#*smiths. i could be a clash of personalities or power struggle. very hard to say. johnny rogan wrote a book about different rock managers

[juliatulia]

But Johnny told a different story when they went to New York. Johnny said that he and moz went to buy records and clothes. I think Morrissey is lying about it. I feel like he knows the real reason Joe Moss left, but instead of telling the truth, he acted like Moss and the rest of the band were planning to get rid of him

Are you confusing the trip they took in early 1984 with the tour in 1986? The 84 one seems very harmonious and productive, but on the later one things seems to have changed.

Some book or article refers to the Joe Moss thing (dont remember where) that he (and mike and andy) wanted the whole homoeroticism thing toned down a lot. Seems to woken some bad feelings among them that they should be so "flagrant". The song What do you see in him later became Wonderful Woman at I think Joes insistence. If he was a spokesperson for the other two or speaking for him self, i dont know.

The whole deal with the Joe Moss affair is so dufficult to judge 40 years later. The man has been dead for years and he didnt speak to the press about his time as manager. I never got a grasp of him as a person. Did he see Morrissey as a weak card in the line up? Did he just dislike him? Did he want The Smiths as a pure rock group who would appeal to the most neanderthal amongst us? Who knows. I never knew or understood why he suddenly left but I think if he meddled with artistic output, he wasnt going to last anyway.

[arcticdementor]

In the last couple of weeks, as the purges of alleged racists have intensified in every sphere, and as so many corporations, associations, and all manner of civic institutions have openly pledged allegiance to anti-racism, with all the workshops, books, and lectures that come with it, I’m reminded of a Václav Havel essay, “The Power of the Powerless.”

It’s about the dilemma of living in a world where adherence to a particular ideology becomes mandatory. In Communist Czechoslovakia, this orthodoxy, with its tired slogans, and abuse of language, had to be enforced brutally by the state, its spies, and its informers. In America, of course, with the First Amendment, this is impossible. But perhaps for that very reason, Americans have always been good at policing uniformity by and among themselves. The puritanical streak of shaming and stigmatizing and threatening runs deep. This is the country of extraordinary political and cultural freedom, but it is also the country of religious fanaticism, moral panics, and crusades against vice. It’s the country of The Scarlet Letter and Prohibition and the Hollywood blacklist and the Lavender Scare. The kind of stifling, suffocating, and nerve-racking atmosphere that Havel evokes is chillingly recognizable in American history and increasingly in the American present.

The new orthodoxy — what the writer Wesley Yang has described as the “successor ideology” to liberalism — seems to be rooted in what journalist Wesley Lowery calls “moral clarity.” He told Times media columnist Ben Smith this week that journalism needs to be rebuilt around that moral clarity, which means ending its attempt to see all sides of a story, when there is only one, and dropping even an attempt at objectivity (however unattainable that ideal might be). And what is the foundational belief of such moral clarity? That America is systemically racist, and a white-supremacist project from the start, that, as Lowery put it in The Atlantic, “the justice system — in fact, the entire American experiment — was from its inception designed to perpetuate racial inequality.”

…

This view of the world certainly has “moral clarity.” What it lacks is moral complexity. No country can be so reduced to one single prism and damned because of it. American society has far more complexity and history has far more contingency than can be jammed into this rubric. No racial group is homogeneous, and every individual has agency. No one is entirely a victim or entirely privileged. And we are not defined by black and white any longer; we are home to every race and ethnicity, from Asia through Africa to Europe and South America.

And a country that actively seeks immigrants who are now 82 percent nonwhite is not primarily defined by white supremacy. Nor is a country that has seen the historic growth of a black middle and upper class, increasing gains for black women in education and the workplace, a revered two-term black president, a thriving black intelligentsia, successful black mayors and governors and members of Congress, and popular and high culture strongly defined by the African-American experience. Nor is a country where nonwhite immigrants are fast catching up with whites in income and where some minority groups now outearn whites.

And yet this crude hyperbole remains. In yesterday’s New York Times, in a news column, there was a story about the attempted purge of an economics professor for not being adequately supportive of the protests of recent weeks. It contained the following sentence, describing research into racial inequality: “Economics journals are still filled with papers that emphasize differences in education, upbringing or even IQ rather than discrimination or structural barriers.” But why are these avenues of research mutually exclusive? Why can’t the issue of racial inequality be complicated — involving many social, economic, and cultural factors that operate alongside the resilience of discrimination? And wouldn’t it help if we focused on those specific issues rather than seeing every challenge that African-Americans face as an insuperable struggle against the hatred of whites?

