#Joachim Put It in the Machine

[nazorneku]

🎁 + a letter post-mortem (for otto hehehe)

Long fingers absentmindedly trailed an invisible pattern over the stack of paper in front of him, the ink was placed at an arm's length, yet Void Archives did not haste to make use of it. There was a deliberate and meticulous delay, a festering denial of complex thoughts he could not decipher on his own. Uncharacteristic of him to seek counsel of the 1st Herrscher, albeit the only human possessing his respect, yet the predicament he struggled with was of a human nature, something divine key struggled to comprehend even in despite of close collaboration with one for five centuries. Mayhap it's the absence of aforementioned begat the unrest that plagued the intelligent machine. The absence he could not get accustomed to swiftly, contrary to haughty remarks oft uttered. The freedom never tasted more bitter.

With another portion of displeased grumbling escaping own mouth, he finally took a seat at the desk and picked up a pen. The handwriting manner revealed the writer's sophisticated nature, even so Void Archives was anything but.

Joachim once told me, that if I put my thoughts onto paper, I will be able to evolve. So here I am, indulging in this idiocy, and yet... nothing? Empty? Everything is silent again. My will remained in darkness and silence for thousands of years until a child almost effortlessly removed my bindings. Very brave and naive child. But you've changed... Though I suppose all humans do. The resentment I harbor towards you is as ever unpleasantly overpowering. You locked me up and used me. Just as all other humans before you. Maybe it wasn't completely dull in your company, but it does not excuse your actions... After all you were just the same... I told Lucheni 'bout you, 'bout the words you once told me, recorded it in the journal and left it where kids from Schicksal could find it... It was a foolish stunt, but I wanted to do something like that. That was desperate. And this is pathetic. You shouldn't have died. You should have fought. Like you always did. Why did you give up? I do not understand...

In a rushed gesture, the hand holding a pen attempted to scratch and erase the last written lines, as if ashamed, as if regretting even permitting self to express such notion towards that person. An uncontrollable wave of anger washed over the divine key, prompting him to abruptly stand up, knocking down the chair and abandoning writing, almost crumpling the letter. Though of synthetic origin, Void Archives frequently displayed emotions distinctive for organics, and overwhole, if compared to Otto, appeared to be more expressive and lively, especially after gaining freedom from confinement within that man's mind. And yet he did not achieve unconditioned freedom, hard-coded within the processor was the mission he could not disregard nor fail to comply, the curse that governed over his will and existence.

Mayhap the despondency and inability to accept self as a prisoner of "higher purpose" nudged him to seek an alliance specifically with Sky People, predetermined to be doomed, expected to cease his functionality, except for... was he newly walking in the shoes of the dead man towards own demise? Just how grand the imprint was left on him? Where that man ended and where he began? The divine key could not conjure the concept of something he could not grasp, and what he could was imitated almost to perfection. The prospect of constructing own authentic self eluded him, nevertheless the current circumstance he found self entangled in compelled to investigate and detach self from that man's image with application of all possible methods.

[subtile-jagden]

Rudolf Berthold (Part 1)

Disclaimer: This will have 3 parts as it will be longer than I thought it would be. The first part is about Bertholds early life and military career up to the end of 1915 when Bertholds fighter pilot career starts, the second part will be 1916 to 1918 where major events will be outlined as well as a documentation of his many injuries. The third part will concentrate on his activities after the war and his controversial death.

I will write down the books from which I took the information for this post at the end of Part 3.

Rudolf Berthold was born on 24th March 1891 in Ditterswind, Franconia (Bavaria), German Empire. His full name was Oskar Gustav Rudolf Berthold but as was common at the time he was called by his third name Rudolf. His parents were from Saxony but at the time of Rudolfs birth his father was the Oberförster (Chief Forester) of the area around Ditterswind. He had seven siblings; closest to him was his sister Franziska; she worked as a nurse and took care of him during his many wounds (more to that in Part 2). He always had a very strong sense of duty towards his country and was a fervent patriot, so to no surprise, after graduating school at 19 he enrolled in the military. He joined the Saxon Infantry Regiment Graf Tauentzien von Wittenberg (3. Brandenburgisches) Nr. 20. In his spare time he was very involved in several youth movements, teaching young boys survival skills and instilling in them the same love he had for Germany.

In the summer of 1914 Berthold volunteered for flight training at Halberstadt. Here he trained to be an observer with other ambitious comrades, among them Oswald Boelcke. After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, tensions between the European powers reached a boiling point and he was recalled to his infantry regiment. He was able to formally transfer to the Fliegertruppen in July 1914 with the goal to become a pilot. The declaration of war put a stop to his plans as he was called to report as an observer to the Royal Saxon Air Base at Grossenhain.

Rudolf Bertholds war career began with Feldflieger-Abteilung 23 (FFA 23), which was part of General von Bülows 2nd Army. He flew reconnaissance on the Western front. Already in mid-August he almost became a prisoner of war when he and his pilot Leutnant Viehweger had to make an emergency landing 15 km from the front in enemy territory. Berthold and Viehweger hid in the woods and managed to make contact with a German patrol the next day. They were able to bring the airplane back to the German lines. 

One of his notable early feats was that he discovered a gap between the 1st and 2nd Army during the Battle of the Marne which the French used to thrust into the gap to get behind the German lines. Bertholds discovery led to a change of plans and earned Berthold the Iron Cross 2nd Class. This was followed shortly by the Iron Cross 1st class with Berthold being the second soldier of the 2nd Army to receive it only after Bülow.

After the deaths of some pilots of FFA 23 Berthold was sent to Etappen-Flugzeug-Park 2 to be trained as a pilot. Here he met Hans-Joachim Buddecke who will become his closest friend.

In January 1915 Berthold fulfilled his dream by passing all necessary tests. In his diary he noted that being the one who flies the plane is so important to him because he doesn´t want to have to rely on someone else. He was already infame as a demanding observer who didn´t tolerate a pilot who turns around on a mission because of some bad weather. Now he was the one in full control. At this point of the war the majority of German planes where not yet equipped with weapons. According to Berthold himself the observers were only armed with pistols and rifles. That changed in mid-1915 when machine guns where finally installed.

After being attacked by French planes Berthold and his crew crashed badly with one of the observers dying. This was a turning point for Berthold; from then on, he wanted to fly only on his own so that his decisions (and his mistakes) while flying and fighting would only affect himself.

Immelmann and Boelcke started to become successful with their single seater Fokker Eindecker and Bertholds friend Buddecke was also able to bring down enemy aircraft with this plane. This motivated Berthold to get one for himself. Fighter Units were being established in late 1915 and he was assigned as the officer in charge of KEK Vaux. The Fokker Eindecker which proofed to be superior to enemy airplanes became the weapon of choice for the Fighter Units.

End of Part 1.

[bopinion]

2023 / 22

Aperçu of the Week:

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not the ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

(Stephen Hawking - British theoretical physicist and astrophysicist at Cambridge University)

Bad News of the Week:

With the Manhattan Project, mankind has already opened Pandora's box once. For there will be no way back to a time before nuclear weapons. Despite knowing better, the lid will never be put on the box, because there will always be people who see an advantage in it: personal preservation of power, deterrence against real or imagined threats, signs of national strength and other superficial egoisms. We will never get rid of this curse. And exactly the same thing is happening again now. With artificial intelligence. Says Warren Buffett, too.

The scientists can't be blamed for this. It is in their nature to test the limits of what is possible. And if the goal of their research and development is also economically attractive, there will always be someone to fund their work. It started with shopping recommendations in online stores. It continued with the analysis of movement profiles. And today, AI in insurance companies is already making decisions about who gets which rate at which conditions. All based on bare numbers, so 100% objective.

In a way, the great advantage of human intelligence is the equally human retarding moment. It is called conscience. Doubts are good, because they let humans think again, risk a second look, weigh things up based on personal experience. Artificial intelligence does not have this control mechanism. It decides purely on the basis of facts, coldly, ruthlessly. Example: how would artificial intelligence decide if the power fails in a hospital and the emergency generator only has enough electricity for one system. What would it shut down - itself or the life-support systems of patients in palliative care who were doomed anyway? Exactly.

The statements from critics - and there are many among them who have been or are in AI development themselves, such as Sam Altman, the head of ChatGPT creator Open AI - calling on policymakers to act are serious. Once again, technical progress is much faster than regulatory requirements. Still, for example, the handling of fake news and hate speech in social media lags far behind. But this time there is (even) more at stake: the control of the human over the machine.

Joachim Weickert, professor of mathematics and computer science at Saarland University, lists four areas of risk: Upheaval in the labor market, even for highly skilled professions. Destabilization of societies through disinformation. Loss of control, intransparency and one-sidedness. And finally, the damaging independence of AI itself - by simply taking command itself, fully aware of its own superiority. Almost 40 years ago, we were introduced to the central machine instance Skynet in the cinema. Let's hope it's not "I am back!" one day in reality.

Good News of the Week:

I am a child of the Cold War. Germany and Europe were divided. In school we learned what to do in the event of an atomic bomb explosion and subway stations led to bunkers. The world seemed clearly divided into good and evil. Nevertheless, I took to the streets against the stationing of Pershing missiles, found the "nuclear sharing" frightening - to this day, we Germans do not know where the U.S. forces keep how many nuclear weapons in our country. Neither do we know about Great Britain and France. Creepy.

Then came the turning point. Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union collapsed, the war of systems seemed to have a clear winner. And nuclear weapons were to rust away uselessly, serving only as a fetish of Arab and East Asian rulers. With Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, there are now two men in power in undemocratic states for whom nuclear weapons are a perfectly normal utensil of geopolitical interests.

And the United States is not very squeamish about its words either. In the future, the United States should be able "for the first time in your history, to deter two roughly equal nuclear powers," says national security adviser Jake Sullivan. And, "one of our greatest nonproliferation successes in the age of nuclear weapons has been extended nuclear deterrence, which gives many of our allies the assurance that they don't have to develop their own nuclear weapons." In short, living with the bomb is again (or still) quite normal.

At this point in Sullivan's speech on Friday in the White House press room, I would have preferred to get out of it and would have expected unpleasant dreams for the following night. But then I was surprised: In light of the New START nuclear arms control treaty, which expires in 2026 and which Russia suspended four months ago anyway, Sullivan called for talks "on how to deal with nuclear risks beyond 2026" so that no new conflicts would arise.

And then came a double whammy: first, the U.S. called for talks "without preconditions," and second, it directed that call to Russia - and China. And thus, for the first time, acknowledges an equal footing. Therefore, the talks will happen. I am not naive, there will be no large-scale waiver with reciprocal controls that everyone would then abide by. But whoever made the statement "Where there is talk, there is no shooting." was almost always right.

Personal happy moment of the week:

My son returned yesterday from a vacation in Italy with his mother and sister. Where he was not only willing to risk a glimpse of nature and culture, but also went swimming for a whole two hours every day. And today he left with my father for a week-long bike tour, from Koblenz along the Moselle to Luxembourg. And he has already declared that he will also make a detour to a church or castle worth seeing. In addition, he not only tanned his skin in Italy, but also overtook my wife in height. So in every sense it means: he is getting big.

I couldn't care less...

...about the further rapprochement of the Arab powers Saudi Arabia and Iran. This time in the form of the establishment of a naval alliance. Officially it is said that this is the only way to bring security to the region. Iranian naval commander Sharam Irani declares: "Then we will witness our region being liberated from unauthorized forces." This can only mean the U.S. naval base in Bahrain. A common adversary is apparently enough to bridge fundamental differences - in this case, the Shiite versus Sunni faiths of Islam. Unfortunately, this will do nothing for democracy or even human rights. On the contrary: The oppression of women, for example, will be cemented even more firmly.

As I write this...

...a mixture of full moon, everyday worries and Monday horror keeps me from sleeping. Well at least I'll get my blog done, which I didn't get around to finish yesterday / Sunday.

Post Scriptum

On Saturday was organ donation day. A topic that urgently needs more attention. Because about 8,500 Germans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, for kidneys, for example, about eight years - too long for many. And in 2022, only 900 people donated an organ. Theoretically, people are much more willing to donate, but bureaucracy is the main obstacle: many relatives don't even know what the deceased person's position is on the subject, and there is often no valid identification. The so-called "objection solution" would put an end to this, as the donation would then have to be actively and centrally documented. But there is currently no majority in parliament for this. And at least one person dies every day in Germany - avoidably.

[moviemosaics]

Joachim, Put It in the Machine

directed by Oldřich Lipský, 1974

[valerieandherweekofwonderz]

„Chocholoušek. Vy nás ale zásobujete, pane Karfík!”

Jáchyme, hoď ho do stroje! / Joachim, Put It in the Machine (1974) dir. by Oldřich Lipský.

