#( connection. / && charlie armstrong. )

[book--brackets]

DragonLance: Chronicles by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (1984-1995)

Once merely creatures of legend, the dragons have returned to Krynn. But with their arrival comes the departure of the old gods--and all healing magic. As war threatens to engulf the land, lifelong friends reunite for an adventure that will change their lives and shape their world forever . . .When Tanis, Sturm, Caramon, Raistlin, Flint, and Tasslehoff see a woman use a blue crystal staff to heal a villager, they wonder if it's a sign the gods have not abandoned them after all. Fueled by this glimmer of hope, the Companions band together to uncover the truth behind the gods' absence--though they aren't the only ones with an interest in the staff. The Seekers, a new religious order, wants the artifact for their own ends, believing it will help them replace the gods and overtake the continent of Ansalon. Now, the Companions must assume the unlikely roles of heroes if they hope to prevent the staff from falling into the hands of darkness.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale (2005-2015)

While attending a strict academy for potential princesses with the other girls from her mountain village, fourteen-year-old Miri discovers unexpected talents and connections to her homeland.

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson (2023)

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?

Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (2009-2012)

Alexia Tarabotti is labouring under a great many social tribulations.

First, she has no soul. Second, she's a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire -- and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate. With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London's high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

Wayward Children by Seanan McGuire (2016-present)

Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children  No Solicitations  No Visitors  No Quests 

Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else.

But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children.

Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world.

But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

No matter the cost.

Codex Alera by Jim Butcher (2004-2009)

For a thousand years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive and threatening races that inhabit the world, using their unique bond with the furies--elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal. But in the remote Calderon Valley, the boy Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. At fifteen, he has no wind fury to help him fly, no fire fury to light his lamps. Yet as the Alerans' most savage enemy--the Marat horde--return to the Valley, Tavi's courage and resourcefulness will be a power greater than any fury, one that could turn the tides of war...

The Belgariad by David Eddings (1982-1984)

Long ago, so the Storyteller claimed, the evil God Torak sought dominion and drove men and Gods to war. But Belgarath the Sorcerer led men to reclaim the Orb that protected men of the West. So long as it lay at Riva, the prophecy went, men would be safe.

But that was only a story, and Garion did not believe in magic dooms, even though the dark man without a shadow had haunted him for years. Brought up on a quiet farm by his Aunt Pol, how could he know that the Apostate planned to wake dread Torak, or that he would be led on a quest of unparalleled magic and danger by those he loved - but did not know? For a while his dreams of innocence were safe, untroubled by knowledge of his strange heritage. For a little while...

Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers (2021-2022)

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.

They're going to need to ask it a lot.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White (1958)

Once upon a time, a young boy called "Wart" was tutored by a magician named Merlyn in preparation for a future he couldn't possibly imagine. A future in which he would ally himself with the greatest knights, love a legendary queen and unite a country dedicated to chivalrous values. A future that would see him crowned and known for all time as Arthur, King of the Britons.During Arthur's reign, the kingdom of Camelot was founded to cast enlightenment on the Dark Ages, while the knights of the Round Table embarked on many a noble quest. But Merlyn foresaw the treachery that awaited his liege: the forbidden love between Queen Guenever and Lancelot, the wicked plots of Arthur's half-sister Morgause and the hatred she fostered in Mordred that would bring an end to the king's dreams for Britain--and to the king himself.

Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong (2001-2012)

Elena Michaels is the world’s only female werewolf. And she’s tired of it. Tired of a life spent hiding and protecting, a life where her most important job is hunting down rogue werewolves. Tired of a world that not only accepts the worst in her–her temper, her violence–but requires it. Worst of all, she realizes she’s growing content with that life, with being that person.

So she left the Pack and returned to Toronto where she’s trying to live as a human. When the Pack leader calls asking for her help fighting a sudden uprising, she only agrees because she owes him. Once this is over, she’ll be squared with the Pack and free to live life as a human. Which is what she wants. Really.

[i-eat-lip-gloss]

Important info page/intro post

please read this!! i will randomly add new but important information

Current status: Offline

Name(s): Crayon, Charlie, Charles, Vic, Soda[pop], Starzy

pronouns: he/him, they/them, star/stars, moth/moths, cryptid/cryptids, teeth/teeths, bone/bones, it/its, zyr/zyrs, gummy/gummys, slushie/slushies, bug/bugs

Gender: Transmasc, Transgender, Librafluid, and WAYY too many xenogenders (someone please ask me)

sexuality and romantic status: Omnisexual and taken (@todays-a-good-day-to-be-tired)

DNI: homophobes, transphobes, anti-lgbtqia+, racists, religious talk (all religions welcome but don't try and convert me), talking about "the power of healing gems" (you can believe that but please don't talk to me about it), pedos, anti-therian, anti-furry, ant-xenogender, zoophiles, kink agere, nsfw agere, dd/lg agere and variants, politics, my opinions on drama, nonbelievers!! /j

❗️DO NOT TAG ME IN TAGGING GAMES. if it’s a small quick text-related thing that will take only like a minute or 2 then maybe, but overall please refrain.

❗️❗️please do not send me donation asks. it’s hard for me to tell who’s a bot and whatnot, so please just don’t send any at all. it will just be deleted.

please read this!! ✨👇

And more info about me is under the cut!! :D

i am otherhearted!! (meaning having a deep connection/bond with an animal/creature, such as strongly relating to it, acting like it, or understanding it, but not quite being it; identifying with instead of as something). cat-hearted specifically, and my kintypes are Turkish Van cat and Norwegian Forest cat!

i’m also a Dipper Pines fictionkin! and also questioning being a cryptidkin

fav color, food, drink, and animal: dark green and sage green, none (iykyk), Ultra Paradise Monster!!!!!! (i just really love Monster), and frogs ducks fox and deer

fav aesthetic: CRYPTIDCORE!!!, emo, punk, goblincore, rockabilly/greaser, clowncore, rock n’ roll, 90’s grunge, starflesh, scenecore, medieval stuff(idk the aesthetic name😭), anything fall/halloween, weirdcore

current hyperfixation: Danger Days: The True Lives Of The Fabulous Killjoys album by My Chemical Romance

other past hyperfixations/other interests/fandoms (ranked most loved): Heathers, fnaf, Hamilton, dsaf, Green Day, The Outsiders, MCR, Gravity Falls, cryptids/cryptidcore, Clowncore, Ramshackle, Heartstopper, Nirvana, Hazbin Hotel, Ghost and Pals, D&D, TWOMP/Ashur Gharavi, Cuphead, Casino Cups/gambling/casinos, medieval/renaissance etc, The Amazing Digital Circus, Barbie (2023), Welcome Home

comfort character(s)/people: Billie Joe Armstrong, Johnnie Guilbert, Jake Webber, Dipper Pines (Gravity Falls)

Friends "Names" i'll sometimes refer to (THESE ARE NOT THEIR REAL NAMES!!): Calypso 👁️(it/its/he/they), Ace 🪲(he/him), Robin 🍎(she/her), Star 🦈 (any, prefers he/they), and his platonic wife Piper 🧁 (any), Anthony 🍞 (he/him)

!!WARNING!!

this blog contains:

swearing, vents

side blogs: @strawb3rry-cloudz ,

ask blog under construction

Age Regression stuff/info:

go to my blog @strawb3rry-cloudz !

❗️am i regressed right now? No

-Enjoy your stay with this little freak!-

[antigonewinchester]

The Mark & Hell, part 5

(Previous posts: Intro post; Dean & Hell, season 4; the Mark & Hell, part 1; Dean & Hell redux; the Mark & Hell, part 2; part 3; part 4.)

After Dean is cured of his demon-ness in 10x03, he manages to mostly hold the Mark at bay. However, at the end of 10x09, Dean is overtaken by the Mark and, after flashing back to previous kills and his time as a demon, doesn’t just kill Salinger and the three loan sharks attacking him, but also Randy, Claire’s shitty surrogate father. Although Randy manipulated and treated Claire very badly, it’s implied he wasn’t trying to hurt Dean at the time, and Claire is further traumatized by Dean killing him. There’s also a subtext of Dean’s killing as not just about Claire but also as a kind of served cold revenge for his own past experience with sexual violence, with Dean’s story about getting roofied at CBGB and then being rescued by John strongly paralleling Claire’s near rape by Salinger before being saved by Cas.

In 10x10, “The Hunter Games,” when Claire talks about Dean’s killing with the murder couple she befriends, she describes it as: “[Dean] didn’t even know [Randy]. Or the others. And he gutted them. And I saw him standing there, soaked in blood. Looking like he enjoyed it.”

Later on in the episode, Dean goes to torture Metatron for information, and we get this exchange:

[DEAN pulls out an angel blade, slams it on the table and goes to close the door.] METATRON Whatcha doing there, Slugger? [DEAN locks the door.] DEAN I’m settling a score that’s taken way too long to settle. Oh, and while I do that, I’m gonna get some information. [DEAN picks up the angel blade and walks up to METATRON.] And I’m gonna enjoy every minute of it. Because you’re gonna tell me everything. All of it. And it ain’t gonna cost me a damn dime. Slugger. … METATRON I repeat my offer. Each step costs you. DEAN You’re confused. See, each step you don’t give me – is gonna cost you. And it’s been a long time coming. I mean, where do I begin? Stealing Cas’s grace. Casting out the angels. Making Gadreel kill Kevin using my brother’s hands. Starting an angel war. And, oh yeah, you killed me. METATRON [scoffs] My morality is being judged by Dean Winchester? How many people have suffered and died because they believed in you? How many times have you lied to Sam, including, oh by the way, when he was possessed by an angel? And you say, ”Oh well, it’s all for the greater good.” But lately, buddy? That greater good thing just went away, didn’t it? Now, people die just because you want them to. [DEAN punches METATRON in the face. METATRON grunts, then chuckles.] Good, Dean. Go darker. [DEAN punches METATRON again. METATRON, bleeding at the mouth.] Go deeper! [DEAN punches METATRON four times.]

While Dean might justify his actions as being about getting info on how to remove the Mark, he’s also hurting Metatron because he can and because he wants to. And Dean wants to hurt Metatron just like Metatron hurt him, quite literally. If the dialogue isn’t enough to emphasize Dean’s vengeance, the ending choreography of Dean beating up Metatron directly mirrors how Metatron beat up and killed Dean back in 9x23, with Dean now in a position to return the favor:

CURTIS ARMSTRONG [who plays Metatron] What happens right here is kind of interesting, because what [Dean] is doing is a direct mirror of what [Metatron] did to him just before [he] killed him [note: back in 9x23]. Staring with the multiple slugs, and then grabbing the face, and the holding the face, and talking into-- and then taking out the knife. It’s an exact copy.

Dean’s beating also doesn’t lead to any real information, just Metatron blurting out a meaningless phrase that has no connection to the Mark at all, with Dean losing himself to his violence and Sam and Cas again having to intervene and pull him away so he doesn’t kill Metatron.

In 10x11, “There’s No Place Like Home,” Charlie acts as a narrative parallel for Dean and his troubles with the Mark. To win the war in Oz, she split herself into a Dark and Good sides, with her Dark self employing, and enjoying violence, killing and torture. For instance, in the cold open of this episode, the audience sees a man running in fear from dark!Charlie. As he cowers, she tells him “I know [you don’t know anything else I want to know]. I'm gonna torture you anyway. 'Cause who doesn't love a little torture?”

On the commentary track for 10x11, Felicia Day specifically comments that Dean liked hurting dark!Charlie, and that enjoyment as being connected to the Mark:

[note: After Dean has beaten up Dark!Charlie very badly but has stopped. He’s looking at his bloody hands while Sam takes care of her.] PHIL SGRICCIA [director of the episode] Look at [Dean]–  look at him– FELICIA DAY  [actor in the episode] Look at that sad–  It’s your fault! ROBBIE THOMPSON  [writer of the episode] You bad boy, you. SGRICCIA And again, the hand stuff. It’s not shaking. DAY Not shaking because he loved it.

After 10x11 Dean again manages to hold the Mark in check for a long time, although he is very happy after having killed six vampires alone at the beginning of 10x19, “The Werther Project,” describing it as “a personal best” as well as “the only way [he] can take the edge off” from the Mark.

However, things take a major turn when Charlie is killed at the end of 10x21, with Dean spiraling down into intense violence and leaving Sam and Cas to get his brutal revenge on the Styne family in 10x22.

Dean goes on to kill the whole family, whether they had a hand in Charlie’s death or not, including the teenager Cyrus. Although Cyrus hadn’t been involved in Charlie’s death and pleads with Dean that he’s not like the rest of his family, showing that he’s never taken body parts from his family’s victims, Dean still shoots him.

