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RIP 053: The Native Cats - John Sharp Toro LP (Out Feb 2, 2018)

Tasmanian electronic pub rock iconoclasts the Native Cats have, after ten years, become completely unmoored. Chloe Alison Escott read Nevada, spun out into an unplanned gender crisis, then finally transitioned, changed her name and became one of those true authentic selves you hear about on the news; Julian Teakle read The Big Midweek, stopped writing Peter Hook bass lines and started writing Steve Hanley ones instead. Metamorphosis! Tumult! And a new album: at last, February 2, 2018 on RIP Society, their meticulous masterpiece, John Sharp Toro.

The timeline tells the story. They recorded ten songs in a day at their home studio in South Hobart. They didn’t touch any of it for almost a year while Chloe’s whole life exploded and reassembled itself. Then Chloe channeled some of that personal transformation into the album, retaining Julian’s invigorating bass lines but radically re-recording and rearranging everything else. The end result merges the chaotic urgency of Swell Maps and the Fall with the idiosyncratic production and labyrinthine album concepts of Blood Orange and Kendrick Lamar. There are recurring lyrics, haunting reprises, codes upon codes, foreign voices, personal archive recordings, distorted synths that arrive without warning like floodlights cutting through fog. It’s about queer isolation and loneliness, transfiguration, the ways that lives and relationships continue after they’ve been altered; it’s also about digital spaces, the US Republican Party in the second half of the 20th century, and James M. Cain’s opera-scene noir Serenade, the origin of the album’s title.

But beneath the coils and complications is the most bracing and immediate album the Native Cats have ever recorded. There’s life in every corner of every song: guest drummer Sarah Hennies sends the band twisting and turning into new territory with just a kick and a snare; Julian has never been more animated or inventive in his bass playing than he is here, as he makes each song bounce, swing, or stampede as he sees fit; and Chloe sings mightily and without inhibition at last, with a voice that’s entirely her own, every word lit up in neon, every line rich with meaning. It’s John Sharp Toro, the exhilarating queer post-punk puzzle-box mystery thriller you never knew you needed and you certainly never expected the Native Cats to be the ones to deliver.

[rileyo]

Martin Freeman are drumming at Black Banter Set!(x)

[rileyo]

Announcing our Very Special Guest, our “Supernatural” cast member who will be writing our anthology’s Foreword – the one and only, all manner of Awesome, Kim Rhodes!

Kim will be generously lending her time to peruse the final selections for the anthology and pen her thoughts on your poetic works. We thank Kim for being on-board this wayward creative endeavour with us!

Remember, the deadline for submissions is the 12th of April – so sharpen your quills, Supernatural fans. We’ve already received some very impressive submissions and are looking forward to seeing many more. This fandom has so very many wildly creative people involved in it – please spread the word about “Carrying On” to any friends you think might be interested in submitting work for consideration.

All of the submission details are here: https://weltonbmarsland.com/2017/03/01/call-for-submissions-spn-poetry/

[rileyo]

Call for Submissions – Poetry Wanted: poetry inspired by TV series “Supernatural”

The Anthology:

“Carrying On” will be an anthology of original poetry, completely inspired by the long-running CW television series, Supernatural. This anthology will be the original work of fans of the series and is not affiliated with the CW network, the show itself or its producers in any way.

It is hoped the anthology will showcase a total of around 50 works of poetry and will be published in both digital and print editions.

A member of the Supernatural cast will review the final selections and write a Foreword for the anthology. A further announcement regarding this will be made on March 12th.

Every poem selected for inclusion will receive a payment of $20 on publication. In addition, every poet selected for publication will receive a free digital copy of the finished anthology.

Deadline for submissions is April 12th.

Full details including how to submit at https://weltonbmarsland.com/2017/03/01/call-for-submissions-spn-poetry/

[if you have a friend you think might be interested in this, please spread the word to them!]

[rileyo]

The Purpose of Minor Characters

There are two things any minor/supporting character has to do: they either through some means cause regression or growth in the protagonist, or they are or create or clear away an obstacle that advances the plot. Often they do both of these things.

