guides, among other acts). This band picks up in the late 1990s, imagining a new path for post-hardcore/post-grunge music. The trio's name suits, as the songs' energy and the lyrical assertiveness develops the intensity of the release. The group works carefully with dynamics, neither parroting the loud-quiet tradition nor simply pushing their emo leanings toward 11.

“The Lamb to the Slaughter Pulls a Knife” epitomizes the album. The track sounds like Foo Fighters decided to get dirtier rather than more arena-friendly, while the lyrics mix violence with emotional persistence. First single “Supervised Suffering” finds triumph in endurance, turning the aggressive chorus into something of a victory. “Set Fire” closes the album with something more delicate, but it's just the gauze over a seething anger. Goldsmith's time off seems to have served him well, as does collaborating with some new partners. Assertion makes its case clearly and effectively, and if the intermission's over for Goldsmith, the second half sounds promising.

Justin Cober-Lake  

 Michael Beach — Dream Violence (Goner/Poison City)

Dream Violence by Michael Beach

“De Facto Blues,” from Michael Beach’s fourth solo album, is a barn-burner of a song, rough and messy and passionate, the kind of song that makes you want to take a stand on something, who cares what as long as it matters to you. It snarls like Radio Birdman, slashes like the Wipers and follows its muse through chaos to righteousness like an off-cut from Crazy Horse, just back from rockin’ the free world. It’s got Matt Ford and Inez Tulloch from Thigh Master on guitar and bass, respectively, Utrillo Kushner from Colossal Yes (and Comets on Fire) on drums, and Kelley Stoltz at the boards, and it’s a killer. The rest of the album is varied and, honestly, not uniformly astounding, but there’s a nice Summer of Love-style psych dream in “Metaphysical Dice,” a slow-burning post-rocker in the title track and a driving, pounding punk anthem in the opener “Irregardless.” Beach has been splitting his time between San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia, and lately settled on Melbourne, where he will fit like a native into their thriving punk-garage scene.

Jennifer Kelly

 Bloop — Proof (Lumo)

Proof by BLOOP (Lina Allemano / Mike Smith)

The trumpet is already a catalog of sound effects waiting to happen, and Lina Allemano knows the table of contents by heart. So, to shake things up, she has paired up with electronic musician Mike Smith, who contributes live processing and effects to Allemano’s improvisations. A blind listen to Proof might leave you with the impression that you’re hearing a horn player jamming with some outer space cats, and we’re not talking about hip, lingo-slinging jazz dudes. In fact, everything on these eight tracks happened in real time. Smith’s a strategic intervener, aware that too much sauce can spoil the stew, so he mixes up precise layering and pitch-shifting with more disorienting transformations. It’s hard to say how much Allemano responds to the simulacra that surround her brass voice, but there’s no denying the persuasiveness of her melodic and timbral ideas.

Bill Meyer

 Bris — Tricky Dance Moves (TrueStory Entertainment)

Bris left some music behind when he died in 2020, but it took almost a year to shape these recordings into a proper CD. The label CEO Mac J (a fine artist himself) could easily capitalize on his friend’s death, stacking Tricky Dance Moves with features from the artists Bris never would have worked with. Yet the album was prepared with the utmost care, not giving an ugly Frankenstein monster feel. Bris’s references to his possible early death are scattered throughout the whole tape: “Heard they wanna pop Bris cause they mad I’m poppin.” Almost every song could be easily turned into a prophetic tale (a cheap move one wants to avoid at all costs). Nonetheless, something is missing here. Or maybe it is just an image of death that disturbs the whole picture, making us realize that this is the last we’d hear from Bris.

Ray Garraty

 Dreamwell — Modern Grotesque (self-released)

Modern Grotesque by Dreamwell

I recently read an interview with Providence’s Dreamwell breaking down in almost excruciating detail the influences that led to the quintet’s sophomore full-length Modern Grotesque. I kept scrolling past Daughters and Deftones and Deafheaven and increasingly disconnected influences like The Mountain Goats and Nina Simone. I went back to the top and looked again. I typed Ctrl+F and put in “Thursday.” Nothing. This is preposterous. I may not be in the post-hardcore trenches the way I once was, but even I’d know a good Full Collapse homage if it swung a mic right into my face the way this one did; hell, just listen to “The Lost Ballad of Dominic Anneghi” and tell me singer Keziah Staska doesn’t know every single word of “Paris in Flames.” That may not look like flattery on a first read, but too often, bands striding the emo/pop divide have chased the latter into sub-Taking Back Sunday oblivion; what Thursday did was much harder, and Dreamwell has ably taken up the torch here. That they did it unintentionally is a curious, bewildering footnote.

Patrick Masterson

  Paul Dunmall / Matthew Shipp / Joe Morris / Gerald Cleaver — The Bright Awakening (Rogue Art)

It’s a bit perplexing that reeds player Paul Dunmall hasn’t spent more time playing with American musicians. He’s firmly situated within the English improvisation community, where he’s perhaps best known for his longer tenure with the quartet Mujician, and his ability to double on bagpipes has allowed him to establish links between improvised and folk music. But

his jazz-rooted approach makes him a natural to work in settings such as this one. When Dunmall toted his tenor to the Vision Festival in 2012 (even then, it could be costly to lug multiple horns on a plane), he found three sympatico partners in Fest regulars pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver. They all hit the ground running, generating a barrage of pulsing, roiling sound for over 20 minutes before the piano and drums peel off, leaving Morris to sustain momentum alone. Dunmall’s gruff, spiraling lines find common cause with each of his fellows, and the gradual addition and subtraction of players from that point makes it easier to hear the exchange of ideas, which often seem to take place between dyads operating within the larger flow.

Bill Meyer 

 Editrix — Tell Me I’m Bad (Exploding in Sound)

Tell Me I'm Bad by Editrix

Wendy Eisenberg’s rock band is like her solo output in that it snarls delicate, self-aware, mini-short stories in complex tangles of guitar, hemming in high, sing-song-y verses with riffs and licks of daunting difficulty. The main differences are speed, volume and aggression (i.e. it rocks.) and a certain communal energy. That’s down to two collaborators who can more than keep up, Josh Daniel on surging, rattling, break-it-all-down percussion and Steve Cameron, equally anarchic and fast on bass. The title track is an all-out rager, thrusting jagged arena riffs of guitar and bass forward, then clearing space for off-kilter verses and time-shifting, irregular instrumental interplay. “Chelsea” follows a similar chaotic pattern, setting up a teeth-shaking cadence of rock instruments, with Eisenberg keening over the top of it. “I know, perfectly well, that we’re not safe, safe from the men in power,” she croons, engaged in the knotting difficulties of the world as we know it, but winning.

Jennifer Kelly

Elephant Micah — Vague Tidings (Western Vinyl)

Vague Tidings by Elephant Micah

The new Elephant Micah album, the follow-up to 2018’s excellent Genericana, has an apposite title. Vague Tidings conveys an atmosphere of feeling conscious of something carried on the wind, a story passed on that may have shifted through various iterations, leaving only a sense of its original meaning. All that can be sure is that this is sad, sober music, unafraid to brace against the chill of mortality and speak of all that is felt. The instruments — guitar, piano, percussion, violin and woodwinds — move around Joseph O’Connell’s voice in stiff yet graceful arcs, distanced by an unspoken etiquette. Repetitive melodic figures, stark yet steady, gradually accumulate weight as they roll along like tumbleweeds. It’s a crisp, forlorn country-blues, in no hurry to get nowhere, carrying ancient wisdom that seems to acknowledge the empty resonance of its own import.

Tim Clarke

 Fraufraulein — Solum (Notice Recordings)

Fraufraulein’s music is immersive. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg beam themselves, and us along with them, Quantum Leap-style directly into multiple environments in medias res. Through the clever employment of field recordings, they transport us to a hurricane-addled beach, performing a voice/piano duet as driftwood missiles careen through the air. In another “episode,” the manipulation of small objects conjures up the intimacy of a water garden filled with windchimes. Partners in both life and art, Guthrie and Gomberg are also consummate solo artists. He is a master of spike-textured drones, while she explores the intimate properties of physical entities. Like a child tends to resemble one parent while borrowing subtle traits from the other, Solum identifies more with Guthrie’s electroacoustic tendencies than it does with Gomberg’s electronics. This is in stark contrast to 2015’s Extinguishment, which felt a little more balanced between those two modes. Both approaches work, yet Solum feels more meticulously crafted and nuanced. Careful listening unveils multiple subtle tones and textures, and each piece is an adventure for the ears.

Bryon Hayes

 Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi — Triplet Fawns (Kettle Hole)

Triplet Fawns by Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi

The album’s title implies a crew you wouldn’t want on your yard; while those adolescent ungulate appetites do a number on your bushes, the hooves are hacking up your grass. But if they knocked on your door, saxophone cases in their respective hands, you could do worse than invite them around the back for some blowing. Hatcher, Magill and Shiroishi present with sufficient lung power to be heard fine without the reflective assistance of walls, even when they aren’t making like Sonore (that was Gustafsson, Vandermark, and Brötzmann, about a dozen years back). This album, which was released in a micro-edition of 100 CD-Rs on Hatcher’s Kettle Hole imprint, builds gradually from restrained melancholy to pointillistic jousting to a climactic blow-out, and the assured development of each piece suggests that each player was listening not only to what each of the others was doing, but where the music was headed.

Bill Meyer

A.Karperyd — GND (Novoton)

GND by A.Karperyd

On his second solo release, GND, Swedish artist Andreas Karperyd broodingly ruminates on snatches of musical ideas that have been percolating in his consciousness over extended periods. Anyone familiar with his 2015 debut, Woodwork, will find these 55 minutes similarly immersive, as Karperyd manipulates live instruments such as piano and strings into shimmering, alien tapestries. Opener “The Well-Defined Rules of Certainty” appears to take Fennesz’s Venice as its blueprint, issuing forth cascading, percolating tones that tickle the ears. “The Desire to Invoke Balance with Our Eyes Closed” and “Failures and Small Observations” have a Satie-esque elegance to their piano lines, albeit refracted via a hall of mirrors. The 12-minute “Reminiscence of Tar” sounds like a slow-motion pan across the hulking mass of a shadowy space station. And closing track “Mummification of an Empire” slowly fries its piano in static, then unfurls wistful melodica and throbbing synth across the wreckage.

Tim Clarke

  Kiwi Jr. — Cooler Returns (Subpop)

Cooler Returns by Kiwi jr

Kiwi Jr.’s brash, brainy indie pop punk vibrates with nervy energy, like the first Feelies album or Violent Femmes’ 1983 debut or that one great S-T from the Soft Pack. Those are all opening salvos for their respective bands, but this one is a second outing, suffering not a bit from sophomore slackening. Instead, Cooler Returns tightens up everything that was already stinging on the Toronto band’s debut and adds a giddy careening glee. An oddball thread of Robin Hood-ness runs through the disc, with Sherwood forest getting a nod in the title track and “Maid Marian’s Toast” tipping the love interest, but these songs are anything but archaic. “Undecided Voters,” the single jangles harder than anything I’ve heard since Woolen Men, slyly upending creative pretensions in a verse that goes: “You take a photo of the CN tower/you take another of the Honest Ed sign/Well, I take photos of your photos/and they really move people.” Has it been done before? Maybe. Does it move us. Yes indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kool John — Get Rich, Die $moppin ($moplife Entertainment)

A year ago, Kool John was shot six times. Yet you wouldn’t know about it from the general mood of Get Rich, Die $moppin, his first tape since then. He does name one song “6 Shots” and explicitly mentions the shooting accident a few times on other songs, but his bouncy music says he wasn’t hurt bad after all. The beats perfectly match the rhymes, playfully ignorant and ignorantly playful. Kool John still doesn’t mix with broke people, doesn’t return calls if it’s not about money and “doesn’t get stressed out.” Instead, he gets high. His new tape is nothing groundbreaking, even though he’s pretending that is: “If I had no legs I’d still be outstanding.”

