#*st. charles square

[sarahelizasims]

Nancy Meyers Inspired Kitchen St. Charles Square, Vermont

[heyaritou]

「 I F*CKED UP 」

[leclercskiesahead]

Arm difference ft Leo

[damonalbarn]

Damon's bossa nova demo for St. Charles Square.

[meiko333]

My Rainbow High / Shadow High Lesbian Headcanons

[rastronomicals]

2:27 PM EST December 20, 2024:

Blur - "St. Charles Square" From the album The Ballad of Darren (July 21, 2023)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[chinatownstreetscape]

The then newly-restored plaque in St. Mary’s Square honoring the “Americans of Chinese Ancestry” who gave their lives for America in its world wars, November 10, 2018. Photograph by Doug Chan.

The Last Full Measure: St. Mary’s Square Monument to the Fallen of Chinese America

In his book San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to its History & Architecture, historian Philip P. Choy, shared his observations about the monuments in St. Mary’s Square as follows:

“Across from the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen is a less imposing but more significant monument, with 97 names of Chinese American soldiers of our community, who made the supreme sacrifice in World War I and II. Every year on Veterans Day, the Cathay Post No. 384 and the VFW Chinatown Post march to the square to honor those who died for us, that they never be forgotten. This commemorative plaque and day of remembrance are more symbolic of Chinese America than Sun Yat-sen’s statue and the “Ten Ten” celebration.”

During the Second World War, thousands of young men and women enlisted or were drafted from Chinatowns, Japantowns (and concentration camps), Manilatowns, and other small communities across the country.

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and researchers at the Oakland Museum, 13,499 Chinese American men fought in the armed forces. (Community estimates range as high as 20,000.) Approximately 75 percent served in the US Army, with ground units such as the 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions in Europe and the 6th, 32nd and 77th Infantry Divisions in the Pacific. A quarter of the total Chinese American personnel under arms served in the Navy. Still others served in specialized units, such as the all-Chinese American 1157th Signal Corps -- part of 14th Air Service Group that would join the fight against Imperial Japan in the China Burma India theatre of operations.

Group of Chinese recruits for the U. S. Navy taking their oath on top of a captured Japanese submarine, on Navy Day in San Francisco Chinatown, October 27, 1942. Associated Press photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library). As written on the verso: ""A two-man Jap submarine, captured after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, T.H. [Territory of Hawaii], began its nation-wide tour in San Francisco Oct. 27. In Chinatown, Chinese recruits for the U.S. Navy lined up on the vessel and took their oath. It was part of Navy Day ceremonies."

The Chinese American men who served in the armed forces during WW II comprised 20 percent of all such men in the continental U.S. As historian Iris Chang would write decades later, “ethnic Chinese men gave their lives disproportionate to their presence in the country.”

As in many cities, the public spaces in San Francisco had included memorials to the fallen in America’s wars. On Memorial Day on May 30, 1919, city officials and thousands of spectators dedicated a 15-acre plot as the “Grove of Heroes,” in remembrance of the US dead and wounded in the First World War. In 1930, a sculpture originally created by M. Earl Cummings for the Pan Pacific International Exposition was acquired and installed in the meadow adjacent to the grove. The bronze figure holding a laurel wreath became known as the “Doughboy Statue,” and it is readily noticeable from the park’s John F. Kennedy drive and promenade. On Armistice Day (now known as Veterans Day), November 13, 1932, public officials assembled again to dedicate an 18-ton granite boulder (reportedly quarried from Twin Peaks) to commemorate US war dead. The monument, which was sponsored by the Native Sons of the Golden West, was inscribed with the names of 748 men and 13 women, all local soldiers and volunteers who died during the Great War.

The Doughboy Statue in the “Grove of Heroes” in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The plaque, sponsored by the Native Sons of the Golden West and inscribed with the names of US dead in two world wars, omits the names of non-white military personnel killed in the line of duty.