…

The orthodoxy goes further than suppressing contrary arguments and shaming any human being who makes them. It insists, in fact, that anything counter to this view is itself a form of violence against the oppressed. The reason some New York Times staffers defenestrated op-ed page editor James Bennet was that he was, they claimed, endangering the lives of black staffers by running a piece by Senator Tom Cotton, who called for federal troops to end looting, violence, and chaos, if the local authorities could not. This framing equated words on a page with a threat to physical life — the precise argument many students at elite colleges have been using to protect themselves from views that might upset them. But, as I noted two years ago, we all live on campus now.

In this manic, Manichean world you’re not even given the space to say nothing. “White Silence = Violence” is a slogan chanted and displayed in every one of these marches. It’s very reminiscent of totalitarian states where you have to compete to broadcast your fealty to the cause. In these past two weeks, if you didn’t put up on Instagram or Facebook some kind of slogan or symbol displaying your wokeness, you were instantly suspect. The cultishness of this can be seen in the way people are actually cutting off contact with their own families if they don’t awaken and see the truth and repeat its formulae. Ibram X. Kendi insists that there is no room in our society for neutrality or reticence. If you are not doing “antiracist work” you are ipso facto a racist. By “antiracist work” he means fully accepting his version of human society and American history, integrating it into your own life, confessing your own racism, and publicly voicing your continued support.

…

If you argue that you believe that much of this ideology is postmodern gobbledygook, you are guilty of “white fragility.” If you say you are not fragile, and merely disagree, this is proof you are fragile. It is the same circular argument that was once used to burn witches. And it has the same religious undertones. To be woke is to wake up to the truth — the blinding truth that liberal society doesn’t exist, that everything is a form of oppression or resistance, and that there is no third option. You are either with us or you are to be cast into darkness.

And that’s where Havel comes in. In his essay, he cites a greengrocer who has a sign he puts up in his window: “Workers of the World, Unite!” If he did not put one there, he’d be asked why. A neighbor could report him for insufficient ideological zeal. An embittered employee might get him fired for his reticence. And so it becomes, over time, not so much a statement of belief as an attempt to protect himself. People living under this ideology “must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.”

…

Liberalism is not just a set of rules. There’s a spirit to it. A spirit that believes that there are whole spheres of human life that lie beyond ideology — friendship, art, love, sex, scholarship, family. A spirit that seeks not to impose orthodoxy but to open up the possibilities of the human mind and soul. A spirit that seeks moral clarity but understands that this is very hard, that life and history are complex, and it is this complexity that a truly liberal society seeks to understand if it wants to advance. It is a spirit that deals with an argument — and not a person — and that counters that argument with logic, not abuse. It’s a spirit that allows for various ideas to clash and evolve, and treats citizens as equal, regardless of their race, rather than insisting on equity for designated racial groups. It’s a spirit that delights sometimes in being wrong because it offers an opportunity to figure out what’s right. And it’s generous, humorous, and graceful in its love of argument and debate. It gives you space to think and reflect and deliberate. Twitter, of course, is the antithesis of all this — and its mercy-free, moblike qualities when combined with a moral panic are, quite frankly, terrifying.

[littlefawnlily]

[ headcanons and other notables ]

CHARACTER’S SEXUALITY Even though, I hate the phrase ‘bi-curious’, I’d have to say that’s what Lily is. Meaning that, she would easily be bisexual if it were that easy. However, during the time and considering how much her family is already dealing with in regard to ‘hidden aspects Lily was born with’, she hides that part of herself. Maybe it would be different if she actually fell in love with a girl, but as she stands now: outwardly straight. PERSONALITY TRAITS pas·sion·ate ˈpaSH(ə)nət/ adjective showing or caused by strong feelings or a strong belief.

Lily is an all or nothing kind of girl. If she loves something, she loves it hard. If she hates it, she hates it hard. Middle of the road is for the mediocre in her opinion which can sometimes lead to positive and negative traits, the positive one, is her passion. Passion for others, for justice, for art, and music, and the people she loves.

judg·men·tal ˌjəjˈmen(t)l/ adjective having or displaying an excessively critical point of view.

The negative side of her passion is that she tends to make up her mind quickly. She knows what she thinks is right and she knows what she thinks is wrong. End of story. This leads to difficult situations when she eventually changes her mind or realizes that she may have been wrong to begin with.