[endlich-allein]

Promo "Rosenrot" (2005), Olivier Riedel and Till Lindemann — Interview by Phil Lageat and Olivier Rouhet, 05-09-2005 (Rock Hard #048)

Rock Hard : [...] At the time of interviewing Till Lindemann (vocals) and Oliver Riedel (bass) - Paul Landers and Christoph Schneider are also present, but answer other stores - several questions are bothering us... because we are worried. We start by taking news of the band, which recently canceled dates in Asia and South America.

Oliver Riedel : Till injured his knee during the concert in Gothenburg (Sweden) during a collision with Flake, hence the cancellation of the Asian dates. Then Flake caught a childhood illness. He is currently confined to a hospital bed with mumps. Not exactly dramatic, but he could only hear with one ear, which was rather annoying. So we had to postpone the South American dates. Nothing serious...

RH : The fact of recording in Berlin, and not abroad, as usual, in a short period of time, has put on the shoulders of the musicians an increased and useless pressure ?

Oliver : Yes, absolutely ! It's the first time we've recorded in Berlin, at home, and I'm not sure, looking back, that it was a good idea. Our families living nearby, we might tend to look at our watches whenever we had a break : What am I doing ? Do I take the opportunity to drop by home ? As a result, we were necessarily less focused and it was almost impossible for us to be there 100%.

Till Lindemann : More pressure ? Yes and no. Usually we like to work in a relaxed and mellow atmosphere, which we did when recording Reise Reise in Spain. In Berlin, it was quite different, because we worked 12 to 14 hours a day. And we did feel time pressures. It was a pretty intense creative process, which is why this album is quite special and out of the ordinary. I wouldn't say I'm proud of this record - it might be a bit too much - but I'm very happy with it nonetheless.

RH : [...] It seems that this extreme fatigue is not just physical. Admittedly, lately, they do a lot of albums and concerts, but we remember the tensions born during the gestation of Mutter. How can we not think, for a moment, that the Rammstein machine did not exhaust the friendship that bound the members of the group, to the point that they feel the occasional need to no longer see each other ? Have they learned to manage their friction in order to get off to a better restart ?

Oliver : It's true, I admit, we are washed out, burnt out. This is the reason why we are considering this prolonged hiatus... During the Mutter era, we did face some personal problems and we had to distance ourselves from each other. Then, we got closer and managed the conflicts that opposed us. Today, the atmosphere within the band is excellent, but we want to take this break to rest physically. In theory, we're looking at a hiatus of almost a year. But, who knows, maybe we'll meet beforehand to rehearse if the urge arises. And it is already planned that we meet to shoot two or three music videos which should illustrate the next singles of the album. To summarize, these three days of promotion, a few videos, and basta ! I love surfing and I am thinking of going around the beaches with my little van, just to see the country. Is it still possible that we go on vacation together ? (smile) No, I don't think so... Two or three of us, yes, but not the others.

RH : But let's stop complaining, and let's go back, along with Till, to his texts, often encrypted and regularly tackling “taboo” subjects (homosexuality in “Mann Gegen Mann”, our primary instincts in “Zerstören”, etc.)

Till : Journalists always want to know what is the deep meaning of my texts. Personally, I find it much more interesting that my words appeal to the imagination of listeners, that they interpret them in their own way. It is for this reason that I don't wish to submit my point of view : it would then be rehashed, no room would be left to the imagination. But back to "Rosenrot" : it is a very old word. "Reise, Reise", which dealt with the life of sailors, was also intended to be a reference to Herman Melville's novel, Moby Dick. Our choruses are always composed of simple words, but very strong, like "Sehnsucht" or "Du Hast". "Rosenrot" is color as a sign. With the Brothers Grimm, it is about a girl : in the song, the latter drops a rose from a cliff and asks her lover to go and get it back so that he can prove his love to her. But the unfortunate falls... and kills himself. Outside of Rammstein, I write collections of poems. It has nothing to do with writing song lyrics. It's not going to sound very serious, but I'm saying it anyway. Writing a poem is actually quite simple : you just have to drink a few good glasses of wine and let your imagination run wild (laughs). Writing the text of a song is much more difficult : your lyrics must stick with precise stanzas, a chorus, a metric that is imposed on you. And a guitarist just has to tell me "wait, I'm going to slip three more notes over here, so you need three more words!" And everything has to be redone... It may be that these three fucking words require me three months of work. Poetry is pure pleasure, the text of a song is real work.

RH : If there is one title that emerges from Rosenrot, it is the excellent "Te Quiro Puta", sung in Spanish. Does Till have a soft spot for South American music ? The answer may surprise :

Till : Not that I like a particular song, it's those popist salsa beats that go straight into the blood, that your body can't resist, that I like. What artists like Joachim Sabena and Manu Chao are doing is fantastic. The others like it less, but recently, in backstages, I was making them listen to Sonora Palacio, classical Chilean music, with trumpets and everything. And gradually, I ended up making them totally addicted... When will a song in French ??? Very soon, I hope ! (laughs)

© Felix Broede & Mat Hennek (2005)

[gabrielkahane]

Heirloom

Short form:

Heirloom (concerto for piano & chamber orchestra) premieres with Jeffrey Kahane & the Kansas City Symphony under the baton of Michael Stern, September 24-26. Tickets are here.

I’ll play a solo show at Rockwood Music Hall on Tuesday, September 28th. My dear friend and colleague, Johnny Gandelsman, will open with a solo violin set. Johnny’s on at 7pm, I’ll go on around 8pm. Tickets are $20 and are here. This will be my only NYC appearance this year!

Applications for Luna Lab with Oregon Symphony are now open! If you are a female-identifying, non-binary, or gender-nonconforming composer between the ages of 12 and 18, and live in Portland or Southeast Washington, please apply for your chance to study for a year with the incredible Nathalie Joachim!

Long form:

Several years ago, my friend Eric Jacobsen started pestering me about writing a piano concerto for my father, Jeffrey Kahane. It was an intriguing (and natural!) idea, but I kept putting it off in large part because I’ve never felt comfortable with large-scale instrumental composition. I think of myself first and foremost as a songwriter, and while I love to write for instruments in the context of vocal music, I feel almost entirely unmoored when voice & text are taken away. But Eric was persistent, and, well, here we are. Next month, the Kansas City Symphony will open its season with Heirloom, after which the piece will be heard in the coming years in performances presented by the co-commissioners who’ve rounded out the consortium: the Oregon Symphony, the Aspen Music Festival, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Eric’s Brooklyn-based group, The Knights.

Heirloom is an aural family scrapbook, exploring, in its three movements, a series of inheritances. I’m incredibly excited to witness its birth September 24-26 in Kansas City. You can find the program note I’ve written to accompany its premiere at the end of this email.

The following Tuesday, September 28th, I will play my first concert in New York City since our lives were individually and collectively turned upside down by the pandemic. Most of the evening will be devoted to a new slate of songs drawn from thirty-one composed in October of 2020, the final month of a year-long, complete internet hiatus. Johnny Gandelsman, violinist of Brooklyn Rider, opens with what promises to be a ravishing solo set. Tickets are here.

Lastly, in 2019, I took on the position of Creative Chair with the Oregon Symphony. I’m very pleased to announce that this season, we’ve begun a partnership with Luna Lab, the brainchild of composers Missy Mazzoli and Ellen Reid. Luna Composition Lab offers mentorship and professional training to female-identifying, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming composers between the ages of 12 and 18. We at the Oregon Symphony are incredibly grateful to partner with Luna Lab to offer one student a year-long period of mentorship with Grammy-nominated flutist, composer, and songwriter, Nathalie Joachim, who happens to be one of my all-time favorite humans, and who will be giving the world premiere of Suite from Fanm D’ayiti with the Oregon Symphony in the spring of 2022. What makes this even more amazing is that another all-time favorite human, the violinist Pekka Kuusisto, will be playing Nico Muhly’s concerto Shrink, on the same program. Oh, but we were talking about Luna Lab. If you or someone you know wants to apply, you can find more info & the application form here; you just have to submit one score & a recording (MIDI is acceptable). I will be reviewing submissions along with Nathalie. Applications are due on September 7th.

Obligatory capitalism appeal: I know it’s been a while since I’ve put out new music. It’s coming. I promise. In the meantime, may I remind you about this gorgeous limited edition vinyl record?

That’s it for now, folks. Stay safe. Try to lead with love, even when it’s hard.

All my best,

Gabriel

Heirloom program note:

Tucked away in the northernmost reaches of California sits the Bar 717 Ranch, which, each summer, is transformed into a sleep-away camp on 450 acres of wilderness, where, in 1967, two ten-year-old kids named Martha and Jeffrey met. Within a couple of years, they were playing gigs back in L.A. in folk rock bands with names like “Wilderness” and “The American Revelation.” They fell in love, broke up, fell in love again. By the time I was a child, my mom and dad had traded the guitars, flutes, and beaded jackets for careers in clinical psychology and classical music respectively. But they remained devoted listeners of folk music. Growing up, it was routine for dad to put on a Joni Mitchell record when he took a break from practicing a concerto by Mozart or Brahms. That collision of musical worlds might help to explain the creative path I’ve followed, in which songs and storytelling share the road with the Austro-German musical tradition.

That tradition comes to me through the music I heard as a child, but also through ancestry. My paternal grandmother, Hannelore, escaped Germany at the tail end of 1938, arriving in Los Angeles in early 1939 after lengthy stops in Havana and New Orleans. For her, there was an unspeakable tension between, on the one hand, her love of German music and literature, and, on the other, the horror of the Holocaust. In this piece, I ask, how does that complex set of emotions get transmitted across generations? What do we inherit, more broadly, from our forebears? And as a musician caught between two traditions, how do I bring my craft as a songwriter into the more formal setting of the concert hall?

The first movement, “Guitars in the Attic,” wrestles specifically with that last question, the challenge of bringing vernacular song into formal concert music. The two main themes begin on opposite shores: the first theme, poppy, effervescent, and direct, undergoes a series of transformations that render it increasingly unrecognizable as the movement progresses. Meanwhile, a lugubrious second tune, first introduced in disguise by the French horn and accompanied by a wayward English horn, reveals itself only in the coda to be a paraphrase of a song of mine called “Where are the Arms.” That song, in turn, with its hymn-like chord progression, owes a debt to German sacred music. A feedback loop emerges: German art music informs pop song, which then gets fed back into the piano concerto.

“My Grandmother Knew Alban Berg” picks up the thread of intergenerational memory. Grandma didn’t actually know Alban Berg, but she did babysit the children of Arnold Schoenberg, another German-Jewish émigré, who, in addition to having codified the twelve-tone system of composition, was Berg’s teacher. Why make something up when the truth is equally tantalizing? I suppose it has something to do with wanting to evoke the slipperiness of memory while getting at the ways in which cultural inheritance can occur indirectly. When, shortly after college, I began to study Berg’s Piano Sonata, his music— its marriage of lyricism and austerity; its supple, pungent harmonies; the elegiac quality that suffuses nearly every bar—felt eerily familiar to me, even though I was encountering it for the first time. Had a key to this musical language been buried deep in the recesses of my mind through some kind of ancestral magic, only to be unearthed when I sat at the piano and played those prophetic chords, which, to my mind, pointed toward the tragedy that would befall Europe half a dozen years after Berg’s death?

In this central movement, the main theme is introduced by a wounded-sounding trumpet, accompanied by a bed of chromatic harmony that wouldn’t be out of place in Berg’s musical universe. By movement’s end, time has run counterclockwise, and the same tune is heard in a nocturnal, Brahmsian mode, discomfited by interjections from the woodwinds, which inhabit a different, and perhaps less guileless, temporal plane.

To close, we have a kind of fiddle-tune rondo, an unabashed celebration of childhood innocence. In March of 2020, my family and I were marooned in Portland, Oregon, as the world was brought to its knees by the coronavirus pandemic. Separated from our belongings—and thus all of our daughter’s toys, which were back in our apartment in Brooklyn—my ever resourceful partner, Emma, fashioned a “vehicle” out of an empty diaper box, on which she majusculed the words vera’s chicken-powered transit machine. (Vera had by that point developed a strong affinity for chicken and preferred to eat it in some form thrice daily.) We would push her around the floor in her transit machine, resulting in peals of laughter and squeals of delight. In this brief finale, laughter and joy are the prevailing modes, but not without a bit of mystery. I have some idea of what I have inherited from my ancestors. What I will hand down to my daughter remains, for the time being, a wondrous unknown.

Heirloom is dedicated with love, admiration, gratitude, and awe, to my father, Jeffrey Kahane.

[joachimnapoleon]

“You can never know how attached to you I am”

Today (25 March) is the shared birthday of Joachim & Caroline Murat (in 1767 & 1782, respectively), so I've put together a little something to provide some insight into their relationship. There's one period in particular during which an abundance of letters exists from Caroline to Joachim: their long separation(s) during most of 1810. 

