#Bennington Performing Arts

[thinkrp]

today's preview is a more introspective look at the larger of our two locations - remington, georgia. while it has the glitz and glamour that sable grove could never aspire to, there are some who can't stand the hustle and bustle of someplace that always seems to be in motion. take a peek under the cut for it's full history alongside the six neighborhoods waiting within. if you have any questions, you know where to find us!

✨ explore remington, ga ✨

the city of remington was founded in late 1829 during the georgia gold rush. it was a larger settlement for the prospectors that used to travel to sable grove to strike it rich. today, it is a thriving metropolis home to such prominent tourist attractions such as the great rapids amusement park, the barlowe botanical gardens, and distillery drive. it is also home to remington university and the official home of nfl team the remington prospectors, nhl team the remington gold hawks, and the mlb team the remington 29ers. remington is also known to be a festival city during the summers, hosting events such as the taste of remington and the street buskers festival. to the world, remington seems like a city of promise, however, if you look a little closer you’ll see dilapidated buildings with graffiti protesting the oppressive hold of corporations, you’ll see broken swing sets in seedy neighborhoods, and you might just be able to see deals being made on street corners. remington proves that even the shiniest of exteriors can have the grimiest of secrets lurking within.

barlowe reef

population - 20660 | price point - $$$ to $$$$

home to the barlowe botanical gardens and the great rapids amusement park, the neighborhood of barlowe is known as a tourist haven. the northernmost peak of remington, you’ll also have access to the barlowe bridge which connects remington and sable grove across bennington bay. it also houses the shorefront which showcases the pier and harbor. housing in the area is middle tier and largely populated with airbnbs and hotels.

camden

population - 17486 | price point - $$$ to $$$$$

camden is a historic part of remington that was once lined with bootleggers and secret speakeasies between the 1920s to the 1930s. now, it is widely known as the fine arts and cultural district. it is home to the remington art gallery and theatre alley which is home to the remington ballet company, the remington philharmonic, and the remington players. it is also home to jazz clubs, piano bars, and of course your good ol’ country music bars. some casting agencies, modeling agencies, and production companies also call camden home. the neighborhood also has a series of small man-made parks and trails that are a runner’s paradise. this area houses a lot of trendy apartment buildings, brownstones, and houses with old world charm that tend to be perfect for those in the middle-income or higher income brackets.

crestmont

population - 10576 | price point - $$$$ to $$$$$

crestmont is remington’s financial and governmental neighborhood. you’ll find city hall which houses city council offices, the mayor’s office, and all the major courthouses. it is also home to the remington police department and the sheriff's station. crestmont also has easy access to remington memorial hospital and the remington firehouse. around the corner from city hall is market street which is home to well known financial institutions, major real estate developers, and also larger tech and entertainment-focused companies. homes in this area are relatively pretty expensive and swanky and feature penthouses, brownstones, and luxury apartments.

cromwell

population - 14177 | price point - $$$ to $$$$$

cromwell is perhaps one of the busiest neighborhoods in remington featuring all the major sports arenas and stadiums as well as the larger concert venues. it is home to palladium square which is full to the brim with street performers and buskers. during the weekends, there is a large farmer’s market and craft and book fairs. it is also a hop skip and jump from remington public library and cromwell park. due to its resemblance to many popular cities, cromwell is a popular filming location. you’ll find mid-tier to high-tier housing in the area, and it is home to many families with young children.

snakeleaf

population - 20101 | price point - $ to $$$

back in the 1800s, the snakeleaf area used to be swampy marshy lands where only the underlings of the city used to congregate. it still maintains its “seedy” reputation with its collection of motels and other shady businesses. unlike the rest of the city, the snakeleaf area is not prim and pristine. however, some would argue that this is where the real deals in the city happen and not in crestmont or cromwell. the main highlight of this area is the abandoned shoe factory which is a popular venue for raves, outlandish parties, and general debauchery that is rented by more elite hands than you would think to imagine. housing is cheap here, but it comes at the cost of your safety and sanity, quite frankly.

yearwood

population - 30000 | price point - $ to $$$

yearwood widely known as the education district, yearwood is home to remington university spanning ten whole city blocks. around the corner from remington university, you’ll also find the yearwood mall and tucked in a corner is distillery drive which features bars, clubs, taverns, cafes, and restaurants that are popular with students, remington residents, and tourists alike. at the end of distillery drive, you’ll find the wall, a skate park with a massive brick wall that is frequently tagged with graffiti, murals, and messages. housing in this area is relatively cheap and largely occupied by students or early career professionals.

[justforbooks]

Alan Arkin, who has died aged 89, was a star at the beginning of his career and a beloved character actor until the end. Though best known for comedies, most notably Catch-22 (1970) and Little Miss Sunshine (2006), lightness was not necessarily his forte; even at his funniest, he exuded gravitas. “I’ve studied acting seriously,” he said in 1982. “I’m not the clown who wants to be Hamlet or anything like that. I just think that regarding oneself as comic means that one’s primary obligation is to get laughs.”

He could be a prickly figure. “Alan does not meet you halfway as an actor,” said the writer-director Marshall Brickman, who cast him as a brainwashed scientist in the science-fiction comedy Simon (1980). “He’s a very serious actor. I think he’s brilliant. But he’s not interested in winning you over via personality. The way he photographs has a kind of austerity that’s a little hard for an audience to take. You either like Alan or you don’t.” The Oscar Arkin won for playing a heroin-snorting grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine ratified his status as a US national treasure.

Arkin was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Beatrice (nee Wortis) and David Arkin, both schoolteachers. As a child, he attended acting classes. The family moved to Los Angeles when Alan was 11, but trouble befell the family when David was accused of communist affiliations (disproved posthumously) during the McCarthy era.

Alan studied acting at Los Angeles State College of Applied Arts and Sciences (now California State University, Los Angeles) before transferring to Bennington College, Vermont. In 1955, he married Jeremy Yaffe, and became active in the folk music scene. Along with fellow members of his group, the Tarriers, he was credited as co-writer of The Banana Boat Song (Day-O), an adaptation of a Jamaican folk standard. (A different version was a hit for Harry Belafonte.)

After an inauspicious film debut with the Tarriers in Calypso Heat Wave (1957), he threw in his lot with acting. He made his off-Broadway debut in the late 1950s and joined the Chicago improvisational group the Compass Players in 1959. This led to a stint with the Chicago improv troupe Second City and his Broadway debut, in 1961, in the company’s show From the Second City, which he co-wrote.

Arkin did not forgo folk music entirely: he formed the children’s group the Babysitters, which also featured Yaffe until their divorce. The band was later joined by his second wife, the actor and writer Barbara Dana, whom he married in 1964.

He left Second City after landing the lead on Broadway in a 1963 production, Enter Laughing, for which he won a Tony award. In the same year, he wrote, scored and starred in the Oscar-nominated short film That’s Me. Norman Jewison gave him his first major film role in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), a comic take on cold war paranoia. Arkin received an Oscar nomination for his performance as a lieutenant on a Soviet submarine that runs aground in New England.

His range was indisputable. Comparisons to Peter Sellers abounded even before Arkin took the title role in the misguided, off-piste comedy Inspector Clouseau (1968). He accepted a rare villainous part in Wait Until Dark (1967), terrorising a blind Audrey Hepburn. In the same year, he played one of Shirley MacLaine’s lovers in Vittorio de Sica’s portmanteau film Woman Times Seven. He won a second Oscar nomination for playing a deaf man in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), adapted from the novel by Carson McCullers, and starred as a Puerto Rican widower raising his children in Popi (1969).

His landmark role came when he was cast as the anxious bombardier Yossarian in Mike Nichols’s film of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. The New York Times critic Vincent Canby summed up Arkin’s appeal: “[He] is not a comedian; he is a deadly serious actor, but because he projects intelligence with such monomaniacal intensity, he is both funny and heroic at the same time.” The eight-month shoot was an arduous experience for the actor. “If they had shot footage of the making of the film,” he said, “it would’ve been a hell of a lot closer to the book than the movie was.”

Arkin had already directed several shorts when he embarked on his full-length directing debut, an adaptation of Jules Feiffer’s blackly comic play Little Murders (1971), set in a fractured and hostile New York City. The film’s critical reputation has grown steadily along with that of Arkin’s follow-up, Fire Sale (1977). Both pictures exhibit an acidic, rueful comic tone consistent with the mood of 1970s independent cinema.

