#Caprice 2015

[mywifeleftme]

345: Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld // Never Were the Way She Was

Never Were the Way She Was Colin Stetson and Sarah Neufeld 2015, Constellation (Bandcamp)

My prevailing memory of seeing Sarah Neufeld and Colin Stetson’s duo performance in a small room at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa was the way they spent much of the performance with their eyes locked on one another. When violinist Neufeld became lost in her own playing and arched backward, in the same motion Stetson would lean forward over his hulking, steampunk bass saxophone, his legs braced wide. It was as though the two of them were bound at the neck by a long, invisible leather strap. In the most intense passages, they would square off barely a foot apart, like two rams, the veins in Stetson’s sweaty neck and forehead standing out, Neufeld’s angled forearm a blur of precision cuts. Despite also seeing Stetson’s SORROW, an arrangement of Gorecki’s 3rd Symphony for a 12-piece band, during the same festival, it was the intimate physicality of the duo show with Neufeld that had the bigger impact on me.

While Stetson has frequently performed in larger combos (as has Neufeld with Arcade Fire, for that matter), in solo and duo performances his uniqueness as a player is more legible. On Never Were the Way She Was, he uses his uncanny circular breathing technique to create ogrish drones (“With the Dark Hug of Time”), loop-like melodic phrases (“The Sun Roars Into View”), and even to emulate broken techno beats (“The Rest of Us”). Stetson is a pretty physically jacked guy, and when you see him do this stuff in person it’s a bit like watching a blacksmith going at his forge—on record it can be easy for an inattentive listener to miss the exertions required to produce these sounds. But when you start tuning in to the fact all of this groaning cacophony is produced by one man’s laboured lungs, its rawness and minor imprecisions become captivating.

Neufeld takes centre stage on the more somber, post-rocky tunes like the title track, her violin weeping rust as she overlooks a grey bay, Stetson contributing various fog horns and stomach upset. Now and again she wordlessly sings, but it’s always recorded distantly, like a memory of some ever-present sorrow you refuse to allow to surface. On “In the Vespers,” she sketches out a tricky rhythm that Stetson eventually echoes on a tenor sax, the pair running through an odd-time workout that would sound like prog were in not for the chilly clarity of her phrasing, the way the energy decays once again into remorse.

The pair’s previous collaboration was a 2013 film score (Blue Caprice), and the record is of a piece with the influential work Stetson has subsequently done as a soundtrack composer (notably Ari Aster’s Hereditary). As with fellow Aster collaborator the Haxan Cloak, Stetson’s work has helped to define the sound of contemporary unease. If you’ve watched a recent horror movie or psychological thriller, the palette of Never Were the Way She Was will already be familiar—but here the pieces aren’t tied to any preconceived scenario, and the interplay between the two musicians gives it a dynamism and complete-in-itself mood all its own.

345/365

[maitreguillaumetefengang]

Portrait d’un avocat forgé par le droit (Maître Guillaume Tefengang)

Mes chers lecteurs,

Je me propose aujourd’hui de dérouler devant vous le fil d’une vie, non comme on expose un curriculum figé et desséché, mais comme on ouvre un manuscrit annoté, raturé, parfois taché par l’encre de la lutte, et traversé d’éclairs de lumière. Il ne s’agit point ici d’exalter une figure, mais de contempler un chemin, le mien, que j’ai bâti pas à pas, sous le regard des lois, et au rythme des combats que la justice inspire à ceux qui, comme moi, refusent de s’en détourner.

Je suis né à Yaoundé, dans ce quartier qu’on appelait Cité verte, et qui, sous ses frondaisons épaisses, dissimulait parfois de rudes réalités sociales. C’est là que mes yeux d’enfant, encore vierges de toute rhétorique, croisèrent pour la première fois la silhouette imposante d’un palais de justice. Il est bien évident que ces images répétées, ces bâtiments sévères, ces portes closes et ces robes noires, éveillèrent en moi, non un désir d’autorité, mais une immense soif de comprendre. Qu’est-ce à dire ? Que dès ces années premières, l’idée de justice s’imposa à moi non comme une discipline extérieure, mais comme un mystère intime, une question lancinante à laquelle je ne pouvais répondre que par l’engagement.

Il appert que le Lycée Leclerc, où je fus formé, me donna bien plus que des outils. Il me donna le goût des textes, le sens du débat, et une conscience vive des inégalités. Là, entre les cours de lettres et les premières dissertations de droit, je compris que les règles n’étaient pas des carcans mais des leviers. D’une part, elles encadrent la violence ; d’autre part, elles révèlent la tension entre ce qui est et ce qui devrait être. Cette tension, je ne l’ai jamais fuie. Elle est devenue le souffle même de mon engagement.

À l’Université de Yaoundé II, entre 1995 et 2000, je plongeai dans le droit privé fondamental avec une ferveur que je n’avais jusqu’alors réservée qu’aux romans de Camus ou aux silences de la ville après la pluie. Je pense que cette période ne fut pas tant un apprentissage qu’une métamorphose. Les concepts, d’abord austères, finirent par devenir des outils vivants, maniables, presque organiques. Puis, en poursuivant avec un diplôme en droit international des affaires, je fis un pas décisif : je quittai la sphère nationale, non par désaffection, mais par nécessité. C’est avec clarté que l’on peut constater que cette spécialisation internationale n’était pas un caprice mais un prolongement logique : le monde auquel je voulais m’adresser n’avait pas de frontières fixes.

La suite de mon parcours, en Belgique d’abord, au sein de D’Ath and Partners, puis chez Hoffman et Heymans, m’apprit une autre leçon, moins théorique, plus âpre : celle du quotidien du juriste, mêlé à la matière mouvante des affaires humaines. Ce furent des années de formation en creux, où l’on apprend autant par les cas gagnés que par ceux qui échappent. On peut remarquer avec aisance que chaque cabinet, chaque dossier, chaque client m’a permis d’élargir non seulement mes compétences, mais aussi ma conception même du rôle de l’avocat dans un monde qui change.

Sub conditione d’une indépendance assumée, je créai en 2012 « Art and Law ». Pourquoi mêler art et droit ? Parce que je refusais que la rigueur juridique se retranche dans un formalisme sec. Le droit peut être, aussi, un langage créatif, une grammaire pour les formes libres que sont les œuvres, les projets, les intuitions d’artistes. Dans le cadre de cette initiative, je m’efforçai de rapprocher deux mondes que tout semblait séparer : l’inspiration et la norme.

Puis, entre 2015 et 2020, une double présence s’imposa : Bruxelles et Luxembourg. Le contraire eût été étonnant. Car il fallait que cette architecture que je construisais depuis Yaoundé s’élève, pierre après pierre, entre deux capitales du droit, deux foyers de décisions, deux zones d’influence. Travailler à AB Legal et chez Hance Law Luxembourg, c’était dire oui à une complexité nouvelle, celle de la transnationalité, des flux économiques, des contrats qui engagent des continents. Ceteris paribus, j’ai pu mesurer combien le droit des affaires n’est pas le contraire de la justice, mais un de ses visages les plus exigeants : celui où l’équité doit se faire lucide, mesurée, concrète.

C’est dans cette dynamique que j’ai fondé T-LEX. Non comme un aboutissement, mais comme un lieu de passage : entre l’Afrique et l’Europe, entre les juristes et les entrepreneurs, entre la rigueur et l’intuition. Il est bien clair et évident que ce cabinet est le fruit d’un cheminement long, d’une volonté têtue, mais aussi d’un regard lucide sur les besoins du monde tel qu’il est, et tel qu’il pourrait être.

Et pourtant, une question demeure. Peut-on, dans l’espace contractuel, où les intérêts s’affrontent et se négocient, maintenir vive cette flamme ancienne, presque naïve, que j’ai portée depuis mes années à la Cité verte ? Cette idée selon laquelle le droit n’est pas seulement un outil, mais un espoir ? Que la justice, même par des voies obliques, même dans les méandres de l’économie, continue de signifier quelque chose ? Peut-être faut-il, pour y répondre, interroger le lien entre éthique et technique, entre mémoire et stratégie. Et se demander si le juriste, en s’internationalisant, ne risque pas de s’exiler de lui-même. Voilà, mes chers lecteurs, un chantier qui mérite encore bien des pages.

Pour une lecture plus détaillée de ce parcours et de ses ramifications professionnelles, je vous invite à consulter l’article publié sur le site de T-LEX.

(https://www.guillaume-tefengang.org/un-parcours-faconne-par-la-rigueur-et-lideal/)

[automationsfascinations]

My favorite stealth wealth cars

CX90 GT on smaller rims

VW Passat W8

2013-2016 Volvo XC70 T6

2004-2007 Volvo XC70

2004-2007 V70R

2004-2009 S60

Fiesta ST

Tenth Gen suburban

Volvo XC90 v8

F150 coyote

VW phaeton W12 (Passat badged)

Taoureg v10

Toyota Sienna

2004 RS6 Avant

Volvo 850 t5r

Lexus is sportcross

2013 Chevrolet Caprice

2013-2015 BMW X1 x drive 35i

2008 Saab 9-3 turbo x wagon (rare)

Fiat 500 Abarth

[t-is-for]

What a feat for our #3. Congratulations, Caprice! 👏✨ The #19 Overall Draft Pick from 2015 reaches this milestone today in #KCvBAY and is the 25th Field Player in NWSL history to do so.

via wearebayfc April 20, 2024

[christoffertboman]

Adventure of a Lifetime | SY Swedish Caprice 2010 - 2015 (Re-upload) (Or...