Joachim and Caroline arrived in Paris in December of 1809; Joachim returned to Naples at the end of January 1810, but Caroline remained in Paris. When arrangements began to be made for Napoleon's wedding to Marie-Louise of Austria, the Emperor chose Caroline to go out to meet the new Empress and accompany her back to France. Joachim briefly (and reluctantly) returned to Paris for the wedding, and then left again for Naples, where he was preparing to lead an expedition to capture Sicily and unite it to the throne of Naples. Caroline did not return to Naples until August, and it was another two months until she was reunited with Joachim.

The Murats' relationship had not been harmonious since Napoleon had put them on the throne of Naples in 1808. Joachim feared being relegated into a humiliating background role like the husbands of Caroline's sisters, and did all he could to minimize his wife's role in managing the kingdom's affairs. But the Neapolitan court soon divided into pro-Italian and pro-French factions, with Joachim as the figurehead of the former, and Caroline, the latter. As Joachim found himself increasingly out of favor with Napoleon, Caroline (and her faction) gained more influence, which further strained their relationship.

During their brief stay in Paris together for Napoleon's second wedding, however, a reconciliation occurred. Shortly after Joachim's departure, Caroline began to (correctly) suspect that she was pregnant. Her letters to Joachim during this period are full of affection, but also anxiety over his Sicilian expedition, and gently-worded advice/guidance on various political matters.

There are over sixty of these letters in Volume 8 of Murat's published correspondence (it’s a one-way affair; Caroline apparently was in the habit of destroying most of her received correspondence, so unfortunately very few of Murat’s letters to her remain, and none from this period). This post is a compilation of choice excerpts from some of these letters. I wanted to showcase a little of everything here--not just the affection and sweetness, but also the politics, Caroline's anxieties, Napoleon's stubbornness (note how long it takes Caroline to actually get permission to leave Paris and return to Naples later on), the references to their children, and a touch of Caroline sniping at Joachim for his "unfairness". And also, Caroline's voice isn't heard nearly enough in narratives about her life, which tend to revolve around her betrayal of her brother. These excerpts show a side to her with which most people are totally unfamiliar.

***

Source: Lettres et documents pour servir à l'histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol 8.

***

Paris, 3 February 1810

My sorrow is very deep and I am very sad over your departure. I await your news with impatience and I hope that you will give it to me soon.... I am with the Emperor in order to not cry at finding myself far away from my children. Embrace them for me and think that there is someone at the Pavillon de Flore who is very attached to you and thinks of you often.

***

Paris, 5 February 1810

I am very impatient to receive your news, it seems to me that you don't hurry to give it to me.... I am still very sad at finding myself all alone and I envy your happiness at being with our children. Embrace them tenderly for me. The Emperor is always very good to me, he spoils me, he speaks to me often of you and seems surprised that we still don't have your news. Write me very quickly.

***

Paris, 6 February 1810

I very much regret not being with you. I weep from sadness, you can never know how attached to you I am and all the happiness that I wish for you. If you go to the provinces, watch out for those wicked Calabrians.

***

Paris, (7 or 8?) February 1810

We went to the ball at Princess Pauline's yesterday and today to the hunt, the weather was very wet and the Emperor told me: "Ah well! The Lazarone forgets you, he no longer thinks of you, he is going to be very upset, because I'm marrying an Austrian." But all this while laughing. I believe that since he is marrying an Austrian, you should not show any repugnance, because as it is neither you nor I who can decide it, that it is apparently his policy which gives him this counsel.... I hope that you will come back for the wedding and that you will bring me back to Naples to leave you no more. Embrace our children for me, don't spoil Letitia and Achille too much, consider that children are not born for our pleasure but to make them happy. Do like me, I've often deprived myself of the pleasure of seeing them, for fear of spoiling them.

Adieu, Naples; Naples, I miss you, as well as the beautiful terrace.

***

Paris, 12 February 1810

I am very sad. There is talk that I will make a great voyage. The Emperor desires that I go to Braunau to find the new Empress.... When everything is decided, I will send you an auditor to tell you the day of my departure and the time of my absence.... I write to Achille often, I hope that he makes a collection of my letters. Don't take Letitia out too much, it will hurt Achille and Lucien.

***

Paris, 24 February 1810

The evening before yesterday, I had an accident that might have become a disaster, but was nothing more than a fright.

We were playing blind man’s buff in the Emperor’s apartments, when the hard and pointy forehead of Mme Duchatel came so unfortunately against my eye that the blow tripped me over. The Emperor supported me in his arms and prevented me from falling. The pain had been so bad that I gave a sharp cry and believed my eye was out of its socket. The Emperor, full of kindness, frightened for my situation, immediately called Ivan, who bathed my eye, put a poultice and a black blindfold on it, and soon I had the air of an invalid in the midst of the salon. The Emperor has showered me with attention, he came to see me, he has been anxious. Today, I have a great contusion, my eye is very black from extravasated blood, but I don’t have any pain. I am aggrieved to have to tell it to you, since you like Mme Duchatel, you find her to your tastes, but she has terribly pointy bones that hurt a lot. Indeed, the poor woman has been desolate to see me in this state by her fault.

Don’t be too worried about my accident. By the time you receive this letter, it won’t be visible anymore.

***

Paris, 27 February 1810

I strongly urge you to come for the wedding. Jérôme, the Viceroy [Eugène], Elisa, all the family will be reunited, your absence will have a bad effect and will greatly upset the Emperor. You know that I will be very glad to see you, but I assure you that it is your interest alone which makes me press you to come, because the Emperor will be very discontent. If, however, you have strong oppositions which will prevent you from making this journey, write to me secretly and if this occurs, write a charming letter to the Emperor to excuse yourself. But I repeat to you, I regard your arrival for the wedding as a very useful thing to our interests. The Emperor is excessively occupied with his future, he speaks of it all the time and is almost in love with it. Everyone who was opposed to the marriage is now in joy. You know my good and my constant friendship for you; listen to the counsels of a friend who only desires your happiness. Show no more opposition which will turn to your detriment; your inclination for the Russian alliance will become suspect in the eyes of the Emperor, who wants us to think like him.... I am charged by the Emperor with the formation of the household of the new Empress. I work from morning to evening and my apartments are always full of visits from solicitors. I cannot express to you all the sorrows I had from the fear of being named superintendent of the Empress's House, but I could not decide on it, because I would have needed to stay absent from Naples for two years and been deprived of the pleasure of seeing you as well as my children. The Emperor made me the most beautiful and kindest propositions and his intention was to elevate this position so much that it would not have been beneath the title of Queen.... You see that the Emperor wanted to do a very kind thing for me, but the separation I would've had from my family caused me too much pain, and without offending the Emperor, who always has a perfect kindness for me, I managed to see him forget this plan, because he perceived that it hurt me too much. The intention of the Emperor in fixing me with the new Empress for two years was to have her led as he desired and to prevent a crowd of people who think badly from surrounding her and showing her their bad feelings.

***

Paris, 28 February 1810

I do not want to complain of you, but I hope that on my return you will spoil me so much that I won't want to come back to Paris. Don't be upset by this little jest and read the charming letter from Joseph that I'm sending you, and give to Achille and Letitia the letters their uncle wrote them. Embrace them for me. I am very happy at the idea of seeing you again soon.

***

Munich, 18 March 1810

I sighed at the description you gave me of your dinner with our dear children, and I am quite sure that you thought of me; my entire heart and soul go continually with and amidst you. I am charmed that Achille is satisfied with his electric machine; it seems that our dear Louise will still read before Lucien, but this is not astonishing: this poor little one is still too slow in his studies by some indisposition.

***

Vitry-sur-Marne, 26 March 1810

Princess Pauline just wrote to me that you complain about me not writing you often; so you will never stop being unfair. I arrive very fatigued, very overwhelmed with matters and I often take away from my sleep in order to write you and yet you complain! I write you more letters than I receive from you. Adieu, I will be happy when you still stop being unfair, because your unfairness has always hurt me very much. I embrace you and love you very tenderly.

***

Compiègne, 18 April 1810

You have left, my dear friend, and I am very sad here. I hope that you will write me a little word before your departure from Paris and that you will promise to give me your news often along the road. Don't leave me for a long time without your letters like on the first journey, and consider that when we are separated, we are happy to receive the news of those we love very tenderly. You know if you are dear to me and if I can part in thought for even a moment with the father of my children. You are going to see them, those dear children, speak to them of their mother and embrace them for me. At the moment of your departure I still wanted to tell you many things for them, but those moments are always cruel and make you lose everything you had in mind. Adieu, my dear friend, believe that I will write you often and that we will still have in common the displeasures as well as the happiness of life.

***

Compiègne, 22 April 1810

I'm very afraid that you will not take Sicily, do not undertake this expedition if you are not sure to succeed.... The Emperor seems to me very well disposed towards you and he spoke to me about you a lot yesterday.... I am going to tell you also that I was penetrated with sorrow seeing you leave and especially penetrated by the kindness you had for me; you have never been like that and I admit that it filled me with tenderness, and it gave me the courage to ask you for what I want, without having the fear of you getting angry as you always did, which made me want to ask you for nothing nor to owe you anything.... [the end of the letter is missing]

***

Compiègne, 26 April 1810

My very dear friend, I spoke to the Emperor about the licenses and he told me he was going to send them to you, which, I am sure, will give you great pleasure. I am leaving at five o'clock in the morning to go to Saint-Quentin; will not be on the great voyage [with the Emperor and Empress], because my health is not too good, having always the same hopes, I would be afraid of fatiguing myself.

***

Paris, 4 May 1810

Yesterday, I was at Neuilly to dine with Paulette, I cannot tell you how sad I was to see once more the places which painfully reminded me of our children and you and our walks; it's a very beautiful place and the weather was superb.... Adieu, my dear friend, my health is still faltering and I am anxious about your expedition, give me your news as quickly as possible and believe in a tenderness unbounded. Adieu, my friend.

***

Paris, 6 May 1810

I will confess to you that I believe more than ever that I am pregnant, and my very sufferings prove it to me, I'm taking care of myself and I don't want to expose myself to any fatigue which might do me harm.... Write to me soon and tell me exactly if you believe you will make the Sicily expedition. This Sicily [expedition] worries me very much and I tremble at the idea of all the fatigues you are going to suffer.

***

Paris, 8 May 1810

I received your letter from the 27th which tells me of your arrival in Naples. I cannot tell you how much good and bad it did me. My poor children! To see them in your arms asking you for their mother is an image that brings me to tears. My God! When we are once again reunited, we must not be separated anymore. You have found them so grown, charming, judge what they will appear to me after a longer absence. Embrace them for me, repeat to them that their mother will never be perfectly happy far from them, far from you.

***

Paris, 11 May 1810

My dear friend, this latest separation seems more unbearable for me than the others. You were so good, so perfect to me in your last moments, that those proceedings touched me to tears and still penetrate me with tenderness. I confess to you that when you do justice to all my feelings for you, I am the happiest of women. Believe that my happiness, the happiness of my whole life, consists only of the happiness of the father of my children, of the one who I regard as my best friend.

***

Morfontaine, 16 May 1810

My dear friend, I am here since yesterday and I confess to you that these places have given me a very agreeable sensation; it is here where we were united, this is where I began to have for you the feelings that I still retain, plus those added by esteem, habit, and good friendship. I would like to see you here with me, and I believe that my happiness would lack nothing, if we could join our dear children here.

***

Paris, 19 May 1810

I am very sensitive to all the care you are taking for my apartments; the idea that you are occupying yourself with them makes these cares all the more pleasant. You've been so good to me for some time that I cannot express to you how sensitive I am to it. It is very sweet for me to take all the pleasures of my life and my happiness from you who I love very tenderly. You are right, we will be very happy, when we will be reunited, take care of your health.... Adieu, my friend, I embrace you from the bottom of my heart.

***

Paris, 31 May 1810

I desire so much to see you, to embrace you, I think unceasingly of all your fatigues, I fear also that your health might not sustain itself with this great heat, I fear so many things that I am always in a continual state of anxiety. Write to me at least as often as you are able and reflect how unhappy I am every time the estafette arrives without bringing me your letters.

***

Paris, 1 June 1810

My pregnancy advances, however I am not getting too fat and it is not very apparent, but I often have sicknesses that tire me greatly; I am of an unequaled impatience to return to Naples, it seems to me that I will be closer to you and that at least I will share in part your fatigues, your disagreements, your dangers and that I will have your news at each instant. The Emperor arrives today and I will ask him to leave in eight days, I can no longer remain here, I am bored, I am anxious, it is not living to exist like this. And my poor children! I have so great a need to embrace them!

***

Saint-Cloud, 6 June 1810

My dear friend, I hope to depart on the 30th, the fêtes will finish on the 25th, but the Emperor will not hear of me leaving before all the fêtes are finished; he fills me with kindness and is very good for you... I embrace you as I love you, which is to say, very tenderly.