In the same decade, Arkin played a long-distance truck driver in Deadhead Miles (1972), scripted by Terrence Malick; unsure how to market this eccentric road movie, Paramount shelved it, though it has surfaced occasionally on television. He teamed up with James Caan in the action comedy Freebie and the Bean (1974), with Peter Falk in The In-Laws (1979) and with Jeff Bridges in the 1930s-set Hearts of the West (1975). In The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1977), he played Sigmund Freud, who welcomes Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) as a patient. He was a washed-up superhero in the Australian musical comedy The Return of Captain Invincible (1983) and a concentration camp prisoner in Escape from Sobibor (1987).

During the 1990s, Arkin’s movie career began its second flourishing. He specialised in sympathetic father figures in Coupe de Ville and Edward Scissorhands (both 1990) and Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), and played a desperate salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), the film of David Mamet’s play. He was also memorable as an assassin’s psychiatrist in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). An acclaimed performance as a troubled insurance manager in Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001) attracted further awards.

The independent smash Little Miss Sunshine exploited Arkin’s contradictory qualities of coarseness and warmth. After that, most of his films felt minor: in 2008 he delivered another beneficent father routine in Sunshine Cleaning and a helping of spy antics in Get Smart, and was a twinkly editor in the family hit Marley & Me. More challenging was Rebecca Miller’s drama The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), in which Arkin played a man married to a woman 30 years his junior. His fond portrayal of a grizzled movie producer in Argo (2012), Ben Affleck’s thriller set during the Iran hostage crisis, was hugely admired and was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar.

He starred with Al Pacino and Christopher Walken as ageing crooks reuniting for one last job in Stand Up Guys (2012), and with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman as retirees who plot to rob a bank after losing their pensions in Going in Style (2017). He was also in Tim Burton’s live-action remake of Dumbo (2019) and played a Hollywood agent in the Netflix series The Kominsky Method (2019) with Michael Douglas.

In 2020, he published Out of My Mind, which detailed his 20-year friendship with his spiritual mentor John Battista, though Battista’s full name is not mentioned in the book, nor his fall from grace (Battista was charged with the sexual abuse of several women and one girl) and suicide. The scandal caused a kind of paralysis in Arkin for six months, he told the Guardian in 2020. “But I doggedly went on and I’m glad that I did.”

He is survived by his third wife, Suzanne Newlander, whom he married in 1996, two sons, Adam and Matthew, from his first marriage, and a son, Anthony, from his second marriage.

🔔 Alan Wolf Arkin, actor and director, born 26 March 1934; died 29 June 2023

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[lboogie1906]

Erica Hunt (born March 12, 1955) is a poet, essayist, teacher, mother, and organizer from New York City. She is associated with the group of Language poets from her days living in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but her work is considered central to the avant-garde Black aesthetic developing after the Civil Rights Movement and Black Arts Movement. She worked with several non-profits that encourage Black philanthropy for Black communities and causes. She was executive director of the 21st Century Foundation. She is writing and teaching at Wesleyan University.

She was born in Manhattan to Thomas Edward Hunt, a mail carrier who worked for the MTA; mother, Daphne Lindsey Hunt, who worked as a transcriptionist for the city of New York.

She received a BA in English from San Francisco State University. She received an MFA. from Bennington College.

She was an active part of the poetry scene, particularly the group of so-called Language poets who held readings at The Grand Piano. She moved back to New York City. She worked as a senior program officer and donor advisor at the New World Foundation.

She married saxophonist Marty Ehrlich. She served on the board of directors for the Segue Foundation, an arts group that founded Roof Books, funded arts programs in prisons, and sponsored many artists’ projects. She restored an abandoned building into an artists’ living, studio, and performance space. The project was completed in 1988 and the space sponsored artists until 2002. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[knifeandsickle]

tw// suicide

no but im always always always thinking of breaking the habit and how chester bennington refused to perform that song for the longest time and then started to and goes on to die by suicide almost exactly as the song describes, i truly dont know if im sick for “life imitates art”ing this. i just wonder when somebody chooses to end their life and i honestly believe nobody, or near nobody, decides to in the moment, i think its made years before. i feel almost haunted listening to that song, theres just never going to be a word for the feeling you get listening to a dead man saying he’s going to kill himself over and over and over

[ihavefun1996-blog]

#7

Breaking the habit - Linkin Park MV

 Name of the creator(s)/artist(s) and year

 - it was directed by Joe Hahn and co-produced by Eric Calderon and supervised by Kazuto Nakazawa.

 1) Technique section:

  How was it made? 

 It was made by Studio Gonzo, in collaboration with the band, directed by the DJ Joe Hann. The music video uses anime stylisation. The video uses both traditional animation, as well as traditional rotoscoped animation for the shots including the band playing on a rooftop.

 What materials were used?

 Considering the nature of the video, both, hand drawn digital animation and traditional hand drawn animation seems to have been used.

 How was it captured?

 As with both traditional and digital videos of the time, the short would have either been drawn directly to a digital animation software, and or have been drawn on paper and then scanned into the computer to further edit, animate and composite.

 What can you learn from their production methods?

  The video is quite well stylised in a stylised way but is rooted in reality. Especially the rotoscoped sections due to the treatment and care in animations do not feel out of place with the rest of the short, as sometimes, it’s quite probable to have a major visual discrepancy in the two styles. The short also uses very smokey and obscured atmospheres juxtaposed with strong contrasts in colors. This juxtaposition of strong contrasts makes for a very interesting visual experience.

 2) Representation section:

 What is the piece about?

The piece is a video for the song Breaking the habit by the band Linkin Park.

 Who or what does it depict?

 The video depicts various characters in their own fractured storylines which aren’t too clear in story. However mainly the video roots back to an animated version of the band performing on a rooftop, connecting all stories to their singer Chester Bennington. 

 3) Reception section:

 How was it shown?

 The music video was released when the song was released as a single, on June 14th 2004

 How did you see it?

Growing up on the band, being an avid fan of their music and anime, to me this was the perfect marriage of two of my favorite forms of art. I was always intrigued by the unclear narrative which was so captivating in its lack of clarity, on a purely visual level.

 What was the response at the time? Now?

The video has gone on to be a favorite amongst MTV viewers, going as far as winning the 2004 MTV VMA Viewer's Choice Award.

The song stands out as one of the few anime-styled animated videos in the genre, and still stands up with respect to quality and it’s uniqueness in approach.

[larryland]

Stories and Songs from the Suffragists at the Bennington Performing Arts Center Bennington Performing Arts Center and the American Association of University Women present  "From the Parlor to the Polling Place: Stories and Songs from the Suffragists"

[chiseler]

The House of D

As one of his final acts in office, Mayor Jimmy Walker broke ground in 1932 for the New York City House of Detention for Women, built on the site of the old Jefferson Market jail in Greenwich Village and colloquially known as the House of D. According to sociologist Sara Harris’ Hellhole (on John Waters’ list of recommended reading), It was intended as a model of prison reform. Opened in 1934, the twelve-story monolith of brownish brick with art deco flourishes loomed behind the old Jefferson Market courthouse on Sixth Avenue, looking more like a stylish if somewhat cheerless apartment building than a prison. Windows were meshed instead of barred, and the one sign on its exterior merely gave the address, “Number Ten Greenwich Avenue.” There were toilets and hot and cold running water in all four hundred cells, and it was going to focus on rehabilitating its inmates – prostitutes, vagrants, alcoholics and/or drug addicts – rather than merely punishing them. From the start the reality was at variance with the intentions, and the facility quickly became infamous as a combination of Bedlam and Bastille. Within a decade it was chronically overcrowded with a volatile mix of inmates: women who couldn’t make bail awaiting trials that were sometimes months off, women already convicted and serving time, alcoholics and addicts, the mentally ill, violent lesbian tops, street gang girls, hookers and other lifelong multiple offenders, and teenagers spending their first nights behind bars. Tougher, more experienced prisoners brutalized and sexually assaulted the weak and inexperienced. So, of course, did the staff. The halls rang with the howls of inmates suffering the agonies of drug or alcohol withdrawal. There were cockroaches and mice in the cells and worms in the food. Village lesbians called it the Country Club and the Snake Pit. The IWW organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn did time in the House of D, as did accused spy Ethel Rosenberg and Warhol shooter Valerie Solanas. In 1957, Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, spent thirty days there for staying on the street during a civil defense air raid drill. Her ban-the-bomb supporters picketed outside every day from noon to two; the Times called them “possibly the most peaceful pickets in the city.”