Ray Garraty

Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner — See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Out Of Your Head)

See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival by Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner

 Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this recording is that the titular festival happened at all. While most festivals either canceled or went on line, Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival dealt with COVID by spreading out. Instead of big stages and indoor shows, last September it staged little pop-up events on sidewalks and in parks. So, if the sound of See or Seem feels a bit diffuse, it’s because it was recorded with a device propped in front of two guys playing on a grassy median. There are moments when the buzz of bugs rises up for a second behind Nick Mazzarella’s darting alto sax and Quin Kirchner’s brisk, mercurial beats. But the thrill of actually playing in front of some people (or actually being surrounded by them; when there’s no stage and social distancing is in effect, it makes sense to walk slow circles around the performers) infuses this music, extracting an extra ounce of joyousness from Mazzarella’s free, boppish lines, and adding a restlessness charge to the drumming, as though Kirchner really wanted to squeeze as much music as possible into this 31-minute set. This release is part of Out Of Your Head Records’ Untamed series of download-only albums recorded under less than pristine conditions. A portion of each title’s income is directed to a charity of the artists’ choice; the duo selected St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Bill Meyer

 Dean McPhee — Witch’s Ladder (Hood Faire)

Witch's Ladder by Dean McPhee

Finger-picked melodies cut through haunted landscapes of echo and hum on this fourth LP from the British guitarist Dean McPhee. Track titles like “The Alchemist” and “Witch’s Ladder” evoke the supernatural, as does the spectral ambient tone, reminiscent of Chuck Johnson’s recent Cinder Grove or Mark Nelson’s last Pan•American album. Yet while an e-bow traces ghostly chills through “The Alder Tree,” there’s also a grounding in lovely, well-rooted folk forms; it’s like seeing a familiar landscape in moonlight, well-known landmarks suddenly turned unearthly and strange. The long closing title track has an introspective air. Pensive, jazz-infused runs flower into bright bursts of notes, not quite blues, not quite folk, not quite jazz, not quite anything but gorgeous.

Jennifer Kelly

 Moontype — Bodies of Water (Born Yesterday)

Bodies of Water by Moontype

Margaret McCarthy’s voice swims across your headphones like being on an innertube drifting languidly downstream. Typically, saying someone’s vocals are like water indicates a degree of timidity or laziness, obscured in reverb or simply buried by the mix, but on Moontype’s debut LP, it’s a compliment: McCarthy floats across the different styles of music she makes with guitarist Ben Cruz and drummer Emerson Hunton. You notice it not just because she often sings of water or because it’s right there in the title, but also because the Chicago trio hasn’t settled on any particular style yet — just listen to the three-song stretch at the heart of the record where achingly beautiful alt-country ballad “3 Weeks” leads into “When You Say Yes,” a sub-three-minute power-pop number Weezer ought to be jealous of, followed immediately by crunching alt-rock swoon and first single “Ferry.” All the while, McCarthy lets her melodies drift to the will of the songs. I’m reminded of recent efforts from Great Grandpa, Squirrel Flower and Lucy Dacus, but the brief, jazzy curveball of “Alpha” is a peek into whole other possibilities. Bodies of Water is a fine record, but perhaps its most exciting aspect is how much ground you can see Moontype has already conquered. One can’t help but wonder what sonic worlds awash in water await.

Patrick Masterson   

 Rob Noyes / Joseph Allred — Avoidance Language (Feeding Tube)

Avoidance Language by Rob Noyes and Joseph Allred

The 12-string guitar can emit such a prodigious amount of sound, and there are two of them on Avoidance Language. If Joseph Allred and Rob Noyes had planned things out in order to avoid canceling each other out, they might never have picked their instruments up, so they just started playing and listening. The result is not so much a summing of two broad spectrums of sound, but an instinctual blending of similar textures that ends up sounding significantly different from what either musician does on their own. Even when Allred switches to harmonium or banjo, as he does on the album’s two shorter tracks, the music rushes in torrential fashion. Their collaboration is so compatible that it often seems more like a recital for one big stringed thing played by one four-handed musician than a doubled instrumental duet.

Bill Meyer

NRCSSSST — S-T (Slimstyle)

NRCSSST by NRCSSST

There’s no “I” in NRCSSSST but there’s plenty of swagger. The Atlanta-based synth pop band, formed around Coathangers drummer and singer Stephanie Luke and Dropsonic’s Dan Dixon, taunts and teases in its opening salvo “All I Ever Wanted.” Luke rasps appealingly atop Spoon-style piano banging, and big shout along choruses erupt from sudden flares of synths. It’s all hedonism, but done with conviction. You haven’t heard a big rock song kick up this much fun in ages. “Love Suicide” bangs just as hard, its bass line muttering like a crazy person, unstable and ready to explode (and yet it doesn’t, it maintains its restraint even when the rest of the cut goes deliriously off the rails). Dixon can really sing, too, holding the long vibrating notes that lift these prickly jams into anthemry. It’s been a while since a band reminded me of INXS and U2 without sucking, but here we are. Sometimes guilty pleasures are just pleasures.

Jennifer Kelly

 Zeena Parkins / Mette Rasmussen /Ryan Sawyer — Glass Triangle (Relative Pitch)

Glass Triangle by Zeena Parkins, Mette Rasmussen, Ryan Sawyer

Harpist Zeena Parkins and Ryan Sawyer have a long-standing partnership in the trio substitutes Moss Garden, a chamber improv ensemble with pianist Ryan Ross. But swapping in Danish alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen brings about a change, not just in instrumentation, but attitude. She plays free jazz like a punk, impatient and aggressive, and Parkins and Sawyer are up for the challenge. This music often plays out like a battle between two titans, one blowing and the other pummeling, while Parkins seeks to liquify the ground upon which they stand. She sticks exclusively to an electric harp whose effects-laden tone is disorientingly alien, blinking beacon-like one moment, low as a backhoe engage in earth removal the next. The combination of new and old relationships promotes a combination of instability and trust that yields splendid results.

Bill Meyer

 claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams)

a softer focus by claire rousay

In film, soft focus is a technique of contrast reduction that lends a scene a dreamlike quality. With A Softer Focus, claire rousay imbues her already intimate compositions with a noctilucent aura. She has created a dreamworld with sound. One glimpse at the glowing flowers that grace the cover art created by visual artist Dani Toral, with whom rousay closely collaborated on this release, and the illusory nature of the record is revealed. The reds, oranges, blues and purples of deep twilight are reflected in both the textures rousay weaves into her soundscapes and the visual themes that Toral conjures. Violin, cello, piano and synth are the musical origins of this warmth, which rousay wraps around environments crafted from the sounds of everyday life. She recorded herself moving about her apartment, visiting a farmer’s market, observing kids playing and just existing. These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical. Snatches of conversation become incantations; auto-tuned vocals are the whisperings of spirits; fireworks explode into brilliant shards of crystal. With A Softer Focus, rousay takes a glimpse into the beauty of the everyday, showing us just how precious our most humdrum moments can be.

Bryon Hayes

Axel Rulay x Verbo Flow — Si Es Trucho Es Trucho / Axel Rulay (La Granja)

Axel Rulay must be kicking himself right now. With more than three million plays on the original version and more than five million on the remix that adds verses from Farruko and El Alfa into the fray, the Dominican is cruising into our second pandemic summer with an unbeatable poolside anthem — and to think, after years of clawing his way up through the industry dregs, working to get his name out there, all he had to do was make himself the chorus over Venezuelan producer Manybeat’s 2019 tropical house trip “El Tiempo.” Presto: Massive visibility in the Spanish-speaking world and a song that ought to transcend any linguistic barriers unlocked even if the best I can manage is a title that translates as “If It’s Trout It’s Trout.” Expect that long-desired Daddy Yankee collabo to follow any day now.

Patrick Masterson

  Rx Nephew — Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me (NewBreedTrapper)

Rochester rapper Rx Nephew trailed brother-turned-archrival-turned-back Rx Papi’s coming out party 100 Miles and Walk’in by just a few weeks with the 53-minute all-in proposition Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me. Unlike Papi’s Max B-ish smoothness, Nephew is all rough n’ tumble through these 17 tracks, provocative pump action with narrative bursts of violence and street hustling delivered with a verve most akin to DaBaby or, in some of his more elastic enunciations, peak Ludacris. A recent Creative Hustle interview provides some insight: The first time he went into the booth, “I didn’t write anything. I just started talking about selling crack and robbing people.” The stories haven’t stopped since. If he can keep putting out music as engaging as Listen Here…, Rx Nephew is destined for more than just the margins; until then, we have one of the year’s densest rap records to hold the line.

Patrick Masterson

 Nick Schofield — Glass Gallery (Backward Music)

Glass Gallery by Nick Schofield

Nick Schoefield, out of Montreal, composed these 13 tracks entirely on a vintage Prophet 600, the first synthesizer to designed to employ the then-new MIDI standard established by the instrument’s inventor Dave Smith and Roland’s Ikutaru Kakahashi. The instrument has a lovely, crystalline quality, floating effortless arpeggios through vaulting sonic spaces. Though clearly synthesized, these pieces of music resonate in serene and peaceful ways, evoking light, water, air and contemplation with a simplicity that evokes Japan. “Water Court” drips notes of startling purity into deep pools of tone-washed whoosh and hum. “Snow Blue Square” flutters an oboe-like melody over eddying gusts of keyboard motifs. The pieces fit together with calm precision, leading from one beautiful space to the next like a stroll through a museum.

Jennifer Kelly

  Archie Shepp — Blasé And Yasmina Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

The Ezz-thetics campaign to keep the best of mid-20th century free jazz on CD shelves (yes, CD, not streaming or LP) breaches the walls of the BYG catalog with a disc that issues one and a half albums from Archie Shepp’s busy week in August 1969. Blasé is a stand-out for the participation of singer Jeanne Lee, whose indomitable and flexible delivery as equal to the demands of material that’s be turns pungently earthy and steeped in antiquity. But the rest of the band, which includes Philly Joe Jones, Dave Burrell, some harmonica players, and a couple members of the Art Ensemble, is also more than equal to the task of filtering the blues and Ellingtonia through the gestures of the then-contemporary avant-garde. “Yasmina,” which originally occupied one side of another LP, makes sense here as an extension of the raw, rippling “Touareg,” the last tune on Blasé, into exultantly African territory.

Bill Meyer

 Juanita Stein — Snapshot (Handwritten)

Juanita Stein was the cool, serene, Mazzy Star-evoking vocal presence in the Aussie dream-gaze outfit Howling Bells, and she plays more or less the same role on her third solo album. Yet she is also the source of mayhem here, kicking up an angst of guitar-freaked turmoil on “1,2,3,4,5,6” then soothing it away with singing, hanging long threads of feedback from the thump-thump-thumping blues-rock architecture of “L.O.T.F.” and crooning dulcetly, but with a little yip, in the trance-y title track. This latter cut reflects on the death of her father, a kindred soul who wrote a couple of Howling Bells songs for her and passed away recently. It distills a palpable ache into pure, distanced poetry, finding a cool, dispassionate way to consider the mysteries of human loss.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums — Wabi Sabi (Sowiesound)

Wabi Sabi by Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums

Over its 30 years together, the Tiptons Sax Quartet has done less to hone its sound and more to figure out how many styles to embrace. The group (typically a soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax joined by percussion and even including some vocals) can dig into trad jazz but sounds more at home in exploration, adapting world music or other traditional American styles. The title of their latest album, Wabi Sabi refers to the Japanese concept of finding beauty in and accepting imperfection. The Tiptons, despite that sentiment, don't approach their play with a sloppy sound; in fact, they're as tight as ever. The understanding of impermanence and imperfection does help contextualize their risk-taking. When they turn to odd yodeling on “Moadl Joadl,” they find joy in an odd vocal moment that highlights expression and discovery over formal rigor. When they tap in New Orleans energy for “Jouissance,” we can connect the dots between parades and funerals, celebrating all the while. The whole album serves as a tour of styles and moods, always with an energetic potency. If it's more of the same from the Tiptons, that just means continuance of difference.

Justin Cober-Lake

#dust #dusted magazine #arooj aftab #jennifer kelly #assertion #justin cober-lake #michael beach #bloop #bill meyer #bris #ray garraty #dreamwell #patrick masterson #paul dunmall #matthew shipp #joe morris #gerald cleaver #editrix #elephant micah #fraufraulein #bryon hayes #gerrit hatcher #rob magill #patrick shiroishi #A.Karperyd #tim clarke #kiwi jr. #kool john #nick mazzarella #quin kirchner

[lighthausen]

Tma 190 liveblog time :)! Spoilers below cut

Private contemplation hgkddkhfhffk

I heard a small "after you" from Jon, aww <3,

Martin's little "hello! :)" Nerd <3

Oh my god is Celia the same woman who gave the statement to Martin in Mag100??? She lost her name? Oh how sad :(, but im really glad to see her again. She was one of the ones I wanted to see the most

Oh no theyre making him tell the truth?