Your adventure begins here

Camera Operators: Christoffer Boman & Matts Boman

Editor: Christoffer Boman (can't believe most footage survived 2 harddrive crashes)

Music: Tony Anderson - "Eyes Wide Open"

https://vimeo.com/156130751

(C) Christoffer Boman christoffertboman@gmail.com

[businesstiramisu]

Piotr Gąsiorowski (a professional linguist who works on Indo-European reconstruction) addressed English's alleged "weirdness" on loanwords and orthography in a 2015 blog post:

McWhorter begins by discussing English spelling and its caprices (with the reservation that writing is secondary with respect to speech). This is of course due to the conservative character of the spelling system, which has not undergone any major reform since Late Middle English. But English is by no means the only language with such a mismatch between its spoken and written form due to the reluctance of its orthography to catch up with sound change. French, for example, is just as weird. It has plenty of ambiguous spellings with more than one possible pronunciation and alternative spellings for one and the same phoneme in one and the same position. It easily beats English when it comes to mute consonants: vin, vins (verb and noun), vain, vains, vint, vaincs, vainc, vingt are all pronounced /væ̃/. Massive mergers of this kind would surely have caused any normal language to collapse, so French can’t be normal, can it? Irish spelling was even worse before its mid-20th-c. modernisation, and still remains a pretty complicated affair (regular, but you have to master quite a few rules to figure out how to pronounce bhfaighidh). Lhasa Tibetan has lost many consonant both in initial and final clusters, but has retained their spelling representation. And while we are in Asia, isn’t written Chinese even a little weird? Professor McWhorter says that “in countries where English isn’t spoken, there is no such thing as a ‘spelling bee’ competition”. To my knowledge, national spelling competitions are organised in many countries, including Poland. I have finished runner-up in one of them, and I can testify it was tough going. Is Polish a normal language?

sorry for the long quote -- mostly I wanted to save the part about Polish spelling bees. (I'd previously heard that these were an English-only phenomenon.) The comments get into similar competitions in the Netherlands, Belgium, Lithuania, France. These five countries (including Poland) do a dictation form, where punctuation also matters, which I haven't heard of in English -- but the basic idea seems similar enough. The Wikipedia article makes it clear that misspellings do count against you in the Polish competition.

OH! Later in the post, Gąsiorowski addresses the question of loanwords (unfortunately not in any detail):

The rest of McWhorter’s essay is devoted to the “mongrel vocabulary” of English (with most of it being actually French, Latin or Scandinavian), the richness of synonymy resulting from layers of borrowing, and the impact of Latinate loans on the development of a complex stress system. Though remarkable, these features are hardly unique or even rare. Plenty of languages have been relexified with foreign elements to a comparable degree, and with equally dramatic consequences for their morphology and phonology.

for some examples, though, you could start with the Wikipedia page on Stratum (Linguistics)

Ah, the old riddle with English: have you only seen this word in writing and therefore use it correctly but pronounced it incorrectly? Or am I the fool who has always been pronouncing it wrong?

[prideknights]

Say Their Names

Day 1 of Tumblr’s #ActsOfPride campaign:

These are the black trans lives we have lost due to violence in the United States since 2009. Sadly, this is most likely not a complete list as many of the souls we have lost go unreported or were misgendered. They will not be forgotten.

Caprice Curry, 31 - Killed January 17, 2009 Jimmy McCollough, 34 - Killed April 14, 2009 Foxy Ivy, mid 30s - May 23, 2009 Christopher Jermaine Scott, 36 - Killed July 1, 2009 Beyonce (Eric) Lee, 21 - Killed July 26, 2009 Tyli’a Mack, 21 - Killed August 26, 2009 Dee Green, 25 - Killed October 26, 2009 Toni Alston, 44 - Killed April 3, 2010 Chanel (Dana A. Larkin), 26 - Killed May 7, 2010 Sandy Woulard, 28 - Killed June 21, 2010 Victoria Carmen White, 28 - Killed September 8, 2010 Stacey Lee aka Stacey Blahnik, 31 - Killed October 11, 2010 Tyra Trent, 25 - Killed February 19, 2011 Marcal Camero Tye, 25 - Killed March 8, 2011 Miss Nate Nate, 44 - Killed June 13, 2011 Lashai Mclean, 23 - Killed July 20, 2011 Shelley Hilliard, 19 - Killed October 23, 2011 Chassity Nathan Vickers, 32 - Killed November 17, 2011 Githe Goines, 23 - Killed December 29, 2011 Crain Conaway, 47 - Killed January 17, 2012 Deoni Jones, 23 - Killed February 2, 2012 Coko Williams, 35 - Killed April 4, 2012 Tyrell Jackson, 23 - Killed April 4, 2012 Paige Clay, 23 - Killed April 16, 2012 Brandy Martell, 37 - Killed April 29, 2012 Tracey Johnson, 40 - Killed July 5, 2012 Tiffany Gooden, 19 - Killed August 14, 2012 Dewayne “Deja” Jones, 33 - Killed August 26, 2012 Kendall Hampton, 26 - Killed August 29, 2012 Evon Young, 22 - Killed January 1, 2013 Cemia “CeCe” Dove, 23 - Killed March 27, 2013 Kelly Young, 29 - Killed April 3, 2013 Ashley Sinclair, 30 - Killed April 11, 2013 Fatima Woods, 53 - Killed May 30, 2013 Jock Maurice McKinney, 50 - Killed 12 July, 2013 Diamond Williams, 31 - Killed July 14, 2013 Domonique Newburn, 31 - Killed August 20, 2013 Islan Nettles, 21 - Killed August 20, 2013 Artegus Konyale Madden, 37 - Killed September 1, 2013 Terry Golston, 44 - Killed September 6, 2013 Eyricka Morgan, 26 - Killed September 24, 2013 Brittany Stergis, 22 - Killed December 5, 2013 Kandy Hall, 40 - Killed June 3, 2014 Yaz'min Shancez, 31 - Killed June 19, 2014 Tiffany Edwards, 28 - Killed June 26, 2014 Mia Henderson, 26 - Killed July 16, 2014 Aniya Parker, 47 - Killed October 3, 2014 Ashley Sherman, 25 - Killed October 27, 2014 Gizzy Fowler, 24 - Killed November 12, 2014 Lamar Edwards, 20  - Killed January 9, 2015 Lamia Beard, 30 - Killed January 17, 2015 Ty Underwood, 24  - Killed January 26, 2015 Yazmin Vash Payne, 33 - Killed January 31, 2015 Taja Gabrielle DeJesus, 36 - Killed February 1, 2015 Penny Proud, 21 - Killed February 10, 2015 Keyshia Blige, 33 - Killed March 7, 2015 London Chanel, 21 - Killed May 18, 2015 Ashton O’Hara, 25 - Killed July 14, 2015 India Clarke, 25 - Killed July 2, 2015 Shade Schuler, 22 - Killed July 29, 2015 Amber Monroe, 20 - Killed August 8, 2015 Kandis Capri, 35 - Killed August 11, 2015 Elisha Walker, 20 - Killed August 13, 2015 Kiesha Jenkins, 22 - Killed October 6, 2015 Zella Ziona, 21 - Killed October 15, 2015 Veronica Banks Cano, mid 30s - Killed February 19, 2016 Maya Young, 25 - Killed February 21, 2016 Demarkis Stansberry, 30 - Killed February 27, 2016 Kedarie Johnson, 16 - Killed March 2, 2016 Shante Isaac, 34 - Killed April 10, 2016 Keyonna Blakeney, 22 - Killed April 16, 2016 Tyreece Walker, 32 - Killed May 1, 2016 Mercedes Successful, 32 - Killed May 15, 2016 Goddess Diamond, 20 - Killed June 5, 2016 Deeniquia Dodds, 22 - Killed July 13, 2016 Dee Whigam, 25 - Killed July 23, 2016 Skye Mockabee, 26 - Killed July 30, 2016 Rae'Lynn Thomas, 28 - Killed August 10, 2016 T.T. Saffore, mid-20s, Killed September 11, 2016 Crystal Edmonds, 22 - Killed September 16, 2016 Jazz Alford, 30 - Killed September 23, 2016 Brandi Bledsoe, 32 - Killed October 12, 2016 Noony Norwood, 30 - Killed November 5, 2016 India Monroe, 29 - Killed December 21, 2016 Mesha Caldwell, 41 - Killed January 4, 2017 JoJo Striker, 23 - Killed February 8, 2017 Jaquarrius Holland, 18, - Killed February 19, 2017 Keke Collier, 24 - Killed February 21, 2017 Chyna Gibson, 31 - Killed February 25, 2017 Ciara McElveen, 21 - Killed February 27, 2017 Alphonza Watson, 38 -Killed March 22, 2017 Kenne McFadden, 27 - Killed April 9, 2017 Chay Reed, 28 - Killed April 21, 2017 Brenda Bostick, 59 - Killed April 25, 2017 Sherrell Faulkner, 46, Died May 16, 2017 Ava Le'Ray Barrin, 17 - Killed June 25, 2017 Ebony Morgan, 28 - Killed July 2, 2017 TeeTee Dangerfield, 32 - Killed July 31, 2017 Jaylow McGlory, 29 - Killed August 4, 2017 Kiwi Herring, 30 -Killed August 22, 2017 Kashmire Redd, 28 - Killed September 4, 2017 Derricka Banner, 26 - Killed September 12, 2017 Candace Towns, 30 - Killed October 31, 2017 Brooklyn BreYanna Stevenson, 31 - Killed November 27 2017 Brandi Seals, 26 - Killed December 13, 2017 Celine Walker, 36 - Killed February 4, 2018 Tonya Harvey, 35 - Killed February 6, 2018 Phylicia Mitchell, 46 - Killed February 23, 2018 Amia Tyrae, 28 - Killed March 28, 2018 Sasha Wall, 29 - Killed April 1, 2018 Nino Fortson, 36 - Killed May 13, 2018 Gigi Pierce, 28 - Killed May 21, 2018 Antash’a Devine Sherrington English, 38 - Killed June, 2018 Diamond Stephens, 39 - Killed June 18, 2018 Cathalina Christina James, 24 - Killed June 24, 2018 Keisha Wells, 50s - Killed June 24, 2018 Sasha Garden, 27 - Kille July 19, 2018 Vontashia Bell, 18 - Killed August 30, 2018 Dejanay Stanton, 24 - Killed August 30, 2018 Shantee Tucker, 30 - Killed September 5, 2018 Londonn Moore, 20 - Killed September 8, 2018 Ciara Minaj Carter, 31 - Killed October 3, 2018 Regina Denise Brown, 53 - Killed October 10, 2018 Tydi Dansbury, 37, Killed November 26, 2018 Keanna Mattel, 35 - Killed December 7, 2018 Dana Martin, 31 - Killed January 6, 2019 Jazzaline Ware, 34 - Killed March 25, 2019 Ashanti Carmon, 27, Killed March 30, 2019 Claire Legato, 21 - Killed April 15, 2019 Muhlaysia Booker, 23 - Killed May 18, 2019 Michelle “Tamika” Washington, 40 - Killed May 19, 2019 Paris Cameron, 20 - Killed May 25, 2019 Chynal Lindsey, 26 - Killed June 1, 2019 Chanel Scurlock, 23 - Killed June 5, 2019 Layleen Polanco, 27 - Killed June 7, 2019 Zoe Spears, 23 - Killed June 13, 2019 Brooklyn Lindsey, 32 - Killed June 25, 2019 Denali Berries Stuckey, 29 - Killed July 20, 2019 Kiki Fantroy, 21 - Killed July 31, 2019 Pebbles La Dime Doe, 24 - Killed August 4, 2019 Bubba Walker, 55 - Killed July 2019 Tracy Single, 22 - Killed July 30, 2019 Bee Love Slater, 23 - Killed September 1, 2019 Bailey Reeves, 17 - Killed September 2, 2019 Ja’Leyah-Jamar, 30 - Killed September 13, 2019 Itali Marlowe, 29 - Killed September 20, 2019 Brianna “BB” Hill, 30, Killed October 13, 2019 Yahira Nesby, 33 - Killed December 19, 2019 Monika Diamond, 34 - Killed March 18, 2020 Nina Pop, 28 - Killed May 3, 2020 Tony McDade, 38 - Killed May 27, 2020