Despite its bland exterior, the House of D made its presence very known in the neighborhood through the daily ritual of inmates yelling out the windows or down from the exercise area on the roof to the boyfriends, girlfriends, dealers and pimps perpetually loitering on the Greenwich Avenue sidewalk – a carnivalesque Village tradition for almost forty years. Waters first caught the spectacle in the early 1960s. “It was amazing. No one can ever imagine what that was like. All the hookers would be screaming out the windows, ‘Hey Jimbo!’ And all the pimps would be down on the sidewalk yelling stuff.” Writer and film producer Jeremiah Newton initially encountered it at around the same time. “It was this huge, monolithic building, looking like the building the Morlocks dragged the Time Machine into, and the girls were always yelling down, screaming obscenities and throwing things out the window. It was the biggest building there. I sat on a stoop watching the people walk by. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.” The Village writer Grace Paley lived near the facility in the 1950s and 1960s, and walked her kids past it regularly. She wrote that “we would often have to thread our way through whole families calling up – bellowing, screaming up to the third, seventh, tenth floor, to figures, shadows behind bars and screened windows, How you feeling? Here’s Glena. She got big. Mami mami, you like my dress? We gettin you out baby. New lawyer come by.”

Women arrested at antiwar rallies during the Vietnam era found themselves locked up in the House of D with the hookers, junkies, crazies and butch lesbians. On Saturday, February 20 1965, two eighteen-year-old college students, Lisa Goldrosen of Bard and Andrea Dworkin of Bennington, were arrested during an antiwar protest at the UN and sent to the House of D. There, they later testified, they were brutally mistreated and humiliated by male doctors “examining” them for venereal diseases, and forced constantly to fend off the rough advances of other inmates. They were not allowed to use a telephone until Monday. That March, the New York Post ran an exposé based on their testimony. They didn’t experience anything other women hadn’t for thirty years by then, but in the 1960s those other inmates were overwhelmingly poor black and Hispanic women. Dworkin and Goldrosen were white, middle-class college coeds. As so often happens, that’s what it took to generate public outrage.

When Grace Paley herself was arrested at another war protest some months later, she was detained in the facility. Conditions had slightly improved in light of the outcry the Post had stirred up. Paley had been arrested before at antiwar protests, but it had always resulted in at worst overnight stays. This time a judge threw the book at her and gave her six days. “He thought I was old enough to know better,” she later wrote, “a forty-five year old woman, a mother and teacher. I ought to be too busy to waste time on causes I couldn’t possibly understand.” At least she could look out her cell window and watch her kids walking to school.

In October 1970, Angela Davis was arrested in the Howard Johnson Motor Lodge at Eighth Avenue and Fifty-First Street and taken to the House of D. It was not her first time in Greenwich Village. She was born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, where her father was a car mechanic and her mother was a teacher and a civil rights activist. They lived in a black neighborhood called Dynamite Hill because the Klan had firebombed so many homes there. With help from the American Friends, she and her mother moved to New York, where her mother studied for her Masters at NYU while Angela attended Elisabeth Irwin High School in the Village. She went on to study philosophy at Brandeis, the Sorbonne, and at the University of California, earning her Ph.D. One of her teachers was Herbert Marcuse. By the late 1960s she was an avowed Communist, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and affiliated with the Black Panthers. She lectured in philosophy at UCLA until 1969, when her Communist and radical affiliations got her fired.

In August of 1970 a black teen named Jonathan Jackson took over a Marin County courtroom and demanded the release of his older brother, Panther member George Jackson, from nearby Soledad prison. He took the judge, the district attorney and three jurors hostage. In the attempted getaway, Jackson, the judge and one other person were shot and killed. When police discovered that Davis, who knew George Jackson, was the registered owner of Jonathan’s weapon, she was charged as an accomplice to murder, a capital crime in California. She fled the state, which put her on the FBI’s most wanted list. A beautiful twenty-six-year-old with a huge and magnificent Afro, she became a global pop star of the revolution a la Che Guevara. When the FBI arrested her she’d spent a few days walking openly in Times Square, unrecognized because she’d slicked down the Afro and dressed like an office worker.

Within thirty minutes of her being locked up in the House of D a crowd of protesters began to gather outside the monolith, chanting; prisoners stood in their windows and chanted along, their fists raised. The NYPD sent a Tactical Defense Force unit – riot police – and House of D officials turned off all the lights inside, hoping to quiet things down. Instead, women set small fires in their cells, and demonstrators cheered the flickerings in the windows. They dispersed without major incident. Placed in isolation, Davis went on a ten-day hunger strike. She spent nine weeks in the facility while fighting extradition to California, where, she was quite convinced, she’d be convicted and put to death. In fact she would be acquitted of all charges in a San Francisco courtroom in 1972, after spending eighteen months behind bars.

Davis was the facility’s last celebrity tenant. Through the 1950s and 1960s, Greenwich Village civic and neighborhood groups had constantly called for the facility to be removed to some location more appropriate, which is to say far away from where they lived and walked their children to school. More liberal souls in the neighborhood thought it should stay, fearing that if the women were shifted to some more isolated location they might be all the more easily mistreated. Before he wrote the hit Broadway musicals Hello, Dolly! and La Cage aux Folles, Villager Jerry Herman wrote a satirical revue called Parade, which included a song about the House of D controversy:

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Keep her and shield her from all who wish her harm

Don’t tear down the House of Detention

Cornerstone of Greenwich Village charm…

So I say fie, fie to the cynic

Know that there’s love in these hallowed walls of brown

There’s love in the laundry, there’s love in the showers,

There’s love in the clinic

'Twas built with love, my lovely house in town

Save the tramp, the pusher and the souse

Would you trade love for an apartment house?

Dworkin and Goldrosen’s testimony before a commission studying conditions at the House of D helped lead to its being shut down in 1971. Inmates were moved to a new facility on Rikers Island. After some debate about possible new uses for the Village monolith, it was simply torn down in 1973. The site is now a small, fenced-in garden. In 1974 Tom Eyen’s spoofy play Women Behind Bars, set in the House of D in the 1950s, premiered. John Waters’ star Divine performed in a later production.

by John Strausbaugh

[moonflowerlesbians]

6. with dani and jamie would be so cute 🥺 like a lil vermont winter fic

for you, anon! I altered the wording ever so slightly, but the concept is identical. I hope you enjoy :)

