#this series is going to be about science first. and the cultural sensibilities around class and gender second

[indigo-brainspark]

The Apothecary Diaries × Dr Stone Crossover AU (title in progress)

Maomao: How come you know all this stuff, anyway? Senku: Would you believe it if I said I was a statue come to life? Lihaku, whispering: Well, that would explain the scars on him that look like cracks. Maomao, whispering back: Maybe someone threw a ceramic at his face. He's annoying enough for it.

[thefloatingstone]

We’ve gone from Self-Isolation to Quarantine and in some places to gradual relaxation phases, but that doesn’t stop the need for more nonsense you can watch on youtube while you wait for things to get back to normal. And recommending things and making lists are some of my favourite things to do but I have not yet figured out how to start or structure a video myself, you guys get another rambling tumblr post of things you can watch on youtube.

This time I’m once again just gonna recommend individual videos rather than full channels like I did in part 2.

Part 1

Part 2

In no particular order; 

LOCAL58: The Broadcast Station that Manipulates You

I recently started watching the Nexpo channel when I went on a binge of creepy youtube videos. Most of his videos are really good although the ones where he himself goes into theory crafting can be a little asinine. However, this video is REALLY good. And before you get nervous, LOCAL58 is not a real TV station. LOCAL58 is a youtube channel created by the same guy behind the Candle Cove creepypasta. This video by Nexpo covers the various episodes of LOCAL58 and discusses them. Just be aware going in that this is abstract horror, and will probably get under your skin regardless if you’re unaffected by certain topics or not. although cw for suicide mention.

I also recommend most of the rest of this channel, although be careful where you tread. I don’t recommend his series “Disturbing things from around the internet” as it can sometimes include real life crime, abuse and such caught on security cameras. Everything else is really good tho. (although I was really annoyed by his 2 videos on KrainaGrzybowTV)

The Search for D.B. Cooper

LEMMiNO has a new video out covering one of the most unexplained crimes in the past century of the US. LEMMiNO is the guy I’ve recommended before who did videos on the Universal S. He is very down to earth and not someone prone to conspiracy or even really that fanciful of thinking. (He’s like the one person I feel covered the Dyaltov Pass incident and was confused by why this was even a mystery because if you read the Russian Autopsy reports and documents associated with the case it’s all pretty logical and easily explained)

D.B. Cooper is the name given to a man who, in 1971, hijacked an airplane with a bomb, asked for a large sum of money, and after receiving it, parachuted from the plane and was never seen or heard from again.

The Austrian Wine Poisoning | Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole also has a new video out, this time covering the Austrian Wine Poisoning event from 1985. A scandal that involved literally the entire country of Austria, affected multiple countries, and forever changed the way wine was made world wide. As someone who is generally pretty allergic to most artificial substances this one made me personally very angry. But luckily, it has a happy ending and a better world for us all... if I could drink wine which I can’t do anyway.

The Turbulent Tale of Yandere Dev - A Six Year Struggle

The Right Opinion is another channel I only recently subbed to after watching his cover on Onion Boy. I put off subbing to him simply because of his channel name and I thought it meant he would come across as smug and elitist. Luckily this seems to merely be one of those “I chose a bad channel name and now I’m stuck with it” type of situations. (IHE has a similar problem).

Anyway, I have a weird interest in bizarre internet personalities, so I’ve been enjoying his channel as he simply discusses and presents a timeline of events of certain individuals. In this video, he covers the developer behind the much maligned Yandere Simulator. It’s a tale of hubris, arrogance, immaturity, and an unwillingness to accept your own shortcomings due to ego.

Oh and there’s a meme game about Japanese school girls with anime tiddies in there as well.

The Most Relaxing Anime Ever Made | Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō

Kenny Lauderdale is a youtube channel which is slowly becoming bigger which I’m very happy to see. He exclusively covers anime and live action Japanese television no younger than the mid 90s (as is the case with YYK) and which usually never saw a release outside of Japanese Laserdisc. I do wish his videos were a little longer, but if nothing else his videos serve as an excellent starting to point to find some older and underappreciated shows... or hot garbage fires. In this episode he talks about the 2 OVA episodes made based on one of my favourite manga, Yokohama Shopping Log. A Post apocalyptic anime about an android who runs a coffee shop outside of her house, and the quiet solitude of living in a world of declining human population, brief encounters with travelers and other people, and just... existing. The anime was never released outside of Japan and is only available on Japanese VHS and laserdisc.... but hey guess what!! Somebody uploaded both episodes, subbed, to Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2HCVOH6DtA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqSTwfkobME

YMS’ slow descent into madness as he uncovers just how bullshit the Kimba Conspiracy is

I’m linking a full playlist for this one.

YMS is busy planning his review on the “live action” Lion King remake as the original 1994 movie is probably his favourite movie all time (and also self declared what made him a furry). As part of the 2 hour review, he decided to what all 2000 hours of Kimba the White Lion just to mention how The Lion King potentially stole the idea. ....until he actually watched all 2000 hours of Kimba and realised that if you actually WATCH Kimba, it has VERY little to do with the Lion King at all apart from having the same animals in them because AFRICA. Watch as one man slowly loses his mind as he realises just how stupid this conspiracy theory is, just HOW DECEITFUL and straight up LYING people can be. People who write BOOKS. People who teach LAW AT UNIVERSITIES. Because NOBODY bothered to actually watch the entire show and just parroted the “Disney stole this” lie which got started by like 2 salty fans on the internet.

The man set out to just mention how Disney stole an idea, and uncovered one of the most infuriating rabbit holes on the internet. Screaming for SOMEONE to provide him with sources or evidence.

YMS will be publishing his full Kimba documentary this month which he has said is around 2 hours long before he continues to work on the Lion King one.

Science Stories: Loch Ness eDNA results, Poop Knives, and Skeleton Lovers

TREY the Explainer has a video giving us some updates in Archeology from 2019. In this video he discusses the findings of the eDNA results conducted on the Loch Ness to see what animal DNA the lake contains which will tell us what living animals currently inhabit the lake, ancient knives made of poop and if this is a real thing that could have existed, and a skeleton couple found buried together which were at first thought to be lovers, then revealed to be both male, and then how in this instance we cannot let our modern sensibilities dictate what we WANT this burial find to be, but to look at the evidence as presented to us and place in context finds of this nature. The worst thing an archaeologist can do is look for proof to a theory they already have.

The Bizarre Modern Reality of Sonic the Hedgehog

Super Eyepatch Wolf is back and he’s here to talk to us about the very very strange existence of Sonic. a 90s rebellious “too cool for School” answer to Mario, a lost idea as the world of video games changes and culture shifted, a meme and punching bag amplified by a unique fanbase and poor quality games, a transcendence into a horrific warped  idea of what he once was, and modern day and where Sonic and his fans are now. As usual Super Eyepatch Wolf knocks it out of the park.

Kokoro Wish and the Birth of a Multiverse: A Lecture on the Work of Jennifer Diane Reitz

I don’t even sub to this channel as I’m not entirely sure what Ben’s usual content is about. But every now and then he has a “101″ class, where he explains to a room full of his friends in a classroom setting (complete with Whiteboard) an internet artist and oddity, the timeline, and what it is they have created. (wait... didn’t I say this already?). Unlike TRO however, the 101 classrooms are not a dark look into disturbed individuals (although the CWC 101 is debatable) nor is it a “lol look at this weirdo” dragging. Instead, of the 3 he’s done so far, it’s usually a rather sympathetic look at some of the strange artists on the internet who through some way or another, left a very big cultural impact on the internet space through their art. Sometimes they may not be the best people, but their work is so outside of what we’re used to seeing that just listening to him run you through these people’s internet history is fascinating.

In this episode he talks about Jennifer Diane Reitz. And although it is titled Kokoro Wish, the lecture is more about Jennifer’s larger work back in the early internet when being a weeb was unheard of, how being trans influenced her stories and characters, and her world building that is so rich and in-depth with it’s own ASTRO PHYSICS it puts any modern fictional world found in games or movies to shame.

Jennifer is not exactly a nice person... and in many ways can be seen as dangerously irresponsible, but she created something truly unique in a way that you kinda struggle figuring out if it’s terrible or a work of genius.

Anyway I think that’s enough for now

[digitalhovel]

Late to the Party: Wolf 359 and personhood

I wrote the first draft of this piece in July 2020, but I never got around to editing it before my Fall classes started and my life became a hectic world of crunch. So, finally edited: here are my incredibly, remarkably am-I-too-late-to-comment thoughts on Wolf 359. New posts coming soon!

           Wolf 359 was an audio drama created by Gabriel Urbina that ran from 2014 to 2017, featuring an incredible group of voice actors, excellent writing, and a story that is, at various turns, humorous, adventurous, haunting, tragic, and compelling. It was a forerunner for the podcast explosion that has swept through pop culture in the last decade and continues growing. Perhaps it just feels that way because of how much I’ve seen it lauded on the internet, but I believe it’s true.

           If I were pitching this podcast to someone, I would sell it on the story. A small crew of people orbits a faraway star, listening to the frequencies of space for any signal that may be unusual. Though it begins as a relatively campy, workplace comedy about toothpaste rationing and plant monsters, the story takes steep turns into hard science fiction and rich, character-focused drama that captures the listener and drives them through to the story’ completion. Through the close quarters of the increasingly unreliable Hephaestus space station, the writers never give the characters enough space to avoid their problems and slow the plot down. This closeness also creates a sense of kindred and family that pervades the show’s themes and makes the audience feel that the characters really have something worth fighting for. Those characters begin relatively archetypically: Renée Minkowski is an uptight commanding officer, Doug Eiffel is a slacker and all-around generic man, Alexander Hilbert is a “mad scientist,” and Hera is a governing, feminine A.I. presence. However, by the end of the show, each is given the agency and opportunity to be the main character of an arc, and each grows beyond the limits of their original shells. The craft in the writing and design of this show is remarkable on its own, but the messages it delivers in the story set it apart as more than speculative fiction.

           Okay, so I’m about to go hard into spoiler with this one. If you haven’t listened to the show, I would highly recommend doing so if you’re interested. If you already have, or if you don’t care, on we go.

           Wolf 359 has many themes. It questions the values of discipline and rebellion, it contemplates what sacrifices are worthwhile to achieve a greater good, and, most existentially, it asks what it means to be a sentient, living person. The podcast confronts this issue time and again, examining it through the lenses of clones and artificial intelligence. The fundamental conclusion the series suggests is: if you appear to be a person, and if you have all the memories of that person, and you continue striving to be that person, then you functionally are that person.

But what happens if you suffer complete and total amnesia?

           In the final episode of the series, Doug Eiffel, bad idea extraordinaire, sacrifices his memories in order to also wipe the mind of Dr. Helena Price, one of the show’s primary antagonists. Because of this, Eiffel ends the show reflecting on a life he can’t remember, comforted by his friends, whom he is now 100% more respectful towards. So, if this new man is Doug Eiffel, what does that mean for him and his arc as a character?

           Doug Eiffel is a jerk. He disobeys instructions, he calls people by insensitive or offensive nicknames, and he acts as if his needs are the only ones that matter. He is the archetypal ideal of a straight, white man. His casual attitude provides a great deal of humor throughout the series, especially during its less plot-centric beginnings before space things start happening. It isn’t until the final season of the show that he learns how his actions have hurt and alienated the people around him, the only friends he knows. After this, he makes an effort to correct some of his behaviors, but he doesn’t have much time, because he is soon sucked into a star and put through a series of plot developments that prevent him from experiencing evident growth in how he treats and respects other people. This makes his sudden mind-wipe reversal seem like a shortcut. The new Doug Eiffel recognizes his previous self was an asshole and can now start again, but the emotional journey necessary to reach this point naturally is cut short. He gets a free pass on moral development, and it denies the audience a truly satisfying end to that part of is arc.

           The other significant part of Eiffel’s arc and motivation is the revelation that he has a daughter, whom he was prevented from seeing after he kidnapped her while drunk and proceeded to get into a car crash that injured his daughter and the passengers of the other vehicle. This information came to light in episode 35, during season three. The possibility of seeing his daughter again became the primary motivation for Eiffel, when before it was simply escaping space so he could get back to the luxuries of Earth such as porn and television. Honestly, this revelation works well. It provides conflict between Eiffel and Minkowski, who now has to decide whether Eiffel is a good person or not. It also provides depth and a severe flaw to Eiffel’s character that makes it difficult to accept him as the plucky “everyman” he acted as for the majority of the show. His memory loss comes at the immense cost of forgetting everyone he cares about, but he barely addresses this in the finale after waking up with amnesia. Perhaps this is the most sensible conclusion. With no memory, his daughter is just another person he has forgotten, and his logged memories will tell him more about the crew of the Hephaestus than his own family. But again, this removes the emotional weight from his character.

