#Its always fun to write from Joan’s perspective

[morganbritton132]

It be so funny if they took Joan to soccer game and put her either in the team colour or a cheerleading outfit.

Great minds think alike because I was just thinking that we having checked in with Joan in a while so this problem is perfect.

Every Saturday for over a month now, Joan has watched the humans and Ozzy leave the house in the morning and come back hours later loud, smelly, and energized. She does not have a problem with this per se but if she had eyebrows, she’d raise one of them. She would raise the other when they’re all too tired to play with her for too long after they come back.

So, Joan makes a decision.

When the next Saturday rolls around and Steve is digging around in the drier for his jersey, she makes her case known. She whines. She meows. She gets in the way of every step. She commits a drive-by biting. She even gets in the storage closet in the hallway and knocks over the dreaded cat stroller so it falls into the hallway.

She makes it very clear. She wants to go.

Eddie coos at her, “Awe, baby, she feels left out. Let’s take her.”

“Ed, it’s hot outside,” Steve replies, gesturing to Joan. She rubs her head against his leg. “She’s gray.”

“Steve, don’t be racist.”

“I’m not being – how is that –“ Steve sputters and then rambles on about tiny bodies, and fur, and overheating in the sun, but Joan already knows she got her way. Steve can’t say no to Eddie and he can’t say no to her either. Plus, she always gets her way.

Her way is the right way.

Steve sighs and gives in, “But if she gets too hot, you have to take her home.”

As a reward for Steve and Eddie’s good decision-making, Joan helps them get ready to leave. She wiggles her way into the cabinet with the first-aid kit and pulls out bandaids. She leaves them inside Steve’s cleats. He says thank you when he finds them.

Ozzy huffs from where he’s laying in his dog bed.

Joan purrs when Steve pets her head.

Since Eddie disappeared down into his studio the moment Steve agreed to let her come, Joan continues ‘helping Steve.’ Mainly, she cleans up (eats) all the scraps of lunchmeat he drops when making sandwiches for him, Eddie, Robin, and Nancy.

Eddie immerges from the studio ten minutes before they’re supposed to leave with a hastily sewed shirt made for a cat. It’s made out of the soft material of the cheer squad t-shirts he made for the other team members’ partners. He presents it first to Steve and then holds it out to Joan like, “Ta-dah.”

Joan sniffs the fabric – it smells like Eddie – and Steve is just like, “Why did you make that?”

“Because Joan’s got to represent, Stevie. We’re a jock family now and jocks wear their team colors,” Eddie insists, grin getting bigger when Steve rolls his eyes at him. “Everybody else is wearing team colors. Even Ozzy. See.”

He gestures to the pin attached to his yellow service dog vest that says ‘#1 Steve Harrington Defender.’ It’s right next to a patch that says ‘If You Pet Me, You Are A Part Of The Problem’ which is… “That’s new.”

“Yeah, I’m solving all the world’s problems today, baby,” He grins. “Isn’t that right, Joan?”

She hisses at the shirt.

[upheavalofmemory]

PAC | Your Love Story in Song

Someone who received a reading from me once said that I tend to write scenarios as if I'm writing a whole fanfic. While I'm not a fanfic writer, I do love writing so... This pick-a-card is about your future love story based on songs!

This can apply to your future spouse, for your future partner, etc, although it is intended to be the most impactful relationship you have. I will be using shufflemancy and intuition, plus there is a bonus moodboard/image section!

♢ There are three piles to choose from, all are CDs with writing on them/quotes. Pile one is "Songs to listen to when you're in love", pile two is "You're the only thing in life that I got right", and pile three is "Everything I could never tell you." ♢

Pile One ♢ "Songs to listen to when you're in love"

Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun

C'mon - Single Version by Panic! At The Disco & fun.

Capsize by FRENSHIP & Emily Warren

A heaviness. Two people who refuse to believe that they're in love, but rather continue to wallow in their own problems until they realize that there was someone there all along. Youth. They both take baby steps until they realize that someone has been there alongside them the whole time and together they bring themselves up. Unfortunately, the highs are high and the lows are low, and sometimes it leads to explosive fights, crying, and the neverending cycle of breakups.

It's blue. It's in the dark, two lovers holding hands as you both sob over the destruction you have caused together. You both think to yourselves "Maybe this is why we are meant to be?" A combination of hail and rain, the worst thunderstorms, and the brightest sunny days after them, but mostly because you know that others would not be able to handle your violence (not literal).

On the worst days, you almost melt into each other. On the best days, you blend and ebb with each other's flows. There is no fear in either of your depths. They can get terrifying, yes, and from an outside perspective it can be seen as a toxic, violent cycle, but it is far from the truth. It's bittersweet, it's growth, it's pulling out hair like pulling weeds and sharpening knives to cut out rotten flesh. It's painful, yes, but it's the most invigorating ride you both have ever been on, and it's the most growth you've ever had. You trigger each other in the best and worst way possible.

It's pain and ascension. Growing your wings, pulling out the flightless feathers. Scratching away dead scales, shedding and spitting up venom. Like an animal learning how to breathe again. Poetic misery.

Pile Two ♢ You're the only thing in life that I got right."

Nineteen by Dylan

Joan of Arc by Arcade Fire

Stop Making This Hurt by Bleachers

Good morning kisses and back hugs. Shared memories and shared coffee mugs, cuddles, and long movie marathons, but something is changing.

The love you shared is changing. Neither of you has gotten this far, you have no idea how to react. The passionate morning kisses become awkward side steps, the cuddles become awkward and suddenly you hate the color of the walls. You still love them, yes of course, but it's changing it's hue. Your chameleon lover is changing its colors and you haven't adjusted to the change in saturation. The giddiness goes away and becomes...comfortable. You fear that the passion is gone, you've never felt this way before. You're afraid they'll leave you.

You both lay on the duvet, staring above at the ceiling fan. Suddenly, you're both older. "How did we get here? Where has the time gone?" You both look at each other with a somewhat sad, but tender smile. The love hasn't gone away, it's just changed forms, and you're finally adjusted to the slower love you always deserved. You kiss, it's awkward and cheeky, but it brings a warmness to your body you've never felt before, a warmness you want to keep forever, and so you both do.

BONUS: While looking for images, Boreas by the Oh Hellos was playing in my head, it definitely matches the warm energy of this pile.

Pile Three ♢ "Everything I could never tell you"

East of Eden by Zella Day

Oh No! by MARINA

Mine Forever by Lord Huron

It was a hook-up, it was a fling. You never pictured that you'd actually love your goofy lover. You couldn't imagine them being serious about anyone until one night you looked into their eyes and realized it wasn't lust. Out of fear, you left, and you were terrified.

This wasn't the type of person you would bring home to your family, but rather show off to your friends and your Instagram stories, but now things are changing. They aren't the person you expected to be, and you're slowly falling in love with their dopey smile and messy hair. "Nothing can get better than this," they say with a smile, and fall asleep in your arms. You feel the same way and it scares you.

You run from it, you ghost them and break their heart just for a moment until you look at yourself in the mirror and see the person you've never wanted to become. You take off your mask and realize you're just a scared child who never knew you were worthy of love or desired love. You put in the work, you change your face, and break your old mask.

You show up to their house to apologize and try to start fresh again, and whether or not they accept your apology is up to them, but you'll never forget them regardless.

Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to check out my masterpost with more readings, or you can support me by purchasing a reading by clicking here. Thanks for the support, let me know which pile you picked and if it resonated or not :)!

[scifimagpie]

In Celebration of the Mary Sue

When you hear the term "Mary Sue," which originated in Star Trek fan zines to call out a particular type of wish-fulfillment writing, you might have a variety of ideas. Some of them might be vague assocations - "isn't that a thing from that movie?" - or, if you're an Extremely Online person like myself, you might break out in compulsive shuddering and hives at the mere utterance of the phrase. 

But now that people have broken down the inherent sexism in the concept of the Mary Sue, to the extent that its creators have renounced its creation, we may have hit a point where we can just consider the Sue in isolation - and not only offer ways to accept and write around the wish-fulfillment character, but appreciate her for what she is: an often goofy fantasy that may help people process their powerlessness in real life and real trauma, offer escape from the weight of reality, or both. 

Who is Mary Sue? 

