#to be even near jimmy page is one of my biggest dreams

[psychedeliagroove]

Gosh I’ve been having such an awful time recently. I’m planning on quitting my part time job as It is one of the things I hate most in the world right now and a whole load of other crap aswell.

Sometimes I think if I were born to be a groupie in the late sixties I would have a happy life. Anyone else immediately come to this conclusion whenever they’re faced with even the smallest inconvenience. Because I swear it is like my go to thought when people or things piss me off.

Obviously would be his groupie.

#someone please give me a time machine #to be even near jimmy page is one of my biggest dreams #am I crazy?

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Things Below

Voices. Voices, everywhere. Emily peered out the window from the backseat of the patrol car. Locked in, but free to hear all these confusing voices. She could hear the thoughts of the people the car drove past, picking up fallout from the minds of people on the sidewalk.

“He gave me too much change. Tough shit, sucker. I’m not telling and I’m keeping it. Those stores are insured against this kind of—”

“I’m late, I’m late, I’m late; oh my god, I’m gonna lose my job. What about—”

“I forgot to lock the front door. To hell with whatever he’s saying, I’m sure as hell that I forgot—”

“Stop staring, dumbass. Jeeze, I think I need to jack off in a bathroom stall, otherwise she'll—”

Emily didn’t even care about reading the thoughts themselves. She used to figure people to be thinking drivel like this just by looking at them. No, the reporter wanted to see how well she could focus this ability—how well she could control it. As far as she was concerned, she had developed a superpower. With it, she could change the world.

Only one thing gave her reason for pause; gave her a reason to worry. If she wasn’t dreaming—if this all was real—then it meant the demon she had met at the delicate age of 21 had been real, too.

The edges of her vision turned into streaks, stretching into infinity, blending together in a wild blur of colors and shapes. She only caught glimpse of their faces, all unimportant and forgotten within seconds, but their thoughts reached her mind in fragments, like a rain of glass shards falling into a bottomless pit. Clipped, ripped out of context—like switching rapidly through radio stations and never hearing anything out.

Officer Stanton glanced back at Emily through the rearview mirror. Judging by his furrowed brow, he was concerned about her mental well-being. That was when she realized that her head kept bobbing erratically, moving on a constant swivel. She must have looked like a crazy person to this cop.

“Your nose,” he said after clearing his throat and training his eyes on the road again.

Confounded, Emily dabbed her nose, only to find blood on her fingers.

The splitting headache set in. Or it had been there all along, except that it now cranked the dial to eleven in the very second she stopped tuning in to the thoughts of all the passers-by. She muttered a short curse and a emitted a soft, nervous chuckle.

Looked like the superpower came with a little price tag.

But it had already paid off. Under other circumstances, she would have had to go out on a limb in trusting this “Officer Stanton.” Letting him lock her into the backseat like a common suspect or criminal. But what choice did she have? A bomb turned her apartment block into a blazing inferno, she woke up naked in a dumpster, and she had no phone, no money, and was now wearing the borrowed clothes of her friend Maria—who probably had her pegged as crazy and she should never talk to again.

Scanning Stanton’s thoughts had revealed a certain level of surprising purity. Blue-eyed, this shmuck hadn’t seen anywhere near the amount of horrid things Emily had seen in her time as an investigative reporter, looking into human trafficking and pedophile rings. He was as concerned as she was about Detective Tanner, her single only trustworthy contact in the police—who had gone missing.

Reading Stanton’s mind, Emily knew that this cop had his heart in the right place and was going out on a limb himself. She looked and sounded like a crazy person, had no identification, and lied to him first thing upon their meeting. He had a lot to lose himself.

And she couldn’t tell him everything she had witnessed.

“I was drugged and abducted,” she had admitted to him in that first encounter. Only part of the truth she could speak without sounding like she had lost every last marble.

The other part involved what she could only describe as a trip into hell, where she was hounded by an antagonistic demon she dubbed “Stinky Jim.”

Eight years ago, Emily met Stinky Jim for the first time, though she did not have such a name for the demon yet. Had she known it was real, she would have lost her mind. She would have been the Other Emily, the Lost Emily—the one sitting in a padded cell, rocking back and forth, gibbering, and disconnected from reality.

If her recent awakening—the event since when she could read minds and bend space itself—had taught her anything, then it was that reality itself was a strained, malleable concept.

Even human identity crumbled in the face of enlightened scrutiny.

Back when she was 21, working the sixth McJob in a row before she got smart, got her GED, and got into studying to become a reporter; she still hung out in a basement with the rest of the “gang.”

She remembered that night with stunning clarity. The edges on everything remained sharp. The dive in the basement of the home of Rodney’s parents had burned itself into the pages of her memory.

Her birthday—the night Emily turned 21.

Both on the surface and in all things below, she was a different person. Dyed her hair pink, piercings in her ears and on her brow, royal blue lipstick, torn heavy metal T-shirts. Loved ranting about politics, economy, and social justice; but never lifted a finger to do a damned thing about it.

Just like then. They were sitting in Rodney’s parents’ basement, sprawled out over ratty old couches and chairs with the TV set and old video game consoles, smoking weed, and the four boys listening to one of her many unnumbered tirades on LGBTQ+ rights.

“Shut the fuck up if you ain’t gonna do anything ‘bout it,” Chris told her. “Gay Chris,” as he was nicknamed, which didn’t bother him at all once they grew older—he wore the name like a badge of pride.

His voice cracked as he kept the smoke from the bong in his lungs and passed it on to Carlos, and Chris added, “The fuck do you know about any of that, straightie?”

That stunned Emily. That’s when everything clicked for her. When it all changed. Speechless, she silently agreed with him. Everything she knew about the gay experience was theoretical or secondhand, drawing from Chris’ experiences.

But that’s when she found her true calling.

She wouldn’t “shut the fuck up about it.” She refused to, because it would have been against her nature. She would do the legwork, and tell the world. She would relay the truth, even when it hurt, or when it got her and others into hot water. That would be her strength. Her destiny.

It would take till the end of that week and some feverish reading until she figured out that journalism was the way for her to go, but that was the same night when Emily really took the reins of her life into her own hands, and forged the path she now followed with furious determination.

Carlos chortled, then took a long toke from the bong before passing it on to Rodney. Emily remained silent.

With her most recent rant dead in the water, and the only active water being the one making the bubbling and churning sounds whenever anybody inhaled another hit from the bong, her thoughts drifted. The night of her birthday dragged on like many others in this very place, the matter of her birthday only standing out by the amount of weed they would have burned through by the end of the night.

She loved these boys like her brothers. Loved the countless nights they spent together, shooting the shit about their work, their messes of what could barely be described as love lives, playing video games together on the couch in this same basement and getting into swearing matches more heated than the actual gameplay, going to metal concerts together, or talking about philosophy and spirituality into the ungodliest hours of the morning.

Some time around 2 AM, Carlos had already passed out. He snored in the corner with a pile of empty potato chip bags and plastic bottles piled onto him like a work of art. Chris had gone home to get some sleep because of an early shift the next day. Only Jimmy, Rodney, and Emily remained. Stabbing Westward’s Ungod was playing back from the old iPod in a soft volume.

Rodney climbed back onto the couch and slid onto the cushions between Jimmy and Emily. His eyes were bloodshot from all the beer and weed they had been kicking back and he gave her a stupid grin.

“Got something special for this special occasion,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

He unfolded his fingers and presented three little things. To Emily, they looked like stamps or pieces of perforated cardboard just resting on his palm, each of them marked with a pastel yellow smiley face.

Before either Emily or Jimmy could ask, Rodney said, “LSD, hoes. Lucy seeing diamonds—in the sky—or something. So, uh, anyway, how about we go on a real trip?”

Jimmy’s brow furrowed and Emily snickered at him. Buff Jimmy over there, the racing car enthusiast who loved tuning cars and speeding in them, accustomed to acting like the biggest badass of their little gang, was now all skeptical and intimidated by this harmless-looking drug resting in Rodney’s hand.

“Fuck it, why not?” Emily asked.

“Nah, I’ll pass,” Jimmy predictably said. “Y'know what, you should too. Also, I should get back home and get some sleep.”

Jimmy scrambled to leave, looking half asleep already, and muttered a goodbye to Carlos who continued to snore away, oblivious to everything going on now.

“Pussy,” Emily called out after Jimmy just before he flipped her off and closed the basement door behind himself.

Rodney and Emily got a good laugh out of Jimmy’s departure. Then Rodney turned his head and waggled his eyebrows at her, holding out the three slips of LSD still.

“I could put one back, or one of us takes two of ‘em,” he said, letting his voice rise sharply towards the end in challenge.

Emily squinted and then snatched two of them out of his palm.

“Happy fuckin’ birthday to me, I guess,” she said, grinning with him in challenge, wondering if he wasn’t going to chicken out himself.

She stuck her tongue out at him like she was about to lick Rodney’s face, then placed the two pieces of LSD on her tongue and retracted it. Swallowed.

“How long?” she asked.

“My dick?”

“Fuck you.”

Rodney cackled and told her it would take two hours. They settled on re-watching Scream—one of Emily’s favorite horror movies. They talked over the flick, as usual. Laughed as Carlos turned over in his sleep at one point, knocking over the pyramid of junk piled onto him without even waking up, and they both wondered loudly if they weren’t going to have a horror trip if they watched a horror movie while tripping on LSD, like the idiots they were.

The movie ended and Emily still couldn’t tell if the drug was having any effect on her system.

“Get me another beer, beer bitch,” she told Rodney, softly kicking him in his thigh while she drooped lazily over the other half of the couch.

He got up and went to the small fridge in the corner of the room. She blinked and wondered why he did that without giving her any lip. Even on her birthday, Rodney wasn’t wont to do what she told him to. Returning to her, he uncapped the bottle of beer and held it out to her.

She took it and looked at him in disbelief. Rodney himself looked befuddled. He blinked and looked around. Was the LSD finally kicking in for him? If so, why was it taking so long for her?

If him tripping balls meant he was a compliant little sheep, she was going to have some fun with this. She pulled out her flip phone and started recording a grainy video on the device.

“Hey, Rodney, why don’t you stand on one foot and spin around in a circle for the audience,” she told him, biting her lip and sensing that he would do exactly as told.

And he did. Almost stumbling over the coffee table and falling onto his ass in the process, he did exactly that. Emily covered her mouth to stifle a giggle. She stared at him through the display of her phone, making sure to capture his dumbfounded facial expressions.

“Rodney, tell the world how much of a little skanky whore you are,” she said, mouth agape with a grin so wide that it almost hurt her cheeks.

“I’m such a little skanky whore that I’d eat Paris Hilton’s ass with whipped cream and a cherry on top,” he said, slurring it out as if his consciousness slipped farther away into a trance or delirium with each additional word.

Emily burst out laughing, “You will never live this one down when the others see the video, dipshit.”

Yet something crept up behind Emily. A dark, foreboding sense of something alien and sinister. It only reached the back of her mind with a delay: she heard Rodney’s thoughts before he did or said anything that she told him to. Or rather, she projected her self into him and he complied, pliable like a piece of wet cardboard.

These thoughts made more sense now, in the present, when she knew she could read minds. But back then, she had chalked it up to the acid trip. The day after, she would go back to her normal life, letting the details fade away into oblivion, dismissing them as nightmarish nonsense.

Except for the knock on the door.

Not the door leading in and out of the basement, but the door to the boiler room. A room where nobody should have been inside.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she stared at it, wide-eyed and terrified. Rodney followed her gaze because she willed him to pay just as much attention to it.

Knock knock. Again.

Or rather: THUMP THUMP. Deep, bass. Menacing.

“Rodney, go check on the clown hiding in there,” Emily told Rodney, not even thinking things through. She couldn’t even chalk it up to the booze and drugs.

All she knew was that she feared whatever awaited behind that door.

Like sleepwalking, Rodney approached the boiler room door. Twisted the knob. Opened it.

A soft red light glowed, engulfing him. A light out of this world. It flickered, danced—like flames. But no heat or fire awaited beyond the door. Only madness.

Emily walked there herself, intrigued by the mysterious light. Her whole body tingled with dread, yet she could not help but approach. She knew deep down, lurking beneath the surface of her thoughts, that something evil awaited there. Something that would drive her insane. She didn’t need to approach, should have turned and fled from Rodney’s basement. But curiosity won out over common sense.

She stood next to him and peered into the place beyond the door.

There was no boiler room there. Instead of the dingy little room with the big cylindrical something, some old plastic crates, and a bunch of pipes and valves—a flight of stairs stretched down, winding around a curve. The fiery red light flickered from the depths, beckoning her.

“Rodney, go lie down and sleep.”

He acknowledged her order, not speaking the affirmation out loud but just thinking it. Emily, however, didn’t even register how the thought had reached her like a spoken word. She could taste his dread riding on the back of those thoughts—salty, smooth, bitter, clamping his throat shut and cutting his breath short.

But her eyes fixated on these stairs. Made of obsidian, covered in strange, indecipherable symbols, bearing names on each step. Names of the lost and the damned. The forgotten and the famous. She could not read them, but she knew the names were important. She would read them again one day, but that was not this day.

Rodney laid down onto the couch and fell asleep within an instant. His thoughts turned into a soup of drugged dreaming and Emily shut them out, probing for any presence at the bottom of those stairs. To see if anything dwelt there, any things below.

“Come on down and find out,” something replied. Not in words, but thoughts. Smoky, crackling like wood in a fireplace, with embers rising into a dark and starry night.

Emily took her first step down those stairs in this other-space. Then another. And another. She tread down this path, and the stairwell narrowed as it twisted and turned on her way downward. She burned with curiosity to find what things lay hidden in the depths.

The door slammed shut behind her and something laughed. Something in a deep, bellowing baritone, like a monster straight out of some horror movie. The laughter died down into a chortle, egging her on to turn around and see for herself.

Fear overtook her and prevented her from turning to behold this demon. This madness. She knew it was there, right behind her. Fetid breath rhythmically struck the exposed skin of the back of her neck. The thing was huge, like a man two heads taller than her.

“If you don’t have the balls to look at me, then you better keep movin’, little girl,” the demon spoke to her, cackling some more. The words carried the air of a threat. “What are you afraid of finding down here, anyway?”

More laughter. Sinister. Knowing. Knowing her deepest, darkest desires, and secrets she would learn in the future

Her heart thumped against her chest, pounding so hard that it threatened to explode out of her rib cage any minute now. And whether she was tripping on the LSD, having an overly vivid nightmare, or this was indeed real, she dreaded turning around and instead continued on her descent.

“Welcome to the maze, Emily,” the thing’s voice crackled. Flames licked from its voice and the biting smells of charcoal smoke and sulfur filled her nostrils, stuck to her tongue. Way too real to be imagined, yet even now, she struggled to explain how this experience or even this memory could be real.

Because right now, she sat on the backseat of Officer Stanton’s car. But the vivid recollection of this memory sliced through time and space, reaching her in the now. The demonic presence still lingered, lurking behind her, occupying the space in her mind.

The unwanted guest renting one of the rooms in the mindscape of Motel Emily. The neon sign of vacancy flickered unsteadily.

Where the stairs wound down further, she reached a door branching out to the side. Or rather, the word “door” didn’t really cut it. It was a stone portal, covered in more symbols or otherworldly runes.

Without thinking, she pushed it open, hoping to find escape from this place, praying to reach Rodney’s basement again, or appear back in Stanton’s patrol car. The past and the present started bleeding together. Had she really experienced all this, back then? Was this the madness, overtaking her mind, surfacing now, tainting the present and overwriting reality?

“This is as real as it gets, bitch,” the demon said, cackling yet more.

The pink-haired Emily celebrating her 21st birthday and tripping on LSD didn’t understand what she saw beyond the portal once she strained herself, putting her legs and back into pushing it open, her nerves fraying with each inch accompanied by the sounds of stone grinding against stone.

Beyond that portal, she saw another Emily, stripped half-naked, handcuffed to a curtain rack, with some man with a painted face sliding a knife into her exposed back. Bodies of the dead and the dying littered the dark and ruined room of some derelict house in that place and Helpless Emily screamed in agony.

Younger Emily gasped and backed away from this scene of carnage and despair, recalling a memory of something yet to come, which Present Emily knew already and remembered as the time the Grinning Man came close to killing her.

The man with the knife, with the face painted to display a horrid grin over a face of cold and sociopathic indifference, turned to look at Younger Emily. She pulled, tugged at the portal with all her might, desperate to close it before something worse happened.

The Grinning Man, that serial killer, turned from Tortured Emily. He tilted his head, staring into the stone portal in disbelief, studying its frame. Before Younger Emily succeeded in fully shutting the portal, he approached with swift steps, ready to pass from one place into another.

But she slammed it shut just in time, just before she could decipher shouts from beyond the portal.

Worse, the demon remained. Right behind her.

She dared not turn around completely to look upon its horrid visage, but glimpsed it from the corner of her eye. Red like a devil, covered in spikes and horns and smiling at her with a maw lined with rows and rows of jagged, shark-like teeth. Blackened, knife-shaped claws opening and closing in anticipation, ready to rip her to shreds if she looked at it for too long.

It cackled again and Emily continued down the stairs.

“That was you,” it said. “That’ll be you, in the future. You fuck-up. Nobody’s proud of you, Emily. Accomplishing nothing of value. Only watching people die in squalor and misery. You are nothing but a worthless witness. A voyeur in a voyeuristic world.”

Hearing the demon speak in such a modern vernacular and imagining to be such a clichéd presence clashed in her mind, and she almost turned to confront the creature. But she read its thoughts and they mirrored her own.

The first time she realized that turning only meant embracing the madness, and ending up in that padded little room, all alone, locked inside her head with drugs—and not the sort that Younger Emily found fun.

Picking up the pace, she continued down the winding, hellish stairs. The walls drew closer together with each step, never moving, but converging in angles that made her descent more claustrophobic with each passing moment.

Present Emily knew she had to break free of this memory, because it was bleeding into reality. The demon was taking hold. She dabbed more blood from her nose and barely perceived the world outside the patrol car, rolling by. This memory was real, made even more real through recent realizations, and recalling it now was rendering it even more visceral than ever before. The knowledge of Present Emily collided with the memories of Younger Emily and they coalesced. They coagulated.