           This could mean any number of things. The plot could have required this, and Doug, needing that moment of selflessness to develop as an individual, was the most fitting crew member to lose their memories. It could be that Doug’s memories were wiped because the writers realized he was beyond redemption, and only a new slate would provide him the opportunity to change. It could be that this complication was intended from the beginning, and ending Doug’s arc without complete growth was both a human choice and a message about people who don’t change before its too late. No matter what, Doug’s arc ends abruptly, and it feels dissatisfying to have a magical reset button for him when the other characters have to keep their own memories of trauma (some caused by him, even).

This calls into question what Wolf 359 says about personhood. Personhood is defined by memory and experience in the series. This includes, most importantly, trauma. Betrayal, responsibility, and insecurity induced by trauma severely shape the arcs of every crew member of the Hephaestus. Eiffel escapes all this. It comes at a high cost, but if the show’s message about personhood is that it comes from memories, then Eiffel’s character arc ends in a single selfless act that acquits him of the consequences of his previous mistakes and wrongdoings. The Eiffel who wakes up with no memories is a different character, and pretending he isn’t does a disservice to his story in the previous 60 episodes.

           Wolf 359 has a wildly humanist message, and though the conclusion of Eiffel’s arc undercuts some of them, the series still gives many of the characters the endings they deserve. It is at turns hilarious, terrifying, and awe-inspiring. The story delivers on its evolution from hijinks into philosophical contemplation, and for that it deserves recognition, respect, and another binge listen once I’ve made it through my back catalogue.

[cucamonga-springs]

Death of a Dystopian: The life and legacy of J.G. Ballard - by Joanne McNeil

On the third week of April in 2009, the news included stories about celebrity obsession, empty foreclosed properties, a young medical student who murdered prostitutes, and the death of the man who forecast this media landscape years ago. James Graham Ballard died of advanced prostate cancer on April 19 at the age of 78.

Apart from maybe Samuel Beckett, no other modern writer saw his ideas proliferate across so many platforms. Ballard influenced filmmakers from David Cronenberg to Mary Harron. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard and the American critic Susan Sontag were fans. Ed Ruscha quotes Ballard in one of his paintings. Joy Division, Hawkwind, and even Madonna have alluded to his work in their lyrics. There was an art show in Barcelona last year entirely devoted to his life and ideas.

J.G. Ballard is best known for Empire of the Sun (1984), a largely autobiographical coming-of-age novel based on his upbringing in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman, and his internment in a World War II prison camp during the Japanese invasion. For those with darker tastes, there is the cult classic Crash, a wild, transgressive 1973 novel about a community of car-crash fetishists that was eventually made into a Cronenberg film. His writing is obsessed with the territories where the organic meets the inorganic; it is absurdist, bleak, vivid, and awake to the psychological effects of media and manmade landscapes. In the words of the novelist Martin Amis, “Ballard is quite unlike anyone else; indeed, he seems to address a different—a disused—part of the reader’s brain.”

Ballard presents particularly gruesome details of his early years in Miracles of Life, a 2008 autobiography, without any sentimental navel gazing or bitterness. While interned, with his father’s encouragement, the boy ate weevils around his plate of mushy rice “for protein.” Ballard accepted the situation as it was and even looked back at the experience with some fondness. “The most important consequence of internment was that for the first time in my life I was extremely close to my parents,” he writes. “I slept, ate, read, dressed, and undressed within a few feet of them in the same small room, in many ways like the poorer Chinese families for whom I had felt so sorry in Shanghai.”

Ballard considered this childhood ordinary. “People who read Empire of the Sun have often said to me, ‘What a strange life, how unusual,’” he told the BBC World Service in 2002. “And I say to them, actually, the life I led in Shanghai before and during the Second World War was not strange; it wasn’t unusual. The majority of the people on this planet today and for most of this century and previous centuries have always lived lives much closer to the way I lived than to, say, the comfortable suburbs of Western Europe and North America. It is here where I live today that is very strange by the world’s standards. Civil war, famine, flood, drought, poverty, disease are the norms of human experience.” Shanghai is an enormous city, but Ballard was isolated there. At the time it had only a small community of Westerners. He never learned a word of Chinese, and he had his first Chinese meal in Britain, long after he left Asia. But it was England, his home for the rest of his life, that bewildered him. In Shanghai fear and hunger and violence were right in front of him; there were dead bodies lying in the streets where he bicycled. As an adult in the comfortable London suburb of Shepperton, by contrast, Ballard had to look under the surface to find the darkest parts of the human psyche.

A characteristic Ballardian situation is the set-up to his 1974 novel Concrete Island. The protagonist has crashed off the highway and onto the triangle of land beside it. The motorists, when they even notice, mistake him for a homeless person and are unwilling to assist. He is left stranded on the concrete island, and he depends on the totaled car for survival—even drinking from the windshield-wiper water reservoir. He thinks about the son he was supposed to pick up from school. “Ironically,” Ballard writes, “in this warm spring weather the line of crippled war veterans would be sitting in the wheel chairs by the park gates as if exhibiting to the boy the variety of injuries which his father might have suffered.”

Ballard emerged as a writer in the 1960s, when he became a part of the “new wave” movement within science fiction; his early novels focused on disaster scenarios created by wind storms, floods, and drought. His finest work from this period is The Drowned World (1962). The title is pretty self-explanatory, but it plays out with a sensitivity to the natural world typically absent in science fiction. When the city of London is finally drained, the characters aren’t pleased. In fact, they’re horrified. They can’t believe people actually lived in these structures and streets so far removed from nature. The “limpid beauty” of London underwater becomes a “jungle of cubist blocks [like] a drained and festering sewer.”

As Ballard’s writing matured, his unique sensibility took shape. He was fascinated with everyday architecture—industrial parks, high ways, billboards, drained swimming pools, tract housing developments, airports—and he described these places as culturally indistinguishable interruptions of the natural landscape. His stories evinced a distrust of both technology and human nature, along with an intuitive understanding of how architecture, especially in its most banal forms, affects our emotions. In the 1970s, he produced a series of experimental novels heavily influenced by the Beat writer William Burroughs: Crash, 1970’s The Atrocity Exhibition, and 1975’s High Rise, perhaps his best novel, about the chaos that emerges among the tenants of a luxury apartment complex who form tribes and refuse to leave the building.

Ballard identified himself as a libertarian. “I’m all for free sex, alcohol and would liberalize the drug laws if some way could be found to protect adolescents,” he once told The Independent. He supported both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, but generally avoided economic issues in his writing. Unlike most American libertarians, he considered himself an anti-consumerist. In his last published novel, Kingdom Come (2006), he drew a parallel between a comfortable mall-going society and a fascist one, with a character declaring that consumerism has “drawn the blueprint for the fascist states of the future. [It] creates an appetite that can only be satisfied by fascism. Some kind of insanity is the last way forward.” He criticized the other sort of “consumerism” too, and for similar reasons. In a 1971 essay, he asked whether Ralph Nader could ever become “the first dictator of the United States,” insisting that the question “isn’t entirely frivolous.…Inevitably, I suppose, the consumer society must produce its own unique demagogue, but this sort of dictator may well be difficult to recognize and unseat.”

In Ballard’s slapstick satire Millennium People (2003), the bourgeois residents of a gated community commit terrorist acts. They riot, clash with police, and bomb upper-middle-class establishments such as the Royal Albert Hall and the Victoria and Albert Museum. What are they protesting? “Double yellow lines, school fees, maintenance charges…cheap holidays, over-priced housing, educations that no longer buy security.” They are rebelling against, in one character’s words, “the barriers set out by the system. Try getting drunk at a school speech day, or making a mildly racist joke at a charity dinner. Try letting your garden grow and not painting your house for a few weeks.”

Like most of Ballard’s fiction from the last 20 years, Millennium People uses the framework of a middlebrow English novel as a way to parody the reader. For Ballard, as he explained to Salon in 1997, the novel is “the greatest enemy of truth and honesty that was ever invented. It’s a vast, sentimentalizing structure that reassures the reader and at every point offers the comfort of secure moral frameworks and recognizable characters. This whole notion was advanced by Mary McCarthy and many others years ago, that the main function of the novel was to carry out a kind of moral criticism of life. But the writer has no business making moral judgments or trying to set himself up as a one-man or one-woman magistrate’s court. I think it’s far better, as Burroughs did and I’ve tried to do in my small way, to tell the truth.”

[yay855]

I’ve been going over some of the old Pokemon starters after the new reveal, and something’s really bothering me.

Gen 1 is fairly standard- the focus on genetics and science means that having a frog, a reptile, and a turtle, all three very ancient animals, as starters makes sense. Charmander being a pseudo-dragon is a bit strange, but ah well.

Gen 2′s focus is primarily on mysticism and nature, which makes its starters, once again ancient animals, odd. Meganium is a straight-up dinosaur, Feraligatr is a crocodilan, and Typhlosion is based around early mammals.

Gen 3, thankfully, had relatively sensible starters for the region- it’s a tropical island, and what do we get but a tree gecko, a mudskipper/axolotl hybrid, and a chicken, all three animals you’d expect in a tropical region. And given that the theme of that gen is land and sea, that works.

Gen 4 manages to shake it up. Empoleon is an emperor penguin, something native to the antarctic, though it and Infernape do have heavy Japanese themes. But Torterra is something straight out of Hindu mythology! There’s no consistent theme between them. And the theme of Gen 4 is technology! None of them are even close to being in-line with that.

Serperior, Emboar, and Samurott are all styled after high-ranking Japanese military figures, with the Serperior being an emperor, Emboar being a military general, and Samurott being a samurai. The only problem is, the games take place in the United States. Not even in an area with heavy Japanese influence, like California, but New York City itself. None of those pokemon make any sense given the setting, and the gen’s theme isn’t much better, given that it’s all about ideals VS truth.

Chespin and Delphox both are very fun pokemon, being a heavily-armored knight and a witch respectively; they’re very good additions for a series taking place in France. But Greninja is, as its name suggested, a ninja! That’s distinctly Japanese! If you’re going to go for the RPG class trio (warrior, mage, rogue), at least pick one that’s topical to the region itself. The gen’s theme is mostly just about the passage of time, and discovering new things, neither of which the RPG trio match.

Alola... is a bit of a grab bag. Decidueye is styled after Robin Hood, Incineroar is a Wrestler Heel, and Primarina is a mix of Siren and Selkie... two things straight out of Greek and Celtic mythology. None of them really fit in there; Decidueye would have made far more sense in Kalos. And Alola’s theme is mostly about the conflict between and merging of native and foreign cultures, plus some bits in there about the problems with obsession.

And now, the new games are adding in new starters. We only have their first forms, but... well, Scorbunny is perfectly fine, but Grookey is a freaking monkey! And Sobble a chameleon! Neither of which are at all English animals, or even that common in England. And Grookey’s hair stick seems to indicate it’s going to evolve into a proto-human type of creature, which would be... uncomfortable.

[maybeyapping]

The Five Stages of Falling In Love by Edward Elric

People tell you that there are 5 stages of grief, but what they don’t tell you is that there are 5 stages of falling for someone.

 Hi, I’m a linguistics and science major at Royal Amestris, and I’ve fallen in love with my novelist Best Friend, Naomi Brighton.

 Perhaps you’ve heard of her, she wrote the groundbreaking Soul Cross triology, and a series called Koralyne, which revolves around a closeted trans lesbian. I’ve won a few awards for my projects too, but nothing she has.

 Anyways, I think I should get back to the story. Here’s stage one.

 1.       Encounter

 It was a sunny day, way too hot for my mechanic leg to rest comfortably on my skin. I was sipping a milkshake while sitting in my town’s local library, Books n’ Cookies. The name really suited the place, since it was a sort of safe haven for homeless guys, or LGBT folk hiding from family members or homophobic friends. They didn’t charge you for the cookies, at least in money. If you want a cookie and a drink, all you had to do was show your receipt for borrowing a book.

 Sheska, my classmate, was the one who first introduced it to me, and wow, I’m glad she did.

 Anyway, I was sipping the white, icy, beverage, when the door’s bell chimed. I was sitting at the tiny café area, flipping through a YA novel written in my target language, French. It was about an Asexual Biromantic girl, learning how to understand how Homophobia originated. Naomi walked past me at first, and ordered a drink and a cake. She then walked past my table, and she must’ve read an entire paragraph before saying: “The Girl and The Homophobes? Good choice. A LGBT Classic.” I looked up, and scanned her appearance. She was wearing a red headband, a light blue cardigan over a white blouse, a jean skirt with multiple LGBT and fandom badges; biromatic, demisexual, Percy Jackson, Zelda, Voltron, and some of her own merch. She was also sporting white sneakers on which she had painted the words ‘I’m Here and I’m Queer’ over them both. Her left leg was made of the same metal which my right one was created with. She had light brown skin, which reminded me of Professor Miles, freckles, deep black hair, and steely silver eyes.