This murder runs counter to Dean’s usual moral compass. Looking at both Sam and Dean’s moral views codes would be an essay in and of itself, so to simplify, I’ll say I quite like this essay on Sam and Dean’s morals. Postmodernmulticoloredcloak broadly frames Sam as a consequential and Dean as a deontologist: Sam generally acts “based on the results of his actions,“ while Dean acts “based on whether he believes that those actions are inherently good or bad.” A great example is 3x12, “Jus in Bello,” and the question of killing Nancy to exorcise all the demons attacking the police station. Sam considers sacrificing Nancy; if her death can save everyone else, then it’s an acceptable, if brutal, act. But Dean refuses to sacrifice Nancy; he sees killing an innocent girl, even if it will save him and everyone else, as an innately immoral act.

As to how this plays out in hunting, Dean is generally OK with killing monsters or people who have already hurt or killed others, but not before then. For example, in 7x03 Dean kills Amy because she had already killed people, but spares her son, because he said he hadn’t hurt anyone. Although there’s some narrative weirdness and ambiguity around Cyrus – the audience directly sees Cyrus’s resistance towards his family’s evil and desire to escape from it, while Dean doesn’t – if he hadn’t been under the Mark’s influence, Dean would very likely have accepted Cyrus’s word and let him go instead of killing him.

In the last scene of 10x22, Dean then brutally attacks Cas when when Cas tries to stop him from leaving the Bunker. I read this fight as Dean taking his ‘revenge’ on Cas on a number of levels. Dean first hurts Cas and then goes to leave, Cas tells him to “stop,” and Dean then returns to beat him up a second time. Similarly to how Dean acted a demon, he doesn’t like Cas telling him what to do and reacts with violence. In these two fights, many of the ways Dean hurts Cas also directly mirror how Cas has previously hurt Dean. As laid out in this post by nottherealdean, Dean forces his way out of Cas’s hold like Cas had bound him in 10x03, breaks Cas’s wrist like Cas did to him in 8x17, and throws Cas against a pile of books like Cas threw him into the fence in 5x18. Now that Dean is stronger than Cas because of the Mark, he’s finally in the position to “deal out some pain [himself],” and he does so quite viciously.

In 10x23, “Brother’s Keeper,” the act that shows Dean has almost been completely overtaken by the Mark is when he goads a vampire holding Ruby hostage into killing him.

RUDY Dean-o, uh, this is Reggie. We're just gonna talk, all right? And -- and come to an understanding. REGGIE [pointing the knife at Dean] Back your ass out of the room, mister, and leave the blade. DEAN [Dean looks down at the machete] Yeah. No. Rudy, walk away. RUDY [panicking] No, D-- no, d-Dean-o, just do what he says, okay? DEAN He's not gonna kill you. You're his insurance, all right? Now man the hell up and walk away. REGGIE Oh, I will kill him, friend. You keep yappin', I will. DEAN Do it. RUDY Dean! REGGIE Back up. DEAN [slowly walking towards Reggie and Rudy] Do it. REGGIE D-don't test me. RUDY Dean, stop! DEAN You don't have the guts. [Reggie points the knife tip over Rudy’s chest. Rudy’s eyes are wide in fear. Dean makes as if to jump at Reggie.] DEAN HAH!!! [Reggie plunges the knife into Rudy’s chest. Crystal screams. Dean looks annoyed. As Rudy falls forward Dean moves in and cuts Reggie’s head off with the machete. Crystal continues to scream and cry.]

Dean is straight up in anti-hero territory in this scene. He makes no move to help Rudy out, to negotiate or trick Reggie the vampire into letting him go. There’s a paternalistic condescension not only in how he deals with Rudy, telling him to “man up and walk away,” but also with Reggie, in how Dean goads him by telling him to just “do it” and that he “doesn’t have the guts” to actually kill someone, before Dean’s final little leap towards them that leads to Reggie stabbing Rudy. He cuts through Crystal’s bonds and is annoyed when she’s not more grateful, instead being horrified at having seen Rudy’s (and the vampire’s) death. Dean also doesn’t check to see if Crystal is physically hurt or needs medical care, not to mention not staying with her to help her deal with the emotional trauma of being kidnapped by vampires and then ‘saved’ in a very violent and scary way. Instead, Dean leaves her entirely alone to deal with the aftermath.

Dean telling Reggie to “do it” and kill Rudy also echoes back to the beginning of the season with Cole, telling Dean to “do it” and kill him. While demon!Dean didn’t kill Cole in 10x02, Dean has no such hesitations in 10x23 and seems mostly annoyed by Rudy’s death, as if Rudy was at fault for not being able to get out of the vampire’s hold in the first place. (He does later feel guilty, tho, and summons Death to kill him so he can’t hurt anyone else.) There’s also that Dean’s “do it” contrasts with the many times we’ve seen this phrasing before, where it’s been said by a cornered person in the face of someone attacking them: Cole shouting it at demon!Dean who has him pinned, Dean saying it to Cas when he’s beaten him up, Dean saying it to Sam when he’s a gun trained on him. But in this situation, Dean saying “do it” doesn’t come from a position of vulnerability but from one of power. In Rudy’s death, Dean has most of the control and none of the concern, using his power not to save a friend but to push a vampire into killing him, because the most important thing was taking down the vamp, and if Rudy had to die for Dean to do it, then so be it. Going back to “saving people, hunting things” family motto, the saving people side has become just a background noise against the killing things part of the equation.

Now that I’ve (finally!) gotten through the Dean & Hell threads, I’m going to loop back around to talk about how Dean’s arc, his actions, and the power of the Mark can be further contextualized through the lens of Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam.

Sources

“4.11 Family Remains (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 21 Nov 2012.

“10.10 The Hunter Games (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 22nd Apr 2019.

“10.11 There’s No Place Like Home (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 19th Jan 2021.

“10.19 The Werther Project (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 13 Jun 2016.

“10.23 Brother’s Keeper (transcript).” Supernatural Wiki: A Supernatural Canon & Fanon Resource. 25th Jan 2019.

nottherealdean. “Untitled” (Gifs comparing 10x03, 8x17, 5x18 to 10x23). Tumblr, 22nd Jun 2015.

moishecampbell. “Untitled” (Dabb’s writing in 10x22). Tumblr, 15th Jun 2022.

postmodernmulticoloredcloak. “Sam and Dean’s ethical codes.” Tumblr, 28th May 2015.

"The Hunter Games (Commentary Track).” Supernatural: The Complete Series, Season 10, episode written by Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming, episode commentary by Curtis Armstrong, John Badham, Brad Buckner, and Eugenie Ross-Leming, episode directed by John Badham, Warner Bros., 2021.

“There’s No Place Like Home (Commentary Track).” Supernatural: The Complete Series, Season 10, episode written by Robbie Thompson, episode commentary by Felicia Day, Phil Sgriccia,  and Robbie Thompson, episode directed by Phil Sgriccia, Warner Bros., 2021.

[motownfiction]

🖊 + sam ☺️

what can i say about sam that i feel like i haven't already said? he isn't necessarily my favorite character (if i don't like lucy the best, no one will, pun intended), but he might be the most important character i have in this universe. i cannot wait for people to accuse me of having sam fulfill the "bury your gays" trope despite there being like 93 other queer characters here ... but i know his death hits hard, in large part because he's the only character we see die in the narrative.

one thing i really love about sam is how all of the main characters are very connected to him in a way they are not necessarily connected to anyone else. this isn't to say that the other characters aren't close to each other, but it's perhaps more important to define themselves in relationship to sam than it is for those other relationships. they all have uniquely special connections with him, which is both a very true memory and a very altered one. they all have special connections with each other, but after sam's death, they really put a lot of emphasis on what they had with sam -- their way of making up for the fact that they'll never get to know what would have happened next. but i do love playing with those relationships: the unique love he and will share, the way he and lucy see eye to eye in a way they don't with anyone else, his unending pull toward steph, his respect for daniel, his promise to take care of charlie, and his general everything with sadie in their twinship ... i love it all. they all come together because they all love sam. and they all come together again after they lose him because without him to hold everything together effortlessly, they will need to work twice as hard ... to keep his memory alive, but also, to keep their own connections with each other alive in all these different places. unlike what is now the majority of readers on this blog, you know where sam got started. and while the whole "he brought them together" thing was somewhat speculative in that context, i'm glad i kept it here!

there are times, as i know i've mentioned, where i really wonder if i was right to kill off sam. i mean, i decided to do it because i needed some sort of conflict in the first story in this universe i ever wrote (a 30k-word piece about daniel and charlie on christmas even in 2004), and from there, it just stuck. sometimes i feel bad about it because i know how likable he is. i know how popular he would be in a larger fandom. he's the character i get the most asks about from new readers, after all. but i think sam being born into the narrative just to die is ... kind of the point and kind of a good one at that. he was born to bring everybody together, and he dies to bring everybody together in a very new, very different way. if sam had not died, there would be no veronica. there would also be no judy or jenny armstrong (irony of ironies, considering they're his daughters born after his death!), and there would be no marriage between steph and katie. sam's death is also the best way to ensure that he never dies at all. i'm of course referring to veronica here 🥺 veronica is the hub of all of these people: she is charlie's daughter, lucy and will's granddaughter, and sadie, sam, and daniel's niece. she is the evidence that sam will always bring everybody together, and they are blood! as long as there is a veronica o'connor, there is a sam doyle because she is the culmination of everything he worked for ... everything he wanted for these people he loved so, so much.

this is also why i think sam never married or had children in his lifetime: his child would never unite the group in the same way veronica can and does. sam's kid would just be sam's kid. veronica is their kid, in so many different ways. every time i remember that they never got to meet, i cry a little. he would have loved her. she would have loved him.

i also just really love that sam is a genius. if we take into consideration the place where he started, this is extra funny. it's just really great not to have to pull back with his dialogue or act like i'm covering something up. he's just that smart, and he doesn't really care if you know it ... so long as you don't put pressure on him to do something he doesn't care about. sam is passion, and passion is sam.

i have no idea if any of this makes sense or if i've said anything new/different about sam as a character. i just know that i adore him, and i like to find ways to write scenes where he's still alive. he makes the narrative come to life.

[expeditiemuziek]

Highlights of jazz

Want to experience the highlights of jazz? 5 posts on my new website ‘Music: Listen, Look and Enjoy’ (hermanvandenbosch.com) are about five main representants.

Louis Armstrong

Duke Ellington

Dizzie Gillespie

Miles Davis

John Coltrane

[readitreviewit]

Ready for a heart-stopping thrill ride? Look no further than the latest page-turner from bestselling author Charlie Donlea, A Riveting New Thriller. This book draws readers in from the first heart-stopping pages and doesn't let go until the end. And let me tell you, the journey in between is nothing short of exhilarating. The story centers around a legal investigator named Alex Armstrong, who has changed everything about herself: her name, her appearance, and her backstory. She's still haunted by the night her family was massacred, and despite having been accused of the killings as a teenager and later exonerated, she continues to search for answers. Meanwhile, she works tirelessly to secure justice for others, like Matthew Claymore, who is under suspicion in the disappearance of his girlfriend, a student journalist named Laura McAllister. Laura was about to break a major story about rape and cover-ups on her college campus. Alex believes Matthew is innocent, and as she digs into Laura's disappearance, she uncovers stunning revelations about the university's faculty, fraternity members, and powerful parents willing to do anything to protect their children. But the most shocking discovery is the unexpected connection to the murder of her own family. As different as the crimes may seem, they each hinge on one sinister truth: no one is quite who they seem to be. Donlea is a master of modern suspense, and this book is no exception. The twists and turns will keep you on the edge of your seat, and the skillful plotting will constantly keep you guessing. But what really sets this book apart is its protagonist, Alex Armstrong. She's a complex and compelling character, haunted by her past and determined to uncover the truth, no matter the cost. Her journey is both thrilling and emotionally resonant, making for an unforgettable read. But don't just take my word for it. Publishers Weekly gave A Riveting New Thriller a starred review, calling it "engrossing" and "not to be missed." And Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing, praised the book for drawing readers in from the very beginning. So if you're in the mood for a gripping thriller that will keep you up all night, look no further than A Riveting New Thriller. This is Charlie Donlea at his best, and he does not disappoint. Highly recommended for fans of Jeneva Rose and Colleen Hoover's Verity, this book is not to be missed. Ready to embark on an adventure like never before? Grab your copy of our book today or get a 30-day free trial of Audible - your gateway to a world of stories and knowledge! Don't waste this opportunity, click "buy now" or "sign up for FREE trial" and start exploring today! Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details)

[immobiliter]

       “ If I were an astronaut... ” His enthusiasm was obvious, the smile wide across his face. “ I'd never have been calm enough to say something as profound as Armstrong. The moment my foot connected with the moon's surface my mind would have just... completely blanked. I'd have said something incredibly stupid that would have gone down in the history books 'til the end of time. There's Charlie McRae, the numpty, putting his foot in his mouth on the surface of another world. ”

🎁 / @mysticwrit + bree 90. space man, sam ryder

[planopianoandviolin]

A Melodic Adventure: Exploring The World Of Music Through Plano Piano And Violin Texas

Music has long been a source of joy, comfort and relaxation. With the advent of technology, it is now possible to explore this creative art in ways not previously imagined.