Although Chinese Americans had served and died in WW I, no Chinese names had ever been inscribed in any of San Francisco’s war memorial monuments from that era. Their omission was hardly surprising. The Native Sons of the Golden West had been founded in July 1875 as a fraternal organization "embracing only the sons of those sturdy pioneers who arrived on this coast prior to the admission of California as a state." In the 1920s, the Native Sons adopted a white nativist stance on public policy issues. President William P. Canbu of the Native Sons wrote that “California was given by God to a white people, and with God’s strength we want to keep it as He gave it to us.” The Native Sons openly opposed Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese immigration. At the outset of the Second World War, the organization waged an unsuccessful legal battle for Japanese Americans to be disenfranchised.

The size of the returning cohort of Chinese American men (and the few women) from the Second World War had been unprecedented, and they produced a transformative generation of determined civic activists in the postwar era. As was the case with many other communities of color in the country, Chinese Americans had to struggle for acceptance and civil rights. Community activists such as John C. Young, a retired colonel from the United States Army and World War II veteran, made it their mission to join the struggle for Chinese Americans’ civil rights and participation in mainstream society. Young’s family led that effort by example as one of the first Chinese families to buy a home in defiance of racially-restrictive covenants against homeownership in San Francisco’s Richmond District (See the story here: https://www.outsidelands.org/chinese-in-the-richmond-alfred-john-young-and-connie-young-yu.php)

Left to right: Janey Young Cheu, Connie Young Yu, Mary Lee Young, Lt. Col. John C. Young, and Alfred John Young in the Young family house at 674 37th Avenue, circa 1952. (Courtesy of Al Young)

With the onset of the Cold War and actual armed conflict on the Korean peninsula, Chinese American leaders sensed that the path toward progress and acceptance of Chinese Americans had been jeopardized by the People’s Republic of China’s deploying troops to support North Korea’s military against UN forces.

As a commander of the American Legion Post #384 (Cathay Post), John Young and his fellow veterans spearheaded a proposal to erect a war memorial to the fallen Chinese American Veterans of World War I and World War II.

In 1951, the same year in which the Native Sons added the names of 16 white members who had died in World War II to the plaque on the rock pedestal of the Doughboy Statue, Chinese American veterans’ proposal to honor their fallen comrades in Chinatown gained acceptance.

Members of the VFW Chinatown post and Cathay Post no. 384 of the American Legion huddle and review conceptual drawings for a St. Mary’s Square monument with San Francisco Mayor Elmer Robinson in the Mayor’s office in City Hall, c. 1951. Standing (left to right): Lim P. Lee, Peter H. Wong (unidentified veteran), Shaw Pange, Charles Leong, and Joseph Quan. Sitting: John C. Young, Mayor Elmer Robinson, and James Hall. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the late Col. John C. Young and his daughter Connie Young Yu).

Before 1951, a large and dramatic stainless steel statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, designed local sculptor Benny Bufano, represented the principal statuary in St. Mary's Square.

St. Mary's Square Nov 12, 1943. In this view of St. Mary's Square, looking north toward Old St. Mary's Church, members of San Francisco’s Chinese community bow before the statue of Sun Yat Sen on the occasion of Dr. Sun’s birthday. Among those attending the ceremony was Tse Kiong Sun, grandson of Sun Yat Sen. Photographer unknown (Courtesy of a private collector).

According to historian Phil Choy, the statue had been commissioned by the Chinese Six Companies to commemorate October 10, 1911, the day Dr. Sun's revolutionary party overthrew the Manchu government and established the Republic of China. As Choy wrote in 2012:

“For almost a century, October 10th, known by the Chinese as “Ten Ten,” was a major day of celebration in the community. Banners stretched across Grant Avenue. Organized by the Chinese Six Companies, drum & bugle corps and pupils from every Chinese language school dutifully paraded through the streets. Today the celebration no longer has 100% community support. Members of the Chinese Six Companies are divided; some still embrace the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of the former Republic of China (now the Taiwanese Government), while others support the People’s Republic of China.”