This is the case for any minor character. If they don’t do these things, the story does not require them, and they should be axed.

There is a lot of criticism in media about the lot of female characters. There aren’t enough female protagonists, which is a problem and that is something we should keep complaining about. Since most protagonists are men, that leaves most of the women in fiction as minor or supporting characters, which means they are always either a catalyst for main (male) character development, or they are present to advance the plot, or both.

There is nothing inherently wrong with useful minor characters. The part that’s wrong is institutional, that women are so often only minor characters, and therefore usually supporting a man’s story. But that’s not a fault in any particular story, that’s the fault of the story-making industry. We need more female protagonists, and we need them now.

What we should demand for all supporting women in fiction is that they have their own, human and coherent motives for the things they do to advance the plot. They must have their own character and their own lives that intersect with the protagonists, and they must do things for reasons that make sense for them in light of their character and context.

Minor female characters can, in no particular order: suffer, sacrifice themselves, die, live, cause murder and mayhem, make dinner, throw dinner at the progtagonist, etc. There is no wrong action they can take, or no wrong action taken against them, as long as what they do, and what happens to them, is clearly part of a larger coherent arc of their own. Their stories have to make sense.

That said, there’s no reason why minor female characters shouldn’t be as complicated any another. Female characters can be contradictory, confused, sometimes wrong, sometimes awkward, as long as they are still living a coherent and explicable life of their own. They can love the wrong people, forgive the wrong people, try to become something they aren’t. They can be strong, they can be weak, they can be too tired to notice what’s going on around them. They can make bad decisions that benefit the protagonist, as long as someone thought through why she would do something like that and restricts her actions to things that are in keeping with her character and her circumstances. It doesn’t have to be a good reason, but someone has to think about what the reason is. 

Asking for minor female characters that neither help transform the protagonist nor influence the plot is asking for female characters who will get cut from the script at the first opportunity. If the only good woman in fiction isn’t there at all, we have a whole other problem.

[rileyo]

Last August we had the wonderful news that Cohen Media Group would be remastering and re-releasing Maurice this year in time for the film’s 30th anniversary.

Today The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the restored version will get its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival as part of the Berlinale Classics lineup. [x]

The Berlin Film Festival runs from the 9th-19th February 2017 with the programme being announced at the start of February. You can read about their Classics selection here [x]

The restoration, by the Cohen Media Group, used a 4K scan of the original camera negative. Director James Ivory gave the nod to the digitally restored version of his film, and cinematographer Pierre Lhomme supervised the colour correction.

[rileyo]

Three of the nicest men I’ve ever met…..

[rileyo]

Oh my god, ya’ll. Mark’s “To an undiscerning critic” poem: 

is a deliberate reference to a poem rebuttal that Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, in response to a poem criticizing his work:

(x)(x)(x)

I FUCKING LOVE MARK. 

[rileyo]

Just when you think Rupert Graves is perfection....

[rileyo]

Windfarm

[rileyo]

Untitled by riley o

Misty mountains

[rileyo]

Untitled by riley o

[rileyo]

Playing with Prisma.

Thanks to @cumberfoil for teaching me how to remove the watermark! <3

[rileyo]

Hamlet, 1920.  Dir. Svend Gade.

[rileyo]

A Milan, Italy based street artist known only as Biancoshock has been garnering some attention in the past few days for his curious new series of miniature rooms set within his local city streets. Underneath manhole covers and openings in the pavement, he has built elaborate and even luxurious interiors titled “Borderlife”, a series while surreal and evoking images of Alice’s tumbling rabbit-hole, takes its inspiration from a very real and serious issue.

See more on Hi-Fructose.

[rileyo]

This is a fantastic logo. 

[rileyo]

I’ve answered this question many times over the years. I answered it for journalists, for on-lookers, for critics, for non-slash fans, for slash fans, and I even tried to answer it for myself. Why do we love slash fanfiction? Why are we drawn to it?

At this point, I find this question really strange. Why wouldn’t we be? It’s fun. Why aren’t you?

But I’ll bite. I’ll try and answer this as best I can.

Keep reading