For an overview of this long-spanning trend and a glimpse of this essay's inspiration, this video is absolutely mandatory. For those who don't like Youtube, or just don't want to stop reading, the Sue is a personification of a criticism of a couple of writing problems. They're often conflated together, but they should actually be teased apart - despite how often they co-occur. A Sue is, 

Mar·y Sue

noun

noun: Mary Sue; plural noun: Mary Sues

(originally in fan fiction) a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses."she was not a ‘strong woman’ so much as an insufferable Mary Sue"

Even the Oxford Dictionary's definition showcases the inherent special-case pleading and sexism applied to Sues. The original argument against Sues went thusly: 

1) Sues are badly written (inherently) because they 

2) Warp the plot, setting, and characters' actions around themselves; 

3) Have an unrealistic number of positive traits,

4) A corresponding deficit of actual negative traits (with the exception of tropey or common flaws that may or may not be actual flaws, such as "being too beloved") 

5) Get too much focus and attention in the story, 

6) Don't have to pay the price for their successes,

And 7), which often goes unspoken, "have wish fulfillment girl cooties all over them in some indefinably repulsive way." 

Now, I went through my own "anti-Sue" phase as a teenager and young adult; I used the Mary Sue Litmus to "make sure characters were balanced and well-written" as much as anyone. But now that I'm old, tired, and much more experienced as a writer, my perspective on this has changed drastically. 

And part of the reason for that is simply that I watched a show with an honest-to-god Mary Sue character, and it was great fun. 

The Chilling Adventures of Mary Sue 

Netflix's Riverdale and Sabrina have both had their moments, but despite being an avid fan of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch back in its Melissa Joan Hart era (when Disney Adventure Magazine advised copying her look by wearing an "earthy choker", a phrase that confuses me to this day) I had held off on watching either series. For one thing, the Archie comics series' lack of character development in its original form struck me as a type of perpetual purgatory worthy of The Good Place' s original demon pits. 

(As always, I'm late to the party, but Russian Doll and The Good Place are every bit as good as people have been saying they were. Give them a watch, or a rewatch, for some delectable afterlife paperwork tropes, fascinating philosophy, and heartfelt existentialism.) 

Being sick with COVID, as I mentioned in my last post, made this an ideal opportunity to catch up on some TV. I was in for quite a surprise with Sabrina. 

The magically-talented girlboss skips and bounces over third and fourth-wave feminist issues while literally and figuratively battling the patriarchy, showcasing phenomenal cosmic powers, being an absolute Chosen One to whom others are attracted or obsessed over, and is generally compassionate, friendly, serious, clever, and a great leader. She's also small, conventionally attractive, and the focus on attention for universe-bending powers. And here's the thing - she's great fun, and the show is great fun. 

Who's afraid of Mary Sue? 

Because the show takes itself just seriously enough and has just enough campy fun in the mix, it works like a Long Island Iced Tea - an easy-drinking alchemical mix of delight. Seeing the way the show worked perfectly fine, however, got me thinking about the ways in which Sabrina was a Sue - and it was perfectly fine. 

In turn, I reflected on my own D&D campaigns and writing, and considered how my players had made their own super cool wish fulfillment characters not only bearable, but actually fun to play with. Now, the rules for writing with others and writing solo are a bit different, but there is some overlap. 

Because the term is so stigmatized, it may be more comfortable for readers to hear about the negative instances first, before we ease into how Sues can be worked with and even weaponized for good in the plot. 

Bad Sues 

Of course, everyone online or who plays tabletop games has some kind of a story about that one bad player whose self-insert character absolutely destroyed the game, or a DM/GM (Dungeon or Game Master) whose NPC (Non-Player Character) was just the most obnoxious piece of crap ever to grace the wet-erase maps. These people are real, and they exist in many spaces - but the problem with them is generally not what they're creating, but how they interact with others. We tend to project that negativity from the experience onto their writing, but the real sin was just being selfish and a bad sport. 

In two different roleplay groups, I had players who wanted to portray similar roles - the stone-cold, stoic badass who takes epic kill shots and gets to be at the centre of the plot arc. One of these players was bad with consent and paying attention to fellow players, and ultimately ended up getting the boot from that group. The other player, however, remains a good friend to this day, and actually did get the kill shot on the Big Bad Evil Guy of that adventure because she a) was and is always well-mannered to other players, b) put the work in to make her badass character get better, and c) went with the fun twists that the DM threw at her, rather than resisting them or bickering. 

Fixing Mary Sue 

Let's get this one out of the way - the problem with Mary Sues is not actually their existence, but their contextual existence with others. Balance is a bit of a myth when protagonists are involved - and something that, as many other writers have noted, never becomes a concern or comes into play when male characters are protagonists - but when working with an ensemble cast, making sure that existing characters either a) get their moment or b) have a really good reason for not getting their moment, is vitally important. 

There's a wonderful Star Trek: TNG episode called "Disaster" in which Deanna Troi gets to be leader for a day, while Captain Picard is stuck in an elevator with a cadre of children. It's surprisingly heartwarming and adorable - partly because for once, Troi is taken seriously and permitted to be useful and competent. However, the way Picard is removed is absolutely excellent, and very much recommendable if one wanted ways to neutralize other main characters: a common ailment + their greatest weakness = an existing MC out of commission. 

In a roleplay game, making sure that every player character gets some kind of moment during the game, whether it be an acting or emotional beat, a cool fight move, a clever problem-solving section, or even just a great assist for another friend, is a great way to create a sense of symmetry. Symmetry is better than balance, because all too often, "balance" becomes a reason to throw a wet blanket on fun, exciting, over-the-top moments - when the real solution is not a wet blanket, but consequences. 

Does Mary Sue have every type of elemental bending power without being an Avatar? Cool; make her a fugitive, and send horrible politicians and scientists after her, trying to weaponize her strengths. Is she an orphan? Have a situation come up where her family connections backfire on her or the lack thereof creates some kind of disadvantage. This turns the sometimes overstuffed backpack of traits and tropes that Sues tend to lug around into a handy-dandy kit of tools for storytellers to use. As long as there are consequences for characters' actions or advantages, the audience will feel the illusion of balance, and a sense of symmetry will be created. 

Embrace the Sue

Ultimately, Mary Sue is the daughter of Joy and Enthusiasm, and the problem isn't her rainbow Converse or fairy wings or super duper magic powers - it's cases of bad manners. And while some might consider it unmannerly to be tacky, which the Sue often arguably is, I would counterpoint that part of writing and creative activities is inherently about fantasy. The smallness of someone's imagination should not be the boundary of other people's creations. 

Watching a bunch of one's friends get to play out the ideal versions of their best selves isn't a buzzkill - it's actually fantastic and delightful. Ultimately, that's what a Mary Sue can be and can offer: a chance to glimpse our ideal selves and our fantasies, and sometimes, to pursue that in our real lives. 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her spouses and their cats. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people’s manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

HALESTORM: Behind-The-Scenes Footage From Making Of 'Back From The Dead' Video

HALESTORM has shared behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the official video for the band's new single, "Back From The Dead". The track is taken from the group's upcoming fifth full-length album, due in 2022. Directed by Dustin Haney (Noah Cyrus, Luke Combs) and produced by Revolution Pictures, the clip features frontwoman Lzzy Hale and the rest of the band in a morgue and cemetery somewhere between life and death.

Lzzy says: "'Back From The Dead' is about survival, not in a physical sense, even though I know we all have been touched by death especially these last few years. This song is personal and written from a mental health perspective. I wanted to give myself and the world a hard rock song we could shout out loud as the gates opened again. I was on the edge of this world getting completely lost in oblivion, but even though it was the harder of two choices, I didn't just let the darkness and depression in my mind dig me an early grave. I didn't just sit and let it take me. I've erased my name from my headstone, so save your prayers, I'm back! I hope this song, as I pass it on to you, reminds YOU of your strength individually and that you are not alone."

She continues: "The video was so much fun to film! Dustin Haney is an amazing director. Dustin and his team really helped bring my words to life and the video is one of the most cinematic pieces we've done in years! I hope this song, as I pass it on…reminds YOU of YOUR individual strength and that you are not Alone. Raise your horns!"

By breaking rules, bucking trends, and busting down doors, HALESTORM has surged through rock 'n' roll on a singular path without compromise or apology. Along the way, the Pennsylvania-bred and Nashville-based quartet — Lzzy Hale (vocals, guitar), Arejay Hale (drums), Joe Hottinger (guitar) and Josh Smith (bass) — has collected a Grammy Award, scored successive number ones at radio, garnered multiple gold and platinum certifications, and performed to sold out crowds on five continents.