Plano Piano and Violin Texas offers an opportunity for music lovers to embark on a melodic adventure by discovering the world of music through piano and violin lessons. This article will explore how Plano Piano and Violin Texas provides an immersive experience that allows individuals to learn more about different musical styles and gain insight into their own emotions through playing instruments.

It will look at the range of services offered as well as discuss how taking part in such activities can be beneficial for musicians of any skill level.

The Classical Connection: Introducing Students To Iconic Composers And Masterpieces Through Plano Piano And Violin Texas

Murphy Piano Lessons is a great way for students to explore the world of classical music. Through Plano Piano and Violin Texas, students gain an appreciation for iconic composers and their works while developing a solid foundation in classical piano techniques.

The Murphy method emphasizes individual practice with musical pieces that have been carefully selected so as to encourage focus on technique. Students learn important skills such as sight reading, improvisation, and how to properly exhibit phrasing when playing songs by Bach or Beethoven.

Additionally, they are encouraged to analyze these classic compositions in order to understand why each piece has become an icon within classical music. This helps them appreciate the depth of detail found within many of these famous works. With this knowledge, students can begin crafting their own interpretations of masterpieces through Plano Piano and Violin Texas.

Jazzing It Up: How Plano Piano And Violin Texas Encourage Students To Discover The Art Of Improvisation

The Classical Connection: Introducing Students to Iconic Composers and Masterpieces Through Plano Piano and Violin Texas served as a great introduction for students of music, teaching them the fundamentals of classic compositions. With this foundation in place, Plano Piano and Violin Texas are now ready to take their students on an exciting journey into jazz.

Jazzing it Up encourages students to discover improvisation techniques which can help them develop their own unique style of playing. At Murphy’s Piano Lessons, instructors introduce the basics of syncopation, chords progressions and improvisation through simple exercises that build up knowledge gradually over time until playing with ease becomes second nature.

By learning how to play jazz tunes from renowned composers such as Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker, young musicians gain confidence in their ability to express themselves through music. Furthermore, the emphasis on exploring different rhythms makes the experience even more enjoyable while developing coordination between hands and feet at the same time.

As students grow comfortable with basic elements of jazz they start creating original pieces according to their own vision of musical expression within a safe environment where mistakes can be made without fear but also celebrated when successes arise.

Tapping Into Pop Culture: Learning Modern Hits And Timeless Favorites With Plano Piano And Violin Texas

Learning popular music with Plano Piano and Violin Texas can be akin to unlocking a treasure chest full of musical gems. Students are presented with the opportunity to dive into a world of modern hits as well as timeless favorites, giving them a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary piano techniques and enjoying the process at the same time.

Murphy Piano Lessons caters to students' diverse musical preferences by incorporating chart-topping songs and beloved classics into their repertoire. This allows pupils to explore different genres while refining their skills on the instrument in an enjoyable way.

From jazz standards to hip hop bangers, every student will find something that resonates with them, making each lesson unique, engaging and memorable.

A World Of Music: Experiencing Cultural Diversity Through Global Music Styles At Plano Piano And Violin Texas

At Plano Piano and Violin Texas, students can explore a world of music styles from around the globe. From Latin American rhythms to traditional Asian melodies, students have access to an array of musical genres that will enrich their experiences and give them a greater appreciation for the universal language of music.

The benefits of learning about different cultures through music are numerous. By exploring new sounds and instruments, students gain exposure to different customs and cultures which can broaden their perspectives and deepen their understanding of other people’s ways of life.

Furthermore, with this knowledge comes a greater appreciation for diversity in all its forms; this type of cultural exchange allows individuals to recognize the beauty found in differences between traditions while still celebrating what makes us all human: our shared love for music.

Overall, Plano Piano and Violin Texas provides a unique opportunity for students to experience various global music styles firsthand. Through engaging lessons focused on diverse musical genres, they not only learn valuable skills but also gain insight into cultural heritage from around the world – something that would be difficult to do outside of this educational setting.

Conclusion

Music has the power to transcend cultures and bring people together. Through Plano Piano and Violin Texas, students of all ages are able to explore a diverse range of genres from classical composers such as Beethoven, to popular hits. By encouraging creativity through improvisation and exploration of cultural styles, this program sparks an emotional connection that can last a lifetime.

With its vibrant melodies and joyous rhythms, music is truly the language of emotion - the conductor that leads us on our melodic adventure. The beauty of music lies in its ability to evoke powerful emotions within us. From sorrowful ballads to cheerful jigs, each song carries within it a story – one with which we can identify and become lost in our own personal journeys.

It serves as both a source of comfort during challenging times and celebration during moments of triumph – providing solace when words fail us or allowing us to express ourselves freely without fear of judgment. Like ripples expanding outward across still water, music touches every soul around it; leaving no heart untouched by its gentle embrace.

Plano Piano and Violin Texas provides an opportunity for students to experience this magic firsthand - so they may take their newfound knowledge out into the world and share their stories with others through beautiful harmonies crafted with love. As Plato said: “Music gives wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything!”

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Firestarter (2022)

“Firestarter” is a hot dumpster fire.

Charlie is a girl with pyrokinesis. She gets her powers from her parents who also have powers. She learns to control her emotions because they trigger her powers, but lately her coping techniques haven’t been as effective. One day, she blows up a bathroom door and makes her existence known. Now she must run away with her family from the government agents that her parents were avoiding all her life.

The trailer for this movie looked garbage, but it could never have prepared me for what I saw tonight. I think the heart of the problem for this movie is how lifeless it is. This movie was made by people that are devoid of any form of identity. This is the movie equivalent of serving your guests raw tofu for dinner. It sucks too since I really feel like this could’ve been molded into something actually worth watching. The puzzle pieces were all there, but instead of connecting them, the filmmakers never bothered to take the pieces out of the box. Ryan Kiera Armstrong as Charlie is good for a child actor, but is given the impossible task of carrying an entire movie. She can never fully sell scenes that require powerful performances to invest the audience. Zac Efron truly feels like he’s just here to earn a paycheck. Everyone else is just miscast. Let’s start with John Rainbird. He’s supposed to be this unstoppable mercenary, but the moment he opens his mouth, he loses any intimidation points he might’ve had. His super-average guy voice paired with the bland script makes for a performance that almost put me to sleep. It’s so evident that the movie wants you to think Dr. Joseph Wanless is this pseudo-crazy and eccentric old genius, but the way they go about it is just sad. He’s playing with colored sand while in a wheelchair, but Kurtwood Smith puts almost nothing into his performance. When he talks, there’s this weird dissonance because he’s doing weirdo acts, but talking like a regular guy. Gloria Reuben as Captain Jane Hollister also phones in her performance. Her character is meant to come off as confident but ruthless, but ends up coming off as someone who just thinks that they’re more confident than they actually are. This movie is littered with generic characters played by unenthusiastic actors. I mean, kids just bully Charlie for no reason. There’s a scene where a group of boys on bikes roll up to Charlie randomly and start harassing her. Were they so bored that they came up to a little girl a couple of years younger than them and start picking on her? It’s just so thoughtless that it’s frustrating. What’s also frustrating is that the bullies, in the beginning, are unrealistically mean to Charlie. I mean, they throw balls at her head in front of the teachers and Charlie never provokes them or even talks back. Real-world bullies would feel bad or get bored and stop, but these bullies are unrelenting. Also, the teacher that’s meant to be the nice one to Charlie doesn’t say jack shit to the bullies for throwing a ball at her head. Instead, that teacher turns on Charlie as soon as the explosion happens. I’m nitpicking at this point, but it’s only because this movie is just inept with every single frame. The visual effects look bad. The characters are generic and written like fake humans. The story feels like it's sleepwalking like the living dead. Things like security for the secret government facility being nonexistent or Rainbird saving Charlie for no reason make this movie exhausting to talk about. Mark my words. This is a bad omen for Peacock the streaming service. There’s a reason why no one has a Peacock subscription.

★

Watched on May 19th, 2022

[findmyblood]

tags, pt. 8 – connections

[munozpeter]

           .・゜-: ✸ :-　𝕡𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕞𝕦𝕟𝕠𝕫　-: ✸ :-゜・．

                                          it don’t have to be

                                                                                 lonely

                                                            being alone...

[ BRANDON LARRACUENTE, HE/HIM, CIS MAN ] — [ PETER MUÑOZ ] is a child of [ ATHENA ] with the power of [ STRATEGIST and PROWESS IN BATTLE ] . they were born in [ 1996 ] and have been in nemean lion since [ 2010 ] . with the change, they [ HAVE GRADUATED FROM ] the [ BUSINESS ] role which makes sense since they’re usually [ WORKING AS ASSISTANT MANAGER and HELPING RUN THE CAMPUS ] . if you’d like to meet them try the  [ SUN ]  building . — strud / she/her / cst / 18+

bio

Peter Muñoz has been in the world of Nemean Lion for over a decade now but before then, he thought he was just a normal kid. Peter grew up with only his father for about half of his childhood in New York City. His father met the goddess Athena when he was in his late twenties, the two stumbling into each other one summer when he was between jobs, trying to figure out his life. They felt like the same side of the same coin in a lot of ways, and quickly fell in love for the summer, and for a handful of years after that, she would come back into his life every summer to breathe love into his life.

His father eventually grew to want to raise a family, but knew he was incapable of ever having a child. The last summer Athena ever spent with him, the goddess told him the truth of who she was, and presented him with a child born of her mind and their shared love. As the son that Peter’s father thought he could never have, the boy grew up extremely loved, cherished, and protected. His father was always there for him, often maybe a little over-bearing, if only because he knew his son was a miracle to him.

Peter grew up a very sharp kid, always bringing home excellent grades. It wasn’t that intelligence necessarily came effortlessly to him, it was that he found himself loving the work, loving the process of learning and growing and couldn’t get enough of it, which always ended up in him being able to master whatever he put his mind to. He was a bit of a nervous kid, the type of nervous that made him want to always have a perfect attendance record and never get into trouble.

He was, by all accounts, a complete nerd in his childhood. He was shy and reserved, and always had his head in a book, and always made sure to have the highest marks. Easily viewed as a softie, he got picked on from time to time, and even once was enough to bother him, though he never fought back. It wasn’t until his first year in middle school, when some bully tried to actually pick a fight with him, that Peter instinctively reacted to defend himself, somehow knowing exactly how this kid was going to strike, and how best to dodge and defend himself, sending the bully tripping over himself and falling on his face. He didn’t think much of it, and it felt good to stand up for himself, but when he told his dad about it, he seemed more worried than proud. It didn’t bother him too much, Peter knew nothing could ever make his dad love him less.

By some form of fate, when Peter was about thirteen, he and his father met Lou Ellen, co-founder of Nemean Lion. She was doing business in New York, and through pure circumstance, quickly became close friends with Peter’s father. They were eventually best friends, and the more time that Lou spent around his young son, the more she realized that she knew exactly what he was. Lou Ellen, a demigod herself, recognized the godly blood in the young boy, and took it upon herself to look after the Munoz’. She revealed herself to Peter’s father, and brought her own daughter, Daphne, around as often as she could, before convincing him that he needed to be able to learn about himself and protect himself and she could help him do that.

Lou Ellen relocated Peter and his father to sunny California, and while Peter continued going to middle school, he began coming to Nemean Lion every weekday like an after-school program. He loved every bit of it, this whole new world that he could delve into, that could explain the questions he’s had in his life, that he could study and research and learn all about to make it all make sense. As much as he loved his old life, and loved the childhood he had with his father, learning about his mother’s heritage felt like the missing piece of his puzzle, and he was never resentful of what was hidden from him, only grateful that he had a chance to see it all now.

Maybe it was so easy to work through it all because he had the help of his friend Daphne, and eventually Dia Paik too, to show him the ropes. The whole place seemed like a new world of people like him in so many ways, and he had both friends and mentors that made his years there so important and formative to him, and Peter began to love the community there much in his youth, that he grew to know he wanted to give all of it back to them too.

After graduating high school, he made the decision to move into NL full time, and his father was honestly relieved, thinking he might move to college out of state. Peter still visited him at any chance he could get, but lived at NL and pursued a business degree while interning at the campus and working his way up through the administration. His best friends eventually moved on, but he knew this was where he wanted to be, that he wanted to help run the facility and look after the future demigods that would walk through their doors.