"Old friends of your prophets" lol.

"Shut up Jon"

Oh no... Sims... old boss aaafjdjdhha

Ah pointing out Tape Recorders

Georgie turning off the tape recordings montage. The magnus archives is a workplace comedy

There's seven? Seven what? Seven people?

Attracted attention!? Oh noooo D:

"They seem to like him" aww

Oh the apology. That's a really nice scene.

I'm glad they don't think he did it on purpose :)

Leitner's stash

ENDLESS SUPERMARKET NIGHTMARE DIMENSION

ennui coke bottles

Where's the Admiral??? Wh! Where is he?

Oh my god, The ADMIRAL DOES RUN A NIGHTMARE DIMENSION. THE ANIMALS ARE WATCHERS.

Oh Melanie and Martin time.

Snoop god's favorite kid

And now my therapist thinks I'm the chosen one

"You and Jon, eh?" Lmaoooooooo. They probably liked kisses in front of them and Melanie and Georgie were like :0!!

Oh, since before Jon woke up! Damn!

The introduction . Cute. Chosen Prophets, the Antichrist's plus 1, love that

They're invisible. Neither watcher nor watched.

Imagine them running carrying the therapist... all the fears following them, jesus

Saying she had a vision?

"The blind prophet" "ah yiiiikes"

Early relationship hurdles lol

I only hope she doesn't realize I'm not good enough for her aww

Jon's a mess, so am I.

Oh my god Basira and Daisy.

Helen turned up!!!! Oh my god!! Tried to eat Celia!!!

Ohhh the fake friend thing, poor Melanie

Lmao Jon killed her.

Someone's writing poetry for Melanie lmaoo "I swear if it's another hymn" lmao

The world is hell and Georige and Melanie can walk through untouched. But Martin can't. Martin got trapped in one of the dimensions. Inch resting...

"It helps to believe" sure does

Poor Erin.

"Thought it was quite a good rhyme" lmaooooooooo

"Maybe your powers feed on hope" aw. :). That's a nice thought isn't.

Oh. No. That's not how it works lol

The giggling with "what do you know about poetry" hehehe

Martin and Erin poetry nights! I want the Martin and Erin poetry nights!!!!!!!

"Nightmare strider" oooh

"I do not want a poem"

Jon is so snarky! Oh my god I missed that lol.

"How do you know when tomorrow is?" "We usually er on the side of sleeping in" lol

That was a fantastic episode, I loved that

#tma spoilers #tma liveblog

[newmusickarl]

Top 20 Albums of 2020

12. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes

“There's so many ways in, but there's only one way out - this is the sound of the end of the world” – Before the Fever, Grimes

Little did I know back in February just how prophetic the fifth album from Claire Boucher, aka singer-songwriter, producer and all-round musical genius Grimes, would turn out to be for 2020.

After years of anticipation, 2020 finally saw Boucher release her long-awaited follow-up to her majestic 2015 album, Art Angels, a record that made it onto the runners-up spot in my Albums of the Year list that year. Battling against this immense expectation I had Miss Anthropocene, it is safe to say Boucher well and truly delivered the goods, serving up a complex and highly imaginative record that perfectly fits the mood and aesthetic of this gloomy year.

If Art Angels was Grimes’ fluffy pop side, then Miss Anthropocene is certainly the darker underbelly. Across the album’s 10 tracks, Boucher paints an industrial and gothic masterpiece, tackling everything from the opioid crisis, to humanity’s relationship with technology and the current climate emergency. 

These sinister and apocalyptic themes are exquisitely matched by the sounds Boucher creates to accompany them - from the ravey, late-night electronica of Violence and 4Æm to the screeching guitars and vocals of My Name Is Dark. Even the poppier moments sonically, like acoustic number and album highlight Delete Forever and the brilliant you’ll miss me when I’m not around, carry sombre and heavy lyrical themes of drug addiction and grief.

In anyone else’s hands this might have all been too much, but with Boucher keeping firm control of production and writing duties as she always does, she strikes the perfect balance between challenging and entertaining.

Despite being released at the very start of the year, this was an album that remained under heavy rotation over the course of the year for me, with Grimes’ wonderfully weird and unique brand of dance pop still yet to be matched. Although she doesn’t directly address the global pandemic and the world it has created due to the timing of the release, her dark vision for a post-apocalyptic dystopia made for one of the ideal soundtracks to 2020.

Best tracks: Delete Forever, My Name Is Dark, you’ll miss me when I’m not around

#best albums of 2020 #top albums of 2020 #grimes #claire boucher #miss anthropocene #delete forever #best new music #best of the year #albums of the year #albums of 2020

[personalmythologies]

1, 10, 19!

thanks laura! ily!

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?

well i’m always writing different poems and songs, but right now i’m also writing a longer story! it’s about a music teacher who lives in a house in a forest and has prophetic visions, and every time he practices or plays a song a magical forest creature leaves a gift by his door to thank him. he eventually loses his ability to play instruments to a degenerative disorder, and becomes too upset to even sing. the forest creature confronts him one night to ask why he doesn’t play anymore, and tries to help him cope with what he’s lost. i started writing it to vent about my own disability, and i don’t plan on ending it with the main character being “cured” or anything, but it’s also not supposed to be sad. i like it because it lets me explore my own feelings about grief and disability, and also i like stories about friendships between magical and nonmagical entities that are also kind of ambiguously romantic. and my progress is... slow. as always

10. How would you describe your writing process?

i usually start off with little bits and pieces that i jot down in the notes app, or say into my voice recorder if it’s a song or i’m driving. my process usually goes like “think of pieces of a story —> come up with a plot outline —> figure out who the characters are.” a lot of the time, the stuff i write down doesn’t turn into anything, though. i have like hundreds of notes in my phone that are just a couple sentences of vague nonsense that i thought of at 3 AM and just HAD to write down so i could finally go to sleep and stop thinking of poem ideas.

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

god i write so many incomplete sentences... and i use semicolons and m-dashes too often. here’s an example of a sentence where i do both these things (it doesn’t make sense out of context but im focusing on the grammar): “he can’t imagine where else these visions could be coming from — he isn’t particularly in tune with the world around him, doesn’t feel very spiritual or unique in any way.” i learned awhile ago that you shouldn’t make your writing TOO descriptive or detailed because your audience will get bored, and i really took that to heart and became wildly vague. i’m trying to get better at this, but it’s been awhile since i took a writing class so im mostly reteaching myself how to write better by reading authors i like.

[damienthepious]

nearly late, hghgjfgh

thorns that burst from my skull in the night (chapter 5)

[ch 1] [ch 2] [ch 3] [ch 4] [ao3]

Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, The Keep, Sir Damien, Rilla

Additional Tags: Second Citadel, Lizard Kissin’ Tuesday, Canon Compliant, Prophetic Dreams, Alternate Universe, canon typical Arum ignoring feelings, (very mild suicidal ideation or at least. canon typical arum being reckless with his own life), Canon Retelling, (sortaaaaa)

Summary: Arum has always seen glimpses of the future in his dreams. This gift is sometimes useful, but more often than not it leaves him with more questions than answers. The dreams of the flowers are particularly unhelpful.

Chapter Summary: Arum will not be attending his third duel.

Chapter Notes: sorry this is almost late. havin a weird brain time over here. hope this is anything? i love you. please love and appreciate and kiss a lizard.

~

The grubs that went unused are not in their container when he returns home, after the duel.

He stops listening to the Keep's gentle berating in the middle of a thought as he realizes the vanishwood box is silent, the pulsing heartbeat stopped, and when he passes his hand in front of the side it confirms his grim suspicion. He goes to undo the lid, snarls to himself when he finds it already askew, and when he opens it fully to check again it confirms what he already knows.

Gone.

They are nowhere within the Keep. They are not even within the swamp, so far as the Keep can sense. They could not possibly have gotten that far on their own since last Arum saw them, which means-

He hisses through his teeth at his own carelessness. Tired, distracted enough to leave the lid ajar- the sort of mistake a clumsy hatchling would make, and with so valuable and dangerous an experiment. Were he not so busy he would find a hole in which to bury himself.

Arum imagines the creatures clinging to his clothing, or stowing away in the traps he brought with him to the jungle outside the Citadel, slipping away into the night. The raw empathetic power of that many of the grubs could eviscerate the local life-

More importantly, if the grubs scattered that close to the Citadel, they might create something of a fuss, and Arum cannot possibly afford for his creations to be sniffed out and investigated by the humans. The Senate would never forgive their pet project being compromised in such a way.

Arum unclenches his hand, pulling his claws from the wood, and he hisses again as his shoulders sag.

No sleep, no rest, no settling his mind- he will need to return to the more human-infested parts of the Wilds, to reclaim his property. The Keep chides again, tries to discourage, and he is so tired but he cannot afford to leave this matter unsettled. The grubs are too dangerous, their implications too delicate to fall into human hands.

He closes his eyes for a moment (what's right in front of), steels himself, and summons the way back. The sprinkling of swamp dirt he left near the Citadel will still serve, for the time being.

He finds the swath of destruction, eventually, after a frustrating and lengthy search. He would have needed to come back to dismantle the rest of the traps that Sir Damien did not trigger in their duel eventually, anyway, he thinks grimly. No sense letting good tools rot without reason. But nowhere amongst his carefully laid machinations does he find the grubs. He does not find them, no trace of them, until hours later when he follows the scent of ash, until the sickly but dissipating clouds of pink in the air lead him to the remnants of battle.

So. He was not quick enough to find the grubs before they found something else.

Settled bursts of spores, he finds, and charred earth, and eventually, the hollowed, burnt-out shell of fungi, enormous and still shivering the air with residual magic, though it is no longer alive.

He had been expecting human corpses, in all honesty.

Arum inspects the burnt rot, and he finds more evidence of flame around the base. Charred grubs cluster quiet beneath what is left of the stem, dry and lifeless, but-

Arum scrapes a claw through the ash. It is still just slightly warm- he must not have missed the excitement by terribly long. He eyes the remnants, critical, his head tilting sideways.

This was not all of his grubs. They were not all destroyed. Which is far more worrying than the alternative.

It is not difficult, to track the scent of human and horse back through the jungle, to follow the clumsy, careless steps back out of the trees. By scent he surmises that the second human and the horse have departed- he will need to investigate that if he does not find the grubs here, in this quaint little structure.

He spies her through the window, first, noting the sheathed knife she has already removed, hung by the bed, and-

Hm. She looks nearly as exhausted as Arum feels.

(I'm- sorry)

Not that it matters.

(morning, little human)

She stops speaking into the little device of metal and gears in her hand after a moment or two, tucks the vial onto a shelf, and turns for the bed. As she pulls her sheets back, Arum shatters the window.

It's easy enough to slither low, to disorient, to pluck the knife away and glower at the human over his remaining, reclaimed grub as his claws clink against the vial, and he does not let himself think about the way the dreams have begun to hover again.

He has not slept properly in so very long. That fact and the unfortunate echo of Sir Damien are the only reasons he can see the dancing of petals at the edge of his vision, can hear the vague whisper of song.

She puts up an admirable struggle, but she is only one unarmed human. Unarmed and exhausted, and he eases her to the floor when he knocks her unconscious. He shakes his head, then, trying to clear it, trying to silence the noise.

So. He has his experiment safely back in hand. Now, he must discover whether she has already informed the rest of her swarm about the creature and its capabilities.

He listens to the little human’s fascinating device, listens to her chatter about her apparent "experiments" with so much enthusiasm that it is almost catching. He toys with the machine until he has a sense of how to work it, and then he sets it to what he thinks must be the most recent entry.

He chose the wrong end of the spool, however. From the sound of her enthusiasm, from context, he imagines that the entry he has found must be the first, not the last. Unlikely to be helpful, for his purposes. He brushes his thumb across the controls, a frown curling his lips, and then the human's voice on the device introduces herself.

Amaryllis.