All of them should still be here with us today.

Say their names.

[gardenvarietydespair]

I posted 2,679 times in 2022

That's 2,044 more posts than 2021!

45 posts created (2%)

2,634 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@theocking

@genderqueer-bithing

@acerikus

@faceofobsession

@catnip-and-caprice

I tagged 1,021 of my posts in 2022

#funny - 102 posts

#pokemon - 90 posts

#isabella - 86 posts

#twenty one pilots - 61 posts

#visual art - 49 posts

#my chemical romance - 35 posts

#cats - 31 posts

#bare a pop opera - 23 posts

#demon advice - 19 posts

#tw - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 94 characters

#like the type of boots like are you sure you won’t regret getting a different color in a year?

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

At timestamp 2:00 of their track “Migraine” (Vessel, 2013), the musical duo Twenty One Pilots utilizes electronic sound effects to successfully predict the genesis of Toby Fox’s hit indie game Undertale (2015). In this essay I will

14 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

#4

your fave is problematic or whatever twenty one pilots said

18 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

#3

Local Chapel Pianist Gets Away With Playing Twenty One Pilots Songs During Communion At Least Five Times Before Finally Someone Calls Her Out On It

45 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

#2

So most of the blogs I follow haven’t updated in 3+ years and I refuse to buy into the new algorithm system so I’m looking for some more blogs to follow (+ mutuals??)

Anyway like/reblog this if you post about any of the following:

Pokémon

Undertale/Deltarune

My Chemical Romance

Muse

Twenty One Pilots

general music recommendations/playlists

Webcomics

Books/novels

Gravity Falls

Atrocious memes

any memes at all

Cats

Aesthetics

Mental health

Education-related things

Shitposts

Musician/music major/concert band jokes

cool trivia shit idk

61 notes - Posted September 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

you should bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bou-

79 notes - Posted December 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thefloatingindex]

1. American Sector, Courtney Stephens & Pacho Velez (2020) 2. Saving Face, Jalal Toufic (2003) 3. Untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends, Jayce Salloum (2003) 4. Current, 2019, Provides Ng, Eli Joteva, Ya Nzi, Artem Konevskikh (2021) 5. Discoveries on the Forest Floor, Charlotte Pryce (2006) 6. Caprice, Joanna Hogg (1987) 7. Nadie es Innocente (No One is Innocent), Sarah Minter (1985-87) 8. Thành phố khác (Another City), Phạm Ngọc Lân (2015) 9. 둠즈데이 비디오 (Doomsday Video), Yun Choi (2020) 10. An Image, Harun Farocki (1983)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Dick Tracy (1990)

Dick Tracy ranks among the most visually stylish comic book movies I’ve ever seen. If you’re not familiar with the titular character (I wasn't), Dick Tracy (Warren Beatty, who also produced and directed the picture) is a hard-hitting, no-nonsense detective committed to ridding his city of organized crime. His opponent is Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice (Al Pacino) a ruthless mobster with an affinity for walnuts. While these two juggernauts go at it, Dick must resist the tempting Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) and stay true to his longtime girlfriend Tess Truehart (Glenne Headly) and keep a bright-eyed ragamuffin simply known as “The Kid” (Charlie Korsmo) out of trouble.

When it comes to pictures that are as visually brilliant as Dick Tracy, words fall short. This movie’s color scheme is quite distinct. All of the costumes, sets, and props are either red, green, yellow, or blue. With the addition of black and white, and the flesh tones of the actors the film (appropriately) feels like a 1930's newspaper strip brought to life. That would be enough for most movies, but here, it’s just the beginning. In addition to having this very unusual palette, the actors wear extensive makeup and prosthetics. You might wonder why a mobster called “Scarface” or “The Rat” got their name in any other movie but not here. It's obvious why this one's called “Flat Top” or that one “Prune Face”. This world is filled to the brim with zany characters, each more outrageous than the last. I loved it and the extensive use of matte paintings throughout. They're some of the best I've ever seen.

More than anything, the film's look stands out but even without it, you have a compelling battle between two determined individuals with the soul of a city hanging in the balance. Balancing out the loony villains are key down-to-earth characters that reign the picture in. Beatty as Dick Tracy is not chewing the scenery like Al Pacino is, but his straight-laced, single-minded attitude makes him a cartoon too. You get a real kick out of seeing brave Dick struggle when it came to confronting his true feelings towards his girlfriend. It’s like if the guy can’t punch a problem, he has no idea what to do with it. When it comes to Madonna, I’m sure if I didn’t have a tin ear on the particular day that I watched this film I’d be able to tell you all about how good the songs were, but I might've also been too distracted by her... other assets to notice her musical skills.

I found Dick Tracy to be a pleasant surprise. For years I put off watching it because I knew it came out around the same time as Batman and assumed it was just some cheap knockoff. It might've been green-lit to ride the wave but it stands out. This movie is a feast for the eyes.  Some of its characters I'll never forget (Dustin Hoffman as Mumbles is an instant favorite). I’ve come to love any film in which Al Pacino acts like a lunatic and this ranks among his nuttiest performances. Its visuals are inspired and the story is pretty good too. (Theatrical version on the big screen, February 1, 2015)

[kris33390]

Regards croisés sur “la bacchante” d’André Lhote avec JJ Issouli et Isabelle Beccia.

Article relatif à la sortie culturelle sur Bordeaux le 19 février 2020.

Intervention passionnée et passionnante de Jean-Jacques Issouli professeur agrégé de lettres classiques sur “la bacchante” d’André Lhote avec Isabelle Beccia. Œuvres citées en rapport avec le thème, certaines m’ont échappées.