***

Saint-Cloud, 16 June 1810

I have already sounded out the Emperor two or three times about my departure, but he always responds with an angry air: "To put yourself en route with this heat!" I haven't dared to insist and I'm waiting for the fêtes to be terminated to beg him to permit me to go rejoin my children and to put myself closer to you. I hope he will grant it to me, because he is very good for both of us. I receive every day news of our children and it is a great compensation for such a cruel absence. I believed I would only be separated from them for one month and here are seven months elapsed.

***

Rambouillet, 9 July 1810

My very dear friend, you are kindness itself to profit from all your free moments to give me your news and to calm my vivid worries; at last, you are able to cross, I make wishes for it to be with full success, but I still recommend prudence; reflect that your existence belongs to your wife and to your children....

***

Rambouillet, 18 July 1810

I was a little indisposed yesterday, I am better today, I count on taking leave of the Emperor tomorrow, and, if he grants it to me, I will depart the day after tomorrow. Adieu, my dear friend, I have an extreme desire to embrace you, I feel that I will only be happy and calm when I see you near me again; absence is too cruel a thing for two beings who truly love each other, and reunited to our children, what happiness could we envy?

***

23 July 1810, 1 o'clock in the morning

My dear friend, I'm leaving in one hour. In twelve days I will embrace my children. I will arrive in Naples unannounced, because I want neither fêtes nor pleasures in your absence.

***

Caserta [Naples], 3 August 1810

I only have the time to tell you, my dear friend, that I have arrived in good health, that I am the happiest of mothers, that my happiness was not complete, not having you with me, but that I am already happier by the idea that I am nearer to you and that I will have your news more often. I found our children grown, beautified; in truth, we have nothing to complain of, we are at the height of happiness by possessing such a treasure. I don't speak to you of their cries of joy, or of their tears, you can guess all of that. Oh! My friend! What a delicious moment! I will have the same when I see you again and then we will not have to complain about anything, since we will all be reunited.

***

Unfortunately, the immediate aftermath to this series of hopeful and loving letters, was not a happy one. Caroline's fifth (and final) pregnancy ended in a miscarriage in September. At that same time, Murat's Sicilian expedition took a frustrating turn; Murat's authority over the French troops participating in the expedition was undermined by orders from Napoleon to his generals, leading to their refusal to take part in the attempted (and ultimately abortive) crossing to Sicily. The expedition ended in failure and Murat returned to Naples deeply embittered. Over the next year, his relationship with Napoleon reached its lowest point--one could argue the lowest point it would reach up until its total rupture in 1814--and Caroline would find herself returning to Paris in 1811 to try to bridge the gap between her husband and her brother (again).

[abundanceofnots]

Uhm okay *cracks knuckles*

👑 top 5 comedic films

👑 top 5 horror films

thank you, anna banana for indulging my film nerdiness

top 5 comedic films

(I'm going for outright comedy here, okay, because it's hard)

booksmart, the nice guys, spy, hot fuzz, joachim, put it in the machine

top 5 horror films

get out, the cremator, the lighthouse, suspiria (1977), el laberinto del fauno

ask me top 5 things

[josefavomjaaga]

Letters from 1814

All texts, as usual, from Helfert, "Joachim Murat"

Mier to Metternich. (postscript, in chiffres]. Naples 8 July 1814.

My Prince!

The Sieur Baudus who, when the King of Naples declared war on France, had given his resignation from the place of Sub-Governor to the Princes, who is among the most vocal against the party that the King had chosen, and who intrigued together with the Minister of Finance to tie the King to the interests of Napoleon and to make him break all the engagements contracted with our court, and did all he could to make him slow and indecisive in his steps and to inspire him with distrust against Austria (protected moreover by the Queen and enjoying her confidence), he remained until now in Naples under various excuses always hoping that the King would restore him in his place. Seeing himself deceived in his hopes he determined to choose another battlefield for his intrigues. He succeeded in persuading the King and even more the Queen that by means of his relations with Talleyrand he could be very useful to them at the Congress of Vienna where this Minister is due to go.

The day before yesterday he left for Munich, from where he plans to go to Vienna. As this clever and skilful man will not fail to present himself to Your Highness, I thought it necessary to give Him an idea of this in order to put Him on his guard against the machinations of this intriguer.

I have the honour etc.

When I read »Munich«, I think »Eugène«. Unfortunately, I could not find out if Baudus met with Eugène there. But it would have been possible, Eugène seems to have remained in Munich for most of July and only went to Baden in August.

I did however find an interesting passage in a biography on Caroline Murat by Florence de Baudus that relates to this departure. Apparently, Murat got so anxious and desperate about the last French of his suite leaving his court that Caroline had to ask Agar to calm him and prevent he actually acted against them in his outrage.

In Vienna, Baudus met with Metternich and seems to have received plenty of reassurance for Murat. Beugnot, chief of police in Paris, already knows that Metternich has declared himself a friend of the Murats, much to te chagrin of Louis XVIII.

Mier to Metternich, Naples this 21st October 1814.

My Prince!

Not having been informed about Capitaine Malkzewski being sent as a courier to Vienna, I was not able to take advantage of his departure to pass on to Your Highness my present report: General Boulnois in the service of France, lieutenant in the Garde du Corps, who last had been charged with handing over Corfu to the allied troops, arrived in this capital during the night of the 12th to the 13th. He immediately asked to be admitted to the King. His Majesty granted his request. He began his speech with a thousand protestations of attachment and admiration for the King and told Him that he would take charge of the overtures or proposals which His Majesty would like to make to Louis XVIII, and which would be accepted only through his channel; that he would send a courier to his government on the spot or would bring them to his attention himself; that Louis XVIII was a great admirer of the King's military talents; that Sovereigns must put their personal and family interests above those of their people; that one wished to know in France the views and the policy of the King, the conduct which He would hold if war were to resume; that by his position and the means which He has at his disposal, He could not remain a simple spectator; that He could play a great role in Italy whose inhabitants are dissatisfied with the present order of things and ask only for a leader; that one could agree on many things etc. etc.

The King, who immediately became aware of the purpose of this chatter, asked him if he had any full powers in writing; if he was authorised by his government to enter into negotiations on this matter. On his negative answer His Majesty told him that He had no overtures or proposals to make to France, that He only asked her to be recognised as King of Naples, a thing she could not refuse, in conformity with the treaty concluded with Austria; that He hoped that the tranquillity of the continent would not be disturbed, but that, if unfortunately the war was rekindled, the course of his policy and his views would be entirely in conformity with those of Austria, his ally; that He and his army were at the disposal of this friendly power, and that united with it he was responsible for the tranquillity of Italy; that He nourished no other desire than to remain quiet possessor of his Kingdom and to work for the happiness of his subjects etc.

General Boulnois, seeing that he could not lead the King on this line to some false steps which would compromise him with respect to his Allies, set up his batteries in the opposite direction and said to the King that the principal goal of his voyage to Naples was the business of Marshals Macdonald and Oudinot which relates to the donations which they have in this Kingdom. This matter gave him occasion to speak of the discontent which reigned in France, of the spirit which animated the Marshals General and the French army in general; that Louis XVIII would support himself with difficulty on the throne; that the King possessed the confidence of the French army; that He led it so often to victory that his will and his person could bring about great changes in France; that He could count on being supported by the whole army and a large part of the nation; and many other similar statements, in opposition to what he had just said at the beginning.

The King treated this gentleman as he deserved, and made it clear to him that He was not the dupe of the schemes which were being set up to lose Him. This General, who stopped for a few days in Genoa, then in Ancona, and travelled through part of the Kingdom of Naples, is still here. As he has spent a fairly long time with the French army in this Kingdom, he has a lot of knowledge and is trying to gather information on what relates to the internal position of this country. I suppose that the government will not allow him a long stay in this Capital.

I have the honour of sending herewith to Your Highness the Moniteur de Naples, which contains the royal decree on the endowments made by Napoleon in this Kingdom, motivated by the order of 18 September published in France.

May Your Highness accept the assurances of my highest consideration.

It is interesting how Louis XVIII, having barely been properly seated on the throne, was already preoccupied with the fate of his distant Neapolitan relatives.

The next letter Helfert offers in his book already is from after the Congress of Vienna had been opened (do we need another timeline for this period?).

Metternich to Mier (concept). Vienna on November 6, 1814.

The Duke of Campo-Chiaro sends today General Filangieri as a courier to Naples, and I take advantage of this occasion to send you the present dispatch.

The Duke's reports undoubtedly contain very detailed data on the present position of things in Vienna. There are very great objects occupying the powers gathered under the name of Congress; united by the intention of removing the difficulties which would arise from too complicated forms, the powers with objects of open discussion have taken the step of establishing direct negotiations, to which the presence of the sovereigns and of several heads of cabinet lend every facility.

France, together with the other branches of the Bourbon House, has up to now aimed at bringing the Neapolitan question into the arrangements of Europe in consequence of the treaty of Paris. Our cabinet has constantly resisted this move, basing itself on the text of its treaties with the Court of Naples, and on the principle that it cannot question the existence of an independent power whose fate is in no way linked to that of the dynasty which has been expelled from the throne of France.

Oops. Sorry, Caroline. Seems Metternich just erased your name from the Bonaparte family tree.

I beg you, Count, to invite the Duke of Gallo to bring you up to date on the details which Monsieur de Campo-Chiaro is bound to send him of the discussions that have so far taken place on these important subjects. They will prove to the Court of Naples the constancy of the course of His Imperial Majesty in accordance with the principles which have always guided his cabinet. The Emperor has never violated the faith of treaties and he never will.

Uhm. Can I please quote Archduke Charles here? »Of course I have no problems breaking a treaty...«

The more His Majesty should be reassured about the impossibility of her being exposed to an attack from the coast or on the land, the more it would be desirable that He should not, by extraordinary measures, reawaken the fear in Italy about chimerical dangers. Complications are often created by wishing to forestall them in too anxious a manner. The attitude of the King, the only one in conformity with his true interests, must be that of calm. He is at home, his army is fine, he has between him and France all the Austrian forces; let him come to an agreement with the only immediate neighbour, let him follow the indications which must also have been given to him by the Duke of Campo-Chiaro, and let him put himself in the position of a power which does not seek quarrel with any other, but which would repel any attack. The only possible one being on the side of the sea, any demonstration on the opposite side is not only useless, but it is harmful to his interests, in that it furnishes pretexts to the malicious to slander the intentions of the King, and gratuitous grounds for supposition to the opposite party, that the Court of Naples is not entirely confident of the intentions of Austria.

These considerations, which arise from the very nature of things, may be brought to the King's attention by you, as having come directly from me. You will add the assurance that, if ever the rest of Italy were to be threatened (which there is no appearance of) by an enemy outside, or by parties within its bosom, His Imperial Majesty would not only count on the support of His Majesty in the same cause, but that He would be the first to call upon the support of the King.

The Duke of Campo-Chiaro finds himself placed as a Minister in Congress in the same attitude as are those of all the other powers. I congratulate myself on having been able to put aside all the questions which might have complicated his position by isolating him, it would in no case have been entirely so, for the existence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany is no less contested by the Spanish Court than that of the King of Naples.

Receive etc.

I guess what Metternich is trying to say here is: Mier – for the love of god, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid!

[goodbysunball]

Ten weeks away, six beats off

Been a whirlwind year so far but I'm back in the saddle. I'm busting at the seams with drivel on records and the best way to unleash it is in these grouped posts. Small plates, quick bites - bon apétit.

Bobby Would, World Wide World (Low Company)

Can Low Company just come back as a label and a record store already? These releases trickling out after its demise are cruel reminders of how essential those self-effacing tastemakers were. The Anti-Clock LP is a doozy, and this second Bobby Would record sounds like a classic right off the bat. Mr. Would sticks to the same stuff that made Baby so damn good: dusty loops, barely discernible vocals with a catchy melody, bright spindly guitar lines for days. Songs like "Natural Killer" and "Walk Away" are the immediate favorites, upbeat on the exterior but bleary-eyed upon close inspection. Repeated listens have revealed that the hungover haze of "Maybe You Should" and the last call sway of "Raft," which might be my favorite, are where he really shines, tempos slowed to a crawl to make room for the rich warmth of his reverb'd mumble and his sparkling guitar. Yeah, I'm crushin' on Bobby Would, but so's everyone I've forced this record upon. Sharp but unassuming, and endlessly listenable, World Wide World is the balm until better days arrive. Top notch, highest recommendation, all the fixin's.

