#Or managed to connect something I streamed writing to a published work you found

[scarlettearrowrites]

There's something unfairly ironic about being the kid who violently ducks away whenever my siblings start recording a TikTok but also being the one who has a youtube channel.

Constantly and consistently torn between the wish to be known and the need for privacy.

[antebunny]

Parent Trap AU 5

It’s a Parent Trap AU, plus on-the-run hacker!wwx and celebrity!lwj. Full series here.

-

At first, Lan Wangji finds writing songs to be extremely challenging.

He’s all but quit his job, and his son is gone. He’s alone in the house he once shared with his family, while his brother tries to keep quiet about pitying him and supporting him, and his uncle demands to know why he has no interest in searching for his son. He’s the one that files the kidnapping report, in the end. Not that it does much; they’re already searching for Wei Ying, since he escaped from prison.

All Lan Wangji really does, during this time, is cry by his piano, and sing.

The melodies come naturally to him. He’s been writing melodies for years, and these songs are no different. He has a thousand things to say, so some are angry, so fast he thinks he might tear his fingers on the guitar strings, some are soft with only piano accompaniment. All too soon he has dozens of recordings of phrases that can be put together into full-length songs. The only one he doesn’t record is the one he wrote for guqin, years ago.

But the lyrics, the lyrics he struggles with for ages. Not Lan Wangji finds himself at a loss for what to say. He doesn’t speak much, it’s true, but when he does he always finds precisely what he wants to say. Rather, Lan Wangji finds he has too much to say.

One Friday afternoon, he sits down on his couch and plays the same ten-minute ballad on his guitar, trying again and again to find a way to shorten it without feeling like he’s ripping a part of his already shattered heart out of his chest. While suppressing the urge to write more verses. He knows he can’t leave them all in; it’s too repetitive. He wants these songs to be good, though he doesn’t really plan on marketing them. A large part of him thinks it’ll always be like this. Just him and his instruments, alone in the living room, mourning over a love long lost, making himself cry over his own lyrics.

Still, Lan Wangji is a perfectionist at heart. He has to do something about the ten-minute ballad. It’s longer than two songs put together.

What if I made them two separate songs?

The thought comes to Lan Wangji suddenly, and he sets down his guitar to pick up the notebook containing the lyrics. This could work. He becomes convinced of this the longer he looks at the lyrics. He’ll never run out of things to say about Wei Ying, but if he separated each of those things into one song–that could work.

He chooses a different melody, edits the lyrics to fit it, picks out a theme, an aspect of Wei Ying to sing about, and suddenly he has a whole discography, and not a single published song.

Lan Wangji goes to his brother.

“Are you sure about this?” Lan Xichen asks, his brows pulled together in a small, worried dip.

“Mn.”

They stare at each other without speaking, because Lan Xichen knows that every concern he might think of, Lan Wangji has already over thought.

“Even if he hears them?”

Lan Wangji will never be famous enough that Wei Ying, wherever in the world he might be, will hear his songs. But if he does, then all the better. “Mn.”

Lan Xichen sighs. “I just don’t want to see you hurt anymore.”

Lan Wangji doesn’t think that’s possible. “Hm.”

Lan Xichen sighs again. “Okay,” he says. “If that’s what you want. I’m sure A-Yao knows someone. I’ll ask.”

It’s a while before he finds someone who’ll actually produce his music, but he’s happy with the person he ends up with. Luo Qingyang emails him back almost immediately after she listens to his demo.

I need you down here yesterday, she says. This is getting produced right now.

His first song, When We Were Young, is released as a single less than a year after the scandal that took Wei Ying from his life, under the stage name “Hanguang-jun.” He’s not sure it fits, but he wants to.

And suddenly, it looks like Lan Wangji might actually be that famous.

Of course, it’s still years in the future, so Lan Wangji carries on like he’s not. His second single, At First Glance, does even better than When We Were Young, and his manager starts bothering him about a music video. Apparently it’s expected of him, but Lan Wangji rejects all of the ideas that the directors Luo Qingyang finds for him come up with. They end up renting a house for a week and filming there, then going to a studio with lights and a piano. Lan Wangji dresses up for that and plays his heart out, and that’s it, that’s the music video.

His third single, Under Moonlight, is somehow more popular than his previous two combined. He has fans now, or maybe it’s just that he’s only now realizing it. He’s not quite sure what to do with that. The video this time takes place on the very bridge the song talks about. He doesn’t do much, since he rejected the idea of hiring actors to play the “counterpart,” so he’s confused as to why it continues gaining views on YouTube. Apparently he looks young. He’s not sure if this is insulting or not, but the internet would probably be shocked to learn he has a five-year-old son.

Lan Sizhui is too young to listen to music by himself, so Lan Wangji hopes that somewhere, there’s a radio playing one of the new hit songs by Hanguang-jun, and a father-son duo walking past.

Luo Qingyang bullies him into exactly one interview before his first album is released. On it, he accidentally confirms that all the songs on the album are about one person, and panics after that, not wishing to reveal anything about Wei Ying or even Lan Wangji’s own name on camera.

Apparently the mystery helps? Lan Wangji understands fame less and less the closer he comes to it. He thought if he just wrote good songs, enough people would listen to him that Wei Ying would hear it. Wei Ying is spotted in Thailand, and Lan Wangji ends up naming his first album Oceans Apart.

It sells, and it sells, and still, Wei Ying and their son are nowhere to be found.

-

Wei Wuxian is lying on a roof the night of his wedding anniversary.

Purple, white, and red fireworks explode in the black sky above him. There’s some celebration going on in the city, and Wei Wuxian takes advantage of it to pretend it’s in celebration of his anniversary.

Not that there’s much to celebrate. He doesn’t think it’s typical to celebrate the anniversary of a marriage which no longer exists, but their marriage didn’t end in the typical way either.

And he still loves Lan Zhan. Loves him so much that the sight of rabbits brings him to tears. So much that he feels like a traitor whenever someone so much as smiles in his direction, so much that he can’t imagine himself flirting with someone. So much that he cries on the roof when the fireworks light up the sky.

“Papa?”

Wei Wuxian looks to the right, and there’s Wei Sizhui, who is sometimes the only thing keeping Wei Wuxian going on his darkest nights. He’s nestled up with Wei Wuxian’s arm around him, small face peering earnestly at him from the dark. “What?”

“Why are you crying?”

Wei Wuxian raises one hand instinctively to rub the tears away. He’d forgotten about that. He’s thrown himself fully into caring for his son, making sure that he has clothes and good food to eat, which is hard when they never stay in a place for long and Wei Wuxian is paranoid of anyone who stares at them too long. Sometimes he wonders if he’s really doing any good, keeping Wei Sizhui away from his other father and uncles and aunts, from a happy childhood with friends and a school. And every time, he blinks back to the moment he woke up in the prison having narrowly avoided being murdered, and knows that Wei Sizhui is still safer with him than he’d be if he was still there, within the Jins reach.

“Nothing,” Wei Wuxian says. “It’s nothing.”

Wei Sizhui frowns. “But Papa is sad,” he declares.

Wei Wuxian presses the back of his hand over his eyes. Fireworks crack so loudly it muffles his shaky inhale. Tears stream down his cheeks and around his ears. Red lights flash across his eyelids.

-

White lights flash through the stage, focusing on the solitary grand piano, and Lan Wangji, in his white suit, seated on the piano bench. A hush falls across the massive crowd. He adjusts his microphone slightly, and places his fingers gently atop the keys. The cameras zoom in on him.

And Lan Wangji sings.

-

“I’m just remembering,” Wei Wuxian whispers. “Someone I used to know.”

“Is it Dad?” Wei Sizhui asks timidly.

Wei Wuxian inhales shakily again, then wraps his arm back around his son. “Yeah,” he admits. “It’s your other father.”

He hasn’t looked back since he ran away. Countless times, he’s thought about Googling the Jiangs in an internet cafe, just to check on how they’re doing. They have social media profiles, so he could. He could. But even the slightest hint of connection could ruin what Wei Wuxian has managed to salvage. The Jiangs would fight for him. Would drag their names in the mud for him, and he can’t let them do that to themselves, so he cuts all ties and doesn’t look back.

Wei Wuxian hasn’t dared to search Lan Wangji since he ran away.

-

“Hello,” Lan Wangji sings, and the crowd cheers.“It’s me. I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to meet, to go over everything. They say that time’s supposed to heal you, but I ain’t done much healing.”

Before he knows it, there’s tears streaming down his face. They drip onto his nice white suit, but the music doesn’t pause.

-

Hello from the other side

“Will we ever see him again?” Wei Sizhui asks plaintively.

I must have called a thousand times

Wei Wuxian tries to shake his head, his shoulders pressed against the dusty brick roof. “I don’t know, baby,” he says.

To tell you I’m sorry for everything that I’ve done

“But why not?” Wei Sizhui pushes. It’s far from the first time he’s asked, but each day it gets harder and harder to answer.

Hello from the outside

“Because he’s very, very far away,” Wei Wuxian replies this time, and tries not to think of Lan Zhan as he last saw him, sleeping peacefully in their bed the night Wei Wuxian broke in and took Wei Sizhui with him. “Oceans away.”

At least I can say that I tried

Eventually, the fireworks stop, and Wei Sizhui falls asleep, head resting in the crook of Wei Wuxian’s arm. Wei Wuxian raises one hand to the midnight sky, pretends he can reach through the vast expanse to wherever his family is. “Happy anniversary, Lan Zhan,” he whispers. “I miss you.”

To tell you I’m sorry for breaking your heart

Eventually, the song ends, and the cheers deafen the stadium. The lights go out long after Lan Wangji has gotten up from his seat and stepped away from the microphone. The tears on his face are invisible until the cameras focus in on him walking.

“Happy anniversary, Wei Ying,” he whispers, before he picks up the microphone to thank the crowd. “I love you.”

[booksalves]

The Sound of Murakami

Try reading an excerpt from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to my curated playlist!

June and July 1984

Tuesday's Wind-Up Bird

Six Fingers and Four Breasts

   When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

   I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax. Finally, though, I had to give in. It could have been somebody with news of a job opening. I lowered the flame, went to the living room, and picked up the receiver.

   "Ten minutes, please," said a woman on the other end.

   I'm good at recognizing people's voices, but this was not one I knew.

   "Excuse me? To whom did you wish to speak?"

   "To you, of course. Ten minutes, please. That's all we need to understand each other." Her voice was low and soft but otherwise nondescript.

   "Understand each other?"

   "Each other's feelings."

   I leaned over and peeked through the kitchen door. The spaghetti pot was steaming nicely, and Claudio Abbado was still conducting The Thieving Magpie.

   "Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of making spaghetti. Can I ask you to call back later?"

   "Spaghetti!? What are you doing cooking spaghetti at ten-thirty in the morning?"

   "That's none of your business," I said. "I decide what I eat and when I eat it."

   "True enough. I'll call back," she said, her voice now flat and expressionless. A little change in mood can do amazing things to the tone of a person's voice.

   "Hold on a minute," I said before she could hang up. "If this is some new sales gimmick, you can forget it. I'm out of work. I'm not in the market for anything."

   "Don't worry. I know."

   "You know? You know what?"