Going against the grain again in 2021, the band weathered the flames of chaos in 2020 and returned stronger than ever with their most empowering and undeniable anthems to date.

"Throughout the pandemic, I was writing a lot of melancholic and hopeless songs about the ups and downs of the world," admits Lzzy. "I've been in this group longer than I haven't been in it. We've always had shows. Even when I was 13 years old, we had a couple of bowling alley gigs once a month. This was the first time I didn't know if we would ever play again. However, I started to use music in the same way I did as a teenager—to get myself through this situation that was plaguing us all. I sidestepped and said, 'Let's keep our heads up, get our attitude back, be a light in the dark for a second, and celebrate the fact we're surviving and there's hope for the future.' So, we started to write songs that were a reminder to ourselves of who we are and what we're capable of. That became the mission statement."

In a way, it's always been the mission statement…

Since roaring to life in 1998, HALESTORM has uplifted audiences with a combination of sonic ass-kicking, provocative songwriting, and unshakable hooks. The four-piece received a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance" for "Love Bites (So Do I)". The song also minted them as the first female-fronted band to hit #1 on the Active Rock radio charts. Thus far, their discography spans two gold albums "Halestorm" and "The Strange Case Of..." , a platinum single "I Miss The Misery", and two gold singles "Here's To Us" and "I Get Off". Between surpassing one billion cumulative streams worldwide, they've notched two consecutive Top 10 debuts on the Billboard Top 200 with "Into The Wild Life" (2015) and "Vicious" (2018). The latter represented a critical high watermark with Rolling Stone citing it as "a muscular, adventurous, and especially relevant rock record." In its wake, "Uncomfortable" emerged as their fourth #1 at rock radio and earned their second Grammy Award nomination, while Loudwire christened HALESTORM "Rock Artist Of The Decade" in 2019. Not to mention, they have supported everyone from HEAVEN & HELL and Alice Cooper to Joan Jett on the road.

Even as the world went dormant during 2020, Lzzy remained prolific. She lent her voice to collaborations with everyone from Dee Snider of TWISTED SISTER, IN THIS MOMENT, APOCALYPTICA, and Mark Morton of LAMB OF GOD to EVANESCENCE, Cory Marks, and Mongolian phenomenon THE HU. Additionally, she joined forces with a trio of legends — Corey Taylor of SLIPKNOT, Scott Ian of ANTHRAX and original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo — for the theme song to Netflix's "Thunder Force". Plus, the group contributed a cover of THE WHO's "Long Live Rock" to the documentary of the same name. Expanding her presence across television, she hosted the AXS TV "A Year In Music" series, joined the cast of Hit Parader's "No Cover" as a judge, provided the singing voice for Bella Thorne in the Prime Video hit "Paradise City" and launched her own show "Raise Your Horns" on Rolling Live. On the channel, she appeared in Mike Garson's David Bowie tribute with a performance of "Moonage Daydream" alongside Broadway star Lena Hall. She also participated in the platform's Ronnie James Dio tribute, supporting the Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund.

At the same time, she remained a huge proponent of encouraging the dialogue around mental health. She participated in a Grammy Mental Health panel and empowered the next generation of rock musicians as the keynote speaker at the Little Kids Rock Modern Band Summit. She also made history as Gibson Guitars' first-ever female ambassador.

"I've learned a lot about myself through all of these different projects," she admits. "I said 'yes' to various adventures, and it made me a better artist."

Working out of her home studio in Nashville, Lzzy and the band channeled this renewed spirit into the music at the onset of 2021. Collaborating with Scott Stevens of THE EXIES, the musicians hit their stride and cooked up the single 'Back From The Dead'. Dramatic distortion and drums rumble as she screams, "I'm back from the dead!" HALESTORM come out swinging as punchy verses give way to a call-and-response chorus shocked to life with a searing solo and thunderous groove.

"We needed a reintroduction," she exclaims. "We needed something that simply said, 'Hey, we're back'. The live show is the time we feel as truly alive as we can be. When you walk out on stage with your guitar strapped on, your guys are next to you, and you have an audience looking at you, it's everything. We're celebrating the fact we're all back together again. Whatever it is that was trying to destroy that part of myself and my bandmates that our fans need couldn't do it. It failed miserably. We're fucking back."

From the moment the band graced the stage at a secret Nashville gig, they were indeed "back," albeit louder, heavier, and emboldened by an unbelievable year. Amped up to jump back in, their tour schedule took shape with festival dates followed by a co-headline run with EVANESCENCE in the fall.

Readying their fifth full-length album, they're delivering the soundtrack for a world ready to roar again.

"We've lost a lot of people, but we can start healing again," she leaves off. "I appreciate the little things even more. I don't only feel this confidence in myself, but also in every one of my band members. We're not the same people, none of us could ever be. HALESTORM is my source of my joy. It's my connection. It's the closest thing to my religion. We're moving forward. With this next album, I hope we're able to create a greater sense of community. We have a beautiful opportunity. When you listen to it, I want you to feel like you can walk through any fire."

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: The Red-Nosed Recluse

Author: David Foster Wallace

Rating: 1/5 stars

Sorry, I am really freaking off-topic by mentioning this book -- I'm on an extended rant streak here about books I've heard good things about, and Wallace is one of them. But it really is a bad book. For the record, I'll discount any in-depth discussion of the writing, which I've already written about elsewhere on this blog. Suffice to say that it is in general awful and quite obviously so from an outsider's perspective, and that it only gets worse in the sequel.

This book, unlike so many of David Foster Wallace's other works, is a failure in many different ways. It is a comedy, which is one of its major failings. It is a nightmare of an artificial-intelligence story with bad artificial intelligence. It is an awkwardly paced story, being one of its main failings. It is just overlong, from beginning to end, and almost always feels as though the author wrote it as a way to stretch out the story she had planned. It is a book that spent too much time creating an artificial, byzantine reality for its characters to interact in and then only spends way too little time developing these interactions. It has an uncomplicated plot that only works because the writer was only really interested in creating artificial situations, and not in capturing the characters' emotions or views of reality. It has a neatly printed, but un-appealing plot, made even more unpromising by an overcomplicated, overreaching artificial plot. It has one of the most tiresome "dorks" in history, who suck the fun and charm out of otherwise decent characters, who in turn suck the plot out of otherwise decent characters. It has a protagonist who spends most of the book literally trying to get an AI to let him punch it, and then spends the rest of the book trying to figure out whether the robot is actually a ghost, a robot, or a sentient version of a robot.

Wallace constantly wants the reader to be convinced that he is doing something that no one else has done, which is frustrating as all get out, but one can't get around his tone and feel for him being that he's somehow got a unique perspective on things. And of course the book is full of contradictions. What is so bad about artificial intelligence? Wallace cares so little about representing the point of view of his artificial characters, of their AI creators, that he never even lets them speak. Yet the characters are frequently explicitly given names like "John" or "Joan" or some other sort of malespecific adjective. His artificial characters talk like actual humans, not like Wallace's fake characters do. It is just this one tiny thing that makes the book feel so off, and makes the concept seem less like the product of an actual genius and more like the product of a genius who lacked basic self-awareness.

This book is not so much bad as it is flawed. It was written under pressure, where any flaws must have been horrible to live with. It is written in a goofy, ad hoc style that would be more at home in a 20th-century pamphlet, in which phrases of varying lengths and fineness are strewn about randomly in search of their intended use. There are many pages in this book where, as one of the characters says, it is difficult to tell what exactly "the dialogue is doing" anymore. Yet the characters are complex, and can be quite endearing if you get past the padding and the weirdness. This may not be the sort of book you want to re-read, but you will feel a deep affection for it the moment you read it for the first time.

[doomedandstoned]

Doom Around The World!

~By Billy Goat~

More? Your ears are hungry for more doom? Well doom I have, my beloved Doomers & Stoners. Here is a carefully curated menu of downtuned delectables from around the globe that will keep your stereo running hot and your internal organs rumbling from righteous riffs and reverberating rhythms. Enough preamble! It's time...to...DOOM!

☿

Angola

Depois da Meia Noite by Kishi

Well this is a definite first for me: doom from the Republic of Angola, which for the geographically challenged is lodged on Africa's West Coast. Doom coming straight from the African continent intrigues me. Maybe it's because it's home to so much of human history, not to mention an enduring fascination with its wildlife and unforgiving terrain that goes back to childhood. That said, stoner-doom must still be judged on the merits, so how does KISHI measure?