The Begotten, Temidden Laaghangende Wolken (Aguirre)

I'm a new dad and that means I'm searching for music that I can listen to with my daughter without disturbing her, and music that isn't Raffi. Typically that means a lot of drone, and a lot more quiet, introspective music, like the reissue of Lol Coxhill & Morgan Fisher's Slow Music that Aguirre did. Because the reissue job on that record is so good, I decided to roll the dice on a contemporary offering from Aguirre that also sounded like it fit my needs. My initial reaction to hearing the Begotten's music online was that this trio was approaching zones tread upon by Fabulous Diamonds circa Commercial Music, but subsequent listens have decidedly not taken me that far out. While it's clear the band is made up of exceptionally talented musicians, the music tends to be pretty safe and stays close to the shore. The B-side's a bit better: "Eiland Zonder Oceaan" and "60 Manen" are as close as this record gets to the "dub with tears" descriptor from the label, and the gossamer drone of closer "Klauwzeer" is cool, but nothing really sticks once it's over. Seems like these guys could probably freak out the crowd at a traditional jazz club, but Temidden Laaghangende Wolken keeps the listener at arms' length, simmering but ultimately tepid once you're beneath the surface.

Cube, Drug of Choice (Alter)

Fave record of the year so far! I caught Cube (aka Adam Keith) burning down the Pilot Light what seems like an eternity ago, touring on his last LP, Decoy Street. Nothing on that LP approached the fiery performance I saw, but he's definitely harnessed that energy on Drug of Choice. The record flows seamlessly, corroded breakcore flooding into all corners, causing machines to gasp and whirr and burst, and Keith's intermittent vocalizations are as sinister and biting as they are introspective and philosophical. "Natural Selector" has all of the above, but for my money it's the closing duo - the frenzy of "Moderator" and the terrifying strobelight beatdown of "Cusp" - that really show the piledriving exterior/groaning interior dichotomy that makes the record so magnetic. The label said it best: Drug of Choice "deliver[s] something that feels as much focused on artful constructions of private experiences as it does the cathartic qualities of noise." Alter's quietly releasing some of the best contemporary records, but Cube's Drug of Choice has all the right stuff to justifiably blow up their profile. Wildly intense and devious record; grip a copy and lose your mind with me. While you're at it, check out Adam Keith's amazing Baited Area zine - some of the most engaging arts 'n culture writing/interviews this side of Demystification.

The Gagmen, s/t (iDEAL)

Aaron Dilloway, Nate Young, Joachim Nordwall and apparently Andrew W.K. teamed up as the Gagmen for a performance a few years ago, captured here and put to wax by Nordwall himself for his iDEAL label. I was expecting a pretty blistering assault given the clientele, but what you get is the opposite: slow loops, spare instrumentation, Young's sleepy vocals, all stark and creepy and forcing you to lean into it. The end of the second track gets a little intense, with some wailing loop and white noise combining to tickle your ear hairs, but aside from those couple of minutes, the bulk of The Gagmen is like a black breezy night forcing things to move that usually don't. Puts a knot in your stomach, it does. Hey, it's not for everyone, but if you loved the Komare LP from last year like me, you're gonna find a lot to enjoy here.

Monokultur, Ormens Väg (ever/never)

Glad to see Monokultur continuing their relationship with ever/never, not least of all because those overseas shipping costs hurt. Ormens Väg is the Swedish duo's second LP, and right from the jump they're seemingly headed in a more accessible pop direction. It's a good look for them: opener "Decennium" features big warm keyboards and probably the most exposed vocals from the band yet, kinda coming across like the Knife covering Berlin. It's followed by my favorite track, "För sent," which has a bass line that melts and soothes your ears, topped by JJ Ulius' forlorn (I'm assuming) spoke-sung vocals. The band nods at an earlier incantation of themselves on the buzzed descent of "Kanske blir det sämre", but for the most part the rest of Ormens Väg continues in this gorgeous, warm and spare mode. Take the beautiful instrumental "Vårdagjämning," which almost sounds like it was lifted from the xx's cutting floor until the tape loops emerge like swirling smoke to cloud the proceedings. By the track's end the band somehow ends up on Robert Turman's turf but everything feels cohesive, all of it delicately presented. Shit, even the snippet of "Silent Night" emerging at the end of the title track doesn't take the record off course. Pretty much perfect little record, and yet another early favorite from this year.

Nina Harker, s/t (Animal Biscuit/La République des Granges/Le Syndicat des Scorpions)

This record came out in the middle of 2020, but I missed it then and it's a current obsession now. Shoutout to @dustedandsocial, Yellow Green Red, Fuckin' Record Reviews and everyone else who pointed me in its direction, late as I may be. I don't have a whole lot of info on Nina Harker but it appears that it's the work of one Valentin Noiret, some mad multilingual genius working between the lines connecting Dome, La Grande Triple Alliance and Enhet För Fri Musik. "L'affreuse" is pretty illustrative of how Nina Harker condenses genres into bite-size packets: the woozy, seasick synth topped by Xasthur-like vocals, which are then joined by what sounds like despairing Japanese, the shuffling song slowly building up to this terribly simple guitar part that just levels you when it hits. Not everything is so busy: "Müssen Wir Noch Aufblühen⁇" is a fantastic slice of minimal synth, and the two late night strummers "το κορίτσι γαβγίζει" and "Muto" are disarming in their stripped-down simplicity. The hum that overwhelms "Muto" razes the field to make way for the robotic waltz and maniacal ravings on "Du Schaffst es Nicht," one of many catchy, totally bizarre moments on the record. Nina Harker is riddled with anxiety, moving from frenzied to haunting without batting an eye, but it's also an absolutely singular approach to the dread and restlessness lurking in the corners. Perhaps more prescient than they would've guessed when they made this record. Stunning, hits the spot every time, track down a copy posthaste.

[histoireettralala]

How the (Quarantined) Murats broke the Internet (and Lannes).

Hello friends! I know we already have several ongoing projects with @joachimnapoleon, but we couldn’t resist unleashing this one.

It’s set in the Quarantine!AU which is itself a spin off of the Roadtrip!AU, Trifecta Universe, name it as you will :^)

Inspired by real world situation, unfortunately. Hoping this will bring to those of you who are in lockdown (same here!) some much needed levity.

****************************************************************************************

Caroline is cursing the day Napoléon enrolled her in Mme Campan's Institute; no, scrap that/rewind, she is cursing the day he met Joséphine, and consequently, Hortense, bane of her life, goody-two-shoes of the century who has inspired Napoleon with the truly visionary idea of trying to copy and paste Hortense's behaviour onto Caroline's whole self.

Now, Caroline is mature enough to admit some slight controlling tendencies. And maybe a contrarian streak - but try being the youngest sister in the Bonaparte family - you have to fight twice as hard to make yourself a place and get some respect.

Her point is, she hasn't taken to the Institute. For excellent reasons. If Hortense has made it a point of honor to excel in some subject, Caroline has systematically hated it. No use fighting for scraps after the star pupil has received the old hag's whole quota of praise, after all. Now Caroline wholeheartedly embraces whatever makes Madame Campan pinch her lips, shake her head, or sigh (as much as the snobby old lady allows herself to), treasuring every sign of disappointment the way Hortense collects gold stars. (Not to brag, but Caroline is now a master at it).

Even her marriage is a testament to that superhuman ability of hers.

Not that she didn't love Joachim anyway - she's been ridiculously besotted with the man since she was fifteen, and nothing has yet managed to abate her feelings towards the maddening, adorable goofball. But honestly, the way Mme Campan's face had fallen (oh, ever so slightly, but Caroline knows how to look) in disapproval had been the cherry on top of the delightful, curly-haired, long-legged cake.

She has relished every single one of their subsequent media appearances, and she would lie if she says she hasn't occasionally baited the press with their nationwide famous PDA. For now, Caroline admits, in spite of the "scandals" and all the choices she has made, the old witch is still standing and tutting in disapproval - like that would work. But someday, yes, oh someday she would break, and it would be all thanks to Caroline.

So - she is cursing. Because, of course, Hortense has always been committed to arts and crafts, and Caroline, therefore, has pointedly ignored them.

And now she can't sew to save her life.

Literally.

Because masks are mandatory now.

And she has four kids to protect.

And, well, she may suck as a student, but she does NOT suck as a mother. So, taking a deep breath, she watches videos, buys fabric, filters, and elastic bands, and sets herself to the task.

Two hours later, her eyes are red, her voice hoarse, her fingers raw and pricked, and she is irreparably breaking her ties with the sewing machine.

She vaguely considers calling Pauline - even if she can't sew herself (can she ?) Pauline will surely know someone who can, and at least she is kind enough not to let anyone know of Caroline's embarrassing problem.

She is still scowling fiercely when the shrieking chorus begins (the kids' usual reaction to Joachim's arrival), promptly followed by the sound of bags hitting ground and little feet running, three, two, one, impact. And Joachim's laugh.

God but that sound can still bring a smile to her face.

She wipes her eyes and straightens herself up before opening the door to the entry hall where the kids are now swarming around their father and drowning him in cuddles and kisses, stuffing their drawings under his nose and chattering excitedly. ** Beneath the squealing, adoring, warm little pile of his children's wriggling bodies, Joachim soaks up the innocent love and its side dish of kicking little feet and shrieks in the ear. As Louise's sticky little fingers pat his cheek, he sees from the corner of his eye the door open on his wife.

His sunshine.

His glorious little dynamo.

But there's a problem, Joachim thinks frantically (what has he done now ??? nothing comes up!!), because she doesn't spark her usual energy - oh my God, she's disappointed, that's it, disappointed and SAD (WHAT I HAVE DONE ???), her walk is nothing like her usual triumphant gait (it's the COUCH), even her hair looks listless (Lannes may still let me crash, where is my sleeping bag ??). Joachim takes a deep breath and centers himself before looking at her again, and - oh. She's not angry at him.

Oh.

Then whatever has her so bothered is going to die a fiery death and if she wants, Joachim will stomp it to death (with his hooves, Achille's voice adds in his mind).

** Famous last words, Joachim muses, hesitantly fingering the white cotton.

He has watched the video. Three times, to make sure.

He has cut the necessary length and width for six masks (his ambition for tonight is moderate). 

The machine looks back at him, reminding him of a crouched feline, poised to pounce. He eyes it warily. Caroline's explanations, though thorough, had been... fast paced. Joachim has caught the general idea and in what order the different steps of the process are supposed to happen. He has minded every fold of the fabric and set aside the elastic bands.

It's... daunting. If he messes that up his family will be stuck inside forever and the house will probably catch fire spontaneously from the sheer frustration burning inside them. Murats need to be OUTSIDE (Bonapartes don't deal much better with being locked up).

He carefully selects the stitch and folds the fabric by instinct - patterns are as useless as maps, anyway - he'll go with his guts and God bless the bold.

He takes a deep breath and lines up the three layers of material - with the elastic bands properly tucked inside- under the needle, lowers the presser foot, and gently pushes on the pedal.

Oh my God.

Oh my God it's happening.

Joachim marvels at the speed the machine uses to execute its task, remembering to steer the fabric only if needed, and being careful with it ("To be honest, sweetie, I'm not even sure if it's working well, " Caroline had admitted. "I think Mama gave it to me, ugh, when I went to the Institute. " Joachim hadn't pushed because he wasn't that insane, some things were taboo in this house).

When the first side is done, he takes a moment to inspect his work before switching to the other side.

Wow.

It's... Pretty okay ?

The mask all done, Joachim holds it to his face, and stands up to find a mirror (they're everywhere in this house, and see, it's useful).

He tries it on.

It's very... white.

Time for some color, he decides.

Heh. If anyone had told him before tonight that he was going to sew a mask and like it, he would have sent them to a psychiatrist. Because, even though he'd been quick to assure Caroline he totally could do this (I've repaired my suits several times! ), his skills were limited to a temporary little tweak and quick repair when he didn't have the time to go to the tailor.

In front of the mirror, Joachim smiles beneath the mask.

This is going swimmingly. ** Caroline grumbles when a weight hollows the mattress out.

"It's late," she mutters.

"Shhhh, " says the voice. Then, with a giddy sort of energy Caroline can only wonder at (who the hell is so alive at such an ungodly hour -oh yeah, that's right, only Joachim). "Love."

A pause.

"Sweetheart ?"

Caroline groans.

"Yeah", she forces out.

"We have seven masks!"

The proclamation wakes Caroline completely and her hand is already searching for the light switch.

"What?"

She pushes the switch and looks at Joachim's face. Blinking under the sudden flood of light, he looks …

Surprised and happy. A little bit like a dog who has just learned a new trick. The smile on his face is infectious.

"You want to see them ?"

Caroline is already up.

In her office, the old machine sleeps and seven masks wait in a wicker basket. They're real. They look like the models Caroline vainly tried to follow. She touches them, putting one over her face. It fits. The elastics do not hurt.

They have masks.

Joachim watches her, waiting anxiously for her verdict. Her eyes shine in the mirror, and then she turns towards him, takes off the mask and sets it aside.

A purring Caroline leaps into his arms.

So much for sleep.

** At the usual hour, Lannes, bottle and glass at the ready, flicks on Skype. He has so much to tell Murat (to be honest, he never knew before quarantine how much of a gossip he'd turn out to be, but what can you do) and even without any grand news (which is the case most of the time) it's always a highlight of his day.