He’s now in his third year as Assistant Manager to Marina Ren, and as Nemean Lion revealed itself to the world, it was a no-brainer to quickly work his way through the business track and work even harder to make this change as easy on everyone as possible. The campus is his whole life, and Peter loves his job. He’d do anything for the other demigods, and he works himself tirelessly every week. He’s a bit of a stick in the mud and a worry-wart, not exactly the kind of fun, free-spirited mentor that some might hope for. He’s more the anxious busy-body type, almost always working on something, but if you catch him off the clock, he’s more of the soft, kind-hearted boy who just loves to learn and do his best by others.

tl;dr

peter muñoz

son of athena, with prowess in battle and strategist abilities

grew up in nyc in his childhood with a single father all his life who loved him endlessly; the goddess athena had presented his father with a baby after being unable to conceive

eventually met Lou Ellen, co-founder of NL, who recognized what he was and convinced his father to bring him to Nemean Lion, relocating the both of them to california

peter loved everything about his mother’s side, drinking up all this new knowledge of greek mythology, not even caring that it had been hidden from him

loves nemean lion for the second home it became, moved there full time after high school to pursue a business degree and eventually began working for the campus

understanding, earnest, hard-working

anxious, workaholic, stickler

lives in the sun residence

has currently been the assistant manager for three years, loves his job, would do anything for NL and the demigods in its care, needs to relax every once in a while

connections

Daphne Saengmai & Dia Paik— his best friends from childhood; the two girls have been in his life since before he started coming to Nemean Lion, and they watched over him and helped to show him the ropes; he was sad to see them go on their own journeys into adulthood, and now Peter is extremely happy to have them back at NL and work together with them again

Jae Eun (& Charlie Eun)— Jae is probably his least favorite person on Earth; his human sister, Charlie, began visiting NL a handful years ago, and before either knew it, she and Peter began to hit it off, much to Jae’s overprotective hatred; Peter and Charlie eventually ended up dating for a while, and he was fully in love with her, before they broke up about a year ago due to circumstance; Charlie is still a sore spot to him, and he and Jae will always be at odds because of it

Oliver Armstrong— very good friend and roommate; Oliver is the kind of softly energetic spirit that meshes well with Peter and he’s grateful to have a roommate and friend that can both make him feel at ease and bring out the lighter, more relaxed side of him

Marina Ren— his manager; he works directly under Marina and has looked up to her since he was a kid at NL; they both care very deeply about the campus and he’s honestly really honored to get to work alongside her

wanted

mentor/mentee— either form would work, Peter probably goes to great lengths to care for the other demigods, and if any of them needed any extra help or attention, he’d be there for them; anyone older or his age might look after him too

any type of friends— though more reserved and anxious, Peter is still very friendly and kind and would make friends with anyone who can get over how lame he is!

not friends— as stated just now, he’s also pretty lame so maybe someone is annoyed easily by him; also he takes his job seriously and will stop any tomfoolery so maybe you can also be annoyed at what a stick in the mud he is!

feelings? ex-fling?— listen this idiot was really hung up on Charlie Eun for a long time, so maybe he never noticed if anyone else every had a thing for him? also it’s been a while since the break-up so maybe he’s tried to venture into the dating scene again and tried something out with someone that maybe didn’t work? he also always throws himself into work so that might have gotten in the way too. he’s very soft he wouldn’t have tried to hurt anyone on purpose but Peter’s a mess ok

anything!— we should all know by now I suck at making connections in an intro so just hmu and we can figure something out! discord works best <3

[blackkudos]

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. He was one of the first players of the instrument in the bebop idiom of musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell. Gordon's height was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" and "Sophisticated Giant". His studio and performance career spanned over 40 years.

Gordon's sound was commonly characterized as being "large" and spacious and he had a tendency to play behind the beat. He was known for humorously inserting musical quotes into his solos, with sources as diverse as popular tunes like "Happy Birthday" to the operas of Wagner. This is not unusual in common-practice jazz improvisation, but Gordon did it frequently enough to make it a hallmark of his style. One of his major influences was Lester Young. Gordon, in turn, was an early influence on John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins. Rollins and Coltrane then influenced Gordon's playing as he explored hard bop and modal playing during the 1960s.

Gordon was known for his genial and humorous stage presence. He was an advocate of playing to communicate with the audience. One of his idiosyncratic rituals was to recite lyrics from each ballad before playing it.

A photograph by Herman Leonard of Gordon taking a smoke break at the Royal Roost in 1948 is one of the iconic images in jazz photography. Cigarettes were a recurring theme on covers of Gordon's albums.

Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in the Bertrand Tavernier film Round Midnight (Warner Bros, 1986), and he won a Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist, for the soundtrack album The Other Side of Round Midnight (Blue Note Records, 1986). He also had a cameo role in the 1990 film Awakenings. In 2019, Gordon's album Go (Blue Note, 1962) was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Life and career

Early life

Dexter Keith Gordon was born on February 27, 1923 in Los Angeles, California. His father, Dr. Frank Gordon, was one of the first African American doctors in Los Angeles who arrived in 1918 after graduating from Howard Medical School in Washington, D.C. Among his patients were Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton. Dexter's mother, Gwendolyn Baker, was the daughter of Captain Edward Baker, one of the five African American Medal of Honor recipients in the Spanish–American War. Gordon played clarinet from the age of 13, before switching to saxophone (initially alto, then tenor) at 15. While still at school, he played in bands with such contemporaries as Chico Hamilton and Buddy Collette.

Between December 1940 and 1943, Gordon was a member of Lionel Hampton's band, playing in a saxophone section alongside Illinois Jacquet and Marshal Royal. During 1944 he was featured in the Fletcher Henderson band, followed by the Louis Armstrong band, before joining Billy Eckstine. The 1942–44 musicians' strike curtailed the recording of the Hampton, Henderson, and Armstrong bands; however, they were recorded on V-Discs produced by the Army for broadcast and distribution among overseas troops. In 1943 he was featured, alongside Harry "Sweets" Edison, in recordings under Nat Cole for a small label not affected by the strike.

Bebop era recordings

By late 1944, Gordon was resident in New York, a regular at bebop jam sessions, and a featured soloist in the Billy Eckstine big band (If That's The Way You Feel, I Want To Talk About You, Blowin' the Blues Away, Opus X, I'll Wait And Pray, The Real Thing Happened To Me, Lonesome Lover Blues, I Love the Rhythm in a Riff). During early 1945 he was featured on recordings by Dizzy Gillespie (Blue 'n' Boogie, Groovin' High) and Sir Charles Thompson (Takin' Off, If I Had You, 20th Century Blues, The Street Beat). In late 1945 he was recording under his own name for the Savoy label. His Savoy recordings during 1945-46 included Blow Mr. Dexter, Dexter's Deck, Dexter's Minor Mad, Long Tall Dexter, Dexter Rides Again, I Can't Escape From You, and Dexter Digs In. He returned to Los Angeles in late 1946 and in 1947 was leading sessions for Ross Russell's Dial label (Mischievous Lady, Lullaby in Rhythm, The Chase, Iridescence, It's the Talk of the Town, Bikini, A Ghost of a Chance, Sweet and Lovely). After his return to Los Angeles, he became known for his saxophone duels with fellow tenorman Wardell Gray, which were a popular concert attraction documented in recordings made between 1947 and 1952 (The Hunt, Move, The Chase, The Steeplechase).  The Hunt gained literary fame from its mention in Jack Kerouac's On The Road, which also contains descriptions of wild tenormen jamming in Los Angeles. Cherokee, Byas a Drink, and Disorder at the Border are other live recordings of the Gray/Gordon duo from the same concert as The Hunt. In December 1947, Gordon recorded again with the Savoy label (Settin' the Pace, So Easy, Dexter's Riff, Dextrose, Dexter's Mood, Index, Dextivity, Wee Dot, Lion Roars). Through the mid-to-late 1940s he continued to work as a sideman on sessions led by Russell Jacquet, Benny Carter, Ben Webster, Ralph Burns, Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Gerry Mulligan, Wynonie Harris, Leo Parker, and Tadd Dameron.

The 1950s

During the 1950s, Gordon's recorded output and live appearances declined as heroin addiction and legal troubles took their toll. Gordon made a concert appearance with Wardell Gray in February 1952 (The Chase, The Steeplechase, Take the A Train, Robbins Nest, Stardust) and appeared as a sideman in a session led by Gray in June 1952 (The Rubiyat, Jungle Jungle Jump, Citizen's Bop, My Kinda Love). After an incarceration at Chino Prison during 1953-55, he recorded the albums Daddy Plays the Horn and Dexter Blows Hot and Cool in 1955 and played as a sideman on the Stan Levey album, This Time the Drum's on Me. The latter part of the decade saw him in and out of prison until his final release from Folsom Prison in 1959. He was one of the initial sax players for the Onzy Matthews big band in 1959, along with Curtis Amy. Gordon continued to champion Matthews' band after he left Los Angeles for New York, but left for Europe before getting a chance to record with that band. He recorded The Resurgence of Dexter Gordon in 1960. His recordings from the mid-1950s onward document a meander into a smooth West Coast style that lacked the impact of his bebop era recordings or his subsequent Blue Note recordings.

The decade saw Gordon's first entry into the world of drama. He appeared as a member (uncredited) of Art Hazzard's band in the 1950 film Young Man with a Horn. He appeared in an uncredited and overdubbed role as a member of a prison band in the movie Unchained, filmed inside Chino. Gordon was a saxophonist performing Freddie Redd's music for the Los Angeles production of Jack Gelber's play The Connection in 1960, replacing Jackie McLean. He contributed two compositions, Ernie's Tune and I Want More to the score and later recorded them for his album Dexter Calling.

New York renaissance

Gordon signed to Blue Note Records in 1961. He initially commuted from Los Angeles to New York to record, but took up residence when he regained the cabaret card that allowed him to perform where alcohol was served. The Jazz Gallery hosted his first New York performance in twelve years. The Blue Note association was to produce a steady flow of albums for several years, some of which gained iconic status. His New York renaissance was marked by Doin' Allright, Dexter Calling..., Go!, and A Swingin' Affair. The first two were recorded over three days in May 1961 with Freddie Hubbard, Horace Parlan, Kenny Drew, Paul Chambers, George Tucker, Al Harewood, and Philly Joe Jones. The last two were recorded in August 1962, with a rhythm section that featured Blue Note regulars Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Billy Higgins. Of the two Go! was an expressed favorite. The albums showed his assimilation of the hard bop and modal styles that had developed during his years on the west coast, and the influence of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, whom he had influenced before. The stay in New York turned out to be short lived, as Gordon got offers for engagements in England, then Europe, that resulted in a fourteen-year stay. Soon after recording A Swingin' Affair, he was gone.

Years in Europe

Over the next 14 years in Europe, living mainly in Paris and Copenhagen, Gordon played regularly with fellow expatriates or visiting players, such as Bud Powell, Ben Webster, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Kenny Drew, Horace Parlan and Billy Higgins. Blue Note's German-born Francis Wolff supervised Gordon's later sessions for the label on his visits to Europe. The pairing of Gordon with Drew turned out to be one of the classic matchups between a horn player and a pianist, much like Miles Davis with Red Garland or John Coltrane with McCoy Tyner.

From this period come Our Man in Paris, One Flight Up, Gettin' Around, and Clubhouse. Our Man in Paris was a Blue Note session recorded in Paris in 1963 with backup consisting of pianist Powell, drummer Kenny Clarke, and French bassist Pierre Michelot. One Flight Up, recorded in Paris in 1964 with trumpeter Donald Byrd, pianist Kenny Drew, drummer Art Taylor, and Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, features an extended solo by Gordon on the track "Tanya".

Gordon also visited the US occasionally for further recording dates. Gettin' Around was recorded for Blue Note during a visit in May 1965, as was the album Clubhouse which remained unreleased until 1979.

Gordon found Europe in the 1960s a much easier place to live, saying that he experienced less racism and greater respect for jazz musicians. He also stated that on his visits to the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he found the political and social strife disturbing. While in Copenhagen, Gordon and Drew's trio appeared onscreen in Ole Ege's theatrically released hardcore pornographic film Pornografi (1971), for which they composed and performed the score.

He switched from Blue Note to Prestige Records (1965–73) but stayed very much in the hard-bop idiom, making classic bop albums like  The Tower of Power! and More Power! (1969) with James Moody, Barry Harris, Buster Williams, and Albert "Tootie" Heath; The Panther! (1970) with Tommy Flanagan, Larry Ridley, and Alan Dawson;  The Jumpin' Blues(1970) with Wynton Kelly, Sam Jones, and Roy Brooks; The Chase! (1970) with Gene Ammons, Jodie Christian, John Young, Cleveland Eaton, Rufus Reid, Wilbur Campbell, Steve McCall, and Vi Redd; and Tangerine (1972) with Thad Jones, Freddie Hubbard, and Hank Jones. Some of the Prestige albums were recorded during visits back to North America while he was still living in Europe; others were made in Europe, including live sets from the Montreux Jazz Festival.

In addition to the recordings Gordon did under his major label contracts, live recordings by European labels and live video from his European period are available. The Danish label SteepleChase released live dates from his mid-1960s tenure at the Montmartre Jazzhus. The video was released under the  Jazz Icons series.

Less well known than the Blue Note albums, but of similar quality, are the albums he recorded during the 1970s for SteepleChase (Something Different, Bouncin' With Dex, Biting the Apple, The Apartment, Stable Mable, The Shadow of Your Smile and others). They again feature American sidemen, but also such Europeans as Spanish pianist Tete Montoliu and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.