you can also read on AO3

~~~

Their flat is located a few streets off from the center of town, close enough to walk but far enough to provide a sense of distance from the bustle of the main drag. Tonight, they set out just after sundown to ensure good seats to what Dani has affectionately dubbed, “the greatest holiday spectacular to ever grace the streets of Bennington,” and what Jamie has deemed, “an entirely American embarrassment.”

It’s their third winter in Vermont, and this year, The Leafling has generously sponsored half of Bennington High School’s Marching Seahorses’ winter uniforms in exchange for a full page ad in their concert programmes for a year and a sign carried at the front of the annual holiday parade. Or, rather, the kids had come to the shop with instruments, a flyer, and an unrehearsed elevator pitch, and Dani had been utterly charmed.

“It’s good to see them so passionate about something,” Dani had said.

Jamie had hummed and had continued tending to her sprouts.

“It would be good publicity,” Dani’d argued.

“Most expensive advertisement of my life.”

“Come on, they’re cute.”

“‘Cute’ doesn’t keep the lights on, Poppins.”

Unfortunately for Jamie, Dani has an irritating way of getting what she wants. And that’s how their small business ended up shelling out an ungodly amount of cash for an extracurricular named after the least fearsome sea creature Jamie can think of.

They don’t even have legs for Christsake.

But, the sheer delight on Dani’s face upon Jamie’s concession softened her heart. In any case, Dani made certain to thank her thoroughly and, ah, enthusiastically, that evening.

Jamie begins to regret her decision, now, as she’s dragged from her cozy flat into the absolutely frigid night air. She’s bundled in her warmest coat, a toque tucked over her ears to stave off the cold, but she swears she’s still going to catch frostbite.

Dani, meanwhile, wears a fleece-lined denim jacket over top one of her many cable-knit jumpers and insists she’s overheating. She carries a blanket under her arm, the other linked with Jamie’s, as she all but skips down the street.

“The English couldn’t handle a Midwestern winter. This is nothing,” she had said.

She’s always loved Christmastime, Jamie has come to learn. Dani has regaled her with seemingly endless stories about stringing popcorn and cranberry garlands, baking biscuits with Judy O’Mara, and breaking the occasional ornament decorating the tree. She’d felt awful about that last one, terrified to tell Mrs. O’Mara. She went on to explain in touching detail how Mrs. O’Mara had taken her hand and reminded her that it was just a bauble.

It made Jamie wonder how often Dani got into trouble for accidents in her home. A question for a later date.

As they near Main Street, the sound of jovial chatter and the unmistakable carolers grows louder. The shops they pass have festive window displays, elves in stockings of red and green reading storybooks or sledding down white fabric hills. Dani blows right past, determined to reach her carefully preselected place on the sidewalk. In what Jamie is convinced must be sub-zero temperatures, she can’t imagine the winter festival will be a popular destination.

She soon finds she is mistaken, however, when they round the corner and encounter a throng of people. The road has been blocked off at either end, and families drift in and out of the shops. Some skate on the temporary ice rink set up to the side. The lights lining the trees reflect prettily off the storefronts, the branches arching up and over the street. It would be like something out of a fairytale had the weather not been turning Jamie’s hands to icicles.

Dani is very proudly pointing to a square on the sidewalk out in front of the coffeehouse, and before Jamie is entirely sure what’s happened, she’s sitting on their too-small tartan picnic blanket over pavement that is far too cold on her arse. Dani is warm at her side, and they’re pressed close, using the size of their blanket as an excuse to disregard social acceptability.

“How long until this thing starts?”

Dani checks her wristwatch. “Thirty minutes, I think?”

“Fuckin’ freezing.”

The apparent mother of three standing nearby shoots them a glare.

“Jamie…” Dani gives an apologetic look, but the woman is already herding her children off in the direction of an arts and crafts booth.

“You know, if we were home, I’d wager we’d find a proper way to warm up.” She gets a sharp elbow to the ribs for that one and lets out a muffled oomph, though she wryly notes the new flush to Dani’s cheeks.

“Hot chocolate? I’ll go find us hot chocolate. I’m pretty sure there was a table supporting the junior high theatre department.”

“S’long as you’re not making it.” But Dani is already halfway down the block.

Then, Jamie is alone, freezing her arse off while waiting to see a mediocre high school marching band play in ungodly weather to make her partner happy. It’s the kind of domesticity she could never quite envision for herself. She’s come to find she’s, somewhat begrudgingly, fond of it.  

Bells jingle, the sound echoing off of low brick buildings. Red ribbon bows hang from lamp posts and doorknobs and rubbish bins, with tails that swing in the breeze. The air is crisp; it blows down from the mountains and feels like a fresh start.

Dani returns with two styrofoam cups, passing one off to Jamie, and sits with her knees to her chest.

Jamie eyes the pale brown liquid skeptically before taking a cautious sip.

“Dani,” she says, “why have you handed me cocoa-flavoured water?”

Dani grins sheepishly. “The kids may have made it.”

“I should applaud you, really. You’ve managed to find the one demographic worse at brewing than you.”

“Rude.”

Jamie receives another jab to the side, nearly sending her drink sloshing onto her lap.

“Hey, now, keep that up, and we’ll end the night in the emergency ward.”

“Oh, please, you’ve got enough layers on to stop a bullet.”

“You laugh now, but just wait ‘till we’ve been sitting here for hours.”

“Shh,” Dani interrupts, “it’s starting!”

A dozen or so children in leotards and tight buns dance down the street, followed by a horse-drawn vehicle painted cherry red, in which a larger man dressed as Saint Nicholas stands, waving at the assembled crowds.

Dani’s excited grip on Jamie’s bicep silences any snide remarks she might have made about the quality of performance. Dani’s eyes shine with glee, and it’s so lovely, the few silver strands of her hair capturing the twinkling holiday lights, that the words die in Jamie’s throat. She allows herself to fall into the spirit of the thing, content to sit beside Dani in the corner of life they’ve carved out for themselves. Even if that means listening to a rather shoddy trombone rendition of “Jingle Bells.”

Sure enough, though, heading off the band, a handful of students bear a banner proclaiming the high school’s name and the season’s sponsors. There, listed below the bakery, is The Leafling. Jamie feels a flash of pride. Somehow, seeing their little shop represented for the town to see feels real, grounding, in a way she can’t explain. They’ve found a place, a rhythm, to settle. They’ve left their mark on this town tradition and become a part of something. It feels like home.

So, perhaps she cheers a bit louder when the musicians pass them. This earns her an amused smile from Dani, at which she rolls her eyes.

It’s a relatively short parade. There are only so many volunteer organizations, churches, and youth groups in the town, after all. Jamie’s legs are stiff when she finally stands and offers a hand to help Dani up. Her arms are wrapped around herself.

“Cold?”

“No,” Dani says, “Come on, we should look at booths before we head home. Support the other local businesses.”

They wander the various tables, some offering wares, some business cards, some consultations, dipping in and out of shops until a sniffling noise catches Jamie’s attention. Dani not-so-subtly swipes at her nose.

“You alright?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just-- fine.”

Jamie raises an eyebrow, trying to catch Dani’s eye, but she seems determined to look everywhere except Jamie. “You want my jacket?”

“I told you I’m not cold.”

“Right, ‘course not. Just positively shivering from excitement, then, are you?”

“Mhm.”

“No need to be brave on my account, Poppins, I won’t tell the world your secret.”

“And what secret is that?” Dani’s hands are tucked into her sides.

“That Dani Clayton, certified Midwesterner, can’t hash a brisk Vermont evening.” Her voice drops to a whisper, “Isn’t even snowing.”

“Hey,” Dani protests.

“Just take my jacket.”

“I’m fine.”

“Poppins.” Her tone is playful, a warning disguised as a tease.

Dani’s sighs. “Fine.”

“Ah, that’s a girl.” Jamie shrugs out of her top layer, draping it delicately over Dani’s shoulders. “Come on, then, can’t have you turning to ice on my watch.”

“You said something earlier about the proper way to warm up at home…”

“Was talking ‘bout a good cuppa,” Jamie smirks, “Why? D’you think of something else?”

Dani grumbles. “Tease.”

“Mhm,” Jamie murmurs, pressing her cold nose to Dani’s neck the instant they were out of sight, causing a squeal. “You like it.”

“Shut up.”

[fetch-theboltcutters]

life is a performance art

Quotes from:  The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s' Most Decadent College  (read this if you have the time, it’s absolutely fascinating)

JONATHAN LETHEM: There was the sense that people were playing dress-up, faking it until it became real. I saw the classics clique crossing Commons dressed up like they were at Oxford and I thought, Oh, that’s what you’re making yourself into.

MAURA SPIEGEL: The students at Bennington weren’t driven by grades, but there was a weird rigor. You had this feeling that life was performance art, that everybody was living in his or her fantasy.