The efforts by the Chinese community’s veterans and supporters to honor the fallen of two world wars culminated in 1951 with the installation of the memorial plaque still seen today in St. Mary's Square. (A recounting of the memorial's dedication and other recollections by the daughter of one of the leaders in the effort to establish the monument, historian Connie Young Yu, may be heard here. (https://chiamgi.substack.com/p/col-john-c-young-profile?triedRedirect=true)

“Soldiers firing salute at dedication of memorial to deceased Chinese-American veterans at St. Mary's Square,” May 28, 1951. Mayor Elmer Robinson stands at center in dark suit. Photographer Unknown (Examiner Negative Collection / courtesy of a private collector)

A large crowd attended the dedication ceremonies for the Chinese veterans memorial at St Mary’s Square on May 28, 1951. An Army band is seated with musical instruments, and members of the Chinatown Boy Scouts troop appear in the right foreground. Photographer unknown (form a private collection).

Civic leader and president of the Wing Nien Soy Sauce Co. Col. John C. Young (ret.) speaks to the crowd assembled on May 28, 1951, for the dedication of the memorial to Chinese American service personnel killed during the First and Second World Wars. His speech to the crowd occurred in the presence of his former commanding officer, General Albert Wedemeyer, under whom Young served as a heavy weapons officer in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.

If the irony of Chinese Americans' entering the US armed forces during wartime was apparent, it was never expressed publicly by those who had served honorably. Native-born, as well immigrants ineligible to naturalize as citizens by punitive immigration laws, had answered the call to service for an America that had, for most of the previous century, robbed, murdered, burned, lynched, taxed, and excluded the pioneer generations, while building much of the political economy of the American West on the strength of Asian labor.

Veterans from Chinatown's American Legion Cathay Post 384 and VFW Chinatown Post 4618 assembled on Memorial Day 2016 in front of the WW I and II memorial plaque in St. Mary’s Square to commemorate the Chinese American fallen in all the nation’s conflicts and wars. Photograph by Doug Chan.

The numbers of Chinese Americans KIA and MIA from the world wars remain imprecise. The honored dead, including Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Francis B. Wai are, and will be, remembered in perpetuity for their extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty. For others, such as Lt. Kenneth Kai-Kee, the memories, grief and loss of those he left behind have already faded with the passing of family, friends, and loved ones.

The passage of time confers on community historians the duty to impart to each new generation the mission to remember the wartime sacrifices of Chinese America's sons and daughters. The debt to those who gave the last full measure of devotion must be honored in perpetuity.

Photograph by Doug Chan.

[everydayesterday]

Thoughts on 'The Ballad of Darren'

In many ways, it's pulling double-duty, tip-toeing the line, as both a pop record, and one of downcast ballads. I'm left wondering if it's blur's most accessible album in decades(?). The first two singles are fantastic, and provide an opportunity for the crowd to loudly sing along; they're accompanied by a number of free-form songs lacking any attempts at verse-chorus-verse. I wonder what the next single might be—I'd go for 'Barbaric' if I had the choice.

Production-wise, it's simple—there aren't any musical tangents like there have been on preceding releases. There's no 'Tender' on the record, nor is there a mindless little number like 'Song 2,' or 'We've Got A File On You' here. Veering back toward early- and mid-90s blur, I suppose, if you're looking for comparisons, though this one is less anthemic.

Lyrically, Damon comes across as very vulnerable—songs are about heartbreak, drug use, and even the state of the band itself ('Avalon' certainly seems to tackle the creation of the last album, 'The Magic Whip')—but with a tinge of optimism; "We're growing tall with the pain," he sings at one point. Melancholy, to borrow a word used in a few other reviews I've read.