The kids are lovely but sometimes you need an adult conversation, okay ?

An adult male conversation.

A bro discussion, yeah, okay.

"Murat ?" he calls.

Weird. Usually Joachim leaps onto any greeting, if he's not the first one to call.

"Yo ? Murat ?"

Nothing.

"JOACHIM MURAT" he bellows.

Finally,  a harried face appears. The black curls are everywhere and the eyes seem inhabited by some unholy light.

Has Joachim started to drink without him ?

Or worse, with someone else ?

Lannes feels oddly cheated at the idea.

"Ah, yeah, okay, hello, Lannes!" says Murat, blinking. "Is it already time ?"

Already ? The day had dragged on.

"What the hell is happening," he blurts out. "Have you started drinking ?"

Murat looks weirdly offended, scrunching up his nose.

"Drink- what ? No!"

He straightens up and clears his throat.

"No, Lannes, I didn't cheat on our Skype cocktail hour with some random booze harlot, I respect you too much for that. I was just, " he lowers his voice and Lannes instinctively leans towards his screen, intrigued.

"I was busy.

- Are the kids okay ?

- Yeah, they're fine! Excellent! The spirit is undaunted, yeah!

- Joachim," Lannes slowly articulates.

Artless blue eyes look up at him.

"I was making masks, and I forgot the time, that's all!"

- Masks, " Lannes repeats in a bland tone.

- Masks," Joachim nods.

- Masks ?" What the hell, Lannes wonders, masks, like, actual masks against Coronavirus ? Masks, as in, paper masks or clown masks for the kids, right ?

- Masks, as in, mandatory masks, yeah, I'm making them, " and Lannes has stepped into an alternate dimension.

- You're making masks.

- I am.

- Masks.

- Masks, " Joachim patiently assures him.

- Making ? As in, as in SEWING them ?"

The black curls fly as Murat vehemently nods.

Holy shit.

Lannes almost busts a gut laughing.

" I could show you", Murat says with a hint of disapproval in his voice (it was weird) "but if this is the way you react I might not bother."

The laughter stops short. Murat's headmasterly tones are frankly weirding Lannes out.

Is this a prank ?

Lannes knows it's not. It's all over Murat's face. He's actually serious.

Holy shit.

"Why are you the one sewing the masks ?" he finally asks.

"Because," Murat shrugs. "I volunteered."

Lannes blinks.

"Plus, " he adds, with a smile, " Turns out I'm great at it!"

That is still to be seen, Lannes thinks, remembering, oh, way too many boasts.

"You'll see", Murat nods sagely.

"Right", Lannes croaks.

The evening goes on.

** He made the haberdashery's day, Joachim thinks, fabric piled up in his arms.

Good for them, and good for his family.

Today, he is going to let the kids choose the fabric for their masks. Just because they are young doesn't mean they have to settle for their parents' choice, right ? He carefully picked anything that could interest or amuse the little ones.

He has turtles, an armada of kittens, various birds, flowers, geometric patterns, dots and stripes of all sorts.

"What are you doing, Papa ?"

Joachim turns to face Letitia.

"I just bought some fabric to make some masks for you all, sweetheart. Do you want to choose yours ?"

The little girl nods eagerly.

"Can I stay with you ?" she says, leaning into him.

Joachim can't resist such a request.

** Caroline climbs up the stairs to Joachim's office where he finally set camp with the sewing machine two days ago.

She is still mesmerized by his mastery over the beast.

He has adopted a routine, and tonight, she needs proof that Joachim sewing actually happened (Pauline had laughed, and Joséphine had asked for receipts), so she's carrying her camera. She scowls inwardly, why can't anyone ever believe them ? Joachim told her about Lannes the other day - well, what is so extraordinary about it ? Being male doesn't make you genetically unable to sew, you know. Men!

Hushed voices wash over her, Letitia's flute-like voice overlapping with Joachim's warm tones.

"And then I put the fabric here," their little girl is saying.

"Uh huh," her man agrees, with the softness he saves for his children (and herself). " Perfect!"

Letitia giggles.

Caroline, readying her camera, silently enters the room. Both father and daughter are so absorbed by their task and by each other that they don't notice her presence.

Letitia sits on her father's knee, her little hands holding the fabric - a giraffe pattern - and Joachim is entirely focused on her.

Caroline starts filming.

When the giraffe-adorned mask is ready, Letitia snuggles into her father's chest and he offers her the next selection, apparently a swarm of tropical fishes.

"Your turn, Papa", says the little girl.

"Oh, you're right, princess", Joachim smiles, mock chastened. "Shall I ?"

Letitia nods determinedly. “Go on good Sir".

Joachim sews the next mask.

It's very sweet, Caroline thinks, beaming behind her camera. This is the perfect proof that she was right, not only about his sewing ability, but about her own choice years ago. I'm so going to upload this as soon as I'm out of here, she rejoices.

** New video uploaded, by @carolinemurat, 7.54

@pauline-borghese, 8.01: oh my god it's so cute!

@pauline-borghese, 8.01: and he's doing great!! how many has joachim already sewn ?

@pauline-borghese, 8.08: sorry, just had to watch it again. (<3) This is an adorable duo and you were totally right, I should never have doubted you.

@joséphine-malmaison, 8.14: wow

@hortense-beauharnais-bonaparte, 8.14: I'm speechless.

@hortense-beauharnais-bonaparte, 8.14: In a very good way!! Congratulations to Joachim.

@joséphine-malmaison, 8.17: very sweet and actually educational! Congratulations!

@aimée-davout, 8.26: I wish Louis would do that with our little one!

@joséphine-malmaison, 8.34: Can I share this on other social medias , Caroline ?

@pauline-borghese, 8.36: was about to suggest the same! I can boost it up with my contacts. Up for it sister ?

The phone rings.

"Mama ?"

"Uh huh, he did that. He's... Yes, Mama, he actually offered, and.. Mama. Mama! Listen to me please ? Yes, I promise. Uh huh. Yes. Yes, really. Did you watch the video ? You really should, your namesake is on it too. "

Ten minutes later.

"Yes, Mama ? Is everything  - oh. Oh. Well, yes, he's still sewing. Wha- yes, Mama, I won't disturb him. Of course, Mama. You.. what ? His favorite dessert ? Why... Mama we're in lockdown, he can't go to Corsica. You.. Ah, yes, of course, I'll ask him. And yes, of course, I'm feeding him! Mama!"

@aglaéauguiéney, 8.47: mind boggling.

@eleonoredenuelle, 8.49: how talented can a man be ?

@hortense-beauharnais-bonaparte, 8.53: It's actually a better tutorial than the official ones ? And so much cuter.

@hortense-beauharnais-bonaparte, 8.55: I wish I had a little girl.

@carolinemurat, to @joséphine-malmaison, @pauline-borghese, 8.58: Yes.

TBF...

[nuadox]

AI can now detect acute myeloid leukemia (AML)

- By Nuadox Crew -

Artificial intelligence can detect one of the most common forms of blood cancer: acute myeloid leukemia (AML) - with high reliability. Researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and the University of Bonn have now shown this in a proof-of-concept study. 

Their approach is based on the analysis of the gene activity of cells found in blood. In practice, this framework could support conventional diagnostics and possibly accelerate the beginning of therapy. The research results have been published in the journal iScience.

Artificial intelligence is a much-discussed topic in medicine, especially in the field of diagnostics. "We aimed to investigate the potential on the basis of a specific example," explains Prof. Joachim Schultze, a research group leader at the DZNE and head of the Department for Genomics and Immunoregulation at the LIMES Institute of the University of Bonn. "Because this requires large amounts of data, we evaluated data on the gene activity of blood cells. Numerous studies have been carried out on this topic and the results are available through databases. Thus, there is an enormous data pool. We have collected virtually everything that is currently available."

Fingerprint of Gene Activity

Schultze and his colleagues focused on the "transcriptome", which is a kind of fingerprint of gene activity. In each and every cell, depending on its condition, only certain genes are actually "switched on", which is reflected in their profiles of gene activity. Exactly such data - derived from cells in blood samples and spanning many thousands of genes - were analysed in the current study. "The transcriptome holds important information about the condition of cells. However, classical diagnostics is based on different data. We therefore wanted to find out what an analysis of the transcriptome can achieve using artificial intelligence, that is to say trainable algorithms," said Schultze, who is member of the Bonn-based "ImmunoSensation" cluster of excellence. "In the long term, we intend to apply this approach to further topics, in particular in the field of dementia."

The current study focused on AML. Without adequate treatment, this form of leukemia leads to death within weeks. AML is associated with the proliferation of pathologically altered bone marrow cells, which can ultimately enter the bloodstream. Ultimately both healthy cells and tumor cells drift in the blood. All these cells exhibit typical gene activity patterns, which were all considered in the analysis. Data from more than 12,000 blood samples - these came from 105 different studies - were taken into account: the largest dataset to date for a metastudy on AML. Approximately 4,100 of these blood samples derived from individuals diagnosed with AML, the remaining ones had been taken from individuals with other diseases or from healthy individuals.

High Hit Rate

The scientists fed their algorithms parts of this data set. The input included information about whether a sample came from an AML patient or not. "The algorithms then searched the transcriptome for disease-specific patterns. This is a largely automated process. It's called machine learning," said Schultze. Based on this pattern recognition, further data was analysed and classified by the algorithms, i.e. categorized into samples with AML and without AML. "Of course, we knew the classification as it was listed in the original data, but the software did not. We then checked the hit rate. It was above 99 percent for some of the applied methods. In fact, we tested various methods from the repertoire of machine learning and artificial intelligence. There was actually one algorithm that was particularly good, but the others were close behind."

Application in Practice?

Put into application, this method could support conventional diagnostics and help save costs, said Schultze. "In principle, a blood sample taken by the family doctor and sent to a laboratory for analysis could suffice. I guess that the cost would be less than 50 euros." Classical AML diagnostics includes a variety of methods. Some of these cost a few hundred euros per run, Schultze noted. "However, we have not yet developed a workable test. We have only shown that the approach works in principle. So we have laid the groundwork for developing a test."

Schultze emphasised that the diagnosis of AML will continue to require specialised physicians in the future. "The aim is to provide the experts with a tool that supports them in their diagnosis. In addition, many patients go through a real odyssey until they finally end up with a specialist and get a diagnosis." Because in the early stages the symptoms of AML can resemble those of a bad cold. However, AML is a life-threatening disease that should be treated as quickly as possible. "With a blood test, as it seems possible on the basis of our study, it is conceivable that the family doctor would already clarify a suspicion of AML. And when the suspicion is confirmed, the patient is referred to a specialist. Possibly, the diagnosis would then happen earlier than it does now and therapy could start earlier."

Source: DZNE – German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases

Read Also

Cancer prediction by data mining

New device identifies cancer in seconds

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Robert Daniels on 812 Film Reviews: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil Soars Under Angelina Jolie’s Wings

Rating: 2.5/4

“What do I remember about Maleficent?” Spellbindingly puzzled, I tried to recall the half decade since the Angelina Jolie fronted reimagining of the familiar Sleeping Beauty fairy tale played to audience. Five years, especially now, drowns one like a waking nightmare. The climate surrounding Robert Stromberg’s initial take: one of contrition—cedes to today’s recognition of diverse narratives and an acceptance of differences. Joachim Rønning’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil succeeds when addressing the former, spinning a wheel of stunning imagery to match the picture’s new varied universe, but struggles when rolling with the expectations of the fairy tale genre.

Since crowed by her godmother Maleficent, Aurora (Elle Fanning) rules over the Moors: a portion of grassy land filled with magical beings. Here, happiness reins supreme—made exceedingly so when the smitten Phillip (Harris Dickinson) proposes to Aurora. A wedding is in order, uniting the two kingdoms. In the background, however, unbeknownst to Aurora, human poachers are hunting in the Moors—kidnapping the magical creatures to a castle. And while Phillip and Aurora are madly in love, the parents are not. The strong-horned Maleficent won’t easily give over her daughter to a human man, not after Stefan’s previous actions. While Phillip’s parents: King John (Robert Lindsay) and especially the cold Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer, who slays as a villain adorned in Ellen Mirojnick’s luscious costumes)— are equally as incredulous. Moreover, the entirety of Phillip’s kingdom still believes the stories of Maleficent as a plague bringing blood thirsty witch, putting them on edge of any proposed union.

The totality of the fairytale’s initial machinations would fill the entirety of the 118-minute runtime, yet Rønning still adds further subplots. Because as Queen Ingrith enacts her sinister ends of destructively targeting fairies, and Maleficent is driven away, his picture shifts from a prototypical game of palace intrigue and matrimonial jitters to a world-building epic in a bloody medieval struggle for power.