 “Wh—oh, yeah. You know it?” I spluttered after a moment. She laughed, and leaned against the table, “Know it?” she asked, “I wrote it!” I gaped, “Seriously?” she laughed simply, nodding, “Yeah. It’s the first thing I’ve published,” she supplied. I nodded, eyes wide and lips parted slightly. “It’s good,” I said, “have you published anything else since?” Naomi nodded, “I’ve written the Soul Cross Legends book, and the short story Petrified.” My jaw dropped, “Seriously!? I love Petrified!” Naomi laughed, and nodded to the chair in front of me, “May I?” she asked. I nodded, a little surprised she wanted to continue talking.

 She sat down and unpacked her macbook. I whistled, “sweet.” Naomi rolled her eyes, “Only one of the perks of being a semi popular author,” I clicked my tongue, “Semi? Dude, my entire linguistics class loves your books. You should start your own library.” Naomi barked a laugh, “What? I wouldn’t make any money with that! I don’t even have enough books to fill a library.” I propped my arm on the table, “But you could.” “Do you have any idea how long it takes to write a book?” “No, but I bet you’ll tell me.” “Petrified took two years, with character creation and research. I asked people with PTSD and war veterans to write Gabby.” I whistled appreciatively, “That’s commitment.” Naomi huffed, starting up her macbook, “Or is it just proper representation?” She asked, at my widened eyes she chuckled: “I asked my trans lesbian friend on Koralyne too, so don’t underestimate my ability to do the proper research.”

 I raised my arms defensively, “Alright, I won’t. You’ve proven yourself worthy, bookworm,” I joked. Naomi laughed, “If I’m bookworm,” she pointed at the Bill Nye The Science Guy badge on my sweatshirt, “Does that make you Science Prince?” I laughed, “That’s better than Alchemy Prince,” Naomi giggled, tilting her head, “What’d you do to earn that name?” I groaned, rolling my eyes, “I held a presentation in High School about Alchemy Theory, and I’m researching it now, I got the name from my High School science teacher,” I grinned, “Man, Mrs. Curtis was an amazing teacher, always encouraged me and my brother.” Naomi smiled, “You have a brother?” I nodded. “He’s a year younger than me, studying linguistics and history currently.” Naomi sighed, leaning on her palm, “Wow that’s so cool. I can’t afford going to college, so I work at a cozy little Library.” Her smirk told me that yes, I work here.  

 We ended up talking for two more hours, and exchanging numbers.

 That was how I met my best friend.

  2.       Friendship

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t noticed I’d befriended her until she invited me to play Zelda with her at her apartment. It was a larger apartment uptown, and the mailbox in the entry hall had three names pasted onto it: Brighton, Alvarez and Mckinnon. I guessed Alvarez and Mckinnon were her roommates. I knocked on her door on the 6th floor, and let her pull me inside. She jumped over her couch and crashed onto it with a muffled ‘POOMPF’.  I dropped my bag onto the floor and fell onto the couch. She had moved to sit in front of it, cross legged, controller on her lap. “Welcome,” she said, as I lied on the couch, “to El Palacio de la diversidad, The Palace of Diversity.” I chuckled, “How diverse can it be with three people?” “You’d be surprised,” she said cockily, “Lysanna is Latinx, Cuban, to be exact, Ashley is from Cherokee decent. My parents moved to France two generations ago, then, my parents moved to madrid and I was born there. Then, I came here with Lys and Ash.” I whistled, “A woman of many cultures I see.” “Not to mention the diversity in sexuality and gender; I’m Demisexual and Bi, Ash is Pan and trans, Lys is queer.” I raised a brow, “just queer?” Naomi nodded, pressing buttons on her remote, “yep, she’s still trying to figure it out, but she has dated men, women, in between – basically, she’s seen it all.” I laughed, “Seriously?” Naomi giggled, “Yep! Without her I doubt Ash would be so confident today.” I tilted my head, “And you?”

 She froze. Her muscles tightened (and believe me, there was a lot to tighten), and her nostrils flared. Her eyes turned steely, “I don’t think anyone can help me recover from my lost pride.”  For a moment, I simply stared at her. When I inhaled, ready to ask her ‘Why’s that’, she bolted up. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and waved. Then, she disappeared down the hall. As she was absent, I looked at the polaroids decorating the walls, shelves and tables. There was a white string above the kitchen counter, as well as the TV. On all pictures stood Naomi, with two other girls, sometimes just one, other times Naomi wasn’t depicted. There was a pink polaroid camera on the shelf above the TV, next to it a picture of a girl with brown skin, dark brown curly hair, and sparkling green eyes. In pink marker the white area of the picture read, ‘I’m better than you at everything, but above all else: sex. –Lys’ There was a manuscript of The Girl And The Homophobes, next to it was a picture of Naomi in a bright blue, flower printed sundress and straw hat. It read: ‘Feelings aren’t sensible. People don’t make sense, and love doesn’t either. The people who do, are often times the wrong ones. – Nao’ the last item was a mannequin head, on which orange cat-ear headphones rested. The polaroid taped to the mannequin had a picture of a girl with light brown hair, dark red eyes and brown skin, and scars along her arms. She was wearing an orange sweatshirt-vest, and black jeans. It read ‘I have a free life long trial of feeling okay. –Ash, 2017’

 Just then, Naomi returned. She was holding a blue, white and silver bracelet that she had made herself. It was made of wool, one of those classic friendship bracelets that were popular a few years ago. She must’ve noticed the ones I wore, green and blue from Winry, a brown and gold one from Al, a yellow, white and gold one from Ling, a green and black one from Lan Fan, the list went on. “Here,” she said, handing it to me, “This is for you. A gift.” I took it, eyes blown wide, “Thanks.” Naomi smiled, and sat down again. “I consider us friends, you know.” I hummed, “That’s good to know, Bookworm.” After a moment of silence, the only sound coming from her controller, I added: “I consider us friends, too.”

 She grinned, silver eyes sparkling with delight.

 3.       Trust

She hadn’t come to the Library that day. That set me off. “Don’t worry about it, Brother,” Al had said, “She was probably just feeling under the weather.” I had hummed, but I didn’t believe it. She normally texted me if she wasn’t feeling well, so this was new. I left Al when he began talking to Mei, and ran uptown – to Naomi’s apartment.

 I bounded up the stairs and knocked on the apartment door. At least, I slid to a halt before it, just as the door opened and a familiar face exited. “Hm? Ed? What are you doing here?” Lys asked, green eyes glittering curiously. “Naomi didn’t show today,” I said, “Just wanted to check that she’s okay.” Lys deflated, green eyes turning dark. “She’s in her room,” she said grimly, “last door on the right. She’s…she needs someone she can trust.” I frowned, “And it’s not you?” Lys smiled sadly, “I’m not you, apparently.” With that, she dropped the apartment key into my hand and left.

 I unlocked the door and stepped inside. After dropping the key in it’s holder on the dresser next to the door, I headed towards Naomi’s room. There was a whiteboard pinned to the door, and the quote had been written with wet marker: “Dying is Easy, Living is Harder –Lin Manuel Miranda” From behind the door I heard coughing and broken sobs. I pushed the door open carefully, and my eyes flew over Naomi, wrapped in a bi pride flag blanket, curled up into a ball, sobbing uncontrollably.

 I slowly walked to her bed and sat down. She continued to cry until I placed my hand on her head tentatively. She stopped sobbing, and moved her head to my lap. “What happened?” I asked, voice quiet. Naomi hiccupped, “M-My step mom…I-I thought…I thought she—she had texted me…” I was no mind reader, but I guessed she didn’t like her step mom much. The way she avoided talking about her ‘Family’, I could only guess that she was the victim of Homophobia, Sexism, Abuse, or all of the above. I pet her head, and whispered, “I’m here. You’re safe.” I wanted to say ‘You’re safe,’ but I couldn’t lie to her, and I didn’t know if it really was safe. She coughed. “I’m…I’m sorry, I’m bad at this.” I said. “J-Just…cuddle?” she sobbed, and I froze. After a moment my shock morphed into a smile, “Sure.” I said, crawling into bed next to her.

 We lied in silence, me cradling her in my arms. I found we did this a lot, acting like a couple, even though we weren’t. I never did this with anyone else, it was something only Naomi knew of me.

 Suddenly, she spoke: “I was 7 when Ash told me she thought my mom was abusive,” I froze, my hand stopped stroking her back, “It wasn’t until I was 11 that the police did something. I was put in a foster home. I thought…I thought mom’s hit their kids, and that they refused to feed them when they got bad grades. I though Mrs Mckinnon was the weird one.” Ashley Mckinnon saved Naomi. That was a fact I knew then. I pulled her closer and whispered, “You’re free now. You’re here.” Naomi hummed, the vibration resonating through my body, “To this day, I flinch everytime someone gets really angry.” I frowned, I knew that. I had been on the ‘really angry’ side of the situation sometimes.

 “I won’t let her hurt you again,” I said, “I know Ash and Lys won’t either.” Naomi nodded, and grasped my shirt. “Thanks,” she husked, “Thanks Ed.”

 4.       Recognition/Acceptance

It was simple, really.

 It was such a small thing, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it sooner. We were sitting at the library café, laughing, joking, talking, brainstorming fic and novel ideas. Her eyes crinkled, and her grin was wide. Her gray eyes were sparkling, and looked like pure silver, she was curling a strand of hair around her fingers, her raid nails creating a contrast to her black hair. Had her eyes always been such an indescribable shade between silver and blue? I wasn’t sure.

 I felt my face grow hot, the warmth spreading to my ears when she began to play with her red earrings. Red reminds me of you, she had said when buying them with me, so I’ll be sure to always think of you when I wear these.

 Remembering that sent electricity through my body.

 Oh no.

  5.      Confession

We were on the Central City Pier, our feet dangling over the edge as the sky painted the sea in dark shades of blue under the setting sky. The sky was dipped shades of red, blue and purple. She was wearing shorts and a blue bikini top. A red ribbon held her braid together.

 She was smiling, licking her strawberry ice cream. Her lips were red from the cold, but she never shivered. She looked at me, and I whipped my head away. I felt hot from my nose to my ears, and then she did something that made me grow hot all over:

 She touched my ear.

 I turned around and she pulled her hand back. “You’re warm,” she said, silver eyes blown wide. The wind picked up and brushed her hair into a frazzled mess. I probably looked just as disheveled. “Mhm,” I hummed, glaring at the horizon. Naomi pouted, and scooted nearer. She studied the side of my face as I sipped my slushie. I felt my cheeks heat up. She tilted her head. “What’s wrong with you? You look like the sun just ruined Al’s surprise Birthday party.” I rolled my eyes and glared at Naomi. She smiled, “Now you look like I missed an expertly planned Chemistry pun.” “That’s how I feel, too.” Naomi laughed, “Oh yeah? Pray tell, what did I miss?”

 I glared at my slushie, now, and felt the heat spread down my neck. “You’re such a hypocrite,” I deadpanned, making her squeak indigilantly, “You call me oblivious while being 100% clueless yourself.” Naomi frowned, “What do you mean?” She got on all fours and stared at me intently. I looked at her, which was a mistake. Her face was positioned in a way that it was nearly impossible not to look down her shirt. I cursed, then turned to her. I grabbed her arms and pulled her into a sitting position.

 “Are you stupid?” I asked, “or just in denial?” Naomi deflated. “Denial,” she hummed, “I just don’t get how you could possibly have a crush on me.” I scowled, “Hell if I know. You’re cute I guess.” She laughed airily, “You guess?” I shrugged, releasing her. After a minute, she said: “How can you be in love with a fuck up like me?” “If with fuck up you mean you fuck me up, then, easy, you just…do.” Naomi smiled, and intertwined our fingers, “Can you help me love myself again?” I looked at our hands, face hot, “I can try. No, I…I promise I will.” Naomi laughed, “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” “I only make ones I can.”

 I hadn’t realized how much her words affected me (and vice versa) until that moment.

 Then, she pushed me against the pier and kissed me.

[aion-rsa]

The Watch Controversy Explained: How Different is the Show From Discworld?

https://ift.tt/355lRyx

This article has been kept as spoiler-free as possible, but since it discusses differences between the Discworld books and The Watch TV show, there will be discussion of changes to characters and setting, and some vague allusions to plot.

Let’s say one thing first and foremost: if you’ve never read any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, and you like quirky, funny SFF television, you’ll probably enjoy BBC America’s new show The Watch. It’s genuinely funny, well-acted, and well-made, even if it does have an obviously-television-sized CGI budget.

Here’s the problem though: if you are a fan of Pratchett’s Discworld books, on which the show is (very loosely) based, you’ll spend most of your first watch-through scratching your head in confusion.

The level of controversy around this new adaptation is unusual. Any book to screen adaptation always involves a certain amount of changes to the source material, because that’s simply in the nature of shifting something to a different medium. There will always be some fans who disapprove of any changes whatsoever, but the majority will generally grumble about a few irritations but enjoy the show anyway, and accept it as a new version of the story.