   "That you're out of work. I know about that. So go cook your precious spaghetti."

   "Who the hell-"

    She cut the connection.

   With no outlet for my feelings, I stared at the phone in my hand until I remembered the spaghetti. Back in the kitchen, I turned off the gas and poured the contents of the pot into a colander. Thanks to the phone call, the spaghetti was a little softer than al dente, but it had not been dealt a mortal blow. I started eating - and thinking.

   Understand each other? Understand each other's feelings in ten minutes? What was she talking about? Maybe it was just a prank call. Or some new sales pitch. In any case, it had nothing to do with me.

   After lunch, I went back to my library novel on the living room sofa, glancing every now and then at the telephone. What were we supposed to understand about each other in ten minutes? What can two people understand about each other in ten minutes? Come to think of it, she seemed awfully sure about those ten minutes: it was the first thing out of her mouth. As if nine minutes would be too short or eleven minutes too long. Like cooking spaghetti al dente.

   I couldn't read anymore. I decided to iron shirts instead. Which is what I always do when I'm upset. It's an old habit. I divide the job into twelve precise stages, beginning with the collar (outer surface) and ending with the left-hand cuff. The order is always the same, and I count off each stage to myself. Otherwise, it won't come out right.

   I ironed three shirts, checking them over for wrinkles and putting them on hangers. Once I had switched off the iron and put it away with the ironing board in the hall closet, my mind felt a good deal clearer.

   I was on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water when the phone rang again. I hesitated for a second but decided to answer it. If it was the same woman, I'd tell her I was ironing and hang up.

   This time it was Kumiko. The wall clock said eleven-thirty. "How are you?" she asked.

   "Fine," I said, relieved to hear my wife's voice.

   "What are you doing?"

   "Just finished ironing."

   "What's wrong?" There was a note of tension in her voice. She knew what it meant for me to be ironing.

   "Nothing. I was just ironing some shirts." I sat down and shifted the receiver from my left hand to my right. "What's up?"

   "Can you write poetry?" she asked.

   "Poetry!?" Poetry? Did she mean . . . poetry?

   "I know the publisher of a story magazine for girls. They're looking for somebody to pick and revise poems submitted by readers. And they want the person to write a short poem every month for the frontispiece. Pay's not bad for an easy job. Of course, it's part-time. But they might add some editorial work if the person-"

   "Easy work?" I broke in. "Hey, wait a minute. I'm looking for something in law, not poetry."

   "I thought you did some writing in high school."

   "Yeah, sure, for the school newspaper: which team won the soccer championship or how the physics teacher fell down the stairs and ended up in the hospital - that kind of stuff. Not poetry. I can't write poetry."

   "Sure, but I'm not talking about great poetry, just something for high school girls. It doesn't have to find a place in literary history. You could do it with your eyes closed. Don't you see?"

   "Look, I just can't write poetry - eyes open or closed. I've never done it, and I'm not going to start now."

   "All right," said Kumiko, with a hint of regret. "But it's hard to find legal work."

   "I know. That's why I've got so many feelers out. I should be hearing something this week. If it's no go, I'll think about doing something else."

   "Well, I suppose that's that. By the way, what's today? What day of the week?"

   I thought a moment and said, "Tuesday."

   "Then will you go to the bank and pay the gas and telephone?"

   "Sure. I was just about to go shopping for dinner anyway."

   "What are you planning to make?"

   "I don't know yet. I'll decide when I'm shopping."

   She paused. "Come to think of it," she said, with a new seriousness, "there's no great hurry about your finding a job."

   This took me off guard. "Why's that?" I asked. Had the women of the world chosen today to surprise me on the telephone? "My unemployment's going to run out sooner or later. I can't keep hanging around forever."

   "True, but with my raise and occasional side jobs and our savings, we can get by OK if we're careful. There's no real emergency. Do you hate staying at home like this and doing housework? I mean, is this life so wrong for you?"

   "I don't know," I answered honestly. I really didn't know.

   "Well, take your time and give it some thought," she said. "Anyhow, has the cat come back?"

   The cat. I hadn't thought about the cat all morning. "No," I said.

   "Not yet."

   "Can you please have a look around the neighborhood? It's been gone over a week now."

   I gave a noncommittal grunt and shifted the receiver back to my left hand. She went on:

   "I'm almost certain it's hanging around the empty house at the other end of the alley. The one with the bird statue in the yard. I've seen it in there several times."

   "The alley? Since when have you been going to the alley? You've never said anything-"

   "Oops! Got to run. Lots of work to do. Don't forget about the cat."

   She hung up. I found myself staring at the receiver again. Then I set it down in its cradle.

   I wondered what had brought Kumiko to the alley. To get there from our house, you had to climb over the cinder-block wall. And once you'd made the effort, there was no point in being there.

   I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, then out to the veranda to look at the cat's dish. The mound of sardines was untouched from last night. No, the cat had not come back. I stood there looking at our small garden, with the early-summer sunshine streaming into it. Not that ours was the kind of garden that gives you spiritual solace to look at. The sun managed to find its way in there for the smallest fraction of each day, so the earth was always black and moist, and all we had by way of garden plants were a few drab hydrangeas in one corner - and I don't like hydrangeas. There was a small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up bird. Kumiko gave it the name. We didn't know what it was really called or what it looked like, but that didn't bother the wind-up bird. Every day it would come to the stand of trees in our neighborhood and wind the spring of our quiet little world.

   So now I had to go cat hunting. I had always liked cats. And I liked this particular cat. But cats have their own way of living. They're not stupid. If a cat stopped living where you happened to be, that meant it had decided to go somewhere else. If it got tired and hungry, it would come back. Finally, though, to keep Kumiko happy, I would have to go looking for our cat. I had nothing better to do.    

   I had quit my job at the beginning of April - the law job I had had since graduation. Not that I had quit for any special reason. I didn't dislike the work. It wasn't thrilling, but the pay was all right and the office atmosphere was friendly.

   My role at the firm was - not to put too fine a point on it - that of professional gofer. And I was good at it. I might say I have a real talent for the execution of such practical duties. I'm a quick study, efficient, I never complain, and I'm realistic. Which is why, when I said I wanted to quit, the senior partner (the father in this father-and-son law firm) went so far as to offer me a small raise.

   But I quit just the same. Not that quitting would help me realize any particular hopes or prospects. The last thing I wanted to do, for example, was shut myself up in the house and study for the bar exam. I was surer than ever that I didn't want to become a lawyer. I knew, too, that I didn't want to stay where I was and continue with the job I had. If I was going to quit, now was the time to do it. If I stayed with the firm any longer, I'd be there for the rest of my life. I was thirty years old, after all.

   I had told Kumiko at the dinner table that I was thinking of quitting my job. Her only response had been, "I see." I didn't know what she meant by that, but for a while she said nothing more.

   I kept silent too, until she added, "If you want to quit, you should quit. It's your life, and you should live it the way you want to." Having said this much, she then became involved in picking out fish bones with her chopsticks and moving them to the edge of her plate.

   Kumiko earned pretty good pay as editor of a health food magazine, and she would occasionally take on illustration assignments from editor friends at other magazines to earn substantial additional income. (She had studied design in college and had hoped to be a freelance illustrator.) In addition, if I quit I would have my own income for a while from unemployment insurance. Which meant that even if I stayed home and took care of the house, we would still have enough for extras such as eating out and paying the cleaning bill, and our lifestyle would hardly change.

   And so I had quit my job.    

   I was loading groceries into the refrigerator when the phone rang. The ringing seemed to have an impatient edge to it this time. I had just ripped open a plastic pack of tofu, which I set down carefully on the kitchen table to keep the water from spilling out. I went to the living room and picked up the phone.

   "You must have finished your spaghetti by now," said the woman.

   "You're right. But now I have to go look for the cat."

   "That can wait for ten minutes, I'm sure. It's not like cooking spaghetti."

   For some reason, I couldn't just hang up on her. There was something about her voice that commanded my attention. "OK, but no more than ten minutes."

   "Now we'll be able to understand each other," she said with quiet certainty. I sensed her settling comfortably into a chair and crossing her legs.

   "I wonder," I said. "What can you understand in ten minutes?"

   "Ten minutes may be longer than you think," she said.

   "Are you sure you know me?"

   "Of course I do. We've met hundreds of times."

   "Where? When?"

   "Somewhere, sometime," she said. "But if I went into that, ten minutes would never be enough. What's important is the time we have now. The present. Don't you agree?"

   "Maybe. But I'd like some proof that you know me."

   "What kind of proof?"

   "My age, say?"

   "Thirty," she answered instantaneously. "Thirty and two months. Good enough?"

   That shut me up. She obviously did know me, but I had absolutely no memory of her voice.

   "Now it's your turn," she said, her voice seductive. "Try picturing me. From my voice. Imagine what I'm like. My age. Where I am. How I'm dressed. Go ahead."

   "I have no idea," I said.

   "Oh, come on," she said. "Try."

   I looked at my watch. Only a minute and five seconds had gone by. "I have no idea," I said again.

   "Then let me help you," she said. "I'm in bed. I just got out of the shower, and I'm not wearing a thing."

   Oh, great. Telephone sex.

   "Or would you prefer me with something on? Something lacy. Or stockings. Would that work better for you?"

   "I don't give a damn. Do what you like," I said. "Put something on if you want to. Stay naked if you want to. Sorry, but I'm not interested in telephone games like this. I've got a lot of things I have to-"

   "Ten minutes," she said. "Ten minutes won't kill you. It won't put a hole in your life. Just answer my question. Do you want me naked or with something on? I've got all kinds of things I could put on. Black lace panties . . ."

   "Naked is fine."

   "Well, good. You want me naked."

   "Yes. Naked. Good."

   Four minutes.

   "My pubic hair is still wet," she said. "I didn't dry myself very well. Oh, I'm so wet! Warm and moist. And soft. Wonderfully soft and black. Touch me."

   "Look, I'm sorry, but-"

   "And down below too. All the way down. It's so warm down there, like butter cream. So warm. Mmm. And my legs. What position do you think my legs are in? My right knee is up, and my left leg is open just enough. Say, ten-oh-five on the clock."

   I could tell from her voice that she was not faking it. She really did have her legs open to ten-oh-five, her sex warm and moist.

   "Touch the lips," she said. "Slooowly. Now open them. That's it. Slowly, slowly. Let your fingers caress them. Oh so slowly. Now, with your other hand, touch my left breast. Play with it. Caress it. Upward. And give the nipple a little squeeze. Do it again. And again. And again. Until I'm just about to come."

   Without a word, I put the receiver down. Stretching out on the sofa, I stared at the clock and released a long, deep sigh. I had spoken with her for close to six minutes.

   The phone rang again ten minutes later, but I left it on the hook. It rang fifteen times. And when it stopped, a deep, cold silence descended upon the room.    