• Euripide Bacchantes : http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/tragediens/euripide/bacchantesfr.htm

• Ovide Métamorphose 11ieme : http://www.theatre-classique.fr/pages/pdf/OVIDE_METAMORPHOSES_11.pdf (…) Non loin de là, des boeufs paisibles, courbés sous le joug, traçaient dans les champs de larges sillons. D’agrestes laboureurs, d’un bras nerveux, avec la bêche ouvraient la terre, et préparaient les doux fruits de leurs pénibles sueurs. À l’aspect des Ménades, ils ont fui, épouvantés, abandonnant, épars dans les champs, leurs bêches, leurs longs râteaux, et leurs hoyaux pesants : chacune s’en empare. Dans leur fureur, elles arrachent aux boeufs même leurs cornes menaçantes, et reviennent de l’interprète des dieux achever les destins. Il leur tendait des mains désarmées. Ses prières les irritent. Pour la première fois, les sons de sa voix ont perdu leur pouvoir. Ces femmes sacrilèges consomment leur crime ; il expire, et son âme, grands dieux ! s’exhale à travers cette bouche dont les accents étaient entendus par les rochers, et qui apprivoisait les hôtes sauvages des forêts.

• Robert Garnier Hyppolite : https://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/albin_1154-5852_2008_num_20_1_1109.pdf PHEDRE : Derechef, ô cruel, à vos pieds je me jette, Prenez compassion de moy vostre sujette.

HIPPOLYTE : Retirez-vous de moy, ne me venez toucher, Ne me toucher le corps, de peur de me tacher. Comment ? elle m’embrasse ? Il faut que mon espee, Vengeant si grand forfaict, soit de son sang trempée. Jamais, chaste Diane, à ton nom immortel Un sang mieux consacré n’humecta ton autel.

PHEDRE : C’est ce que je demande. A ceste heure, Hippolyte, Piteux, mettrez-vous fin à ma douleur despite. Hippolyte, il ne peut m’arriver plus grand heur Que mourant par vos mains conserver mon honneur.

HIPPOLYTE : Allez, vivez infame, et que jamais cette arme, Pollue en vous touchant, le chaste corps ne m’arme. En quel Tigre, en quel Gange, en quel gouffre aboyant, En quelle ondeuse mer m’iray-je nettoyant ? (v. 1473-1488)

• Tableau Bacchante avec une chèvre William Bouguereau. 1825-1905. Paris. Une Bacchante ou Bacchante lutinant une chèvre 1862.

• J. Maria de Heredia trophée : https://www.lacauselitteraire.fr/les-trophees-poesies-completes-jose-maria-de-heredia

Les bacchanales : Une brusque clameur épouvante le Gange. Les tigres ont rompu leurs jougs et, miaulants, Ils bondissent, et sous leurs bonds et leurs élans Les Bacchantes en fuite écrasent la vendange.

Et le pampre que l’ongle ou la morsure effrange Rougit d’un noir raisin les gorges et les flancs Où près des reins rayés luisent des ventres blancs De léopards roulés dans la pourpre et la fange.

Sur les corps convulsifs les fauves éblouis, Avec des grondements que prolonge un long râle, Flairent un sang plus rouge à travers l’or du hâle ;

Mais le Dieu, s’enivrant à ces jeux inouïs, Par le thyrse et les cris les exaspère et mêle Au mâle rugissant la hurlante femelle.

• Baudelaire POÈME LE THYRSE À FRANTZ LISZT

Qu’est-ce qu’un thyrse ? Selon le sens moral et poétique, c’est un emblème sacerdotal dans la main des prêtres ou des prêtresses célébrant la divinité dont ils sont les interprètes et les serviteurs. Mais physiquement ce n’est qu’un bâton, un pur bâton, perche à houblon, tuteur de vigne, sec, dur et droit. Autour de ce bâton, dans des méandres capricieux, se jouent et folâtrent des tiges et des fleurs, celles-ci sinueuses et fuyardes, celles-là penchées comme des cloches ou des coupes renversées. Et une gloire étonnante jaillit de cette complexité de lignes et de couleurs, tendres ou éclatantes. Ne dirait-on pas que la ligne courbe et la spirale font leur cour à la ligne droite et dansent autour dans une muette adoration ? Ne dirait-on pas que toutes ces corolles délicates, tous ces calices, explosions de senteurs et de couleurs, exécutent un mystique fandango autour du bâton hiératique ? Et quel est, cependant, le mortel imprudent qui osera décider si les fleurs et les pampres ont été faits pour le bâton, ou si le bâton n’est que le prétexte pour montrer la beauté des pampres et des fleurs ? Le thyrse est la représentation de votre étonnante dualité, maître puissant et vénéré, cher Bacchant de la Beauté mystérieuse et passionnée. Jamais nymphe exaspérée par l’invincible Bacchus ne secoua son thyrse sur les têtes de ses compagnes affolées avec autant d’énergie et de caprice que vous agitez votre génie sur les cœurs de vos frères. — Le bâton, c’est votre volonté, droite, ferme et inébranlable ; les fleurs, c’est la promenade de votre fantaisie autour de votre volonté ; c’est l’élément féminin exécutant autour du mâle ses prestigieuses pirouettes. Ligne droite et ligne arabesque, intention et expression, roideur de la volonté, sinuosité du verbe, unité du but, variété des moyens, amalgame tout-puissant et indivisible du génie, quel analyste aura le détestable courage de vous diviser et de vous séparer ?

Cher Liszt, à travers les brumes, par delà les fleuves, par-dessus les villes où les pianos chantent votre gloire, où l’imprimerie traduit votre sagesse, en quelque lieu que vous soyez, dans les splendeurs de la ville éternelle ou dans les brumes des pays rêveurs que console Cambrinus, improvisant des chants de délectation ou d’ineffable douleur, ou confiant au papier vos méditations abstruses, chantre de la Volupté et de l’Angoisse éternelles, philosophe, poëte et artiste, je vous salue en l’immortalité !

• Maupassant “Une partie de campagne ”

https://short-edition.com/fr/classique/guy-de-maupassant/une-partie-de-campagne

Extrait : La jeune fille pleurait toujours, pénétrée de sensations très douces, la peau chaude et piquée partout de chatouillements inconnus. La tête de Henri était sur son épaule ; et, brusquement, il la baisa sur les lèvres. Elle eut une révolte furieuse et, pour l’éviter, se rejeta sur le dos. Mais il s’abattit sur elle, la couvrant de tout son corps. Il poursuivit longtemps cette bouche qui le fuyait, puis, la joignant, y attacha la sienne. Alors, affolée par un désir formidable, elle lui rendit son baiser en l’étreignant sur sa poitrine, et toute sa résistance tomba comme écrasée par un poids trop lourd. Tout était calme aux environs.

L’oiseau se mit à chanter. Il jeta d’abord trois notes pénétrantes qui semblaient un appel d’amour, puis, après un silence d’un moment, il commença d’une voix affaiblie des modulations très lentes. Une brise molle glissa, soulevant un murmure de feuilles, et dans la profondeur des branches passaient deux soupirs ardents qui se mêlaient au chant du rossignol et au souffle léger du bois.

Une ivresse envahissait l’oiseau, et sa voix s’accélérant peu à peu comme un incendie qui s’allume ou une passion qui grandit, semblait accompagner sous l’arbre un crépitement de baisers. Puis le délire de son gosier se déchaînait éperdument. Il avait des pâmoisons prolongées sur un trait, de grands spasmes mélodieux.

Quelquefois il se reposait un peu, filant seulement deux ou trois sons légers qu’il terminait soudain par une note suraiguë. Ou bien il partait d’une course affolée, avec des jaillissements de gammes, des frémissements, des saccades, comme un chant d’amour furieux, suivi par des cris de triomphe.

Mais il se tut, écoutant sous lui un gémissement tellement profond qu’on l’eût pris pour l’adieu d’une âme. Le bruit s’en prolongea quelque temps et s’acheva dans un sanglot.

Christian Loverde http://bit.ly/CLoverde

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Processed with MOLDIV

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La Bacchante d’André Lhote Regards croisés sur "la bacchante" d'André Lhote avec JJ Issouli et Isabelle Beccia. Article relatif à la sortie culturelle sur Bordeaux le 19 février 2020.

[an-tao]

Nhất văn: (eng version)

My dreams?

"Welcome everyone to Dream Theatre! What film are we gonna watch tonight?" I remember this scene from the animation Inside Out (2015), a film produced by Pixar Animation Studios but released by Walt Disney Pictures. The scene mentioned above happens everyday in the world of five emotional characters. Maybe, my Dream Theatre is often managed by Joy, so most of the time, my dreams are fantastic and mellow. Out of my expectation, at the moment I am writing this, my playlist has a voice saying this "let suppose that you were able everynight, to dream any dream in one of the dreams. But now let's have a supprise, let's have a dream which is under control." That makes me think more about my life, how credible is it. I live my life with various ideals, I hold my faith in my Lord Jesus, and believe goodness comes from everything, everyone. But one of them was this word, not the most important, but stays beside me, "dream".