Homecoming

Gordon finally returned to the United States for good in 1976. He appeared with Woody Shaw, Ronnie Mathews, Stafford James, and Louis Hayes, for a gig at the Village Vanguard in New York that was dubbed his "homecoming." It was recorded and released by Columbia Records under that title. He noted: "There was so much love and elation; sometimes it was a little eerie at the Vanguard. After the last set they'd turn on the lights and nobody would move." In addition to the Homecoming album, a series of live albums was released by Blue Note from his stands at Keystone Corner in San Francisco during 1978 and 1979. They featured Gordon, George Cables, Rufus Reid, and Eddie Gladden. He recorded the studio albums Sophisticated Giant with an eleven piece big band in 1977 and Manhattan Symphonie with the Live at Keystone Corner crew in 1978. The sensation of Gordon's return, renewed promotion of the classic jazz catalogs of the Savoy and Blue Note record labels, and the continued efforts of Art Blakey through 1970s and early 1980s, have been credited with reviving interest in swinging, melodic, acoustically-based classic jazz sounds after the Fusion jazz era that saw an emphasis on electronic sounds and contemporary pop influences.

Musician Emeritus

In 1978 and 1980, Gordon was the DownBeat Musician of the Year and in 1980 he was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame. The US Government honored him with a Congressional Commendation, a Dexter Gordon Day in Washington DC, and a National Endowment for the Arts award for Lifetime Achievement. In 1986, he was named a member and officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters by the Ministry of Culture in France.

During the 1980s, Gordon was weakened by emphysema. He remained a popular attraction at concerts and festivals, although his live appearances and recording dates would soon become infrequent.

Gordon's most memorable works from the decade were not in music but in film. He starred in the 1986 movie Round Midnight as "Dale Turner", an expatriate jazz musician in Paris during the late 1950s based loosely on Lester Young and Bud Powell. That portrayal earned him a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actor. In addition, he had a non-speaking role in the 1990 film Awakenings, which was posthumously released. Before that last film was released he made a guest appearance on the Michael Mann series Crime Story.

Soundtrack performances from Round Midnight were released as the albums Round Midnight and The Other Side of Round Midnight, featuring original music by Herbie Hancock as well as playing by Gordon. The latter was the last recording released under Gordon's name. He was a sideman on Tony Bennett's 1987 album, Berlin.

Death and postmortem

Gordon died of kidney failure and cancer of the larynx in Philadelphia, on April 25, 1990, at the age of 67.

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Dexter Gordon among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.

Family

Gordon's maternal grandfather was Captain Edward L. Baker, who received the Medal of Honor during the Spanish–American War, while serving with the 10th Cavalry Regiment (also known as the Buffalo Soldiers).

Gordon's father, Dr. Frank Gordon, M.D., was one of the first prominent African-American physicians and a graduate of Howard University.

Dexter Gordon had a total of six children, from the oldest to the youngest: Robin Gordon (Los Angeles), California, James Canales (Los Angeles), Deidre (Dee Dee) Gordon (Los Angeles), Mikael Gordon-Solfors (Stockholm), Morten Gordon (Copenhagen) and Benjamin Dexter Gordon (Copenhagen), and seven grandchildren, Raina Moore Trider (Brooklyn), Jared Johnson (Los Angeles), and Matthew Johnson (Los Angeles), Maya Canales (San Francisco) and Jared Canales (San Francisco), Dexter Gordon Bogs (Copenhagen), Dexter Minou Flipper Gordon-Marberger (Stockholm).

When he lived in Denmark, Gordon became friends with the family of the future Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and subsequently became Lars's godfather.

Gordon was also survived by his widow Maxine Gordon and her son Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III.

Instruments and mouthpieces

The earliest photographs of Gordon as a player show him with a Conn 30M "Connqueror" and an Otto Link mouthpiece. In a 1962 interview with the British journalist Les Tomkins, he did not refer to the specific model of mouthpiece but stated that it was made for him personally. He stated that it was stolen around 1952. The famous smoke break photo from 1948 shows him with a Conn 10M and a Dukoff mouthpiece, which he played until 1965. In the Tomkins interview he referred to his mouthpiece as a medium-chambered piece with a #5* (.080" under the Dukoff system) tip opening. He bought a Selmer Mark VI from Ben Webster after his 10M went missing in transit. In a Down Beat magazine interview from 1977, he referred to his current mouthpiece as an Otto Link with a #8 (.110" under the Otto Link system) tip opening.

[dustinreidmusic]