The controversy around The Watch, however, goes far further than a few fans grumbling because Glorfindel has been replaced with Arwen and Tom Bombadil has been cut. The series hasn’t even been released yet, but reactions of shock and surprise have followed the trailers, as a result of the sheer scale of the changes made to Pratchett’s world. Pratchett’s daughter Rhianna diplomatically summed up the situation on Twitter as, “it’s fairly obvious that The Watch shares no DNA with my father’s Watch. This is neither criticism nor support. It is what it is.”

Now that the first few episodes have been released to the press, there’s a bit more opportunity to survey just how substantial the changes are. Are they really that extensive? Well, yes and no. But mostly yes.

First of all, the series is not adapting the plot of any specific Watch novel, but taking elements from at least two of them (Guards! Guards! and Night Watch) and creating a new plot arc. This is a fairly sensible idea, in itself – there’s a case to be made for a series that tells a broad range of stories, with plots based on the novels. This also allows the setting to reflect some of the later additions to the city of Ankh-Morpork.

However, the plots of the two novels being used are not only fused together, they are substantially changed (Vimes and bad guy Carcer Dun now grew up together in an orphanage, for example, and sadly it is no longer the secretive Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night trying to summon a dragon). Some of the new elements added, including substantial references to Arthurian legend not present in the books, are also rather odd, leaving the viewer who knows the Discworld wondering just what’s going on here.

Character-wise, there’s at least one character that could almost have leaped from the pages of the book. New recruit Carrot Ironfoundersson is by far the closest to his book counterpart in the series, although possibly the explanation that his name refers to his tapering body rather than his red hair should have been left out, since actor Adam Hugill is tall but not especially muscular. Whether his backstory will also be the same, only time will tell.

Other characters clearly have bits of their original DNA in them. Vimes is reasonably close to his book counterpart, though the decision to have all the actors use their own natural accents does mean that people who grew up together have somehow managed to develop entirely different regional accents. The Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socio-economic unfairness is one of Pratchett’s best bits of socially conscious satire and is reproduced more or less in full, which is nice.

Lady Sybil Ramkin is an interesting case. Her general characterization has echoes of her book counterpart, but instead of being a somewhat reclusive upper class animal enthusiast, she’s now a weapon-wielding vigilante who has been given a tragic backstory and is considerably more of an action heroine than in the novels. Actress Lara Rossi also has a slim figure and is fairly young, as opposed to her book counterpart’s bigger curves and middle age, and she has lost some of her more deep-seated inhibitions (though her hair is still a wig, we’re glad to say). Still, her general attitude is not a million miles away from the Sybil books fans know, her sheer upper class confidence shining through in a familiar way.

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Some of the changes made to the book characters’ physical descriptions help to diversify the cast. Pratchett’s Discworld is a bit dominated by white male characters, so it’s not surprising that a couple of characters have been gender-flipped, in addition to the show casting racially diverse actors. The gender-flipping of Lord Vetinari might reasonably result in some fan disappointment as he is described so vividly in the books and readers might have a very clear mental image of him. But overall, changes to race or gender are usually not insurmountable for fans, and there are good reasons for those changes.

So far, then, all of this sounds like the sort of changes that might be expected from a novel to screen adaptation. There are adaptations that might stick more closely to their originals, but this would be nothing out of the ordinary.

But there’s more.

The character changes go on and on – Angua is officially still the same species, but her often-described long flowing hair is absent and she is physically tiny. The nature of her species has also changed substantially, following a more common and angst-filled recent template seen in many other shows, rather than Pratchett’s more complex depiction (Angua’s feelings about her family and nature being a major theme of The Fifth Elephant).

Angua is at least still the same basic species though, unlike her colleague Cheery Littlebottom. In the books, Cheery is a dwarf, but in the show, they are a human. The motivation for this change may have been well intentioned. Discworld dwarfs all identify as male, whether they are biologically male or female, and those who are biologically female have secondary masculine characteristics like facial hair and so on. Cheery goes against dwarf convention by openly identifying as female, wearing skirts and high heels and make-up and using feminine pronouns, eventually changing her name to Cheri. So she is, essentially, transgender, except in a fantasy way that doesn’t exactly map on to any real life situations. This is very characteristic of the 1990s tendency to address LGBTQ+ issues through fantasy and science fiction ideas rather than directly (see also some of Star Trek’s Trill episodes).

It’s possible that the decision to make Cheery a human, played by non-binary actor Jo Eaton-Kent, rather than a fantasy metaphor, came from a desire not to offend anyone by hiding behind fantasy tropes, combined with a desire to cast a non-binary actor in the role (the number of non-binary available actors with dwarfism being, presumably, quite low). 

However, this does have the side effect of substantially changing Cheery’s character. Cheery/Cheri clearly identifies as female – Cheery in the show appears to be a transgender woman, as the first episode has them clearly state a preference for feminine pronouns, but the show’s publicity states that Cheery is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. They are no longer agitating for change among their own particular community (of dwarfs), nor do they have any regular dwarf characteristics (love of bread, etc.). Cheery in the books continues to sport a full beard because she is a dwarf and its culturally significant to her, while Cheery in the series is horrified by the thought of a beard, so their non-binary gender identity has also subtly shifted.

All in all, the change probably comes from a good place, but it is somewhat distracting for book fans, who may see little connection between the two versions of the character. The series also doesn’t include a single dwarf character, which is very odd – in addition to Cheery, there are several dwarf Watchmen in the books, most prominently Lance-Constable Cuddy, who could have been included in the series (Warwick Davis would have made a great Cuddy).

Also missing in action are two of the main characters from the Watch, Sergeant Colon and Corporal ‘Nobby’ Nobbs. Perhaps this exclusion sums up the way the series simply doesn’t seem to represent or “get” Pratchett’s Watch in any meaningful way. Unlike the new television characters, Colon and Nobby are not action heroes. They are heroes of another kind, and they carry out acts of bravery in different ways, whether by shooting at a dragon, going undercover dressed as washerwomen, or just providing Vimes with the right information at the right time. While they represent some of the worst the Watch has to offer – racism, or rather speciesism, and corruption – they are also a handy reminder of the Night Watch’s humble origins, and a rich source of comic relief (fulfilling pretty much the same role as Hitchcock and Scully in Brooklyn Nine Nine). The Watch without them is incomplete.

Even more distracting than the character changes are the widespread changes to the setting. The Assassins’ Guild’s form, style and function are quite different to the books’ version. Ankh-Morpork also appears to be situated in the middle of a desert, which is distinctly not the case in the novels. Pratchett’s city is a blend of London, New York City, and Rome, and is surrounded by the fertile Sto Plains, and in Jingo, our heroes travel to a desert country, where the culture is markedly different from their own. We can only assume that this was a budgetary decision. The series was filmed in South Africa, so the desert sequences are a combination of location filming and CGI, and presumably much cheaper than trying to recreate a European plain.

Most distractingly of all, however, the series seems to have moved into a sort of blend of science fiction and urban fantasy. Each episode opens with the text ‘Somewhere in a distant secondhand dimension’, suggesting science fiction, while set and costume design have an urban, contemporary look, with electronic devices and lighting readily available, characters wearing bomber jackets, and elements of modern culture, including punk rock and old people’s homes.

This is a problem because the Discworld started out as spoofs of sword ‘n’ sorcery paperback fantasy books. The stories were deliberately set in a very familiar High Fantasy-style pseudo-medieval world, and a world which remained stubbornly pseudo-medieval for a long time despite occasional invasions of rock music, moving pictures, and shopping malls. 

There were always odd bits of magically-driven technology in the Discworld, like cameras (with images painted very quickly by imps) and dis-organizers (also driven by imps). Towards the later parts of the series the world did start to evolve into something a little bit more early modern, with the permanent introduction of clacks machines (for sending telegrams), printing presses and even, in the penultimate book, steam trains. The first Watch book Guards! Guards! even includes, as the series does, a brightly lit neon sign – but it is clearly stated to be a magical item. So there is some precedent for the style of the TV series, but the extent of the punk rock aesthetic it adopts is surprising.

Discworld is not the only property to be radically reimagined for television. Other adaptations have taken a fair few liberties too, and some have even undergone the same sort of radical re-tooling as the Discworld has here. For example, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories have been reimagined in similarly extreme ways, including updating the setting, and gender-flipping Holmes’ sidekick Watson.

But the Sherlock Holmes stories have been adapted many, many times in different ways over the years. Adaptations that follow the books more closely are easily available, so there’s more appetite for something new and different. The original stories also, importantly, weren’t period pieces when they were written – they were contemporary detective stories. There’s a certain logic, then, to updating the setting and creating a new, contemporary, crime story rather than a period drama.

But the Discworld is a created secondary world, and a fairly recent one (the books were published 1983-2015). There have been a handful of screen versions, both live action and animated, but none of the Watch books. There seems no pressing reason to reimagine it in this way.

The truth is, to get fans excited about a book to screen adaptation, you have to show them something that feels like it’s leapt off the page. The Lord of the Rings film adaptations and the early seasons of Game of Thrones, for example, both made changes to the source material, but when you looked at a few minutes’ footage, you could tell which character was which and they felt recognizable. This doesn’t mean they have to be exactly like their book counterpart – Frodo was 50 years old in the book, whereas Elijah Wood wasn’t even 20 when he started filming. But when fans watched the first trailer for The Fellowship of the Ring, all those years ago, they could pinpoint exactly which character was which from a few seconds’ footage, and were (mostly) overjoyed to see the characters they loved come to life.

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Ultimately, the issue with the series is this: if you changed the names, it would not be recognizable as an adaptation of Pratchett’s Discworld stories. For anyone who hasn’t read the books, this is no problem – but it’s a strange decision, for fans of the books will have little incentive to watch something that takes the names of beloved characters, but doesn’t include anything recognizably adapting the stories they love. In the end, if the resemblance between books and series becomes so slim you can barely see the relationship between them, you’re no longer watching an adaptation, but a new series that’s pinched some beloved characters’ names.

The Watch premieres Saturday, Jan. 3 at 8 p.m. ET on BBC America.

The post The Watch Controversy Explained: How Different is the Show From Discworld? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[theantisocialcritic]