For some reasons, I live my life being a dreamer. Not all dreamers are respected, and life is full of realistic people. I don't usually keep in deep touch with people who don't respect this word "dream" in me. I had heard words from a teacher of mine, "you are not wrong to be innocent and impartial, but when you put your steps into the real world, you might not be able to handle it." I do not think people realize this, being innocent, and being able to endure life, sometimes both are the same. Because you understand how difficult life is, you may choose to accept those unrequited toil, and keep your soul in the calm stage. It is not a caprice, it is a choice that I have been thinking about, always.

[leshorriblestravailleurs]

Isolated Sounds II - 'Shadow Pulses'

a mix by Les Horribles Travailleurs - 22 sept. 2019

 Tracklist

\

Segments of:

 0:00

1.

Carlos Perón - 'Suicide Control' -

From: 'Impersonator 3 - Cris De Plaisir'

Germany, 1992

Label: Aus Lauter Liebe

carlosperon.bandcamp.com/album/impersonator-iii-remastered-w-bonus-tracks

 2:07

2.

Brödraskapslöftet - '221'

From: 'Norrköping' by Various Artists

Sweden, 2017 Label: Hatets Dok

hatetsdok.bandcamp.com/album/norrk-ping

 3:26

3.

N.Strahl.N - 'Achter Gesang - Schwindel'

From: 'Anschwellender Bocksgesang'

Germany, 2008

Label: Apocalyptic Radio ‎

nstrahln.bandcamp.com/album/anschwellender-bocksgesang

 4:46

4.

Knækkede Stemmer - 'Untitled I'

From: 'Første Portræt (Et Hult Menneske)'

Sweden, 2013

Label: Järtecknet

knaekkedestemmer.bandcamp.com/album/f-rste-portr-t-et-hult-menneske

 5:33

5.

Sargasso Sea - 'Health Sciences'

From: 'True North Square'

Canada, 2018 Label: Summer Isle

summerisle.bandcamp.com/album/true-north-square

 6:15

6.

Ghastly Night - 'Rivet´ ‎

From: 'Dark Waters'

Finland, 2014

not on label

ghastlynight.bandcamp.com/album/dark-waters

 6:56

7.

Spiteful Womb - ´Unsaid´

From: 'Desolator'

US, 2017

Label: Old Europa Cafe ‎(Italy)

spitefulwomb.bandcamp.com/album/desolator

 7:53

8.

Arv & Miljö - 'Instruktioner For Man'

From: 'Kropp'

Denmark, 2014

Label: Posh Isolation

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8Z9WYNT_3A&t=304s

 10:32

9.

Golem mécanique - 'Stroj-2'

From 'Stroj / Zamek'

France, 2013

Label: Drone Sweet Drone Records

dronesweetdrone.bandcamp.com/album/stroj-zamek

 11:30

10.

Teeth - 'Black Blood, Black Bile, Black Hole Heart'

From: 'Black Hole Heart'

Sweden, 2008

Label: Klorofyll Kassetter ‎

whenskiesaregrey.bandcamp.com/album/black-hole-heart

 12:35

11.

Shapeless coat of arms - 'Dock ramblers'

From: 'Radiance of low life'

Russia, recorded 2015, released 2019

not on label

shapelesscoatofarms.bandcamp.com/album/radiance-of-low-life-2

 13:44

12.

'Independent Council II' - Whitewater

From: 'Independent Council'

Canada, 2016

Label: Aught\Void

aughtvoid.bandcamp.com/album/independent-council

 14:30

13.

'без названия (Мариу́поль) 25052018' - Крот

From: 'Посейдон Oтель'

Greece (?), 2018

Label: 'Live Adult Entertainment'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UOuwwbfZGo

 14:55

14.

'Untitled' - H.Ö.H

Track B2 from 'Palava Kuljettaja'

Finland, 2017

Label: Pääte ‎

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh8dgWLZ7Cc&t=223s

 15:44

15.

'Amipuri dimanche 14 Juillet 2019' - Olivier Bringer

France, 2019

Soundcloud upload

soundcloud.com/user754869872/amipuridimanche-14-juillet-2019olivier-bringer

 16:40

16.

Ashpa - 'Side a'

From: 'Nedves föld'

Recorded between 2014-2015 in Budapest, Hungary.

Label: Geräuschmanufaktur (Germany)

geraeuschmanufaktur.bandcamp.com/album/nedves-f-ld

 17:44

17.

Golem mécanique - 'Zamek-Prelude'

From 'Stroj / Zamek'

France, 2013

Label: Drone Sweet Drone Records

dronesweetdrone.bandcamp.com/album/stroj-zamek

 18:53

18.

Pestorgel - 'Under Klippene'

From: 'Pestorgel'

Norway, 2014

Label: RecordsOfTheFleshGod

recordsofthefleshgod.bandcamp.com/album/pestorgel

 21:03

19.

Bjørn Magnhildøen  - '14​.​5​.​93 (1993)'

From:  'Parlamentation'

2019

Label: UnicatipH (Germany)

thorstensoltau.bandcamp.com/album/parlamentation

 23:58

20.

Respirator - '1'

From: Burst

US, 2010 / Germany, 2018

Label: Burst / White Centipede Noise

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU0ImgXrMnw&t=76s

 25:50

21.

C.O.D. - 'Untitled'

From: 'Withhold'

Belgium, 2016

Label: Caprice & Necessity

capriceandnecessity.bandcamp.com/album/withhold

 27:35

22.

Veldt - 'True Self'

From: 'Contingent Crown'

Canada, 2017

Label: Aught Void ‎

aughtvoid.bandcamp.com/album/contingent-crown-2

 28:12

23.

'Wry' - Sunken Cheek

From 'Humiliation'

US, 2018

Label: New Forces

newforces.bandcamp.com/album/humiliation

 29:04

24.

don mandarin tapes # 8 - 'soldier blue'

UK

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU9JpafTg_0&t=2s

 30:14

25.

Pit Horse Doom Orchestra - 'Skarabaus'

From: 'Sampler II: Grubenfunde' - Various

Germany, 2019

Label: Grubenwehr Freiburg

grubenwehrfreiburg.bandcamp.com/album/grubenfunde-sampler-vol-2

 30:47

26.

Kjostad - 'Median Ice In Dates November 22-28'

From: 'Ice In / Ice Out'

Australia, 2019

Label: Cipher Productions ‎

soundcloud.com/user-942380133/kjostad-median-ice-in-dates-november-22-28-excerpt

 32:05

27.

Royal Tropical Institute - 'New Found Evidence'

From: 'Ornament-Relic'

UK, 212 Label: Strange Rules

strangerules.bandcamp.com/album/ornament-relic

 32:31

28.

Flutwacht - 'Scherbenfund'

From: 'Sampler II: Grubenfunde' - Various

Germany, 2019

Label: Grubenwehr Freiburg

grubenwehrfreiburg.bandcamp.com/album/grubenfunde-sampler-vol-2

 33:33

29.

YAO 91404 D - 'Untitled'

From: 'LenShumZavod'

Assembled May, 10, 2007 in Nevanlinna, Inkeri.

2009, Finland

Label: Freak Animal Records

yaop.bandcamp.com/album/lenshumzavod

 36:07

30.

LA County Morgue - 'It Was Become Over'

From: 'Untitled VI'

Australia. 2013

Label: Altered States Tapes

alteredtapedstates.bandcamp.com/album/it-was-become-over

 37:47

31.

N - 'To Die In Bed'

From: 'Asphyxiating'

Italy, 2001

Label: Slaughter Productions

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CuEBDZluC4&t=108s

 39:00

32.

German Army - 'Fray Marcos'

From: 'Tewa'

Canada, 2017

Label: Aught\Void

aughtvoid.bandcamp.com/album/tewa

 39:47

33.

Pestorgel - 'Fordervelsen del II'

From: 'Pestorgel'

Norway, 2014

Label: RecordsOfTheFleshGod

recordsofthefleshgod.bandcamp.com/album/pestorgel

 41:05

34.

N.Strahl.N - 'Maschinenrepublik'

From: 'Maschinenrepublik'

Germany, 2006

Label: Apocalyptic Radio

nstrahln.bandcamp.com/album/maschinenrepublik

 42:03

35.

Pleasure Brothers  - 'B - Untitled'

From: 'Ecstasy'

Australia, 2015

Label: Altered States Tapes

alteredtapedstates.bandcamp.com/album/ecstasy

 43:00

36.

/ migra /  - 'metastasis'

Greece, from 'at last... silence' (2004) mini-album

migra0noise.bandcamp.com/album/at-last-silence

soundcloud.com/migra_noise

 43:55

37.

Knækkede Stemmer - 'Sådan giver jeg slip'

From: 'Marts (Musik for Død Akustik)'

Canada, 2015

Label: Total Black

knaekkedestemmer.bandcamp.com/album/marts-musik-for-d-d-akustik

 44:17

38.

Urall - 'Tails swallowing'

From: 'Nothing but these bright edges'

Belgium, 2017

Label: Midnight Manhunt ‎

urall.bandcamp.com/album/nothing-but-these-bright-edges

 45:20

39.

No Dreams - 'The Nausea / The Guilt I Feel'

From: 'Pessimistic Subsidence'

recorded at Enemy and Treasure Town in Chicago during 2011-2012

US, 2013

Label: Depravity Label

depravitylabel.bandcamp.com/album/pessimistic-subsidence

 46:01

40.