She passed by another stone portal, almost screaming at what she felt from behind it. Younger Emily did not know what awaited there, but Present Emily did not want to see it, and the two of them refused to push it open and look inside.

“Yeah, you keep walkin’, you hypocritical asshole. Eager to discover the truth, but just another chickenshit,” the demon said.

Instead of the inevitable laughter she expected to ensue, the demon growled with anger, reflecting a rage welling in her bowels, only overshadowed by the terror and fear now gripping her heart and driving her down the stairs, faster and faster.

“He’s dead, Emily. Julian’s dead, and it’s all your fault,” the thing snarled.

Its hoofed feet thundered down the steps behind her, keeping pace with ease, the hulking presence chasing her down deeper into this pit of insanity.

“No,” she finally dared to reply, but the demon mimicked her word, mocking her. Then she repeated herself, “No, that’s not my fault. Not like with the others. Not everything is my fault.”

“Maybe not directly, but what if you never entered his life? What if he hadn’t been on that parking lot, that day? He might not have had some crazy stalker cave his skull in with a two-by-four. So maybe it’s still your fault,” the demon growled.

“Shut up,” she said. Then screamed it. “Shut the fuck up!”

“Yeah, shut the fuck up if you’re not going to do anything about it, right, Emily?”

The demon’s voice reached a fever pitch and now chased her. She ran, taking multiple steps down the well in strides, pushing through the narrow pathways, wasting no time to wonder how the demon’s sheer mass could fit through here behind her. The stink of fear erupted from her pores in a sheen of sweat, the heat of this hell engulfing her, and the stench of burning flesh rising from the depths.

The stone walls wriggled. They were not made of obsidian anymore, but worms. Millions and millions of pitch-black worms, things that did not belong in reality but were all too real. Slippery, alive. Writhing, as the mass reached out to her like walls of tiny fingers covered in myriads of chomping little mouths, provoking a shriek of terror to escape Emily’s throat, and the demon to laugh its sadistic laugh at her.

“Run, Emily! Run away, you disgusting fucking coward!” The demon spoke in many voices, those of Chris, her father when he slapped her cheek, the monster on her heels, and even herself. They all blended together. One of many, many in one.

There it was again: rocking back and forth, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. White, padded walls all around.

Was she truly there? Was this even real? Was her entire life just a lie? Figments of her imagination, trying to make sense where none was to be made?

The stairs split into different pathways and Emily knew what to do. Present Emily wiped more blood from her nose and stared at her bloodied fingers in disbelief. Younger Emily had discovered her destiny, was glimpsing horrors from her future. Of the three possible ways to go, she squeezed into the narrowest one, screaming silently as she felt the wriggling mass of worms engulf her with the heat of a thousand fires, causing her skin to blister and painfully peel back. She clenched her teeth shut and feared the things entering through any orifices but pushed forward.

She had to live. She had to fulfill her destiny. She remembered all the people who died, or rather, those who would die.

She could change the world, but only if she didn’t give in now.

“Shit, I’ll give you a tissue once we reach the precinct,” Stanton said. His offer; his words helped, centering her in the now. The words he spoke bled through into that dark place where Younger Emily found herself, an unknown voice from a stranger from another world, or another time, piercing the veils of different realities, and guiding her through this horrid darkness.

The demon grunted and cackled and choked on the worms entering its maw as it squeezed itself through the narrow, suffocating passageway, following Emily without fail. It clawed its way forth, causing a cacophony of disgusting squelching noises, and sensations that reminded her of bones snapping to the point of sharp edges bursting through skin and protruding from human flesh, and teeth gnashing on exposed innards with blood spurting out, gushing, and the reek of feces in the air.

Her eyes long clamped shut, she dared not breathe but had to, and felt first worms trying to wriggle their way into her mouth. She sputtered and spat them out with an angry scream, controlling the rage that drove her, clawing her own way forth, mimicking the demon’s motions. Or it mimicked hers.

The stairs went upwards and she ascended, pulling her way through the narrowest spot of these walls of worms, fleeing up the stairs. The demon tumbled, but then continued giving chase on all fours, like the beast that it truly was. Like the beast in the back of her head, the madness always just a few steps behind her.

“You can’t get away from me,” Stinky Jim cackled, only to abruptly choke on his words, gagging and coughing up more worms. Through rows of bloodied, gritted teeth, he said, “I am always with you, Emily.”

She tripped, fell, scraped her hands on the jagged edges of the obsidian steps, right in front of one of the names inscribed upon the stairs: Xerxes. Younger Emily blinked, did not quite register what it meant until years later, first dismissing this memory and experience as a bad trip, induced by popping too much acid and being tired out of her mind.

Screams echoed through the infinite, infernal stairwell, bouncing off the walls and curdling her blood until she realized: the screams were her own. The demon’s growling matched them, blended in with them, and she screamed in pain as claws dug into her back, lifting her onto her feet and pushing her up a few steps until she ran on yet farther, stumbling forth and upwards, ever away from the madness that followed her wherever she went, ever away from the things below.

The things below the surface of her mind. The horrid things she pushed deep down to still her mind; the darkness she drowned in whiskey and cigarettes even as she grew older.

This could have been her awakening but she skidded right past it. It wouldn’t be for years until she had her world turned upside down. Never realizing the power she held. The demon followed closely, keeping her blood pumping and the adrenaline flowing like fire in her veins.

She reached a stone portal at the top of the stairs and pushed it open. Instead of meeting resistance and stone grinding upon stone once more, it swung open with ease. She burst right through it and stumbled again.

Catching her breath, wheezing, lungs screaming but only pained sounds emerging from her lips, she looked around. There was no demon behind her. Younger Emily, with her pink hair, and her piercings, and completely stoned, stood in Rodney’s basement. Behind her was only the door to the boiler room.

Rodney slept on the couch, curled up into a fetal position. Carlos slept on the chair, sprawled out, still blanketed by some empty plastic wrappers. Static on the TV screen.

Emily ripped the door to the boiler room open, needing to know if that had been real, but there was no hellish stairwell behind it. Just the regular old boiler room that it should have been, reeking of oil.

The demon’s laughter echoed in her mind. She checked the time, noting how many hours had passed and chalking this whole experience up to a bad acid trip after all. She didn’t go home, afraid to be followed or stalked out there in the dark and cold and wet autumn streets, all alone.

Even though she found blood when she wiped her nose, Younger Emily figured it fit. Demons and hell weren’t real. She didn’t have the power to control minds or enter strange otherworlds.

She curled up on the end of the couch, wrapping herself in a smelly old blanket that Rodney should have washed weeks ago. Although she thought the nightmarish imagery and things she had just witnessed would keep her up until the other two boys woke up, exhaustion dragged her into the realm of sleep within minutes.

Emily sat in the back of Stanton’s car, finally escaping from this memory. She looked out the window, at the people in the streets of New Haven. Instead of reading their minds, scanning their thoughts, and testing the limitations of her newfound powers, she decided against any of that.

“I’m still here,” the demon said—Stinky Jim. He sat right next to her, just out of sight.

The fear welled up again, churning in her guts as if the monster gripped her stomach with a claw and twisted.

“I’ll always be with you, Emily. Just one step behind. You ever want the security of that little padded room—to surrender all responsibility, let the world sort itself out and sink into darkness while you drool in the corner—you just turn back. Let me take the wheel,” Stinky Jim said. He cackled again, showing no hint of mercy.

“Or you keep going deeper down, scratchin’ at those wriggling walls, and dive into those lakes of blood and shit and fire. Find out what’s beneath the surface. Drown in the secrets of those things below, or spit ‘em out and curse the world with your wretched knowledge.”

More cackling.

Emily clamped her eyes shut. She willed Stinky Jim to shut up.

She centered herself. Pushed away every thought. Blocked it all out—she had gained that much control over it now. Focused.

Breathed.

Pushed the demon deep down, where it would lurk. And wait.

With the things below.

—Submitted by Wratts

#spoospasu #spookyspaghettisundae #horror #short story #writing #my writing #literature #spooky #fiction #submission #mage #the awakening #Emily Graves #demon #telepathy #mind reading #mind control #teleportation #bending space #altered reality #drug #LSD #weed #drinking #alcoholism #control #worms #hell #inferno #nightmare

[notalittlebutalottie]

hellooo. So glad you are doing drabbles. Could you do something where Klaus and Caroline momentarily die. And while they are dead they meet Caroline parents and Bill forbes is so pissed and all like 'seriously caroline?Klaus freaking Mikaelson?' and Liz did not see that coming.

First of all, thank you for sending the request! This is my first of three drabble requests to be made so far so I will be getting through them in this coming week! I loved writing this so I hope you enjoy it!

♥♥♥ KLAROLINE DRABBLE REQUEST #1: A Trip to the Afterlife ♥♥♥

Caroline shot up, gasping for air and for clarity as she found herself lying on the floor of her bedroom. She scrambled to her feet, feeling a slight wobble, but she was quickly intercepted by the warm arms of her mission partner.

“It’s okay, love. I’ve got you,” Klaus murmured into her ear before slowly turning her around to face him. “I’m glad you could join me in the afterlife. I was beginning to worry.”

She felt like her brain was lagging as it took a moment to respond, a quiet laugh escaping her lips.

“What do you mean? It’s every girl’s dream to die beside her boyfriend during a Wiccan ritual! How could I ever reconsider?” she rolled her eyes, her voice light as she pushed gently against his chest.

He bared his teeth in a grin, “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Her view was a little hazy, and it took a moment gather her bearings and the situation at hand. Klaus’ appearance was rather unsettling as it felt like she was staring at two overlaying and slightly out of sync copies of him. Being dead (well, semi-dead) was just as Bonnie said it would be: dream-like.

“Drink this,” Bonnie ordered, handing the pair two vials of blue liquid. “It’ll keep you from fully crossing over and should give you enough time to get the answers.”

Caroline and Klaus shared an uneasy glance but clinked their respective vials before downing them. It was absolutely disgusting. They both instinctively shuddered as the liquid hit their taste-buds.

“Could you not have flavoured them with your witch capabilities?” Klaus asked flatly. “You can send us into the afterlife but you’re unable to add some strawberry flavouring?”

“Not exactly on the top of my list of priorities,” Bonnie answered sourly before holding a serious expression. “It’ll take effect in a few minutes. Have you guys ever experienced a false awakening? It’s like that.”

Caroline quirked an eyebrow, “Like...when you dream about waking up?”

Bonnie nodded and continued, “You won’t be fully dead so...it’s gonna seem a little weird until you adjust.”

“How weird?”

“At worst, it’ll feel like you’re on acid, but it should subside quickly.”

“Remind me why we’re sending Blondie and her My Little Hybrid for this? We can’t exactly afford to lose both of them if this goes wrong,” Damon interjected, leaning against Caroline’s wardrobe.

Caroline held a snicker, watching Klaus grumble at the comment.

“Watch it, mate. I just might have to--”

Abruptly, his upper half crashed into the previously prepared pillows around them.

“One down,” Damon smirked.

“Don’t you have anywhere better to be?” Caroline folded her arms, looking like a child as she sat with her legs crossed.

“Don’t you? Shouldn’t you be following his dying act?”

Her eyes widened and she looked at Bonnie for guidance, but she shrugged. You couldn’t begin to decipher the way some spells and potions worked as each person reacted differently.

Caroline sighed, taking the opportunity to manoeuvre Klaus into a more comfortable position.  It was only then that she felt her own body taking over to bring her into afterlife.

“How sweet,” Damon commented as he admired the couple’s intertwined position.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Klaus asked, concern dripping from his voice as he cupped her cheeks.

“Yeah,” she said with a shallow breath, “I feel like my body is still adjusting, but we need to make a move.”

He nodded, kissing her gently on the forehead and feathering kisses along her cheek. She couldn’t help but giggle and push him back, yet still clinging on to his shirt.

“Maybe ghost sex will help the adjustment?” he suggested, his tone both laced with humour and truth.

“No!” she squeaked but placed her lips on his gently, welcoming his tongue to wet her lips, but soon enough they were ripped apart as the bedroom door swung open to reveal the person she was wildly unprepared to see.

“Mom!” she exclaimed, hand still gripped on the fabric covering Klaus’ stomach. It was like she was a teenager again and being caught with a boy by her sheriff mother was her biggest worry.

Liz Forbes was stood in the doorway, jaw dropped and a bat hanging from her hand.

“Caroline...” she could barely make out the words, unable to comprehend no matter how much she looked at her daughter. “What...”

As it sank in, Caroline finally absorbed the realisation that she was seeing her mother for the first time in years since she had passed away. The memories of her funeral and Caroline’s subsequent choice to turn off her humanity flooded in through her eyes.

“Mom,” she sighed out shakily, rushing forward to hug her mother who reciprocated happily albeit still processing the moment, “I-I-I have so much I need to tell you about-- to ask you-- oh god-- the letter-- I--”

Klaus was soon placing a hand on the small of Caroline’s back.

“Love,” he began with a warm, yet firm, tone, “We need to focus on the task.”

The blonde nodded fervently, attempting to shake any distracting thoughts away. She backed away from her mother, who she couldn’t help but note as looking radiant regardless of the setting. Klaus immediately intertwined his fingers with her and squeezed her hand in a bid to calm her.

“What are you doing here?” Liz finally spoke with more assurance but wavered as she saw their hands linked and recalled the position she had found them in, “The both of you-- and you were just-- Caroline?”

“Cavorting--”

Klaus was halted with a smack to the chest.

“Mom,” she interrupted cautiously, “Klaus is my...boyfriend.”

She glanced at him, frowning at the smirk on his face.

"Well, I mean...” Liz pursed her lips, “Considering he’s tried to kill you and your friends a million times, I’m a little surprised, but I’m more concerned with why you’re here.”

“Oh, it was barely a thousand,” he muttered but retreated as he received a glare from both of the Forbes women.

“That doesn’t matter,” Caroline began, ignoring her mother’s amused eyebrow raise, “Do you know where dad is?”

“Your father?”

“He has some information that we need about an amulet. We need your help to find him.”

Liz had missed her daughter’s puppy-like eyes whenever she needed something from her. It had felt like an eternity since she had seen her daughter but she looked exactly the same despite the clearly updated wardrobe.

With a sigh, Liz nodded in understanding, “I can take you to him.”

                                                       ▬

Caroline’s mother had taken them to her father’s cabin, explaining that he rarely left unless absolutely necessary. It seemed that death wasn’t enough to breathe some life into Bill Forbes’ serious persona. On the way, Liz pressed further about the details of Caroline and Klaus’ relationship and when shut down, insisted she had a right to know and a need for some entertainment in her afterlife. Klaus was more than happy to take the reins in explaining their most recent history.

“Okay, this is it,” Liz slowed the car as they met the meticulously well-groomed cabin before them, allowing them to get out. “Caroline, please don’t get your hopes up. He’s been a bit testy even with my death.”

Her daughter nodded resolutely, “Got it. Wait here.”

Klaus began to step forward but she held a palm to his chest.

“You too.”

“Caroline,” he said concernedly, tilting his head.

“I need to do this alone. Besides, you and Mom can do some bonding,” she joked and shared a laugh with her mother who stood behind them.

He nodded, pressing his lips together in defeat.

Caroline took no time knocking and simply jimmied the door open, wandering in with a focus on finding her father. The front room looked just as it had the last time she was in the cabin and it had been a long time. It had been even longer since she’d seen Bill Forbes, and their last interactions weren’t particularly happy memories for her.

“Care Bear.”

She gasped quietly, finding him sat on the couch nearest to the fireplace.

“Dad.”

“I’m assuming this is a short visit. Unless--”

She shook her head and he rose from his seat, coming to meet her near the entrance. It was no surprise his voice perked up in the thought of her demise; he would rather her dead than a vampire.

“We’re only here for a short visit. You have information we need.”

“We? You’re not alone.”

She swallowed nervously, trying to keep on topic, “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Well, who is it?” he smiled, rushing to the driveway, “Bonnie? Elena?”

He cleared his throat as he found his answer, Caroline biting her lip as her gaze connected with Klaus’.

“Liz,” he greeted with indignation.

“Bill,” she responded with much the same feeling.

Klaus went to hold a hand out, signature dimpled smile on display, “Klaus.”

He soon turned his attention to the unforgettable face of the hybrid, body tensing into a defensive stance.

“I know who you are. You don’t forget the man who ruined the lives of countless people including mine and my daughter’s boyfriend,” he spat, recalling his attempt to help Tyler break the sire bond, an act that indirectly led to his demise.

“Hardly a loss considering,” Klaus argued back, but bit his tongue immediately as he saw Caroline’s unimpressed reaction.

Bill seemed to accept that as a challenge, puffing his chest out as he moved closer.

Caroline quickly moved to stand in front of Klaus, her hand naturally taking its place around his wrist.

“What is he doing here with you, Caroline?”

He was less intimidating after all her years as a vampire, but she still felt the assertive tone in her father’s voice.

“We need your help. We need to know where the Amulet of Tamar is. We know the Council had it.”

“Which still begs the question ‘why is he here?’.”

“I, um,” she searched for the reason but it had been so long since she’d had to make excuses for his presence around her.

“It’s okay, love,” Klaus whispered into her ear. She inwardly groaned; his smooth voice was not something she needed at this moment.

She glanced at her mother, who, too, gave encouragement in the form of a smile.

“We’re...”

Bill squinted brutally at the hybrid.

“We’re dating, okay!”

“Ouch. I would have said we were a little further along than that, love,” Klaus chimed in but he immediately ducked his head guiltily.

“What?!” Bill practically exploded.

“Bill,” said Liz, “she’s happy.”

“My daughter is not dating that monster!”

He flailed his arms about and began pointing at the couple, which only made Klaus pull Caroline closer into him.

“For Christ’s sake, Bill, you’re dead,” Liz quickly pointed out, coming in between them.

“But him?!”

“I’ll admit I was a little surprised...but I’m sure Caroline made these...choices in sound mind! We don’t really get a say in the matter as ghosts.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Klaus took charge, stepping up to meet Bill, “Tell us where the amulet is.”