Archive Project - September 11, 2014 - Upcoming Fall 2014 Films

Yay! Its fall movie season! Blockbuster season is over and its time for Oscar Bait to rise! There is a lot of stuff coming out in the next 4 months, a lot of which I won't get around to reviewing. Lets take a look at what we're in for! September A Walk Among the Tombstones: Everybody loves Liam Neeson! The fall's first interesting movie stars him in something of a film noir murder mystery. The latter part of September tends to be when a lot of really underrated movies come out like Dredd, Looper, Prisoners and Rush. I have a good feeling about this one! Maze Runner: Hollywood will, for the fiftieth time this year, attempt to make the Hunger Games lighting strike again with another book adaption… This looks terrible… Tusk: If your a fan of the works of Kevin Smith your probably already dying for this one! Human Centipede with a Walrus! If your not familiar with the works of Kevin Smith… Go out and watch Clerks right now!! The Equalizer: Despite some early low reviews, film geeks are all clamming to see this movie! Hopes are high that Denzel Washington can create his own action series. Will it…? Probably not but hope so! October Annabelle: Fans of The Conjuring have been ranting about this too me for months now and i;ll take their word for it! I'm not a horror fan but this should be interesting! Gone Girl: The director of Fight Club, Seven, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo brings us a Ben Affleck film! Theres a lot of hype around this! Should be a good movie! Alexander and the No Good, etc: This looks lame… Automata: Some critics in high places have been mentioning this a lot. I haven't seen much promotional material for it but its supposed to be a decent Sci-Fi movie! We'll see! The Judge: Robert Downey Jr. plays a Judge that must defend his estranged father in court. Sounds good to me! Crimson Peak: Guillermo Del Toro fans have been collectively flipping out about this new horror movie. Del Toro is one of the best directs of horror in Hollywood and has a strong grasp of subtlety and a morbid sense of creativity. Might be something brilliant here! Dracula Untold: This movie reminds me of I, Frankenstein… thats a baaaaaad sign…. Book of Life: Topping the list of my most anticipated movies right now is Book of Life! A Disney movie filtered through the cultural sensibilities of El Tigre with all the racism beaten out of it by Guillermo Del Toro! This movie is visually gorgeous and looks fiercely creative! I'm super excited! BoxTrolls: Have you seen Coraline and ParaNorman? YOU NEED TO SEE CORALINE AND PARANORMAN!! Also see this! A fun, creative stop motion movie by an incredibly talented team! ParaNorman flopped in theaters and BoxTrolls needs to succeed! KingsMan: The Secret Service: Matthew Vaughn's newest pick starts British SS agents in training that have to stop some sort of plot from happening! Vaughn brought us Kick-A** and X-Men: First Class! Both excellent action movies! KingsMan should be interesting! Rifftrax LIVE Anaconda: The last two live shows by Rifftrax have been amazing! The live roasts of Sharknado and Godzilla (98) were absolutely hilarious! Their next roast should be really great! November Big Hero 6: Disney is on a freakin roll!! Frozen, Wreck it Ralph and Tangled were all great animated films that managed to go beyond just being cynically made animated films. They were all genuinely great pieces of film and now they look to be about to make light night strike again! Adapting the barely known Marvel comic series the same way they approach classic fairy tales might be a stroke of genius and seeing it play out with the same energy and style of Wreck it Ralph and Guardians of the Galaxy. This is my most anticipated movie of the fall! Intersteller: Someone once said that if Nolan ever made a forth Batman movie it would have to goto space to be bigger than the Dark Knight Rises. At least part of that was true. In his first movie since the completion of the Dark Knight Trilogy, Nolan presents a high caliper Science Fiction movie about man's last attempt to stave off extinction, looking beyond into the stars for a new home. This movie might be great! Dumb and Dumber Too: sooo… This is a thing…. Theory of Everything: I haven't heard much on this but its an art house romance movie about Steven Hawking. Should be fascinating if nothing else. Fox catcher: Why am I imagining Channing Tatum as Cinderella Man here..? Fury: Brad Pit plays a WWII tank driver, fighting on the front lines with a rookie crew member after the loss of his best soldier. These men must survive the war. Should be fascinating. MockingJay Part 1: I'm not sure how to feel about Hunger Games now that Catching Fire has passed. The first movie was extremely boring but the followup was a vast improvement I rather enjoyed. From here though I don't know where the series is going to go and how well the characters work within the formula of the first two movies is beyond me.. well see.. The Penguins of Madagascar: I generally hate spinoff animated movies. They aren't always bad but they feel terribly cynical and i'd rather they don't exist. Penguins feels like a rather good idea though, simply because there is proof of concept that has me thinking this might be well thought through. The animated cartoon on Nick Penguins of Madagascar has been an intermitedly interesting exercise in cynicism but managed a few really great episodes that I enjoyed as a teenager. It helps of course that the Penguins were the best part of the Madagascar movies. This might be something great! December Paddington: A wacky British bear goes on wacky misadventures! I… don't know how to feel... Exodus: With the rampant success of movies like Son of God and Noah, Biblical epics are becoming popular again in Hollywood. Now Ridley Scott (Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner) is throwing his hat into the ring with a retelling of the story of Moses. Despite the weird casting and crappy promotional materials, Exodus has a lot of potential and might be one of the year's cinematic highlights! Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies: What is the Hobbit Trilogy? A cynical, forced production? A party to celebrate the Lord of the Rings?  Whatever it is, these movies have been fun if nothing else. Finally the newest run through Middle-Earth will come to a conclusion. Can John Wattson defeat the voice of Khan…? Well clearly, he survives because he is in Fellowship… It'll still be cool though! Annie: I hate Annie… No amount of gimmicks and stunt casting will make me like it… Night at the Museum 3: I actually liked the first movie. It came out when I was young enough to find some enjoyment in it. The second one sucked… Now we have a long awaited by nobody third one which is anybody's guess. At this point the most interesting thing about it is that it is Robin William's last post-mortem performance so that will be fascinating. Into the Woods: This might be quietly brilliant. With Disney currently in the works on producing a full line of live action adaptions like Maleficient and Cinderella, a big production of the famed musical Into the Woods seems.. interesting… I'm not a huge fan to the musical but this might be what it takes for me to really get into it, depending on how they pull it off. The stage production is in my opinion a very disjointed story that only really gets by on its more anachronistic and surprisingly dark comedic moments. Seeing Disney try to pull it off however might be what it takes to elevate the story if they take it somewhere interesting! In any case, the cast is interesting and interested to see it. Unbroken: Angelina Jolie's directorial debut tells the story of an Olympic runner that is drafted to WWII, captured and forced into a prison camp. I don't know how good this is going to be, but at the very least it will be a strange, different sort of movie. The Interview: And to finish off the year, whats likely the thing that will finally spark WW3 with the North Koreans! Seth Rogen and James Franco are spies that infiltrate N. Korea and attempt to kill Kim Jong Un. Given Rogen's incredible recent filmography of This is the End and Neighbors, I think we are in for something special!   This will be an interesting season! Thank you for reading! Live long and prosper!

[victor-d-lopez-blog]

Smashwords Author Interview

Published 2015-05-07.

Do you remember the first story you ever wrote?

Yes. Alas, it is lost along with much of my early work done on typewriters with no backups. I will rewrite it some day as it still speaks to me and, like many of my later stories, it delved into the interplay between the conscious and subconscious mind, life lessons and redemption. My second short story, Eternal Quest, survives in my latest short story collection, Mindscapes, and is still a favorite that is little changed from the one written by a young old man of 19 who had already learned some of the most vital lessons about the things that matter that he would ever learn. My philosophy, too, has changed little over the intervening decades.

What is your writing process?

For both my fiction and non-fiction I tend to compose at the keyboard. I do no outlining and seldom work on plot lines ahead of time. Also, my first draft is usually also my final draft with only minor changes. During the day, I almost always have a cup of coffee on hand as I write. At night, it may be tea, diet Coke or Pepsi or a glass of wine. Less often, when writing late into the morning, especially after a particularly good or bad day, the glass of wine may be replaced by a snifter of brandy or an Absolut vodka martini with olives. (No more than 2 drinks a day on average as a rule, though.) 

I like to work in significant blocks of time without interruption other than fetching coffee or pestering my wife during very brief breaks until she yells at me and I slink back to work.

Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?

I'm not sure what the first story was but it was certainly Disney and about Donald Duck. (In my native Spanish--just like my first Superman comic books and child's version of Homer's Odyssey). I still love these, though I have not read a Superman comic since I was 12 or 13. 

My love of fiction was inspired by Disney, Homer, Hans Christian Anderson, Aesop, and blossomed into an even greater love of Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Poe, Wordsworth, Keats, Blake, Niven, Zalazny, Koontz, King, Clarke . . . in a gloriously meandering line that is the only yellow brick road I ever need to walk.

How do you approach cover design?

I like to use my own photographs when possible. Even when using stock photographs or public domain designs, I like to incorporate a photograph that I've taken that means something to me. I've done that in my book of poems, my intellectual property book and in two of three short story collections. (Even my latest audiobook collection cover incorporates one of my photos in the montage of individual short story covers.) Of course, I don't have that luxury with the trade books and textbooks through my traditional publishers--on the upside, they do a far better job of editing my work than I. :)

What are your five favorite books, and why?

It is impossible for me to answer this. So I'll just list the first five that come to mind that have had a significant impact. 1, Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth. I love Wordsworth above all other poets of all times--even more than Shakespeare and Milton. This lengthy Ode encapsulates him for me, and links him to my favorite philosopher, Plato. It has had a profound influence as the first among my beloved Romantic poems.

2. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. "If that is the law, the law is a ass." What more need I say? (A case that drags out for generations until the last farthing is spent and then is finally resolved. That's not fiction. That's an ETERNAL TRUTH! And yet I still went to law school. Maybe I should list Freud next.)

3. Plato's Republic. (And the Socratic Dialogues.) There is Plato's idealism, Aristotle's realism and the rest is largely a historical footnote.

4. Shakespeare's complete works. The comedies. The tragedies. The sonnets. The inferiority complex for the rest of us who dare write anything at all after reading him.

5. Roger Zelazny's Amber series. I know, I know. It's absurd to list it here but it is still my favorite fantasy series of books from one of my favorite writers. I've read thousands upon thousands of pages in favorite fantasy series, including every word in the trillion page (it seems) absurdly long "Sword of Truth" series of books by Terry Goodkind (whom I love). At times I literally screamed in frustration at the repetitiveness GET TO THE F*^%$*#G POINT! George RR Martin (another favorite writer) in his lengthy Game of Thrones series of books (all eagerly digested--likewise the HBO series) also made me squirm and/or skip ahead from time to time lest I tear out the few remaining hairs on my head. I will buy the next long-overdue installment as soon as it is available, though. Likewise many other favorite authors like Stephen King (I almost died of boredom on my way to the Dark Tower on many occasions) -- and on very, very rare occasion even Dean Koontz whom were I pagan I would worship as a demigod. But Zelazny never had that effect on me, especially in his Amber series. Not a single skipped word. Not a single needless, redundant description. Were it not nearly 2:00 a.m. and need I not get up in less than six hours to attend Commencement ceremonies I'd probably rummage through my library for my Book Club two-volume Chronicles of Amber right now.

What do you read for pleasure?

Everything. But mostly science fiction and fantasy--classic and new. I also enjoy non fiction, of course. Just finished Killing Patton by Bill O'reilly, and Charles Krauthammer's Things That Matter. (Krauthammer is a national treasure. All of O'reilly's books are good reads and his Killing Lincoln, Jesus, Kennedy and Patton books are really terrific.) Now I'm working through a couple of anthologies and listening to the audiobook version of Dean Koontz's "Tick-Tock."

What is your e-reading device of choice?

I don't own a dedicated reader [no longer true]. I use a couple of Android tablets that can read anything out there and downloaded audiobooks too. A small laptop works well too.

What book marketing techniques have been most effective for you?

Book giveaways have been best at generating interest in my books. I do very little marketing other than an occasional Goodreads ad campaign and short story giveaways through Smashwords from time to time.

Describe your desk

Cluttered.

Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?

Queens, New York mostly. The working class neighborhoods exuding the incredible diversity (ethnic, racial, lingual, political, cultural) that exists everywhere in New York City have enriched my life and broadened my perceptions beyond anything that would have been possible had my parents raised me in their native, homogeneous Galicia (Spain) of the 1960s and '70s. 

My writing reflects the vast multicultural soup in which I was thoroughly steeped and slow-cooked. So does my trilingual upbringing (Spanish, Galician, English) with their separate rich roots and very different cadences, sensibilities and predilections. These have informed my poetry, fiction, non-fiction and life in indelible ways at levels beyond conscious thought.

When did you first start writing?

Almost as soon as I learned to write. I was writing (bad) poetry when I was eight years old, and "stories" before that. I kept a journal before I knew what a journal was--and burned it when what it contained was too painful, troubling, embarrassing, or simply too real to deal with at a tender age. I wish I had not for I can't remember what that precocious child found too troubling to keep around. This (no longer precocious) adult would like to know--and smile (mostly) and perhaps shed a tear or two for the unrequited love, frustrations or deep truths learned too young in life to process in a more productive way. 

I wrote a lot back then. Doubtless it was full of sound and fury, signifying nothing (apologies to The Bard). Some things don't much change.

What motivated you to become an indie author?

There are a number of factors that led me to explore the indie route after publishing two trade books and five textbooks with traditional publishers (Irwin/Mirror Press, McGraw-Hill, Prentice Hall, McFarland & Co. and Textbook Media Publishing).

First, I wanted to publish a typically short book of poems for which there is essentially no significant market and which no traditional publisher would be likely to consider. Along the same lines, I wanted to publish a short story collection. Because I am not known for my fiction or poetry, I knew that finding a traditional publisher to take on either project would be a very difficult task, if not an impossible one. Most traditional publishers these days won't even read manuscripts from unagented authors, and I was not likely to find a good agent to handle my fiction and poetry without a past track record of success in these fields. Agents that charge up front reading fees (or any fees, for that matter, other than a percentage of the book's royalties/advances) are not agents I would consider in any case, any more than I would consider publishing through a vanity press masquerading as a small press. (Any publisher that requires an author to purchase a minimum number of books at a "discount" is a vanity press by any other name.) I could easily find an agent to represent me as to my non-fiction, especially my textbooks or law-related trade books. But I do not need representation as to these since I've never had difficulty interesting traditional publishers in such projects. When I complete my first novel, I will very likely search for a literary agent as it is a prerequisite for submitting it to most of the leading publishers today. For other projects, I'll go it alone or self-publish. 

But I digress. During the summer of 2011, I needed a break from my heavy research agenda that included research for a scholarly article and work on the instructor's manual and test bank for one of my new textbooks. So I decided to collect selected samples of my poetry spanning some 30 years and my favorite short stories written during the same time period and self-publish two books. I used CreateSpace to produce the paperback versions of my first two indie books and Kindle Direct Publishing for the Kindle version of these, later also ported to Barnes & Noble and still later to Smashwords for even wider distribution. Moreover, I wanted to experience complete freedom to publish precisely what I wanted and charge a low price to encourage as wide a distribution as possible. I also wanted to offer the book in both paperback and eBook formats. That was a particularly important consideration for another work that I was working on that summer, my intellectual property general reference work. Ultimately, I published all three books. Finally, I wanted to experience publishing on my timetable with complete editorial control for the first time. There is no question that all three books would be better had they undergone the vetting of the traditional editorial process; I am not the best editor of my own work and without question each work is less perfect than it would have been with an editor to help guide and rein me in when needed. Although it is equally true that at times even the best editors can be difficult to work with, especially when their preferences conflict with a writer's style and voice. The perfect is indeed too often the enemy of the good.