Spiteful Womb - 'Scopophilia'

From: 'Grey Chambers'

US, 2018

Label: Disclosures

spitefulwomb.bandcamp.com/album/grey-chambers

 46:42

41.

Alleypisser - 'Side B'

From: 'Addicts'

Denmark, 2011

Label: Posh Isolation ‎

alleypisser.bandcamp.com/album/addicts-2

 48:06

42.

>o< - 'Untitled'

From: 'Sampo'

Russia, 2006

Label: YAOP

yaop.bandcamp.com/album/sampo

 49:19

43.

Golem mécanique - 'Stroj-1'

From 'Stroj / Zamek'

France, 2013

Label: Drone Sweet Drone Records

dronesweetdrone.bandcamp.com/album/stroj-zamek

 50:36

44.

Knækkede Stemmer - 'Fyldt med forventninger'

From: 'Marts (Musik for Død Akustik)'

Canada, 2015

Label: Total Black

knaekkedestemmer.bandcamp.com/album/marts-musik-for-d-d-akustik

 >

52:51 total length

[chikaraspecial]

The Princess Who Saves Herself

The enchanting Princess KimberLee first appeared on the CHIKARA radar in 2013, gracing the ring of our sister promotion, Wrestling Is Fun! Though she dabbled in singles competition during her brief tenure there, the Princess primarily accompanied the primary-color-clad tag team of “Knight Eye For the Pirate Guy”, comprised of Lance Steel, and Jolly Roger. She frequently took credit for any and all of the team’s success. In short order, Kim outgrew the humble confines of Wrestling is Fun!

And so, Princess KimberLee made her proper CHIKARA debut as one-third of Knight Eye For the Pirate Guy in 2014, at the massive King of Trios tournament. Her team lost in the opening round to GEKIDO (made up of the imposter 17, Jigsaw and The Shard,) but the Princess proved that she was no damsel in distress. More than either of her teammates, she took the fight directly to the GEKIDO, never taking a back-step or shortcut.

Slowly amassing more and more impressive wins, Princess KimberLee built her reputation through the Young Lions Cup XI, and then at our celebration of National Pro Wrestling Day 2015. As the gigantic, double round-robin “Challenge of the Immortals” emerged on the horizon, KimberLee was one of dozens of wrestlers that vied to be chosen as a team captain, and despite being a relative newcomer when compared to long-tenured veterans like Hallowicked and Fire Ant, Princess KimberLee was chosen.

Each "Challenge of the Immortals" squad would consist of four members - a team captain plus three handpicked partners. The draft for the tournament took place online, and in each round, KimberLee chose last, often leaving her with a diminished pool of options. With many of the most-proven performers plucked from availability, the Princess ended up with the unlikely combination of perennial losers Los Ice Creams with the time-displaced Jervis Cottonbelly. Dubbing them "Crown and Court," KimberLee set her sights on the tournament prize: a Golden Opportunity for every member of the team, and immortalization in the halls of The Wrestle Factory.

In the early going of “Challenge of the Immortals,” the clear underdogs were Kim's "Crown and Court" quartet, and for months, could not manage to post a win. Just a match away from being mathematically eliminated from the tournament, the Princess took it upon herself to inspire Los Ice Creams, and sang to them as a stunned audience looked on. The team embraced, and this pivotal moment sparked a turning of the tide. After enduring a long losing streak, "Crown and Court" started posting up points, hot off three consecutive upset wins over teams that were more heavily-favored to win the round-robin. As the tournament drew to a close, "Crown and Court" improved their place in the standings dramatically, finishing in Third Place, just one position shy of a berth in the finals.

Fate, or more accurately, fair play, intervened before the tournament reached its climax. Point-leading quartet "Dasher's Dugout" forfeit their points at the insistence of team captain Dasher Hatfield; he discovered that at least some of his team's wins were the result of cheating, and because it was not clear how many of his wins were "tainted" he chose to forfeit them all. Thusly, the Third Place team of "Crown and Court" found themselves inserted into the tournament final of "Challenge of the Immortals."

All eyes were on CHIKARA’s Season 15 Finale event called “Top Banana,” held at the ECW Arena in south Philadelphia. There, "Crown and Court" survived an onslaught from Sidney Bakabella's hulking foursome, "The Wrecking Crew" and in the final moments, they mounted a nigh-unthinkable comeback. To those that were witness to the "Challenge of the Immortals" final, the sight of Princess KimberLee tossing men twice her size, with one German Suplex after another, will remain eternally etched in our memories as a genuine, star-making moment. Victorious over the brawn and brute strength of "The Wrecking Crew," KimberLee and her comrades-in-arms were each presented with a Golden Opportunity, to use where and when they wished. Later on that same night, “Top Banana” would feature then-Grand Champion Hallowicked defending the title against both Icarus and Eddie Kingston. After Hallowicked proved his dominance by retaining the belt, an emboldened Princess would march down the aisle, hand her Golden Opportunity to the referee, and cash in immediately. Mere moments later, KimberLee would author one of the most memorable tales in CHIKARA history, by applying the CHIKARA Special submission hold and forcing Hallowicked to both tap out, and relinquish the big, gold belt!

What made this title change so significant, was not just that it made Princess KimberLee the first female Grand Champion of CHIKARA, but the first female wrestler to hold the top title of what many considered to be a "male-dominated" organization. (There is no division by gender, nor by weight class at CHIKARA.) As guaranteed, her team was immortalized with a regal banner that hangs to this day in the halls of The Wrestle Factory. Kim then went on to defend and retain the Grand Championship over the course of the following five months, defeating the likes of Oleg the Usurper and Heidi Lovelace (now better known as WWE’s Ruby Riott) before losing the championship back to Hallowicked in Glasgow, Scotland at "Aniversario: The Lost World."

Following her title loss, Princess KimberLee went on to have a successful year in her new role as a leader in CHIKARA. She continued a friendly rivalry with Heidi Lovelace up until King of Trios 2016. For this run in the tournament, the Princess formed the "Warriors Three," recruiting Oleg the Usurper and the Estonian ThunderFrog as teammates. Together, "Warriors Three" made it to the semi-finals of the tournament, first defeating Team CWC (Johnny Gargano, Cedric Alexander and Drew Gulak) as well as a trio representing the "Original Divas Revolution" (Mickie James, Jazz and Victoria) before finally facing elimination at the hands of Meiko Satomura and her "Team Sendai Girls" (featuring DASH Chisako and Cassandra Miyagi.)

Season 17 saw the Princess haunted by ghosts of her past, and subject to manipulation at the hands of a mysterious interloper. She went on to defeat supposed friends Fire Ant and Solo Darling in grim and violent fashion, before taking a loss to Ophidian. As the season came to a close, it was revealed that the Princess’ sudden shift in behavior was the result of being blackmailed by newcomer, The Whisper. The Whisper claimed to possess damaging information that would irrevocably taint KimberLee's squeaky-clean reputation. When KimberLee reneged on this arrangement by losing to Ophidian, she handed over her tiara to The Whisper, and made her exit from CHIKARA.

Exiled from CHIKARA under the threat of her secret being revealed, Princess KimberLee would find success in a new kingdom. She began making appearances on NXT's Florida circuit, even teaming again with old friend Lovelace (nee Riott,) until officially debuting in June of 2017 under the alias of "Abbey Laith." On July 13th, the Princess entered the Mae Young Classic, the first-ever women’s tournament held by World Wrestling Entertainment. Going into the tournament, Laith had an immediate advantage. Her inescapable pinning combination, the Alligator Clutch, had been passed down from Mildred Burke to tournament name-sake Mae Young, who taught the hold to Wrestle Factory head trainer Mike Quackenbush...who passed it on to Abbey Laith.

The Alligator Clutch would come in handy. After a stunning victory in the first round against Jazzy Gabert, in which Laith was once again the underdog that would overcome the odds, Laith used the Alligator Clutch to win and eliminate Rachel Evers in the second round. Laith advanced to the quarter-finals where her journey came to an end, eliminated by seasoned pro Mercedes Martinez.

Ditching her "Laith" moniker, Princess KimberLee made her grand return to CHIKARA on April 28th, 2018 at "Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes." There, the Princess announced she would enter the Infinite Gauntlet match. Despite a strong showing in the 33-person battle royal, (which included dumping CHIKARA’s resident menace Merlok on his head via German Suplex,) the Infinite Gauntlet match would ultimately be won by the debuting Danjerhawk.

Thereafter, the past she thought she’d buried came right back to haunt her, in the form of La Loteria Letal 2018. This unique tag team tournament randomly pairs up sixteen CHIKARA roster members and esteemed guests. The winning "odd couple" will have defeated three other duos throughout the tournament, thus earning three points (enough to challenge for Los Campeonatos de Parejas.) Princess KimberLee drew the unluckiest of partners: The Whisper.