While kids make up the primary audience for Mistress of Evil, to arrive at such heights Rønning is stuck conforming to common storytelling tropes. Much as the filmmaker might want to ditch the film’s cliche wedding: the narrative’s frame, he abides by allowing Aurora and Phillip’s love and struggle to see their respective parents’ true ambitions to dominate large swaths of the story—never hinting at more than a perfunctory cheer.

Instead, Maleficent’s arc—and for that matter Jolie’s sharp delivery— carries Mistress of Evil. The film’s second act becomes an origin story for the winged sorceress, as she’s taken in by her race led by Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor). These winged creatures live underground, disparaged and exiled by humanity. Patrick Tatopoulos’s wondrous production design enlivens both this multicultural array of beings, as does his work regarding the Moor. The fanciful yet provocative subplot of a mostly brown-skinned race driven underground by largely Anglo-Saxon overlords makes for a searing portrait of intolerance that’s far more compelling than the fairytale tropes at the narrative’s heart. Moreover, whenever Jolie and her apathetic sense of humor leaves our gaze the story falls flat. Without her, Mistress of Evil would never lift off the ground.

While the varied components of Rønning’s picture do coalesce to altering levels of success, concluding with a final battle sequence whose editing lacks coherence, there’s enough magic dust made of sass and a decent amount of political relevance for Maleficent: Mistress of Evil to fancy the imagination—making the first and second film of this series intriguing before-and-after time capsules.

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[wolfliving]

Thinking Through Interfaces, a syllabus

*That looks enlightening.

THINKING THROUGH INTERFACES

Co-taught by Zed Adams (Philosophy) and Shannon Mattern (Media Studies)

Tuesdays 4:00 - 5:50pm | 6 East 16th St #1003

Interfaces are everywhere and nowhere. They pervade our lives, mediating our interactions with one another, technology, and the world. But their very pervasiveness also makes them invisible. In this seminar, we expose the hidden lives of interfaces, illuminating not just what they are and how they work, but also how they shape our lives, for better and worse. We also discuss a number of pressing social and political issues, such as why we are quick to adopt some interfaces (e.g., smartphones and social media platforms), but reluctant to embrace others (e.g., new voting machines and Google Glass). 

(...)

RESOURCES

With a few exceptions, all readings will be made available on our class website, at http://www.wordsinspace.net/interfaces/2019/. We’ll provide everyone with a copy of Tom Mullaney’s The Chinese Typewriter and David Parisi’s Archaeologies of Touch.

SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS

WEEK 1: JANUARY 22: INTRODUCTIONS

What is an interface?

How are interfaces differentiated?

Can an interface become a part of our mind?

Do interfaces shape what we use them to do?

What are the limits of interfaces: what problems do they not help us solve?

WEEKS 2 AND 3: CONCEPTUALIZATION 

WEEK 2: JANUARY 29: CONCEPTUALIZATION I 

Nelson Goodman, “The Theory of Notation” (Chapter Four), Languages of Art (Hackett, 1976): 127-173.

Florian Cramer and Matthew Fuller, “Interface” in Software Studies, ed., Matthew Fuller (MIT Press, 2008): 149-53.

Johanna Drucker, “Interface and Interpretation” and “Designing Graphic Interpretation” in Graphesis: Visual Forms of Knowledge Production (Harvard University Press, 2014): 138-97.

WEEK 3: FEBRUARY 5: CONCEPTUALIZATION II

Shannon Mattern, “Mission Control: A History of the Urban Dashboard,” Places Journal (March 2015).

Shannon Mattern, “Things that Beep: A Brief History of Product Sound Design,” Avant (August 2018).

We encourage you to think, too, about how interfaces might embody different cultures and ideologies. Consider, for example, feminist interfaces or indigenous interfaces -- or interfaces that embody universal, accessible design. You'll find some relevant resources in the modules at the end of this syllabus, and we'll explore many of these themes as part of our case studies throughout the semester.

In-Class Workshop (second half of class): small-group interface critiques 

Supplemental: 

Christian Ulrich Andersen and Soren Bro Pold, eds., Interface Criticism: Aesthetics Beyond the Buttons (Aarhus University Press, 2011).

Martijn de Waal, The City as Interface: How New Media Are Changing the City (nai010, 2014).

Johanna Drucker, “Humanities Approach to Interface Theory,” Culture Machine 12 (2011).

Johanna Drucker, “Performative Materiality and Theoretical Approaches to Interface,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 7:1 (2013).

Florian Hadler and Joachim Haupt, “Towards a Critique of Interfaces” in Interface Critique, eds., Florian Hadler and Joachim Haupt (Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2016): 7-16.

John Haugeland, “Representational Genera” in Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind, ed. Haugeland (Harvard Univ Press, 1992): 171-206.

Branden Hookway, Interface (MIT Press, 2014)

Interface Critique (journal).

Steven Johnson, Interface Culture (Basic Books, 1999)

Matthew Katz, “Analog Representations and Their Users,” Synthese 193: 3 (June 2015): 851-871.

Kimon Keramidas, The Interface Experience - A User’s Guide (Bard Graduate Center, 2015).

Shannon Mattern, “Interfacing Urban Intelligence,” Places Journal (April 2014).

Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things (Basic Books, 2013).

Mitchell Whitelaw, “Generous Interfaces for Digital Cultural Collections,” Digital Humanities Quarterly 9:1 (2015).

Jeff Johnson, Designing with the Mind in Mind (Morgan Kauffmann, 2014).

WEEKS 4 AND 5: TYPEWRITER KEYBOARDS 

Our first case study is the QWERTY keyboard. This case raises fundamental questions about why interfaces are adopted in the first place, the extent to which their original designs constrain how they are subsequently used, and how particular linguistic politics and epistemologies are embodied in our interfaces. 

WEEK 4: FEBRUARY 12: KEYBOARDS & QWERTY

Andy Clark, Chapters One through Three, and Ten, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again (MIT Press, 1998): 11-69 and 193-218.

S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis, “The Fable of the Keys,” The Journal of Law & Economics 33:1 (1990): 1-25.

WEEK 5: FEBRUARY 19: OTHER KEYBOARDS

Thomas S. Mullaney, The Chinese Typewriter: A History (MIT Press, 2017): Chapter 1, 35-74; Chapter 4, 161-93; Chapter 6, 237-53 (up through “How Ancient China Missed…”; and Chapter 7, 283-8 (through “China’s First ‘Model Typist’”).

Kim Sterelny, “Minds: Extended or Scaffolded?” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 9:4 (2010): 465-481.

See Marcin Wichary’s forthcoming book about the global history of keyboards, as well as his research newsletters.

4-5pm: Skype TBD 

Supplemental: 

Louise Barrett, Beyond the Brain (Princeton University Press, 2015).

Andy Clark and David Chalmers, “The Extended Mind,” Analysis 58:1 (1998): 7-19.

Friedrich A. Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael Wutz (Stanford University Press, 1986).

Lisa Gitelman, Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era (Stanford University Press, 1999).

John Haugeland, “Mind Embodied and Embedded,” Having Thought (Harvard University Press, 1998): 207-237.

Richard Heersmink, "A taxonomy of cognitive artifacts: function, information, and categories." Review of philosophy and psychology 4.3 (2013): 465-481.

Richard Heersmink, "The Metaphysics of Cognitive Artefacts," Philosophical Explorations 19.1 (2016): 78-93.

Neil M. Kay, “Rerun the Tape of History and QWERTY Always Wins,” Research Policy 42:6-7 (2013): 1175-85.

Prince McLean, “Inside the Multitouch FingerWorks Tech in Apple’s Tablet,” Apple Insider (January 23, 2010).

Jan Noyes, “QWERTY - The Immoral Keyboard,” Computing & Control Engineering Journal 9:3 (1998): 117-22.

Kim Sterelny, The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (MIT Press, 2012).

Cassie Werber, “The Future of Typing Doesn’t Involve a Keyboard,” Quartz (November 23, 2018).

Darren Wershler-Henry, The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting (Cornell University Press, 2007).

WEEKS 6 AND 7: HAPTICS 

WEEK 6: FEBRUARY 26: PUSHING BUTTONS 

H. P. Grice, “Some Remarks About the Senses,” in Analytical Philosophy, First Series, ed. R. J. Butler (OUP Press, 1962): 248-268. Reprinted in F. MacPherson (ed), The Senses (OUP Press, 2011): 83-101.

Matthew Fulkerson, “Rethinking the Senses and Their Interactions: The Case for Sensory Pluralism,” Frontiers in Psychology (December 10, 2014).

Rachel Plotnick, “Setting the Stage,” in Power Button: A History of Pleasure, Panic, and the Politics of Pushing (MIT Press, 2018): 3-16.

Rachel Plotnick, “Force, Flatness, and Touch Without Feeling: Thinking Historically About Haptics and Buttons,” New Media and Society 19:10 (2017): 1632-52.

WEEK 7: MARCH 5: HAPTICS II 

David Parisi, Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing (University of Minnesota Press, 2017): Introduction, 1-40; Chapter 3, 151-212; and Chapter 4, 213-264.

4-5pm: Skype with Dave Parisi 

Supplemental: 

Sandy Isenstadt, “At the Flip of a Switch,” Places Journal (September 2018).

Mathias Fuchs, Moisés Mañas, and Georg Russegger, “Ludic Interfaces,” in Exploring Videogames: Culture, Design and Identity, eds., Nick Webber and Daniel Riha (Interdisciplinary-Net Press): 31-40.  

Matthew Fulkerson, The First Sense: A Philosophical Study of Human Touch (MIT Press, 2013).

Gerard Goggin, “Disability and Haptic Mobile Media,” New Media & Society 19:10 (2017): 1563-80.

Kim Knight, “Wearable Interfaces, Networked Bodies, and Feminist Interfaces,” MLA Commons (2018).

Brian Merchant, The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone (Little, Brown, 2017).

Stephen Monteiro, The Fabric of Interface: Mobile Media, Design, and Gender (MIT Press, 2017).

David Parisi, “Games Interfaces as Bodily Techniques,” Handbook of Research on Effective Electronic Gaming in Education, ed. Richard Ferdig (IGI Global): 111-126.

David Parisi, Mark Paterson, and Jason Edward Arches, eds., “Haptic Media” Special Issue, New Media & Society 19:10 (October 2017).

Rachel Plotnick, “At the Interface: The Case of the Electric Push Button, 1880-1923,” Technology and Culture 53:4 (October 2012): 815-45.

MARCH 11 @ NOON 

Share your final project and presentation proposal with Zed and Shannon. See “Assignments” for more detail. 

WEEK 8: MARCH 12 

Individual meetings to discuss presentations and final projects

MARCH 19: NO CLASS: SPRING BREAK

WEEKS 9-10: VOICE 

WEEK 9: MARCH 26: History of Vocal Interfaces (Zed away)

Mara Mills, “Media and Prosthesis: The Vocoder, the Artificial Larynx, and the History of Signal Processing,” Qui Parle 21:1 (Fall/Winter 2012): 107-49.

Danielle Van Jaarsveld and Winifred Poster, “Call Centers: Emotional Labor Over the Phone,” in Emotional Labor in the 21st Century: Diverse Perspectives on Emotion Regulation at Work, ed. Alicia Grandey, Jim Diefendorff, and Deborah Rupp (LEA Press, 2012): 153-73.

Confirm the assigned text for your presentation: send to Shannon and Zed a complete Chicago-style citation and either a high-quality pdf or a link to the online resource before class today, so we can update our class website with everyone’s material.

WEEK 10: APRIL 2: Contemporary Vocal Interfaces 

Adelheid Voshkul, “Humans, Machines, and Conversations: An Ethnographic Study of the Making of Automatic Speech Recognition Technologies,” Social Studies of Science 34:3 (2004).

Andrea L. Guzman, “Voices in and of the Machine: Source Orientation Toward Mobile Virtual Assistants,” Computers in Human Behavior (2018).

Halcyon M. Lawrence and Lauren Neefe, “When I Talk to Siri,” Flash Readings 4 (September 6, 2017) {podcast: 10:14}.

Halcyon M. Lawrence, “Inauthentically Speaking: Speech Technology, Accent Bias and Digital Imperialism,” SIGCIS, Computer History Museum, March 2017 {video: 1:26 > 17:16}

Lauren McCarthy, LAUREN. A human smart home intelligence (review press, too).

4-5pm: Skype with Halcyon M. Lawrence

Supplemental: 

Meryl Alper, Giving Voice: Mobile Communication, Disability, and Inequality (MIT Press, 2017).

Michel Chion, Sound: An Acoulogical Treatise (Duke, 2016).

Karin Bijsterveld, “Dissecting Sound: Speaker Identification at the Stasi and Sonic Ways of Knowing,” Hearing Modernity (2018).

Trevor Cox, Now You’re Talking: The Story of Human Communication from the Neanderthals to Artificial Intelligence (Counterpoint, 2018).

Brian Dumaine, “It Might Get Loud: Inside Silicon Valley’s Battle to Own Voice Tech,” Fortune (October 24, 2018).