DR. JOHN BIO

“All my sisters married doctors”, said Dorothy Cronin Rebennack, the mother of Mac Rebennack. “ But only I had a Dr. John”. Indeed, there can be only one Malcolm Rebennack, aka “ Doctor John Creaux, the Night Tripper”. There can only be one walking repository of the storied city of New Orleans’ thriving musical history. There can be only one author of such classic songs as “ Right Place, Wrong Time”, “ Such A Night”, “Litanie Des Saintes”, and “I Walk On Gilded Splinters”. There can be only one torchbearer for the Crescent City sound as it second-lines its way into its fourth century. So Mrs. Rebennack was right -- physicians are indeed a dime a dozen in this doctor-clogged country; but a musician of her son’s caliber comes along but once in a very blue moon. Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. was born in New Orleans a full month after term on Thanksgiving Day (November 20) 1942. Weighing a full ten pounds, Mac, as he came to be called, was born into a music-loving family in America’s most musical city. While still an infant, Rebennack starred as a model for various baby products, and showed remarkable musical ability in early childhood. By the age of three he was already hammering out melodies on the family piano, and soon exhausted the talents of the nun who was hired to give him lessons some years later. “If I play what his next lesson is going to be”, the sister complained, “he will play it right behind me, note for note”, His good-timing Aunt Andre, who it can be safe to assume had funkier taste than the nun, taught him the “Pinetop Boogie-Woogie”. My aunt was a groovy old broad”, Rebennack recalled in “Up from the Cradle of Jazz”. “I used to drive everybody mad playing it”. Malcolm Rebennack Sr. was an appliance store owner who, as is traditional in New Orleans, also stocked the latest hit records. Thus young Mac was privy from early childhood to almost any music he wanted. Some years later the Rebennack appliance store was forced to close, and Mac lost his pipeline to the goldmine. But soon his father found work in a line even better suited to those of musical bent: PA system repair. The two Rebennacks would often be seen trundling in tandem to various nightclubs around town, bloodbucket dives with names like the Pepper Pot and the Cadillac Club. Always forbidden to enter the clubs, Mac would wait for his father to repair the system, and then peer in and dissect the musicians. It was at the Pepper Pot, in fact, and in this manner that Mac first saw Professor Longhair’s magical keyboard frolics. At the age of seven Rebennack suffered through a bout of malaria. Even as a child, the over-modest Mac had decided that he could never cut it as a pianist in New Orleans. As he remembered wondering, “How was I going to complete with killer players like Tuts Washington? Salvador Doucette? Herbert Santina? Professor Longhair himself? And the list only began there”. He had, even before his illness, agitated to take up the guitar. His long convalescence enabled him to air his plea with such incessancy, such vehemence, that his beleaguered parents finally gave in. He was sent for instruction to Werlein’s Music Store on Canal Street, already at that time a New Orleans institution and still in business today. His teacher soon sussed that Mac was going to be a difficult, if talented student. The instructor delivered a verdict along the line of, “Good ear, will never learn to read music”. The fancy, store-bought lessons ceased forthwith; but Mac was still hard at it. He locked himself in his room for weeks on end, learning by ear the licks of his twin idols of the time: T-Bone Walker and Lightning Hopkins. “If I can’t make it as T-Bone, I’ll try Lightning, he told himself. His father, seeing that his son had a talent and drive, and being himself connected in the music scene, made a wonderful decision. He persuaded Walter “Papoose” Nelson to instruct his son. Papoose was Fats Domino’s lead guitarist (and the son of Louis Armstrong’s lead guitarist) and had long been a hero to Rebennack. As Mac recalled: “The first lesson, Papoose listened to my chops and said ‘Hey, man, you can’t play that shit and get a job. What are you, crazy? That outta-meter, foot-beater jive. You gotta play stuff like this’. Then he started playing legitimate blues, which I was on the trail of with T-Bone Walker. It was the Lightning shuffle that was off the wall as far as Papoose was concerned”. Papoose’s primary contributions to Mac’s musical education were twofold. First, it was Nelson who finally won Mac over to the benefits of learning to read music. Second, to impart musical discipline, Nelson would force Mac to play rhythm guitar for hours on end, never allowing him a solo. Mac’s next teacher, Roy Montrell, also imparted a valuable lesson. To his first lesson with this new teacher, Mac bounded in with his brand new guitar, “a cheap but flashy-looking green-and-black Harmony”. Roy took at the guitar and (said) ‘Why’d you bring this piece of shit over here?’ ‘It’s my guitar’, I said. ‘Give me that guitar’. He took it, walked outside into the backyard, laid it on the ground, picked up an axe, and split it right in half. Then he broke it in pieces and threw it in the neighbour’s yard”. That done, he called Malcolm Rebennack Sr. on the phone and arranged for Mac to come back next week with a second-hand Gibson, an axe that Mac found himself working overtime with his father to pay for. By the time Mac was on the cusp of his teens, he was a somewhat streetwise musician, hanging out in black clubs and scoring drugs in the projects for his older “junko partners”, or drug-buddies. Soon he was smoking pot himself, and in due course he progressed to pills, coke, and eventually junk. All the while, he was attending the south’s most prestigious Catholic high school, New Orleans Jesuit. In class, he daydreamed and wrote songs, which he would deliver to the offices at Specialty Records, and plotted gigs with several high school bands. Something had to give, and as one can imagine, it was school. He dropped out a year of graduation and later, while in prison, obtained a correspondence course diploma. Not that in his lines of work he needed any such qualification. Soon he was a fully-fledged constituent of the New Orleans underworld. In addition to his burgeoning songwriting work, his session playing, and road gigs both local and regional, Mac attempted half-hearted sidelines such as pimping, forgery, and as an auteur of pornographic movies. His running buddies included street characters with names like Opium Rose, Betty Boobs, Stalebread Charlie, Buckethead Billy, and Mr. Oaks and Herbs. Meanwhile, he entered into a star-crossed, drug-sodden marriage to Lydia Crow. Lydia, though no shrinking violet herself, did attempt to go straight from time to time. But Mac would hear nothing of it, and their marriage ended by 1961. His personal life a shambles, Mac’s professional life was faring better. He was kicking serious ass in the studio, and it is his guitar one still hears today on Professor Longhair’s, “Mardi Gras in New Orleans”. Mac-penned tunes like “Losing Battle” (a hit for Johnny Adams) and “Losing Battle” (recorded by Jerry Byrne) (the same song?) were just two of his fifty compositions recorded in New Orleans between 1955 and 1963. But (as is well-known today) the record companies of the 1950’s were not exactly ready coughers-up of royalties, so most of Mac’s compensation came from his sessions, gigs, and mostly ludicrous street tough sidelines. One such example of the corruption of the New Orleans music business of the ‘50s will suffice. Rebennack wrote a song entitled, “Try Not To Think About You” which languished unrecorded in the offices at Specialty Records for a while. Unrecorded, and more importantly, uncopyrighted. It eventually came to the attention of Lloyd Price, who changed the title to “Lady Luck”, switched record labels, and changed the composer’s name to - you guessed it - Lloyd Price. It would have been Rebennack’s biggest hit up to that date. After literally stalking Price, gun in hand (Mac planned on wasting him backstage after a show) for some time, he finally cooled off and chalked it up to bitter experience. An absurd coda ensured, when Rebennack’s parents unknowingly hired Price’s own attorney to sue Price for the royalties from “Lady Luck”. The lawyer, Mac related, “pocketed the change and did nothing. for a minute, I was afraid if I ever ran across that bastard, I’d kill him, too”. Such chicanery aside, New Orleans of the 1950s was a paradise for musicians. Always a wide-open town (by American standards), the Crescent City was never more raucous and hard-partying than it was then. Gigs abounded in the all-night bars, bordellos, tourist joints, society haunts, and neighborhood taverns. That Rebennack was far ahead of his time regarding race helped him find work, but also earned him some less-enlightened enemies on both sides of the color line. He began to run into flak from the two musician’s union (one black, one white) for having the temerity to play with opposite-hued musicians. Eventually these unions and the crusading, publicity-seeking New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison were to conspire to run Rebennack and most of the rest of the New Orleans music scene right out of town. The union began levying exorbitant fines on Rebennack (officially for playing scab sessions) and blacklisting record producers (like the legendary Cosimo Matassa) who dared to buy the latest equipment. Their short-sighted thinking was that new equipment would equal less studio time instead of more polished records and bigger hits. Garrison, for his part, launched a crusade on vice which closed down the thriving whorehouses and gambling dens, both important sources of income for both the music and tourist industries. Rebennack’s troubles were only beginning. A fracas with a Jacksonville, Florida hotelier resulted in Rebennack getting the ring finger shot nearly off his left hand. Doctors reconstructed the finger to a degree, but not to the point that would enable him to resume making a living with a guitar. He was forced into playing bass with the tourist-oriented French Quarter Dixieland bands, a gig that convulsed him with boredom. He sank deeper than ever into heroin, and it was then that his marriage ended. To top it all, he was busted by Garrison’s goons for heroin possession, a charge that was to send him eventually to a Federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. There he served as a guinea pig for the various and infamous rehabilitation experiments then -as now - rampant in the land. He was released embittered but not in the least rehabilitated. He returned briefly to New Orleans and was given some pointers on the organ from Crescent City keyboard maestro James Booker. However, he soon soured on Garrison’s Brave New Orleans and at the invitation of an old friend (saxophonist/arranger Harold Battiste) flew out to Los Angeles. A contingent of New Orleans musicians had already set up shop in the City of Angels, and Rebennack fell quickly to work doing studio odd jobs under the auspices of Battiste. Battiste was the brains (ahem) behind Sonny & Cher, and was a close associate of Phil Spector. Battiste mortared Rebennack in on some of Spector’s sessions, but Mac did not enjoy being just another brick in the ‘Wall of Sound’. He called it, “a monument to waste with echo all over the place! It was just padding the payroll, as far as I could see”. He held down a brief stint as Frank Zappa’s pianist, but found that stultifying as well. This gave him an entrée into the acid rock world, in his words, “all these little acid groups springing up like mutant fungus after a chemical spill”. He attempted to work with Iron Butterfly, whom he termed “Iron Butterfingers” and Buffalo Springfield to little if any effect. A frustrating term as in-house producer with Mercury Records followed, but Rebennack and his cohorts suspected that it was just a tax dodge. He was more musically frustrated than he had ever been in New Orleans, and his drug woes continued unabated. As a parolee, he was under the watchful eyes of a great many government agencies as well. But slowly, the concept was forming that was to take him to heights he wouldn’t have dared dreamt possible. Growing up in New Orleans, Rebennack had eagerly immersed himself in the City’s myriad native traditions and home-grown Afro-Latin religions. He himself was a half-hearted practitioner of gris-gris, New Orleans’ own unique branch of the voodoo tree. In his avid studies of the history and religion of the city, he had thrilled to the stories of John Montaigne aka Bayou John aka and most frequently, Dr.John. John was a Senegalese of self-proclaimed royal lineage who had been taken from Africa by slavers to Cuba. There he won his freedom, and shipped out as a sailor before eventually choosing to settle in New Orleans. He set up shop as a shaman, telling fortunes, healing, and selling a cornucopia of hexes. He was good at his job, and eventually prospered to the point where he even owned slaves himself. The kicker for Rebennack was coming across an account of a 19th Century vice bust in which John was arrested with one Pauline Rebennack for voodoo-related offences and suspicion of operating a whorehouse. For years, Mac had felt a spiritual kinship for Dr.John, and this account raised the quite possibility that one of his family had had the same feelings. Even so, the idea that Rebennack had been ruminating cast his friend Ronnie Barron in the roll of Dr. John. But when the project was finally greenlighted, Barron had other contractual duties and Rebennack reluctantly assumed the mantle himself. Between Sonny & Cher sessions, virtually on the sly, Rebennack recorded the “Gris Gris” album with a band of New Orleans natives. Atlantic executive Ahmet Ertegun was at first displeased with the move. “Why did you give me this shit”?, Rebennack remembers Ertegun bellowing. “How can we market this boogaloo crap”? Eventually the canny Ertegun sniffed something in the late-’60s zeitgeist that could enable an off-the-wall act like Dr.John to sell, and he (to Rebennack’s surprise) released the album. On “Gris Gris”, Rebennack played very little keyboard, contributing only organ parts on two tracks (“Mama Roux” and Danse Kalinda”). His aim was to introduce America to New Orleans’ mystical side, and also to “let us musicians get into a stretched-out New Orleans groove”. The album sold well enough to appease the suits, with very little backing, and meanwhile Rebennack’s fertile mind was cooking up a killer road show. Drawing on the venerable southern minstrel tradition and the pageantry of the Mardi Gras Indians, Dr.John and the Night Trippers’ road show boasted snake-festooned dancers, magic tricks, and costumes manufactured from the carcasses of virtually every living creature that ever crawled, slithered or flew in the bayou country. As Rebennack recalled, “When this stuff started coming apart in pieces, I had to start hanging around taxidermy shops big-time, scavenging new material.” He and his similarly attired band of New Orleans roughnecks unleashed this act the acid-drenched southern California of 1968 to no little astonishment. But by the time “Babylon”, the Night Tripper’s second album came out, the band began to dissolve. Rebennack (along with the most of the rest of America) felt the end time was at hand, as the title implies. The album reflects Rebennack’s chaotic personal life - his drug use and police persecution, his dissolving band -- and the state of American life in 1968, a year in which it seemed that violet revolution was at hand. It was a year in which both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King fell to assassins, riots consumed black ghettos in flames from Miami to Watts, and the Vietcong launched the ferocious TET offensive. The album features odd time signatures (11/4, 5/4,10/4), doom-laden lyrics, and hybrid Afro-Caribbean/avant-garde jazz feeling. As Rebennack later said, “ It was as if Hieronymus Bosch had cut an album”. Who better to chronicle those disorderly times? Things were about to get extremely untidy for Rebennack again, as well. While touring in support of “Gris-Gris”, the Night Trippers had been busted in St. Louis, and Rebennack as frontman shouldered the load. A lawyer arranged a deal in which Charlie Green (the manager of Sonny & Cher and Buffalo Springfield) was to pay off the St. Louis bail bondsman. The bondsman, unbeknownst to Rebennack, never collected. Green and partner Brian Stone then confronted Rebennack with the proverbial “Offer you can’t refuse”. Since he had gotten Rebennack sprung, Green put it to Mac, we get to manage you from now on. Rebennack, frazzled, saw no alternative. Green proved to be the worst of all managerial archetypes, the would-be star. Mac recalled, “He thought of himself as the star and me as the roadie of the operation. Even though I wasn’t on no kind of star trip or nothing, I didn’t want my manager hanging around, running some kind of Jumpin’ Jack Flash number and trying to upstage me. Beyond that was the basic problem: a drugged out band hooked up with a starry-eyed manager results in a chemically unbalanced situation and, in general, a fearsome sight to behold.” While at work on “Remedies”, the third of five of Rebennack’s Atlantic releases, Green and Stone persuaded Rebennack to check himself into a loony-bin, with an eye toward having him declared incompetent. This move would allow them to help themselves to a slightly higher percentage of Rebennack’s earnings than their current 25%, something more along the lines of 100%. Rebennack quickly wised up, escaped from the asylum, and exiled himself to Miami. Meanwhile, the managers had released the unfinished “Remedies” album. One of Rebennack’s chief aims for the album was to spread the news about Louisiana’s notorious Angola Farm, then as now America’s most deplorable and inhumane prison. Rebennack, incommunicado in Miami, was thus unable to put wise the Rolling Stone reviewer who took his lament Angola Anthem to be a protest song about the nation of Angola. A disastrous European tour followed, one in which was Mac was hamstrung by a third string band (most of the Night Trippers were unable to get visas). The tour was augured in by Mac from backstage the electrocution death of the Stone the Crows guitarist Les Harvey at a festival. At Montreux, his bass player without warning dropped his bass and brandished a trombone which he had concealed in the wings, and proceeded to (Rebennack related) “start dancing around the stage, playing Pied Piper to the audience’s mountain villagers”. At the end of this arduous road, Mac headed for London to round up session players for the album “The Sun, Moon, and Herbs”. Graham Bond, Eric Clapton, Ray Draper, Walter Davis Jr., Mick Jagger, Doris Troy, and a battery of drummers from virtually every West African and Caribbean country were on hand for a days-long, Opium and hash-fuelled epic of a session. He delivered the finished article to Green for post-production work a happy man. Some weeks later, Rebennack returned to find his beloved album chopped, diced, and filleted by Green. Material was added and deleted, more was overdubbed. Most of what Rebennack felt was the best music was simply gone. In addition, it came to his attention (when he was alerted to a pair of bounty hunters at his doorstep) that Green had not, in fact, bailed him out of anything. Green was summarily dismissed, and Rebennack and some engineers endeavored to salvage what they could of the “Sun, Moon, and Herbs” album. He signed next with manager Albert Grossman, of Joplin, Dylan, and The Band fame. He was the manager who “electrified” Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, which touched off a brawl between himself and folklorist Alan Lomax in front of several thousand bemused folkies. Lomax, though, was not the only one in the music scene who wanted a piece of Grossman. Soon enough, Grossman and Rebennack came nearly to blows. Grossman’s style was to play it cool with his artist, while his “bad-cop” flunkie Bennett Glotzer delivered such news as, “Thanks for signing with us. We now control 1/3 of your publishing”. Glotzer and Rebennack had two punch-outs, and things got so bad that Rebennack turned to his native gris-gris. He would each day leave a dead bird on Glotzer’s doorstep, surrounding by black candles and sprinkled with “goofer dust”. Eventually, this hell-broth boiled over when, in a tête-à-tête with Grossman, an enraged Rebennack snatched Grossman’s beloved peyote button, a pet psychedelic Grossman had been nurturing for three years, and devoured it, skin, pulp, stem and all, in front of his very eyes. The relationship dissolved into a maelstrom of threat and counter-threats, and now Rebennack had not one, but two oddball ex-managers scheming for his destruction. Somehow, Mac found the time to sit in the Rolling Stones’ “Exile On Main Street” sessions, and also to record one of his best albums ever. (While in the studio with the Stones, he discussed with them his and New Orleans songwriter Earl King’s idea for an album of dirty blues tunes. Back in the fifties, when he played the after hours joints, he had often played for an audience of street characters x-rated versions of old blues tunes. The Stones demurred, but later released “Cocksucker Blues” on their own, which irked Rebennack. He felt that since he had given them the idea, he should be compensated) His own effort produced “Gumbo”, an album steeped in the New Orleans of his youth. Featuring covers of songs by King, Professor Longhair, and several other lesser lights of that time and place, the album was his most direct tribute to his home turf to that date. To back the album, Mac ditched the voodoo shtick he had employed on the road since 1967 in favour of a revue format. As Mac termed it, he had “enough of the mighty-coo-de-fiyo hoodoo show”. The Gumbo tour, backed heavily by Atlantic, reached Carnegie Hall and other such bastions of the high life, and a single, ”Iko Iko”, cracked the top 40. The dark cloud to this silver lining was that hard on the heels of his chart success, several of his past employers saw fit to release albums of demos. Among them were Green, Huey Meaux (with whom Rebennack had worked as a session producer) and an unknown cast of characters. This very collection is one such unfinished product. Meanwhile, Rebennack had seen fit to employ yet another volatile, less than 10% straight forward manager. Phil Walden, who had hit the big-time managing Otis Redding was then cresting on the Allman Brothers doomed wave, and he also handled Rebennack’s New Orleans chums, The Meters. Clearly Rebennack thought, here at last was a manager with the Midas touch. In 1973, Rebennack and the Meters hit the studio together to record “In The Right Place”. At first, things with Walden and the album went swimmingly. Walden booked Mac and The Meters on some Allman tours, on which Rebennack enjoyed himself immensely, both professionally and personally. The album scored him both his biggest hit (the title track) and perhaps his most enduring composition. “Such a Night” is a stone-cold classic, a song that sounded as old and enduring as music itself from the very day it was waxed. This writer was astonished to learn that it was written by Rebennack in 1973, as I had always assumed it emanated from Cole Porter or some such. The relationship with Walden, which had been going so well, came to a screeching halt when Rebennack returned home road-weary to find his house bereft of furniture, furniture that had somehow found its way across town to Walden’s recording studio. It was this move that finally put an end to Rebennack’s reliance on anyone else to handle his business affairs. Since then he has managed himself. Later in 1973, a collaboration with white bluesman John Hammond Jr. and Mike Bloomfield brought forth the “Triumvirate” album. Meanwhile, Rebennack embarked on a tour of shows benefiting the Black Panthers, which, he recalled, “had the immediate effect of bringing serious federal heat down on our asses! I discovered that we’d jumped into a whole new level of criminality. We weren’t garden-variety dope fiends any more; now we’d become political activists, the most fouty-knuckled lames of them all”. The year ended with Rebennack attempting to aid a drink- and coke-addled John Lennon make the album “Rock ‘n’Roll” with Rebennack’s old boss Phil Spector. As active and fruitful as 1973 seemed (in addition to the above there were sessions with Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr), Rebennack was still broke and very bitter. He seriously pondered retirement, and had developed a reputation as a pain in the ass. The rest of the early seventies passed by in a blur of drug abuse and fallen sidemen. James Booker, the classically trained, extremely eccentric genius of the New Orleans keys, came and went from Rebennack’s band several times, before dying of a cocaine overdose in 1983. Ray Draper was whacked by New Jersey loan-sharks. Percussionist Albert ”Didimus” Washington was killed by a Cabbage-juice diet designed to heal his ulcers. As the seventies wore on, though, things very slowly began to turn around for Rebennack. A collaboration with legendary New York songwriter Doc Pomus (“Save The Last Dance For Me”, “Lonely Avenue”, “Suspicion”), produced the song “There Must Be A Better World Somewhere”, which B.B. King later picked up and won a Grammy. Tommy LiPuma persuaded Rebennack and Pomus to sign with his A&M-affiliated Horizon label. “City Lights”, the label’s second release, quickly followed. The album is something of a semi-autobiographical rock opera, co-written by Rebennack, Pomus, and Henry Glover (“ I Love You, Yes I Do”; “Drown in My Own Tears”) concerning the exploits of some ex-pat New Orleanians in the Big Apple. “Tango Palace”, another Mac-Pomus offering, came hard on the heels of “City Lights”, but not soon enough. The label foundered almost immediately after “Tango’s” release. Rebennack recalls the interlude with Horizon, during which he also gigged with 50’s R& B legends Hank Crawford and Fathead Newman, as being rewarding musically, if not commercially. In 1980, Rebennack began an association with Jack Heyrman’s Clean Cuts label. Heyrman persuaded Rebennack to confront a personal bugaboo and record two albums of solo piano and vocals. Rebennack had always had nightmarish visions of this being his end, that “I’d end up a solo-piano lounge act, staring at Holiday Inns or bowling alleys for the rest of my natural life”. Nevertheless, two Clean Cuts releases, “Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack” and “The Brightest Smile In Town”, ensued. On them, Rebennack erased the last vestiges of the Gris Gris act and tackled some more sophisticated and older forms of music. He wanted to appeal to “a spiritual awareness, not just that low-down meat level”, but hastened to add that, “The hardest thing to do is let the spirituality flow and turn the meat on. Doing that is creating art, radiating the 88’s”. Rebennack expanded on this with 1989’s “In A Sentimental Mood”, a collection of classics this time presented in a combo format. A duet with Rickie Lee Jones on Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson’s ”Makin’ Whoopee” took home the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Duet, and the album was one of the top-selling jazz albums of the year. Two more albums in a jazzy vein, “Bluesiana Triangle”, cut with Fathead Newman and the great Art Blakey; and “Bluesiana II”, cut again with Newman and others followed in the next two years. In 1989, Rebennack ended his 34-year relationship with heroin, and three years later released “Goin’ Back to New Orleans”, one of his most ambitious projects to date. Like “Gumbo”, “Goin’ Back” is solely a New Orleans affair, but it takes a much broader approach. Songs dating as far back as 1850 were recorded, with each of the ensuing cuts representing a stylistic breakthrough that has occurred since then. There’s a Mardi Gras Indian tune, homages to Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden, Louis Jordan, Professor Longhair, James Booker, and Fats Domino. The Neville Brothers, Wardell Quezergue, Al Hirt, and Pete Fountain, among a great many others turned out in support of the project. Any one volume CD that endeavors to cover 150 years of music from America’s most tuneful of cities is bound to fail, through as Rebennack says, “ the only thing that can beat a failure is a try”. Ultimately, the album ranks in the top 5% of all New Orleans releases, a too-brief primer lovingly and excitingly presented by the best musicians the city had to offer at that time. By turns wistful, violent, joyous and tragic, it never loses the twin hallmarks of the city that birthed it - a sense of humour at the absurdities of life (and death) and some of the world’s most pulsating rhythms. In 1994, Rebennack wrote with co-author Jack Rummel the excellent autobiography, “Under A Hoodoo Moon”. From it most of these notes were cribbed, and though this has proven to be by far my most verbose liner-note project, not one tenth of the story is yet told . Far from being a typical rock & roll, ghost-written autobiography, it is a hilarious, tragic, brutally honest, and inspirational tale of one erudite and talented man’s struggle to make some good music in a country in which this has become increasingly difficult. The chapter in which his reminiscences of Professor Longhair are recounted in side-splitting detail is alone worth the price of the book. The rest of the mid-nineties saw Rebennack’s voice become seemingly ubiquitous on American television, singing the praises of Wendy’s Hamburgers, among many another strange fruit from his American orchard. He has released several anthologies and two albums of new material - “Television” on GRP in 1994 and “Afterglow” on Blue Thumb in 1995. Any questions regarding this bizarre genius’ contemporary relevance were abolished in 1991 and 1993 when P.M. Dawn and Beck, respectively sampled his “I Walk On Gilded Splinters” for their own recordings, with utilising the Doctor’s tune in his breakthrough anthem, “Loser”. In 1997 he recorded a smoking duet with B.B. King on his collaboration with Doc Pomus, “There Must Be A Better World Somewhere”. He continues to tour and record, and still there is no bowling alley or Holiday Inn big enough to hold the audiences that pay to see him. Like the city he came from, Mac Rebennack is a survivor. So is the music that they share. That indefinable blend of French, African, Caribbean, Spanish, and American ingredients, that gumbo of a city and a sound, the certain je ne sais pocky way hollers out Crescent City, has no living acolyte truer or more faithful than Rebennack. Long may he ramble! ~John Nova Lomax, November 1998