Despite the clear imbalance of power, Bill scoffed and held his hands to his hips.

“I’d rather die again before I help you.”

“I’m sure we can arrange that.”

“Daddy,” spoke Caroline, finally unleashing a demanding voice before softening as he focused on her, “Please.”

Bill Forbes tapped his foot stubbornly but faltered under his daughter’s gaze.

“Okay. It’s...” he began but cut himself off.

Caroline became annoyed at her father’s games, but quickly realised Klaus had vanished.

The potions had worn off and Caroline was next.

“Tell me now.”

Bill stammered suddenly, a change from his previous stubborn antics, “It’s behind the painting of the First Council in the basement of the Council Building.”

“Thank you,” Caroline sighed out. She took one long look at her parents, hoping to capture her last moments with them even if they were under dire circumstances.

Liz immediately took her daughter into a hug, struggling to pull herself back. Caroline shivered mildly as her mother cupped her cheeks, smiling sadly. She felt her body trying to pull her back into the real world but she held on as much as she could.

“It’s unfortunate that I...we,” she glanced at Bill, “had to miss so much.”

Caroline sniffled as she endured her watery eyes, hoping not to let them spill over.

“I love you.”

“I love--” Liz began to speak but in a flash, Caroline, too, was gone.

Liz took a couple steps back, holding back the tears that threatened her eyes.

“I should have staked him. Could have kept him here longer,” Bill muttered.

“Shut up, Bill.”

#klaroline #the vampire diaries #klaroline fanfiction #caroline forbes #klaus mikaelson #fanfiction #the originals #drabble

[ayearofpike]

Black Knight (Witch World, Vol. 2)

Simon Pulse, 2014 441 pages, 9 chapters + prologue and epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-6734-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Bl 2014 OCLC: 1065025018 Released December 2, 2104 (per B&N)

A month after her connection, Jessie Ralle starts dreaming about a young thief who mysteriously disappears in a flash of light. On the ninth night of the same lucid dream, she herself sees the flash, and wakes up next to the thief and four others in transport to a deserted jungle island. There are no ideas, no instructions, no obvious goals. There’s just a clue, a plaque mounted near their drop-off point that indicates that six groups just like theirs are here, but only one will make it out alive.

In other words: Remember that world-building we had in the first book, where it was implied that Jessie and her baby daughter were going to be integral components to the new and evolving leadership among the witch council? Remember the difficulty and heartbreak of Jimmy only being alive in one half of her life? Remember the potential new bonds of realizing her father was active in her upbringing, and could be again in both worlds? Well, fuck all that — let’s have a Hunger Games. 

OK, technically this is more like Battle Royale, and Pike actually makes a reference to it as the young adults acclimate to their surroundings. But it is undeniable the influence that Suzanne Collins had on YA fiction, and certainly YA sci-fi/fantasy/analogues. In the wake of Katniss Everdeen, the market felt like it made a hard shift from doomed supernatural romances to dystopian future societies. It would be irresponsible of Pike to not try to cash in on that.

But this book ... is lacking in this regard. Collins’ success was not just that she made us care about Katniss, but that we cared about the bigger problem endemic to her (and all the other contestants’) situation. And Pike doesn’t give us enough to care about here. We don’t know what the stakes are, beyond survival. We don’t know who these people are, where they come from, or what they have to live for. We don’t even know where they are or why. I’m assuming there was another book or two planned for this series that would eventually get us to the meanings and revelations of this battle and why they were chosen to fight it and what ultimately was to come out of it. But this shit was so unsatisfying and we care so little about anyone or anything here that I can’t imagine we’ll ever see resolution.

(Like, does Pike even care? He claimed when the first one came out that it was going to be his “finest work,” and that the series could go “over ten books.” But it’s been almost five years and we haven’t seen another one of these. He didn’t mention his newer works at ALL in that recent Electric Lit interview. So who knows?)

The biggest problem is that the characters and setting we already know makes such a drastic shift to accommodate this story. And, like, I get it. The model of the industry, especially when this book came out, almost requires that you have established characters and an ongoing storyline before you ever publish anything. But it doesn’t feel connected to what’s come before. At all. It’s a new place we’ve never seen, everyone in the action except Jessie is a new character (and remember there are thirty-five of them), and there is almost zero resolution or explanation for what’s happening. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been literally anybody. Like, this could just as easily have been a Sita book, and maybe it would have actually made more sense, except that there’s no other vampires left. It probably shouldn’t have been a book about Jessie, who has a uniquely important position in witch world in light of the high-profile deaths she’s overseen and her responsibility to the Special. None of what happens in this story fits with anything that’s led up to it, and we are left a) wondering why the hell we’re reading this and b) ultimately unsatisfied.

I don’t even necessarily feel like there’s much to summarize, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because I’m dedicated.

We start with a chapter about the thief — Marc — whose MO is to hide in the trunk of a fancy car he’s valet-parked, wait for the owner to take him home, and then make off with the jewelry she (usually it’s a she) was wearing after she falls asleep. This heist is going to be his last job, because he doesn’t want to risk someone putting together a pattern that these high-profile thefts all came in the wake of the victims having been at his theater. So he steals the lady’s necklace and then her car to safely get out of Dodge, but when he stops to take a leak the light appears.

This is the dream Jessie has for over a week. The rest of the story is told from her immediate perspective, in first-person present tense just like a good little dystopian. She’s wondering about the dream, but she’s more concerned about who she just saw in the mall: the Highlander and President Coroner, just sitting there eating ice cream like they didn’t both get fatal holes in their chests last month. And yes, this is in witch world, where they died. She tails them and discovers they’re staying with (of course) the Alchemist, who tells Jessie there’s a reason for this and she needs to be prepared for ... something big, he isn’t clear on it. The Council has more info, maybe: the bad witches need to replace their leadership, and Jessie is first in line because she facilitated the killing. But what about the fact that she just saw President Coroner? The Council has an answer to that as well: one of the witch genes allows its bearer to control time, and so probably the Alchemist has that and has brought her and the Highlander forward from the past for some reason.

So Jessie goes home and has the dream again, only this time when the light appears she feels as though she’s yanked from her bed. She wakes up in the real world (and yes, I have expressed my hate for these names, but I’m sticking with them for consistency’s sake) in some kind of a shipping container with five other dudes, all of them wearing identical green outfits and matching unbreakable bracelets. And yes, one of them is Marc. The others are a precocious genius who’s going to MIT at 16, a quiet and scared Korean girl, an Israeli military fighter, and a Sudanese farmer who exudes strength and just seems to accept the situation. All of them were snatched at about the same time, globally and not locally — morning for the Americans, evening for Africa and Israel, middle of the night in Korea. But as far as Jessie can tell, she’s the only witch. So what is this about? 

They don’t get very far before the next chapter, where Jessie wakes up in witch world and realizes she’s in some deep shit. She spends all day trying to find Marc, but like ... if he’s not connected, how is this going to help? She ends up not doing anything about it, and awakens again in the real world on some kind of volcanic jungle island. They find the aforementioned plaque and immediately realize that they’re going to need to work together and find a place to defend. They also need food, and so Jessie has to start showing her hand when she catches a bunch of fish just by grabbing them out of the water. They find a cave to hide out in, but they also see some fast-moving people in gray outfits, presumably another set of contestants.

The Israeli wants to hunt them down — kill before we get killed, she says — and so everyone except the brain and the Korean go tracking. What they find is a grotesque death scene: five bodies in various states of dismemberment. It’s not the gray people there, though: it’s a giant Swede who has a deal for Jessie. He wants her to kill her humans as a show of faith, and he’ll do the same, and then they can team up against the other witches. Because of course he’s gotten all the information already, having made better use of his interim day in witch world than stalking some boy. Jessie refuses, and they fight, only the Swede has a healing factor that works almost immediately. Luckily some of Jessie’s time-controlling gene kicks in and she manages to run away, but her teammates aren’t so lucky. Another witch shows up and throws motherfucking LAVA at them, killing the Israeli and spearing the Sudanese to a tree.

So her next day in witch world needs to be more productive than the last one. Jessie calls up the Council, who is all pissed off that she didn’t come to them already. To survive, they say, she’s gonna have to go back to the Alchemist, because obviously this is what he wanted to prepare her for. So she shows up and talks to the Highlander, who starts working with her on fighting. Specifically, he forcibly activates her telekinesis power by throwing her off a cliff. So after this she’s gonna want to unwind with her family and enjoy their time together, right? Nope — she goes straight to Marc’s house and tells him the world’s least believable story, ending in the prospect that she might want to try to kill him so his witch powers activate in the other world. But haven’t we already said that killing someone in witch world means they’re totally dead? Technicalities. So she gets home and, oh shit, Jimmy’s mad that she went on a date with some random dude without talking to him at all about her troubles! What a silly boy!

When they wake up in the real world again, the Sudanese warrior is totally healed. Apparently the Korean girl has a super-powered healing factor even though she’s not a witch, tied somehow to the death of her twin sister, who presumably channels the power through her. They’ve also been offered a truce by a couple of other witches, not the ones who tried to kill them last night. So they partner up, but the Korean girl’s healing factor is instantly undone when she tries to fix one of the other dude’s teammates but they die randomly on the walk. (Probably actually secretly strangled by the lava-thrower, who Jessie learned yesterday can also make herself invisible.) They talk about the bracelets, which have some kind of weird stone inside, and one of the other witches says he’s found the source: a giant wall that blocks off half of the island they’re on, which you can only see if you climb to the top of the volcano.

As they’re walking, the gray team attacks ... sort of. These people are short and pale, almost albinos, but they move faster than any human can and Jessie knows they have some kind of group mind that allows them to work together. They surround the group and lure them into a battle with the giant Swede, and while they’re fighting him the invisible lava thrower murders all the humans except five: Marc (who does take a poisoned knife to the back), brain boy, Korean healer, and two dudes on a new witch’s team. Jessie manages to lop off her hand and collect her bracelet before she totally vanishes and gets away. Oh, and the other witch has captured the leader of the albinos, and is holding her hostage to attempt to lure in the rest of them. She doesn’t talk, but her telepathy is unsettling at best.

Jimmy shakes her awake in witch world and tells her to do whatever she has to in order to survive. If that means blowing another dude, whatever. So Jessie calls up the Council, which gives her a little more info on the two witches she’s teamed up with. Watch out for the second one, they say (not the one who’s tied up an albino), because he might have choked his last boyfriend to death and successfully covered it up. She goes back to the Alchemist’s house, where President Coroner pins her down about why their present selves can’t help Jessie train. So she has to limit just what she says about their deaths, and in turn they limit telling her that they traveled to Jessie’s funeral in the near future. 

Fuck this training, then, right? Jessie figures the only thing to do is help Marc live, and to do that she’ll have to activate his witch genes. But to convince him to die she’s probably gonna have to give up the booty ... only she can’t do it, she’s too busy thinking of Jimmy for a change in this novel. He wants to go through with it anyway (the death, I mean) but she has second thoughts and isn’t ready to put him through it. So they fall asleep next to each other and wake up in a cave on the side of the volcano, where the other two witches are fighting. It seems the first dude had his teammates on watch, but they mysteriously choked to death in the night while the second dude was backing them up. Huh. But they have to keep moving, climbing to the place where the second dude said he saw the wall, for ... like, reasons. 

They find another cave near the top of the volcano, and inside there are drawings showing a woman who looks suspiciously like the Council president touching a bracelet to a giant wall. They have to learn more, but the second witch isn’t eager to reapproach the wall. Brain Boy wants to go, so they agree that Chokey Witch can watch Healing Girl and Slowly Dying Marc while the rest of them investigate. Brain Boy touches the wall and freezes, and even though Jessie knocks him away immediately he senses that a lot more time passed, and he’s seen things that happened in witch world but not the real world. So Jessie wants to try, and when she touches it she’s suddenly playing red queen with the dead gambler from the first book, who reminds her that there’s more to the game than just the next card in her own hand. What? I don’t know.

She comes to on the ground with a lot of screaming going on. The Swede is back, so she and the first witch have to fight him. But he forgets Jessie’s plan and attacks weird, getting stabbed in the gut by one of the flying spears Jessie is controlling with her new telekinesis. Oh, and here’s Invisible Lava Thrower too, about to kill Brain Boy! He acknowledges that there’s nothing he can do and succumbs so Jessie has enough time to grab the Swede’s head and crank it around 360 degrees. Lava Girl vanishes, and Jessie picks up our other witch and carries him back to the cave, which is suddenly being guarded by all six albino dwarves. The other witch says that in this proximity, killing the leader will cause all of them to die because of the group mind, so Jessie sneaks up and lops off  her head, and then goes inside the cave by herself.

Sure enough, there’s Lava Girl, holding Chokey at machete-point. Marc is mostly submerged in a freezing stream, and Healing Girl is just, like, there. Chokey fights free, but of course Lava Girl hits him with ... you know, because they’re INSIDE A FUCKING VOLCANO. Only Jessie has realized something: these bracelets with the rock inside that matches the wall control their physical connection to the island. Lava Girl looks sick, pale, and weak since she’s lost hers, and when Jessie casually chucks it into the lava she drops dead.

And now Healing Girl comes to. She wants to try to help revive Marc before it’s too late, and wants to study the poisoned knife. Only she then tries to stab Jessie with it. Turns out that when she was alone with the first witch, the one hiding outside with a spear through his guts, he used his strongest power: mental suggestion. He turned Healing Girl into a slave, designed to kill those who weren’t expecting it. Jessie uses all her mental powers to break the hold, upon which Healing Girl ... jumps right into the motherfucking lava herself. 

I don’t know, I guess because we’re getting close to the end.

So Jessie disguises herself as Healing Girl and goes to confront the last witch standing besides herself. Who, surprise, does NOT have a spear through his guts. Apparently he can disguise himself too, in addition to the hypnosis. So he tells her to kill herself with the knife, but she stabs him in the lungs just before dropping her disguise, and then ... slits her wrists.

So Marc can live.

Because only one can survive, and of course it should be some dude we just met rather than the main character of the LAST TWO BOOKS. THE ENTIRE SERIES THUS FAR.

But as Jessie’s soul is floating away, she sees something. She sees herself, only older. Even though I thought once you were connected you stopped aging. And she tells herself that it’s not over, and they can go wherever they want to go ... or whenever, rather.

The epilogue takes place at Jessie’s memorial service (not actually a funeral, because there is no body, Jessie’s just been missing for a month but because Marc is now connected they think they know what happened) where Jimmy approaches Marc and they talk about what they know. In particular, Jimmy asks Marc to watch after his real-world son, who oh yeah there was an unfollowed thread where they got a DNA report that said he wasn’t actually Jimmy’s kid but it was also prepared by Jessie’s still-mostly-absentee father who has an agenda in ascending the ranks of the Council so its authenticity is questionable. But then they talk about Jessie and ... neither one thinks she’s actually dead.

And that.

Is the end of Black Knight.

I can sort of pick out the seeds that Pike is sowing in this story. I can start to sense the coming trails and paths the characters might walk in the supposedly potential ten-book series about witches. But like. You just essentially killed your MAIN CHARACTER. Your NARRATOR. And we don’t actually care about this jewel thief guy, who by all appearances is a BAD PERSON. But you went ahead and put him in the forefront. 

Is it any wonder this series fizzled out? Part of why I (and maybe a lot of us) got tired of dystopian fiction is that so many authors felt the need to keep raining shit on their protagonists. And yeah, this is another Hunger Games thing, but there’s a reason there — the dictatorial leadership fighting to keep rebellion down. To be perfectly honest, even though I see that reason, I didn’t like it there either. At some point, I wanted Collins to HELP Katniss rather than repeatedly jamming a boot in her face. We want to trust our authors to care about the protagonist the way we’re supposed to care. So when writers keep making their characters climb uphill, for no reason other than to try to get readers to buy the next one and see how they get over the obstacles, it becomes stale. If they obviously don’t care, why should we?

[theultimatetamer]

Interview with Francesco Artibani

Monster Allergy Week, Day 7

Free-for-all

And here you have the second and last interview of the day, this time with our lord and saviour, Mr. Francesco Artibani. Thank you so much once again for your kindness and for this oportunity!

Again, huge thanks to @shikadora-momo for her incommensurable help!

If you want to read the original interview in Italian, click here.

If you want to read the interview in English, keep reading.

1. Let’s start with a small introduction. For better or worse, many fans came across Monster Allergy through the TV series and they might not know much about its original creators. Therefore, who is Francesco Artibani?

I’m a scriptwriter for comics and cartoons and I have been working in this field for many years, dedicating myself mostly to series for young audience. Monster Allergy is a series I have created along with Katja Centomo, while the graphic authors are Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa (it’s a four parents series). The adventures of Zick and Elena were born for the comic books and later on they became an animated series.

2. Aside from the one that brought us here, in which other projects can we find your signature?

I’m the author of the series Kylion for Disney Italy together with the designer Giulio De Vita, while in France I have created Il boia rosso (with Ivo Milazzo), Jimmy Jones (with Alessio Coppola) and Willy Wonder (with Silvio Camboni). Together with Lello Arena I have created the adventures of Scardaglione and Maruzzelli in the pages of Lupo Alberto (Alberto the Wolf). Monster Allergy is for sure my longest running series and the one which has given me more satisfactions (and keeps doing so…).

3. Has your work always been focused on the comic industry or have you worked in the animation field as well?

I have always divided my work between both fields. As for comics books, the list of projects is quite long but I’ll try and be concise: I write for the weekly publication Mickey Mouse since 1992 and, aside from hundreds of stories about mice and ducks, I have written the series PK, W.I.T.C.H and Kylion. Outside of Disney I have written tons of episodes for Alberto the Wolf, but in all this time I have also had the luck to take part in other projects, from Martin Mystére to Lys, from L’Omino Bufo to some series for the French market. In the animation field I have always written for Winx Club, but for Rainbow I have also scripted Tommy & Oscar, Pop Pixie and obviously the two seasons of Monster Allergy. Among other TV series scripted by me I remember Alberto the Wolf, The extraordinary adventures of Jules Verne, The adventures of Marco & Gina, Monsters and Pirates, Spike Team, Egyxos, Bu-Bum!.