When he hears the word, he nearly drops the device entirely. All of his hands scramble in the effort of keeping it from shattering on the floor, and two claws just barely manage to catch it by the corner. He pulls the thing to his face again. He presses the button to go back. He listens again. He listens a third time, only to be certain.

Amaryllis.

(the honeysuckle blooms first, but the amaryllis come just as wild in their time)

Her name is Amaryllis.

He throws over her entire little hut, looking for evidence of deceit, looking for proof, finding the hidden cache beneath the floorboards and scrabbling through journals (coded; though he recognizes her sketches and he understands the half-written formulae), and he finds that this little creature has quite the heretical bent, for a human. Heretical, and botanical.

(a hatchling curled safe in the soft, fragrant bell)

Well. Finally this dream provides him something useful. An herbalist interfering with his work, just at the moment her particular skills could be of the most use to him. Just when his Keep is-

(wilting song)

Ill.

He can feel it in his own body. The creeping blight has not begun to wither his own scales, not yet, but the reverberation of what ails the Keep is within him all the same. A feeling of terrifying stiffness, a vague disquiet that makes his fingers shake, and day by day it worsens.

It worsens, and a doctor has just fallen into his lap.

It is not as if he could have let her go regardless. She knows too much of his work, she cannot be allowed to relay the information to the knights, to their queen. According to her device, this human has not had time to tell anyone about his work, and she does not yet understand it. But that does not mean that the information she does have would not be far too dangerous to allow to leak, and she has seen him now, besides. No. He cannot simply let her free, now.

So. He may as well see if he can glean any use from her. No sense in wasting talent, human or otherwise, when it presents itself to him.

If the dreams help him save his Keep, he thinks, he will never again begrudge them a shattered night of sleep.

He tucks the recorder into his satchel, alongside the grub, and he reaches down-

(please, off your feet)

He pauses, blinks, shakes his head, and then lifts Amaryllis into his arms.

#elle's fanfic #oneiromancy au #the penumbra podcast #second citadel #rad bouquet #lizard kissin' tuesday #lord arum #amaryllis of exile #whatever. #it's fine. #might just have an unrelated panic attack about something other than my diminishing ability to write

[alcalavicci]

(Disclaimer: treat 1950s articles like they’re RPF/fanfiction. This is from 1960, but it still reads very much like a 50s article)

Photoplay Magazine- July 1960

WHY MILLIE PERKINS HAD TO SETTLE FOR A RUNAWAY MARRIAGE by Elaine Blake

When Millie Perkins and Dean Stockwell slipped off to Las Vegas for a secret marriage just before Easter Sunday, people in Hollywood didn't have the nerve to ask them, "But why the runaway? What's all the hush-hush about?" Hardly anyone knew them intimately enough to ask such personal questions. But they wondered plenty. For if Millie and Dean were older, or anyone of Hollywood's multi-divorced-and-married couples, you could more easily imagine them climbing into his three-year-old Chevy or her tiny English job and casually taking off for the Gretna Green Wedding Chapel in Vegas. But Millie and Dean are young! And though the newspaper stories were as brief and uninformative as this secretive couple themselves, you still read seven very romantic little words. "It was the first marriage for each." First marriage! To any girl that's a big-wedding dream woven of satin and lace, perfumed with flowers, set to organ music whispering in a hushed church till it swells triumphantly for a radiant bride and bridegroom. Mostly this is a girl's dream, a magic charm to keep romance alive forever. It's Her Day, her audience smiling and weeping just a little at the lovely vision coming down the aisle to meet her waiting bridegroom.

Millie had no part of the dream. You could understand Dean's not caring for it - many a male goes through the ordeal only because a girl loves a big wedding and he loves his girl. But Dean loves his girl, too. And wouldn't you expect a little girl from Fair Lawn, New Jersey, to want her family around when she says "I do" to the first love of her life? Why, then, did Millie Perkins, with a great big wonderful family - father and mother, four sisters and a brother - who could have made her wedding the most wonderful, exciting day in her life, settle for slipping off to a secret ceremony like a pair of runaways?

They drove up to Las Vegas just before eleven, that Good Friday morning. Millie was wearing a simple little blue dress. Everything about her is always tiny and unfancy, and her wedding outfit was no exception. But, for Millie, this was quite dressed up - a nice change from her eternal blouse-and-skirt-and-high-socks.

THEY WERE MR. AND MRS.

Their first stop was the Gretna Green, one of the many "marrying chapels" in Vegas and one of the nicest. They told the hostess, Mrs. Anderson, what they wanted in the way of a ceremony - a simple one, naturally. Then they headed immediately for the Clark County Courthouse to take out the license. A Las Vegas newspaperman just chanced by a stroke of luck - his - to be in the County Clerk's office. Hopefully, he followed Millie and Dean to the elevator, asking when and where they were getting married.

"No publicity," Dean said flatly. All further tries got the reporter nothing but a brush-off. What frustration! The only newspaperman on the scene and he was getting nowhere. He pleaded plaintively, "I wish you'd help me!" Dean shook his head, took Millie's arm and walked her away without another word.

Back at the Gretna Green, with the license, they found a minister summoned by the management, the Rev. Alan Robertson, pastor of the Church of Christ. The single-ring ceremony didn't take long. Millie

and Dean, alone with their love, seemed completely unaware that there were no attendants for a girl with four sisters, no best man for a boy with an older brother. No mother smiling through tears, no father choking down a lump.

"I now pronounce you man and wife," the minister said. They were Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dean Stockwell, looking into each other's eyes as they spoke a Beverly Hills address for the license to be forwarded to after it was duly recorded. Then, they left town - all this within a few hours. Nobody had seen the star of "Diary of Anne Frank" married to the star of "Compulsion" except a stranger, the chapel hostess.

Secrecy? Hollywood says that Millie's idol is Greta Garbo the Sphinx, and that Dean deals curtly with the press like HIS idol, Marlon Brando. Millie's studio got a taste of the same. All they knew about the marriage was what they read in the papers. Their frantic phone calls finally reached Millie after the weekend, and when they asked, pointblank, "Are you married?" she answered, "My personal life is my own."

But is a passion for privacy all that was back of the slip-away marriage? Hollywood thought not. People who wouldn't dream of asking either of them such an outright blunt question, immediately began asking each other more round-about ones. "Why do you suppose they had to run off like that, dodging reporters, and refusing to say if THEY DID or THEY DIDN'T marry?" For a while, there was even a revival of an old rumor - that this celebrated pair of "loners" were actually married more than half-a-year before, when a top movie columnist reported their secret union from "very reliable sources."

Now, this was all some people needed - Millie and Dean refusing to deny or confirm a new report of a new secret marriage - and the old one was stirred to life. Some began insisting, all over again, that they must have been husband and wife the whole time.

If all the uproar and theory doesn't seem to make sense, neither do most rumor binges in small towns where everybody knows everybody - except the rare handful who REFUSE to be known. Actually nothing could be simpler than to explain Millie's and Dean's kind of wedding, once you accept them not merely as two secretive people, but two highly individual ones.

"LITTLE PEOPLE"

Both are what Millie calls "little people" - meaning they make no pretenses and are sturdily against being pushed into any. And before they fell in love, each had a shattering capacity for loneliness. But right there is a nub of difference. For Dean has known, since childhood, what it is to be so apart from others and so hurt by the apartness that he'd die before he'd let it show. That's loneliness, from way back and deep down.

But Millie was never a hermit girl - not until she came to Hollywood. Home in Fair Lawn, in the tree-shaded house full of lively Perkinses, you couldn't be sad unless you worked at it. "A lot of living went on there" she recalls wistfully, "and I was always part of it." Her chief grief was peering into the mirror and deciding she was the one ugly Perkins. She still isn't sure the duckling has, as yet, made it to swan.

That's a tell-tale symptom. The ground isn't firm under Millie's feet because her big breaks came with luck, not the hard work she believes in. When she left the safe nest for New York, fashion modeling fell

into her lap - someone liked photos he saw of her. It spiraled. Twentieth Century-Fox talent scouts, searching the world for a girl to play Anne Frank, also liked Millie's face in a magazine. They chose her

over 10,000 applicants who wanted to be movie stars, when she didn't particularly want to be one. She came to Hollywood looking fourteen, indeed, in dark knee socks, a rumpled skirt and blouse. These are still her favorite kind of clothes - she's indignant when they're called her "Anne Frank costume."

But she came quivering with fear. She was an amateur, a worrier, the pros were watching for her to fall on her face. She never got over her dread of failure. She cried under pressure, she walked alone. But to those on the set who were patient and kind, she was sweetly courteous. Director George Stevens beame an ideal in the place of her papa, the Merchant Marine officer she used to greet rapturously after each sea trip when she was home. Dodie Heath, who became Millie's friend while both were in the "Anne Frank" cast, loved her for the gentleness that many mistook for weakness - till they found she couldn't be stepped on.

Dodie told a writer, "When Millie finds someone who understands her, she gets all excited." Prophetic words. For when she met Dean, they both found understanding. And this he had been groping for all his life. From then on they walked together. They shared the outdoors, on a sailboat, on horseback, anywhere away from people and night clubs. They sprawled in secluded grassy fields and read to each other. And they talked - about everything in both their worlds. Millie even confided how sad it was for a little girl to be an ugly duckling. She didn't care that girls never admit to ugliness, past, present or future.

Anyway, Dean topped her. He said, "It's worse to be such a pretty little boy that the kids you want to play with laugh in your face. You're different - a child actor, and that's a terrible thing to be!" At six, Dean was a stage veteran starting a film career in "Anchors Aweigh." He worked too hard and played too little, till at sixteen he'd completed high school and more than twenty pictures for M-G-M. Then he rebelled.

"I'm through with all this," he told his mother and older brother Guy. "I'm going to college. I don't know what I want to be - but I want to be something." A year at Berkeley, and the "apartness" got under his skin again. He felt he'd always be "that actor" or "that conceited ham." Restless, unfulfilled, he took off for anonymity. As "Rudy Stocker" he wandered to find himself. He did everything from lugging office mailsacks, in New York, to driving railroad spikes in Texas. After a few years, satisfied he could live by the sweat of hard labor, he came back - first to the New York stage, to co-star in "Compulsion," then to Hollywood. And eventually to meet and fall in love with Millie Perkins.

THEY'RE YOUNG - BUT WISE

The mixed-up rebel was a man now, and Millie saw this in him; leaned on him for strength. She worried with him, wept on him, laughed with him, shared his quiet times with music and books, his exciting times in the big outdoors. Dean had been close to other girls, but never one like Millie. He listened to her joys and troubles, comforted and praised her, poured out his own complicated heart to her - and never, never tried to change her.

"This is my girl," he introduced her at his birthday party, where she showed up in the same old kind of skirt and blouse - and the others were all so dressed! He kissed her and said, "My girl looks different from any other - because she IS different." He loves her exactly as she is and doesn't want to change her.

This is the all-accepting love that Millie never wrote her family back home about; they read it for themselves in the columns. Friends said then, "Millie isn't sure how the Perkinses will take it, they being Catholic and the boy Jewish." They described the pictured fragment of the Ten Commandments framed and hanging over Dean's fireplace, and the Torah, the Hebrew Law, among his books.

But if difference of religion finally prompted them to go off to Vegas, secretly, and be married by a Protestant pastor, that's only part of it. The whole story is that Millie and Dean have something together far more important to them then religion, family, career, anybody or anything.

They're young, but wise. They know love is something you can't describe in words that anybody but your own beloved will truly understand. And suppose, not understanding, your family or studio or friends disapprove? They can't stop you, not when you're of legal age. But to two sensitive people, criticism of their best, dearest treasure would be harsh as a rough finger bruising a petal.

No, say the few people who really know Millie Perkins and Dean Stockwell, they took no chances. They thought about how they felt toward each other, and decided it WAS their own and very precious. That was why they ran away - to protect their love.

SEE DEAN IN 20TH'S " SONS AND LOVERS."

-The End -

#stockwell sassies

[wisdomrays]

WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION AND THE AFTERLIFE?

After belief in God, this is the main way to secure a peaceful social order. If I don't believe in personal accountability, why should I be honest and upright? The Qur'an declares: In whatever affair you may be, and whichever part of the Qur'an you recite, and whatever deed you do, We are witness over you when you are deeply engrossed therein. Not an atom's weight in the Earth and in the heaven escapes your Lord, nor is there anything smaller or greater, but it is in a Manifest Book (10:61).