JONATHAN LETHEM: When I got to Bennington, I had a starry-eyed feeling. People were developing in such eccentric ways, and so many professors were encouraging that so strongly—this kind of willful self-formation. It almost felt like a finishing school for people who wanted to forge an identity so that after graduation they could move to New York and knock the world dead in some artistic venue or other.

-----------------------------

Reading this hit close to my heart, for some reason. Life is a performance art, isn’t it? That phrase inspires me greatly. If life is a performance art, then why not do just that? Rather than drudging on, my goal from here on out is to give my greatest performance of all time, beginning today.

[shamandrummer]

Milford Graves, Visionary Drummer, Dead At 79

Drummer, scientist, educator and improviser Milford Graves died in his Queens, N.Y. home around 3 p.m. on Fri., Feb. 12. He was 79. Lois, his wife of sixty-one years, confirmed that the cause was congestive heart failure. Mr. Graves was surrounded by Lois, his five children (four daughters and a son), his beloved granddaughter, Tatiana, and a cross-section of students across generations who had bestowed him with the honorific "Professor," a nod to his guidance in music, botany, martial arts and metaphysics.

Milford Graves was Professor Emeritus of Music at Bennington College in Vermont, where he taught the power and aesthetic of Black Music as a faculty member from 1973-2012. He used his platform there to express his many ideas, most well beyond the confines of the performance stage, operating instead as a kind of shamanic artist and teacher, whose emotional and intellectual connection to traditional music he fused with scientific inquiry and study.

Graves graduated from the Eastern School for Physicians' Aids in the 1960s, and worked in a diagnostic veterinary lab for two years. He purchased an album of stethoscopic heart recordings during a lunch break in 1973, and its content led him to pursue the path of his life's work: He began to record heartbeats and transcribe them into music notation. What started as a rudimentary documentation on reel-to-reel tape increased in sophistication with the adoption of advanced computing technology, culminating in Mr. Graves's use of algorithms to create visualizations and sound data that plotted the human heartbeat and its varied electrical states for the purpose of healing. His discoveries led to a patent for preparing non-embryonic stem cells from a tissue derivative, subjecting those cells to vibrations from a heart sound to control the degree of differentiation into several other types of cells. He once said, "Drumming should be taught in medical school. Know your beats. There are subtleties in the heartbeat that cannot be picked up through electronic imaging," and his scientific rigor on heart rates informed a non-linear approach to playing rhythm.

Graves was a prominent jazz drummer and percussionist from the 1960s New York avant-garde and free-jazz movements. New York City in the 1960s was an artistic cauldron, and the ideas of freedom and struggle coursing through the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements began to manifest in an expansive view of improvisation and music-making. The avant-garde, or New Thing, loosened certain strictures and gave improvisers like Graves an opportunity for wide-open self expression, and even established artists like Coltrane seemed to be drawing from the same creative well. "Milford played how he felt music should sound related to what was around him," says longtime friend and collaborator, drummer and composer Andrew Cyrille. The music felt like a departure from tradition, and some writers derided the striking new music with withering criticism. Meanwhile, Graves was transforming the role of the drums. He viewed his holistic approach to drums as an extension of how he lived with "outside forces having less control of you, allowing you to have more flexibility, more freedom and listening to the vibrations of the earth, that nature gave you."

Graves also began exploring martial arts in the late 1960s. He created a new form called Yara, from the Yoruban word meaning "nimble." He followed a teacher's interest in the praying mantis as a model. He subsequently bought and released these insects into his own garden, followed their movements and developed his own martial arts study based on their natural behavior. This inspired the title of a 2018 documentary on Graves, Full Mantis.

When his grandmother died, in 1970, Graves moved into her modest 20th-century home at the corner of Brinkerhoff  Avenue and 156th Street in Queens, just blocks from the South Jamaica Houses he once called home. He personalized the lot and dwelling with a distinctive flair, adding stone and ceramic architectural elements to the exterior structure in a playful style akin to Antonio Gaudi. He created an organic garden to promote healing arts and added a dojo to teach Yara. Inside there's murals, sculptures and drums from around the world; a downstairs laboratory includes dried herbs and botany research, elixirs, Eastern medicine texts and acupuncture practice juxtaposed with electrocardiogram machines and computer monitors. And books. Lots of books. Graves was a generous polymath who openly shared his knowledge.

Mark Christman, artistic director of Ars Nova Workshop, has been measuring and curating aspects of Graves' immense contribution to music, science, botany and martial arts over the last several years. The collection spent four months at Philadelphia's Institute for Contemporary Art, with a five-week pause due to pandemic restrictions. The exhibit, A Mind-Body Deal, drew more than 2,000 attendees and over 5,000 participants to its many virtual events, including a solo performance from Moran. "Milford Graves offers a perspective that isn't limited by the way we've been forced to learn," says Christman. "That linear way of study doesn't allow a mixture or mash-up of thoughts and decision-making. That's why he's adored, and people looked to him for answers."

To learn more about Milford Graves, read “Taking Rhythm to Heart.”

[onestowatch]

Lollapalooza 2021: 15 Ones to Catch (Who Aren’t Headlining)

Lollapalooza is officially one week away, and wow does that feel good to say. As one of the first music festivals to welcome us back to festival season after a far too long hibernation, the annual festival, hosted at Grant Park in Chicago, Illinois, is set to bring the musical stylings of Tyler, the Creator, Miley Cyrus, Foo Fighters, Megan Thee Stallion, and plenty more. But, unless you’ve been living under a rock, chances are that you’re already more than familiar with the artists set to headline. So why not figure out who to see while you’re waiting to scream along to Call Me If You Get Lost.

From collectives who are moving beyond the need for genres to music that is just as likely to make you cry as it is laugh, these are 15 ones to catch (who aren’t headlining) at Lollapalooza 2021.

Peach Tree Rascals

When & Where: Sunday, 2 p.m. at Bud Light Seltzer Stage

Peach Tree Rascals’ Lollapalooza set has been a very, very long time coming. The Bay Area–bred collective has been steadily making waves with their genre-bending approach to indie-pop that calls to mind a more idyllic, lovesick BROCKHAMPTON (an act you should most definitely catch as well). And despite emerging a growing fan-favorite in the last couple years, the aforementioned rascals have yet to play a show, ever. With a headline tour that was canceled due to COVID, Lollapalooza will officially be making history as the first-ever Peach Tree Rascals set.

Tate McRae

When & Where: Saturday, 5:15 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

Tate McRae’s rise through the pop stratosphere has felt meteoric. First gaining fame at the young age of 13 for being the first Canadian finalist on So You Think You Can Dance, McRae has certainly come a long way to stand as one of the most promising voices in pop. With a vocal range more than powerful enough to deliver haunting dark pop ballads like “you broke me first” one moment and stand side-by-side with Khalid on the summer bop “working” the next, there are no two ways about it. McRae is a pop star in the making and this is your chance to catch her before her inevitable headliner status.  

Marc Rebillet

When & Where: Saturday, 9:00 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

Part-time meme and full-time artist, Marc Rebillet creates music with an unmatched comedic timing. It’s a comedic genius that has led to him getting a 24-hour ban on Twitch—for taking his shirt off in the middle of a stream, an act which I’m guessing Lollapalooza will be more than forgiving of giving his penchant for performing in a bathrobe. The self-described improvisational artist creates all his songs from scratch, resulting in an experience where no two live shows are quite the same. Come for the comedy, stay for the absolute dancefloor bangers.

Dayglow

When & Where: Thursday, 3:45 p.m. at Lake Shore Stage

Dayglow is sure to bring a smile to your face and put a pep in your step. Apologies if I sounded like my grandparents there, but there’s no denying the sonic sunshine that is Dayglow’s rapturous brand of indie-pop. Paying homage to the dance-inducing melancholy of ‘80s pop duets, it’s difficult not to get swept up in the Austin, Texas–bred artist’s hypnotic vision. It’s the sort of euphoric music that feels almost tailor-made for the return of festival season—drenched in sunny rays and brimming with infectious sincerity.

Giveon

When & Where: Friday, 4:45 p.m. at T-Mobile Stage

Before his breakout moment on Justin Bieber’s “Peaches,” Giveon was already charting his path for R&B domination. With an angelic and haunting baritone, each R&B rumination carries with it a palpable weight—an emotional turmoil that is only elevated by the minimalistic soundscapes which allow the proper space for his transfixing voice to fully shine. For a crash course on Giveon, check out a compilation of his two standout EPs, When It’s All Said and Done… Take Time. Or better yet, experience the magic of Giveon live.

Ashe

When & Where: Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