4. How did you come to the conclusion that you wanted to devote your time to writing stories aimed –generally- at young audience? Do you have any advice for those who are dreaming of being able to do the same one day?

Actually I found out I loved writing while being a designer. I started working as an animator in a cartoon studio and working on the storyboards I got interested in scripting. Following this interest I gradually moved to writing until I fully abandoned my work as designer (published on Alberto the Wolf and Tiramolla - in the early 90’s, but not long after that I was already working as a full-time scriptwriter).

I don’t have any advices to give in particular; if you really have the passion and determination for this job the only thing left to do is to be prepared and study a lot, work a lot, because out there it’s full of talented people and this competition is merciless. For scriptwriters it is necessary to read a lot, to be informed, to be curious about everything - you have to be like sponges and absorb as much information as you can to transform it into new ideas.

5. Let’s talk a little bit about Monster Allergy now. ¿How and when was this story born?

It was born during a car trip with my wife, talking about projects and ideas that, as readers, we would have liked to find in a bookshop. We got excited about these characters and this bizarre world that started to take shape based on what we as readers would have liked to read.

6. How did you and Katja Centomo end up working with Alessandro Barbucci and Barbara Canepa in this project?

We knew each other already and we shared the idea with them.

7. Which were the first characters to come to life? It has come to our attention that there is a beautiful anecdote behind Elena’s peculiar name, is that true? Did anything similar happen with other characters as well?

Zick came first being the “engine” of the story.

Elena was named after our daughter who –at the time we created Monster Allergy– was still in Katja’s belly. And given that on her first ultrasound she looked like a potato, that’s how we found a nice last name for Zick’s friend.

As for the other characters, we followed our instinct and the inspiration of the moment, having tons of fun.

8. Where did you find the inspiration to create this fantastic world and, in particular, all the different species of monsters and the fun facts that we can find in the “Manuals”, gathered nowadays in the Monster Allergy Extra? Did they result from random ideas or is there an intention behind them?

There was a huge enthusiasm around Monster Allergy, it was a particularly happy and fun moment on the creative point of view. The rules of the world of monsters were born as a consequence of this spirit. For sure there was the will to give life to a small and coherent expanding universe.

9. This is something about which we fans have been theorizing a lot. Where does the story of Monster Allergy take place? Is it Italy, the USA or a little bit of both?

It’s a world of fantasy where things are all mixed up, a sort of AmEurope or something like that. For sure Zick and Elena will never go on a trip or holiday in a real city.

10. The first finale of this comic book, issue #29, was it the one you had in mind from the beginning or did you suddenly see yourselves forced to give an end to the story for some reason?

The editor decided to interrupt the series and notified us with little advance, so we had to give the series a finale against the clock. Certainly it wasn’t the end we wished for (in fact, we didn’t even have one in mind yet…) but we managed to make it as open as possible.

11. How and why did Monster Allergy come back after all these years?

We felt that, thanks to the TV series being aired over and over, the story had managed to gather a large and devoted audience, plus the readers of the comic books were still there. The biggest reason for Monster Allergy to return was our editor Tunué who believed in it and worked hard to bring the series back in bookshops, releasing a marvelous reprint and producing new stories.

12. Is there a reason in particular why you didn’t pick up the story where you left off and decided that time should have passed for the characters as well?

That seemed like an unusual idea for a comic - hence it was perfect for Monster Allergy. Usually in comic books characters never age, but we wanted to bring back our characters after they had grown up, just like the readers of once had grew up to become young adults. In their “evolved” version the characters have many more narrative opportunities to follow and this is a great thing.

13. Do you know yet how many issues will Monster Allergy Evolution have? Is there an specific reson why it is an annual publication?

We would like to carry on with at least one volume per year; producing a title like this is very time and money consuming, and all the authors of Monster Allergy are busy with other projects as well, so getting them all together for a new adventure is complicated. But we stay optimistic and hope that this hiatus between issues will decrease with time.

14. Do you know if there is any chance that the issues will be published in other countries aside from Italy and Germany in the near future?

Tunué is working to sell the rights in other nations. I believe that you will have news regarding this issue very soon, with the arrival of Monster Allergy to other European countries and across the Atlantic.

15. To finish with, do you have any message for the fans that are going to read this?

The message can’t be other than a huge thank you for all the affection you keep showing to Zick, Elena, Bombo and all the other protagonists of the series. We truly hope we can keep you company for a long time.

#monster allergy #monster allergy week #maweek17 #maweek2012 #day 7 #interview #francesco artibani

[junker-town]

24 great books for quarantined sports fans

From ‘Ball Four’ to ‘Out of Sight’, here are a few books you can come back to over and over again

I love my books. They have traveled with me across the country and back again, prominently displayed in cheap bookcases throughout dozens of apartments around the Northeast. Currently, they are stretched out behind me in my home office where they will stay until the time comes to move off the grid. They will follow me there, as well.

I have read all of them at least once and several of them dozens of times. During periods of my life when I was without human companionship they were literally my only friends. That’s not said for sympathy. The life of a newspaper sportswriter in the 90s and early 2000s involved shitty hours and weekends, which pretty much negated any hopes of having a social life.

Through it all, my books were there for me. They demanded nothing but my time and gave me hours of entertainment.

I’m not particularly proud of my collection. There is very little literature to be found and only a handful of what one might refer to as great works. It mainly comprises sports books, rock star biographies, and a nearly complete set of Elmore Leonard novels.

Most of them are several decades old because I had to stop buying books at some point when I began to run out of room. I’m not linking to them because you can hopefully find an independent bookstore near you that would be thrilled for the business. Do them and humanity a favor.

Here are some of my favorites.

BASKETBALL

The Breaks of the Game: David Halberstam

This is the monster of all sports books, the one against which every basketball book is competing with in one way or another. If you know nothing of the NBA pre-LeBron James, this is where you should start. It’s a window into what feels like another universe, when pro basketball was a cult sport struggling for survival.

Loose Balls: Terry Pluto

I wrote about this one at length and won’t belabor the points I made back before the world came to a screeching halt. If you can’t get into the stories contained within these pages, I frankly don’t want to know you.

The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: The FreeDarko collective

It’s an exaggeration to say every person who heard the first Velvet Underground album went out and formed a band, just as it is to suggest that every writer who consumed FreeDarko wound up writing about basketball on the internet. But almost everyone who did was influenced by them.

The Miracle of St. Anthony: Adrian Wojnarowski

Long before he was the great and powerful Woj, the author spent an entire season with Bob Hurley’s St. Anthony Friars. It’s a masterful bit of storytelling that for my money is the absolute best of the surprisingly robust sub-genre of books about high school basketball.

Other contenders include The Last Shot by Darcy Frey, Fall River Dreams by Bill Reynolds and In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais.

The Jordan Rules: Sam Smith

Judging from the early reactions to the gigantic Bulls documentary, it’s quite clear a lot of you should get familiar with the source material. Smith’s book was shocking upon its release because it dared show Michael Jordan as he really was, without the buffed out Nike shine. It holds up, clearly.

Halbertsam’s Playing for Keeps picks up the story in 1998 and provided much of the narrative structure of the first two episodes.

Heaven is a Playground: Rick Telander

An all-time classic set on the courts of mid-1970s Harlem during a long, hot summer. There are a lot of books that tried to get at the soul of basketball, but this is the standard bearer. I’d really like to know whatever became of Sgt. Rock.

Others in this vein include The City Game by Pete Axthelm, Pacific Rims by Rafe Bartholomew and Big Game, Small World by Alexander Wolff.

Second Wind: Bill Russell

The best athlete autobiography of all time.

BASEBALL

Lords of the Realm: John Heylar

The inside story of how baseball owners conspired for almost a century to suppress salaries while refusing to integrate. It’s shocking how buffoonish management acted during the glory days of the national pastime. Required reading.

Marvin Miller’s A Whole New Ballgame is a worthy companion piece, as is Bill Veeck’s delightful, Veeck as in Wreck.

Ball Four: Jim Bouton

Scandalous upon its release in 1970, Ball Four contains the best line ever written in any sport book: “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”

I read Ball Four for the first time in fifth grade and immediately taught my classmates the words to “Proud to be an Astro”:

Now, Harry Walker is the one who manages this crew

He doesn’t like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw

But when we win our game each day,

Then what the fuck can Harry say?

It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro

Seasons in Hell: Mike Shropshire

There is nothing more soul-crushing than spending an entire season with a bad team. Shropshire covers three hilariously inept campaigns with the Texas Rangers, who as then-manager Whitey Herzog noted: “Defensively, these guys are really sub-standard, but with our pitching it really doesn’t matter.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: Jonathan Mahler

An underrated late addition to the pantheon that tells the story of the 1977 Yankees amid the backdrop of a city gone to hell.

You will notice there are few books in my collection about modern baseball. There’s a reason for that. The vast majority of them are peans to the wonders of middle management and therefore boring as hell.

FOOTBALL

Playing For Keeps: Chris Mortsensen

The incredibly bizarre — and largely forgotten — story of how the mob tried to gain influence in pro football via a pair of shady agents named Norby Walters and Lloyd Bloom. Good luck finding it.

Bringing the Heat: Mark Bowden

You may recognize Bowden from such masterworks as Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. You probably don’t remember that he spent a year with the Eagles after the death of Jerome Brown. As honest and unflinching a look at pro football as you will ever find.

North Dallas Forty: Peter Gent

The only piece of sports fiction on my list is not so fictional at all. Gent’s thinly-veiled account of his own life as a receiver for Tom Landry’s Cowboys is shocking and brutal and sad and poignant. I make time to read it every year.

I used to have more football books, back when I cared about the sport.

MEDIA

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail: Hunter S. Thompson

The Vegas one is more popular and Hell’s Angels is a stronger work of reportage, but for a dose of pure Gonzo insanity, this is the book I come back to more often than not.

The Boys on the Bus: Timothy Crouse

The companion piece to Thompson’s lurid account, Crouse plays it straight and lays bare the bullshit facade of campaign reporting. Almost 50 years later, we have still learned nothing.

The Franchise: Michael McCambridge

Details the glory days of Sports Illustrated, reading it now feels like an obituary. It was fun once, this business of writing about sports.

MUSIC

Heads, a Biography of Psychedelic America: Jesse Jarnow

My favorite book of the last few years, Jarnow takes us on a bizarre trip through the byzantine world of psychedelic drug networks connecting it through the career of the Grateful Dead and into modern-day Silicon Valley. I’m waiting for the followup on Dealer McDope.

Not music, but as a companion piece, Nicholas Schou’s Orange Sunshine tells the even-crazier tale of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, who took over the LSD trade and invented hash smuggling by stuffing surfboards with primo Afghani hash and shipping them back to California.

The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones: Stanley Booth

Reported while on tour with the Stones at the height of their powers circa Let it Bleed, Booth took 15 years to write the damn thing. By then the Stones were already an anachronism. It’s all there, though. Sex, drugs, more drugs, and unbelievable access to the biggest rock ‘n roll band in the world.

This Wheel’s on Fire: Levon Helm with Stephen Davis

In which Brother Levon disembowels Robbie Robertson and exposes the lie at the heart of The Band. Robbie took the songwriting credit and all the money.

Satan is Real: Charlie Louvin

Astonishingly good read that is best consumed with Charlie and his brother Ira playing low in the background.

Mainlines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader

Lester is an acquired taste and not all of his ramblings hold up. I will always love him for despising Jim Morrison and completely nailing what made Black Sabbath important. Spoiler: They were moralists like William S. Burroughs.

Please Kill Me: Legs McNeil and Gillian Welch

The definitive oral history of punk rock, an essential document of a scene that launched a thousand mediocre bands and the Ramones, who ruled.

Shakey: Jimmy McDonough

A tour-de-force biography of Neil Young that loses steam toward the end when McDonough makes himself the subject. The stuff about Neil’s bizarre 80s period and his relationship with his son is heartbreaking.

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Michael Azerrad

Pretty much everything you need to know about bands like Mudhoney, Black Flag and Mission of Burma who wove together the musical underground through a patchwork collection of local scenes back when something like that was still possible.

ELMORE LEONARD

You can’t go wrong with anything Leonard writes, but Out of Sight is as good a place to start as any.

[racingtoaredlight]

RIP Eddie Van Halen

I’m going to keep this short and to the point.

Jimi Hendrix had the biggest impact on the modern electric guitar, Eddie Van Halen was next, and there isn’t another electric* guitar player that had anywhere near the impact of either, outside of maybe/probably Eric Clapton (and Jimmy Page, only if you’re feeling overly generous).  Culturally, musically, creatively...I’ve used this metaphor before, but it really works...in terms of music-world impact, if Jimi Hendrix was the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, Van Halen was whatever caused the Ice Age.

*Andres Segovia had the biggest impact on the guitar as an overall instrument...he’s obviously not Hendrix or Eddie, but there would not be a modern guitar without Segovia, period.

An entire decade...think back to what you were into musically back in 2010...from the very first Van Halen album, the proceeding decade was almost entirely influenced by the sound Eddie pioneered.  He was a genius in every sense of the musical word.  As absolute a fucking dynamo of a guitarist that existed, that I have zero problems comparing to virtuosos like Mozart and Charlie Parker.

Tastes regarding Van Halen’s actual music shouldn’t impact his legacy as an individual musician.  As a musician, I’ve always thought of him as a kamikaze.  Absolutely ZERO fear, taking risks other guitarists wouldn’t have even dreamed of taking, despite having classical technique he pushed himself to places where he’d occasionally get sloppy or go too far...because he never played guitar safe.

This isn’t subjective or my opinion or up for debate...it doesn’t matter if you liked their music or not, like the genre it spawned, like the grotesque excess...from the very first note Eddie played, the entire musical world changed dramatically.  There aren’t many musicians...forget guitarists...that can claim that kind of impact.

Aging isn’t optional, and that reckless, devil-may-care style on and off the stage certainly shortened the lifespan of a musical comet that burned so brightly.  He lost his fastball.  He got too deep into drugs, booze, and if you have a tobacco habit, you’re always rolling the dice.  All that stuff caught up to him.

I’m not really influenced by Van Halen directly (indirectly, absolutely).  My personal fond memories of Van Halen that go beyond his music is that he was my gateway into discovering one of my heroes, Allan Holdsworth.  The tapping that Van Halen pioneered was him trying to cop Holdsworth licks, but not having the legendarily massive hands that Holdsworth did.

Back when I was in Texas, I had the pleasure of playing one of his personal amps...a Marshall 50w Mark II that had been modded by Mike Soldano, that EVH used as his warmup amp backstage.  I was running with some older guys with boring jobs, who’s hobby was buying vintage guitar gear and recording.  My roommate introduced me to them, and I became the de facto session guy, getting to put all their new goodies through their paces on tape.

Playing this amp was an experience I’ll never forget.  My pants literally moved.  This isn’t some dumb penis joke, this is a the fucking sound waves moved my goddamned pants thing.  The tone was just absurd...exactly the type of sound you’d hear on the albums.  It was all there...running through “Aint Talkin’ Bout Love” and the tapping parts of “Eruption”...the Van Halen sound was there in all its glory.

Yesterday was a gut punch, and I’m not even a big Van Halen fan.  The man was such a brilliant musician, a virtuoso who played like he was suicidal, that the news of his death resonated pretty strongly.  Like I said, very few musicians throughout history completely change the game the very second they set foot on the cultural stage...and Van Halen was absolutely one of them.

[thelmasirby32]

Faster pages, stronger sales: Optimizing ecommerce site speeds

Research from Google suggests that the correlation between page load times and conversion rates is strong, especially on mobile web pages.

One of the simplest changes you can make to your website is limiting the data loaded as a visitor navigates through product listings.

If you can identify that pages are loading a lot of third-party Javascript files ahead of your body content, you’ll want to see how that can be rearranged.

More simple yet surprisingly quick things that can help speed up your ecommerce site.

For online retailers, the abandoned site/cart problem has many factors. Reducing the number of clicks to checkout, eliminating surprises in price displays and offering guest checkout options are some well-known ways to fight cart abandonment on an ecommerce site, but smart merchants are always searching for ways to keep potential customers from leaving the site before making a purchase.

Research from Google (among other surveys conducted in the last few years) suggests that the correlation between page load times and conversion rates is strong, especially on mobile web pages. In short, slow loading times are stopping sales in their tracks.

Speeding up page load can have a huge impact on your business. Just check out Google’s Test My Site tool, which can help you estimate load time’s impact on revenue based on the number of visitors to your site, your average conversion rate and average order value. Depending on your results, you may want to start small or jump into wholesale site adjustments to reclaim revenue lost to site abandonment. Let’s go through speed-oriented changes at three different levels of difficulty.

Level one: Simple yet quick changes you can make yourself 

Images on your website create the biggest data transfer need when someone loads up your page on their browser. One of the simplest changes you can make to your website is limiting the data loaded as a visitor navigates through product listings. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should remove images, it just means you should be smarter about how they’re used.

The simplest way to do this is to make sure your customer’s browser is loading the right size image for their needs. If they’re on mobile, they don’t need the same size product images as they would on desktop. You can manually add differently-sized images and set parameters for when they’re displayed, but your ecommerce platform should offer a way to make images responsive to the customer’s device. You upload the highest-quality image you have, and the user gets the size they need based on the device they are using.

Another best practice is to limit the number of items displayed at one time on each page. Don’t load 100 results per page when only 15 can fit on-screen at once. Instead, use “Load More” buttons and let shoppers tell your site when they’re ready for more. This allows shoppers to scroll segments of your product listings, without feeling daunted by dozens of pages of results to sift through, while also keeping load times ultra fast. Your page will only need to load a handful of images at a time when the user is ready to view them, and their overall scrolling and the shopping experience will be simplified.

Level two: You might need the help of your partners

As with images, reducing the amount of other data that needs to load when a user first visits your website will help speed up their experience. The content they encounter first on your site is called “above-the-fold” content and should be what loads first. You might be surprised to learn that plenty of websites load third-party widgets before getting to the actual content.