Angels record our actions, and God knows our thoughts and deeds. Those who live accordingly find true peace and happiness in both worlds. This belief prevents young people from wasting their lives, gives hope to the elderly, and helps children endure the death of loved ones. It is as necessary as air, water, and bread.

As this belief leads to a life of peace, intellectuals seeking public peace and security should emphasize it. Those who are convinced of: Whoever does an atom's weight of good shall see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil shall see it (99:7-8) live responsible lives. A community composed of such people finds true peace and happiness, and its people serve their nation and humanity.

Children are easily affected by events. Their world becomes dark when they see death or are orphaned, and they become depressed. When one of my sisters died during my childhood, I frequently went to her grave and prayed sincerely: O God, please bring her back to life and let me see her beautiful face once more, or let me die so as to be reunited with her. What other than this belief and reunion with loved ones can compensate us for such losses?

How can you compensate the elderly for what they have lost? How can you remove their fear of death and the grave or make them forget death? More and newer worldly pleasures cannot console them. Only convincing them that the grave is a door or a waiting room to a much better world can accomplish this.

The Qur'an voices such feelings through Prophet Zachariah: This is a mention of your Lord's mercy unto His servant Zachariah; when he invoked Him with a secret, sincere call, saying: My Lord, my very bones have become rotten and my head is shining with gray hair. My Lord! I have never been disappointed in my prayer to You (19:2-5).

Fearing that his surviving kinsmen would not be loyal to his mission, Zachariah asked his Lord for a son to continue it. This is the cry of all elderly people. Belief in God and the Resurrection tells them: Death is only a change of worlds, a discharge from this life's distressing duties, a passport to an eternal world where all kinds of beauty and blessing wait for you Only this console them and allows them to face death without fear.

What about our free will?

Our free will, which directs our life and makes us unique, is the manifestation of Divine Mercy. If used properly, it will cause us to be rewarded with the fruits of Mercy. Belief in the Resurrection is a most important and compelling factor urging us to use our free will properly.

Sahl ibn Sa'd narrates that God's Messenger was told of a young man who stayed at home for days. The Messenger went to visit him. When the young man saw him appear before him unexpectedly, he threw himself into the Messenger's arms and died instantly. The Messenger said: Lay out your friend's corpse. Fear of Hell frightened him deeply. I swear by Him in Whose hand my life is that God will protect him from Hell. The Qur'an declares: Those who fear to stand before their Lord and curb the desires of the carnal self, Paradise will be their dwelling place (79:40-1).

In a hadith qudsi, God says: I will not unite two securities or two fears. Thus, those who fear His punishment here will be protected from it in the other world, while those who do not fear it here will not be saved from it there.

What impact did this belief have upon early Muslims?

Upon seeing a young man bravely protest and resist a wrong, Umar said: Any people deprived of its young are doomed to extinction. If young people waste their transforming energy, your nation's future is undermined. Belief in the Resurrection directs them to lead a disciplined, useful, and virtuous life.

This belief consoles the sick. Secure in this knowledge, all beloved servants of God, Prophets and saints, welcome death with a smile. During his final minutes of life, Prophet Muhammad said: O God, I desire the eternal company in the eternal world. When Umar ruled over a vast area, he prostrated before God and sighed: I can no longer fulfill my responsibility. Let me die and take me to Your Presence.

Such a strong desire for the world of eternal beauty and being blessed with the vision of the Eternally Beautiful One caused the Prophet, Umar, and many others to prefer death to this world.

Does it matter if I believe in the Resurrection?

The world is a mixture of opposites. Many instances of wrong (seem) go unnoticed, and many wronged people cannot recover their rights. Only belief in being resurrected in another world of absolute justice dissuades them from revenge. Similarly, the sick and unfortunate are consoled, for they believe that their suffering purifies them and that their loss will be restored in the Hereafter as a blessing, just as if they had been given as alms.

This belief changes a house into a garden of Paradise. A family without religion contains young people pursuing pleasure, children ignorant of religious sentiment and practices, and parents striving for the good life. Grandparents live in an old-folks or nursing home and console themselves with pets Life is a burden. Belief in the Resurrection reminds people of familial responsibilities. By undertaking their duties, an atmosphere of mutual love, affection, and respect begins to pervade the house.

Spouses deepen their mutual love and respect. Physical love is temporary, of little value, and usually disappears quickly. But if spouses believe that their marriage will continue in a world where they will be eternally young and beautiful, their mutual love will remain...

Such a belief-based family life makes its members feel that they are living in Paradise. If a country orders itself accordingly, its inhabitants would enjoy a life far better than that imagined by Plato in his Republic or by al-Farabi in his The Virtuous City. It would be like Madina under the Prophet, or the Muslim lands under Umar.

How did the Prophet establish the ideal society in Madina?

To better understand this, we provide several of his sayings on the Resurrection and the afterlife:

O people! You will be resurrected barefoot, naked, and uncircumcised. Listen to me! The one who will be first clothed is Abraham. Heed what I say: That day some from my Umma will be seized on the left side and brought to me. I will say: O Lord! These are my Companions. I will be told: You do not know what disagreeable things they did after you. I will say as the righteous servant [Jesus] said: I was a witness over them while I continued to stay among them. When You took me, You became the watcher over them. You are Witness over all things. If You punish them, they are Your slaves; if You forgive them, surely You are the All-Mighty, the All-Wise.

The most terrible event is death. However, death is easier than what will follow it. People will be so terrified that sweat will cover their bodies until it becomes like a bridle around their chins, until it grows into something like a sea on which, if desired, vessels could be sailed.

People will be resurrected in three groups: those who combined fear of God with expectation [fearing God's punishment and hoping for His mercy and forgiveness], those who [frequently sinned and so] will try to go to Paradise mounted on a mule in twos, threes, fours ... or tens. The rest will be resurrected into Fire [since they indulged in deeds deserving Hellfire]. If they sleep in the forenoon, Hell sleeps with them; when they reach night, Hell reaches night with them; when they reach morning, Hell reaches morning with them; and when they reach evening, Hell reaches evening with them.

God's Messenger made sure his Companions understood exactly what Hell was, and roused in them a great desire for Paradise by conveying its good tidings. Thus they lived in great consciousness of Divine reward and punishment, as well as religious obligations and people's rights.

#allah #god #muhammad #prophet #sunnah #hadith #quran #ayat #islam #muslim #muslimah #hijab #dua #salah #pray #prayer #revert #convert #reminder #religion #help #welcome to islam #how to convert to islam #new muslim #new revert #new convert #revert help #islam help #muslim help #revert to islam

[mittensmorgul]

speaking of John, i think that’s the thing that always infuriated me most about him. he centered sam and dean's ENTIRE LIVES around hunting the demon, made them give it very first priority, and then benched them when he actually started getting close to it. and then he DIED without telling them an incredibly vital piece of info, instead just giving dean a cryptic message about killing sam. if he had explained things, would sam have still ended up dead at the end of s3?

Yeah, which is the reason he’s long been a mirror for God, you know? They both employ these techniques of giving people just enough information to manipulate them into doing what they want, and issuing unchallengeable orders to cover the rest, expecting blind obedience even in their absence.

So incredibly frustrating. :P

I’m still shaking my head in dismay over the response to 14.20 as if it was an out of the blue character retcon. Nah, it’s literally a clarification of everything that’s been established to this point.

But back to your question. First off, Sam died in 2.21 and Dean sold his soul to bring him back in 2.22. It was Dean who ended up dead in 3.16, claimed by hellhounds in fulfillment of his deal. If John had just explained things, maybe things would’ve happened differently after the fact, but I’m not sure John ever really had any more information than he actually gave Dean with that awful secret.

I’ve always felt like, since November 2, 1983, John had been both terrified for Sam, as well as more than a bit terrified of him, you know? Imagine seeing what he saw-- Mary dead and pinned to the ceiling above Sam’s crib, on fire, with no other obvious source of this horrific vision than... baby Sam himself... Can you imagine the fear that would’ve plagued him for years, even after uncovering more and more of the truth behind what happened that night, not understanding why a demon would’ve seemingly targeted Sam (and Mary... but Sam, too).

I don’t think John ever learned anything of the Larger Plans beyond the demon focused on killing Mary... when we begin to learn in s2 that Mary had never been its target in the first place, and we’ll learn in 4.03 that Azazel had even promised Mary:

YED: Mmm, in ten years I need to swing by your house for a little something, that's all. MARY: For what?! YED: Relax. As long as I'm not interrupted, nobody gets hurt, I promise. (beat) Or you can spend the rest of your life, desperate and alone.

Because this has always been a factor in the spiral narrative-- the fact that each turn of the story reveals just how much knowledge they lacked on the previous go-around that would’ve been really useful if they had it in the past.

Just think about the Chuck parallel here over all of this, and how each time he’s returned to the narrative, we’ve discovered something new about him, and his role in the overarching narrative. Would it have helped for Sam and Dean to know back in 4.18 that they were actually talking to God? Well, probably... they would’ve definitely had a few choice words for him. But to what end? It would’ve changed what actually DID happen, but would it have been for the better?

If they’d believed Chuck’s wailing about being a terrible god for writing things like Bugs, instead of accepting Cas’s word that he was a prophet who wasn’t actually controlling anything but merely recording it, and they’d demanded he do something to stop the apocalypse, do any of us believe Chuck actually would have?

He wanted all of this to happen. This is is story. I can’t actually believe that he would’ve stepped up and done anything differently, other than probably disappearing himself to the bar where Metatron found him in 11.20 and giving up on creation entirely way back then.

So, nah, I never believed that John didn’t legitimately convey all the facts he knew to Sam and Dean. It was only his fear, his concern, his unfounded and unproven suspicions of what may become of Sam that prompted him to hand over the responsibility to Dean, to prepare him to do what John had already spent his lifetime afraid he’d have to do himself.

#spn 2.01 #the ghost of john winchester #i really don't believe he held anything back at the end #there wasn't some secret proof that he actually knew azazel's plans for sam #because even azazel didn't have any knowledge of the larger plan for the apocalypse #they were all players on increasingly smaller game boards #who could only catch peeks of what was happening on the bigger boards above them #Anonymous

[thetruthseekerway]

The Hadith of Archangel Gabriel

New Post has been published on http://www.truth-seeker.info/does-god-exist/the-hadith-of-archangel-gabriel/

The Hadith of Archangel Gabriel

By Sachiko Murata, William C. Chittick

The Hadith of Archangel Gabriel

Umar ibn al-Khattab said: One day when we were with God’s messenger, a man with very white clothing and very black hair came up to us. No mark of travel was visible on him, and none of us recognized him. Sitting down before the Prophet, leaning his knees against his, and placing his hands on his thighs, he said, “Tell me, Muhammad, about submission.”

He replied, ‘Submission means that you should bear witness that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God’s messenger, that you should perform the ritual prayer, pay the alms tax, fast during Ramadan, and make the pilgrimage to the House if you are able to go there.”

The man said, “You have spoken the truth.” We were surprised at his questioning him and then declaring that he had spoken the truth. He said “Now tell me about faith.”

He replied, “Faith means that you have faith in God, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and that you have faith in the measuring out, both its good and its evil.”

Remarking that he had spoken the truth, he then said, “Now tell me about doing what is beautiful.”

He replied, “Doing what is beautiful means that you should worship God as if you see Him, for even if you do not see Him, He sees you.”

Then the man said, “Tell me about the Hour”

The Prophet replied, “About that he who is questioned knows no more than the questioner.”

The man said, “Then tell me about its marks.”

He said, “The slave girl will give birth to her mistress, and you will see the barefoot, the naked, the destitute, and the shepherds vying with each other in building.”

Then the man went away. After I had waited for a long time, the Prophet said to me, “Do you know who the questioner was, ‘Umar?” I replied, “God and His messenger know best. “He said, “He was Gabriel. He came to teach you your religion. ”

To begin explaining the meaning of this hadith let us flesh it out by adding some background information that would be obvious to the original listeners but not to a reader situated many centuries and miles away.

Try to imagine the situation. The Messenger of God, at the time the greatest human being on the face of the earth (as far as his companions were concerned – and the historical record bears them out), is sitting at the edge of an oasis in Medina with a group of his companions, that is, people who have accepted that he is the mouthpiece of God. Suddenly a man appears whom no one recognizes.