AGE & DOB: 18, January 30, 1960; She’s an Aquarius, which would usually mean she has an openness, wit, and imagination unparalleled by any other zodiac than that of the Sagittarius. They value a challenge to their intellect, honesty from everyone around them, and looking inward for inspiration and guidance. However, they also tend to be stubborn, sarcastic, rebellious, and very independent.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Inistioge, County Kilkenny, Ireland

WAND: 10 1/4 “, made of willow wood which is an uncommon wood with healing powers. Ollivander said that an ideal willow wand owner has some unwarranted insecurity of some kind. Lily’s would be that she will never belong in either world that she is a part of. The muggle life is too boring for her. If she chose to be a part of it, she would always have to hide a part of herself, but the wizarding world doesn’t want her or people born like her. It’s a constant struggle of will. Willow wands also have a penchant for non-verbal magic, those wands choose those with great potential and are willing to learn much. As for the core, Lily has a wand with unicorn hair. They produce the most consistent magic, though they aren’t the most powerful. Her wand is described by Ollivander as swishy and particularly good for charm work, which has never surprised Lily as that is her favorite subject. What would surprise Lily is that Willow wood, outside of wandlore, is associated with psychic abilities, intuition, and dreams as she has never been interested in divinations as a subject.

BOGGART:   Mermaids from the Black Lake. One time during her third year, she was out on the lake in an old boat trying to soak up as much sun as she could before it turned too cold. As she was reading her copy of The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, she started to hum an old hymn her mum had sung to her when she was a baby. Suddenly she noticed a ripple in the water. When she looked to the dark, mirror-like reflection, she didn’t only see her red hair, she saw a pair of yellow eyes staring back at her. They disappeared when she screamed, but Lily has had nightmares about that event ever since. A psychologist might say that meant she was terrified of disappearing quickly with no one knowing what happened to her.

AMORTENTIA: The first time Lily brewed a cauldron of Amortentia she was unsurprised to find that she smelled blackberries, like the ones in her sister’s garden at home. They reminded her of her love of the outdoors and adventure, and the love she had for her family. She was equally unsurprised to smell leather like the tomes from the library that she spent some of her favorite nights at Hogwarts poring over. The surprise came with the last scent; broomstick polish.

PATRONUS: Lily cannot yet cast a fully corporeal patronus. It drives her absolutely mad, because no matter how she tries, she simply can’t seem to fix whatever it is that’s blocking her. Not to mention, Lily Evans doesn’t fail at charms. When she eventually masters the charm, though. Her patronus will take the form of a doe. “The doe is a soft and innocent patronus to have, and those with it reflect this greatly. They have a comforting, almost maternal way about them, and it can draw many to them, and this can cause them to have many friends and admirers. They are social people, but they are not too strong in this aspect immediately, instead being a bit hesitant before getting to know a person. They can sometimes form impressions of others before truly getting to do this, however, and can become stand-offish to these individuals.” QUOTE: “I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation of the little things, my vivid inner life, my keen awareness to others pain and my passion for it all.”

HEADCANONS: • Lily was raised in a Protestant Christian household so when she received her letter to Hogwarts, informing her that she was a witch, she panicked. She’d always been taught that witches, future seers, psychics, and palm readers were possessed by demons. They were evil. But when her parents rejoiced over the news, applauding her and celebrating her skill, Lily was relieved. Maybe all witches weren’t inherently bad. While there are no churches for her to attend while at school, she is certain to be at the chapel every Sunday when she visits home. Lily is adamant that she wants to maintain her spirituality as well as her magic endeavors. She does still struggle with her two contradicting identities and beliefs, though. • Being a child of the 70s, music is definitely a huge influence in Lily’s life. Growing up, she was a huge fan of Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. To this day, My Generation is one of her favorite songs. However to many people’s surprise, Lily is a huge fan of the punk rock movement. The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Patti Smith… she has all the records and posters. Whenever she and Marlene have had one too many shots of Fire Whiskey, Lily has been known to paint her face like Bowie and sing Cherrybomb at the top of her lungs to anyone that will listen. • Lily Elizabeth Evans is one of the biggest Quidditch fans you will ever meet. She never misses a match, she makes the best signs, and she loses her voice from cheering every time there is a game. Although she is actually terrified of flying herself, she makes a point to study the matches and tell Marlene and James everything they could improve on for the next match. Lily knows they’re both absurdly annoyed by it, but she absolutely refuses to lose the Quidditch cup. Not to mention, she has a thing for athletes.   • Lily’s magic is at its strongest when she is protecting someone. Although she is naturally a very powerful witch, there is something archaic about her powers. She has a primal urge to protect people, especially the innocent and oppressed, and her magic responds to that innately. She also has a gift for non-verbal magic that she has yet to discover.