What are you working on next?

I'm winding down a sabbatical leave as I write this. This semester I completed research on usury laws in all 50 states and how these are in effect undermined by federal law. The research was started last summer and completed in late January, with a paper completed in early April and presented at the NEALSB annual conference in late April. It is now out for a first round of reviews in selected first-tier journals and law reviews. I am also currently in the process of researching "good Samaritan" statutes in all 50 states, a project that will continue beyond the summer and will form the foundation for a paper completed before the end of the fall 2015 semester. 

This summer, I will also work on a new, expanded 3rd edition on my Business Law and the Legal Environment of Business for my current publisher, Textbook Media Publishing. It should be out early next year. Not much time for fiction or poetry projects in the coming year, I'm afraid, nor for work on my first novel that has been mostly on hold in mid-stream for the better part of a decade due to time constraints.

[gabriellakirtonblog]

Five Top Trainers Reveal the Lesson that Changed Their Careers

Success may appear to come naturally to some. But the truth is, top trainers aren’t born that way. They learn.

At least that’s the case for the five fitness pros who answered this question: What self-education tool changed your career, and why?

While each pointed to a different source of career-shaping advice—a book, a course, a live event, advice from a mentor, and a video series—all lead to the same takeaway: You never know where you’ll find your game-changer.

All we can say with 100 percent certainty is that it’s out there, and you owe it to yourself to look for it.

Melody Schoenfeld

Owner of Flawless Fitness in Pasadena, California, and author of Pleasure Not Meating You

The course: Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) certification

Why: It introduced me to inspiring people and opened doors for me in the fitness world.

I am not a natural athlete. My foray into fitness was motivated by sheer necessity—at the time, I was working in advertising in New York City, making an annual salary of $20,000. Which in the city is roughly the cost of a sandwich. (And not even a very good one.)

As my brother, Brad was familially obligated to offer me part-time work at his training facility. He wrote the programs and taught me the exercises. I in turn taught the programs to the clients he provided.

I first met Pavel Tsatsouline, believe it or not, at a Learning Annex flexibility class he was teaching. I signed up and was impressed by Pavel’s assistant, Mike Mahler, who was a vegan like me but extremely strong and muscular. I’ve been vegan since 2000, and at the time had not met many vegan strength athletes. I wanted to do whatever he was doing, which led me to the world of kettlebells.

I took Mike’s six-and-a-half-hour kettlebell workshop and pored over Pavel’s book Enter the Kettlebell. Then came the RKC. The course is a grueling three-day kettlebell immersion not for the faint of heart. The sheer volume of moves crammed into those three days left my hands badly torn and bleeding. In the end, I not only passed but was asked to return as an assistant.

Through the kettlebell community, I met the strongmen who introduced me to my current passion: old-time strongman training. I can now tear a phone book in half and bend a half-inch-thick steel bar with my bare hands. I have a reputation for being, pound for pound, one of the strongest women in the industry. Not bad for someone who did not start out as an athlete.

RKC was a turning point for me, but it wasn’t the course itself that changed my life—it was the inspirational people I encountered as a result. Should you ever have the opportunity to learn from the best in your profession, don’t hesitate to jump on that chance.

READ ALSO: “How to Pick a Personal Trainer Certification”

Patrick Umphrey

Online coach and founder of Eat, Train, Progress

The lesson: You have to be yourself.

Why: It’s made me happier and more successful.

I had just started my Facebook group Eat, Train, Progress, and I wanted to post a funny meme. Okay, so the meme was a bit dirty—PG13 for adult language—but it didn’t disparage anyone. And frankly, I thought it was hilarious. I had made the meme, after all, so the humor was very me.

Still, I questioned whether or not to post it, fearing it might turn off those who didn’t share my sense of humor. Remember, my group was still young, and I wanted to attract new members, not scare them away.

At the time, I was enrolled in a mentoring group called Elite Fitness Mentoring, run by Luke Johnson and Lawrence Judd of Shredded by Science.

I shared my problem with Luke, and he offered me some important advice that’s stuck with me ever since.

Luke insisted I post that meme. “You need to be yourself, and this is totally you,” Luke said. “Besides, if it really bothers someone enough to leave your group, that’s not someone you’ll ever be coaching anyway.”

The lesson was way bigger than any meme: Putting yourself on display is important. It lets others know who you are, and attracts like-minded people (they’re out there!) who will accept you for you. Those are the people you want around you. Otherwise, you may spend a lot of energy trying to be someone you’re not. And that can be stressful and exhausting.

This philosophy now guides everything I do, including how I run the group and coach clients. My values are present in every action and decision I make, which means that I generally feel good about them.

Eat, Train, Progress now has more than 17,000 members and has had a positive impact on many lives. It’s successful, and I believe that this is at least one reason why.

READ ALSO: “How to Build an Online Following from Scratch”

Mark Fisher

Cofounder of Mark Fisher Fitness and Business for Unicorns

The event: Perform Better 3-Day Functional Training Summit

Why: It taught me to consider other viewpoints and constantly evolve my approach.

As a guy who routinely wears capes, loud spandex, and unicorn apparel to work, I’m not typically accused of being shy. But the first time I attended a Perform Better 3-Day Summit, that’s exactly how I felt—shy and intimidated by all the muscle-y people.

This was early in my career. At that point, I was an obsessive reader of blogs and info-products, and the summit was one of my first in-person events. I was so impressed that I returned the next year, and the next. By now, it’s become one of my annual touchpoints with that particular community of fitness pros.

The lineup features industry legends like Mike Boyle, Dan John, and Stu McGill—but it’s also introduced me to others whose work I hadn’t heard of before. While the 75-minute sessions are less in-depth than, say, a day-long event on a single topic, that’s actually the summit’s strength: You’re exposed to a wide variety of ideas and training methodologies.

And because it’s such a smorgasbord, it has helped me become a more critical thinker in two ways:

It’s taught me the value in finding common ground. When you’re exposed to a wide swath of methodologies, it’s easy to get bogged down in the differences. And while those differences are worth exploring, I’ve found that clarifying what everyone agrees on is even more useful.

Because I’ve been going for so many years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch people’s viewpoints change and evolve over time. For me as a young trainer, seeing that kind of adaptability in my mentors was huge. It gave me permission to continually update my own approach as I absorbed new information, instead of digging into an old belief system that had grown outdated.

READ ALSO: “How to Use New Knowledge from a Convention”

Leigh Peele

Online coach, mentor, and host of the podcast You Need to Hear This

The book: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, by Tom Venuto

Why: It’s a shining example of evidence-based advice in a world of “bro science.”

Like a lot of trainers entering a fitness career, I began my journey wanting to get myself into shape. I was overwhelmed with the amount (and often poor quality) of information online and at bookstores.

As an early Internet adopter, I went to forums to fulfill my thirst for vetted knowledge. That’s when someone recommended Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. It was simple, addressed science and current research in a modest and level-headed manner, and it sent me in the right direction.

Because of that book, I avoided the traps and dogmatic pitfalls scattered all around the health industry. It appealed to my critical thinking, and I appreciated the evidence-backed principles that still guide my training and career. One invaluable tip from the book: Your goal should always be fat loss, not weight loss.

On top of all of that, Venuto is a natural athlete who encourages consistent and sensible hard work. He stands out in a crowd of what is usually perceived as bro culture. He and the book are the full package.

READ ALSO: “Best Books for Personal Trainers”

Stephen Holt

Founder of 29 Again Custom Fitness and an 11-time finalist for personal trainer of the year awards from five different organization

The video series: Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy

Why: It’s the next closest thing to dissecting a human body.

The X factor in any personal training business is not your Instagram or your abs. It’s your knowledge of human anatomy. Without that, you can’t truly understand how exercise works. You can only repeat the motions mindlessly without knowing why you’re doing them.

My education in anatomy—some formal, but mostly self-taught—transformed my career. Books like The Pelvic Girdle and Anatomy Trains were hugely influential—in fact, they led me to develop my 3-4-5 Total-Body Fitness System, which was featured in national publications like Shape and Women’s Health and likely was a factor when I was named ACE Personal Trainer of the Year and a finalist for NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year.

Still, a two-dimensional book can’t touch the detail you get from the turntable shots in Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy. (I first watched it on DVD many years ago, long before streaming was a thing. But these days, you can stream videos directly from the website for a subscription price.)

These videos made me realize the spiral and diagonal patterns inherent in all major muscles. It was an “a-ha!” moment for me that changed the way I train, informing which exercises I do (and don’t do).

For example, the fibers of the gluteus maximus are diagonal. So a bilateral move like a Romanian deadlift can’t take full advantage of the diagonal orientation of those fibers. Even a single-leg Romanian deadlift falls short. The ideal choice: a 45-degree single-leg Romanian deadlift using a cable held in the opposite hand while facing the pulley at an angle. By tweaking the classic move this way, you target those glute-muscle fibers in the most efficient way.

Understanding anatomy allows you to recognize exactly which muscles are doing what, so you can create the best plan for your clients. The human body is the tool of our trade. If you want to be successful, you need to know how it works.

READ ALSO: “Do Personal Trainers Need a College Degree to Be Successful?”

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    The post Five Top Trainers Reveal the Lesson that Changed Their Careers appeared first on The PTDC.

Five Top Trainers Reveal the Lesson that Changed Their Careers published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[careergrowthblog]

10 essential discussions to have in any teacher team.

Towards the end of last academic year, I wrote a post outlining what might be in a typical school’s development plan:  Here’s your school development plan – no, really, don’t thank me.  All of those ideas are still relevant for next year.  But what about at a departmental level or a year level in primary? Here are 10 discussions that teams should be having – not all at once, obviously, but over time, involving everyone.

1. What’s in the curriculum? Does everyone know the big picture and the details? 

If you’re building a coherent spiral curriculum, you need to know what goes where in time; you need to know which pillars of your curriculum tower are crucial; foundational. You need know how it all fits and why things are where they are.  Not everyone knows – and it’s a mistake to assume they do.  This needs some discussion to create a shared understanding, beyond dishing out the scheme of work and syllabus and assuming that’ll do.

Similarly, how are we doing on the details?  If we’re building a deep knowledge-rich curriculum  then it’s important to explore the details of what should be taught – especially where non-specialists are involved, focusing on the core concepts.  It’s hard to think of a better use of team time – making sure everyone really knows the curriculum in detail.  I meet teachers quite often who haven’t read their GCSE specification themselves, missing out on the wording, the examples, the emphasis given to specifics.

2. What are the parameters for autonomy and collective action? 

At a basic planning level – as well as the level of team ethos – it’s important to establish how the team will function.  Do we do our own thing? Do we stick tightly to an agreed scheme of work? Do we allow the shared drive to fill up with endless versions of powerpoints and worksheets making it ever harder to find the original or best one?  Where in the curriculum is their scope for teachers to go off-piste without risking messing up an element of our carefully planned coherent curriculum?

3. How far do we prescribe the enacted curriculum:  What should be included in typical lesson sequences?

Forget about a rigid lesson formula, but over a series of lessons, are there common elements, features, processes, activities that we all agree should be included? Do we agree what science experiments to do as a class practical and what is a teacher demonstration – or is that up to each person to decide, even though this shapes the enacted curriculum significantly? Do we say poems aloud, chorally, learn complex French sentences in a call-response manner and start maths lessons with five quick recall questions? Or do our own thing…

Whilst being clear that it’s the spirit of any framework that matters, not the letter – not some rigid checklist to take people to task over – we do need some agreement about what lessons in our school, in our year, in our subject look like.  These decisions essentially form the curriculum students actually experience.

4. Are we using sound evidence-based practice in our teaching?  

There so many areas of sound instructional practice that teachers should know about. For example:

Rosenshine’s Principals of Instruction

Evidence-informed ideas every teacher should know about.

How is everyone doing in the team, engaging with these ideas and putting them into practice?  Is there a set of ideas relevant to our subject or year that we all discuss using a shared language?

5. Are we clear on the team focus and each individual’s focus for CPD and deliberate practice.

Every team and everyone in a team should have an agenda for professional learning and deliberate practice.  It could be that there’s a strong collaboratively determined shared agenda so that people can support each other in improving in a specific area; it could be that each person has their own CPD needs to agreed.  The question is whether this is all explicit, agreed and planned.  Planned!  You don’t get better by accident….it needs sustained focus and attention over time.

6. Have we got assessment right, balancing formative and summative information and workload? 

How is the team doing in discussing all the issues related to assessment: the optimum frequency and nature of tightly focused low-stakes formative testing and broader summative tests; the use of cumulative tests; the use of exemplars to model standards; the commitment to using the same tests to facilitate meaningful comparisons between classes and cohorts year on year.  Does everyone know what we mean by ‘making progress’ in the language of our subject?  What do we track in our mark books vs what information is usefully shared centrally?  All of this needs to be explored… otherwise we become slaves to the machine and data loses meaning and value.