Medina, at the time, is a tiny community in the midst of the desert (with a population of several hundred or perhaps a few thousand). Everyone knows everyone. If a traveler arrives, it is no small event, given the difficulty of travel and the small population. Everyone learns about new arrivals within hours. The system of personal relationships established by familial, tribal, and other bonds ensures that news is spread around much more efficiently than can ever be accomplished by today’s six o’clock news. A man appears whom no one knows, but no one has arrived in town for several days, except the uncle of so and so, whom several of them have already seen.

Not only do the companions fail to recognize the man, but he also shows no signs of travel, which is very strange. If they do not know him, then he must be a newly arrived traveler. Someone would not be able to freshen up that quickly after several days of travel in the desert, even if he had traveled only by night on the back of a camel. (You think you feel bad after six hours in a car-think of six days in the hottest and dustiest environment you can imagine, with no air-conditioned rest stops for coffee or soda.)

As soon as the man arrives, everyone is all ears. Who can this person be, and how did he get here without our knowing about it? Next strange fact: The man is obviously on familiar terms with the Prophet of God. He comes right up to him and kneels down in front of him, his knees against the Prophet’s knees. Notice that the Prophet himself is kneeling, not in prayer as modern Westerners might kneel, but simply because kneeling is, for most Orientals, the simplest and at the same time the most respectful way to sit. Remember that, even in houses, chairs were unheard of. People sat on the ground, as they still do in much of the world and this includes some of the richest and most sophisticated parts of the world, such as Japan. For most of the ancient world, chairs were the prerogative of kings.

You would not go right up to a person and kneel with your knees touching his unless he were, for example, your brother or a very close friend. The normal procedure, even if the person sitting there was just an ordinary person, would be to greet him from a respectful distance and keep the distance. But the stranger from the desert obviously knows Muhammad very well. He even places his hands upon Muhammad’s thighs, which would be an unheard of piece of effrontery if the man were a stranger. Then the man addresses Muhammad by his name, whereas people always address him by his title, Messenger of God. The man begins talking without introduction as if he had been part of the conversation all along.

Once Muhammad answers the man’s first question, the man says, “You have spoken the truth.” ‘Umar remarks, “We were surprised at his questioning him and then declaring that he had spoken the truth.” This is an enormous understatement. More likely, the companions were flabbergasted. What kind of insolence is this? To come up to God’s own messenger and begin to grill him, and then to pat him on the head as if he were a schoolboy! This is inconceivable. But then again, the companions took their clues from Muhammad. He was acting as if all this were perfectly normal and natural. What could they do but follow his example?

After the man leaves, Muhammad waits awhile, allowing his companions to think about this strange event. Finally, he tells them what had happened. They would not soon forget, and you can be sure that by that night, everyone in Medina had heard about Gabriel’s appearance. No one was supposed to forget about this visit, for the Prophet had just presented them with their religion in a nutshell. If they ever wanted to know what was essential in Islam, all they had to do was remember the strange events of this day.

———–

Excerpted from the book “The Vision of Islam” by Sachiko Murata and William C. Chttick.

#Allah #Faith #Featured #God #Islam #Prophet Muhammad #quran #sunnah #The Hadith of Archangel Gabriel

[aliveinjesuschrist]

Glory to God=Hallelujah for last night begins The Day of Day Fifty=Pentecost of Shavout=The Feast of Weeks! 

On this day: May 22 sundown - 23 sundown, 2021 (changes every year depending on the moon) 

Praise God, today we rest this day until sundown, gather, make a Proclamation about this Day, read outloud from God's scriptures about these things, and we give a small percentage from our harvest fields (the edges of the field crops or money) we give to the poor and foreigners among us!

Leviticus 23: ESV 

"9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath (Saturday sundown to Sunday sundown) the priest shall wave it. 

... (The Temple was destroyed so we can't make any offerings right now.) 

14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings. 

The Feast of Weeks=Shavuot 

15 “You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. 16 You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. 

... (The Temple was destroyed so we can't make any offerings right now, so 9-16 is just for Time reference.)

21 And you shall make a proclamation on the same day. You shall hold a holy convocation (Miqra: reading outloud+gathering). You shall not do any ordinary work. It is a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations. 

22 “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” 

Acts 2: The Scriptures (ISR 1998) 

(The names of people and places have been restored to their original language of Hebrew that the Jewish people, all believers in Jesus in the beginning were only Jewish then later on as recorded in "Acts" non-Jews started believing to joining God's family. these first Jews wrote the scriptures and later collections of Letters we call "The New Testament" in Greek would have called them in.) 

 "1And when the Day (Day 50 aka Pentecost) of the Festival of Weeks had come, they were all with one mind in one place. 2And suddenly there came a sound from the heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 

3And there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and settled on each one of them. 4And they were all filled with the Set-apart Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them to speak. 

 5Now in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) there were dwelling Yehudim (Jews), dedicated men from every nation under the heaven. 6And when this sound came to be, the crowd came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 

 7And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying to each other, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8"And how do we hear, each one in our own language in which we were born? 

 9"Parthians and Medes and Eylamites (Elamites), and those dwelling in Aram Naharayim (Mesopotamia), both Yehudah (Judea) and Kappadokia (Cappadocia), Pontos (Pontus) and Asia, 10both Phrygia and Pamphulia (Pamphylia), Mitsrayim (Egypt) and the parts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Yehudim (Jews) and converts, 11"Cretans and Arabs, we hear them speaking in our own tongues the great deeds of Elohim (God)." 

 12And they were all amazed, and were puzzled, saying to each other, "What does this mean?" 

 13And others mocking said, "They have been filled with sweet wine." 

 14But Kepha (Peter), standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said to them, "Men of Yehudah (Judea) and all those dwelling in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), let this be known to you, and listen closely to my words. 

 15"For these men are not drunk, as you imagine, since it is only the third hour of the day. 

 16"But this is what was spoken by the prophet Yoel (Joel): 17'And it shall be in the last days, says Elohim (God), that I shall pour out of My Spirit on all flesh. 

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, 18and also on My male servants and on My female servants I shall pour out My Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. 

 19'And I shall show wonders in the heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapour of smoke. 20'The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and splendid day of YHWH (this the Hebrew name of God). 

21'And it shall be that everyone who calls on the Name of YHWH (aka YaWeh) shall be saved.' 

 22"Men of Yisrael (Israel), hear these words: Yeshua (aka Jesus) of Natsareth (Nazareth), a Man from Elohim (God), having been pointed out to you by mighty works, and wonders, and signs which Elohim (God) did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know, 23this One, given up by the set purpose and foreknowledge of Elohim, (God) you have impaled and put to death through the hands of lawless men - 

 24"Him Elohim (God) raised up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was impossible that He could be held in its grip. 

 25"For Dawid (David) says concerning Him, 'I saw YHWH (aka YahWeh) before me continually, because He is at my right hand, in order that I should not be shaken. 

26'For this reason my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad, and now my flesh shall also rest in expectation, 27because You shall not leave my being in the grave, nor shall You give Your Kind One to see corruption. 28'You have made known to me the ways of life, You shall fill me with joy in Your presence.' 

 29"Men and brothers, let me speak boldly to you of the ancestor Dawid (David), that he died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30"Being a prophet, then, and knowing that Elohim (God) had sworn with an oath to him: 

of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, to raise up the Messiah (Christ) to sit on his throne, 31foreseeing this he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah (Hebrew word meaning "Christ"), that His being was neither left in the grave, nor did His flesh see corruption. 

 32"Elohim (Hebrew word for "God") has raised up this Yeshua (aka Jesus), of which we are all witnesses. 33"Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of Elohim (God), and having received from the Father the promise of the Set-apart (Holy literally means "set-apart") Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 

 34"For Dawid (David) did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself said, "YHWH said to my Master, "Sit at My right hand, 35until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet."" 

 36"Therefore let all the house of Yisrael (Israel) know for certain that Elohim (God) has made this Yeshua (aka Jesus), whom you impaled, both Master and Messiah (Christ)." 

 37And having heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Kepha (Peter) and the rest of the emissaries (Apostles), "Men, brothers, what shall we do?" 

 38And Kepha (Peter) said to them, "Repent, and let each one of you be immersed (Baptized) in the Name of Yeshua (aka Jesus) Messiah (Christ) for the forgiveness of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Set-apart Spirit. 

 39"For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as YHWH our Elohim (God) shall call." 

 40And with many other words he earnestly witnessed and urged them, saying, "Be saved from this crooked generation." 

 41Then those, indeed, who gladly received his word, were immersed (Baptized literally means "Pickeled" or "Fully Submersed"). And on that day about three thousand beings were added to them. 

 42And they were continuing steadfastly in the teaching of the emissaries (Apostles aka "Sent Ones"), and in the fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. 

 43And fear came upon every being, and many wonders and signs were being done through the emissaries (Apostles). 44And all those who believed were together, and had all in common, 45and sold their possessions and property, and divided them among all, as anyone might have need. 

 46And day by day, continuing with one mind in the Set-apart Place (The Temple), and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, 47praising Elohim (God) and having favour with all the people. And the Master added to the assembly those who were being saved, day by day." 

 From Got Questions website: 

 "What is the Feast of Weeks? 

 ANSWER: Described in Leviticus 23, The Feast of Weeks is the second of the three "solemn feasts" that all Jewish males were required to travel to Jerusalem to attend (Exodus 23:14-17; 34:22-23; Deuteronomy 16:16). 

This important feast gets its name from the fact that it starts seven full weeks, or exactly 50 days, after the Feast of Firstfruits. Since it takes place exactly 50 days after the previous feast, this feast is also known as "Pentecost" (Acts 2:1), which means "fifty". 

 Each of three "solemn feasts": Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles, required that all able-bodied Jewish males travel to Jerusalem to attend the feast and offer sacrifices. 

All three of these feasts required that "firstfruit" offerings be made at the temple as a way of expressing thanksgiving for God's provision. The Feast of Firstfruits celebrated at the time of the Passover included the first fruits of the barley harvest. 

The Feast of Weeks was in celebration of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Tabernacles involved offerings of the first fruits of the olive and grape harvests. Since the Feast of Weeks was one of the "harvest feasts", the Jews were commanded to "present an offering of new grain to the Lord" (Leviticus 23:16). This offering was to be "two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah" which were made "of fine flour . . . baked with leaven." 

The offerings were to be made of the first fruits of that harvest (Leviticus 23:17). Along with the "wave offerings" they were also to offer seven first-year lambs that were without blemish along with one young bull and two rams. 

Additional offerings are also prescribed in Leviticus and the other passages that outline how this feast was to be observed. 

Another important requirement of this feast is that, when the Jews harvested their fields, they were required to leave the corners of the field untouched and not gather "any gleanings" from the harvest as a way of providing for the poor and strangers (Leviticus 23:22). 

 To the Jews, this time of celebration is known as Shavuot, which is the Hebrew word meaning "weeks." This is one of three separate names that are used in Scripture to refer to this important Jewish feast. 

Each name emphasizes an important aspect of the feast as well as its religious and cultural significance to both Jews and Christians. Besides being called the Feast of Weeks in Leviticus 23, this special feast celebration is called the "Day of the Firstfruits" in Numbers 28:26 and the "Feast of Harvest" in Exodus 23:16. 

 The Feast of Weeks takes place exactly 50 days after the Feast of Firstfruits. It normally occurs in late spring, either the last part of May or the beginning of June. Unlike other feasts that began on a specific day of the Hebrew calendar, this one is calculated as being "fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath" (Leviticus 23:15-16; Deuteronomy 16:9-10). 

 Like other Jewish feasts, the Feast of Weeks is important in that it foreshadows the coming Messiah and His ministry. Each and every one of the seven Jewish Feasts signifies an important aspect of God's plan of redemption through Jesus Christ. 

 Jesus was crucified as the "Passover Lamb" and rose from the grave at the Feast of Firstfruits. Following His resurrection, Jesus spent the next 40 days teaching His disciples before ascending to heaven (Acts 1). 

Fifty days after His resurrection and after ascending to heaven to sit at the right hand of God, Jesus sent the Holy Spirit as promised (John 14:16-17) to indwell the disciples and empower them for ministry. 