Despite the Princess’ absolute disdain for her partner, these arch-enemies went on a rampage through the tournament. With the help of more than a few German Suplexes from the Princess, and Whisper’s use of a very familiar finisher, Lance Steel’s pet move the Boston Crab, Princess KimberLee and The Whisper won La Loteria Letal. With their wins and points, they were next in line to challenge The Closers, the powerful pairing of Sloan Caprice and Rick Roland, at the Season 19 Finale. In an effort to save herself from having to team further with The Whisper, KimberLee chose an opportune moment to launch The Whisper with a German Suplex, sending him sailing through the air, but he collided with, and ultimately landed atop, Sloan Caprice. With Caprice's shoulders both touching the mat, the referee counted three and awarded Los Campeonatos to The Whisper and a dubious Princess.

The odd pairing held on to the titles into the new year and Season 20, defending them against former campeones Crummels & Defarge at the Season 20 opener, National Pro Wrestling Day 2019. Despite all of the Princess’ attempts to sabotage their title run and end the partnership, every attempt backfired and she was forced to endure. KimberLee's feelings toward The Whisper were no secret: at "Once Upon a Beginning," Princess KimberLee challenged her championship partner to a one-on-one match. For the only time in CHIKARA history, the reigning Campeones de Parejas would do battle against one another. After nearly breaking the world record for Most German Suplexes In a Match, the Princess put The Whisper down for the count.

The champions continued to in-fight right up until CHIKARA’s "Fright Knight," where Princess KimberLee effectively threw the match, in a clever manner that prevented The Whisper from seeing her crafty play. This allowed their challengers F.I.S.T. (Travis Huckabee and Tony Deppen) to walk out of the Poconos with the two title belts. While KimberLee thought this would free her from further torment by The Whisper, she would receive a rude awakening just 4 weeks later at "Aniversario: The Apes of Wrath."

Ophidian’s clandestine group, revealed to be "The Crucible," comprised of a group of fighters that participated in an illicit, after-hours training program, made a bold move as the anniversary card closed. Physically attacking Princess KimberLee, The Whisper revealed that he had been blackmailing the Princess, pushing her out of CHIKARA and consistently attempting to ruin her career, because of how she had treated his older brother...Lance Steel. Since last being seen in a CHIKARA ring, Steel had acsended to the rank of "Jewel" within the cruel world of Ophidian's "Crucible." The Whisper asserted that the Princess had used Lance Steel as a literal stepping stone on her way to singles fame and the Grand Championship. Looking back on archival footage, there is evidence to support this claim. This physical attack, coupled with a verbal assault and ugly reckoning cast a dark shadow over the entire event.

Princess KimberLee had some time to consider her past actions and how to move forward. After a hard fought battle against Solo Darling at "Chikarasaurus Rex," The Crucible's self-appointed "Herald," Ophidian, took to the ring and made it clear to the Princess how to be forgiven for her past sins. Team with Lance Steel and make a path for his stardom, starting at King of Trios 2019. A sullen Princess agreed to this penance, and in joining Ophidian's trio, unknowingly took the place of The Whisper as a member of the threesome. In an effort to set old wrongs right, KimberLee must fight alongside Lance Steel once again.

Contributed by Neil May

[cawamedia]

Maruschka - Caprice smycken

Caprice Decadent Bohemian För dig som önskar högkvalitativa bijouterier som har en design utöver det vanliga. Caprice Decadent Bohemian är ett smyckesmärke som etablerade sig 2015 av den norska konstnärinnan och tillika designern Gunilla Sterud. Smyckena säljs över hela världen och vänder sig till dig som föredrar att ha en “icke-mainstream-stil”. Du önskar att se fantastisk ut genom att din…

[giantpredatorymollusk]

This is a story about farming. It is quite long. I think it may be worth reading anyway, but unfortunately I have no way to prove it. I’ve also tried my best but I still don’t know if it actually makes perfect sense in every way? But it did all actually happen; so it all kind of has to make at least a little bit of sense, even if doesn’t really seem like it.

The trouble all started in 1901, when my great great grandfather emigrated to the United States from the modern-day Czech Republic and later, in 1911, bought a 90-acre farm there. Many years later, most of that farm came to belong to my grandfather, and roughly 10 years back he retired from his job selling tires at the tire store and started making the 40 mile drive north to the farm to spend his summer days there and plant a garden (in the area that wasn’t already rented out to be planted with soybeans.) Not long after that, he had enough produce to start selling stuff at a nearby farmers’ market in an upscale town, physically not far from the farm, although psychogeographically immensely distant from that chunk of desolate, isolated, fairly representative rural Ohio.

I was dragged in in the summer of 2015, from the end of June to the beginning of July, mostly pounding stakes into the ground so that the roughly 1000-1500 tomato plants that my grandfather had planted that year (with occasional help from my grandmother and uncle) could be tied up between them and the fruit wouldn’t lay on the ground and rot easily. I hated it there (in fairness, I probably would’ve hated anything that involved leaving the house during that time in my life) and when my dad got me out of it (by hiring me to help him paint a house) I quickly divested myself of the money I’d received there to wash my hands of the place and resolved never to go back. My dad was never in favor of me going to the farm, knowing as he did that the work could be dangerous (operating old, large, and unreliable tractors and backhoe with minimal training or safety precautions; running large, dangerous power saws in creative ways without the proper guards, gear, or safety precautions, mostly to put points on stakes; operating saws in an unsafe manner while standing in the raised bucket of the old and unreliable backhoe in order to trim trees; etc) and probably also suspected that I personally (especially then) was fairly vulnerable to being psychologically manipulated into performing difficult tasks that I was unhappy doing over a long period of time while being underpaid under some circumstances. Hmm.

I returned to the farm for the entirety of the summer of 2016. After barely surviving/graduating my senior year of high school that year I had given up on life and settled pretty quickly back into the routine of the daily back-and-forth farm trips. It is true that I was getting paid; it was also true that I was being challenged and learning things, mostly the basics of planting vegetables, like which plants were cold-season crops and which were warm-season and how far apart to space the transplants, and how a PTO works on a tractor; and it’s certainly a fact that on a personal level, I was still completely taken in by my grandfather’s wit and farm wisdom and overpowering managerial confidence. I made myself completely subordinate to him, and blamed myself when his ideas for what we should be doing next were completely obvious to him but rather opaque to me; I remember it frequently happening that he would tell me what to do and I would reflexively go off to do it, and then realize I was unclear on what he meant and have to timidly re-approach him for further instructions. This kind of slowed down the learning process. Much later I would also realize how superficial his constant confidence could be, and how it was often less the natural attitude of someone who knew what they were doing and more a tool he used to impress people into doing things without thinking too much about any of the potential alternatives. Also, according to my admittedly fallible memories, I was getting paid $35 per day for what were generally between 7 and 8 hour days. I was, in fact, 18 years old that year and probably could have gotten a different job that for one thing paid a better hourly wage and for another left me less reliant on the caprices of my family; but this was neither a thing that happened nor a thing that was expected from me, least of all by me. My internal world hadn’t expanded as I’d grown older; my universe of possibilities was limited to the things that were already present in my somewhat simple life. This was probably symptomatic of some larger problem or problems with the functionality of my brain at that point in my life.

One can become trapped in many different ways. You can be trapped in a specific city, or a zip code, or in a geographic region sorely lacking in cities, or one which they are considered entirely strange and outlandish things; in a job, in a career, in a lifestyle, or in a set of lifestyles considered realistic given your high school grades, ability to connect with others, and standing in society and life; in a friend group, or in an identity, or in a lack thereof, or in any number of the various rules and regulations that govern how one is allowed to interact with the rest of the human race; in a comedy, a tragedy, a pastoral narrative, or in any combination of the above kinds of story that one no longer wishes to be part of. For all I know, thanks to the stereotypical farm benefits of character building, meaningful work experiencing, and nature connecting-with, working at the farm for that year may have actually been good for me; nevertheless, I wish that it had been my last full summer there. I had showed up, learned some stuff, earned a small amount of money, and, in retrospect experienced at least the majority of what this particular 90 acre area of the planet had had to offer. Alas.

2017! This year, we had a pretty consistent schedule that I can remember clearly to this day: we left at 9:30 AM, when my grandfather would pull into my driveway and blow his horn, and got back between 7 and 8 o’clock at night. Built into that schedule is a one hour commute each way (we both lived about 40 miles away from the farm, which was actually inhabited by my uncle, who was often around and occasionally helped with the work but frequently made fairly abrasive and critical comments (if often correct) comments about it (for example, about the fact that our work day started so late in the morning)) and a daily grocery store stop for drinks for the cooler. I was the driver (once my grandfather’s problems with what I suspect is undiagnosed narcolepsy had almost killed us a couple of times) which you would think give me control over the stereo, but I quickly learned that my grandfather had pretty specific taste in music (country from the 50s and 60s) and a temperament unsuited to most podcasts. Obviously, most of that time in the daily schedule was taken up by the work day (so generally either planting tomatoes (which gets a little less rewarding after about the 500th one, which that year only put us at about a quarter of the way through the tomato plants, not counting the hundreds of eggplant, cabbage, and zucchini plants or the miscellaneous corn, squash, and beans), pounding stakes and tying string for the tomatoes, or harvesting tomatoes) which lay at the end of the lonely highway on a lonely work site at which the same 2-4 people showed up every day. (It became four people once you counted my younger brother, who came up to the farm that year until the start of marching band season got him out of it, and who fortunately made it his main job to get everyone to pack up and leave promptly at the end of the day. Once he stopped showing up, and even though I persuaded my grandfather to move the schedule up an hour so that we could get home earlier, we never left as consistently as we did when he was there; I didn’t have the stamina to find my grandfather (who didn’t carry a phone or a watch) and tell him what time it was at the end of the day every single day so that he could start to think about leaving.) I was being paid $40 a day, with a $20 bonus for market days once they started, which with our theoretically 35-hour work week ends up being about $6.29 an hour? Huh. In addition to the extra $20, the market season was nice because picking stuff is less tiring and more rewarding than planting stuff, and because I got to see way more people every day in the form of our market customers, even if I was interacting with them mainly through the intermediary of my grandfather.