   Just before two, I climbed over the cinder-block wall and down into the alley - or what we called the alley. It was not an "alley" in the proper sense of the word, but then, there was probably no word for what it was. It wasn't a "road" or a "path" or even a "way." Properly speaking, a "way" should be a pathway or channel with an entrance and an exit, which takes you somewhere if you follow it. But our "alley" had neither entrance nor exit. You couldn't call it a cul-de-sac, either: a cul-de-sac has at least one open end. The alley had not one dead end but two. The people of the neighborhood called it "the alley" strictly as an expedient. It was some two hundred yards in length and threaded its way between the back gardens of the houses that lined either side. Barely over three feet in width, it had several spots at which you had to edge through sideways because of fences sticking out into the path or things that people had left in the way.

   About this alley, the story was - the story I heard from my uncle, who rented us our house for next to nothing - that it used to have both an entrance and an exit and actually served the purpose of providing a shortcut between two streets. But with the rapid economic growth of the mid-fifties, rows of new houses came to fill the empty lots on either side of the road, squeezing it down until it was little more than a narrow path. People didn't like strangers passing so close to their houses and yards, so before long, one end of the path was blocked off - or, rather, screened off - with an unassertive fence. Then one local citizen decided to enlarge his yard and completely sealed off his end of the alley with a cinder-block wall. As if in response, a barbed-wire barrier went up at the other end, preventing even dogs from getting through. None of the neighbors complained, because none of them used the alley as a passageway, and they were just as happy to have this extra protection against crime. As a result, the alley remained like some kind of abandoned canal, unused, serving as little more than a buffer zone between two rows of houses. Spiders spread their sticky webs in the overgrowth.

   Why had Kumiko been frequenting such a place? I myself had walked down that "alley" no more than twice, and Kumiko was afraid of spiders at the best of times. Oh, what the hell - if Kumiko said I should go to the alley and look for the cat, I'd go to the alley and look for the cat. What came later I could think about later. Walking outside like this was far better than sitting in the house waiting for the phone to ring.

   The sharp sunshine of early summer dappled the surface of the alley with the hard shadows of the branches that stretched overhead. Without wind to move the branches, the shadows looked like permanent stains, destined to remain imprinted on the pavement forever. No sounds of any kind seemed to penetrate this place. I could almost hear the blades of grass breathing in the sunlight. A few small clouds floated in the sky, their shapes clear and precise, like the clouds in medieval engravings. I saw everything with such terrific clarity that my own body felt vague and boundless and flowing . . . and hot!

   I wore a T-shirt, thin cotton pants, and tennis shoes, but walking in the summer sun, I could feel a light film of sweat forming under my arms and in the hollow of my chest. The T-shirt and pants had been packed away in a box crammed with summer clothing until I pulled them out that morning, the sharp smell of mothballs penetrating my nostrils.

   The houses that lined the alley fell into two distinct categories: older houses and those built more recently. As a group, the newer ones were smaller, with smaller yards to match. Their clothes-drying poles often protruded into the alley, making it necessary for me to thread my way through the occasional screen of towels and sheets and undershirts. Over some back walls came the clear sound of television sets and flushing toilets, and the smell of curry cooking.

   The older houses, by contrast, gave hardly any sense of life. These were screened off by well-placed shrubs and hedges, between which I caught glimpses of manicured gardens.

   An old, brown, withered Christmas tree stood in the corner of one garden. Another had become the dumping ground for every toy known to man, the apparent leavings of several childhoods. There were tricycles and toss rings and plastic swords and rubber balls and tortoise dolls and little baseball bats. One garden had a basketball hoop, and another had fine lawn chairs surrounding a ceramic table. The white chairs were caked in dirt, as if they had not been used for some months or even years. The tabletop was coated with lavender magnolia petals, beaten down by the rain.

   I had a clear view of one living room through an aluminum storm door. It had a matching leather sofa and chairs, a large TV, a sideboard (atop which sat a tropical-fish tank and two trophies of some kind), and a decorative floor lamp. The room looked like the set of a TV drama. A huge doghouse occupied a large part of another garden, but there was no sign of the dog itself, and the house's door stood open. The screen of the doghouse door bulged outward, as if someone had been leaning against it for months at a time.

   The vacant house that Kumiko had told me about lay just beyond the place with the huge doghouse. One glance was all I needed to see that it was empty - and had been for some time. It was a fairly new two-story house, yet its wooden storm shutters showed signs of severe aging, and the railings outside the second-story windows were caked with rust. The house had a cozy little garden, in which, to be sure, a stone statue of a bird stood. The statue rested on a base that came to chest height and was surrounded by a thick growth of weeds. Tall fronds of goldenrod were almost touching the bird's feet. The bird - I had no idea what kind of bird it was supposed to be - had its wings open as if it wanted to escape from this unpleasant place as soon as possible. Aside from the statue, the garden had no decorative features. A pile of aging plastic lawn chairs stood against the house, and beside them an azalea bush displayed its bright-red blossoms, their color strangely unreal. Weeds made up the rest.

   I leaned against the chest-high chain-link fence for a while, contemplating the garden. It should have been a paradise for cats, but there was no sign of cats here now. Perched on the roof's TV antenna, a single pigeon lent its monotonous cries to the scene. The stone bird's shadow fell on the surrounding undergrowth, breaking apart.

   I took a lemon drop from my pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. I had taken my resignation from the firm as an opportunity to quit smoking, but now I was never without a pack of lemon drops. Kumiko said I was addicted to them and warned me that I'd soon have a mouthful of cavities, but I had to have my lemon drops. While I stood there looking at the garden, the pigeon on the TV antenna kept up its regular cooing, like some clerk stamping numbers on a sheaf of bills. I don't know how long I stayed there, leaning against the fence, but I remember spitting my lemon drop on the ground when, half melted, it filled my mouth with its sticky sweetness. I had just shifted my gaze to the shadow of the stone bird when I sensed that someone was calling to me from behind.

   I turned, to see a girl standing in the garden on the other side of the alley. She was small and had her hair in a ponytail. She wore dark sunglasses with amber frames, and a light-blue sleeveless T-shirt. The rainy season had barely ended, and yet she had already managed to give her slender arms a nice, smooth tan. She had one hand jammed into the pocket of her short pants. The other rested on a waist-high bamboo gate, which could not have been providing much support. Only three feet - maybe four - separated us.

   "Hot," she said to me.

   "Yeah, right," I answered.

   After this brief exchange of views, she stood there looking at me. Then she took a box of Hope regulars from her pants pocket, drew out a cigarette, and put it between her lips. She had a small mouth, the upper lip turned slightly upward. She struck a match and lit her cigarette. When she inclined her head to one side, her hair swung away to reveal a beautifully shaped ear, smooth as if freshly made, its edge aglow with a downy fringe.

   She flicked her match away and exhaled smoke through pursed lips. Then she looked up at me as if she had forgotten that I was there. I couldn't see her eyes through the dark, reflective lenses of her sunglasses.

   "You live around here?" she asked.

   "Uh-huh." I wanted to motion toward our house, but I had turned so many odd angles to get here that I no longer knew exactly where it was. I ended up pointing at random.

   "I'm looking for my cat," I explained, wiping a sweaty palm on my pants. "It's been gone for a week. Somebody saw it around here somewhere."

   "What kind of cat?"

   "A big tom. Brown stripes. Tip of the tail a little bent."

   "Name?"

   "Noboru. Noboru Wataya."

   "No, not your name. The cat's."

   "That is my cat's name."

   "Oh! Very impressive!"

   "Well, actually, it's my brother-in-law's name. The cat sort of reminds us of him. We gave the cat his name, just for fun."

   "How does the cat remind you of him?"

   "I don't know. Just in general. The way it walks. And it has this blank stare."

   She smiled now for the first time, which made her look a lot more childlike than she had seemed at first. She couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen. With its slight curl, her upper lip pointed up at a strange angle. I seemed to hear a voice saying "Touch me" - the voice of the woman on the phone. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

   "A brown-striped cat with a bent tail," said the girl. "Hmm. Does it have a collar or something?"

   "A black flea collar."

   She stood there thinking for ten or fifteen seconds, her hand still resting on the gate. Then she dropped what was left of her cigarette and crushed it under her sandal.

   "Maybe I did see a cat like that," she said. "I don't know about the bent tail, but it was a brown tiger cat, big, and I think it had a collar."

   "When did you see it?"

   "When did I see it? Hmm. No more than three or four days ago. Our yard is a kind of highway for the neighborhood cats. They all cut across here from the Takitanis' to the Miyawakis'."

   She pointed toward the vacant house, where the stone bird still spread its wings, the tall goldenrod still caught the early-summer sun, and the pigeon went on with its monotonous cooing atop the TV antenna.

   "I've got an idea," she said. "Why don't you wait here? All the cats eventually pass through our place on their way to the Miyawakis'. And somebody's bound to call the cops if they see you hanging around like that. It wouldn't be the first time."

   I hesitated.

   "Don't worry," she said. "I'm the only one here. The two of us can sit in the sun and wait for the cat to show up. I'll help. I've got    twenty-twenty vision."

   I looked at my watch. Two twenty-six. All I had to do today before it got dark was take in the laundry and fix dinner.

   I went in through the gate and followed the girl across the lawn. She dragged her right leg slightly. She took a few steps, stopped, and turned to face me.

   "I got thrown from the back of a motorcycle," she said, as if it hardly mattered.

   A large oak tree stood at the point where the yard's lawn gave out. Under the tree sat two canvas deck chairs, one draped with a blue beach towel. Scattered on the other were a new box of Hope regulars, an ashtray and lighter, a magazine, and an oversize boom box. The boom box was playing hard-rock music at low volume. She turned the music off and took all the stuff out of the chair for me, dropping it on the grass. From the chair, I could see into the yard of the vacant house - the stone bird, the goldenrod, the chain-link fence. The girl had probably been watching me the whole time I was there.

   The yard of this house was very large. It had a broad, sloping lawn dotted with clumps of trees. To the left of the deck chairs was a rather large concrete-lined pond, its empty bottom exposed to the sun. Judging from its greenish tinge, it had been without water for some time. We sat with our backs to the house, which was visible through a screen of trees. The house was neither large nor lavish in its construction. Only the yard gave an impression of large size, and it was well manicured.

   "What a big yard," I said, looking around. "It must be a pain to take care of."

   "Must be."

   "I used to work for a lawn-mowing company when I was a kid."

   "Oh?" She was obviously not interested in lawns.

   "Are you always here alone?" I asked.

   "Yeah. Always. Except a maid comes mornings and evenings. During the day it's just me. Alone. Want a cold drink? We've got beer."

   "No, thanks."

   "Really? Don't be shy."

   I shook my head. "Don't you go to school?"

   "Don't you go to work?"

   "No work to go to."

   "Lost your job?"

   "Sort of. I quit a few weeks ago."

   "What kind of job?"

   "I was a lawyer's gofer. I'd go to different government offices to pick up documents, put materials in order, check on legal precedents, handle court procedures - that kind of stuff."

   "But you quit."

   "Yeah."

   "Does your wife have a job?"

   "She does."

   The pigeon across the way must have stopped its cooing and gone off somewhere. I suddenly realized that a deep silence lay all around me.

   "Right over there is where the cats go through," she said, pointing toward the far side of the lawn. "See the incinerator in the Takitanis' yard? They come under the fence at that point, cut across the grass, and go out under the gate to the yard across the way. They always follow exactly the same route."