The promised Holy Spirit arrived on the Day of Pentecost, which is another name for the Feast of Weeks. The spiritual significances of the Feast of Weeks are many. Some see the two loaves of leavened bread that were to be a wave offering as foreshadowing the time when the Messiah would make both Jew and Gentile to be one in Him (Ephesians 2:14-15). 

 This is also the only feast where leavened bread is used. Leaven in Scripture is often used symbolically of sin, and the leavened bread used in the Feast of Weeks is thought to be representative of the fact that there is still sin within the church (body of Christ) and will be until Christ returns again. 

 On the Day of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, the "firstfruits" of the church were gathered by Christ as some 3,000 people heard Peter present the gospel after the Holy Spirit had empowered and indwelt the disciples as promised. With the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the first fruits of God's spiritual harvest under the New Covenant began. 

Today that harvest continues as people continue to be saved, but there is also another coming harvest whereby God will again turn His attention back to Israel so that “all of Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26)." 

link: https://www.gotquestions.org/Feast-of-Weeks.html 

 #weeks #feasts #Holyday #Shavout #Pentecost #Day50 #HolySpirit #Sabbath

#weeks #feasts #holyday #shavout #pentecost #day50 #holyspirit #sabbath

[cmbynreviews]

The gay melodrama and fantasy of "Call Me by Your Name"

“I have touched you for the last time, is it a video?”

The summer of 1983, two years after the debut of MTV and the popularization of the music video, is where we find Timothée Chalamet’s teenage Elio, attempting to seduce one of his father’s visiting grad students (Armie Hammer’s Oliver). Elio’s seduction is in his movements – how he wriggles his hips like Michael Jackson, David Bowie, or Madonna in their early ’80s videos, how he keeps his bedroom door open at night to let the moonlight suggest his intentions, how he darts around Oliver’s body during conversations like an archaeologist examining an unearthed statue.

In translating a book like André Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name into a film, a book that focuses so much on the interior fantasies of its protagonist, director Luca Guadagnino had quite the task. As it turns out, Guadagnino is adept at creating fantasy himself – the film plays like a VHS tape you’ve rewound several times, hoping to relive the magic of the first time it played out before your eyes. The question at hand in Call Me by Your Name then, becomes: Is it even possible?

The melodramatic setting of the Italian countryside, with its rolling hills, sensual swimming pools and waterfalls, and the looming architecture of Italy’s past plays to how the film explores the apocryphal nature of memory. Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens, with his nebulously Christian rock music, contributes new material to the film’s soundtrack that questions how we remember our past. “Oh, to see without my eyes / the first time that you kissed me”, Stevens sings on “Mystery of Love”, reflecting on Elio and Oliver’s first intimate encounter. Elio lived that moment, yes, but perhaps his memory has betrayed him? The film’s conclusion leaves Elio on the verge of tears, morosely remembering his now-expired relationship with Oliver as Stevens’ “Visions of Gideon” poses the question: “Is it a video? Is it a video? Is it a video?”

After all, if the moment truly happened the way Elio remembers it, wouldn’t Oliver still be with him? Wouldn’t he have been there in person at Christmas when Elio’s family returns, instead of phoning him with the devastating news that he’s engaged?

Stevens explores the doubt of our memories in “Visions of Gideon”, which refers to the biblical prophet Gideon who God shepherded toward a surprise victory. For many young gay men who have their first sexual encounter, it can be impossible to know if the conclusion was foregone or an act of divine intervention. In a society with few depictions of romantic love between gay men, let alone in their formative years as teens, how could Elio know what was actually possessing him? It takes a conversation with his father, Michael Stuhlbarg’s Lyle, to process his feelings and recognize that there is a precedent for his emotions. Oliver offers him no such guidance, save for sexual tutelage, because Elio later learns that he was merely a summer affair: Oliver had a woman back in the United States, a woman he knows intimately enough to marry.

And so Elio scribbles journal entries to keep a record of his memories, like the time he accuses Oliver of giving him the cold shoulder. Oliver, 24, tells 17-year-old Elio to “grow up”, however, and insinuates that this interpretation of events is Elio’s alone. If so, even Elio’s own words have betrayed him – the desire for “is it a video?” becomes a refrain to scrutinize his memories and Oliver’s and determine the truth. Not that a video would provide much resolution. You could turn on television in the ’80s and see George Michael shaking his ass in denim jeans and still believe he was straight. You could see Rock Hudson playing a straight leading man on Dynasty while he privately died of AIDS. The only thing Elio knows is that he has indeed touched and loved Oliver for the last time.

The first time I became aware of the fragility of our romantic memories was in recalling my own first encounter with another man. Much like Elio, mine was with an older man. But the situation, exchanging addresses through a computer in the cold winter of Chicago while I was a college student, couldn’t be more different from Elio’s interactions with Oliver. And yet, the way we navigate sexual relationships is not at all different from Elio and Oliver’s. The cat-and-mouse game is no different than messaging a man on a computer over a decade ago, or via an app on your phone – intent can be lost in the language of a sterile electronic conversation, just as Elio fails to notice that Oliver was flirting with him when he pressed his fingers to his back after a game of volleyball.

Call Me by Your Name draws its romantic nature from the idea that we’ve each crafted a fantasy of what romance is. For Elio, it’s sweeping romantic gestures. The mechanics of sex is pleasurable, but he finds distaste in masturbation, in touching his own semen, and he comes quickly in each of his encounters. For Oliver, he puts on a fine performance of a romantic suitor, but he’s about sex and the emotions are second. Perhaps what Elio truly learns is that in his mind, as he made his summer with Elio worthy of the Brontë sisters, it was not the most important moment in Oliver’s life.

Is this film telling us that the illusion of romance is just that? An illusion? Perhaps, but then Guadagnino has produced such a lush film, brimming with the beauty of nature. So is his own point of view at odds with the film’s? Guadagnino’s film ends with Oliver calling Elio to play the romantic game they devised during their affair, where Oliver told Elio, “Call me by your name, and I’ll call you by mine”. Aciman’s novel, however, ends with Oliver and Elio meeting years later and Elio silently despairing that if Oliver ever truly loved him, he would once again “look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name”.

Guadagnino’s adaptation does away with this end, perhaps because it’s depressing, but also because it’s not how he views love. It’s why his film relies so much on the music of Sufjan Stevens, who once said in an interview with The Atlantic, “It’s not so much that faith influences us as it lives in us. In every circumstance, I am living and moving and being”. Call Me by Your Name suggests that Elio doesn’t truly need to know whether Oliver loved him. Because he has his feelings, he has his VHS tape of their moments together to dust off and replay in his mind, and if he wants it to be true, then it is true. It’s a gift to a gay audience that rarely receives a homosexual romance that doesn’t end in tragedy, and who turn to cinema to escape their own disappointment-filled lives. To take in a fantasy-like romance of a young man and an older suitor; to ignore the incredibly unsexy encounter they may have had, during a cold Chicago winter, with an older man whose idea of romance was muting The Late Show with David Letterman, the flickering of the television set mirroring a young college student’s saccharine idea of their first, candlelit sexual encounter.

Guadagnino asks us to disregard that the entire summer could have been in his imagination, another one of the stories that his mother reads to him at night to comfort him. Conceivably, Elio’s father may be the most important in the film. He’s a professor who uses remnants of the past to shape his own interpretations of events. When speaking of one of the statues he and Oliver excavates from the ocean, the professor describes it as “begging you to desire them”. How does he know? He has faith.

IRA MADISON III | DAILY BEAST | 24 Nov 2017

#Call Me by Your Name #Guadagnino #timothee chalamet #armie hammer #andre aciman #james ivory #reviews #CMBYN #Elio #Oliver #Perlman #Chiamami col tuo nome

[desk216]

Awakening, Part 4

"It will depend on Duty, you know.

If the Captain lacks the courage to perform his duty, they won't even escape the mindslavers"

-Spoken by B001, three hours before she ceased.

-Recorded at 1732, 75 years prior.

Skye turned as Rosalind stepped to the floor. "Isn't it amazing?" she asked. "No one's ever traveled to another planet, let along another solar system."

"Someone had to have." Rosalind pointed out, gesturing to the walls around them. "How else would all this get here?"

"Maybe it was put here by magic!" Jane suggested.

"Magic doesn't exist." Skye said.

"Magic doesn't exist?" Rosalind asked incredulously. "We just teleported with a book."

"Just unexplained science." Skye said, crossing her arms. "Back in the Dark Ages, you'd be burned for witchcraft by turning on a flashlight. This is no different."

Hound barked, then sprinted down the corridor. "Wait for me!" Batty called, following him.

"Batty!" Rosalind called. "Don't run ahead…" Batty had already vanished around a corner. Rosalind sprinted after her.

Skye sighed, then she and Jane followed. As they turned the corner, Skye drew up, nearly colliding with Rosalind. Her sister was standing in a doorway, looking at the far wall in astonishment. "You know what you said before?" Rosalind asked. "How everything has some sort of scientific explanation?"

"What?" Skye demanded, trying to look over Rosalind's shoulder. "What's so… oh."

The far wall was covered in a mural depicting four girls of various ages. Three of the girls had curly brown hair, and the other's hair was long and blonde. A large shaggy dog sat by the shortest figure, who was busy petting him.

"Woof" Hound said, as Batty stroked his fur.

"This is going to be hard to explain." Rosalind said.

Skye pushed past Rosalind and approached the painting. "It could be a coincidence..." she said doubtfully. "But I'll admit, that seems pretty unlikely."

"Maybe the book explains" Jane suggested.

"Book?" Rosalind asked, confused.

"Down there!" Jane said, pointing. "Below the painting!"

Sure enough, a small book was lying on a small shelf, next to a strange red handle. The book's binding was black, and both the cover and spine were unmarked.

"Maybe that's another teleport book?" Skye suggested

Rosalind picked up the book and opened the front cover. Unlike the previous two books, there was no moving image on the first page. "Not a teleporter." she remarked, then looked closer. Instead, lines of careful script covered the page, with dates above each paragraph. "It looks like someone's diary."

"What does it say?" Batty asked eagerly.

"Yeah, read it out loud!" Skye said.

Rosalind sat down, her back to the painting. Her sisters settled themselves in a semicircle around her, with Hound curled between Batty and Jane. Rosalind took a deep breath, then began to read.

- Arrived in Juncture today. Sealed the linking chamber to D'ni, hopefully that will hold the Sickness back. Merciful Grower, how many died today? How could anyone imagine this, even a madman? We have six months of supplies, which should allow us to wait for rescue, if there's any rescue to come. If not… well, we've got linking books to five mostly unexplored Ages, one of them may be untouched by the plague.

-During the evacuation from the Sickness, Ania collapsed, apparently caught up in a premonition. Our family always has had a knack for the Sight, but we've never heard of it appearing in someone so young. She hasn't said much about what she saw, but in this troubled time, perhaps it will help us to halt this devastation

- Ania gathered us today, and explained her vision in detail. There is no possible way for us to cure the Sickness, but we may yet be able to preserve our civilization from total collapse. I don't know what's so important about my invention, but Ania has assured us that it will be critical in ensuring the survival of the D'ni. Construction has begun on this new project, which we have christened the "Horizon".

- In spite of our best efforts, it's apparent that the Sickness has followed us. We've got limited medical supplies, but they won't be able to do anything more than slow its progression. Instead of six months, we'll be lucky to survive a couple of weeks. Father's put us on double shifts in the meantime, trying to outrace it.

- Ania has fallen ill. We're giving her the best treatment we can provide at this time, but what good is that, without a cure for the disease? We've put everything we have into her prophesy, and I don't know how we'll continue without the prophet.

- Work is going smoothly. I finished assembling the Link drive this afternoon, and the weapon systems are being installed as I write. I don't know why the Horizon would need weapons, considering the circumstances of interage travel, but Ania has insisted that they are necessary. Ania herself spent the day painting a mural on the linking chamber walls. I asked her it's supposed to help save the D'ni, but she just pointed at her painting and said the blonde girl thinks she's crazy.

- Ania has taken a turn for the worse. She tossed and turned all night, muttering nonsense and talking to imaginary people. Father told me to record what I could understand, in case they were prophetic.

"Woven Magic"

"The Sun, the Moon, the Bow, and the Dragon"

"Stranger's Blood."