7. Are we clear what our first-line interventions are? If  Michael is behind, what do we do about it? 

Regardless of which names come out in flashing lights on the data tracker, do we have a good understanding of the types of interventions that work when students fall behind? Do we have that built into our teaching so it’s not always about extra sessions after school?  What can students practice, re-learn, redraft, re-visit? Do we have resources ready to support them?

8. Have we got a sustainable, effective marking and feedback policy in place? 

Imagine your Headteacher has said – just tell me what you’d like in your marking and feedback policy. Do what you like as long as you can sustain it and it is effective in enabling students to make progress.  What would you do?  Is there a sensible diet of feedback of various forms including marking that works in your area?  Have you taken workload into account? Have you made sure it’s more work for students than for teachers? Have you agreed a protocol for students using lesson time to improve their work? Do you have an agreed language around feedback and marking that everyone understands – eg ‘green penning’, ‘whole class feedback’, ‘deep marking’.  Don’t assume people know..

9. Are we clear on the parameters and processes of quality assurance  – securing high quality outcomes whilst retaining a strongly supportive team culture.? 

What is the role and nature of lesson observations, learning walks, work scrutiny, student voice, data tracking – the menu of QA processes that go on in the team?  Do we all understand their status, how they feed into performance management or professional development… no surprises? Is the spirit right – ie are people being treated as professionals, engaging in work scrutiny collectively? Are people getting helpful developmental feedback; is there an opportunity for a more intense coaching approach; if there a good way to share and learn from each other?

If there is a tight compliance regime in place – do people at least understand the rationale and have a chance to discuss that to secure buy-in?  What are the expected standards for observable routines in lessons and in books?  It all needs to be discussed fully and often.

10. Are we clear on our immediate priorities and the longer term vision for the team? 

With a big and/or busy and ambitious team, there’s always a long agenda;  it’s all too easy to focus on too many things and end up doing none very well or for people to be pulling in different directions choosing what to focus on.  Priorities are priorities – there can’t be too many at any one time and that needs agreement and discussion.   At the same time, every team should have a sense of direction – an idea of what the longer term goals are with curriculum development, assessment planning and so on with some sense of what the milestones will be.

That should keep you busy. I’m sure you’ve got most of it covered!

            10 essential discussions to have in any teacher team. published first on https://medium.com/@KDUUniversityCollege

[escaperail1]

How one Southern theater won a culture battle but lost the culture wars.

Twenty-five years ago, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America premiered on Broadway, swept the Tony Awards, won the Pulitzer Prize, and changed the way gay lives were represented in pop culture. For a 2016 Slate cover story, Isaac Butler and Dan Kois assembled an oral history of Angels. Now Butler and Kois have expanded that story into a book, The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America, out Tuesday. Through more than 250 interviews with actors, directors, playwrights, and critics, the book tells the story of Angels’ turbulent rise into the pantheon of great American storytelling—and explores the legacy of a play that feels, in an era when freedom and civil rights still feel under siege, as crucial as ever.

Much of Angels’ impact was in scores of ambitious productions across the country, far away from the bright lights of Broadway. Putting on the epic two-part drama has become a rite of passage for theaters in cities large and small across America and around the world. In this exclusive excerpt from The World Only Spins Forward, actors, administrators, and journalists tell the story of one such theater that went to court to fight a local government that wanted to shut the play down—and won.

Keith Martin (producing and managing director, Charlotte Repertory Theatre, 1990–2001): We got the rights to Angels in America in 1994, but we produced it in 1996.

Tom Viertel (producer of the Angels in America national tour, 1994–95): We intended to tour in Charlotte and the Charlotte Rep begged us not to come, to let them do it themselves.

Steve Umberger (director of Angels in America at Charlotte Rep, 1996): We were growing. We had done some challenging work, we had just started doing collaborations with the Charlotte Symphony: Midsummer, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, full text, with orchestra, working on a big canvas. Expanding our audiences.

Perry Tannenbaum (founder and editor, Creative Loafing Charlotte): There were only six theaters in the United States that were being allowed to do the show that near to the Broadway production. It was a big deal.

Viertel: They were so passionate about this that we agreed to let them do it. And they did it, and they were all fired. They literally dissolved Charlotte Rep.

Doug Wager (artistic director, Arena Stage, Washington, 1991–98): The 1990s were the peak of the culture wars that broke out with the assault on the National Endowment for the Arts.

Brian Herrera (assistant professor of theater, Princeton University): The culture wars were a tipping point. Up until then, even though there was contestation with the NEA, there wasn’t a sense that it was going to go away.

Wager: The NEA imprimatur is the thing that gives the foundations their incentive. So the absence of that imprimatur gave funders some really good reasons to avoid anything too sticky or controversial, in general.

Herrera: Queer people and people of color became poster children for what conservative America doesn’t represent, like Robert Mapplethorpe and Piss Christ. It was a way of using particular artists to mark a line in the sand and say we therefore do not support the arts. And using the shock of the artists and their work and their identities as proof that they were corrupt and thus unworthy of funding and, by extension, not good Americans.

Wager: All of that was giving politicians—putting them into a cold sweat, and giving them a justification for suppressing, diverting, or cutting federal funding for the arts.

Greg Reiner (director, theater and musical theater, National Endowment for the Arts): In 1992 we had $172 million. And then in ’96 that’s when we lost 40 percent of our funding. This year our funding is $150 million, which is close to what it was in pure dollars, not counting inflation, in the mid-’90s.

Umberger: We didn’t do Angels to create any sort of political sensation. I think Tony Kushner felt … we were the smallest of the companies, and I think he had some sympathy for that. He was also certainly aware of the political climate, and Jesse Helms.

Kevin R. Free (Belize at Charlotte Rep, 1996): There were all these discussions about the New South versus the Old South. Charlotte was supposed to be the New South. The New South was supposedly progressive, more inclusive of gay inhabitants, people of color. The attitudes were supposed to have changed.

Umberger: Charlotte is the largest city in either Carolina. So you have this strange tension between an aspiration to be a “world-class place,” a phrase that’s been thrown around a lot in Charlotte, and a very small-town way of thinking that’s always been at the core: a Southern, conservative, churchgoing sensibility.

Lawrence Toppman (arts reporter, Charlotte Observer, 1980–2017): The boosterish talk about “a world-class city” didn’t reflect reality then or now. Even more than Atlanta, a city Charlotte leaders alternately mocked and emulated, Charlotte was an odd conglomeration of Northern transplants seeking warmer climates, workers imported by banks from other cities, and natives who still thought of it as an overgrown small town.

Martin: It was our due diligence that got us into trouble.

Tannenbaum: Part of what had been recommended was this sort of community outreach.

Martin: We created a series of communitywide education and outreach activities in hopes of shedding light on the difficult issues of the play, rather than heat.

Umberger: All of the events happened so quickly, a week or less.

Martin: The Charlotte Observer went Page A1 with the following headline: “Theater Aims to Avert Storm Over ‘Angels’ Drama.”

Tony Kushner’s seven-hour epic, which Charlotte Repertory Theatre opens March 20 in the North Carolina Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, has been hailed as the play of the decade, the winner of one Pulitzer Prize and two Tony Awards as best drama.

It also contains nudity, a simulated homosexual act and adult language—elements that have caused trouble for Charlotte’s cultural organizations in the past.

In one scene, a young man with AIDS takes off his shirt so a nurse can check his lesions. “Only six. That’s good,” she pronounces. “Pants.” The young man drops his trousers so she can continue. He is as naked as the day he was born.

—Tony Brown, “Theater Aims to Avert Storm Over ‘Angels’ Drama,” Charlotte Observer, March 6, 1996

Tannenbaum: The head of the so-called Concerned Charlotteans, the Rev. Joe Chambers, sent a fax to City Council asking for a roll call about who supported this homosexual event and who didn’t.

Tony Kushner: Rev. Chambers was nuts. He had declared Barney the Dinosaur an agent of the devil. I mean, he was a hideous person.

The popular PBS kids’ show character is “straight out of the New Age and the world of demons and devils,” warns Rev. Joseph Chambers, who runs a four-state radio ministry based in North Carolina.

Barney, adored by millions of toddlers and preschoolers, is yet another sign that “America is under siege from the powers of darkness,” adds the politically active Chambers.

And for a donation to his 25-year-old Paw Creek Ministries in Charlotte, Chambers will send you a booklet explaining it all: “Barney the New Age Demon,” recently retitled “Barney the Purple Messiah.”

—Cox News Service, Nov. 25, 1993

Tannenbaum: After the fax was sent out, the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center, the City Council, the local attorney general, all enjoined the Rep from opening.

Scott Belford (director of public relations, Arts and Science Council, Charlotte, 1995–2000): It became a rallying point to question freedom in the arts.

Martin: Their lawyers tried to shut us down using the North Carolina obscenity law. But they couldn’t. Works of “intrinsic artistic and literary merit” were excluded from the law. The only legal option they had was North Carolina’s indecent exposure statute, because of the roughly eight seconds of full frontal male nudity.

The cease-and-desist order constituted prior restraint, because we had yet to break any laws. It also constituted an imminent threat, because I was named personally. That allowed me to seek judicial relief from the court in the form of a restraining order, which later was made into a permanent injunction. In six hours I had to find a lawyer, file a formal request, find precedent, a sympathetic judge, request a court hearing, deal with my staff, my board, the cast, the crew, the media, and get process servers.

Umberger: We all knew there was a chance the show wouldn’t open. There we were, at 5 in the green room before first preview, wondering, “What’s going to happen next?” We had worked for a year—were we going to be able to do the play?

Martin: At 4:58 p.m., two minutes before the clerk’s office closed, the judge’s order was signed and filed with the clerk, and process servers fanned out across the county to serve notice.

Umberger: At 5:15 or something, we found out we were doing it. The show was at 7:30, I think. So it was close!

Martin: We served the Performing Arts Center board and senior staff, the police chief, city police department, the county sheriff, the sheriff’s department, the DA and all of his magistrates, even the local and state alcohol and beverage control board, because we had a full bar at the theater and you can’t serve alcohol at a premises with full nudity. Anyone who had the legal authority to shut us down, we got an order against them. We were painting with a shotgun, not a rifle.

Angus MacLachlan (Louis at Charlotte Rep, 1996): We were warned there might be bomb threats, or that during the nude scene people might try to stop the show.

Tannenbaum: It turns out that the Concerned Charlotteans showing up en masse to protest the opening numbered 15 or thereabouts. And the number of people picketing in favor of Angels numbered between 150 and 200!

MacLachlan: It felt like two different factions, like what’s happening now in America. What Trump is doing, what the conservatives in America are doing, but most people didn’t vote for him. We had tremendous support from the community.

Kushner: They tried this direct assault, actually stopping it, and ran right into the First Amendment. I mean, it didn’t work, and in fact made it a huge thing, and everybody with a conscience in Charlotte felt they had to go and see it.

Martin: Opening night, I said, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Angels in America,” and there was a standing ovation. We hadn’t even done the show yet!

Be splendid tonight, be focused, have fun, make theater: That’s our way of repudiating the bullies, the killjoys, the busybodies and blowhards. We know the secret of making art, while they only know the minor secret of making mischief. We proceed from joy; they only have their misery.

—fax from Tony Kushner to Charlotte Rep, March 20, 1996

MacLachlan: That night was so electric, and so supportive, it was really about what you wanted it to be about: Kushner’s words, the events onstage. The feeling, the connection from the audience, was everything you want in a theater. That’s what was happening, not the little noises from outside.

Martin: The headline in the papers the next day was “Judge: Let ‘Angels’ Play.” It was a bigger typeface than Kennedy’s assassination.

A last-minute court order Wednesday secured opening night for the tense cast and crew of the Pulitzer Prize-winning epic, which played without protest in city after city until it reached Charlotte. A group of Christian conservatives tried blocking the show over scenes of nudity, profanity and simulated sex.

Even after the legal victory, some expected an outburst during the nude scene, but when Charlotte actor Alan Poindexter dropped his blue slacks and for seven seconds faced the audience naked, no one said or did a thing.

—Tony Brown, Gary L. Wright, and Paige Williams, “Judge: Let ‘Angels’ Play,” Charlotte Observer, March 21, 1996

Belford: The show sold out and extended because it was in the headlines every day and there was so much discussion around it. A lot of people felt they had to see it to see what the fuss was all about.

Toppman: Charlotte Repertory Theatre never did a more accomplished show.

MacLachlan: Tony Kushner came down and saw it. I remember him saying this play has been done all over the world, in very conservative countries, and nothing like this had ever happened.

Kushner: They stopped the plane on the runway and suddenly all these policemen came on, and the stewardess asked me if I was me, and they helped me off the plane because they were worried about a death threat or something. It was nonsense, but it was exciting.