   She perched her sunglasses on her forehead, squinted at the yard, and lowered her glasses again, exhaling a cloud of smoke. In the interval, I saw that she had a two-inch cut next to her left eye - the kind of cut that would probably leave a scar the rest of her life. The dark sunglasses were probably meant to hide the wound. The girl's face was not a particularly beautiful one, but there was something attractive about it, probably the lively eyes or the unusual shape of the lips.

   "Do you know about the Miyawakis?" she asked.

   "Not a thing," I said.

   "They're the ones who lived in the vacant house. A very proper family. They had two daughters, both in a private girls' school. Mr. Miyawaki owned a few family restaurants."

   "Why'd they leave?"

   "Maybe he was in debt. It was like they ran away - just cleared out one night. About a year ago, I think. Left the place to rot and breed cats. My mother's always complaining."

   "Are there so many cats in there?"

   Cigarette in her lips, the girl looked up at the sky.

   "All kinds of cats. Some losing their fur, some with one eye . . . and where the other eye used to be, a lump of raw flesh. Yuck!"

   I nodded.

   "I've got a relative with six fingers on each hand. She's just a little older than me. Next to her pinkie she's got this extra finger, like a baby's finger. She knows how to keep it folded up so most people don't notice. She's really pretty."

   I nodded again.

   "You think it's in the family? What do you call it . . . part of the bloodline?"

   "I don't know much about heredity."

   She stopped talking. I sucked on my lemon drop and looked hard at the cat path. Not one cat had shown itself so far.

   "Sure you don't want something to drink?" she asked. "I'm going to have a Coke."

   I said I didn't need a drink.

   She left her deck chair and disappeared through the trees, dragging her bad leg slightly. I picked up her magazine from the grass and leafed through it. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be a men's magazine, one of the glossy monthlies. The woman in the foldout wore thin panties that showed her slit and pubic hair. She sat on a stool with her legs spread out at weird angles. With a sigh, I put the magazine back, folded my hands on my chest, and focused on the cat path again.    

   A very long time went by before the girl came back, with a Coke in her hand. The heat was getting to me. Sitting under the sun, I felt my brain fogging over. The last thing I wanted to do was think.

   "Tell me," she said, picking up her earlier conversation. "If you were in love with a girl and she turned out to have six fingers, what would you do?"

   "Sell her to the circus," I answered.

   "Really?"

   "No, of course not," I said. "I'm kidding. I don't think it would bother me."

   "Even if your kids might inherit it?"

   I took a moment to think about that.

   "No, I really don't think it would bother me. What harm would an extra finger do?"

   "What if she had four breasts?"

   I thought about that too.

   "I don't know."

   Four breasts? This kind of thing could go on forever. I decided to change the subject.

   "How old are you?" I asked.

   "Sixteen," she said. "Just had my birthday. First year in high school."

   "Have you been out of school long?"

   "My leg hurts if I walk too much. And I've got this scar near my eye. My school's very strict. They'd probably start bugging me if they found out I hurt myself falling off a motorcycle. So I'm out 'sick.' I could take a year off. I'm not in any hurry to go up a grade."

   "No, I guess not," I said.

   "Anyhow, what you were saying before, that you wouldn't mind marrying a girl with six fingers but not four breasts . . ."

   "I didn't say that. I said I didn't know."

   "Why don't you know?"

   "I don't know - it's hard to imagine such a thing."

   "Can you imagine someone with six fingers?"

   "Sure, I guess so."

   "So why not four breasts? What's the difference?"

   I took another moment to think it over, but I couldn't find an answer.

   "Do I ask too many questions?"

   "Do people tell you that?"

   "Yeah, sometimes."

   I turned toward the cat path again. What the hell was I doing here? Not one cat had showed itself the whole time. Hands still folded on my chest, I closed my eyes for maybe thirty seconds. I could feel the sweat forming on different parts of my body. The sun poured into me with a strange heaviness. Whenever the girl moved her glass, the ice clinked inside it like a cowbell.

   "Go to sleep if you want," she whispered. "I'll wake you if a cat shows up."

   Eyes closed, I nodded in silence.

   The air was still. There were no sounds of any kind. The pigeon had long since disappeared. I kept thinking about the woman on the telephone. Did I really know her? There had been nothing remotely familiar about her voice or her manner of speaking. But she definitely knew me. I could have been looking at a De Chirico scene: the woman's long shadow cutting across an empty street and stretching toward me, but she herself in a place far removed from the bounds of my consciousness. A bell went on ringing and ringing next to my ear.

   "Are you asleep?" the girl asked, in a voice so tiny I could not be sure I was hearing it.

   "No, I'm not sleeping," I said.

   "Can I get closer? It'll be . . . easier if I keep my voice low."

   "Fine with me," I said, eyes still closed.

   She moved her chair until it struck mine with a dry, wooden clack.

   Strange, the girl's voice sounded completely different, depending on whether my eyes were open or closed.

   "Can I talk? I'll keep real quiet, and you don't have to answer. You can even fall asleep. I don't mind."

   "OK," I said.

   "When people die, it's so neat."

   Her mouth was next to my ear now, so the words worked their way inside me along with her warm, moist breath.

   "Why's that?" I asked.

   She put a finger on my lips as if to seal them.

   "No questions," she said. "And don't open your eyes. OK?"

   My nod was as small as her voice.

   She took her finger from my lips and placed it on my wrist.

   "I wish I had a scalpel. I'd cut it open and look inside. Not the corpse . . . the lump of death. I'm sure there must be something like that. Something round and squishy, like a softball, with a hard little core of dead nerves. I want to take it out of a dead person and cut it open and look inside. I always wonder what it's like. Maybe it's all hard, like toothpaste dried up inside the tube. That's it, don't you think? No, don't answer. It's squishy on the outside, and the deeper you go inside, the harder it gets. I want to cut open the skin and take out the squishy stuff, use a scalpel and some kind of spatula to get through it, and the closer you get to the center, the harder the squishy stuff gets, until you reach this tiny core. It's sooo tiny, like a tiny ball bearing, and really hard. It must be like that, don't you think?"

    She cleared her throat a few times.

   "That's all I think about these days. Must be because I have so much time to kill every day. When you don't have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out - so far out you can't follow them all the way to the end."

She took the finger from my wrist and drank down the rest of her cola. I knew the glass was empty from the sound of the ice.

   "Don't worry about the cat - I'm watching for it. I'll let you know if Noboru Wataya shows up. Keep your eyes closed. I'm sure Noboru Wataya is walking around here someplace. He'll be here any minute now. He's coming. I know he's coming-through the grass, under the fence, stopping to sniff the flowers along the way, little by little Noboru Wataya is coming closer. Picture him that way, get his image in mind."

   I tried to picture the image of the cat, but the best I could do was a blurry, backlighted photo. The sunlight penetrating my eyelids destabilized and diffused my inner darkness, making it impossible for me to bring up a precise image of the cat. Instead, what I imagined was a failed portrait, a strange, distorted picture, certain distinguishing features bearing some resemblance to the original but the most important parts missing. I couldn't even recall how the cat looked when it walked.

   The girl put her finger on my wrist again, using the tip to draw an odd diagram of uncertain shape. As if in response, a new kind of darkness - different in quality from the darkness I had been experiencing until that moment - began to burrow into my consciousness. I was probably falling asleep. I didn't want this to happen, but there was no way I could resist it. My body felt like a corpse - someone else's corpse - sinking into the canvas deck chair.

   In the darkness, I saw the four legs of Noboru Wataya, four silent brown legs atop four soft paws with swelling, rubberlike pads, legs that were soundlessly treading the earth somewhere.

   But where?

   "Ten minutes is all it will take," said the woman on the phone. No, she had to be wrong. Sometimes ten minutes is not ten minutes. It can stretch and shrink. That was something I did know for sure.    

   When I woke up, I was alone. The girl had disappeared from the deck chair, which was still touching mine. The towel and cigarettes and magazine were there, but not the glass or the boom box.

   The sun had begun to sink in the west, and the shadow of an oak branch had crept across my knees. My watch said it was four-fifteen. I sat up and looked around. Broad lawn, dry pond, fence, stone bird, goldenrod, TV antenna. Still no sign of the cat. Or of the girl.

   I glanced at the cat path and waited for the girl to come back. Ten minutes went by, and neither cat nor girl showed up. Nothing moved. I felt as if I had aged tremendously while I slept.

   I stood and glanced toward the house, where there was no sign of a human presence. The bay window reflected the glare of the western sun. I gave up waiting and crossed the lawn to the alley, returning home. I hadn't found the cat, but I had tried my best.    

   At home, I took in the wash and made preparations for a simple dinner. The phone rang twelve times at five-thirty, but I didn't answer it. Even after the ringing stopped, the sound of the bell lingered in the indoor evening gloom like dust floating in the air. With the tips of its hard claws, the table clock tapped at a transparent board floating in space.

   Why not write a poem about the wind-up bird? The idea struck me, but the first line would not come. How could high school girls possibly enjoy a poem about a wind-up bird?    

   Kumiko came home at seven-thirty. She had been arriving later and later over the past month. It was not unusual for her to return after eight, and sometimes even after ten. Now that I was at home preparing dinner, she no longer had to hurry back. They were understaffed, in any case, and lately one of her colleagues had been out sick.

   "Sorry," she said. "The work just wouldn't end, and that part-time girl is useless."

   I went to the kitchen and cooked: fish sautéed in butter, salad, and miso soup. Kumiko sat at the kitchen table and vegged out.

   "Where were you at five-thirty?" she asked. "I tried to call to say I'd be late."

   "The butter ran out. I went to the store," I lied.

   "Did you go to the bank?"

   "Sure."

   "And the cat?"

   "Couldn't find it. I went to the vacant house, like you said, but there was no trace of it. I bet it went farther away than that."

   She said nothing.

   When I finished bathing after dinner, Kumiko was sitting in the living room with the lights out. Hunched down in the dark with her gray shirt on, she looked like a piece of luggage that had been left in the wrong place.

   Drying my hair with a bath towel, I sat on the sofa opposite Kumiko.

   In a voice I could barely catch, she said, "I'm sure the cat's dead."

   "Don't be silly," I replied. "I'm sure it's having a grand old time somewhere. It'll get hungry and come home soon. The same thing happened once before, remember? When we lived in Koenji . . ."

   "This time's different," she said. "This time you're wrong. I know it. The cat's dead. It's rotting in a clump of grass. Did you look in the grass in the vacant house?"

   "No, I didn't. The house may be vacant, but it does belong to somebody. I can't just go barging in there."

   "Then where did you look for the cat? I'll bet you didn't even try. That's why you didn't find it."

   I sighed and wiped my hair again with the towel. I started to speak but gave up when I realized that Kumiko was crying. It was understandable: Kumiko loved the cat. It had been with us since shortly after our wedding. I threw my towel in the bathroom hamper and went to the kitchen for a cold beer. What a stupid day it had been: a stupid day of a stupid month of a stupid year.

   Noboru Wataya, where are you? Did the wind-up bird forget to wind your spring?

   The words came to me like lines of poetry.

              Noboru Wataya,               Where are you?               Did the wind-up bird               Forget to wind your spring?

   When I was halfway through my beer, the phone started to ring.