[readitreviewit]

Ready for a heart-stopping thrill ride? Look no further than the latest page-turner from bestselling author Charlie Donlea, A Riveting New Thriller. This book draws readers in from the first heart-stopping pages and doesn't let go until the end. And let me tell you, the journey in between is nothing short of exhilarating. The story centers around a legal investigator named Alex Armstrong, who has changed everything about herself: her name, her appearance, and her backstory. She's still haunted by the night her family was massacred, and despite having been accused of the killings as a teenager and later exonerated, she continues to search for answers. Meanwhile, she works tirelessly to secure justice for others, like Matthew Claymore, who is under suspicion in the disappearance of his girlfriend, a student journalist named Laura McAllister. Laura was about to break a major story about rape and cover-ups on her college campus. Alex believes Matthew is innocent, and as she digs into Laura's disappearance, she uncovers stunning revelations about the university's faculty, fraternity members, and powerful parents willing to do anything to protect their children. But the most shocking discovery is the unexpected connection to the murder of her own family. As different as the crimes may seem, they each hinge on one sinister truth: no one is quite who they seem to be. Donlea is a master of modern suspense, and this book is no exception. The twists and turns will keep you on the edge of your seat, and the skillful plotting will constantly keep you guessing. But what really sets this book apart is its protagonist, Alex Armstrong. She's a complex and compelling character, haunted by her past and determined to uncover the truth, no matter the cost. Her journey is both thrilling and emotionally resonant, making for an unforgettable read. But don't just take my word for it. Publishers Weekly gave A Riveting New Thriller a starred review, calling it "engrossing" and "not to be missed." And Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Local Woman Missing, praised the book for drawing readers in from the very beginning. So if you're in the mood for a gripping thriller that will keep you up all night, look no further than A Riveting New Thriller. This is Charlie Donlea at his best, and he does not disappoint. Highly recommended for fans of Jeneva Rose and Colleen Hoover's Verity, this book is not to be missed. Ready to embark on an adventure like never before? Grab your copy of our book today or get a 30-day free trial of Audible - your gateway to a world of stories and knowledge! Don't waste this opportunity, click "buy now" or "sign up for FREE trial" and start exploring today! Price: [price_with_discount] (as of [price_update_date] - Details)

[swisscgny]

MEET NEIL ENGGIST

We recently interviewed Swiss-American painter Neil Enggist to talk about his life, work and how he is coping with self-isolation. Neil’s exhibition The Practice of the Wild was supposed to open at the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York last month as the 8th edition of Art@The Consulate but was postponed due to COVID-19. 

Hi Neil, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Where are you right now? It is my pleasure. I’m in New Jersey. I have a backyard studio near Princeton, in the old house where I grew up. I’m staying put as much as I can.

Tell us about yourself, where did you grow up? My mother is from Taiwan and my father was born and raised in Luzern, both coming for graduate studies in 1969 to Buffalo. I was born and raised in Princeton Junction in an old stone house near a small forest and the train station. My father was teaching in the Bronx and Connecticut, then trying his hand at importing Swiss Chocolate, but at some point in the 1970s, he turned to stained glass. I remember him cutting, wrapping, and soldering in the backyard. My mother worked for the state of NJ, and drew from the model in her spare time. I drew dinosaurs like a maniac, not very well I may add, but at some point around age 7, my father asked me to draw a dinosaur that he made into a stained glass panel. As a family we traveled to Luzern about every 2 years, and I still remember the smell of Birenwecken and lightning over the Vierwaldstättersee. I drew all the time but wasn’t precocious, as a youth, I was shy, quiet, hot tempered, diligent with school, perfectionist, and mostly played soccer and saxophone and you know, did my math homework.

When did you know you wanted to become an artist? I went to art school at Washington University in 2000, but it wasn’t until studying abroad in Florence in 02 that I had the feel of becoming an artist. There is a laminated portrait from first grade, age 6, where I put into writing that I wanted to be an ‘Artist.’ But in Florence my life felt like it shifted from art student to artist, 3 dear friends and I shared an apartment on Piazza Independenza, learning photography, printmaking, illustration, bookmaking, Italian and art history at a tiny art school called Santa Reparata. My future Love lived up the street and sometimes the cheap red wine would flow. Behind every door were Renaissance frescos, leaping off the walls were Donatellos, and it was the beginning of my explorations as a painter. I would paint plein-air small landscapes and cityscapes with oils, but by the end my ambition grew into a very large Kandinskyesque abstract rendition of Michelangelo’s Final Judgment fresco from the Sistine wall. A year later, back in St. Louis I declared painting as my major, and in the words of Joe Campbell, began ‘following my bliss.’

Neil Enggist, Sea on Earth, acrylic and stain on wood, 2011

How would you describe your style? Has it changed over the years? I would say it’s an Organic Abstract Expressionism, or Nature Action Painting. Over nearly 20 years, YES it has changed! Like a photon going from point A, painting the Ponte Vecchio, to B, dancing on a piece of steel with turmeric and ocean water, taking every single possible path! To say it’s moved linearly would be wrong, but there is a sequence of transformations or leaps, in the Ozarks, Mysticism, Heartbreak, Dylan, New Mexico, Traveling Europe, The Mir, snow painting, India, Brooklyn, Voice and Veil, Gardening, going cross county, yoga, India again, the dance, steel, the tides, The Tao and the Yellow Mountains, devotion. I’m very interested how Dylan’s work has transformed and shifted, beyond expectation, without calculation, yet somehow almost always in line with his poetic essence. My paintings have changed like dinosaurs and birds, from a common source, many branches, some seemingly from different worlds, some becoming bones and fossils, some soaring through the sky.

Tell us about your artistic practice, where do you paint, what inspires you? Well we can start with Highway 61.. music of the American vernacular, jazz, blues, country, rock, folk, hip hop.. from Louis Armstrong, Strange Fruit, Charlie Parker, to the early Bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta, Robert Johnson, folksingers like Woody Guthrie, onwards and outwards to Wutang and Nas. Basquiat inspires me. Ana Medieta, DeKooning, Paul Klee, David Hammons, Polke, Mel Chin, James Turrell, Richard Long, Kerry James, Doig, Ofili, Wangechi Mutu, John Akomfrah, Bonnard, Matisse, Puryear too. Gary Snyder's brilliant collection of essays 'The Practice of the Wild,' from where the title of the exhibition comes, has helped me attune to the wild systems at play in nature and within, and continues to evolve my way of thinking, seeing, and creative being. Taking a journey into nature, not just a dip into nature, but really feeling the connections, the web that runs through the forest and is woven into your own nature. The Redwoods, the Swiss Alps, the Coast of California.. I lose and become myself here. In my practice, nature is welcomed into the process of artistic creation. The imagined line between artistic intention and the creative functioning of wilderness is blurred, or more accurately, these spheres merge into a unified moment. It’s a spiritual practice, a kind of Taoist exercise, merging with the changes of the natural world, not holding, not fixing, listening to what the painting wants to become, and finding the color to enable the beholding. I paint outside and on the road, sometimes inside.. anywhere..

Neil Enggist, Odyssey III, acrylic, dye and turmeric on canvas, 2020

What role does Switzerland play in your life/art? My family has a house in Luzern, with a balcony opening to a view of Mount Pilatus that I would call perfect.. at least on the days where it’s not obscured by Nebel! Since 2012, I’ve been spending many springs / summers living there, in the bohemian remodeling of our chalet attic called the Macolette. I have painted and drawn our view of Pilatus so many times, it is ingrained in my mind’s eye. I’ve explored and hiked the mountains surrounding the Vierwaldstättersee, Grindelwald, Engadin, and Zermatt, finding places on and off the path to paint. When I am in the mountains, alone with my pack, in the quietude and breathtaking beauty, I feel something akin to being home, being one with myself, being on my true path. This feeling is fleeting and eternal. Also, during many of the summers, I have worked with my great friend and mentor, garden designer, Andre Ammann, constructing and maintaining gardens around Luzern. Working with him has taught me in so many ways, to notice the minute changes of spring, to work with contrasts of nature and culture, to understand placement of boulders and trees, how to create a riverscape, to dissolve into the consciousness of the river. When we are done with the work, all cleaned, raked, and hosed down, Andre and I look at our work, and he’ll say, ‘Now, the garden starts, try to see how this will look in 10 years, in 50 years..’ This has been a major influence in my own ‘Practice of the Wild’ and painting. It has also taught me how to shovel!