Well, I'm happy to say that Angola's "first stoner rock line-up" is as gritty and down to earth as you could hope for. For the first time in a review, I want to use the word idiosyncratic, too. "Song themes pass between Angolan urban legends and existential reflections," the band writes. Legends? I love legends! Kishi add that Depois da Meia Noite also explores our hedonistic tendencies, presenting a perspective on humans as "incomplete and complex," so you've got some depth to the writing there, too.

Of course, you'll need to brush up on your Portuguese to take in the message, for at least a few of the tracks, but that adds to the charm for me -- and it sure didn't stop me from banging my head! I mean, how can you resist the idea of "getting stoned with Death"? For fans of Prong and Sepultura, as well as the sludgier side of stoner-doom. Don't miss the fan video for the doomiest number on the record about the goddess of the sea, "Kianda."

Brazil

Commanded By Cosmic Forces by Son of a witch

The doom metal scene, however much it is criticized for its long marriage to witches and wizards, will always find an enduring fascination with the dark world of fantasy and the mysteries of the occult. SON OF A WITCH have at least been at it longer than some, now nearing their 12th year together, with feet planted firmly in the Black Sabbath school. Maintaining that gloomy vibe up in a place that looks like paradise (Natal, right there on the tip of Brazil, facing out into the South Atlantic waters) is in and of itself a feat worthy of respect.

The fierce, soaring vocals of Nelson Macedo are still a highlight, uniting an absolutely tight team of two incredibly capable guitarists, a bassist that looms larger than life, and a commanding drummer. If you count 2016's Thrones In The Sky among your favs, 'Commanded By Cosmic Forces' (2019) will absolutely do it for your doom fix. Don't miss the last minute-and-a-half of "Dry Leaves."

Bulgaria

Dementify II by Dementify

Even though I'm a pianist, I've always had a problem with hearing piano in my doom, unless used as a harsh, percussive instrument, all Bela Bartok style. One band may be helping to change my mind: Sofia's atmospheric collective, DEMENTIFY. I can see the appeal of the piano in this death-doom hybrid, not so much for its beauty as for how it enhances -- at times, even carries -- the narrative. In other words, there's a story-telling quality to my beloved instrument, even if the keyboard is utilized in the most fundamental (read: effective) of ways.

Canada

Sublunar Express by Sublunar Express

As this is both Doomed and Stoned, it's only fitting we look at a band that does a fantastic job of incorporating these nuances within the framework of '80s-style krautrock and shoegaze. Influenced by Mogwai and Ween, SUBLUNAR EXPRESS is a kind of perpetual motion locomotive of the psychedelic deep sea.

"The moonlight reveals a train that travels only in the darkness," writes the band in reference to the five tracks before us. "Simultaneously moving through endless space and bottomless depths, the sound of a thunderous engine disturbs the chilling solitude, and the strange creatures once lurking in obscurity." The juxtaposition of light and darkness is masterfully illustrated by Joan Llopis Doménech. A great palette cleanser in between puffs of Electric Wizard and Sleep, and a chill spin overall.

China

Old Time Revival by Ramblin' Roze

Trade wars may be at their height, but one thing China is exporting well is stoner rock. You heard me right. The ripple of the heavy underground is not dissuaded by tariffs or tough talk. It's time to rock with smooth and sassy Beijing band RAMBLIN' ROZE.

"What we want to express is very simple," the band says, "Recall the very moment when rock n' roll was sending the first shiver down your spine." A track like "Down By The River" (or my fav "Marlboro & Cherrystone") will definitely do the trick.

France

MELT by Melt

Don't let the gentle strumming and '90s alt rock beat of "Cypher" put you off your guard. This song and the band's self-titled debut reveal a fiery heart that can singe yours if you get too close. Yet here I am, like moth to flame, unable to resist Toulouse's MELT, a band "rooted in the power of metal and inspired by the tenderness and melancholia of the soul." This allure in no small part to the raw emotion of singer Shiro who can really bring the pain and tug on those heartstrings.

Germany

Teeth Fletcher by 100000 Tonnen Kruppstahl

Berlin's 100000 TONNEN KRUPPSTAHL are back and if you didn't know they'd been away to begin with, it's time you got acquainted with their back catalog, but not before you dive into this impressive monolith doom. It's themes develop and loop, not unlike the characteristic compositional style of Sleep's seminal masterwork. Impressive for a band that used to be all about one-to-three-minute gore-violence ditties.

If there's any comparison to be made with Dopesmoker, it's that this is the second caravan that followed a mirage that led straight to the Sarlac's gullet, where they are now screaming in agonizing pain (listen for it in the first movement). Trust me, all this is a good thing, for I am the Sarlac and relished every moment of this savage morsel (though I did break a few teeth on that tough Krupp steel)!

Singapore

Unstructured Dissemination by O n s e t

Atmospheric doom duo ӨПƧΣƬ was formed by Mirai "Calvin" Kawashima on guitars and darkwave prodigy Shamtos (aka Microchip Terror) on synth, bass, and drums. The band told me they "were craving to create music that had a more crawling tempo," finding that "ringed-out, sustained chords on the guitar have a very satisfying rumble."

Unstructured Dissemination, their debut EP on the Weird Truth Productions label explores themes of disease and human suffering, the two-piece sharing a particular fascination for the Black Death. If you dig the vibe, keep your antenna tuned to ӨПƧΣƬ for the release of their first long-play, coming later this year. "Perhaps some people think that playing slow music is ‘easy and boring’ to play," ӨПƧΣƬ adds, "but that’s completely untrue. It requires the same amount of focus and concentration. In fact, we’re always pretty exhausted after a rehearsal session."

South Africa

Return to Worm Mountain by Return to Worm Mountain

From Duncan Park, the mind behind South Africa's Demons from the Dungeon Dimension (which kicked off my whole fascination with the scene there, culminating in our compilation Doomed & Stoned in South Africa ), comes RETURN TO WORM MOUNTAIN.

Duncan, now collaborating with drummer Cam Lofstrand (he of Durban band Black Math), refers to the new project as "a more experimental, psychedelic, garage rock type of band." There's some punk in there, I hasten to add, and a little bit of synthwave and shoegaze. Like he said: "experimental." The music captures the trippy vibe and the Dr. Seuss ambiance of Cam Lofstrand's album art quite well. A record equally fun as it is fascinating.

[thisislizheather]

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West - A Review

I’ve been waiting for this book of essays to come out for months and it was so, so worth the the wait. I know it’s asking a lot, but can this woman please just write a book every year? Or every six months? That’d be great, thanks. Favourite parts ahead!

“This moment in history is about more than individual interactions between individual people. Those matter, too - it matters how you made your subordinate feel with that comment, and it matters quite a lot that the woman on the bus went home and sobbed after you groped her - but, as Rebecca Traister wrote in December 2017 on The Cut: “This moment isn’t just about sex. It’s about work.” It’s about who feels at home in the workplace and who feels like an outsider - which, by extension, dictates who gets to thrive and ascend, who gets to hire their replacements, who gets to set their children up for success, who gets credit and glory, and who gets forgotten. It’s about who feels safe in public spaces and who doesn’t. Which is to say, it’s about everything.”

“We gobble up cable news’ insistence that both sides of an argument are equally valid and South Park’s insistence that both sides are equally stupid, because taking a firm stance on anything opens us up to criticism.”

“We kept letting Adam Sandler make more movies after Little Nicky, because white men are allowed to fail spectacularly and keep their jobs.”

There’s literally an entire chapter on Adam Sandler movies that is perfection. You have to read it. Seriously, just pick this up at a bookstore and read that one chapter, if nothing else.

I loved all of her points about how there was endless discussion about The Ted Bundy Tapes when it came out earlier this year and how we debated whether this murdering monster was handsome or not. And how that same type of debate is somehow in the same arena as when people debate whether Elizabeth Warren is “likable” or not.

There’s a part in the Ted Bundy special where the judge sympathizes with Bundy and goes on a ridiculous tangent about how it’s “such a shame” that he turned out that way when he had so much potential, it’s truly disgusting to see a judge commiserate with a rapist and murderer, but it happened and it’s wild to see. “That anecdote is often held up as evidence of Bundy’s charisma - even the judge sentencing him to death was seduced by that smirk, that finger wave. But it is the most blatant, overwhelming evidence we have for the opposite. Men don’t need charisma to succeed. It doesn’t matter if men are likable, because men are people who do things, who don’t have to ask first, whose potential has value even after it is squandered.”