It’s easy to identify the way your HTML is structured – just open the developer tools on your browser and look through the page code. Near the top, you want CSS to load first, which appears as <link>. This controls the basic appearance of your site and you can use CSS in place of certain images or graphics to make your pages even less hefty to load. Next, you want to see the <body> of your page – the content your customer is waiting for – or, potentially, some javascript files, <script>, if some are absolutely required for the rest of the page to load.

This is where your partners come in. If you can identify that pages are loading a lot of third-party Javascript files ahead of your body content, you’ll want to see how that can be rearranged. However, going into your site backend and messing with code isn’t usually advisable. Create sandboxes for testing to make sure a change on one page doesn’t break the rest of your website. If you don’t have developer resources in-house, work with your ecommerce platform provider or domain host. They can help you set up sandboxes for your own testing, or identify and correct any page structure mishaps that might have been created as you added different tools and functions to your site.

Level three: Teamwork makes the dream work

Consistent experiences across desktop and mobile have been the goal for merchants since the iPhone’s introduction in 2007 launched the era of mobile browsing. In the 2010s, responsive design delivered significantly better mobile experiences and played a significant role in the shift of internet access taking place mostly on desktop to mostly on mobile.

Now, blending the functionality of websites with the simplicity of apps is the latest move to provide fast, simple mobile commerce experiences. Progressive web apps, (PWAs) which were introduced several years ago but are seeing more significant adoption now, have a few attributes that make them unique, and uniquely-suited to online sales.

PWAs are responsive and load incredibly fast, giving the sensation of instantaneous load times. They can work offline, thanks to progressive updates through service workers, and are secure because service workers require encrypted data transmissions. PWAs can be installed on mobile device home screens and support push notifications like apps, but can also be accessed and shared using URLs like websites.

In short, PWAs can solve the problems of slow page load speeds on desktop or mobile, but also unlock new ways for merchants to interact with shoppers, provide great digital experiences, increase loyalty and empower customers to advocate for the brand. You probably aren’t going to build a PWA alone, but brands who do find many benefits in the process.

When a potential customer visits an online store, it’s typically because they have some level of interest in the products sold there, which is why it’s frustrating for merchants to lose a sale once they have come that far. Don’t let page load times be the reason bail. There are many factors and many fixes like the ones we’ve reviewed here that can impact load speeds and keep customers happily shopping on your ecommerce site.

Jimmy Duvall is Chief Product Officer at BigCommerce.

The post Faster pages, stronger sales: Optimizing ecommerce site speeds appeared first on Search Engine Watch.

from Digital Marketing News https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/04/03/faster-pages-stronger-sales-optimizing-ecommerce-site-speeds/

[mellofellowblog]

Looking Backwards to Move Forwards

*WARNING: LONG INTROSPECTIVE LIFE STORY REFLECTIVE POST INCOMING*

As an aside from the daily exercises and actual songwriting that you don’t see here I’ve taken the plunge and started getting songwriting lessons as a kind of third prong to my attack on my writing process. Apart from a couple of songwriting workshops and little insights from my old guitar teacher at school over a decade ago my entire ‘songwriting journey’ has been just doing it, chipping away every now and then and glacially figuring out what works and what doesn’t. So this one on one learning experience is quite new to me and a little scary since it makes things really feel like i’m starting again, like a fully grown 30 year old going back to high school to study algebra or something. Well, i guess it’s probably a lot closer to going back to uni and getting a tutor, but even that gives off a feeling of going backwards to a part of my life that I’ve ‘moved on’ from. It might seem like i’m throwing everything I’ve built out the window and starting again this year with my overhaul, but I think its really more so that I am hyper focussing now on something that always had an air of “...and later I’ll put in the work and hone this properly”. That said I think its important to acknowledge where I’ve come from and give my old self a little bit of props despite the fact that I’m mentally burning all the progress I’ve made down, because really, although I hope this ‘reset’ helps improve my songwriting a lot and fixes areas that I have neglected over the years at the end of the day nothing can really erase the instincts I carry in regards to music that I’ve built up over the years. That and theres still a part of me that rejects the notion of putting myself out there as “starting again” when if I stop to think about it, I have actually put in a lot of work over my life so far. Obviously i still feel that I have a fair ways to go, but I thought it would be fun to look back at my humble beginnings and give a rough timeline of musical events that have got me to where I am today, with a rough focus on songwriting. So basically a TLDR mellofellow life history lesson that nobody asked for but I thought might be fun to do. Welcome to my musical “this is your life”

1998/1999?: My first guitar Not sure if i was 8 or 9, but at around that age on one of our family trips to my grandparents in Mount Gambier (South Austrailia) my dad bought me a 3/4 nylon string acoustic guitar. I remember he got a good deal on it because when removing the price sticker it peeled off a little section of the paint on the bridge next to the saddle. My best friend at the time was getting lessons and I don’t think there was anything really extra that motivated me to get one, but I have distinct memories of the day we bought the instrument home and I had it sat on the bed at my Grandparents place, blindly pulling at the strings to make sound come out of this foreign wooden box. No idea that this was the start of something that would consume my life in years to come.

1999?-2003: First lessons from a one horse town I grew up on a farm near a very small town in rural Victoria called Derinallum and went to the appropriately named local school: Derrinallum College. with about 20 kids per year (that always dwindled towards yr 12 due to most people either changing schools or dropping out to pursue farming) it had a pretty small population of about 90 people, but there was still a music teacher who taught everyone who wanted to learn all the basic instruments they wanted to from flute to trumpet, piano and yes, guitar. I remember having a few different teachers early on as people would come and go, the first one showing me my first G chord and giving me a chart for “knocking on heaven’s door” much to my fathers delight, but soon after my regular teacher had started me basically learning single note flute music with letters written under the dots (something that simultaneously gave me a keen ear for picking up melodies but absolutley ruined any chance at sight reading properly). I remember picking what I considered the hardest tunes to play at the annual performance recitals, the melody from “the entertainer” and the bassline from “the theme from Peter Gun” are pieces that stand out in my mind but my biggest claim to fame from this point in my life was figuring out how to play the melody from “all the small things” by blink 182 all by myself by ear. I felt like I was freaking Mozart not needing to be taught or read something and still being able to play it and that discovery gave me those initial inklings of the potential for what I could do with this wooden box.

2004: New school, new lessons and the Led Zeppelin live dvd So at the ripe age of 13 I had made the big move up in life from Derrinallum to Ballarat Grammar boarding school in Ballarat, Victoria. It was a pretty wild transition from the get go, but musically was initially a little discouraging as at my first guitar lesson (from an amazing human being Laurie) I found out that I had basically needed to start all over again and that the biggest carry over from my entire 4 years of musical pursuits had yielded me the one G chord i still remembered. It was acknowledged that the solo flute lines I had learned were good for training my ears, but really had no real value for the things one would typically learn in a guitar lesson. Laurie had asked me what type of music i enjoyed or would like to start learning and I remember saying that I didn't really had any preference for music, that I liked “anything with a bit of a beat” so I quickly was given my first chord charts in 4 years and it looked like I was going to become a acoustic rhythm type of guy. But then everything changed about halfway through that year when one of my friends got a dvd of a little band called Led Zeppelin... Apparently the year before at the end of year house performance the year 12s had done a rendition of Stairway to Heaven which got my friend to chase up this dvd but oh my god. I have never had such an influential experience as I did watching that live version of stairway. I remember playing that song on repeat for months every morning before class (I’m sure much to my 6 roommates detest) and from there everything about my relationship with my guitar changed. Rather than just putting in a half hours effort before each lesson out of worrying I would disappoint my teacher, I was practicing 3, 4, 5 hours a day for just the fun of it working on my magnum opus of being able to play Stairway to Heaven all the way through. I remember slowly accumulating the entire Zep discography, learning each section of stairway bit by bit until finally being able to nail everything including the solo on my black ashton acoustic. I had made friends with a boy who had a real Gibson electric guitar and remember being dead set on getting a Les Paul of my own, scoping out my dream guitar like Jimmy Page’s on a school field trip to Chapel street in Melbourne and begged my parents for one that Christmas, to which they obliged and I was over the moon.

2005 - 2007: Musical identity and my first songwriting baby steps With a full back catalogue of Led Zeppelin and my Epiphone Les Paul at my side I flourished musically over the next couple of years, cementing my identity as a “long haired guitar guy” mastering improvising blues licks and the discographies of Zep, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Sabbath, Queen, Cream and anything else that came from that same vein of guitar centric late 60s/early 70s music up to an unhealthy obsession with Van Halen and guitar virtuosos. I ended up getting school colours for music in my year 11 and 12 for the work I was doing in the school jazz band and by the end of my tenure at high school was expanding my musical repertoire to singing and piano because even though my quick pentatonic blues licks were the cornerstone of what I enjoyed playing I still had some shred of understanding that if there wasn’t also a song behind the guitar solos, things quickly became a little too wanky for my liking even at the time. Van Halen seemed the perfect blend of being able to show off when the solo came, but still ultimately still be servicing the bigger picture of a song. I would print off chord charts from entire Pink Floyd and Beatles albums and sit in the practice rooms and sing them front to back at the piano as a bit of a break from my ruthless 5+ hour guitar practice schedule. Near the end of year 11 my beloved guitar teacher was putting on a songwriting workshop where I learnt the basics of songwriting and started putting together my own really embarrassing silly songs. I remember finishing my first one called “Clayman’s Desire” which was an acoustic folk track in the vein of Queen’s “39′” about a little clay person who goes on an adventure to make friends. Even though there was a huge disconnect between the guitar centric virtuosic stuff i was playing I still felt super proud of it. I had high hopes that just like Brian May in Queen I would find a vocalist who would sing over all the riffs and music I was coming up with, but I would still get a song or two on each album that I would sing myself for variety and a way to show an extra notch in my belt not just as a guitarist, but as a guitarist who could also write songs too. Throughout year 12 I kept a little songwriting book where I would write poetry in hopes that i would turn everything into songs. It was all nonsensical wannabe surrealist kinds of stuff inspired by songs like “I am the walrus” by the Beatles, a band that I was gorging on in between my shred guitar escapades. By the end of year 12 in the holidays before starting uni the following year I made my first “album” of basically demo recordings on a CD i called “The Project”. It included some psychy guitar riff instrumentals as well as some very basic songs that were more or less just vessels for me to put little guitar solos into all recorded either DI or with the one microphone I owned (drums too). Still nothing like the shred guitar i was still all about playing, but uniquely me and something I felt that if i kept at it would eventually get to a point where i could write things that sounded closer to the greats I had admired. Even back then I knew everyone had to start somewhere and even though I was proud of the stuff I had made I still rightfully felt that any dreams of making good quality music were far off into the future and that was okay.

2008 - 2009: College After school I basically lived in the music room at college spending any time I wasn't out drinking with friends or cramming before tests playing with anyone who would give me the time and forming a covers band but in terms of original music things had already started to die down so early. I was still coming up with riffs and licks that were inching closer to the sound of things i knew i wanted to make but I kind of fell off the wagon in terms of songwriting throughout the semester, it wasn't until the semester break that I decided I wanted to follow up on my previous writing adventures with a focus on mimicking the styles of early Beatles with a little EP I called “Meatlebania” a cringeworthy attempt to focus on imitating the greats and ending up far from the mark. I remember posting tracks on my facebook page and getting criticised by some of my friends who expected something a lot better given my guitar playing abilities that they knew me for. It was pretty disheartening but to their credit looking back it was some of the absolute cringiest pieces of music i had ever made, let alone released. It had all the awkwardness of an 18 year old falling in love for the first time and not knowing a thing about good songwriting that came off as horrendously bad poetry and I didn't even put much effort into the guitar side off things, thinking that I wanted to bring the music down to the level of the songwriting and slowly move the quality of both of parts up together. A little bit of a profound foresight in concept for the quality of the finished product but again I was hopeful that this was still just the very beginning of my journey with music and that I needed to make these mistakes to move forward even if it was a pretty slow process. every step was going to get me closer to making something I could really be proud of.

2009 - 2010: Open mics and Comedy songwriting After the whirlwind of college came and went I was living in a shared house with some friends I knew from high school. It didn't take long before me and my housemate sussed out a local open mic night and were playing acoustic covers down there every week. It was actually a ‘reunion’ of an original band we started back in boarding school called Alloid (that resulted in some instrumental rock songs that had lyrics I wrote that were very ...not good). We were playing things like Hendrix and Rush acoustically with my housemate on bass and me on guitar/vocals but it wasn't until a few months in that I had a big light bulb moment of bringing a kazoo to do the solos to songs that things really fit into place. We would do things like Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird with kazoo solos that hit all the guitar ones i knew note for note in a kind of over the top silly comedic fashion and with that I had found a new angle for music as a source of entertainment. After a while I started doing the acoustic/kazoo guitar rock thing by myself and phased in some originals that i would introduce with a bit of funny backstory. I remember playing Clayman’s Desire (the first song I had ever wrote) and getting a wonderful reception from the half dozen or so people at the open mic who were very supportive and saw the humour in playing an obviously undercooked song with a bit of charm in the cute awkward stage presence I had started to hone in on. Listening to comedy songwriters like Flight of the Conchords and Tim Minchin I ramped up the writing of quirky songs that i would put together and perform every week before eventually I had my first open mic “hit” with a song I wrote about a man crush I had on the Doctor Who star David Tennant. I would incorporate the shows theme song as the beginning and reprised it as a kazoo solo in the middle 8. It went down well at all the open mic shows I played, which were fast approaching 3 per week. With the disguise of using the fact that songs I was writing were “not serious” I was able to finish a lot of songs and figured out a ton about melody and the fundamentals of writing. I saw this as something I would do to hone my craft and eventually get back to writing “serious music” and apply these skills properly. I was building up a repertoire of comedy songs I would throw in in between over the top ‘kazoostic’ covers of rock songs like Killer Queen and the aforementioned Freebird to a pretty decent reception at the open mics. It was basically a real life meme before I knew memes were a thing. Eventually one of my friends from college was coming to see a fair few of my shows and loved my David Tennant song. She was a drummer with an amazing comedic musical theatre background and I thought I might be a wonderful idea to take our shared love of pop culturey things and start a band together.

2010 - 2012: Blue Turtle Shell With my pop culture sister from another mister at my side we started an original acoustic guitar/djembe “geek rock” band called Blue Turtle Shell, writing and performing silly songs about videogames TV shows and Movies that would incorporate themes from said pop culture topics into the songs as a kind of expansion of my David Tennant song template. It was so much fun being able to write with someone and to put in all the bells and whistles of vocal harmony and jokes in between songs of our open mic set. At the time i was also busking on the side playing all the pop culture and video game theme songs outside the comic book store in Melbourne raking in a pretty decent amount per hour compared to my bar job and one day I managed to get the band a gig at an anime convention from an event organised who enjoyed what I was doing on the street. We put out an EP as a twosome before becoming a trio with a mutual friend on bass and ended up having some pretty good gigs; getting a residency at the newly opened videogame cocktail bar and even “made it to” the finals of what turned out to be a scammy pay-to-play (well, convince all your friends to buy tickets to play) talent show competition in between open mics that we would play semi regularly that always had a good reception. It felt like we were starting to make traction and form some fans but things eventually faded out as I started realising that I was putting myself into a box songwriting wise. It was amazing to be able to write and play music that was uniquely “me” but I felt that I was never going to be able to do “serious music” so eventually when things died down with the band I just sort of stopped and thought of what I needed to do to get things back on that track.

2012 - 2013: Melbournes hardest working bass player So after my foray into the musical comedy world I thought it would be best to just put myself out there and play in some original bands in Melbourne. I put out a couple of ads on a musical craigslist site “Melband” offering my skills as a guitarist. After a week of no interest or replies I figured I’d chuck up an ad as a bass player and instantly had my inbox and phone blow up with requests. Within a week I was playing in 3 bands; one unnamed that was starting from the beginning in the process of writing what I would later know to be Mars Volta inspired porggy psych rock, another Middle Eastern Progressive Frank Zappa inspired band ‘Land of the Blind’ that was basically performing pre written complicated charts that would also have long improvised sections and finally a alternative indie/pop band ‘The Story Model’ where I was writing my own basslines and eventually contributing to songs. Each band held up a pillar of skills that I wanted to perfect as a writer and performer, the psych and prog nature of the unnamed band and Land of the Blind were much closer to where my head was at musically at the time but at the same time I knew I wanted to blend that with more of a pop influence that The Story Model had. Things were pretty hectic schedule wise but eventually after a few months the unnamed band broke up due to some pretty crazy intra-band politics -sadly before we recorded anything or played our first gig, but I still have some phone recorded demos of our jams that I look back on with fond memories- but even juggling two bands with regular gigs was a struggle that I rose to the occasion to. I was learning so much musically from this new life as a bass player, even just from my role in the band. As a bassist I had a world of appreciation opened up for me about groove and song feel, I’d always been a fan of riffs but the relationship between a bass player and a drummer is a sacred bond that is so powerful in conveying the musical ideas of the song. As the foundation of the musical cake I could also take in all the musical ideas of the melodic icing from the vocals or guitar leads, it felt like I was finally piecing everything together that I needed to eventually write my own music that would be closer to the things I wanted to write from the start. On top of all the gigs i was playing I also experienced my first proper studio sessions making demos with both bands as well as my first professionally recorded EP that I provided bass and backing vocals on with The Story Model. Eventually things died down and faded out with The Story Model which luckily coincided not long after I was stretching myself a little too thin anyways picking up work with another band that had contacted me on Melband a good year after I had initially posted my ad and forgotten to take it down. They were an alternative psychy rock band with a little prog influence with a bit of a following from Brisbane. The singer was moving to Melbourne to try and ramp things up musically after they had recorded their first album. To me it sounded like a dream melding of the pop sensibilities of the story model with the hard edge of bands like Rage Against the Machine and even some motifs that harkened back to my beloved Led Zeppelin. It was a band called Greefthief.