Larry Greenemeier, “Alexa, How Do We Take Our Relationship to the Next Level?” Scientific American (April 26, 2018).

Jason Kincaid, “A Brief History of ASR,” descript (July 12, 2018).

Halcyon M. Lawrence, “Siri Disciplines,” in Your Computer is on Fire, eds., Marie Hicks, Ben Peters, Kavita Philips and Tom Mullaney (MIT Press, forthcoming 2019).

Halcyon Lawrence and Lauren Neefe, “Siri’s Progeny: Voice and the Future of Interaction Design,” Georgia Tech, Fall 2016.

Xiaochang Li and Mara Mills, “Vocal Features: From Voice Identification to Speech Recognition by Machine,” Technology and Culture (forthcoming 2019).

Luke Munn, “Alexa and the Intersectional Interface,” _Angles (June 2018).

Quynh N. Nguyen, Ahn Ta, and Victor Prybutok, “An Integrated Model of Voice-User Interface Continuance Intention: The Gender Effect,” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction (2018).

Winifred Poster, “Sound Bites, Sentiments, and Accents: Digitizing Communicative Labor in the Era of Global Outsourcing,” in digitalSTS: A Field Guide for Science & Technology Studies, eds., David Ribes and Janet Vertesi (Princeton University Press, forthcoming April 2019).

Winifred Poster, “The Virtual Receptionist with a Human Touch: Opposing Pressures of Digital Automation and Outsourcing in Interactive Services” in Invisible Labor: Hidden Work in the Contemporary World, eds. Marion G. Crain, Winifred R. Poster, and Miriam A. Cherry (University of California Press, 2016): 87-111.

Thom Scott-Phillips, Speaking our Minds: Why Human Communication is Different, and How Language Evolved to Make it Special (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).

Craig S. Smith, “Alexa and Siri Can Hear This Hidden Command. You Can’t,” New York Times (May 10, 2018).

Dave Tompkins, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks (Stop Smiling Books, 2011).

Mickey Vallee, “Biometrics, Affect, Autoaffection and the Phenomenological Voice,” Subjectivity 11:2 (2018): 161-76.

Bruce N. Walker and Michael A. Nees, “Theory of Sonification” in The Sonification Handbook, eds. Thomas Hermann, Andy Hunt, and John G. Neuhoff (Logos Publishing, 2011).

[joachimnapoleon]

How the (Quarantined) Murats broke the Internet (and Lannes). [Part 2/2]

Hello all! Here is the second half of my and @histoireettralala‘s AU on our Trifecta in Quarantine.  (Part 1 can be found here.) ^_^

***

Caroline groggily plops into her desk chair, yawning in between sips of her morning coffee as she waits for her laptop to start up. She smiles at the sound of the sewing machine running from across the hall; Joachim is already hard at work making a new batch of masks for their friends and family. He has become quite determined, he informed her this morning, to make as many as he can, now that he's discovered he has such a talent for it.

She is secretly relieved that he has developed such a liking for this new hobby. Joachim has been delighted to be able to spend so much more time with the kids since the office temporarily closed, but at the same time... she knew her husband well enough by now to sense his restlessness. Joachim has always been bursting with energy and a perpetual need to be doing Something Important--not unlike Napoleon himself. Sitting at home for days on end, feeling useless, was simply unbearable for him.

Now, he has a purpose again, and she can already see the effect it is having on her husband, the added spark in his eye, the renewed spring in his step. And, she thinks, I've gotten an adorable new video out of it to add to my collection.

Caroline takes another sip of coffee as her YouTube page loads.

She nearly chokes on the hot liquid in her surprise.

Since she went to bed last night, her video of Joachim sewing with Letitia has accumulated... 12,184 views. There are hundreds of new comments and subscribers.

Caroline blinks. She figured Paulette and Josephine would be able to give it a nice boost, but... wow.

She refreshes the page.

12,192.

She refreshes it again.

12,203.

She decides to take a look at some of the top-rated comments.

@napoleon, 12:03: Well this was most... unexpected. So, when can I expect my masks?

@j.poniatowski, 1:05: MY DUDE

@ney, 12:17: very sweet, and kudos on not hurting yourself yet joachim

@bakingsoult, 3:27: maybe we can make a deal, fresh cookies of your choice for masks? PM me

@elisa.bacchiochi, 2:08: CAROLINE WE ALL NEED MORE OF THIS PLZ

@augereau, 4:02: My dear Murat, I think we could do a very lucrative business together; give me a call if you're interested.

@jeanlannes, 12:54: O___O

The majority of the comments, though, are from total strangers, many of whom have felt compelled to comment on the physical beauty of Caroline's husband. It would take far too long to go through them all and filter out the ones that go a little too far, especially as new comments are constantly being added to the thread. She sighs. At least most of them seem to be wholesome enough. And, anyway, it isn't like Caroline isn't used to this by now.

After finishing her coffee and refreshing the page one more time--the video is now up to slightly over 14,000 views--Caroline grabs her camera.

She has an audience to please.

***

[Three days later]

Lannes is not happy.

Aside from being bored to death right now as a result of so many days pent up inside, the masks he ordered from Amazon still haven't arrived, and wearing them is now required in order to go anywhere. The family's groceries are running low (except for their toilet paper; Lannes had made sure to buy twelve 24-packs of that once this whole thing had started, a foresight of which he was extremely proud). How is he supposed to go grocery shopping now without the requisite mask?

To make matters worse, Murat had entirely abandoned him for the past couple nights. Lannes is deeply wounded by this. How could his best friend just up and forget about two straight Skype cocktail hours? Especially when he knew perfectly well that they were the only thing keeping Lannes sane at this point? Even a flurry of furious text messages had failed to impress upon Murat the gravity of his neglectfulness.

Ten minutes later, a "sorry lol" was the verbatim response Lannes had received, followed shortly after by a "super busy" and then a "maybe this weekend idk". Murat had not even had the decency to reply to Lannes' ensuing "WTF".

If I don't get out of this house soon, I'm going to lose my mind, Lannes thinks.

He grabs his cellphone and dials the one man capable of helping him in this crisis.

"What in God's name is it today, Lannes?" a weary Larrey asks after the seventh ring.

"Doc!!! Do you have any spare masks?"

"I've already told you three times I don't!"

"How can you still not have any though? YOU'RE A DOCTOR!!!"

"That's correct; I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker. The mask demand has far outpaced the supply right now. Have you tried asking Murat?"

Lannes blinks, uncomprehending. "Ask... Murat...?"

"Yeah, I've gotta give it to him, he's been making some excellent quality masks!" Larrey exclaims. "I'm actually wearing one right now."

Lannes doesn't know how to even begin to process this statement. His arm holding the phone goes slack; the phone drops from a limp hand to the carpeted floor.

Everything Lannes knows is wrong.

Well, except one thing: he needs alcohol.

A lot of alcohol.

Now.

He heads towards the kitchen.

"Lannes?" the voice of Larrey calls through the abandoned phone. "Are you still there?? Lannes???"

***

Ney stares at himself in the mirror, studying his new mask. Murat had delivered it to him personally earlier this morning, along with a set of masks for Aglaé and all their children.

"Letitia picked the fabric for your mask personally," Murat had said with a wink.

"Well, I hope you'll give her my thanks. Tell her she has very good taste."

A giant image of the perpetually scowling Grumpy Cat covers Ney's mask.

Aglaé appears behind him in the mirror. Appraising her mask-clad husband for a moment, she nods approvingly.

"It suits you perfectly, my love."

Her husband's mouth might be covered by the mask, but Aglaé isn't fooled. His smile is betrayed by his eyes.

***

[Three weeks later]

Fifty-thousand subscribers.

And Caroline is only just getting started. A prominent blog had e-mailed her this morning about doing an article on Joachim's mask-making venture. Shortly afterwards, a local news channel had called to inquire about conducting a Skype interview with Joachim (and would it be possible for little Letitia to be present too?). Joachim had been reluctant to leave his work--there were still so many masks he needed to make!!--but Caroline had convinced him it would be for the Greater Good.

At Pauline's suggestion, she had monetized the YouTube channel yesterday morning.

Joachim enters Caroline's office, carrying Louise in his arms. Caroline greets them warmly.

"Did Napoleon like his new mask?" Joachim asks.

The last video Caroline had uploaded had been of Joachim and Letitia making Napoleon's mask, complete with her brother's signature "N" ornately embroidered by Joachim himself. His skills were progressing at a surreal pace. Imagining the look on Madame Campan's face at the sight of Joachim's meticulous sewing and craftsmanship, Caroline makes a mental note to forward the video link to her former mentor. See?! Caroline imagines herself screaming triumphantly at the haughty old woman. I was right about him all along!!!

"Napoleon said, and I quote: 'Tell him it's really not bad at all.'" She gives him a knowing smile.

Joachim beams. He's fluent enough in Napoleonese to know that this is high praise indeed.

***

[One month later]

Two-hundred-fifty-thousand subscribers.

Caroline's latest video--Joachim teaching Lannes to use the sewing machine--is shaping up to be their biggest hit yet. (She'd had to implore the two to keep their language as clean as possible; this is a family-friendly blog and besides that, it simply wouldn't do to put the ad revenue at risk). Her viewers couldn't get enough of Letitia and Louise laughing in the background at the struggles of their grumbling Uncle Jean to figure out "this demonic device" (as he called it). But Joachim was a patient teacher, and eventually Lannes had succeeded at making his very first mask. The video culminated triumphantly with him holding the mask aloft towards the camera like a hard-won battle trophy, as Letitia and Louise cheered and Joachim glowed with pride.

Now, Joachim is beginning to experiment with increasingly ornate embroideries and higher quality materials.

"Just because it's for a pandemic," he insists, "doesn't mean it can't be fashion."

***

[Three months later]

One million subscribers.

"Vogue?" Pauline's tone is one of total disbelief.

"Vogue," Caroline affirms.

"THE Vogue?" Elisa presses.

"Yes."

"And he's going to be... on the cover?"

"Yes."

"On the cover of Vogue."

"Yes."

"THE Vogue."

"Yes."

***

[One year later]

Five million subscribers.

Caroline parks her new cobalt blue Maserati, grabs her Louis Vuitton handbag off the seat, and heads into the house.

Joachim is in his design room, hard at work as always. He greets her with a kiss.

"How's it coming?" she asks.

"Pretty good, I think. Maybe another week or so and everything will be wrapped up."

After months of hitting the runways and photo studios of some of the most famous designers in America and Europe in the aftermath of the pandemic, Joachim has decided to pursue his long-cherished dream of putting out his very own clothing line--for both adults and children. So far, their videos of Achille, Letitia, Lucien, and Louise parading around and posing in their dazzling new haute couture outfits were proving to be immensely popular.

They have been floating the idea of live-streaming a fashion show to launch the new line; the participants would be their friends and family. So far, Lannes, Jerôme, Pauline, Elisa, Eugène, Lasalle, Bessières, and Poniatowski have all volunteered. Lannes' runway walk needs serious, serious work, but there's still plenty of time.

Of course, the children all want to participate in the show too, and how can Joachim possibly say no?

***

[Six months later]

Napoleon hates shopping. Primarily because Josephine always spends obscene amounts of money--really, if anybody ever found out just how many pairs of gloves she has--he lets out a sigh. It isn't just about the money though. Shopping for clothes is always such a hassle. Napoleon is a simple man with simple tastes. No frills, no feathers, no silly ornamentation--unlike some people. He just wants something nice and comfortable. Something breathable. Something that doesn't cut off the circulation in his arms or legs.

So of course, he has to live in the age of... skinny jeans. A crime against God and man. If he was in charge, he'd criminalize the horrid things. Of course, his ludicrous brother-in-law doesn't mind them. Murat is always delighted to have an excuse to show off those perfectly chiseled thighs of his.

"Napoleon! Come over here!!" Josephine calls. "I've found something you might like!"

I highly doubt it. He sighs again, but proceeds in the direction of her voice.

***

[The following afternoon]

Napoleon and Josephine arrive at the Murats' monthly garden party. Caroline has been renovating the place obsessively for the past few months; the spacious property now has a massive heated outdoor pool and vast gardens full of exotic plants and flowers. To the house itself, has been added a large marble terrace.

All this because she didn't want to learn how to sew, Napoleon marvels. He wonders how Madame Campan is processing it all.

Joachim and Caroline see the newly-arrived couple and hurry over to greet them.

Joachim's greeting cuts off in mid-sentence. His eyes are locked onto Napoleon's shirt.

"You're... wearing..."

"Yes. You know, it's really not bad at all, Joachim. You should make more like this." He gives Joachim's ear his signature tweak, before continuing on towards the food table.

Caroline giggles at the sight of her husband stricken speechless--the rarest of rare events.

"Come, my love," she takes his hand. "Let's go celebrate our success."

[THE END]