Ashe creates effortlessly timeless music, blurring the line between the nostalgic songwriting of Fleetwood Mac and a modern-day folk-pop star. The sentiment is best expressed in her critically-acclaimed debut album, Ashlyn, which demonstrates the Los Angeles artist’s peerless songwriting acumen, toeing the line between rapturous euphoria one moment and deeply affecting storytelling the next. If you need a good laugh or cry, do not miss out on Ashe.

Sir Chloe

When & Where: Sunday, 12:45 p.m. at T-Mobile Stage

Fronted by Dana Foote and comprised of Teddy O’mara on guitar, Palmer Foote on drums, and Austin Holmes on bass, Sir Chloe’s music exists in the nebulous void of haunting dark pop and heart-rending alternative garage rock. The New York–based indie rock band originally started as a college project, birthed in the music halls of Bennington College, and now they’re set to take Lollapalooza by storm. With an impressive debut album, 2020’s Party Favors, under their belt, this set feels only the beginning for the bewitching indie outfit. 

jxdn

When & Where: Sunday, 3 p.m. at Bud Light Seltzer Stage

jxdn is the latest artist to make good on pop-punk’s continued resurgence. The first signing to Travis Barker’s DTA Records, the breakout singer-songwriter has found a fan in not only the blink-182 star but in Machine Gun Kelly, who jxdn is set to tour with this fall and makes an appearance on his debut album, Tell Me About Tomorrow. With an acclaimed debut album in the books and some of pop-punk’s biggest stars behind him, jxdn is sure to deliver a Lollapalooza debut for the ages. 

AG Club

When & Where: Friday, 7:45 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

AG Club, an abbreviation of avant-garde club, is a genre-less music collective that shares a lot in common with fellow Lollapalooza must-see act, Peach Tree Rascals, including a collaborative single. But don’t get things twisted, this Bay Area collective has their own vision in store for you. With a brash, in-your-face attitude, AG Club is likely to draw comparisons to the Saturation era of BROCKHAMPTON and glory days of ASAP Mob, but with their introspective, omnivorous approach, they deftly manage to emerge as an act all their own. If you want to go where the party is, don’t miss AG Club.

Tai Verdes

When & Where: Friday, 1:45 p.m. at Bud Light Seltzer Stage

Where would we be without TikTok? I, for one, would be without my preferred form of short-form entertainment and the world be without the infectious pop-R&B stylings of one Tai Verdes. Originally working at Verizon before his breakout single, “Stuck in the Middle,” became a viral hit on TikTok, Verdes is now one of the most promising and rapidly rising acts in music today. And with his debut album, TV, the viral star proved himself no one-hit-wonder, delivering a collection of tracks that span a range of emotions and genres that we cannot wait to experience live.

Dominic Fike

When & Where: Thursday, 7:45 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

Dominic Fike is a musical chameleon. First breaking out with his unassuming radio hit “3 Nights,” to only jump into the absolute vibe that is the Kenny Beats–assisted “Phone Numbers,” and culminate it all with the genre-spanning debut album, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, Fike is an artist whose limitations seem limitless. It’s a notion that plays out in his breathtaking live show, reworking his hits with an insatiable appetite until they’re songs that exist only in that singular moment. Fike’s is set you will not want to miss.

Oliver Tree

When & Where: Thursday, 9 p.m. at Grubhub Stage

Alternative auteur Oliver Tree is nothing if not unpredictable. Flaunting his signature JNCO jeans and an impressive professional razor scooter pedigree, the inimitable artist delivers on an infectious blend of alternative, electronic, hip-hop, and pop that defies any simplistic classification. And with his debut album, Ugly Is Beautiful, now out in the wild after a much-hyped cancellation and subsequent surprise release, Tree has more than his fair share of music to pull from. Plus, given his penchant for going in and out of retirement like he’s trying to break a record only known to him, it’s probably best not to miss this set.   

RMR

When & Where: Sunday, 2:45 p.m. at Tito’s Handmade Vodka Stage

RMR originally made headlines with his breakout single, “RASCAL,” a transfixing country trap ballad that saw the rapper donning a black balaclava and Saint Laurent bulletproof vest while rapping over an interpolation of Rascal Flatts’ “Bless The Broken Road.” Since then, the anonymous rapper has been spotted hitting the town with Sharon Stone and embracing his penchant for melodic trap in the Westside Gunn, Future, Lil Baby, and Young Thung–loaded Drug Dealing Is a Lost Art. Existing at the fusion of trap country and melodic rap, RMR’s Lolla set is one you’re not likely to forget anytime soon.

Chiiild

When & Where: Sunday, 12:00 p.m. at Lake Shore Stage

Nostalgic and novel, Chiiild’s self-described brand of “synthetic soul” is nothing short of intoxicating. Setting its own sauntering pace, Chiiild’s unique take on R&B and soul takes on a cosmic energy, as if floating through a wormhole with nothing but a single cassette deck on hand. It’s a testament to the Canadian band’s all-encompassing approach that draws upon not just R&B and soul but psychedelia, jazz, indie, and pop to craft a sound that is all their own. Take a trip on Sunday, and meet us at Chiiild.

All Time Low

When & Where: Thursday, 6 p.m. at Tito’s Handmade Vodka Stage

Because teenage you wasn’t old enough to convince your parents to let you see All Time Low the first time “Dear Maria, Count Me In” was trending.

[sagehaleyofficial]

HERE’S WHAT YOU MISSED THIS WEEK (4.15-4.21.20):

NEW MUSIC:

Machine Gun Kelly has continued to drop daily cover videos in his isolation, which has now expanded into freestyle raps. His newest song, “In These Walls,” samples PVRIS’ “My House” with Lynn Gunn’s vocal melody overtop the track.

A Day to Remember released the third single off their upcoming album You’re Welcome, along with a new music video, titled “Mindreader.” Fans received prior confirmation that new music would be arriving before the album’s release.

Asking Alexandria released a new single from their upcoming record Like a House on Fire titled “Down to Hell.” The band is once again recording with producer Matt Good, who also produced their self-titled record.

Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz dropped a new song called “Check Your Phone” with another project named Cheap Cuts. Along with the song’s debut, Wentz is also giving a new interview with Zane Lowe of Apple Music.

After 5 Seconds of Summer announced the song “Wildflower” as the final single from their album C A L M, fans now have a music video. The video, which was filmed at each band member’s respective homes, was directed by Andy DeLuca.

After a teaser posted on April 14, Angels & Airwaves finally released a new song titled “All That’s Left is Love.” Frontman Tom DeLonge spoke with Zane Lowe, stating that all of the proceeds would go directly toward Feeding America.

The Used have gifted fans two singles titled “Cathedral Bell” and “Obvious Blasé,” off their upcoming album Heartwork. The former video stars a strangely animated figure while the latter features the use of fan-made tarot cards.

Rapper Iann Dior dropped a new collaboration with Machine Gun Kelly and Blink-182’s Travis Barker titled ”Sick and Tired.” The video shows the musicians each trapped and dealing with their respective issues before joining forces.

The Maine’s John O’Callaghan revisited his side-project, John the Ghost, for a new single titled “Rolled Down Window.” The song marks the first music from the project since the 2016 album, Sincerely, John the Ghost.

Frank Iero and the Future Violents dropped a new video for the song “Medicine Square Garden.” The video is the last song off of their most recent studio album, Barriers.

TOUR ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Due to the global coronavirus pandemic, the 320 Festival will now be held online. The nonprofit event, founded by Kevin Lyman and Talinda Bennington, is partnering with KNEKT.TV to have the event streamed via the internet on May 8-10.

YUNGBLUD has created a new web series titled THE YUNGBLUD SHOW LIVE. He recently performed a new cover of Sublime‘s “What I Got” with frequent collaborators Machine Gun Kelly and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker.

What would have been My Chemical Romance‘s first show since their December reunion has now been postponed, possibly until next year. The Eden Project show in Cornwall, England, was first announced on February 12.

For the first time in 50 years, San Diego Comic Con has been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Fans and organizers alike had long hoped that the pop culture event would take place as originally planned.

Ash Costello of New Years Day and Matt Montgomery of Rob Zombie, also known as the side project the Haxans, announced their first ever tour dates. The duo will be hitting the road with Wednesday 13 and Dead Girls Academy in August.

After the tragic passing of Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger over complications related to coronavirus, the band are reuniting for a benefit show during a live stream fundraiser event. The band will be joined by Sharon Van Etten.

OTHER NEWS:

For the new Quarantine Coloring Book project, My Chemical Romance guitarist Ray Toro turned one of his own photographs into line art for the book. Featured in the drawing is a tin of Nestle’s hot chocolate and a bread tin.

Bring Me the Horizon announced they are auctioning off the guitar from their “Ludens” music video, with proceeds going towards NHS frontline workers through Help Our NHS. The guitar’s design was inspired by the video game Death Stranding.