2013 - 2017: Greenthief and the beginnings of Mellofellow I juggled Land of the Blind with my new band for a little while but it didn’t take long to see that this was something I was willing to put more effort into since it lined up with so much of what I wanted to do musically, so I quit LotB and became a one band bass player. Things were so musically exciting and intense that there was no other way about it really, Greenthief was rehearsing 2-3 times a week after we found a drummer and had booked a massive 20-something date tour of Australia in support of the debut album they had recorded and were releasing after a month or two of me joining. I bought a Rickenbacker bass and an ampeg 6x10 fridge and set off on my first tour having the time of my life slamming fuzz riffs and writing new material with the band leader. After the tour we would still play a gig or two a week in Melbourne rehearse 2 days a week and usually I would go to the band leaders house for writing sessions once or twice a week on top of that. I loved the bands back catalog but was hungry to get some songs I had helped craft in to the set, I’d be pouring myself into the writing sessions expanding on a lot of my own writing knowledge while picking up a ton about editing down and how to package a hard hitting pop/rock song. While that side of things was amazing it wouldn't dawn on me until much later that while I was perfecting my role in the band writing wise as an editor, I wasn’t actually landing much of the finished product of songs from my actual musical ideas note wise. Structure and direction absolutely, and I knew I was a great soundboard for floating ideas to, but in terms of how many melodies or song sections in the new material that I had actually contributed and stayed in to the final product when it came time to perform the new tracks at gigs there was a bit of a disconnect between the 10s to 100s of hours I had put in to the little bits here and there that were uniquely me. That said I wrote 80% of my own basslines (and interpreted the other 20% in a unique way) and was changing a lot of ideas of the leaders that would have been a bit different had I not been there, but the bulk of the initial ‘heavy lifting’ writing wise was not mine and thats before you take into consideration that I had nothing to do with any lyrics. Luckily there was one track I had demoed that the leader liked enough to add to the set and it actually became the lead single and opening track of the first album I made with them, although I always had a discouraging sense that it was more of a meta move of the leader that he could sense that I was getting a little frustrated that I hadn’t really had much input in major song sections, but this could have just been a projection of my own self doubt (and i was always told that was not the case). Still, on the side of things while we were putting together our first release I was a part of ‘Tremors’ I was upping the ante of writing for myself as a way to demo things to the band but also with the idea that things that didn’t fit would be fair game for me to use for a kind of solo project. When the band’s musical direction moved a little further from my psychedelic rock interests in hope of chasing that holy grail of being played on Triple J, I ended up with a fair batch of psychy demos that wouldn't fit Greenthief that I would listen to each day on my commutes to work and then edit when I got home before rehearsals. Not a lot with lyrics but entire songs with melodies and riffs soley penned by me. Tame Impala had exploded a year or two before and I would see a lot of obvious knock off bands on the bill at Greenthief gigs with the idea of “i could do that” every time there was a washed out riffy set, so i did. I did do that. The plus side of having such an obvious direction helped when it did come to lyrics, keeping things psychy after being around so many psych bands at gigs I knew the basics of what their lyrics are written around subject wise and interspersed that with the influence of the bands I had grown up loving. A friend I had met through Greenthief had a pretty good home studio set up and I eventually took the plunge and recorded my first Mellofellow single with him on the first of January 2017. The weeks before I had hyper focussed on drumming since I knew that was my weak link musically although i had picked up a hell of a lot first and foremost as a bass player listening to the amazing drummers I had worked with. The resulting track “Journey to the Centre of Your Mind” was something I was hugely proud of and finally scratched the itch of being something I had written that was not a joke song but also got pretty damn close to what I was wanting to do musically in terms of my goals all those moons ago to have something that was on the level of quality that I wanted but could never achieve when I was starting out. Really that goal had already been filled earlier with the recordings I had done with Greenthief, but this time it was also my 100% my own writing. All my friends that I had made playing in bands as well as some that weren’t seemed to like my track and although I didn’t really have the means to push it to many people who weren’t in my immediate circle, that was ultimately the goal. My musical peers’ respect was all I could have wanted from a track that was solely my own and I could have so easily not done something like that with how hectic my schedule was at the time. It was at that point that I had to make the decision that I knew was going to be the final nail in the coffin for Greenthief when I went back to uni to get out of the dead end job that I had in retail. As a band we still played a lot, we had a 10 week residency at one of the most known rock venues in Melbourne, kept touring with releases and put out two albums in my tenure but the last of which I was a bit more checked out contributing a little less than I had on Tremors due to the lack of time I had juggling work, uni and the band. Though at the time I wasn’t too discouraged and was a little annoyed that I could put in so many less hours to writing sessions and still end up with nearly the same amount of contribution to the record musically as I had on the last record -though this was partly because there were some tracks on Tremors that were fully completed before I had joined on- I didn’t have any stand out songs that had started from my demos but there were a few that had main riffs that were my own and I think things just flowed a lot easier letting the band leader take more of the reigns and since we had been together for a few years things naturally came together with input from everyone more quickly than they had on the last record. Unfortunately I had to move to Mildura for placement as part of my degree and had technically played my last gig with the band before the release of that album ‘Mirror Lies’ but in the couple of weeks between finishing the sessions for that album and uprooting myself from the city I booked another session with my friend and followed up Mellofellow’s single recording my first release (technically too long for an EP but a pretty short album). Without being in Melbourne/with Greenthief a few less people got to hear the record than would have heard the single but it was still such a creatively fulfilling thing to be able to put out more of my music. It was a high that would keep me going through my year away from the city. To top things off I even had an made a record from start to finish over a weekend with a mate who had his own solo project Steve Tyssen (actually one of Greenthief’s previous drummers from before I had joined the band) who I had been playing with on the side over the last couple of years whenever he had a new album to release -the dude has made like 7 albums to date now its insane- but apart from that everything musically died down when I had moved out of the city. Still not a bad way to finish it all out, 2017 saw me drop 3 records in the one year! Oh yeah, and in December 2017 I put together a line up for Mellofellow in order to have a proper release gig for the record at a festival held by a friend of mine that was another amazing experience but ultimately the only time I have ever performed any of my tracks with a band. 

2018-2019: Slowing down and songwriting revelations So after my whirlwind musical year of 2017 everything got a bit quieter. When I got back to Melbourne I was still playing in Steve’s solo project on keyboards and had slowly been working on tracks for a follow up to the first Mellofellow record, but Greenthief had disbanded while I was away after they released Mirror Lies with a hired gun bass player. I suppose things needed to die down though since the last semester of my course needed to be pretty much my sole focus. I actually started playing open mics again when I got the time, doing acoustic versions of Mellofellow tracks but I’ll admit that it more so confirmed my suspicions about the holes in my songwriting ability. It might have been from seeing Steve’s solo tracks work so well in an acoustic context, but there was an obvious drop in quality in the stuff I had written that was taken out when you removed the drums and guitar solos. While a couple of tracks worked alright stripped back, the majority of them failed to have the same punch without the groove of a full band rhythm section and with the focus being placed more on the lyrics I felt awkwardly naked and could see that at the end of the day my songwriting fundamentals left a lot to be desired particularly on the lyrical front.  So I started trying to write songs primarily acoustic first with the goal of performing them at things like open mics and maybe even booking acoustic gigs with the knowledge that the songs could easily be expanded into full band tracks when it came to recording. This turned into more of a transitional period than I had hoped, partially not helped by the fact that after graduation I had to move back to rural Victoria for the first job I got out of uni in my chosen profession, which is an amazing but time demanding gig. 

So I’ve got another 10 or so Mellofellow tracks in the chamber ready to record from the last couple of years that I’m heading in to the studio with next month but I don’t feel like I totally stuck the landing with the transition I was hoping to make, there are still a couple of tracks that wouldn't really work acoustically and if anything my realisation of my room for improvement lyrically has lead me to second guess a lot of the lyrical choices on these tracks to the point that I just want to finish them acknowledging their flaws and move on to the next record that I will make now that I am undertaking this whole process of honing my songwriting craft. That said there are some tracks I’m getting ready to record that I’m most proud of as a songwriter, songs that I hope are a sign of things to come. Either way I am excited to clear out my bottom drawer of songwriting to see what lies ahead. I’ve already made some big changes to the ways I write and I know things are going to get better.

#long post #songwriting #musical journey #started at the bottom #getting better #looking back #if you made it this far well done

[onestowatch]

Q&A: Whethan Speaks on the Life Of A Wallflower Tour & Dreams of Collaborating With Mac DeMarco

Photo: Jimmy Fontaine Ethan Snoreck, more popularly known by his creative brainchild Whethan, first tasted major success at the young age of 15, following a remix of MSSINGO’s “XE3” he uploaded to SoundCloud going viral on the site overnight. Now 19, Whethan is a staple in the world of electronic music, having played festivals and shows across the world, including a recent Coachella performance that saw the producing wunderkind nearly break the internet with a special guest appearance from Mason Ramsey aka Yodel Boy. 

Despite achieving so much at such a young age and in such a short time frame, Whethan certainly shows no sign of slowing down, as his recent stunning collaboration with British electronic duo HONNE clearly demonstrates.

Beyond just releasing phenomenal track after track of electronic bliss, Whethan is currently in the midst of his third headlining tour before the age of 20. The “Life of a Wallflower” tour, which is in support and celebration of his hopefully soon-to-come, highly-anticipated debut project Life Of A Wallflower Volume 1, is poised to be Whethan’s largest and most creatively adventurous tour to date. 

Yet, what inspires an artist, especially one so young, to constantly strive towards greater and greater heights? Well, upon speaking to the producer who stands at the forefront of electronic music’s future about his earliest inspirations and hopes for the potential of Whethan, an answer came readily to mind: the desire to create something new solely for the love of it all. 

OTW: The first track I ever heard of yours was your turn of MSSINGO’s “XE3,” which Flume was an early proponent of. Whethan: You know that’s funny, I was looking that up recently. Diplo actually put up a video on Instagram the other day playing it, and I remember thinking about the song again, and I was like… When it first came out, I don’t think Flume put it on a mix or anything, but his label, Future Classic, had reposted it.

OTW: What’s been the craziest thing from that track blowing up to doing your third headlining tour before the age of 20?

Whethan: At that point, when I was putting out that song, I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I think now, I’m really excited because I finally feel like I know what I want to do. So now, it’s just a matter of executing and making all the songs I want to make and working with all the artists I want to work with. That’s kind of the most surreal part; I get to wake up every day and it’s like, “What do I want to do next?”

OTW: Was having a hit song at the age 15 ever intimidating? 

Whethan: Yeah, it was like… I did not expect that to happen, I didn’t see it coming. I would’ve never thought that anyone would’ve played it, or that people like Zeds Dead would put it on their set at Hard Summer. That was a huge moment.

OTW: Following “XE3″ rapidly taking off, was there ever a sense of urgency to sign to a label?

Whethan: I wanted to take it kind of slow. I wasn’t in any rush to be like, “Oh, I need to sign right now and do all this right now.” Because, I wasn’t necessarily even confident in myself yet, you know? I was still kind of finding myself.

OTW: Your style certainly has evolved a lot from a SoundCloud page with just trap edits.

Whethan: Yeah, that was literally all I had on there. I was just doing little trap edits of popular songs, and then I decided to do something a little more artistic and it worked. I never turned back.

OTW: Speaking of evolution, your early, like very early days, saw a short-lived rap stint. Did you ever have a rap name?

Whethan: Smooth-E *laughs* Just kidding. I had a little band I started with my friends in junior high called “ETA.” Ethan, Trevor, Alex. I was the rapper and producer. Someone played the guitar, someone played the bass. But it never worked, and it was really bad, and we never made any songs.

OTW: Still waiting for the day you’ll rap over one of your beats.

Whethan: *laughs* I know, it’ll probably never happen. I’ve kind of let that side of me go.

Photo: Angie Bambii OTW: Your most recent releases venture into the realm of pop, although you still retain a fair amount of electronic influence, and your live set shows how diverse your taste really is. With that in mind, are there any artists you would want to work with outside of your realm?

Whethan: Oh, tons of people outside of my realm. I think one of my biggest goals is to work with people who don’t do electronic music, and then bring them to my world and make electronic music with them. One person in electronic music would be Calvin Harris. But for anyone outside, someone like Mac DeMarco or Tame Impala. I would love to bring those dudes into my style and sound. That would be nuts. 

OTW: As far as production goes, do you ever hit roadblocks?

Whethan: It comes in waves. Definitely times where you’re working more on so many songs, but yeah, blocks happen all the time. I think the way around it is to take a break for a second. It’s easy to make music all day, every day and then get into the pattern of working on the same stuff. Switching it up is the big thing. I love going and making all types of genres. So, if I’m kind of having a roadblock on one side, I might just mess around and make a different type of song, like a hip-hop song or something. Take your brain away from it, so when you come back to it, you’re ready for it.

OTW: Your parents were and are both involved in education, with your dad being both a math teacher and dean. Were they ever a bit hesitant of you getting into music?

Whethan: A tiny bit. I mean, my parents were always super amazing at letting me follow my passion and dreams. I would always go through phases of wanting to be an actor or a skateboarder, and they never really had anything negative to say about it. They kind of just let me do whatever I wanted to do. So, when it was music, they were very supportive of it. At first, they were a little cautious to make sure I was not this super young kid getting into this crazy lifestyle, but it’s worked out so far. They trust it.

OTW: Do you have any advice for young kids getting into music? It feels like every next artist is this 13-year-old blowing up.

Whethan: My best advice for people nowadays is that we live in an era where you’re not able to just do music. You have to do the videos, you have to do the clothes, you have to do the shows. You have to do everything other than the music. People like Kanye West who do all that type of stuff. Once you kind of find your style or whatever it is, start branching out into all the other sides of creative things.

OTW: I read that one of your earliest inspirations to make music was skate videos.

Whethan: Hell yeah. That was some of the first music I would say I really found. It wasn’t Spotify, looking for new music or anything. It was pretty much just on YouTube. I was watching skateboard videos when I was a kid, along with all the songs that people would pick. That’s how I found “Stronger,” the Daft Punk song. And I was like, “What is this?” I heard the Kanye West version on the radio, and I was like “Huh…” And all because I found Daft Punk through skateboard videos, which is weird… but sick. *laughs*

Photo: Jimmy Fontaine OTW: Looking into the future, the Life Of A Wallflower Volume 1 is an upcoming project you’ve slowly been hinting at. What is it about this point in time that inspired you to release something more cohesive?

Whethan: I mean, just being ready for it. I’m always evolving. The sound is always evolving. And I think I got to a point recently where a big handful of the songs I made in the past year all work really well together. So now, I want to put them together, put it out, and give it to the people. I’ve only done singles up to this point. So, I’m really excited to be able to get into the making of a cohesive project and showing people what a Whethan project will sound like.

OTW: What can fans expect from the “Life of a Wallflower” Tour?

Whethan: They can definitely expect very crazy, energetic shows. I want to bring super trippy visuals and floating things. I want to bring people to this world that I’m trying to bring through the music. But, you’ll be able to actually feel it, instead of just listening to the music by itself. You’ll be able to see the visuals I thought of when I was putting the songs together. As well as a lot of new merch that I’m excited to see people wear. It’s stuff that I would actually wear, which is sick, so I’ll probably be wearing all of it.

OTW: As someone who started blowing up in high school, were things ever different around school?

Whethan: Near the end of my high school career, it definitely got a little interesting. A lot of my teachers started to know what was going on, and you know, people were able to go listen to my music. I remember there was one time, I was in line for lunch, and this kid was listening to “XE3.” He was in front of me. He had his earbuds on, so he didn’t know I was behind him, and he turned around, and it was just like… this is so strange! Honestly, wouldn’t expect that. I will say, I wasn’t Justin Bieber or anything, so it didn’t stop people from doing anything. But, it was cool to see people kind of recognize what I was doing. I was also really quiet about it, y’know? I was a psycho, really quiet kid in the back of the class who just had some songs out.

OTW: A wallflower.

Whethan: Exactly. That’s exactly what it is.

OTW: For someone who has achieved success at such a young age, do you have an ultimate idea of success for yourself?

Whethan: The goal... success is to keep putting out music. Cool projects, and evolve. You’re going to see a lot of evolution, I’ve never stuck to one formula or one type of song, or even one genre. Wherever my brain wants to go. But I’ll be happy if I can just be in LA making music when I want and playing shows for people.

OTW: As a fan of electronic music, what’s your favorite drop?

Whethan: I’m so indecisive about favorite things, that I can never come up with anything. But, I think all the Skrillex stuff. Back in the day, that was like the most game-changing thing to me. When everyone was like, “This is robot music,” and all the older people didn’t get it, and I was just loving it.

OTW: Any parting words you want to say to your fans?

Whethan: Look out for the Life of a Wallflower Volume 1, of course. I’m so excited for that, I can’t even say it enough. I’ve been trying to put it out… I would drop it all *laughs*. I would drop every song. I think that’s what I would tell my fans right now. I’m letting you know I have like 500 songs, and I would drop them all right now if I could, but you wouldn’t want that. No one would want to hear all of that, too much stuff. Catch Whethan on “The Life of a Wallflower” tour now: 

#interview #whethan #honne #mac demarco #life of a wallflower #life of a wallflower volume 1 #electronic #pop

[treepoe-blog]

Churches and Songs

CHURCHES AND SONGS

Happy Birthday, dear Mom!

Mind wondering and drowsy one day, I made up a list of most of the churches and church-like groups that I’ve been a part of throughout my life. With each one, I put at least one song that I associate with my time there.

Then I thought I’d add a sentence or two about each church, but that grew into paragraphs and pages!

By the time I was done, I had also included links to videos of me (or someone else) performing the song. Some songs don’t have links yet or they have “placeholder” videos as I intend to record myself doing the song later.

This is still a work in progress so I’ll have to send you updated versions from time to time.

My sleepy little late afternoon diversion grew into this birthday present that I hope you will enjoy.

Happy birthday!

Love, Chip

—————————————— Glenwood Presbyterian Church

“In the Garden”

Glenwood was my first church. This is the church where I was surrounded by family and probably held pretty often by my aunts, sisters, and cousins when my parents needed someone to watch me.

Dad says that he and Mom did all sorts of jobs at Glenwood - teaching, serving, and loving those who attended services and activities. In so doing, Dad heard the Lord call him to full-time ministry.