Rosalind paused, then looked up. "It goes on for another three pages with this sort of stuff. Do you want me to read it all, or should I skip ahead?"

"Skip ahead." Batty said

"Please" Skye agreed.

- Ania died this morning. Jane let out a small gasp of horror, and Batty buried her face into Hound's side. Before she died, Ania spoke to me in private. She knew that we wouldn't live to make the journey. The survival of our people will depend on others, strangers who will someday find this world, and complete the journey we prepared for. I thought that I was keeping this journal for myself, but it appears that the burden of our people will rest on my poor retelling. We are few in number, and those who still survive will soon be dead from the sickness. We have placed the station into hibernation to await these travelers.

To whoever is reading this, you must reawaken this world from its slumber. The future of both our people and yours depend on it.

Rosalind stopped reading and closed the book. "That's the last entry. All the pages afterwards are blank."

A tear rolled down Jane's face. "None of them made it."

"They'd probably be dead by now anyway" Skye remarked. "That statue hadn't been opened in decades."

Rosalind turned back towards the painting. "It's crude, but that sure looks like us." she mused, trailing her fingers over the canvas.

Skye pushed past her to examine the handle. "So this is how you activate the station?" she asked, tapping it. "It looks like you need to twist it, then push down."

"Don't touch it!" Rosalind yelped, yanking her sister's arm away from the panel.

"Calm down." Skye said. "I wasn't going to actually do it, yet."

"I think we should leave and get Daddy." Rosalind said. "we've our luck far enough."

"We can't!" Jane cried. "The journal made it clear, it's our destiny to turn it on!"

"Seriously?" Skye asked. "We don't have to do something just because an old book told us to."

"Yes we do!" Batty said. "She knew about Hound!"

"Order!" Rosalind shouted, pounding her fist against the wall, and cutting off the developing argument. "We'll vote on it."

"Sounds fair to me." Skye said. "Who goes first?"

"Batty?" Rosalind asked. "What do you think we should do?"

"We need to do it!" Batty said. "Ania said so!"

"Okay, one vote in favor." Rosalind said. "Jane?"

"We were summoned to this world for a purpose!" Jane said. "It is our duty, nay, our destiny to turn that switch!"

"Skye?"

Skye stayed silent for a long moment, considering. "I guess not." she finally said. "I'm curious, but we can't be sure if it's still safe."

"So, what do you vote?" Jane asked Rosalind.

"No." Rosalind replied. "we're out of our depth here. We need to get an adult's opinion before we do anything."

"two-two." Skye said. "Now what?"

"Hound hasn't voted yet!" Batty said.

"Let me guess" Rosalind said. "Hound supports your opinion wholeheartedly?"

"Woof." Hound agreed.

"Does anyone have a quarter?" Jane suggested. "We could flip for it."

"Nope." Skye said, turning out her pockets.

"I've got one." Rosalind said. "Heads, we go, Tails, we leave. Alright?"

"Deal." Jane said, and Rosalind flung the coin into the air. It flashed as it spun, bounced against the tile, then rolled down a nearby grate. The sisters groaned.

Skye crouched down and peered through the slats. "I can't see it."

"That was my last coin" Rosalind said, fishing around in her pocket.

"So what?" Jane asked. "Rock Paper Scissors?"

"We could let Hound decide." Batty suggested.

"We don't have any biscuits." Rosalind said.

"We could go get some" Batty said.

Skye sighed. "Forget it, I'll just change my vote."

"But…" Rosalind began.

"Hound never chooses me anyway." Skye said. "Besides, I'm tired of sitting around talking with a mystery like this sitting right next to us." She walked forward, and grabbed the handle. "Stand back."

"Absolutely not." Rosalind said. "If anyone's going to risk this, it's going to be me."

"Too late." Skye said. She twisted the handle ninety degrees, then shoved it forward.

#awakening #destinies entangled #penderwicks #myst #scifi/fantasy

[anhed-nia]

3/9/17: LADY IN THE WATER...

I’ve been sitting on this review for a long time now, and it’s a little difficult for me to explain why. LADY IN THE WATER is one of the all time worst professionally produced films I’ve ever even heard of, from a director about whom ridicule has become a beloved international pastime. This should see me running-not-walking to fire off my latest round of self-important vitriol at this broad-side-of-a-barn target, and yet, here I am three months later with seemingly nothing to say. The truth is, as far as I’m able to articulate it, that this movie just makes me feel terrible.

To be a little fairer to myself, one of the major problems is that I have a very hard time retaining what even happens in M. Night Shyamalan’s lifeless, unmagical “bedtime story” (as per an especially self-satisfied tagline). In fact, I think I watched it three times and change just to see if there was something stimulating that I had just blinked and missed. I failed to find any such inspiration, but I’ll do my best to map it all out. Paul Giamatti plays the stammering super of a rural Pennsylvanian apartment complex that houses a “colorful cast of characters”, including:

- Out of work film critic Bob Balaban (WHY); - Just some lady Marybeth Hurt (it’s the PARENTS reunion you never wanted!); - A gang of irritating stoners who are so unlikely (Jared Harris?) that I couldn’t help assuming Shyamalan is so uncool that no one would ever consider offering him drugs; - A multigenerational household full of loud tacky Korean women, the direction of whom has a bit of a “one of my best friends is Korean, they’re just like this!” vibe to it; - Freddy Rodriguez with just one gigantically muscular arm for no discernible reason other than pissing me off; - …worst of all, worse than in my wildest dreams, M. Night himself as a frustrated but promising young writer about whom the less said the better, but I’m going to have to get to it eventually whether I like it or not.

There are also a bunch of other people too, but as you’ll see, NONE of these people matter all that much as individuals, contributing substantially to my LADY aphasia. Anyway, what happens is that one strange night, Paul Giamatti extracts from his pool sylphy Bryce Dallas Howard, who magically cures his stammer (that he only had for like 5 minutes before this happens)(and it was mainly in a scene where a big spider is scaring everyone so it didn’t really read as a speech impediment)(but WHATEVER). You find out quickly that Bryce is a water sprite, and she can’t return home because there’s an evil wolf made out of lawn waiting to kill her, but there’s like an ancient prophecy or something that that can save her if Paul can figure out how it applies to his life—specifically, he has to identify among his tenants “a Symbolist, Guardian, Guild, and Healer”. Let me be very clear about how this happens: There is no cursed treasure or forbidden scroll or heavenly vision or anything that imparts this information in a fantastical OR CINEMATIC way. All there is, is Bryce is magically prevented from speaking explicitly about this stuff, so the group devises an annoying yes/no guessing game to get information out of her, even though it turns out she doesn’t know very much about this shit to begin with. Therefore, the various mythical mantles are applied totally arbitrarily and unceremoniously to various randos in the building, and then when the secret ritual doesn’t work THAT way, they reshuffle the deck pretty arbitrarily again, and THEN the mystical giant eagle comes and makes a lot of embarrassing cat noises and helps Bryce go home. Also there’s something I never managed to focus on about how the mythical world of magical creatures is normally held in check by monkeys who were born so evil that they killed their own parents right out the womb. It’s not clear to me why such anarchically evil monsters would be interested in enforcing laws or preserving taboos, we’re just supposed to accept that they do, and like, for now something is wrong about them so the grass wolf is on the loose and everything. It’s so fucking stupid.

I hope that at this point, it’s pretty clear why this dreary vaguery of a film failed to capture my imagination. It still should have invited my sadism a little more readily. A bunch of pretty disgusting shit happens in between the meaningless plot points described above. The film insists on trying to kindle an icky paternalistic romance between Paul Giamatti and the often-nude nymphette that he frequently finds in his arms, awake or asleep. Of course, he needs a little depth to make this “work”, so Bryce Dallas Howard rudely reads his secret diary to him out loud, as if he doesn’t know what’s in it, to reveal to us that he used to be a brilliant doctor until his family was killed and then he got sad. The Korean caricatures are the ones who impart to us the nature of Bryce Dallas Howard’s character, through the pointlessly drawn out recitation of a completely nonsensical folk tale with all kinds of reeeeally toooootally Korean-sounding words in it like “narf” and “scrunt”. Meanwhile, Bob Balaban only exists for the director to take out his pent up rage against the army of film critics who have been nobly shitting all over his movies for the duration of his career, in an assortment of spirit-crushing comic relief scenes leading up to a dull and predictable death. As if this weren’t enough moral signaling, Shyamalan inserts himself into this tale in a fashion that will astonish even the most hardbitten cynic. I guess it’s time to talk about it.

I wish I had a way of recording here how long I sat at the keyboard trying to formulate this. The director has cast himself as a brilliant young man who, in the face of criticism and rejection and ignorance, is collecting in a tome called “The Cookbook” (?) his revolutionary ideas about changing the world. And, as Bryce Dallas Howard informs him, he WILL change the world. He is the central character in his own prophecy, in which he delivers unto humanity his life-altering wisdom, which are so profoundly rattling that he will be martyred for them. When I first saw this movie, and it first became clear what is happening with this character, my heart sank. Instead of the usual convulsion of derisive laughter, or the salient whetting of my predatory appetite, I just felt awful. Where before, I had joined the rest of the world in regarding Shyamalan as a modern, much less likable but no less hilarious Ed Wood, I suddenly felt that I was witnessing some real deal Emperor’s New Clothes shit. Narcissism and persecution complexes aren’t exactly a new invention, but usually, people live enough life to know that they shouldn’t go around saying EXACTLY what they think of themselves; on the rare occasion that someone does, their very behavior usually ensures that they don’t gain an audience wide enough for it to cause a real personal catastrophe. This was really grim. I couldn’t believe that this man was calling himself Jesus Christ with a typewriter, out loud, in front of me. Isn’t there anyone who cares about what happens to him, who would protect him from himself? Isn’t there anybody in his life who loves him enough to have been guiding him, all along really, not to build himself such a ferocious trap and walk right into it deliberately? What the fuck happened here? How is this real?

Basically, the whole movie is a real “who hurt you” moment, with chest-pounding declarations of relevance existing alongside a bizarre and persistent disconnect with reality. The story is bad, the effects are bad, the characters are ugly and insulting, and the world in which it takes place—the “real” human world, not even the “Blue World” of the narf and the scrunt—just doesn’t seem to make any sense. The setting itself, which looks much more like a Southern Californian or even Southeast Asian environment than the gritty Northeastern American location that it really actually is, doesn’t seem to gel. It’s hard to understand how any of these disparate people, who you see in a single eyeful during a huge party that’s the centerpiece of the film, have come to roost here. We not only mix feckless burnouts with (THREE) professional authors, but somehow there is also an entire spandex-clad glam band with amp stacks and everything that they keep god knows where. The aforementioned party brings a curious thing to light, too, that’s just a drop in the bucket of this awfulness, and yet it is emblematic of the film’s basic nature. The band is featured playing exactly one bar of a rockin’ version of “Maggie’s Farm”. At first I thought, “Well, that’s probably affordable”, but then I began to realize that Bob Dylan covers seem to flow insistently throughout the whole movie. The ending credits threaten to never end, as an infuriatingly slow version of “Times They Are A-Changin’” smolders but refuses to be extinguished, with such languor that it’s hard not to shout through the screen at the singer to SPIT IT THE FUCK OUT ALREADY, THEY ARE “A-CHANGING”, WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY. There may be some connection to make between the film’s obsession with prophecies, and Dylan’s identity as something of a modern prophet himself, but the whole thing just gives one the sense of a mid-mid-life crisis dad who has suddenly rediscovered the Beatles, whose regular guests start to dread every visit’s inevitable, multiple, embarrassingly serious playthroughs of Sergeant Pepper’s . If you know what I’m saying. I’m not sure what I’m saying. All I can say really conclusively is that none of this makes any sense to me, and I’m a little surprised that this shockingly narcissistic movie isn’t more notorious, and I’m a lot surprised that this shockingly narcissistic director was allowed to make another movie after this. Which I suppose I’ll have to deal with as soon as it comes out in a more hatewatchable format than the theaters to which it was confoundingly distributed. See you then, if I ever manage to live through this.

Hey here’s a picture of an Olympic figure skater at the premier, that’s weird.

#m. night shyamalan #lady in the water #bryce dallas howard #paul giamatti #freddy rodriguez #blogtober