You have traveled all over the world, how has the nomad life shaped your art? As a traveler, painting becomes the act of experiencing and processing place; the painting becomes an archive of experience. Traveling serves to connect the painter with the uncomfortable and uncalculated, which forces a spontaneity and body-memory response. I aim to paint as one would do battle and dance and play jazz at once. In traveling, the painter becomes the abstraction, inhabiting transient and visionary territory. Materials from places of special significance, white gypsum sand from New Mexico, pigment from the Holi festival of India, black sand from Kanyakumari, gravel from Highway 61, layer into the topography, giving the painting a personal geographic context, while opening formal and textural possibilities. On the road, I explore the spiritual territory of color, and natural occurrences of unearthly blues.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, travel is no longer possible, in what ways has the pandemic shaped your practice / life? I just drove from California to NY in 5 days to install the Consulate show, just before the Covid situation hit the fan. I am supposed to be in India right now, doing a residency in the Himalayas! I’ve had a number of shows postponed and it just really doesn’t seem like people are buying many paintings right now.. But, really compared to people who are sick, caring for loved ones, and risking their lives to care for others, my sacrifices are minuscule. And I can most surely still paint! But I’m trying to use this time to do things I would have done in ‘normal’ times, but there are no normal times anymore. I’ve been making sculptures out of half rotten wood using an ax and a handsaw. I’ve been learning some Tai Chi from my Ma. I’ve started reading the Mahabharata. I’ve been texting whole a lot of hearts to California and writing love songs, and staying out of the bar.. 

Neil Enggist, That Great Mysterious Storm, acrylic, ink, oil and sand on canvas, 2010  

What important lessons do you think we can learn from the impact of the pandemic? Well, first and foremost gratitude for life, health, and for the things that we used to take for granted. To be grateful for the people who are dear to us. This may sound cliché, but the pandemic has shown us how connected we are, for better and for worse. We are interdependent, and what affects one region affects the global community. I hope that people can stop and reassess their personal and collective relationship with the planet.  In a profound and dire way, humans and our socio-economic systems have entered an unbalanced, virus-like relationship with this Earth. Humans seem to need wake up calls to affect changes, I hope this pandemic serves as a paradigm shift for enough of us. We are in this together. Yes when this is over, it will be great to go to a yoga class, an Indian restaurant, and to toast with friends, but we each need to use this time to reaffirm our commitments to each other and to all beings of this planet, and not go back to business as usual.  

What advice do you have for people stuck at home? Can you recommend something to read, listen or watch? Well I’m a Liverpool fan, and we were just about to WIN the premier league, so I’ve had to go back and watch Liverpool highlights to cope. There’s a lovely interview with the legendary skipper Steven Gerrard in conversation with Gary Neville on youtube. I’m a very lazy television watcher, meaning I don’t really watch new things, so it’s The Sopranos, and very little else. Peaky Blinders is good, violent, but solid. Kurosawa’s ‘Dreams’ is a ravishing movie.  I just saw ‘Purple Rain’ again, EPIC. When I drove across country I listened to Toni Morrison’s own reading of her novel ‘A Mercy,’ and it took my breath away, literally every sentence .. I don’t know how I even made it!  She’s a true master in telling a harrowing story in pure poetry. Also reading ‘An Indigenous People’s History of the United States’ and Leonard Peltier’s ‘Prison Writings.’  Musically I needed a lil rock, so I went back to the Black Keys ‘Brothers’, Brittany Howard’s solo ‘Jaime’ is good, JS Ondara, Black Pumas, Valerie June’s ‘Love Told a Lie,’ AM!R’s ‘Parachute, ‘ and the syrupy ‘Cigarettes after Sex.’ I’ve been listening as well to Gann Brewer’s most recent ‘Absolution.’ I made the video for his ‘River Song.’ Tracy Chapman’s first album is incredible. Springsteen’s ‘The River’ is like his White Album and sometimes I need to hear the Boss sing ‘Heart and Soul’ over and over.. and hear that ‘Drive All Night’ sax solo by the late great Clarence Clemons. I am from Jersey, don’t forget. Listening to a lot of John Prine too, and with his recent passing, his music shines like a diamond ring. ‘Christmas in Prison’ is one of my favorites of many. Oh and Bob Dylan just released a 17 minute song about the assassination of JFK, and it’s .. indescribable.

Thank you Neil! 

To find out more about Neil Enggist go to www.neilenggist.com, contact Neil at suisse17@gmail.com and follow him @neilenggist 

Scroll down for more information about the exhibition The Practice of the Wild which will open to the public as soon as it is safe to do so. Please note that all paintings depicted in this article are featured in the exhibition. 

NEIL ENGGIST

THE PRACTICE OF THE WILD 

8TH EDITION OF ART@THE CONSULATE 

THE PRACTICE OF THE WILD by Swiss-American painter Neil Enggist is comprised of a series of abstract mixed media Nature Action Paintings, a method by which nature performs an integral part in the artistic process. 

Neil Enggist, The Storm Ends, acrylic, ink, dye and sand on canvas, 2019

“My work seeks to embody the random precision through which life and spirit intersect. Within a liminal environment, I present set of conditions where the form can be born through an unfolding of natural currents. The nature of water, marks of evaporation, melting, freezing, burning, gravity, animal tracks, traces of dance, time, storms, tides and all manner of seasonal and emotional weather coincide to transform the canvas into a terrain in flux. Whether I am dripping ink into a melting tuft of snow, pouring the ocean on burning ink, or slashing the surface with a fallen pine branch, each action is composed within a system of nature. The result is a site of becoming where oceanic, emotive, and mystical stories interplay” 

Raised in Princeton, New Jersey, Neil Enggist studied fine arts at Washington University in St. Louis and Santa Reparata in Florence. He earned his MFA at San Francisco Art Institute in 2016 where he made paintings on steel in the tidal zones of the Bay Area, searching for a language between art and nature, incorporating ideas of performance and sculpture imbedded in the earth art movement. Enggist has participated in a number of art residencies including the Lucid Art Foundation in Point Reyes, CA, and most recently journeyed to the land of his grandmother to paint the City of Shanghai and the Yellow Mountains of China. Through his extensive travels in Europe, the Americas, and Asia he developed a body of painting and poetry shown in New York, Milan, Mumbai, Luzern, and Paris. Enggist lives and works between New York and Luzern, Switzerland.

Neil Enggist, The Schreckhorn, acrylic, ink, pigment and oil on canvas, 2007 

THE PRACTICE OF THE WILD is the eighth edition of Art @ The Consulate, a curatorial initiative by the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York to showcase the work of Swiss artists living in the United States. Follow Art @ The Consulate on Social media #SwissArtNYC

Neil Enggist, A Candle Burns at Night,  Acrylic and ink on canvas, 2008

[redshirtgal]

At the end  of the last article, you were promised a follow-up on Jay Jones and other TOS stars he had acted with. So what is this poster of Rough Night in Jericho doing here? Afraid you’ll have to read on to find out. But there are plenty of other Six Degrees of Trek instances involving Jay Jones.

Remember, his first television stunt job was in The Man from U.N.C.L.E was as Robert Vaughn’s stunt double but he also got to do some acting in the episode “Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.” But we also see Illya Kuryakin being confronted by two T.H.R.U.S.H goons. Look closely at them. We’ve seen them before, but where? (Thanks to Brad Filipone for both photos!)

The T.H.R.U.S.H. henchman on the left in the episode was played by Pete Kellett who also played Kirk’s henchman Farrell in the Star Trek episode  “Mirror, Mirror.” And Dave Armstrong appeared as the henchman on the right. Armstrong later appeared on TOS as Kartan in “Operation: Annihilate!”

Actually, Jay and Pete would later appear together as Klingons in “The Day of the Dove.”

In the Bonanza episode “Kingdom of Fear” we see Jay Jones as a bad guy who tries to use his bullwhip on Hoss. To the left in this photo is his boss, a local judge who hires men to capture passing strangers and put them to work as slaves.  Can you name the actor and Star Trek episode he appeared in? Hint: He was in the first episode broadcast on NBC.

Maybe seeing the character will jog your memory. Remember him from “The Man Trap”? Professor Carter, married to Nancy, Dr. McCoy’s former love was played by Alfred Ryder. And he also was the actor who played the judge in the Bonanza episode.

Another connection - “Kingdom of Fear” was directed by Joe Pevney, who directed many of the best Star Trek episodes. He is shown above directing the episode “The Immunity Syndrome.”

We had already discussed Jay’s appearance as a demon in the Kung Fu episode “One Step to Darkness.” In that same episode was a doctor (on the left)  who treated Caine and other children for malaria. That doctor was played by Lloyd Kino and we’ve seen him before as well.

He appeared as Wu, Captain Tracey’s Kohm guard in “The Omega Glory.”

And now, we finally get to why the movie Rough Night in Jericho is mentioned at the beginning of this article. This movie contains not just Jay Jones as a stunt double and teacher for Slim Pickens, one of the villains in this movie, but there are nine ( count ‘em, 9) connections to Star Trek (counting Jones) Slim Pickens and George Peppard have a scene in this film where the two are involved in a brutal fight. Yarborough (Pickens) begins attacking Dolan (Peppard)  with his bullwhip (it has been established earlier he is an expert with the bullwhip). Once fighting gets more intense, two stuntmen jump in - Jay Jones for Slim Pickens and Bobby Clark for George Peppard. Remember Jay Jones had rodeo experience, which made him an excellent choice. He taught Pickens how to handle the bullwhip for the beginning of the scene and he took over for him when the hand to hand combat occurred.

Variety and other newspapers and magazines called this scene one of the most violent brawls in Western cinema at that time. Not only does Yarborough inflict quite a number of cuts to the body of Dolan but he and Dolan get into a bruising fight at the end. Dolan winds up killing Yarborough by bashing in his head with a club. You can bet Jay Jones and Bobby Clark handled a lot of the fight scenes.

One review mentioned it was easy to tell when Bobby Clark was in the scene instead of Peppard because Bobby’s hair was straw-colored and drier than Peppard’s own darker blonde hair (which was not dry at all). Take a look at the above photo. We don’t know for sure that this is Bobby Clark, but if you compare this person’s hair to George Peppard’s straighter blonde hair in this movie, there seem to be some differences. However, we could be completely wrong. By the way, Bobby Clark is credited in IMDb as a juror in the same movie but we couldn’t find him. It was not a traditional jury - mainly a gang of henchmen belong to Alex Flood (Dean Martin) gathered outside in the street on the site of a hanging.

Jay and Bobby had actually worked together before in Star Trek on the episode “Mirror, Mirror.” Jay was Scotty’s stunt double and Bobby was one of Chekov’s henchmen.

However, those two were not the only Star Trek: The Original Series actors to appear in Rough Night in Jericho. Above are two more of Flood’s hired hands, Torrey (appointed sheriff by Flood) and Simms. Both appeared on Star Trek, but on completely different episodes.

Torrey was played by Brad Weston who also played the one of the miners named Ed Appel in “The Devil in the Dark.” He and Jay Jones do share another place of honor in Trek history. Jay was considered for a recurring role with an accent, a character that we now know as Pavel Chekov. Coincidentally, Brad was also briefly considered for the same unspecified part. The character of Simms was played by Steve Sandor one year before he landed his role as Lars, Uhura’s drill thrall, in “The Gamesters of Triskelion.” Interestingly, another person who appeared in this episode with him was also in Rough Night in Jericho.

In the movie, Angelique Pettyjohn plays a bar girl who catches Dolan’s eye as he walks into Flood’s bar. But she was also Captain Kirk’s drill thrall in the previously mentioned episode of Star Trek. One more Trek actor/stuntman appeared in Rough Night in Jericho.

Bobby Herron was a stuntman who made several appearances on Star Trek, most notably that of Sam, the crewman in the gym who made the mistake of laughing at the main character in  “Charlie X.” He appears in the credits of Rough Night in Jericho as a stuntman, but of course, it would be nearly impossible to pick him out.

And now the 9th and final TOS connection with Rough Night in Jericho - and it’s not an actor. Albert Whitlock was the matte supervisor for the film and did the matte painting on the left for the background scene of the explosion that rocked Flood’s ranch and mines. We are familiar with his many matte paintings for Star Trek, including the one on the left from “The Cage.”

Finding several Trek actors in another TV series episode or movie is not all that unusual. Even stunt actors often popped up in other places before or after their Trek appearance. But as we were working on the Jay Jones article, we kept running into photos of these connections in so many of the shows and films he did, we figured we would just save them all and present them in a separate article. Thus ends another round of Six (or more) Degrees of Trek. Hope you enjoyed it!