I imagine that there were often times when my Grandma Tracy would take a turn holding me and rocking me at Glenwood. So it’s just possible that she would have been holding me when her favorite hymn, “In the Garden”, was sung. I like to imagine being held in her lap and looking up at her face as she sang…

“..He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own.”

And now, all these years later, nothing makes me happier than going on long walks with the Lord; pouring out my heart to Him, knowing His nearness as He tells me I am His own.

https://youtu.be/Cjj1foZ86ZY

——————————————

Tiger Presbyterian & Wylie Presbyterian

Church in the Wildwood

There was a river. There was fishing. There was a dog named Boldier. The only story I’ve been told of those days involved a bed breaking through floorboards in the middle of the night. That’s all I have to go on (along with a couple of black and white photographs).

So I’ve always imagined that these churches were in wild, secluded places. The song I can associate with them then speaks of coming to the church in the wildwood; to a little brown church in the vale.

https://youtu.be/_KGLdMoFbwY

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Trinity Presbyterian:

“God Be With You Till We Meet Again”

I remember happy, relaxed Sunday night hymn sings. My Dad would share a short lesson, speaking gently in a conversational tone after leading a Fellowship Hall full of church members in several hymns. We all had hymnals and you could call out the hymn title or page number of one you wanted to sing. I remember sitting beside my Mom and feeling so proud when a hymn I had called out was sung by everyone. I remember Dad’s strong baritone as he led the singing, the church organist playing an old upright piano beside his podium.

https://youtu.be/XlQMnq-hTm4

I chose this song because the lyrics capture the feeling I enjoyed during those Sunday night hymn sings. I think that was my first introduction to sweet fellowship in a musical setting.

(By the way, I have this very vivid memory of being in a kids Christmas manger scene in which I played a little harp that made my fingers bleed. Maybe I just dreamed it, but I vividly remember looking down at my fingers on the hand that had been strumming the little harp and seeing blood near my fingertips. If it really happened, that was my first time playing a stringed instrument in church. 🙂)

——————————————

Jonesboro Presbyterian:

“Just a Closer Walk with Thee”

My guitar teacher, Jimmy Banks, sang this beautifully as he played his acoustic with a steady, unhurried strum. His voice was clear and resonant in those days and one of the best voices I had ever heard. God used him to change the course of my life by teaching me to play the guitar. He performed this song in the choir loft with our choir joining in on the chorus. The acoustics in that 100-year old church were really wonderful. I was right up there with the choir, a 16-year old boy learning to sing out loud with Jimmy and Mr. Jack Harper teaching me.

https://youtu.be/lSTP9RtKYwY

——————————————

The Mustard Seed

“Thank You, Lord”

Not long after we moved to Sanford, I became very sick (with Reye’s Syndrome) and almost died.

When I woke up in intensive care, Dad came to my bedside and told me how sick I had been and how many people had been praying for me.

After Dad left, I prayed.

I said, “God, I almost died. For the rest of my life, I’m Yours. I want to live for you.”

So when I returned to 8th grade, I purposefully began to create distance between myself and the group of foul-mouthed guys who had extended friendship to me as a newcomer at the school. Some of these guys would go on to be involved in drugs and other bad behavior in high school, so I’m grateful that I didn’t continue to “follow the crowd”.

But a couple of these guys were not foul-mouthed. They seemed to be good guys so I maintained a casual friendship with them on through ninth grade. They were Donny Kennedy and David McBride.

A year later when we were choosing what classes we wanted to take in our first year of high school, David said, “Hey Chip, let’s sign up for Drama Class.” So I checked the little box beside “Drama Class” and radically altered the course of my life.

I’m so often amazed by how this happened. If I had not happened to be within David’s line of sight at that moment, he wouldn’t have suggested this to me and I never would have even considered taking drama class.

One thing I firmly believe and have experienced time and again is this: God directs our steps. Especially when we give ourselves completely to Him, as I did in my hospital bed in the intensive care unit at fourteen years old.

So several months later, there I was on stage at Lee Senior High School’s auditorium, playing an orderly in a mental hospital for the play, “Frankenstein”. I had one line consisting of two words: “Nor I”.

But I was welcomed into the drama class and the drama club. And one day at rehearsal, one of the lead actors walked up to me with his hand outstretched and introduced himself. His name was Greg Burriss.

I look back on that handshake as the next step in God’s direction and leading in my life. Greg extended friendship to me and, with that handshake, pulled me more deeply into the kingdom of God.

He invited me to a Friday night gathering of Christian youth at a place called “The Mustard Seed”.

This is where I first heard Christian rock music as bands from around North Carolina came to do concerts on Friday nights. This is where I was first introduced to Contemporary Christian Music which quickly became the biggest thing in my life. Greg and I formed our own Christian band called Malachi and we occasionally performed at the Mustard Seed.

It was at the Mustard Seed that I first stood in front of a crowd of people - just me and my guitar - and led them in singing.

One of my favorite songs to lead at The Mustard Seed was “Thank You, Lord”. I suppose this was because I had so much to be thankful for. God had taken me from my hospital bed to drama class, drama club, plays and musicals, to many wonderful new friendships, to a closer walk with Him, to Christian rock music and being in my own Christian band…

and I had just met a very pretty girl with brown eyes and long brown hair named Melody and she seemed to like me.

So I sang “Thank You, Lord” with a full heart. ❤️

——————————————

The BSU

“The Greatest Thing”

This was church for me (and Melody) through our first two years at Appalachian State University. We typically went to church somewhere on Sunday mornings (there was a nearby church we referred to as “the rock church” because the exterior was composed of stone. The pastor there was funny and worked as a mailman during the week). But BSU was like church to us and Monday night “Celebration” at the Baptist Student Union was the heart of our fellowship back then. We had dozens of friends there and I often led singing or helped to lead singing at those meetings which were always preceded by a delicious and inexpensive meal. During our first year there, we were part of a musical group led by Rick Hoyle. The group was called “Crystal Spring Mountain”. Rick was a very good songwriter and one of his songs was called “Grow Me Up”. He taught me how to play that song and a couple of other songs as well. I still sing that song pretty often during prayer times. Just last week I was singing it as I mowed the back yard.

But I’ve chosen “The Greatest Thing” as the song I most associate with the BSU. Rick used to lead this song at Monday night Celebration meetings. Eventually I took over leading the singing and I often did this song there as well.

https://youtu.be/xjxVv9t3Z1w

——————————————

Perkinsville Baptist:

“Sweet Sweet Spirit”

Our college years church… Melody and I loved this church. Every Sunday morning service began with the entire congregation, the choir and the pastor singing this song together. “There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place and I know that it’s the presence of the Lord. There are sweet expressions on each face…” And there really were sweet expressions on each face. The pastor, Jim Russel, was an really wonderful Bible teacher. We joined under what was called a “watchcare membership”. While we were away at college, this fellowship promised to watch over and care for us until we returned home. We sang in the college choir and I was even given a couple of solos.

https://youtu.be/Q5UvtiY54t8

(This video is of me leading that song at First Baptist a couple of years ago)

——————————————

Cool Springs Baptist:

“He Was There All The Time”

This was a sweet song that the choir director, John Whisinant, sang regularly. The congregation would join in on the chorus. “He was there all the time. He was there all the time. Waiting patiently in line, He was there all the time.”

John sang this at the funeral for my friend Greg’s dad and he started crying half-way through and couldn’t finish. That emotional moment is a scene that still runs through my mind pretty often.

——————————————

Watauga Christian Center:

“Jesus Is Alive”

Melody and I landed at Watauga Christian Center in late 1988 after several months of reeling from the news that it was impossible for us to have children. This was, I believe, the first time we had regularly attended a church with a band. It wasn’t long until we were both a part of the worship team as singers. It would be years before I played guitar there. This was primarily due to the high caliber of musicians who were playing in the band -many were music majors at Appalachian State. This band included a full horn section and they were tremendously good on this song. I was singing a high tenor back then and really, really gave myself fully to this song. We toured one summer, playing at Duke University, a few churches, and an amphitheater somewhere. It was great fun and healing to my spirit as we poured out our broken hearts to God, praying for a miracle and hoping He would make a way for us to have children

https://youtu.be/CxOgocHu6yM

The audio on this is horrible. It sounded much better in person.

——————————————

Living Water Christian Fellowship:

“Heavenly Father/I Love You, Lord”

Though actually the same church, the name (and other aspects) changed and it really felt like a different fellowship. The music changed as well as I started playing guitar there and regularly served as the worship leader. I moved the band (when I led) toward a simpler sound - guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, vocals and a focus on the worship experience more than on musical excellence. I loved the music coming out of Vineyard churches in California and Canada and before long, that was all we were doing. The song I’ve chosen is a good reflection of how I took the music ministry into a more worshipful and acoustic musical direction. (By the way, this is my most popular video uploaded to YouTube. It has been viewed over forty-six thousand times.)

https://youtu.be/hU-Se76s2Nk

——————————————

House Church:

“In Moments Like These”

By 1997, Living Water Christian Fellowship started going downhill. Melody and I left (it took us four months to completely break away) and though it was painful, it was for the best. Over the next year or so, the head pastor was fired, all of the elders/deacons resigned in protest of how things were going, and one family took over the church (which happens a lot in little independent churches). So it was the Lord’s mercy that we got out at the beginning of that downward spiral.

For the next couple of years, while we began the great adventure of trips to St. Louis, MO, and Maggie’s birth, we didn’t attend a church. We were too badly wounded in leaving Living Water to just jump right into another church. Instead, we frequently met in homes with other folks who had been wounded spiritually. It was informal, but it gave me a taste of the House Church movement. Several families would gather for a meal, then prayer. I would lead singing with my guitar. We occasionally took communion together as well, but mostly we just enjoyed being together and talking about what fellowship should really look and be like. I loved those times and wanted it to be a regular experience, but it eventually fizzled. When I led singing there, it was almost always quiet, gentle songs like this one. “In moments like these, I sing out a song. I sing out a love song to Jesus… Singing I love You, Lord. I love You, Lord…”

——————————————

Pioneer Vineyard Christian Fellowship:

“Reign in Me Again”

By the year 2000, the house church meetings were few and far between and I was beginning to miss going to church. We had been to St. Louis and experienced the pain of a failed attempt at in vitro fertilization. I was mad at God and the last thing I wanted to do was to go to church anywhere. I refer to that time as The Long Dark Summer. But that’s when I heard that a Vineyard Christian Fellowship was coming to Boone. God was cracking through my distance and disinterest. As I mentioned above, I had really loved the music coming out of Vineyard churches. I had great respect for them. They were a lot like Living Water, but with denominational oversight and a sound leadership structure.

I went to a meeting of people interested in seeing Vineyard come to Boone and met the pastor, Tom Camacho. But new churches are not planted overnight. After that exciting initial meeting it was back to lonely Sunday mornings, hopefully working toward another trip to St. Louis.

We returned to the infertility specialist in St. Louis and Melody became pregnant, but she had a miscarriage. We were sad, but encouraged. Now we knew Melody could actually get pregnant. Some time later we were about to return to St. Louis for one final try at having a baby.

About a month before that final try, I learned that the Vineyard had begun weekly services in an auditorium on campus at ASU. I went to a service and was felt like a dry sponge being drenched with pure water.

At that first service they did “Reign in Me Again”, the perfect song for my return to consistent fellowship and participation in a good church:

“Lord reign in me, reign in Your power. Over all my dreams in my darkest hour You are the Lord of all I am, So won’t You reign in me again.”

The Sunday before we left for St. Louis, I asked Pastor Tom to pray for us (Melody wasn’t attending the church at this point) and he prayed such a powerful, faith-filled prayer! Within a couple of weeks, Melody was pregnant and we were soon attending Pioneer Vineyard together. I played guitar and led worship every other week and Melody was one of the singers. We had a great celebration of Maggie’s birth as she was dedicated to the Lord.

——————————————

Calvary Baptist:

“The Potter’s Hand”

When Maggie turned one year old, we moved to Winston Salem. Pioneer Vineyard had fallen apart as the pastor (Tom) experienced some family difficulties, I think. He moved to Asheville to serve as an associate pastor. It took a long while to find a church in Winston Salem. We tried several before settling on Calvary Baptist. It was a huge church of over 6000 members and we never really made any friends there. It was just too big. We sang in their huge choir and enjoyed participating in their elaborate musical productions. Maggie even got to be Mary in a children’s manger scene in one of the Christmas productions. They had a professional level band every Sunday, which I enjoyed in a spectator kind of way. Of all the great songs they did, “The Potter’s Hand” was my favorite:

“Beautiful Lord, wonderful saviour I know for sure, all of my days are held in Your hands Crafted into Your perfect plan.”

I also was able to play bass in their smaller more amateurish evening service band, though I was playing by ear and I was not very good at it.

——————————————

Brick City Community Church:

“Our God”

After moving to Sanford following Luke’s birth, we searched for a church where we might fit in, be useful, make friends and so on. Anywhere, I thought at that time, but First Baptist.

We went to Cool Springs Baptist for six months, but we felt like outsiders the whole time - welcomed, but not fully embraced. They had a very dull preacher (now retired) and a much more interesting associate pastor. Due to being exhausted from having two young children who kept me up nights, I frequently dozed off during sermons at Cool Springs. In fact, that’s my primary memory there: falling asleep during sermons and getting an elbow to my ribs (and a smile) from Melody. We didn’t get involved in the choir so I can’t share any memorable songs.

So I talked Melody into trying a different church: Brick City Community Church (what a crazy name!). We were at Brick City for only six months as well. The band was great, but a little too loud and too rock and roll - as they clearly were trying to reach young people. I played guitar there for a while and Melody and I both sang with the band - but it just wasn’t a good fit for our whole family. Six year old Maggie was often crying when we picked her up after services, having been knocked down in the play area by out of control older kids. Melody felt friendless there and wanted to leave.

After we left Brick City we saw on the news that people who lived near the church were calling the police because of the loud music on Sunday morning. The pastor was interviewed on the TV news and was unkind in his attitude toward the complaining neighbors. He was kind of a jerk, really. When we attended there he was frequently badgering the congregation to tithe and give more money (yuk).

A couple of years ago, he died after fighting melanoma skin cancer. That church now has a different pastor who is kind and gentle and the church has a different name (Manna Church). I recently went to an evening service to hear a friend play guitar. What a different place it is! Quiet, worshipful music now with a smaller band. I loved it.

But “Our God” was a great song and the Brick City band did it well (though very loudly). It was an exciting song for me to play with that band.

I can’t find the video of us performing this song at Brick City, so I’ve included the link to Maggie singing it, which you’ll enjoy more anyway. 🙂

(This link isn’t currently working. I have to get Maggie to make it “public” instead of “private”. Try it and see if it has been fixed).

——————————————

Hope Community Church -

“Hosanna”

We were just at Hope for six months. It was a thirty minute drive from Sanford, but I thought it was worth it as their band was exceptionally good and the pastor was an excellent teacher. Like Dad, he told stories and used humor to keep our attention while teaching us about God.

But it was a long way from Sanford and we found it hard to make friends. Like Calvary Baptist in Winston Salem, it was a huge church with thousands of members and multiple services. We did make two very important friends here though. They would end up playing a big role in our lives years later.

I tried out for the band here but it was not a fair audition. The director put a difficult piece of music in front of me and gave me one shot at playing it with the band. Since I made a couple of mistakes, he said “we play at a different level than you are capable of” and that was that.

But I believe God was directing my steps.

It was proving to be too expensive to go to church here. We always ended up going out to eat afterwards and we would go to Target for “just a few things” that never ended up being just a few things. Plus, gas was much more expensive at that time. It just made sense for us to go to church in our own town.

The song I most enjoyed was “Hosanna”. They really did have an excellent band and they sounded just like the band who originally wrote and performed it, which I’ve included as a placeholder here until I can find Maggie’s recording of this song.

https://youtu.be/WgJYNlDhY-4

——————————————

First Baptist Church -

“Still, Still, Still”

I remember Melody saying to me: “You’ve chosen the last three churches we’ve tried. Now I’m going to choose. I want to go to a church where people know me.”

And so we began attending First Baptist Church: the last place I ever wanted to end up.

But it turned out ok. We never developed close friendships there, just Sunday acquaintances. But there were some really great people and the church had excellent activities for little children.

I frequently played guitar there, regularly sang special songs on guitar, and occasionally led the congregation in hymn singing when the music minister was away. Melody and I were both in choirs, though I never joined the main choir. We also helped with the middle school aged choir.

I’ve come to suspect, now that we’ve left First Baptist, that God had me there to help them begin a contemporary service such as most of the other big traditional churches in Sanford now have.

I made myself available at one point to do just that, and it almost happened. Several influential members of the church came to me saying how excited they were that this was finally going to happen.

But apparently there was a meeting at which the idea was voted down or postponed or something. That excitement that many were feeling fizzled and came to nothing. Instead they started a Thursday night Bible study at which I occasionally sang and they tried to brand it as their contemporary service, but it was just a Bible study.

Within a year, God moved us on to our current church where I’m wonderfully involved in the worship band and we’re making good friends.

The song I most associate with First Baptist was one that the choir did at Christmas each year. “Still, Still, Still” featured Mrs. Love on high soprano.

“Still, Still, Still”

https://youtu.be/WWaMXy3YPl8

——————————————

New Hope Baptist -

“O Come to the Alter”

As you have always said,?Mom, “it’s all in the plan.”

When we attended Hope Community Church in Cary for those six months, we met another couple who, like us, were driving their family up from Sanford every weekend to attend this church. Their names were Craig and Nancy Williams. Craig is a good friend of Melody’s brother, Mark.

So we would often run into Craig and Nancy in the lobby of the Cary church before and after services. Their three little blonde daughters would be giggling and playing all around while our shy Maggie stayed close to us, watching them.

Not long after we left the Cary church we learned that the Williams family had also left and, like us, were attending a church back in Sanford.

From time to time, Melody would run into Nancy around town and they would catch up on each other’s families. Melody told Nancy that Maggie was now playing violin and guitar. Nancy’s middle daughter was playing guitar now as well. On a couple of these occasions Nancy suggested that our Maggie should come play guitar with her daughter, Madison, sometime. They told us how much they loved their new church and invited us to visit, but we never did.