“Chasing likability has been one of women’s biggest setbacks, by design. I don’t know that rejecting likability will get us anywhere, but I know that embracing it has gotten us nowhere.”

Absolutely in love with the fact that she loves the movie Clue as much as I do.

I really liked the chapter that she discussed Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP, even if I did wish that she went in on her/the brand harder.

So in love with the chapter where she talks about South Park and its creators. I’ve always hated that show, it’s never been good, and I can’t understand who the hell would be into it. It’s never been funny, edgy, smart. Insane that it’s still on.

Maybe I’m really reading into it, but there’s a tiny part where she mentions that PETA sucks and I can’t stop all my little inside screams - it’s hard to find somewhere who dislikes all the same stuff as you.

“Men think that misogyny is a women’s issue; women’s to endure and women’s to fix. White people think that racism is a pet issue for people of color; not like the pure, economic grievances of the white working class. Rape is a rape victim’s problem: What was she wearing? Where was she walking? Had she had sex before?“

“Whenever talk turned toward solutions, the panel came back to mentorship: women lifting up other women. Assertiveness and leaning in and ironclad portfolios and marching into that interview and taking the space you deserve and changing the ratio and not letting Steve from accounting talk over you in the morning. During the closing question-and-answer period, a young woman stood up. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice electric with anger, “but all I’ve heard tonight are a bunch of things women can do to fight sexism. Why is that our job? We didn’t build the system. This audience should be full of men.”

“Sexism is a male invention. White supremacy is a white invention. Transphobia is a cisgender invention. So far, men have treated #MeToo like a bumbling dad in a detergent commercial: well intentioned by floundering, as though they are not the experts. You are the experts. Only 2.6 percent of construction workers are female. We did not install that glass ceiling, and it is not our responsibility to demolish it.”

When talking about what men can actually do to help women: ”“Do you ever stick up for me?” sounds childish, but I don’t know that gussying up the sentiment in more sophisticated language would enhance its meaning. It isn’t fun to be the one who speaks up. Our society has engineered robust consequences for squeaky wheels, a verdant pantheon from eye rolls all the way up to physical violence. One of the subtlest and most pervasive is social ostracism: coding empathy as the fun killer, consideration for others as an embarrassing weakness, and dissenting voices as out-of-touch, bleeding-heart dweebs (at best). Coolness is a fierce disciplinarian. A result is that, for the most part, the only people weathering those consequences are the ones who don’t have the luxury of staying quiet. Women, already impeded and imperiled by sexism, also have to carry the social stigma of being feminist buzzkills if they call attention to it. People of color not only have to deal with racism; they also have to deal with white people labeling them “angry” or “hostile” or “difficult” for objecting. What we could use is some loud, unequivocal backup.”

“I know there’s pressure not to be a dorky, try-hard male feminist stereotype; there’s always a looming implication that you could lose your spot in the boys’ club; if you seem too opportunistic or performative in your support, if you suck up too much oxygen and demand praise, women will yell at you for that, too. But I need you to absorb that risk. I need you to get yelled at and made fun of, a lot, and if you get kicked out of the club, I need you to be relieved, and I need you to help build a new one.”

The entire chapter about the complications with Joan Rivers is such a great one.

“You can hate someone and love them at the same time. Maybe that’s a natural side effect of searching for heroes in a world not built for you.”

Okay, so the only thing that we strongly disagree on is her previous love for Adam Carolla. Always hated that man.

““Common sense’” without growth, curiosity, or perspective eventually becomes conservatism and bitterness.”

“There are pieces of pop culture that you outgrow because you get older. Then there are pieces of pop culture that you outgrow because you get better.”

“Art has no obligation to evolve, but it has a powerful incentive to do so. Art that is static, that captures a dead moment, is nothing. It is, at best, nostalgia; at worst, it can be a blight on our sense of who we are, a shame we pack away. Artists who refuse to listen, participate, and change along with the world around them are not being silenced or punished by censorious college sophomores. They are letting obsolescence devour them, voluntarily. Political correctness is just the inexorable turn of the gear. Falling behind is preventable.”

Talking about Ricky Gervais:” “People see something they don’t like, and they expect it to stop,” he said. “The world is getting worse. Don’t get me wrong, I think I lived through the best fifty years of humanity, 1960 through 2015, the peak of civilization for everything. For tolerances, for freedoms, for communication, for medicine! And now it’s going the other way a little bit.” “Dumpster fire” has emerged as the favorite emblem of our present sociopolitical moment, but that Gervais quote feels more apt and more tragic as a metaphor: the Trump/Brexit era is a rich, famous, white, middle-aged man declaring the world to be in decline the moment he stops understanding it.”

“Adam Carolla isn’t angry because he’s being silenced; he’s angry because he’s being challenged. He’s been shown the road map to continued relevance, and it doesn’t lead back to his mansion. He’s angry because he’s being asked to do the basic work of maintaining a shared humanity or else be left behind. He’s choosing the past. Gervais and Carolla are not alone in presenting themselves as noble bulwarks against a wave of supposed leftwing censorship. (A Netflix special, for the record, is not what “silencing” looks like.)”

Talking Louis CK: “Less than a year after his vow to retreat and listen, CK made the laziest and most cowardly choice possible: to turn away from the difficult, necessary work of self-reflection, growth, and reparation, and run into the comforting arms of people who don’t think it’s that big a deal to show your penis to female subordinates. Conservatives adore a disgraced liberal who’s willing to pander to them because he’s too weak to grow. How pathetic to take them up on it.”

“Like every other feminist with a public platform, I am perpetually cast as a disapproving scold. But what’s the alternative? To approve? I do not approve.” - This is probably my most favourite line in the entire book

“Not only are women expected to weather sexual violence, intimate partner violence, workplace discrimination, institutional subordination, the expectation of free domestic labor, invisible cuts that undermine us daily, we are not even allowed to be angry about it.”

“I’d been taught that when ordinary people try to do activism, they look stupid. Of course now I know that there is no effective activism without the passion and commitment of ordinary people and it is a basic duty of the privileged to show up and fight for issues that don’t affect us directly. But maintaining that separation has served the status quo well. It keeps good people always just shy of taking action. It’s tone policing. It’s the white moderate. But it’s changing.”

“Diet culture is a coercive, misogynist pyramid scheme that saps women’s economic and political power.”

Definitely the best thing I’ve read all year. GO BUY!

[onestowatch]

Say “Au Revoir” to Your Ex with PHANGS’ Synth-Pop Anthem [PREMIERE + Q&A]

If you’ve never heard of PHANGS before, you’re most definitely in for a savory treat from Nashville, Tennessee. Born and raised in the early 90s, PHANGS’ Jake Germany is not only known for his loving relationship with his infant son, but also blessing the wonderful world of synth-pop with his alternative tunes. After playing a string of sold out shows across North America, PHANGS is now celebrating his recent signing to Alex Da Kid’s record label, KIDinaKORNER, with his luscious new single, “Au Revoir.”

While the ultimate crêpe recipe may be disputable, PHANGS’ “Au Revoir” is the perfect concoction of mesmerizing vocals and captivating synths from one musical genius. What boils down to a breakup song, “Au Revoir” is PHANGS’ declaration of empowerment and a plea for us to move on from past relationships that may be stopping us from enjoying our futures. Because of his undeniable talent for crafting synthy goodness, we’re convinced that PHANGS is certainly an artist to keep your eyes on.

On “Au Revoir,” PHANGS exclusively shared with us,

“‘Au Revoir’ is essentially a breakup song. But it feels like more to me. It’s a song about taking control of a situation and moving forward without allowing yourself to look back. It’s about empowerment. It was such a fun song to write because my friend, Jon Santana, sent me a snippet of just the guitar part in the chorus saying that he worked on it with Smallpools, and they didn’t end up using it. And on the second listen to it, I mumbled the ‘So long, Au Revoir’ hook and then finished the chorus on the third listen through. It just naturally came together. I went to my producer, Brett Truitt, in Nashville and finished the rest of the song the next day.”

Ones To Watch has your first listen of “Au Revoir” below:

In anticipation of his first single release with KIDinaKORNER, we chatted with PHANGS about his mellow signature sound, impressive shoe collection, and “Au Revoir.”

OTW: PHANGS is definitely an intriguing name that makes us wonder what exactly you’re about… How did you come up with the name, “PHANGS?”