Another nice thing is that this is the first year I have a decent photo album for! I started experimenting with old 35mm film cameras in late June and by early July I had my first interchangeable-lens digital camera, which I relied upon to keep my brain alive for large parts of the summer. I have… a lot of pictures from this season.

Finally, at the end of the year, I ended up in college. Any criticisms of my grandfather that I might offer up here have to be tempered by the fact that he did in fact drive me to the local (relatively) cheap higher-education dispenser and basically registered me for me (technically, I applied but there’s a 100% acceptance rate.) This was something I desperately wanted to do but was unable to make happen by myself. I won’t say that my grandfather every really understood the problems I went through while experiencing formal education, but as perhaps the member of my family least comfortable himself with the concept and culture of higher education, he was the most willing to notice and accept that I needed help getting started with it.

However, I did do quite badly that semester (I started out enrolled in 4.5 classes and ended enrolled in 2, with a C average) and going to the farm to work 4 days a week still (after morning classes and also on Saturday) did not help that except in that it provided a convenient distraction from it; an opportunity for me to distract myself from my frustrations by wearing myself out.

Why did I come back to the farm for 2018? I wasn’t happy there in 2017, I have the journal entries to prove it. Reasons: it was the path of least resistance, it was something I was more already familiar with than any other job, and my grandfather remained a very difficult person for me to say no to. (Also, he asked me (and my brother) to commit in midwinter, when it still seemed non-threatening and pretty far away.) The schedule was pretty much the same as I described for last year except that for some reason we went up 6 days a week as often as 5 (weather permitting.) My brother went up with us for the same period of time as he had previously, but was even more ornery this year than he was the last, which was an accomplishment; this didn’t stop me from being grateful for his presence. Mostly, I recruited him to work on whatever I was working on during the day, whenever I had a specific project: like building a fence around the second patch, or digging drainage ditches on the lawn, or moving the rainwater collection tank trailer to water stuff before Grandpa could realize that something that he didn’t plan for us was happening. My uncle became extremely fond of complaining that we were getting less done working on the same thing together than we might have working on different things far apart; this may have been true, but I was unwilling to test the theory.

As I implied above, I had a lot more freedom this year to pick projects that I thought needed to be done instead of following instructions all day, as long as I could seem confident about it under scrutiny later. I responded in two ways: I started wearing earbuds and listened to music and occasionally podcasts for most of the day, which was great except that it ruined earbuds and made me feel slightly spacey like I wasn’t even physically there sometimes, given that it was the main input that was actually making it to my brain, and I gave myself three new jobs. The first was to pick, display, and sell produce at a roadside stand that I set up back home (ideally without attracting too much attention from my uncle, who was doing the same thing); the second was to start picking for and selling at a new weekday farmers’ market; and the third was to fix an old dump truck that had been sitting in the back barn for the better part of the decade with a broken brake line, with the help of my dad, who came up to the farm a few days to show me what to actually do. The stand was very successful but 20% went to my mom for stocking it during the day and another 20% went to my grandfather for owning the farm; the new farmers’ market only required me to pay off my grandfather but had too many vendors for the customer base and was generally very slow; and the truck project was a huge disaster that consumed countless hours and brain cells: one brake line burst after another, we ended up having to remove and replace the two brake cylinders in each of the back wheels (which necessitated jacking the 12.5 ton vehicle up and removing both rear wheels and axles), the wiring for the lights was fucked from a previous botched repair job by a person or persons unknown, the bed needed to be attacked with the farm’s one working boom truck to get it to even move, and even after it was going up and down smoothly the hydraulic pump was occasionally leaking fluid, which I was neither qualified for or willing to try to fix; then, during the first test drive with a potential buyer, the radiator apparently exploded, and he convinced my grandfather to sell it to him for $1000, which was split between him, me, and my dad and uncle for helping (more or less.) I eventually calculated that with those three extra projects in addition to my regular salary (up $5 a day but without the weekly bonus, resulting in a net raise of $5 a week) I nearly made minimum wage working there that summer. (Hey, if Quinn is going to read this, I should probably note that minimum wage in Ohio was $8.15 an hour, at least when I wrote this, it’s up to $8.55 an hour now.)

Also, after going on three years of the whole “pull into Mitch’s driveway and blow the horn for a while” routine, the horn on my grandfather’s F-150 finally gave out and he locked the keys in my car while climbing inside of it to use its. (He did admit to this but also told me that I should never have left the keys inside of a car with “automatic locks.”) I had a much better spring semester this year, but it still wasn’t made easier by my 28 hours a week at the farm (plus the commute) right up until October 25th, when I finally quit.

Performance review:

Another part of my feelings about the farm that I have to mention is that the whole time I was there, I was pretty well aware that it was not nearly as productive as it should have been. One large part of this was just flawed soil management practices; by the time I got there, my grandfather had been planting mostly the same plants in mostly exactly the same spots for nearly 10 years, which is absolutely not how any of that is ever supposed to work. He sent soil samples away for analysis, got back reports prescribing long lists of fertilizers to be applied in massive quantities to help production, and then went back to using what he was planning on putting down anyway (mostly starting fertilizer (which we dragged around in 5 gallon buckets for the entire planting season), calcium spray to try to prevent previous years’ blossom end rot epidemics, and some poorly labeled sacks of miscellaneous stuff that he had gotten at a farm auction and that had been taking up space in a barn for years.) My grandfather’s managerial attitude was that all ideas were suspect unless they occurred to him first, which meant it sometimes required some stamina to get certain things done; he would ride up on the lawn mower and stare at you suspiciously if he wasn’t sure of exactly what you were doing.

Like this.

(Of course, the farm was not really run with the purpose of maximizing production, anyway. My grandfather kept it going year after year initially because he was retired, and wanted something to take up his time, and because he wanted to turn himself into a farmer; later, he got the idea that he was going to turn me into one.)

The other main obstacle to growth was the fact that we were surrounded by 80 acres of soybean fields that were at a slightly higher elevation than our plants, which meant that 2 inches of rainfall was more than enough to flood the place. This is not actually a good thing for any plant’s growth (except for cucumbers, and I guess sometimes zucchini.) I ended up (with my brother) digging hundreds of feet of drainage ditches in 2018 to try to combat this. Like, with a shovel. We had a trencher, but its hydraulic pump leaked fluid like a sieve, which had prevented it from being used for years, kind of like that dump truck I mentioned fixing earlier. Other broken down equipment included two boom trucks (one of which was specifically designed just to lay railroad ties), two full-size tractors (an Oliver and a Farm-All), a handful of mechanical tractor attachments that lay scattered throughout the barn-adjacent grass, a smallish red Troy-Bilt riding lawn mower, and a 1963 Buick Riviera.

On a personal level, going to the farm every day felt like dying? It was long hours of difficult, tedious, low-paid work in a desolate and isolated location. It was sort of like a sensory deprivation chamber, but for thoughts and feelings instead of for senses. On one hand, I regret every single miserable second of it, and hope to never see the place again for as long as I somehow manage to live (sadly unlikely); on the other hand, I do think it made me more appreciative of the moments when I do feel like I’m alive in the world, even when they’re not exactly easy ones. I have more enthusiasm for certain types of fear now, like driving to a strange and distant city to see a band play by myself, actually talking to the host in the AirBNB there, and descending into a strange subway system without really knowing how I’m going to get anywhere I’m trying to go from there; or signing up for classes for next semester without knowing exactly what they’ll be like, and talking to the strange person sitting next to me, or even just emailing the professor to ask for an explanation of an assignment that I don’t understand. It reminds me that I’m not as trapped anymore.

This contradicts what I want to be true, which is that the farm was just a background event in my life, instead of something that defined it for all of those years. The things that I was doing in the background of this, the story about farming, were the things I now realize were actually important to me at the time: taking those pictures, going back to school, the music I was listening to while I was out in the field, pounding in tomato stakes… I was also re-learning the piano in the evenings when I still had the energy. Unfortunately, the farm did define that part of my life to a large extent because of the way it served as an obstacle to me pursuing those things. The thing is, I wasn’t really trapped there, in any real physical or consequential sense; the farm took over my life because I was unable to recognize and act on the fact that I did have access to real sources of happiness.

Also, I guess the whole time I was technically committing tax evasion?

Anyway, whenever I see one of those posts about how nice it would be just to leave society and go live on a farm or something, this is what I’m thinking of.