As you know, I was always very restless at First Baptist. After being there for years, I had started visiting other churches whenever I had the opportunity.

I very much missed hearing my kind of music on Sunday mornings. First Baptist, as you know, has an excellent organist and choir, but for me it was like listening to someone speaking German or Portuguese week after week. I wanted to hear someone speaking my own language! My longing and frustration would build within me so strongly that I would leap at the occasional opportunities to visit a church with a good band.

One of the churches I visited like this was Craig and Nancy’s - New Hope Baptist. This church had TWO bands: one for their early service and one for the 11:00 service.

I occasionally visited a couple of other churches who “spoke my language” but it looked like our family would be at First Baptist for years to come.

I recently read a quote I liked: “God doesn’t move quickly. He moves suddenly.” I had prayed for years and years to once again experience friendship, fellowship, music ministry, and church-life like we knew in Boone - first at the BSU and later at Watauga Christian Center/Living Water.

I had been praying this for around sixteen years when we “suddenly” left First Baptist. Interestingly, that’s roughly how long we prayed for children before Maggie was born.

Good things are worth the prayer and worth the wait.

So there we were at First Baptist and I didn’t think we would ever leave since Melody wouldn’t want to disappoint her parents. But “suddenly” Melody and Maggie were bothered by some things going on in the First Baptist youth group.

Then Craig and Nancy’s daughter invited Maggie to a youth group meeting at New Hope Baptist. Maggie loved it and within a couple of weeks Maggie was invited to play guitar and sing with the youth worship band at New Hope Baptist.

“Suddenly” we had the perfect reason to leave First Baptist as we wanted Maggie to have this great opportunity.

And our family was welcomed into the fellowship - so many people personally welcomed us and engaged us in conversation on that first Sunday that we all attended as a family. It felt like we had come home.

We quickly became part of a good Sunday School. And within a few months, Melody and I were part of the worship band. Melody was singing and I was singing, and playing guitar, and playing bass, and playing drums, and feeling very happy. 🙂

The song “O Come to the Alter” (in the attached video) was performed at Craig and Nancy’s house the night of their guitar playing daughter’s high school graduation party.

https://youtu.be/_TPjU9cB9SM

And here is the video of me leading my song “Holy Mighty Awesome God” at New Hope Baptist.

https://youtu.be/ey-UXdIfL58

How amazing it is to thing how suddenly God took us from First Baptist to the place where I am once again on stage with a band and leading worship!

God is faithful, kind and good.

And we will be singing to Him forever.

[popofventi]

Mental Yoga Sunday / 5 Favorite Long Form Reads of the Week / Issue No. 13

"The city takes a breath on Sunday. Of all that’s lost with the pursuit of what’s next, I hope we don’t lose that…"  -- Hawksley Workman

Mental Yoga Sunday is a callback to those lazy mornings and afternoons spent reading the newspaper or finishing up a dog eared novel. Days lost in long shadow in a hidden corner full of nothing but quiet and weak wifi. Immerse yourself for a spell in something longer than a text string but shorter than a binge marathon. Here are my favorite long form reads this week.

1

Leaked Recording: Inside Apple’s Global War On Leakers (The Outline)

A recording of an internal briefing at Apple earlier this month obtained by The Outline sheds new light on how far the most valuable company in the world will go to prevent leaks about new products.

The briefing, titled “Stopping Leakers - Keeping Confidential at Apple,” was led by Director of Global Security David Rice, Director of Worldwide Investigations Lee Freedman, and Jenny Hubbert, who works on the Global Security communications and training team.

According to the hour-long presentation, Apple’s Global Security team employs an undisclosed number of investigators around the world to prevent information from reaching competitors, counterfeiters, and the press, as well as hunt down the source when leaks do occur. Some of these investigators have previously worked at U.S. intelligence agencies like the National Security Agency (NSA), law enforcement agencies like the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service, and in the U.S. military.

The briefing, which offers a revealing window into the company’s obsession with secrecy, was the first of many Apple is planning to host for employees. In it, Rice and Freedman speak candidly about Apple’s efforts to prevent leaks, discuss how previous leakers got caught, and take questions from the approximately 100 attendees.

The presentation starts and ends with videos, spliced with shots of Tim Cook presenting a new product at one of Apple’s keynotes, that stress the primacy of secrecy at Apple. “When I see a leak in the press, for me, it’s gut-wrenching,” an Apple employee says in the first video. “It really makes me sick to my stomach.” Another employee adds, “When you leak this information, you’re letting all of us down. It’s our company, the reputation of the company, the hard work of the different teams that work on this stuff.” - FULL ARTICLE

2

Why My Guitar Gently Weeps (The Washington Post)

The convention couldn’t sound less rock-and-roll — the National Association of Music Merchants Show. But when the doors open at the Anaheim Convention Center, people stream in to scour rows of Fenders, Les Pauls and the oddball, custom-built creations such as the 5-foot-4-inch mermaid guitar crafted of 15 kinds of wood.

Standing in the center of the biggest, six-string candy store in the United States, you can almost believe all is well within the guitar world.

Except if, like George Gruhn, you know better. The 71-year-old Nashville dealer has sold guitars to Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Paul McCartney and Taylor Swift. Walking through NAMM with Gruhn is like shadowing Bill Belichick at the NFL Scouting Combine. There is great love for the product and great skepticism. What others might see as a boom — the seemingly endless line of manufacturers showcasing instruments — Gruhn sees as two trains on a collision course.

“There are more makers now than ever before in the history of the instrument, but the market is not growing,” Gruhn says in a voice that flutters between a groan and a grumble. “I’m not all doomsday, but this — this is not sustainable.”

The numbers back him up. In the past decade, electric guitar sales have plummeted, from about 1.5 million sold annually to just over 1 million. The two biggest companies, Gibson and Fender, are in debt, and a third, PRS Guitars, had to cut staff and expand production of cheaper guitars. In April, Moody’s downgraded Guitar Center, the largest chain retailer, as it faces $1.6 billion in debt. And at Sweetwater.com, the online retailer, a brand-new, interest-free Fender can be had for as little as $8 a month.

What worries Gruhn is not simply that profits are down. That happens in business. He’s concerned by the “why” behind the sales decline. When he opened his store 46 years ago, everyone wanted to be a guitar god, inspired by the men who roamed the concert stage, including Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and Jimmy Page. Now those boomers are retiring, downsizing and adjusting to fixed incomes. They’re looking to shed, not add to, their collections, and the younger generation isn’t stepping in to replace them.

Gruhn knows why.

“What we need is guitar heroes,” he says. - FULL ARTICLE

3

The Future of Language (Ozy)

In Norway, there sits a literary time capsule that is slowly filling with the unread manuscripts of the world’s best authors. Margaret Atwood was the first to submit her unpublished novel — Scribbler Moon — to this experiment, dubbed the Future Library Project, back in 2014. David Mitchell followed a year later, and the Icelandic poet Sjón after that. If all goes according to plan, a new author will submit a work every year, until the capsule is opened in 2114. Many of these authors will never live to see the reception to what could be their greatest work.

Just outside Oslo, a forest is growing with 1,000 spruce trees — near saplings that, by the time the project finishes, will have filled out enough to be cut down and turned into print editions of the time-capsuled books for future generations of readers. The question is: Will the books printed from this forest — or the words inside their pages — be recognizable? So much has changed in the last century, both thanks to the rapid rate of technological advancement and shifting demographics. OZY imagines how those things could continue to define language and literature 97 years down the road. - FULL ARTICLE

4

Supertasters Among The Dreaming Spires (1843 Magazine)

Are wine connoisseurs scientists or charlatans? Dan Rosenheck experiments with the Oxford and Cambridge wine-tasting teams

It smells like sweaty cheese in here,” thunders Domen Presern, a chemistry PhD student, announcing his presence at a second-floor Thai restaurant in Oxford. “Something with lactate crystals. Manchego?” “No,” retorts Janice Wang, on a break from her psychology dissertation. “This is definitely Morbier.” A few seconds later, she reconsiders. “I can see where you’re coming from,” she says, “but it just shows you’re not attuned to Asian flavours. Asians know it smells like fish sauce.”

The room didn’t smell like much of anything to me. Then again, I haven’t been training to become a human bloodhound. By contrast, the noses of Wang and Presern were on top form: they had just wrapped up their penultimate training session for the Varsity match, an annual blind wine-tasting contest held between teams from Oxford and Cambridge since 1953. They had spent the previous three hours simulating the actual event with two flights of unidentified wines – six whites and six reds. They filled out sheets guessing the age, grape varietal and geographic origin of each, alongside notes describing subtleties of scent and structure that made distinguishing Manchego from Morbier look as easy as apples from oranges. At “the Varsity”, as competitors dub it, experienced judges mark the submissions anony­mously. The team with the higher score gets to represent Britain at a taste-off in France, and the top taster receives a £300 ($375) magnum bottle of Cuvée Winston Churchill, a Champagne made by Pol Roger, the event’s sponsor.

This Varsity match is less well known than the Boat Race contested by the two universities’ rowing teams, but the blind wine-tasting societies have no trouble luring reinforcements at freshers’ fairs. Most recruits will lack the keen palate and dogged devotion needed to identify and memorise the flavour and aromas of dozens of varietals from hundreds of appellations. But those that do often have a bright future in the British wine trade: prominent critics like Oz Clarke and Jasper Morris cut their teeth in the contest.

Depending on your perspective, the Varsity is either an exercise in futility or a potent rejoinder to conventional wisdom. One academic study after another has found little scientific basis for wine criticism. Everyone has read florid promises of “gobs of ripe cassis”, “pillowy tannins”, and “seductive hints of garrigue”. Yet the relationships between such mumbo-jumbo and the chemical composition of a wine, between one taster’s use of it and another’s, and even between the same drinker’s notes on the same wine on different occasions tend to be faint at best. Articles arguing that, as Robbie Gonzalez of the blog i09 pithily put it, “wine tasting is bullshit” have become reliable clickbait. - FULL ARTICLE

5

The Ken Doll Reboot: Beefy, Cornrowed, and Pan-Racial (GQ)

For decades, he achieved icon status by being a basic, buff, blue-eyed bro. And for years, that was enough. No longer! Starting today, as part of a wide-ranging relaunch, Ken has cornrows. And he’s Asian. And he’s skinny. Or sometimes even fat (sorry, “broad”). Caity Weaver went deep into the valley (and design center) of the dolls to get an exclusive glimpse of Mattel’s new take on the all-American male.

Meet Ken: He is a beefy Asian man with 20/40 vision who frequently works out of doors.

And, meet Ken: He is a young record executive who expresses himself through bold sneaker attire while simultaneously being an African-American man of average build.

And, meet Ken: Against the better angels of his nature, he has bleached his hair peroxide blond, and now is determined to travel on an airplane in comfort and style.

And, meet Ken: He has a man bun, and that’s his whole thing.

In a condition of affairs at worst disastrous, at best depraved, Ken, Ken, Ken, and Ken are all dating the same woman.

Her name is Barbie. - FULL ARTICLE

#Long Form Reading #The Washington Post #The Outline #Apple's War On Leakers #Why My Guitar Gently Weeps #Ozy #The Future of Language #Supertasters #1843 Magazine #Ken Doll Reboot #GQ

[stellacarrierimaginationbuilders]

A Bright Future of Unlimited Options Freestyle Story by Stella Carrier

Songs Used in Today’s Freestyle Story;

 Survivor by Destiny’s Child

Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammer

Take On Me by A-Ha

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Michael Mcdonald

You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson

Ex’s and Oh’s by Elle King

I’m Yours by Jason Mraz

Affirmations For Today;

I am doing what I love from moment to moment.

I surrender my personality to the guidance of my soul and higher self.

I ask for and receive answers through my dreams.

My choices and possibilities are expanding everyday.

 A Bright Future of Unlimited Options Freestyle Story by Stella Carrier

Start Time of Typing Freestyle Story after putting affirmations, resources, title together by 1203 pm

That start time would be 12:04 p.m., end time 12:47 p.m.

Three women live near the headquarters were Bethesda Magazine is based.  The first girls name is Maya Jackson. Maya Jackson looks like Beyonce from the Survivor Music video by Destiny’s Child. The second woman’s name is Cheryl Russell. She looks like and styles her hair like Kelly Rowland did in the Survivor music video. Their female’s name is Angela Jackson and she looks the most like Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child, also in the Survivor music video. Today, the woman are relaxing and reliving nostalgic memories of how far they have come as they get ready in their hotel room at the Gaylord National resort in the upscale National Harbor area in Maryland (known to be popular among locals and probably tourists as well).

The three women were able to get a discount on their suite because Angela Jackson works as an event planner’s assistant at this hotel. After a tough period of temporary homelessness (2 months)and unemployment (9 months), Angela Jackson succeeded in getting an event planner’s assistant job at the Gaylord National hotel. Today is one of her three days off and she has successfully worked there for over three years now. Angela got the divinely inspired idea to apply at the hotel after she had a dream that she was in an Oscar party room area similar to the image of the Oscar party coverage that she browsed on the bizbash website over a month ago. Then the song Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammer leaked in her dream when there was no radio on in the room she was sleeping and then it intuitively made sense to her as she remembered seeing him (the singer Andy Grammer)in a hotel in the music video.

              Angela Jackson’s love life is booming as well even with both her mom and dad being relieved for her as they have been raising her twin kids for the past three years so that she can climb the ladder in her career. Angela used to be married over five years  to a bright man who came from a millionaire family of lawyers, doctors, and a political dynasty. Sadly, this bright man left Angela for an older woman who had much more money than Angela would and who was a heiress to a real estate and political dynasty.

              Right now, Angela Jackson has two promising male boyfriends in her life that bring her much happiness but she knows that eventually she is going to have to make a decision. Angela’s friends Maya and Cheryl playfully tease her for Angela’s love life almost mirroring one of her favorite singers Elle King in the Ex’s and Oh’s song. This is because Angela Jackson is currently juggling a rich and busy love life with a successful real estate male named Raymond Mason who looks like the lead singer from the Take On Me music video from A-Ha.  Raymond Mason lives in a nice four bedroom house in College Park Maryland.The second male Angela is deciding between is an Idris Elba lookalike named Bradley Rees who is a former  tour guide turned naval intelligence officer who is currently residing in a nice apartment in Arlington Virginia. One of Bradley Rees’s favorite songs is I’m Yours by Jason Mraz and he made it one of the unofficial love songs for him and Angela Jackson. Angela Jackson also had positive memories of this song because one of their first dates was at a Jason Mraz concert that she accompanied Bradley Rees to for a work trip in Norfolk, Virginia.

              Angela Jackson sometimes asks  her friend Maya Jackson for intuitive advice especially since Maya Jackson has given her good advice on bouncing back in her career and financial life. Angela Jackson works as a government civil service marketing director  on a U.S. airforce base in Prince George’s County Maryland. Additionally, Angela Jackson has worked at that job since she was 25 years old and has been married for over 16 years now to her husband Jimmy Jackson. Jimmy Jackson is a successful business owner in the Bethesda Maryland area. Together, Angela makes over 4 grand a month after taxes and Jimmy Jackson makes over 5 grand a month after taxes. However, Maya Jackson is careful to avoid telling Angela what to do because she feels that it is not her karma to do so.

Additionally, Maya sees that both suitors are good for Angela but that Angela would have to decide and choose based on if she is willing to go with the man who is willing to follow her if she relocates even if for an eventual wealthier life or if she chooses the man who would only stay with her if she stays in the Washington D.C. area (Maya knows which man would follow her and which man would stay but she is following her intuition in not disclosing this to Angela for karmic reasons). Maya Jackson unexpectedly met her husband Jimmy Jackson at a joint Madonna/Rihanna concert that was being held at the Verizon center in the Washington D.C. area. This was because her husband was accompanying his sister who enjoys music by both Rihanna and Madonna. Their eclectic music interests influenced the songs Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Michael Mcdonald and You Are Not Alone by Michael Jackson being played at their wedding.

Last, but not least of the trio is Cheryl Russell. Cheryl Russell is also a little clairvoyant (which also enables her to make a lucrative part time living as a psychic and a part time instructor at a college in the Washington D.C. area). Cheryl Russell is married with two children and recently helped one of her children create some art that was being sponsored by John Hopkins University in the Bethesda area. Cheryl Russell met her husband Harley Russell at a Ted Speaking event featuring art historian Sarah Lewis that was being held at the college where she is employed at. Cheryl Russell is also fascinated by the fact that her husband is a college cooking instructor turned public relations college instructor. Harley Russell  has also met Michelle Obama, George Bush, former President Barack Obama, and former first lady Laura Bush. Both Cheryl Russell and her husband Harley Russell have also been helping other aspiring writers with their blog that was inspired by the work that they had seen about a Happy Newspaper.

 References;

http://writingexercises.co.uk/random-name-generator.php

http://writingexercises.co.uk/random-job-generator.php

While it’s common knowledge that doing a job you love will make you happy, what about if your entire job was focused around happiness - what impact would that have? We spoke to creative entrepreneur and founder of The Happy Newspaper, Emily Coxhead, to find out.

https://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/meeting-entrepreneur-behind-happy-newspaper

Embrace The Near Win by Sarah Lewis (art historian)

https://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_lewis_embrace_the_near_win?utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=tedspread

George W. Bush on his unlikely friendship with Michelle Obama

 http://www.usatoday.com/videos/life/2017/02/28/george-w.-bush-his-unlikely-friendship-michelle-obama/98510066/

http://www.bizbash.com/oscars-2017-25-photos-from-hollywoods-biggest-week/new-york/story/33535#.WLWrwW8rKcw

Oscars 2017: 25 Photos From Hollywood's Biggest Week

 Local Winners Announced for Johns Hopkins University Art Show

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/Social-Scene/Local-Winners-Announced-for-Johns-Hopkins-University-Art-Show/

http://www.bethesdamagazine.com/Bethesda-Magazine/Contact-Us/

Contact Us Section

https://www.orindaben.com/pages/rooms/affirmations_room/

https://www.nationalharbor.com/gaylord-national/