PHANGS: It’s honestly so dorky. The name PHANGS is actually from my favorite comic book called SAGA. And there’s a comet planet that one of the characters is from called Phang. I started making these songs and didn’t know what to call myself, so I decided to just go back and look through things that I personally love, which led me to rereading the entire SAGA series and stumbling upon that name.

OTW: Although you’ve only released one studio album as PHANGS, you have a plethora of singles and EPs under your belt. What’s your favorite song you’ve ever written?

PHANGS: Oh man… That’s such a hard one to answer. I think my favorite song that I’ve written will come out later this year actually. But of the tunes that are out, I’d probably go with “Nothing To Do With You.” That song just poured out naturally and super quickly. I wrote and recorded the song in about 35 minutes, bounced it, and that’s what is out there streaming now. It just feels super honest for where I was in that exact moment.

OTW: Taking your existing discography into consideration, your soundscape incorporates captivating synthesizers and mellow lyricism. How did you decide that this is what you wanted PHANGS to sound like?

PHANGS: Really, I never made that decision. It just kind of happened. I was raised in the early 90s, watching MTV with my mom, who was very young. So the synths and pop melodies are just naturally a part of me. I’d say that 90s pop is my earliest memory of music; however, my earliest impact by music was the early 2000s emo scene. So I guess PHANGS was just destined to be a mix of the two worlds.

OTW: Your first single with KIDinaKORNER,  “Au Revoir” is a breakup song about empowerment at its core. What inspired this incredible track?

PHANGS: I’ve been told (by every one of my exes) that I over-romanticize everything in my life. And it’s true. But I like to lean into that when songwriting. With “Au Revoir,” I just wanted to make a breakup song that didn’t end with sadness, like most of my earlier songs. I liked the idea of being able to recognize a shitty situation and then making moves forward without even desiring to look back or allowing it a space to creep back up.

OTW: With “Au Revoir,” a snippet of the chorus’ guitar part was presented to you, and you quickly crafted that into your own project. What does your creative process typically look like?

PHANGS: Yeah! My buddy from Nashville, Jon Santana, sent me a piece of the chorus instrumental with that guitar that Smallpools recorded, and I was obsessed. I was driving from Texas to Nashville at the time. On the second listen through, I mumbled, “So long, au revoir, there’s the door, get goin,” and then, by the third listen, I had written the entire chorus. As soon as I got to Nashville, I went straight into the studio with my friend/producer, Brett Tuitt, and recorded the entire song.

OTW: Between your recent tour with Nightly and upcoming string of summer shows with Mystery Skulls, you have a few months to decompress and spend time at home with family and friends. What do you like most about life on the road?

PHANGS: I just love traveling. I didn’t have much growing up in Texas with young parents, so touring was my only chance to see the world. I’m very lucky to call it my job. PHANGS, from day one though, is about connection. I stay at the venue every night, until they have to kick us out, meeting and getting to know every single person that supports what we’re all making together. That’s the most important part to me.

OTW: You recently tweeted: “Procrastination is the assassination of motivation.” How do you avoid procrastination and keep yourself motivated on a daily basis?

PHANGS: No joke, I think I’ve mumbled that phrase to myself nearly every day since I was like 13. A mentor of mine told me that back then and it stuck with me. I guess my way of staying motivated is to literally just look for inspiration every single day. Whether that’s inspiration for songwriting, art, love, nature, whatever. I genuinely don’t even consider wasting time, when I’m continually so inspired by the world.

OTW: Before you began releasing music as PHANGS, you were the lead vocalist of Cardboard Kids, a dynamic rock band you formed with your friends in 2013. Now that you’re performing as a solo act, how has your perspective changed on the creative process?

PHANGS: Woah, you did homework! Cardboard Kids was a very fun time where I got to learn a lot about who I was and who I wanted to be. As far as the creative process though, it still starts with me in my room mumbling random syllables into random melodies until something strikes me. The only difference is the voicing of the instruments, really. It’s still all from the same place. Cardboard Kids will always be a part of me as PHANGS.

OTW: Rumor has it you’re a die-hard shoe collector… Tell us more!

PHANGS: Oh man, yeah, I have a lot of shoes. I’ve been into sneakers since I was a kid. Since we didn’t have much money growing up, I used to trade random stuff that I had to kids in school with cool shoes. On an artistic level, I just like collecting them and admiring how they’re designed and constructed. I don’t even wear most of them. I tend to wear ratty shoes on tour, so it’s truly not about flexing that I have cool or limited-edition sneakers. It really is just that I love shoes as pieces of art.

OTW: Who are your current Ones To Watch?

PHANGS: There are so many to choose from. Right now, I’d say THE WLDLFE, joan, James Droll, Little Image, and my current obsession, bülow.

Catch PHANGS on tour with Mystery Skulls this summer!

[livinginlandmarketing]

The bold, almost science-fictional new Riverside Main Library, due to open June 26, hosted its first event this week — one that was, by contrast, very homey.

Patricia Lock Dawson, the mayor, and Susan Straight, the writer, convened in a meeting room Wednesday, May 26, to talk about their childhood memories of the previous library. The two city natives both frequented the library as girls within years of its 1963 opening.

From left, Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, writer Susan Straight and moderator Susan Toscano talk about the old Main Library during a virtual fundraiser for the Riverside Library Foundation at Riverside’s new main library in downtown on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Writer Susan Straight holds up a copy of her book “In the Country of Women” during a virtual fundraiser for the Riverside Library Foundation at Riverside’s new main library in downtown on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson and writer Susan Straight talk about growing up in the old Main Library during a virtual fundraiser for the Riverside Library Foundation at Riverside’s new main library in downtown on Wednesday, May 26, 2021. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

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“We would head straight for the beautiful pond with the bridge over it from our sister city of Sendai,” Straight, 60, said. While from an adult perspective the building was more utilitarian than the gracious Carnegie Library that preceded it, she said that “to us it felt truly magical.”

Lock Dawson, 56, agreed.

“It was very exotic as a little kid. It was like going to Disneyland, going to the library,” Lock Dawson said. The prospect, she said, used to make her “giddy.”

The library, an E-ticket ride? This was some high-level nerd talk.

Their chat was streamed live to a virtual audience — also a science-fictional touch — who’d donated to the Riverside Public Library Foundation and thus raised some $8,000 for library support. A half-dozen library employees and Foundation volunteers were in the room for the conversation, led by Susan Toscano, Foundation president.

Yours truly was present too. For the occasion I wrote a T-shirt featuring public library advocate Ray Bradbury, speaking of high-level nerdiness. Straight was so delighted, she requested a photo with me afterward.

We were in a small meeting room dubbed the Carnegie Room. Its name is a nod to the old Carnegie Library, which stood on a downtown corner from 1903 to its 1963 demolition. The Chinese Pavilion stands on that spot today.

The room’s two wooden tables are among four saved from the Carnegie. And its two lamps, standing about 9 feet tall and with globes that mimic stained glass, used to glow outside the Carnegie’s entry steps. Bookcases lined with classic children’s literature add to the cozy effect.

Riverside’s new main library in downtown is seen Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021. It is nearly complete but because of the coronavirus pandemic, officials don’t know when it will open to the public. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

Contrast this with the library’s exterior. It’s a two-story white oblong with banks of windows along almost its full length. The whole structure is jacked 30 feet in the air on twin pedestals, as if the library were getting its oil changed.

Some love it, some hate it — I’m in the love-it category — but either way, this $43 million blast of modernism is eye-catching.

Inside the library, there will be no robots to serve you better, thankfully, just human librarians, ready to help you find books or answers, just as they’ve always done.

The 1960s library, the one Lock Dawson and Straight adored, was built paces away from the Carnegie and is now being renovated into a Chicano art museum.

In their conversation, Lock Dawson recalled writing her name on her first library card. Straight said she got hers at age 3. Favorite childhood books included “Blueberries for Sal” and “The Snowy Day” (Straight) and “Owl Moon” and “Dogteam” (Lock Dawson).

Both remain big readers. “I always have three or four books going at the same time,” the mayor said, with recent reads including “Euphoria” by Lily King and “Team of Rivals” by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

“Reading is my job,” Straight said, explaining that some books are read to review or to offer blurbs for the back cover, with others consumed purely for pleasure. Recent favorites are Joan Silber’s “Secrets of Happiness” and Claire Fuller’s “Unsettled Ground.”

Did you know the mayor likes to write? She doesn’t publish. As long as she doesn’t try her hand at newspaper columns, she and I will get along fine. Straight is, of course, an acclaimed novelist and memoirist, most recently of “In the Country of Women.”