Martin: They picketed every one of the play’s 30 performances. They even showed up Monday nights. The first time that happened, they told the media they had successfully stopped the show. The police had to tell them we were dark on Mondays.

Tannenbaum: We were all very euphoric at the time. It remained, until the company folded, the most staggering hit they had. Eleven thousand people saw that show in Charlotte.

Umberger: The next season, we had a 20 percent increase in subscriptions, and when we polled people, they said it was because of Angels.

Tannenbaum: There was a tremendous feeling that this was a huge opportunity for Charlotte theater to expand. This is [laughs] obviously not the scenario that played out.

Free: I can’t talk about Angels without talking about Six Degrees.

Umberger: We had chosen [John Guare’s] Six Degrees of Separation for the next season. Joe Chambers or someone seized upon that as proof that we were continuing to violate standards, that it was bigger than Angels. We tried to defuse that, say that wasn’t what the play was about.

Free: It wasn’t nearly as good, but it became “Why is Charlotte Rep doing all these gay plays?” Six Degrees isn’t even really a gay play.

Martin: It’s available in the comedy section at Blockbuster.

Kushner: They did what these people always do: The next year they realized a full-frontal assault on civil liberties and freedom of speech wasn’t gonna work, so they defunded the Rep.

Martin: In November of 1996, the Mecklenburg County Commission became dominated by Republicans who had a stealth mission to defund the arts. The “Gang of Five,” led by Hoyle Martin.

Umberger: I think it was on April first. April Fools’ Day. It was a vote to defund the $2.5 million Arts and Science Council. It was funny, because they wanted to defund us because of Angels. But they wouldn’t say, “Well, we can’t give money to organizations that do gay material,” so they had to defund the whole thing, the 30-odd groups that got money from the council. That meeting started at 6 in the afternoon and went until 2 in the morning. There was an overflow crowd. It was a very tense and raucous seven or eight hours that had many speakers for and against. The head of the commission was not part of the Gang of Five. He voted against. Right before the vote he said, “Watch us, and forgive us.”

Belford: It was a 5–4 vote.

Umberger: That was 2½ million out the door.

Belford: The Arts Council funded programs for kids. The symphony. The opera. Just because this one group funded by the council did one play with a gay character in it.

Martin: Hoyle Martin went so far as saying we should ban all works that include the word homosexual, works created by artists who were homosexual. One minister railed from the pulpit about the works of Leonard Bernstein. One said they should ban The Nutcracker because Tchaikovsky was gay. I was “outed” myself, by Republican County Commissioner Bill James, the only one of the Gang of Five who is still in office. This was a surprise to my wife and teenage daughter.

Belford: It was a real wake-up call to the community. A black eye to Charlotte. We’re trying to be a very progressive, forward-thinking city.

Martin: Four of the Gang did not survive the next election cycle.

Belford: After the elections, the funding was returned and increased.

Tannenbaum: There was a dampening effect. It ushered in an era of extreme caution. They actually convened—the Arts and Sciences Council—convened a task force where all sides would be represented and would issue guidelines for arts events in Charlotte. And of course any compromise would preclude events like Angels in America.

Umberger: I was on the task force. Also on that task force was Joe Chambers. Everyone had been invited to the table. All sides.

Tannenbaum: The appeasement from beginning to end of these wackos is really just startling.

Toppman: Charlotte Rep fomented controversy, wittingly or unwittingly, by responding clumsily to the negative comments. Self-righteousness, even when one is righteous, doesn’t convert or engage enraged people. Cowardly, confused politicians didn’t help.

Tannenbaum: It pretty much reaffirms what we’re seeing today in Charlotte. Some little thing, like a bathroom and who is supposed to go in it, stirs up a national furor.

Umberger: A lot of people assume that Angels is the reason Charlotte Rep closed. That wasn’t the reason. It was a supporting factor. People were tired. The theater staff was tired. The city was tired from all of the fighting. I was gone in 2002, and it lasted until 2005, but it happened when the economy was beginning to fail. Charlotte Rep needed another million bucks to keep healthy, but that money was nowhere to be found.

Toppman: No one came out of this mess covered with glory, except the actors and technicians.

Martin: I have almost one and a half file drawers from Angels. Of the thousands of articles, there’s one that’s my favorite, an editorial from March 24, 1996, in the Charlotte Observer. The headline is “Bravo Charlotte Rep.” “In this conservative city, on this matter, that took guts. Bravo.”

Excerpted from The World Only Spins Forward: The Ascent of Angels in America by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois. Published by Bloomsbury USA. Portions of the book first appeared in Slate.

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Five Top Trainers Reveal the Lesson that Changed Their Careers

Success may appear to come naturally to some. But the truth is, top trainers aren’t born that way. They learn.

At least that’s the case for the five fitness pros who answered this question: What self-education tool changed your career, and why?

While each pointed to a different source of career-shaping advice—a book, a course, a live event, advice from a mentor, and a video series—all lead to the same takeaway: You never know where you’ll find your game-changer.

All we can say with 100 percent certainty is that it’s out there, and you owe it to yourself to look for it.

Melody Schoenfeld

Owner of Flawless Fitness in Pasadena, California, and author of Pleasure Not Meating You

The course: Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) certification

Why: It introduced me to inspiring people and opened doors for me in the fitness world.

I am not a natural athlete. My foray into fitness was motivated by sheer necessity—at the time, I was working in advertising in New York City, making an annual salary of $20,000. Which in the city is roughly the cost of a sandwich. (And not even a very good one.)

As my brother, Brad was familially obligated to offer me part-time work at his training facility. He wrote the programs and taught me the exercises. I in turn taught the programs to the clients he provided.

I first met Pavel Tsatsouline, believe it or not, at a Learning Annex flexibility class he was teaching. I signed up and was impressed by Pavel’s assistant, Mike Mahler, who was a vegan like me but extremely strong and muscular. I’ve been vegan since 2000, and at the time had not met many vegan strength athletes. I wanted to do whatever he was doing, which led me to the world of kettlebells.

I took Mike’s six-and-a-half-hour kettlebell workshop and pored over Pavel’s book Enter the Kettlebell. Then came the RKC. The course is a grueling three-day kettlebell immersion not for the faint of heart. The sheer volume of moves crammed into those three days left my hands badly torn and bleeding. In the end, I not only passed but was asked to return as an assistant.

Through the kettlebell community, I met the strongmen who introduced me to my current passion: old-time strongman training. I can now tear a phone book in half and bend a half-inch-thick steel bar with my bare hands. I have a reputation for being, pound for pound, one of the strongest women in the industry. Not bad for someone who did not start out as an athlete.

RKC was a turning point for me, but it wasn’t the course itself that changed my life—it was the inspirational people I encountered as a result. Should you ever have the opportunity to learn from the best in your profession, don’t hesitate to jump on that chance.

READ ALSO: “How to Pick a Personal Trainer Certification”

Patrick Umphrey

Online coach and founder of Eat, Train, Progress

The lesson: You have to be yourself.

Why: It’s made me happier and more successful.

I had just started my Facebook group Eat, Train, Progress, and I wanted to post a funny meme. Okay, so the meme was a bit dirty—PG13 for adult language—but it didn’t disparage anyone. And frankly, I thought it was hilarious. I had made the meme, after all, so the humor was very me.

Still, I questioned whether or not to post it, fearing it might turn off those who didn’t share my sense of humor. Remember, my group was still young, and I wanted to attract new members, not scare them away.

At the time, I was enrolled in a mentoring group called Elite Fitness Mentoring, run by Luke Johnson and Lawrence Judd of Shredded by Science.

I shared my problem with Luke, and he offered me some important advice that’s stuck with me ever since.

Luke insisted I post that meme. “You need to be yourself, and this is totally you,” Luke said. “Besides, if it really bothers someone enough to leave your group, that’s not someone you’ll ever be coaching anyway.”

The lesson was way bigger than any meme: Putting yourself on display is important. It lets others know who you are, and attracts like-minded people (they’re out there!) who will accept you for you. Those are the people you want around you. Otherwise, you may spend a lot of energy trying to be someone you’re not. And that can be stressful and exhausting.

This philosophy now guides everything I do, including how I run the group and coach clients. My values are present in every action and decision I make, which means that I generally feel good about them.

Eat, Train, Progress now has more than 17,000 members and has had a positive impact on many lives. It’s successful, and I believe that this is at least one reason why.

READ ALSO: “How to Build an Online Following from Scratch”

Mark Fisher

Cofounder of Mark Fisher Fitness and Business for Unicorns

The event: Perform Better 3-Day Functional Training Summit

Why: It taught me to consider other viewpoints and constantly evolve my approach.

As a guy who routinely wears capes, loud spandex, and unicorn apparel to work, I’m not typically accused of being shy. But the first time I attended a Perform Better 3-Day Summit, that’s exactly how I felt—shy and intimidated by all the muscle-y people.

This was early in my career. At that point, I was an obsessive reader of blogs and info-products, and the summit was one of my first in-person events. I was so impressed that I returned the next year, and the next. By now, it’s become one of my annual touchpoints with that particular community of fitness pros.

The lineup features industry legends like Mike Boyle, Dan John, and Stu McGill—but it’s also introduced me to others whose work I hadn’t heard of before. While the 75-minute sessions are less in-depth than, say, a day-long event on a single topic, that’s actually the summit’s strength: You’re exposed to a wide variety of ideas and training methodologies.

And because it’s such a smorgasbord, it has helped me become a more critical thinker in two ways:

It’s taught me the value in finding common ground. When you’re exposed to a wide swath of methodologies, it’s easy to get bogged down in the differences. And while those differences are worth exploring, I’ve found that clarifying what everyone agrees on is even more useful.

Because I’ve been going for so many years, I’ve had the opportunity to watch people’s viewpoints change and evolve over time. For me as a young trainer, seeing that kind of adaptability in my mentors was huge. It gave me permission to continually update my own approach as I absorbed new information, instead of digging into an old belief system that had grown outdated.

READ ALSO: “How to Use New Knowledge from a Convention”

Leigh Peele

Online coach, mentor, and host of the podcast You Need to Hear This

The book: Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle, by Tom Venuto

Why: It’s a shining example of evidence-based advice in a world of “bro science.”

Like a lot of trainers entering a fitness career, I began my journey wanting to get myself into shape. I was overwhelmed with the amount (and often poor quality) of information online and at bookstores.

As an early Internet adopter, I went to forums to fulfill my thirst for vetted knowledge. That’s when someone recommended Tom Venuto’s Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. It was simple, addressed science and current research in a modest and level-headed manner, and it sent me in the right direction.

Because of that book, I avoided the traps and dogmatic pitfalls scattered all around the health industry. It appealed to my critical thinking, and I appreciated the evidence-backed principles that still guide my training and career. One invaluable tip from the book: Your goal should always be fat loss, not weight loss.

On top of all of that, Venuto is a natural athlete who encourages consistent and sensible hard work. He stands out in a crowd of what is usually perceived as bro culture. He and the book are the full package.

READ ALSO: “Best Books for Personal Trainers”

Stephen Holt

Founder of 29 Again Custom Fitness and an 11-time finalist for personal trainer of the year awards from five different organization

The video series: Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy

Why: It’s the next closest thing to dissecting a human body.

The X factor in any personal training business is not your Instagram or your abs. It’s your knowledge of human anatomy. Without that, you can’t truly understand how exercise works. You can only repeat the motions mindlessly without knowing why you’re doing them.

My education in anatomy—some formal, but mostly self-taught—transformed my career. Books like The Pelvic Girdle and Anatomy Trains were hugely influential—in fact, they led me to develop my 3-4-5 Total-Body Fitness System, which was featured in national publications like Shape and Women’s Health and likely was a factor when I was named ACE Personal Trainer of the Year and a finalist for NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year.

Still, a two-dimensional book can’t touch the detail you get from the turntable shots in Acland’s Video Atlas of Human Anatomy. (I first watched it on DVD many years ago, long before streaming was a thing. But these days, you can stream videos directly from the website for a subscription price.)

These videos made me realize the spiral and diagonal patterns inherent in all major muscles. It was an “a-ha!” moment for me that changed the way I train, informing which exercises I do (and don’t do).

For example, the fibers of the gluteus maximus are diagonal. So a bilateral move like a Romanian deadlift can’t take full advantage of the diagonal orientation of those fibers. Even a single-leg Romanian deadlift falls short. The ideal choice: a 45-degree single-leg Romanian deadlift using a cable held in the opposite hand while facing the pulley at an angle. By tweaking the classic move this way, you target those glute-muscle fibers in the most efficient way.

Understanding anatomy allows you to recognize exactly which muscles are doing what, so you can create the best plan for your clients. The human body is the tool of our trade. If you want to be successful, you need to know how it works.

READ ALSO: “Do Personal Trainers Need a College Degree to Be Successful?”

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