   "Get it, will you?" I shouted into the darkness of the living room.

   "Not me," she said. "You get it."

   "I don't want to."

         The phone kept on ringing, stirring up the dust that floated in the darkness. Neither of us said a word. I drank my beer, and Kumiko went on crying soundlessly. I counted twenty rings and gave up. There was no point in counting forever.

[vernonfielding]

Life Writes Its Own Stories

Chapter 3! (And at AO3.)

Amy was deep in thought, eyes gone unfocused as she stared at her computer screen and tried to will a new lede to reveal itself, when a thunk to her forehead snapped her back to reality.

“Ow!” Amy looked up and found Gina already preparing another ball of paper, probably weighted with something like a rock, or an actual paper weight.

“I wasn’t trying to hit you. But I’m also not sorry that I did,” Gina said. She tossed the next ball, which Amy managed to duck. The third one hit her phone and knocked the headset off the receiver.

“What the hell, Gina?”

“I need to kill that horrible machine.” Gina launched another paper ball, which bounced an inch from the police scanner on Amy’s desk. “Oh, so close!”

“Knock it off,” Amy said. “I need that.”

“It’s distracting,” Gina said.

“Just ignore it. Everyone else does.”.

“No we don’t,” Charles called from across the newsroom.

“Come on! Every newsroom has a police scanner.” Amy glanced around at her coworkers, looking for a friendly face, and paused hopefully on Terry.

“It’s not 1985,” Terry said. “Just follow the news online like everyone else, Santiago.”

“You all are terrible journalists.” Amy grabbed the scanner and moved it to a more protected spot on her desk, right beside her hard copy of the Associated Press Stylebook and a stack of battered Yellow Pages.

She’d had no idea everyone else was bothered by the scanner. It spit out a constant stream of static and mumbled police jargon, but to Amy it was like white noise. She’d grown up around police scanners and had developed an innate ability to ignore them when nothing was happening and hone right in when the chatter got interesting. Apparently it was not a skill hardwired into all reporters.

“Why do you need that anyway?” Gina said, approaching Amy’s desk and snapping up the scanner. “Doesn’t your Deep Throat give you all your stories now?”

“He’s not my Deep Throat,” Amy said. She reached for her scanner and Gina pulled it away.

“Whatever, Bernstein.” Gina dropped the scanner in Amy’s trash can and walked away.

“And I’m not the Bernstein!” Amy called after her. “I’m totally the Woodward!”

Terry came up and plucked her scanner out of the trash, setting it back on her desk. “Just ignore her,” he said. “She’s always wanted a Deep Throat.”

In truth, Amy was secretly thrilled that she had a real-life “deep throat” in Peralta, even if their interactions weren’t nearly as cool as the ones from All the President’s Men. They hadn’t once met in a creepy parking lot after midnight. She didn’t have a gross but admittedly cool code name for him. And the tips he gave her weren’t exactly going to save democracy.

Still, he was texting her. Kind of a lot. And okay, most of it was immature and needling – he especially liked giving her a hard time when her stories were buried in the back of the paper or failed to get any traction on Twitter. But every now and then he’d pass on something useful.

It had started soon after the Poloski story ran. Peralta had texted her the next day to congratulate her, which she had taken as a polite way for him to acknowledge that he wasn’t mad at her for calling him. Then a week later he’d texted again, in response to a short story she’d written about a local bank robbery – he’d suggested that she ask if the latest robbery was connected to a series of thefts from the previous year, and sure enough, Scully confirmed they were. She hadn’t gotten on the front page, but it was information no other reporters had.

After that, the texts started coming more regularly. Often it was just feedback – or, more precisely, critical commentary. And it wasn’t always her articles. After Hitchcock wrote a piece about NYPD overtime expenses pulling money out of city programs for public health and homeless services, Peralta sent Amy a three-paragraph text asking whether he and his partner should have just clocked off at 5 when they were pursuing that serial stabber last year. Amy wrote back: “Send a letter to the editor.” Peralta replied with a zombie emoji.

A few times he texted about Gina’s columns, mostly to complain about her liberal use of anonymous sources – a critique that Amy privately agreed with. When Charles wrote an unsigned, negative review of Sal’s pizza in the Bulletin’s restaurant column, Jake demanded a retraction. She didn’t reply.

His comments on her stories tended to be more specific. Once, he texted her an hour before the print deadline to tell her she’d misspelled another detective’s name in a story he’d read online; she’d had time to fix it for the next day’s newspaper, saving herself an embarrassing correction. Another time he wrote that a headline on her story was obviously biased against cops, and though Amy had texted back “I don’t write the headlines,” she’d agreed with him, and asked Charles to revise it online.

They’d had one honest-to-goodness text fight. She’d written an article about two officers accused of threatening a man and forcibly removing him from his home during a robbery investigation. In his formal complaint, the man said the officers had been drunk, and the interactions he described made the officers look at best incredibly unprofessional, and at worst criminally derelict. The NYPD wouldn’t comment except to say that it was conducting an internal investigation.

“Those are good cops you just trashed,” Peralta wrote to her that night.

“Give me their side of the story and I’ll write it,” Amy texted back. She was crashed on her couch, exhausted after spending the day trying to track down the two officers for comment and arguing with Scully – who was either secretly brilliant at evading questions, or the most inept public information officer in all of the NYPD.

“You know I can’t do that,” Peralta texted.

“Then tell me what I’m supposed to do if no one will talk,” Amy wrote, stabbing at the letters.

“So its better to write a one-sided, inaccurate story than not publish at all? That’s crap.”

“”It’s,” Amy wrote, and immediately felt like an asshole.

Peralta texted back an eyeroll emoji, which she deserved.

“It’s my job to hold people in power accountable for their actions,” Amy wrote. “I’m not going to apologize for that. NYPD wants its side in the paper, they have to talk to me.”

She watched her screen as he worked on his reply.

“It’s not fair,” he wrote.

Amy thought for a moment and finally wrote, “No. It’s not.”

She didn’t hear from him for a few days after that and she thought maybe that was it. He’d probably figured out that he had way more to lose than gain by talking to her. Then, before she’d even gotten out of bed one morning, he texted a name and a link to a short item she’d written about a dead body found in the East River. And that was how Amy was the first to report that a highly placed mafia boss had been shot and killed, his body dumped in the water.

Two days later he gave her an exclusive on a Park Slope millennial family being arrested for dealing methamphetamine through a fake moms group.

(He also tipped her off to a Greenpoint storefront selling organic, gluten-free, sugar-free Twinkies, but Amy replied that wasn’t a crime. Peralta texted back a handcuffs emoji. She ended up writing the story for the features section. It went viral on Facebook.)

Eventually, Amy decided he needed a fake name in her contacts. She called him Pineapples – for some reason it just popped into her brain  – and every time a new message from him appeared on her screen, she felt a little jolt of adrenaline.

She told herself it was just the anticipation of the next big story.

+++

“And his name is…Pepper! Officer Pepper O’Pigeon. I’ll take questions now.”

Scully swept his hands toward the giant pigeon in question and a few of the littler kids at his side clapped politely. Amy sighed and turned off her voice recorder. One of the TV reporters weakly asked if Officer Pepper O’Pigeon was a boy or girl pigeon and Amy didn’t stick around for the answer.

Free of the clutch of reporters looking for a cheap and easy feature story for the day, Amy took one last glance around the scene. She’d come to this press conference against her better judgment mostly because it was being held at the 99th Precinct. Scully liked to shift these kinds of “community building” press conferences among the various precincts so they all got a share of positive media attention, and normally Amy skipped them. She’d told herself yesterday that she was coming to this one because the precinct was between her apartment and the Bulletin offices – it was just a stop along the way to work – but if she was honest, she’d come because she was hoping to spot Detective Peralta.

Now, she realized that had been dumb. There were no cops here at all except for Scully and two uniforms who looked so young they might well have been interns. Except she didn’t think the NYPD did interns. She’d have to look that up later.

Amy shoved her phone in her purse and headed back toward the subway, trying to decide if she should take the train the rest of the way in or just walk the mile and a half. She passed a coffee shop and the smell of fresh ground beans hit her brain like something illegal. She’d found herself out of coffee at home that morning and decided to try skipping it altogether, but clearly she was not meant for cold turkey. Amy neatly sidestepped into the coffee shop.

She recognized it immediately as a cop hangout. There were two uniforms in line at the register, and a couple of plain-clothes with badges snapped to their belts perched on stools at the front window. A parking patrol officer sat at a corner table with a newspaper – sadly, The Times – spread out before her.

Amy walked up to the register just as the uniforms finished ordering and asked for a large coffee with room. At the side counter, she reached for the nonfat milk to the far right, just as someone came up beside her and made a move for the full-fat in front of her.

“Excuse me-”

“Sorry-”

Amy glanced up and stopped, hand in midair. She stared into the wide, brown eyes of Detective Peralta.

“Detective-”

His eyes widened even more and he shook his head. Amy snapped her mouth shut. Peralta quickly looked back over his shoulder to the rest of the coffee shop, then turned and said under his breath, “We can’t talk.”

“Oh-”

“Here you go,” he said, in a slightly louder than necessary voice, and handed her the milk she’d been reaching for.

“Oh,” Amy said again. “Thanks. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Peralta darted a quick glance in her direction.

They topped off their drinks in silence, and Peralta left first. Amy followed a minute after, feeling dazed. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her face felt warm, like she was blushing. She looked toward the 99th Precinct when she stepped outside the coffee shop, but Peralta was nowhere in sight. Her heart sank, and Amy thought back to the panicked look on his face, and also the fact that he was actually much cuter than she’d remembered.

She glanced down the street toward the precinct one more time, then moved on in the opposite direction. She was definitely going to have to walk to work now, just to burn off this weird adrenaline rush. Amy pulled out her phone to check the time – and saw a text on the screen.

“Bailey Fountain. 20 min.”

Amy didn’t think twice. She spun on her heel and headed toward Prospect Park.

+++

Jake jogged most of the way down Flatbush toward the park, glancing at his cell phone as the trees came into view. He’d had to check in at the precinct before ducking out again, and it had taken him a few minutes to shake Rosa. She’d asked him outright why he was acting so weird and he’d said he was acting totally normal and she’d given him that terrifying eyebrow sneer and he knew he’d be answering more questions later. At least he’d have some time to devise answers.

He slowed to a walk as he crossed Plaza Street and stepped into the park proper, the hum of traffic now muffled by the trees. He looked around for Santiago as he climbed the steps toward the fountain, and spotted her right away, on the closest bench. He was ten minutes late, but he paused anyway, then stepped a few feet to his right, so he was partly behind a tree. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted a moment to watch her, before she knew he was there.

When he’d met her, very briefly, at the press conference a few weeks ago, he’d had just a few seconds to look at her and notice that she was cute. Now, as he walked the thin line between cop and creep and watched her from behind a tree, he had to admit that the Vulture was right: Santiago was hot. Except that wouldn’t have been the first word he’d use to describe her. She was, simply, beautiful. A woman who would catch his attention in a crowded bar or in line at the corner bodega, who would probably be as gorgeous in an evening gown as she would yoga pants and a hoodie.