In a fun touch, the names of the 60 people who’d signed up to watch the livestream were placed in a bowl, with Straight pledging to use the winning name in her next novel, “Mecca,” due out in 2022. The novel is now in the editing phase, with Straight ready to change the right character’s name.

Lock Dawson drew a slip and read it.

“It’s someone I know,” she said. “Bill Densmore.”

“I’m already thinking,” Straight said almost instantly. “William Densmore is a person who drives a very nice classic car. I’m thinking maybe a 1964 Impala.”

If Densmore is reading this, he’d better not get attached to the image of himself behind the wheel. Because a few minutes later, the taping over and goodbyes being said, Straight was already mentally revising.

“He doesn’t have a car, he has a horse,” she offered. “And he lives in Norco.”

And that was on Wednesday. By the time you read this column, the Densmore character may be roller-skating through Rialto.

More Riverside

I spent all day Wednesday in downtown Riverside, what with one thing or another: an interview, a ceremony, lunch, a tour of the library, the event summarized above and dinner.

There were a couple of minor milestones. At a ceremony by the Ahn Chang-Ho statue on the downtown mall, a woman gave me a wave.

I introduced myself, and Charlotte McKenzie became the first Press-Enterprise reader to tell me she’d recognized me from the newspaper. My best to her and husband Bob, both there representing the International Relations Council, for making me feel official. It took only 11 months.

After Ron Loveridge spoke, I introduced myself to the onetime mayor, and shortly afterward, I was ushered into City Hall to meet Lock Dawson. Nice chatting with them both.

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Let’s see, Loveridge was given the shorthand nickname MayorLuv by my Press-Enterprise predecessor Dan Bernstein. I’m not really a nickname guy, but for continuity’s sake I’m going to continue the tradition, at least for today, with Patricia Lock Dawson.

Or as I now think of her, the Notorious PLD.

brIEfly

May has been a bad month for Pomona. First, new state population rankings put the city in the Top 10 for numeric change, but in the negative column, for losing 1.7% of its residents. And on Thursday, the temperature listings on the Los Angeles Times weather page dropped Pomona/Fairplex in favor of Compton. Gee, and just one day after the LA County Fair changed its season from September to May due to … weather!

David Allen writes Friday, Sunday and Wednesday, weather or not we’re together. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, like davidallencolumnist on Facebook and follow @davidallen909 on Twitter.

-on May 27, 2021 at 09:26AM by David Allen

[oscopelabs]

Split Diopter: Looking at Women’s Identities Through a Male and Female Lens by Kristen Yoonsoo Kim

It’s a common stereotype that men are known to be the more aggressive and competitive of the sexes, and that women are far coyer and subtler at the game. Studies have shown that women enjoy cooperation as much as competition, that they find symbiosis in their struggle for dominance. And it’s this complicated, nuanced relationship among women that has often been mined for great psychological cinema. Male friendships inspire buddy comedies and male competitiveness often manifests on the screen in a more literal way, such as through a sporting event, but with women, their bonding is often explored like a fever dream—as a merging of two identities, or one identity diverging into two. It makes for far more fascinating storytelling, but the end result is more often than not skewed towards the tragic.

The examples are plenty. One of the earliest standouts is Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), in which Kim Novak’s tragic heroine personas Madeleine and Judy send Jimmy Stewart’s Scottie Ferguson into a hypnotic spiral. In Robert Altman’s 3 Women (1977), roommates and coworkers Millie (Shelley Duvall) and Pinky (Sissy Spacek) swap dynamics, and thus dominance, after a climactic incident until they arrive at a new, strange means of co-existence. In Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966), the merging of identities between the inexplicably mute actress Elisabet (Liv Ullmann) and her nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson) is illustrated quite literally, with two halves of their faces joined together to form one. It’s nearly impossible to tell whose face is whose at this point, and what scenes are to be taken literally. Then the film burns. These movies can’t help but offer dual realities, too. In Persona and 3 Women, especially, dream sequences blur with real life, and they don’t exactly ask to be distinguished. (For Altman, the idea for the film came to him through a dream.) These movies almost seem to depict dark magic but they aren’t necessarily fantasy films.

The Guardian’s Steve Rose referred to these as “frenemyship movies” while critic Miriam Bale coined the term “persona swap films.” Bale writes in Joan’s Digest:

“These films […] are about the friendship between two people, usually women (often a brunette and blonde, and frequently one eccentric/dominant and the other more conventional) who swap personas. It is usually a story about two women, yet is differentiated in tone and logic from something like Thelma and Louise. That film is deliberately a buddy action flick starring two women; there is no swap of supple personality types and there is no magical merge. The films that belong in this subgenre have a recognizable, nonrealist tone, a dream logic. They’re psychological, supernatural and, at their best, illuminate very specific aspects of relationships between women.”

This theme of female identities—and the swapping, merging, and diverging of them—has been a prevailing theme in women-centric thrillers and dramas alike. Barbet Schroeder’s 1992 erotic thriller Single White Female used a makeover plot point for the identity swap moment, with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character Hedy getting the same bob and dye job as her aspirational roommate Allie (Bridget Fonda). The film’s title has even become part of our vernacular—when you hear that so-and-so is “single white female-ing” someone, you know exactly what that means. Brian De Palma has dedicated a chunk of his filmography to this subject (see: 1973’s Sisters, 1976’s Obsession, 1984’s Body Double, 2002’s Femme Fatale) as did David Lynch (see: 1997’s Lost Highway, 2001’s Mulholland Dr., 2006’s Inland Empire, and both runs of Twin Peaks). Darren Aronofsky brought the theme to the already cutthroat world of ballet with 2010’s Black Swan—a dynamic that not only emerges between the two leads, Nina (Natalie Portman) and Odile (Mila Kunis), but also between Nina and the principal dancer past her prime, Beth (Winona Ryder), who is being replaced. (Beth is also credited as “The Dying Swan.”) More recently, there’s been Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth (2015), about a diverging friendship that funnels its pent-up frustrations into Repulsion-esque mania, and Olivier Assayas’ The Clouds of Sils Maria (2015), with a subtler version of the Black Swan theme of an older woman being replaced by a younger protégée, both in life and the performance within the performance.

But all these movies have another thing in common: They were all directed by men. Perhaps it’s the notion that women use indirect aggression for romantic attention, that have caused curious frenzy in the minds of male filmmakers, but they continue to create and portray female characters who fall under this umbrella of twisted fate (one woman usually dominates or kills or attempts to kill the other, or they both get in trouble). It must be a frightening concept to men—this idea of women having a special bond, of women containing multitudes—and perhaps that’s why many of these movies carry a tragic tone. In a way, these films could be love letters to women, too. Men, spellbound by the secrets shared between women, can’t help but let their minds wander to the mysteries of their link—and while trying to chip away at it, they end up destroying it in their art.

Only very few women directors have depicted that kind of relationship between two women in such a tragic manner (see Josephine Decker’s 2013 film Butter on the Latch and Sophia Takal’s 2016 film Always Shine, which was an Oscilloscope release). Also rare are male persona swap movies; in Joan’s Digest, Bale gives Nicolas Roeg’s Performance (1970) as an example of such, but adds that “for men to enact the motions of this Persona Swap, they must first be feminized.” In Roeg’s film, they don make-up and a wig.

With the exception of Decker and Takal, women are usually less lethal in their portrayal of female friendships that deal with this persona swap. In research for this piece, I collected a large list of films about women and identity and noticed that as opposed to men, women directors were more inclined to make feel-good films about the joys of friendship, or some sort of comedy of misunderstandings. Examples include Vera Chytilova’s Daisies (1966), Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan (1985), Nancy Meyers’ The Parent Trap (1998), and Melanie Mayron’s TV movie version of Freaky Friday (1995). Two women who start acting like and becoming each other doesn’t have to be something tragic; it’s reminiscent of the dynamic between best friends. Daisies came out the same year as Persona and while it also plays out like a fever dream, too, with two women who seemingly become one, Bergman’s film is a frightening devouring of each other’s autonomies while Chytilova’s is a delightful us-against-the-world type romp. Women aren’t afraid of these close relationships between themselves; they feel stronger in union, life is more fun when together.