Jimmy Webb, beloved stylist and buyer at New York’s Trash and Vaudeville and more recently owner of another shop called I NEED MORE, passed away. It was known he was battling cancer, and many punk icons have since paid their respects.

The Used’s Bert McCracken has taken his marijuana advocacy to a new level by partnering with Five Star Extracts to launch a line of products. The first item is a tincture called “The Taste of Peach,” a parody of the band’s song “The Taste of Ink.”

Twenty One Pilots’ Josh Dun has once again partnered with SJC Custom Drums to release a custom-designed crowd snare. Covered by an acrylic shell that is the signature yellow from the band’s album Trench, it also features flat black hardware.

Dr. Martens revealed a line of boots in their 1460 collection with a brand new color scheme. The British footwear company announced it is releasing boots in bright pink, orange, yellow and white.

My Chemical Romance are fundraising for MusiCares‘ COVID-19 relief fund with their “desert screening” masks. The masks were made as a tribute to their friend and manager Lauren Valencia, who passed away prior to the pandemic.

___

Check in next Tuesday for more “Posi Talk with Sage Haley,” only at @sagehaleyofficial!

[lucythompson]

┈ 🎕 LUCY HOANG THOMPSON

[ Under the cut, you’ll find a summarized version of Lucy’s bio !! If by any chance you’d like to read through my 9 page monstrosity of a bio, you’ll find it here !! ]

( lana condor, cis female, she/her). hey, isn’t that [ LUCY THOMPSON ] walking down bennington street? i think the [ 25 ] YEAR OLD [ UP AND COMING ACTRESS ] is from [ WAITSFIELD, VERMONT ]. i’ve heard some rumors down at mon’s, saying that they're [ VAIN AND SELFISH ], but then again they’re known to be [ CHARISMATIC AND PASSIONATE ].  either way, they seem to be interesting, hope they’ll stick around.

Lucy was born in small town Waitsfield, Vermont. Her parents, Dahlia and Logan, were the owner of the state renowned Thompson Farms. It's a popular destination for weddings, parties, and vacation getaways. Their vast property had everything - rustic themed rooms, heated pools, gazebos, a small scale whiskey distillery, vegetable patches in the spring, and ski slopes in the winter. For the first eighteen years of her life, Waitsfield was all that she knew and lived for. She was the town sweetheart, beloved by the residents for her easy involvement in the town’s activities.

In high school, she auditioned for a role in the school play. She got the role and the rest was history. She fell in love with the buzz of having the audience’s eyes on her as she learned to command the stage and eventually the very ground she walked upon. She knew all the little tics that made people look her way - tossing her hair over her shoulder, casually tilting her head at the right angle, warm smiles given at exactly the right moment. People never called her vain, they chalked it up to charisma. Lucy knew better, though. She knew she was looking for affirmation elsewhere since her parents gave them too far in between. She’d never once felt unloved. But would it really kill them to go home early from work? After all, their house was only a few yards from their office. 

She was often asked to star in advertisements for the town’s businesses and even got calls if she could voice over their radio ads. That coupled with her last gigs in the theater club, cheering almost every week for season games in every sport, and AP class finals, made her lose track of time during her senior year. She hurriedly filled in her college applications and had them sent in the mail. A letter came in the mail exactly a month before graduation. She got accepted into the collaborative arts program. While it wasn’t her parents’ first choice (they’d rather she go in business or finance), they supported her nonetheless since she's the first in their family to go to university.

The program she enrolled in was rigorous - dance, theater, music, filmmaking, directing, and writing - yet she loved it. She quickly climbed the ranks and was soon widely known throughout the arts department. She even launched her own YouTube channel where she documented her university experience as well as doled out the occasional acting tip. What’s garnered her 200,000+ subscriber count, however, were the numerous skits she’d film, direct, and act in. It started out as a project for their filmmaking class but she’s fallen in love ever since. Her hope kept rising in tune with her subscriber count. She feels like this could really make her visible in the entertainment industry. The perks aren’t too shabby either - she could pay rent, got sponsorships, and even scored the occasional brand partnership.

After her first year university, she decided to do some “soul searching”. What better place to do it than Europe? Her YouTube income coupled with her parent’s fat checks made her stay in over 15 Schengen states possible. Unbeknownst to many (besides her closest friends), she’d been performing all across Italy. These shows weren’t big at all. They were usually performed in parks or town squares for the general public. She did this for a few weeks until she moved onto the next country. 90 days came and went faster than she expected. She produced two skits and a short film while she was touring. However, reality came knocking on her door and decided that it was time for her to fly home and complete her undergrad.

Graduation came all too quickly  and she still hadn’t managed to score any major acting gigs. She graduated summa cum laude from her degree but other than her diploma, her hands were empty. After that, Lucy moved into an apartment downtown with her best friends. She kept at it with her YouTube channel and was now at almost 500,000 subscribers. The only few odd jobs she’d taken was to be the voice for a couple audiobooks of recently released bestsellers and the freelance designs she’d make for budding businesses Lucy began to feel scared that she was just destined for mediocrity now that she was out of university. 

Hope planted another seed in her when she passed through two screenings to a new Netflix romcom. They had been looking for a “girl next door” type and Lucy had easily stepped into that role. She’s been on her toes waiting for any announcements on the matter. She might be stoked but she’s also extremely fearful. Sure, she could try again but that would land like another punch to the gut. Her income on YouTube combined with her parents’ monthly checks was more than enough to keep her comfortable. However, she worried if another heartbreak would make her lose inspiration from putting out quality content.She was terrified thinking if she wasted four years of her life just to pack up and go home.

Headcanons:

Lucy’s definitely the type to wear sundresses until it gets too unbearably cold to keep it up.

She’s very particular about her coffee (thank god ginger’s makes it good. Which leads to the fact that she barely sleeps at all. Two glasses of wine could make her feel mellow enough to relax for the night but it isn’t until she hits the harder liquor that she can fall into a dreamless sleep. 

She isn’t particular at all about the alcohol she consumes. Whatever helps her sleep at night is good enough.

She wants a bearded dragon so bad, maybe she’ll get one.

She’s quite into fitness so whenever she has free time, she’d hit the gym a few buildings down from their apartment. You could even catch her there close to midnight “blowing off some steam”, as she likes to call it.

She really wants to learn Asian languages so she’s starting with Vietnamese. She can speak and read like a third grader so she has weekly conversations with her mom to practice. 

Lucy sleeps on the very edge of the bed. She’s fallen off, oh - 5 times the past month but that doesn’t stop her from falling back asleep on the floor

She keeps a rubbermaid of snacks in her closet. She love giving people snacks but DO NOT TAKE THEM WITHOUT HER KNOWING - because she’ll know (she probably counts them).

Has a car but never uses it (Is it even working though?)

[eucanthos]

Jean Erdman   (1916 - 2020)

Her first solo, The Transformations of Medusa, premiered at the Bennington College's Summer Festival of the Arts in 1942, began as a class assignment for Louis Horst (Martha Graham's musical director). The final version, with a commissioned score by Horst, remained in her repertory through the 1990s. Erdman's performance of this dance was the subject of Maya Deren's unfinished 1949 film, Medusa.

Erdman described the year long evolution of the piece as the process through which she came to understand that every posture contains "a whole state of being or attitude toward life." 

The dance evolved as she improvised. It was Campbell who identified the dance character in the first short study as Medusa. Erdman developed the second and third sections following the development of the mythological archetype.

In 1943, at the urging of Campbell and composer, John Cage, Erdman and fellow Graham Company member, Merce Cunningham, presented a joint concert sponsored by the Arts Club of Chicago. - wiki

Jean Erdman [...] touched, influenced and transformed 20th century consciousness of myth and culture in modern dance - Joseph Campbell Foundation

To decapitate = to castrate [Sigmund Freud's 1940 "Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head) interpretation]

The Coach with the Six Insides, 1962. Jean Erdman directed her adaptation of James Joyce (music by Teiji Ito). Village South Theatre NY.

photo (edited) source: University of Hawai’i Manoa - Oldest Celebrities blog

[larryland]

Bennington Community Theater Announces Auditions for Broadway-style Musical Revue Bennington Community Theater invites singer/actors to audition for a Broadway-style musical revue conceived and directed by D.

[spookyspemilyreid]

Happy Anniversary “Meteora”! (March 25, 2003)❤️