At the moment, she was wearing a bright blue button-down shirt and black slacks, and her hair was down, part of it cascading over one shoulder and literally shimmering in the morning sunshine. He was standing close enough to see she had her phone in her hands and was typing on it, thumbs tapping away. She had her bag still slung over her shoulder and tucked into her side, which was sensible given how common purse snatches were in the park.

Though her head was bent to look at her phone, her back was straight, her shoulders squared, and she gave off a distinct ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe that Jake respected. But there was something about her that made him feel strangely precious toward her nonetheless – the pout of her lips, or the faint line between her eyebrows, some softness that he couldn’t quite articulate.

She looked up from her phone suddenly, and Jake neatly stepped out from the tree before she could catch him being a weirdo. He gave a little wave as he approached.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, as he sat beside her on the bench.

“It’s fine.” She set her phone in her lap and turned slightly toward him. “I’m sorry about, well, the whole not playing it cool thing at the coffee shop. I wasn’t expecting to see you there.”

“Right, the coffee shop across the street from a police precinct is a totally weird place to run into a cop,” Jake said, but he was grinning.

“I was expecting cops, but not my cop,” Santiago said, which caused Jake to snort-laugh.

“Oh, so I belong to you?”

“You know what I mean,” Santiago said with a hint of exasperation, though he could tell she was trying not to smile.

They lapsed into silence, the bubble of the fountain unnaturally loud to Jake. He wished he’d brought his coffee with him just so he’d have something to do with his hands. Beside him, Santiago was turning her phone over and over, until she finally seemed to realize what she was doing and stuffed it in her purse.

“So, what-”

“Look, I-”

They both stopped and laughed a little.

“You go,” Santiago said.

“I was just going to ask if there was something you wanted to talk about,” Jake said. “I mean, something in particular. I know I was the one who said we should meet here but I got the impression you had something on your mind. At the coffee shop.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, it was just a look on your face, like you were about to ask a question.”

“Oh.” Her eyes crinkled in bemusement. “Well, I guess I did. Only actually, no, it wasn’t a question. But I did have something I wanted to say. I mean, not like a speech or anything, just something that’s been on my mind lately.”

Jake bit his tongue to keep from teasing her about being flustered. Instead he gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

Santiago pursed her lips and frowned for a moment, then turned to fully face him.

“I guess I just wanted to say thanks. For, you know, helping me out so much.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked him in the eye. “I know you’re putting your career on the line by talking to me, and meanwhile I’m getting all this credit at work. And there’s not really anything I can do to change that, I mean, short of offering you bribes, which would be totally unethical and I would never do. So, yeah, there’s nothing I can do, except just acknowledge what you’re doing and say thanks.”

She paused and took a deep breath. Jake stared into her eyes, which were sparkling in the sunlight. He realized he should probably say something in response.

“You’re welcome.” And then he thought over everything she had just told him, and he added, “But you’re not the only one benefitting. As much as it pains me to admit this – and believe me, it really, truly does – your articles have helped put away a few bad guys. That’s all I’m trying to do at the end of the day.”

Santiago offered him a small smile and shrugged. “I’m glad to hear that, but I still feel like I’m the only one really getting anything out of this relationship.”

Jake startled at that, and Santiago’s eyes went wide and her cheeks flushed.

“Transaction,” Santiago said, quickly. “I’m getting everything out of this transaction. Not a relationship. It’s a professional thing. Totally-”

“Transactional?” Jake supplied, when she trailed off.

Santiago nodded weakly, her whole face now glowing pink. He started laughing, and then found he couldn’t stop. Santiago buried her face in her hands, but when he was still laughing a minute later she slapped him on the shoulder, and then hit him a couple more times until he caught his breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I’ve just never seen anyone blush that hard, that fast before.”

“I can’t help my physical reaction,” Santiago said, indignant.

“Title of your sex tape!”

“What?” Santiago’s forehead creased in confusion until she figured out what he meant, and then she hit him again. He just grinned back at her.

“I had no idea you were such an immature jerk,” Santiago said, but there wasn’t any real spite in her tone.

Still, he softened his smile. “It was only a matter of time.”

They fell into another silence, this one less tense. Jake thought again about what she’d said in her oddly poignant speech, turning the words over in his head. He turned to face her, leaning an elbow on the back of the bench.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I haven’t had to deal with a lot of reporters firsthand, but from what I’ve seen they’re usually pretty useless. Like, getting stuff wrong and just being lazy, sometimes actually working against us.”

“Like with that story I did, on the drunk cops,” Santiago said.

Jake bristled – he hadn’t meant to accuse her of anything. “Not exactly. Look, I’m sorry I lost it with that story, but I know those guys, and they’re good cops.”

“I get it,” Santiago said. “I mean, I wish I could get all the facts too. I don’t like having to write only half the story.”

“And that’s the crazy part – I believe you.” Jake let them both sit with that a moment, and then he cleared his throat, feeling suddenly shy about oversharing. “Usually I just avoid journalists.”

Santiago chuckled. “You haven’t avoided me,”

“No,” Jake said. “Kind of the opposite, right? I guess trust you.”

She flashed a smile at that, then turned thoughtful. “Do you mind if I ask why?”

Jake shrugged, and thought it over. “That first time, I was just pissed about what was happening with that asshole cop who’d killed his ex, and I wanted to tell someone. And you were there.”

Santiago gave a short laugh. “Thanks, that makes me feel so special.”

“But then,” he said, grinning at her, “you wrote that story and it actually worked, and you wrote the next one and that helped too. And I guess I realized – we were kind of on the same side.”

He paused and bit his lip, unsure whether he should say more. He looked off in the distance, at the fountain water sparkling in the sunshine. “I like helping people. And I like doing it with you.”

Jake could feel Santiago staring at him, but when he looked over she ducked her head as she smiled. She was blushing again.

“Title of your sex tape?” she said.

Jake doubled over laughing.

+++

Amy had a literal spring in her step as she jogged down the stairs to the subway to head into the newsroom. She was hardly even surprised when her train happened to arrive just as she got to the platform – it felt like the kind of day for pleasant coincidences – and she smiled to herself as she climbed on with a few other passengers and found an open seat halfway down the car.

Talking with Peralta had been unexpectedly exhilarating. For a moment she’d been taken aback by how attractive she found him – the mess of curly hair, the tech-bro hoodie, the scuffed sneakers, and what looked like a honey-mustard stain on his plaid shirt wouldn’t usually add up to her type. But there was something charming and easy about him, in his smile and his eyes that practically glowed with warmth. She’d blushed more times with him on that bench in 20 minutes than she could recall in all of the previous year. But it had been a good kind of blush, the kind that came from friendly teasing and not embarrassment or shame.

And in between the sex-tape jokes and the laughter at her expense, she’d been genuinely touched by what he’d said about trusting her. Trust was a journalist’s most valuable commodity, and it was something Amy knew had to be earned, more in this day and age than ever before. That she’d earned it from him – someone she’d already decided was smart and decent, whom she trusted too – was wonderful.

He’d even given her another tip, just before they wrapped up their impromptu rendezvous.

“I can’t vouch for this one personally,” he said. “I’m not involved. I’ve just heard some stuff like, third-hand.”

“That’s all right,” Amy said, as she dug through her purse for her pen and notebook. “It’s actually easier for me to ask questions if I don’t have to worry about protecting my source’s identity.”

He flicked up his eyebrows in surprise.

“What?” Amy said. “I mean, I’ll still be careful.”

“No, of course.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “I guess I just didn’t realize how much thought you might have to put into protecting me.”

There had been something in his tone of voice, almost timid, that made him seem suddenly vulnerable. It had sent a jolt of what Amy could only describe as affection straight to her gut.

On the subway, Amy pulled out her notebook and read over the notes she’d jotted down from Peralta. He was right, his information was more rumor than fact, and it would take a lot of digging to prove it.

What he’d heard was that corrections officers at the Brooklyn Detention Center were sometimes covertly recording confidential conversations between inmates and their lawyers, then sharing those recording with the district attorney’s office. If it was true, that was a major civil rights violation.

The city’s jails were overseen by the Department of Correction, not the NYPD, but Peralta said that aside from being appalled by the abuse of prisoners’ rights, he and other detectives were worried that the correction officers were putting their NYPD cases in jeopardy.

Amy took some more notes as the subway rumbled through the tunnels, writing a list of questions she’d need to ask and sources she’d need to contact. This story would take some major reporting, which meant she was going to have to ask Terry for permission to step back from her daily crime-writing duties. She flipped a page in her notebook and started crafting a memo for him, detailing why the story was important and what she’d need to report and write it.

By the time she got to the newsroom, Amy was feeling pumped. She stopped by Terry’s desk before she even went to her own and told him she had a big story and would send him details right away. She’d emailed her memo by noon.

“Charles,” she said, picking up her purse and marching over to his desk. “I’m feeling brave today. Let’s get lunch – you choose.”

+++

Amy’s good mood lasted through lunch; she hadn’t actually thrown up from the sheep-muzzle soup, after all.

But she was instantly wary when she saw who was waiting at her desk when she returned. Gina sat slouched in Amy’s own chair, flipping through the notebook that Amy hadn’t realized she’d left on her desk. Amy took a moment to berate herself for leaving the newsroom without a notebook, then braced herself for Gina.

“What’s up?” Amy said, trying to play it casual.

“I hear you’ve got a big story.”

“Maybe. Holt hasn’t signed off on it.” Amy stared down at Gina, who just smirked back up at her. “Can I have my desk back now?”

“Is this another one from your little tipster? You’re getting a reputation, you know.” Gina snapped shut Amy’s notebook but made no move to get up.

Something in Gina’s tone made Amy’s hackles rise, and she planted her hands on her hips and said, “What do you mean by ‘reputation’?”

Gina just smirked some more. Amy could feel the anger pooling in her stomach and she was gearing up to lay into her about how entirely unprofessional, unacceptable and just plain mean it was to accuse a reporter of exchanging sexual favors for information when Gina burst out laughing.

“Girl, I’m kidding,” she said, and tossed Amy’s notebook on her desk.

“You- what?”

“Look, honestly, I’m pretty impressed you’ve developed such a good source so fast. It took me twice as long to get my first and I’m at least four times as attractive as you.” Amy just gaped at her as Gina stood up and gave her a little punch in the shoulder. “Seriously, if you need any help working this one, let me know. I’ve got some contacts at Brooklyn Detention. Most of the guards hate me but the ones who like me love me.”

“Er, thanks,” Amy said. “I mean, I still don’t know if Holt’s going to-”

“Oh, he will.”

And as if on cue, Holt called out from his office, “Santiago. Jeffords.”

Gina winked and sashayed back to her desk. Amy stood staring after her, mind reeling from the Linetti roller coaster, until Terry walked up and took her by the elbow.

“C’mon,” he said, “our captain calls.”

“Right,” Amy said, shaking her head. She grabbed her notebook and a pen, and followed Terry.

Holt hadn’t actually been with the Bulletin for much longer than Amy, and his office was largely bare of the personal knick-knacks and ethically acceptable gifts that most journalists seemed to hoard – though whether that was because he was still new or he just wasn’t the type to collect stuff, Amy couldn’t have said. She and Terry took seats opposite Holt’s desk, and he folded his hands over what Amy assumed was a printout of her memo. She was surprised he’d not only read it already, but was ready to discuss it with her.