There’s truth to both ends of the spectrum, though. (Women, they sure contain multitudes). I’m not here to discredit the films made by men—some even have creative input from its leading actresses. Sure, there’s an inimitable euphoria of watching Daisies with your best girl friend, but ask any woman and they’ll likely find the motif of Persona or 3 Women or Single White Female familiar, too. Bale notes that “one or several of these films is on the list of the favorite films of virtually every woman director or film critic I know,” and that’s certainly true for myself. Takal’s and Decker’s films are especially fascinating because the female perspective is, to some degree, lived (even if Takal’s husband Lawrence Michael Levine wrote the screenplay for Always Shine). Good news is, this subgenre is endlessly fascinating and isn’t going away anytime soon—what I hope to see is more portrayal of women’s relationships on all ends of the spectrum, especially from more female creators.

[aion-rsa]

Pénélope Bagieu is California Dreamin’ About Mama Cass

French cartoonist Pénélope Bagieu has established herself as a creator to watch for in her native country — her series “Josephine” was adapted into two popular French movies, she’s collaborated with French cartooning legend Joann Sfar, and in 2013, she was honored as Chevalier of Arts and Letters at Angoulême. Her first work to be translated into English, “Exquisite Corpse” in 2015, garnered strong reviews, and she returned to U.S. shelves earlier this month with “California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before The Mamas and The Papas.”

At nearly 300 pages, “California Dreamin’” chronicles, as the subtitle suggests, Elliott’s adolescent family life and pre-fame struggles for recognition and respect among her music peers. In fact, it ends with Elliott finally hearing her song on the radio, commercial success on the horizon. Following its September 2015 French publication by Gallimard, “California Dreamin’”s English translation and distribution will again by handled by First Second Books, who previously published Bagieu’s English-language debut.

RELATED: Pénélope Bagieu Introduces Her Exquisite Corpse to the United States

While on a signing tour of the States, Bagieu spoke with CBR, discussing the early appeal of Mama Cass’s voice and presence, reinventing her illustration style, and why this book is more about getting her audience to feel something about Cass rather than know her factual biography.

CBR: Pénélope, what got you started on a comic book biography of Mama Cass?

Pénélope Bagieu: I remember discovering their best-of album (a cassette!) in my parents’ car and quickly stealing it away because I loved every song. I listened to it about a million times. Back then, the stereo of my room had a broken speaker, so I had only half the sound, and in particular, it isolated one of the voices. It was Cass Elliot’s, who made the song, most of the time. And then her image fascinated me too, on the cover: she was twice the size of the others, and she laughed with her mouth wide open, while the others looked mysterious. My fascination with Cass goes way back!

Then I started investigating about her… She grew up in a modest family in Baltimore, but she tackled everything at 19 [by setting out] for New York, all by herself. She was destined to take over the kosher deli from her parents, but she wanted to be a rock star. She was overweight but pictured herself on a Broadway stage. The whole world swore by Joan Baez, but she hated folk music. All men friendzoned her but she fell in love every ten minutes. The members of the Mamas and Papas did not want her in the band, but she sang so well that they were forced to take her (and to make a career largely thanks to her presence). I can’t believe she doesn’t have ten biopics by now.

Each chapter is from a different supporting player’s perspective, which allows different perspectives on her life. Why did you decide on that approach? And how much work went into getting details about how each of these narrators saw Cass?

I wanted Cass’s character to be revealed bit by bit, from different perspectives: people who knew her, loved her, hated her, but never through her own eyes, so that she would remain a mystery that the reader alone would have to solve. Like I read interviews of her family, band members, artists, while trying to figure out the Cass puzzle myself first. Her own interviews are very opaque, because she always put on that act of the joyous fun persona, while I think she was broken inside.

You give a lot of time to her adolescence and home life, which is often given short shrift or completely skipped in favor of the lascivious details of the Mamas and the Papas. Why did you opt for that approach?

This is exactly why this work was never a biography to me: I chose to end my story exactly when the song “California Dreamin'” hits the radios. When Ellen Cohen becomes Mama Cass. When she becomes that public figure, with that famous band, with the career that we know, the sordid details of John Phillips and the myth of the choking-on-a-sandwich. That part didn’t interest me much. But the little girl, the teenager, the young woman, the path to becoming that rockstar that we all know, that’s the kind of stories I love to read (and therefore, write). I don’t like to read biographies; I like to read captivating portraits, that I can relate to.

You do an excellent job balancing her larger-than-life, outgoing nature against some of her insecurities, particularly regarding her feelings for Denny. Was it a challenge to find the proper balance of those aspects of her personality?

That’s exactly what I have in mind when I say I’m not interested in biographies: I like to put myself in a character’s shoes and imagine how I would feel. All the interviews I’ve read from people who knew her, they all praised her cheerfulness, her jokes, her Like-I-care attitude towards people who judged her. But labels wouldn’t sign contracts to her unless she lost weight, and told her to her face, without any care. The man she loved the most ran away with her best friend. She went through so much. Of course she must have kept so much inside. The challenge of never giving her the speech in my story, and letting the reader understand all these inner-wounds for himself, forced me to a lot of empathy.

As we might expect, the book is peppered with celebrity cameos. Was there anybody who showed up in her life that surprised you? Anybody you wanted to fit into the book, but didn’t quite work for this story?

In so many stories of that time, she will appear in the background, of the blue! “We were at a party at Cass Elliot’s”, “Along comes Mama Cass with tons of free drugs for everybody,” etc. In most of the photographs I’ve found, she’s lying on a sofa backstage, giggling with Jimi Hendrix or having a beer with Mick Jagger. The parties at her mansion (in the hammock !) in Laurel Canyon were the place to be, apparently. But yes, there is one story I had to let go and would have demanded that I kept telling the story ten years farther [than I did]: Cass was a huge fan of John Lennon. More than a fan, she had a real crush on him. The Mamas and the Papas covered “I Call Your Name,” that Cass wanted to sing because of her love for the Beatles. During the break of the song, she whispers “John…”. Years after that, the Ms&Ps played in London and went to party afterwards. But Cass was sick and in bed. And when they returned, they told her “You’re gonna be mad when you learn who we met and spent the night drinking with!” (the Beatles, that is). And apparently, John Lennon asked which of the two girls whispered his name in the song, and when he heard that it was Cass, he said, “Too bad.” (nice.)

Don’t get me started on rock n’ roll anecdotes, I will never stop.

How long did you research her life?

Not too long. Colossal amount of dates and facts tend A) to paralyse me B) bore me. I’m not a journalist, nor a historian. The only thing I want to make extra sure of is that nothing I say is not true. The whole thing would collapse if I made up reality. But when I have this backbone of checked facts, actual dates and events, then I can start doing my real job, which is connecting the dots, giving personality to people and tell a story. I really think you shouldn’t read this kind of story to learn something, but only to feel something strong, and discover someone, and want to know more.

“California Dreamin’” was published last fall by Gallimard in France. Do the Mamas and the Papas have a strong French following?

Depends on the generation! But usually, even younger people will immediately light up when they hear the first notes of the song. This song is so timeless and universal that, of course, if you turn on a radio station in France right now you will hear “California Dreamin’” sooner or later before the end of day. Not that you need to know (nor like) the song to read the book.

Your previous book in English, “Exquisite Corpse,” was full of bright blocks of colors. How does working black & white change your approach to your artwork?

It was a very long piece and I knew I would need a challenge to keep myself entertained in the process. Also I wanted to create a unity between all these chapters that go from the 40s to the 60s, with all these different outfits, cars, hairstyles. But mostly, I wanted to free my drawing, and a simple cheap pencil, compared to my usual big Photoshop+Wacom industry, [allowed that] – without any going-back or correcting (I never used an eraser in this book), [showing] possible stains, fingerprints, coffee drippings once in a while [when] working from coffee shops. [Drawing] without a safety net, I really loved it, and it changed my way of drawing. It felt like a giant sketchbook, where all my characters (especially Cass) were moving, living, in a very vibrant way. And I also loved the feeling of having dirty hands like a kindergartener at the end of the day!

What’s next for you?

The next book that I will publish with First Second is called “Brazen.” It’s an anthology of extraordinarily cool women (again) who changed History but never made it to History books. They are mermaids, rockstars, spies, astronauts, shamans, actresses, bandits, empresses, rappers, criminologists, all of them practically unknown and yet so amazing. It came out in France a few months ago, and will be out in English (along with 8 other languages) next year, so I can’t wait!

“California Dreamin'” is currently available from First Second Books.

The post Pénélope Bagieu is California Dreamin’ About Mama Cass appeared first on CBR.

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