Meteora is the second studio album by American rock band Linkin Park. It was released on March 25, 2003 through Warner Bros. Records, following Reanimation, a collaboration album which featured remixes of songs included on their 2000 debut studio album Hybrid Theory. The album was produced by the band alongside Don Gilmore. The title Meteora is taken from the Greek Orthodox monasteries sharing the same name. Meteora has a similar sound to Hybrid Theory, as described by critics, and the album took almost a year to be recorded. It is the first Linkin Park studio album to feature Dave Farrell after he rejoined the band in 2000.

Meteora debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling over 810,000 copies in its first week. Linkin Park released singles from Meteora for over a year, including "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", "From the Inside", and "Breaking the Habit". The song "Lying from You" was released as a promotional single. Meteora received generally positive reviews, although critics noted that the album's musical style was similar to its predecessor Hybrid Theory .

Meteora has sold over 27 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. It is certified 7x Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It was ranked number 36 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums of the 2000s. Some songs from the album were remixed with some of Jay-Z's songs for the EP Collision Course (2004). "Session" was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 46th Grammy Awards.

Initial writing for a second album dated back to early 2001, while still touring in support of Hybrid Theory. The band had written around eighty different demos during their Hybrid Theory World Tour and LP Underground Tour, within the span of just eight months. Rough song ideas written then would find its way to the final album; notably the intro for "Somewhere I Belong". Bennington recorded guitar notes for it, but found it too folk rock sounding. However, Shinoda and Joe Hahn reworked it, adding effects to it, and then played it backwards, molding it into something the band was happy with. As explained by Shinoda: "Since I reversed it, it was playing 4-3-2-1. The chord progression was reversed. Then I cut it into four pieces, and I played it 1-2-3-4. And that's why it has that sweeping sound.

In early 2002, after the touring, the writing continued in Mike's home studio, pre-production of the album began there. The band worked in pairs during the writing process, whereas Shinoda was always involved in all the songs. The recording of the songs mainly used Pro Tools, whereas the band used the traditional method of writing, in main studio. In June, pre-production terminated and the band headed for main production. The band finalized Don Gilmore as their producer. When Reanimation was released, the band had started to write the main content. Rob Bourdon spent eight hours a day in the studio for the recording of the album. By August, the band entered NRG Studios as Bennington also began writing songs with the band.

Linkin Park had finished versions of many songs before the actual recording process had begun, but they majorly wrote the finalized songs included in the track list in the studio. By October the drums were finalized and guitar parts were introduced by Brad in the control room of the studio. By the end of October, the bass parts were introduced. Don Gilmore himself being a bass player helped Farrell in his recording. The sampling part by Hahn was introduced just a month before the deadline, thereby Mike finished the recording of "Breaking the Habit" with strings arrangement by David Campbell; the song had been worked on by Shinoda for five or six years. The vocal production started in November. The mixing process as well as the album itself was finished in New York City.

Lyrically the album contains elements including depressing emotions, anger, and recovery. Explaining to MTV, Bennington said: "We don't talk about situations, we talk about the emotions behind the situations. Mike and I are two different people, so we can't sing about the same things, but we both know about frustration and anger and loneliness and love and happiness, and we can relate on that level." In the same interview, Shinoda explained it as: "What we really wanted to do was just push ourselves and push each other to really find new ways to be creative." He continued: "We wanted each sample that was in each song to be something that might perk your ear – something that you might not have ever heard before." In a promotional interview, Rob Bourdon stated: "We wanted a group of songs that would sit well together because we wanted to make a record that you could pop into your CD player and, from beginning to end, there would never be a spot where you start daydreaming." In titling the album, Mike said that "Meteora was a word that caught my attention because it sounded huge." Dave, Joe, and Chester elaborated that just like how Meteora, the rock formations in Greece, is very epic, dramatic, and has great energy, the band wanted the album to have that same feeling.

Genre-wise, the album is categorized as nu metal, rap metal, rap rock, and alternative rock.

The promotion for the album began well ahead before its release, as pictures of the band recording were distributed to the media. To support the album, there were many photo shoots of the band on October 29 at the Ambassador Hotel, where the band took a break from recording the album for two days, for designing the cover art of the album. "The Flem" and "Delta" helped the band for the art works, for the album as well as for the singles spawned by it. A TV commercial for the album was premiered on January 1, 2003. "Somewhere I Belong" was released as the first single, premiering on US radio on March 18, 2003. Being released only nine days before the album release, it influenced the album sales performance worldwide. The second single off the album was "Faint", released before the band started its world tour. The third single "Numb" was released when Linkin Park performed it live in Madrid. "From the Inside" was released as the fourth single off the album before the North American leg of the world tour. "Breaking the Habit" was released while the band was in Indonesia. The album was released with various limited edition content for promotional purposes.

There is a special edition of Meteora, which includes the "Making of Meteora" DVD documentary. The special-edition package was packaged in a blue tinted case with the blue Meteora cover that can be found in some parts of Asia, United States, and more commonly in India. An alternate Indian version contains an alternate DVD and alternative cover that is packaged in a slimline case with the disc in original packaging. The "Tour Edition" of Meteora is packaged in a two disc set. The second disc, which is a Video CD, has the music videos for "Somewhere I Belong", "Faint", "Numb", and "Breaking the Habit". The tour edition is packaged in a standard Compact Disc case, rather than their trademark digipak case. The album was also released on a very limited quantity of vinyl records (spread across two LPs) under Warner Brothers. These are coveted by collectors and fetch high prices at auction. In 2014, Linkin Park released a demo version of Shinoda singing the song, on their 14th annual fan club CD, LPU XIV. 

The band promoted the album with their Meteora World Tour and various other supporting tours. The world tour was supported by Hoobastank, P.O.D. and Story of the Year. The band played shows at Pellissier Building and Wiltern Theatre on the day before the album release and on the release date. The shows were called "'Meteora' Release Show". The European leg was cancelled because Chester was having severe back and abdominal pains. As a result, half of the music video of "Numb" was shot in Los Angeles and the Czech Republic. The album was also promoted by the Projekt Revolution festival. A live album was released in support of the album titled Live in Texas. Linkin Park played various special shows worldwide, including "Reading Ireland", as well as performing during the Kerrang! Awards, "Livid", "X-103's Not So Silent Night", "The End's Deck The Hall Ball" and "KROQ Almost Acoustic X-Mas", in promotion of the album.

Meteora received generally positive reviews, although critics noted that the album's musical style was similar to its predecessor, Hybrid Theory (2000). The overall Metacritic score is 62. E! Online rated it A, and expected it to "shoot straight for the stars". Entertainment Weekly described it as "radio-friendly perfection". Dot Music described it as a "guaranteed source of ubiquitous radio hits". Rolling Stone said the band "squeezed the last remaining life out of this nearly extinct formula". Billboard Magazine described Meteora as "a ready-made crowdpleaser". The New Musical Express said it had "massive commercial appeal" but left the reviewer "underwhelmed". 

AllMusic described the album as "nothing more and nothing less than a Hybrid Theory part 2.", but added that the band "has discipline and editing skills, keeping this record at a tight 36 minutes and 41 seconds, a move that makes it considerably more listenable than its peers... since they know where to focus their energy, something that many nu-metal bands simply do not." Sputnikmusic writer Damrod criticized the album as being too similar to Hybrid Theory, but praised the album's production quality and catchiness, stating "the songs just invade your brain".  

Blender described it as "harder, denser, uglier", while Q described it as "less an artistic endeavor than an exercise in target marketing." Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B+, calling it a "thunderously hooky album that seamlessly blends the group's disparate sonic elements into radio-friendly perfection".  

The song "Session" was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 2004.

In its first week, Meteora debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. The album sold at least 810,000 copies its first week of release. As of June 2014, the album has sold 6.2 million copies in the US, and over 27 million copies worldwide. The album was ranked number 36 on Billboard's Hot 200 Albums of the Decade.