Holt tapped a finger on the top page. “These are some serious allegations.” 

“Yes, they are,” Terry said. Amy forced herself not to fidget.

“And you don’t have much proof of anything, is that correct?” He was looking right at Amy, so she nodded.

“No, sir,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Proving this is going to take some extensive reporting – public records requests, interviews with inmates. You’re going to need someone with actual information to go on the record,” Holt said.

“Yes.” Amy nodded again. “Um, Gina, she said she might have some contacts for me. And I know a couple people in the public defender’s office.”

Holt studied her for a long moment, and she fought the urge to bounce a leg or wring her hands. Amy understood why he was hesitating – to get this story, she’d have to take a break from her regular police beat, which would put pressure on the rest of the staff to cover for her. Stories like this one were an investment of time and people and, therefore, money, and a newspaper like the Bulletin didn’t have much of any of that.

And on top of that, Amy was a rookie. She hadn’t even been a journalist for more than a few months, and this would be her first big investigation. A few big scoops in recent weeks were marks in her favor, but she knew she hadn’t proven herself yet, not really.

“Your source on this, you trust him? Or her?” Holt said.

Amy nodded at once. “I do.”

“Very well,” Holt said. “You have three weeks.”

Amy clenched her jaw to keep from screaming with joy, and nodded her head in quiet acknowledgement. Outside Holt’s office, Terry gave her a high-five.

“Pressure’s on now, Santiago.”

Amy’s stomach was already in knots and her pits were starting to sweat, but she said, seriously, “Pressure’s what I eat for breakfast.”

She ignored Gina’s snicker and the paper airplane that hit the back of her head.

CHAPTER 4

[scarlettsabetlondongirl]

Read the New Interview by Poet Scarlett Sabet and Led Zeppelin Founder Jimmy Page in Interview Magazine below or click on headline link.

JIMMY PAGE AND SCARLETT SABET ARE THE MUSIC-POETRY POWER COUPLE THE WORLD DIDN’T KNOW IT NEEDED

By Stephanie LaCava

Published October 10, 2019

Scarlett Sabet’s poetry is felt three-fold when she performs it. The written words aren’t the same when she says them; they are trance-like, told as if from memory. To call the London-based talent a poet and performer seems inadequate. She’s more so a musician, or, perhaps, a mystic. Her haunting readings have taken place at storied book shops such as San Francisco’s City Lights and Shakespeare & Co. in Paris, and she’s been invited to read at the likes of Wellesley College. She has published four collections of poetry on her own imprint: Rocking Undergound, The Lock and The Key, Zoreh, and Camille earlier this year. 

Today, she debuts her spoken word album Catalyst, produced by her partner, the legendary musician Jimmy Page. 

Interview sat down with the couple to talk about coming together for this project, the brilliance of the Velvet Underground, and paying to produce your own work.

STEPHANIE LACAVA: You two met in 2012, but it was two years later that your relationship started and you first talked about collaborating together. It would be five more years before today’s release of your project on all streaming platforms. Why this album now?

JIMMY PAGE: One project that I knew it shouldn’t be was poetry with music. So with the production of Scarlett’s work, I wanted to create an individual character for each poem, a sonic landscape to compliment it.

LACAVA: And with all due respect, that was also a cool move. It would have been kind of eye-rolling to do music accompaniment.

SCARLETT SABET: Yes. It feels exciting, but also like a natural progression, I think, because we live and work together every day. Literally every one of these poems, Jimmy was there when I wrote it, and he was the first person that heard it and he’s seen me perform so many times.

PAGE: It was six years ago that I first heard Scarlett read.

SABET: At World’s End Bookshop on the King’s Road in Chelsea.

PAGE: I thought, “This is really interesting. She’s really interesting. She’s definitely got something there.” And the people in attendance soaked up Scarlett’s reading.

LACAVA: Surely, you’ve read a lot of crowds.

PAGE: That’s a good point. The whole place hushed. Rocking Underground was the first poem I heard of Scarlett’s and when we started production, we began with it.

LACAVA: I think people assume the title of the poem is a music reference, but it’s actually quite literal…

SABET: I was on a train. My computer had broken. It was just one of those, ugh, kind of despairing Sunday nights. I just remember there was a guy with a backpack in my face, and I got out my notebook, and there was the rhythm of train.

LACAVA: Do you usually listen to music while you write?

SABET: It’s got to be something that’s trance-like. I can understand why you’d listen to jazz, for example.

LACAVA: That’s a place where both of your practices kind of overlap.

PAGE: Well, yeah. I did this interview with William Burroughs for Crawdaddy Magazine in 1975. We started to talk about trance music. I thought maybe he’d been to see Led Zeppelin on just one occasion. Actually, it was many times at Madison Square Garden. Anyway, we then started talking about this whole trance ethos, about the Master Musicians of Jajouka, this whole genre of tribal trance music from Morocco.

LACAVA: You learned about Jajouka from Brian Jones?

PAGE: Yes. To be fair, I know that Brion Gysin had introduced Brian Jones.

SABET: He was a painter and musician, Burroughs’s lover, and he came up with the cut-up technique with Burroughs.

LACAVA: Ah. What was your connection to Jones?

PAGE: I’d heard Elmore James songs (which Jones played a lot,) but I couldn’t quite work out how to play the music. People would say it was literally, from the neck of a bottle. I thought, ‘So, let’s see how this guy Jones does it.’ Sure enough, he gets up on stage and starts doing some Elmore James songs, and he has the equivalent of what everyone would know as a slide on his finger. I started talking to him when he came offstage, and I said, “Well you know, you’ve really got that down. What are you actually using?” You must understand that nobody that I knew played slide guitar at all. This is the first time I’d seen somebody do it—before Jeff [Beck] was doing it, before the Rolling Stones. So, he said, “Oh, have you got a car mechanic near you?” And I said, “I literally do have one not too far away.”‘ He said, “Go there and ask for a bush. It’s called a bush.” A thing used used in car maintenance. And he said, “You’ll find that it’ll just fit on your finger absolutely perfectly, and that’s what I use.” This guy was so generous.

LACAVA: Is there any young musician today who has really impressed you?

PAGE: Well, I was so impressed with the two guys that I saw with you.

LACAVA: Stefan Tcherepnin and Taketo Shimada, the New York-based Afuma.

SABET: They were so good. You said that was reminiscent of New York in the ’60s?

PAGE: Well, well, yeah. It was. It definitely had that sort of trance vibe.

LACAVA: Back to Scarlett’s start. You did your first reading at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris in January of 2015. Jimmy help set it up?

PAGE: So, when Sylvia (Whitman, owner and daughter of George Whitman) was giving me a tour after my own book signing, I saw the poetry section there, and I said, “Do you having readings here?” And she said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, French as well as English?” “Oh, no. Only English.” And I thought, “I know a poet.”

LACAVA: It was Sylvia who introduced me to Scarlett years ago.

PAGE: After hosting Scarlett, Sylvia said to me, “It’s really powerful in print, but her renditions, they’re in another realm.”

LACAVA: So, Sylvia’s now the fourth person in this interview.

PAGE: That’s right. And something else funny happened when I was back at Shakespeare and Company. The man in charge of the rare book department said, “Oh, Sir, that Françoise Hardy track that you were on was absolutely amazing. That’s one of my favorite pieces of your guitar work.” I thought, “Well, wait a minute. I’m going to check, I’m going to track this down.” When I heard it, lo and behold, there’s this distortion box. It’s called a fuzz box. And I was the one who helped create this thing, and there it was on Francoise Hardy’s Je n’attends plus personne. I did it when I was a session musician. It was a session in Pye Studios at Marble Arch, downtown where all these Petula Clark hits were done. It wasn’t until you were in the studio that you’d see the artist come in. And you’d go, “Oh, I know who this is.” Or, “I don’t know who this is.” But when Francoise Hardy came in, I knew who she was. She had on one of those turtlenecks and that sort of tweedy skirt.

LACAVA: You also did some early sessions with Nico before she was part of the Velvet Underground.

PAGE: Nico came to London to record the Gordon Lightfoot song “I’m Not Sayin” with Andrew Oldham as a solo artist. So, there’s this huge orchestral session with Nico singing, and Andrew asked me to write a B-side with him for Nico, routine, play, and produce it on a separate session, which I did. It’s called The Last Mile. I was a staff producer on Immediate Records.

LACAVA: How old were you?

PAGE: 19 or 20. I was going to routine her at her apartment just near Baker Street in London with my acoustic 12-string guitar. Nico’s son with Alain Delon was there and he was holding up my guitar in the air, and I decided it was time to rescue it.

LACAVA: When did you see her again after that?

PAGE: Steve Paul’s Scene Club (Paul’s nightclub The Scene at 46th and Eighth Avenue) had been decorated by Andy Warhol. I don’t know what you’d call it here, but it’s this silver wrap—

LACAVA: Mylar.

PAGE: All the walls were covered with Mylar because Andy Warhol said that color was the color of speed. And playing down there was Nico and The Velvet Underground. I had an incredible connection with Lou Reed, and we spent lots of time talking.

SABET: Was that the first time you met him?

PAGE: Yeah, and I’d seen The Velvet Underground on more than one occasion. They were almost like a resident band. Andy Warhol was keen for them to be there. I can tell you exactly what it was like. When I heard the first album, it was just exactly what they were like. They were just like that. It was absolutely phenomenal.

LACAVA: See, that’s interesting in the context of his new project, as well. The difference between seeing someone in person versus the recording…

PAGE: The other thing about Steve Paul’s and The Velvet Underground was that it didn’t really have too many people coming to hear it, which I found extraordinary.

LACAVA: How many people were there?

PAGE: Well, hardly any people. Like, nine, a dozen people. It was so radical, such a radical band. You know, Maureen Tucker just playing the sort of snare drum. And the fact that there was the electric viola with John Cale. You just didn’t get this sort of line-up. It was really arts lab, as opposed to pop music, this wonderful glue, this synergy between them that was dark. It was very dark.

LACAVA: You mentioned Warhol. Do you remember seeing him there?

PAGE: No, he wasn’t actually there, but I met him with the Yardbirds. I don’t actually remember the hotel, but there was a reception for the Yardbirds. He came in, and he was with one other person. I was talking to him, and he said, ‘I just want to feel the band, feel the Yardbirds.’ “I want to feel their presence,” was the exact quote. We had a conversation and at the end of it he said, “You should come to the Factory, and do an audition.” But we were working, and I didn’t manage to do that. And then I saw him again in Detroit in ’67, when we were playing there. Andy Warhol was proceeding over this wedding, and The Velvet Underground were there. So, I got a chance to say hello again.

LACAVA: Something interesting that Scarlett told me once was that you steered her toward self-publishing. That legitimacy doesn’t come from a label—it comes from creating the thing you want to create.

PAGE: Yes.

LACAVA: You could have told her the opposite, based on your experience.

SABET: Jimmy was like, “Well, look. The first Led Zeppelin album, I paid for that.”

LACAVA: You produced and paid for it?

PAGE: Yes.