Vocally, there seems to be a concerted attempt to put you off your guard—slight pauses that disrupt the typically expected on-beat delivery. It's like things are just slightly broken. But yet again, cautiously looking to the light, with the backing vocals providing gentle, upbeat, harmonies (most notably on 'The Narcissist').

So, I like it, even if at times it's hard to follow along without a constant barrage of radio hits like from their peak. There's no instant-classic equivalent to 'Girls & Boys' or 'Charmless Man' on here.

here's what NME thinks. a lot of the same thoughts, but worded more eloquently.

[sarahelizasims]

Clean lines, warm woods, and moody accents come together in this striking row of three contemporary townhouses. With a cohesive façade that balances symmetry and individuality, each unit offers an open-concept layout, oversized windows, and a calming neutral palette inside.

Think sun-drenched living spaces, sleek kitchens, and tranquil bedrooms, all wrapped in a design that feels equal parts sophisticated and soulful. Private courtyards add a touch of nature, making these homes the perfect blend of city edge and serene escape—tailored for Sims with taste.

40 x 30

Residential Rental Lot

Requirements:

Turn bb.moveobjects on before placing.  *optional* TwistedMexi has a script mod that does it for you automatically, so there is no reason to always have to type it in.

T.O.O.L by TwistedMexi.

Required CC - Please refer to the included PDF document for downloading items that were not included in the zip file, as some are still in early access.

The lush red hydrangeas are a recolor; download the mesh here.

FYI - For some reason, the stairs by the false bakery shop disappear whenever I mess around with the area, like changing wallpaper or adding walls. It is a weird glitch. Whenever it gets removed, just add it back again.

My game is DirectX11, so you may need to update your images to DX11 in the Sims 4 Studio.

And of course, if anything isn't right and you need help with something, please do not hesitate to message me! Feel free to comment, send a message to me on Tumblr, or utilize my community chat! I would like to use it more. ♡

Terms of Use:

Do not re-upload my lots and claim them as your own.

You're welcome to edit or modify my builds, but please remember to credit me as the original creator!

Do not put my builds behind a paywall.

I've included some of my recolors, please refer to those posts for their TOU.

Thank you to all CC Creators.

Please let me know if there's any problem with the build. Tag @sarahelizasims so I can see your gameplay and any personal touches you've made!

📥DOWNLOAD (Google Drive)

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 1892 – Death of Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore.

Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore served as a musician and stretcher-bearer in the 24th Massachusetts Infantry during the American Civil War. His incredible post-army musical career includes penning “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, the tune he took from an old Irish antiwar folk song, “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, that was published under the name Louis Lambert. He performed some of the biggest musical…

[usernamemybeloathed]

Once again blur bringing the vibes for my writing

[damonalbarn]

On Barbaric: "It can be about a lost love or it can also be about suddenly and unexpectedly getting rid of depression. And even if you realize that love no longer exists, the realization is double-edged. Because it also means clarity. And before you ask: this very lonely Christmas, about which I sing in Barbaric, well, it really happened that way. The songs are already quite accurate inventories of my life, I'm pretty open here on this album. Only sometimes the mysterious peeps around the corner.

On St. Charles Square: "I sing about the unpleasant experience of recently finding myself in a hideous basement flat. I'll spare you the details, but I'm quite clear in the song. I'm not going to be the first or the last to screw something up and have to deal with consequences."

Damon Albarn - Berliner Morgenpost 2023

[meiko333]

Rainbow High Icons (Close-up)

Like and/or reblog if you save/use

[spilladabalia]

Blur - St Charles Square

[senorboombastic]

Album Review: Blur - The Ballad Of Darren

Words: Ben Forrester There was a point in the late 00s where it felt like Blur were just another legacy act, doing the odd glory lap, usually in front of five figure crowds. But with Damon Albarn being the song writing machine he is, we knew it wouldn’t be too long before Blur came out with new material. 2015’s big comeback ‘The Magic Whip’ was created off the cuff in Hong Kong and though it was…