SABET: They had a record. He then took it to record companies. He took it to Atlantic and said, “This is what we’ve got. I’m not releasing singles. Take it or leave it.” He literally said the words, “I didn’t want to go around cap in hand saying, ‘Oh please. We’d like to write some songs.’ It’s better to do it.”

PAGE: What I’ve been producing over the last few years are Led Zeppelin rereleases and catalog items. It means a lot of listening to quarter-inch tapes, and it’s all in real time. I had to approach this project in such a way that the first album speaks for itself. The last and ninth album of the studio albums were Coda, so on every album in between, I had to make sure all of these companion discs were done and present the idea to the record company along with new artwork—that way to ensure the complete vision of the recordings were released.  

SABET: With the sound engineer, Drew, Jimmy would explain how he wanted to kind of layer some of my voices. And I practiced some on cassette, so it was like a guiding track, and then I’d listen back, and I understood the timing and what we were going to do for each one. If there was a sound or there was a better take, we’d talk about that.

PAGE: The first one that I wanted to try was Rocking Underground, which opens up the whole of this work. It was recorded on a cassette tape. It was so noisy, but urgent. I said, this is what we’re going to use, but then it needed some extra work to be done to augment the base layer—

LACAVA: Oh, that’s cool!

PAGE: So, it opens, and it’s really disturbing, all this ambient noise. And I know we pulled it off. Because there’s such a variety on it, and it will be such a surprise. It’s the sort of thing that you listen to for, say, Side One, from beginning to end. The whole sequencing is there for a reason.

LACAVA: We’re living in an age of the ubiquitous podcast. Everyone has those things in her ears.

“Catalyst, a spoken word album written and performed by Scarlett Sabet and produced by Jimmy Page, is released on a special 12-inch etched vinyl via JimmyPage.com.”-Jimmy Page

Photos: Interview Magazine

[fly-underground]

six hundred and seventy two: 2018

Last night, I was talking to Vivian about my annual new year’s eve posts. I read a few of them aloud to her over the phone, pausing to explain the vague paragraphs. In comparison to other years, 2018 has felt strange, almost unreal. For a moment, I wanted to write nothing really happened this year— but that’s obviously untrue. A lot did happen this year. It just feels like most of the year was a long time coming.

In January, I was rejected from one of my dream grad school programs; at a school where I was already doing research, with a professor who would go on to make me an author on my first published academic paper. I remember when I found out I was rejected, I moved through the day like a zombie. My family had been invited to someone’s wedding the next day and I couldn’t stomach the thought of getting dressed up, of celebrating anything. Instead, I decided to apply to a few more grad school programs, anything to increase my chances of getting in somewhere. I applied to social work programs here in New York City, thinking that if I couldn’t get into a psychology program, if I couldn’t get into a religious studies program, if I couldn’t become a professor, what else could I do? what else would bring me any bit of joy and purpose? So, in ten days, I submitted two more grad school applications and then I waited. When I got into those social work programs, I waited still to see if anything else would land. In March, I found out that I got into Harvard Divinity School. I remember clicking into the online application portal with this knot in my stomach and then the immense relief. I remember how I called my mom, my best friends, how I was so happy, so relieved, so full of warmth.

After that, a number of things happened. I started tutoring a lovely young girl in Brooklyn. I had been tutoring privately for about a year, but this child was so different: bright, focused, eager to learn. It was a trek to her home, but I loved watching her reading improve. I don’t know why I want to highlight this moment, because it wasn’t a big deal. I mean, compared to other things, she was just one of the many children I’ve worked with. But I was struck by her quiet determination, how she tried her best to read aloud, her joy when she understood the premise in a story.

In May, I wrapped up working at NYU School of Medicine’s World Trade Center program, knowing that it would likely be the very last psychology related job I would do. On some level, it felt like a waste, why did I ever learn so much about SPSS, about reading data sets, about specific measures and assessment tools — but it also felt like an important step, a space that let me learn and nurture useful research skills. Something strange and important that I encountered there was the bizarre divide between clinicians and administrative staff. The latter, a group of kind, funny, extremely helpful women, took me under their wings. Any time I struggled with the copy machine or a faulty laptop, one of them would pop up and assist, even if I objected. One of them gave me a pair of adorable heart earrings when I was leaving, I gave her a purple vase. The clinicians, of course, were brilliant, supportive, extraordinarily patient with me and the other research assistants — but they were a group unto themselves. I don’t want that, I realized. I don’t want to ever feel like I’m better or distinct from another staff member because of my degree or formal qualification.

That same month, I traveled to San Francisco for the annual Association of Psychological Science conference, to present the research with that professor from that school that I did not get into. It was wonderful, to talk about our findings: that hope matters to multiracial adults and can protect against anxiety and depression. But because I wasn’t in a position to network with other psychologists, because I was on a different academic track (though of course, religion is deeply related to the field of psychology), I was able to relax in San Francisco. I would eat my meals alone, in homey restaurants, and then at night, I’d walk back to my friend’s apartment. During that time, I watched a lot of the Vampire Diaries.

I came home from that trip ready to spend two months in Houston. But when I got to Houston, one of the staff members on my team began to humiliate and embarrass me in front of others on our team. I’ve been working since I was 14. I have never been yelled at by a supervisor. Hell, I’ve never been yelled at by anyone besides my mother. I’ve never done “the wrong thing,” never made a mistake, never been rude or sloppy. But this woman didn’t like me, didn’t like the way I talked, the way I carried myself, my age, my type. I was the only person on our core staff team who was not white or black, the only person from the North, the only person who was a first generation American, the only person who was thin — and it became an issue. I was in Houston for exactly one week. HR got involved and they offered me this woman’s job, which I turned down. I felt fundamentally unlike myself, scared and unsure and ashamed. The HR team was so good to me, so understanding, so ready to offer me a job at a handful of other campuses, but I knew I had to come home. They paid for the flight. I landed in New York and called my best friend: guess where I am.

I spent the summer telling people that I wasn’t supposed to be here, in New York. I had nightmares for a while, always of that woman’s face. I couldn’t believe I had left, had let someone treat me so badly. The two felt like a combination of defeat. But, of course, now, months later, I know that they were not the same thing. It’s so good that I left. I can’t believe I did it still, but for different reasons. I used to be the kind of person who would endure every bad thing, just because I felt I had to. Maybe even because I felt I deserved it. I don’t feel that way anymore. I left Houston because it wasn’t worth staying, because no amount of money or prestige could rationalize abuse. In November, when my kid brother quit his job because his manager was being so cruel, he called me and said: Who do you know who would just leave a job like that? I laughed and said: I would. I did.

In the fall, I moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard University. I just stopped to stare at that sentence. It still feels wild to me. Harvard is not as beautiful as Swarthmore, not as warm, not as challenging. But it’s Harvard. The other day, I passed Cornell West in a hallway. Being there feels like a privilege unlike anything else I’ve ever encountered. Even now, when I tell someone that I go there, the response is always a combination of joy and surprise.

But being at Harvard has been tough. On a good day, I’d argue that I have about two friends there, friends I can text a stream of consciousness. But on a bad day? I had no one. I would go to classes, do my homework, eat my food (though this last one was the hardest to keep up with). I learned to cook this fall, because I had to. It’s been fun actually, to find a recipe, make it, and enjoy it. But the work, of grocery shopping, preparing, cooking, cleaning, and then eating? It’s a lot for me sometimes. I want to be better at being kinder to myself in the new year.

I took care of a cat in my first month of living in my new house. And I love him. And I miss him. And I hope he has the very best 2019.

[Dis]Connected was released in October and I saw my name, my work, in so many Targets. It felt like a blessing, like one of my wildest dreams coming true.

This is much longer than I thought it would be. Mostly, I’m writing this so that I can remember who I was back in January and realize who I am today. I wrote last year about how I’m never alone for long. And it’s true. I am never alone for long. Sometimes I think about how much I love my family, my friends, my dog — and it makes me cry. I really do hope that everyone has that, a love that makes them feel like things will be okay. Do you know what I mean? Whenever I have felt bad or afraid or pained, I think about these people, the ones I’ll text in a few hours, who I hope I see so much of in the new year. And I feel like, life can’t be all that bad, you know?

For the new year, I hope. That’s it. I have hope.

[onestowatch]

POLAROIDS + Q&A’s: The 6 Best Emerging Acts from Bottlerock 2018

Bottlerock really stepped up its game this year, featuring a stellar line up with headliners like The Killers and Bruno Mars. In terms of emerging act, the Napa Valley festival typically showcases an amazing “sampler platter” of the newest and coolest acts to keep an eye out for. From indie rock to alt-pop and everything in-between, we picked our favorites from the festival this year -- scope interviews & polaroids with each below.

AMY SHARK

Amy Shark just came off a US tour with MILCK, which included many sold out shows. Yet, Amy somehow still sees herself as only a “normal girl from Australia.” Her songs are vibey and most importantly real with honest lyrics all written by Shark herself. She has a connection with her audience when she’s on stage that makes fans instantly fall in love. Her new album Love Monster is set for a July release. 

OTW: Tell us about your current single, “I Said Hi.” 

Amy: “I Said Hi” was a song that was always going be written by me because it's kind of a real passive aggressive anthem for my struggle in the music industry for a good ten years. I think the main thing I want to communicate in that song is just whenever you are waking up every morning, trying to fight for whatever you believe in — you just need to keep going. As much as it's very personal about my experiences, I definitely wanted to keep it open for everyone to be able to connect with. It’s like anyone that's just been trying, and trying, and trying and getting nowhere, having no one believe in you — and then you get somewhere on your own merit and it's the best feeling in the world. It actually started when I signed to my manager, and he kept telling me, "I've got a meeting with John Smith or whatever." And it'd be someone that I had tried to get a meeting with — And I just ended up saying, "Tell him I said hi." And that was how it started, and then this one day I just found that melody.

OTW: Your single, “Adore You” has over 37 Million spins on Spotify to date, how do you feel about that?

Amy: The last time I actually celebrated was when I hit a million streams —  I was like, popping bottles! That's just so many people listening to it. It's great. It's amazing. America is such a big base for an Australian to tackle, so I'm just going to each city, and playing shows and meeting great people and artists, and working with great producers and that's just where I'm at at the moment.

OTW: Can you tell us anything about your upcoming album, Love Monster? 

Amy: Love Monster is, I mean, I like to describe it as the first season. You know, when you just start watching a season on Netflix, and it's really exciting and that's what you can think about? There's romance, and lies, and passion and there's probably a death — that's what I feel like this record is. It's got so much personal, but angsty, heartache and passion. It's like a first series of a really great Netflix drama.

OTW: What’s next for you?

Amy: There's going to be more festivals — I'm doing Lollapalooza. It's so funny to even say that — and doing a big tour at home. Then, I'll be back here in the fall, to tour.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One To Watch”?

Amy: The Smith Street Band. They're super Australian, they're like punk rock, and his lyrics are just gonna destroy you. It's so amazing. It's punk, but Will Wagner is such an amazing songwriter — and they're not even really sort of trying.

BILLY RAFFOUL

We’ve covered Billy Raffoul since his first single “Driver,” which was released last year, followed by stellar singles “Dark Four Door” and “Difficult.” His newest single, “I’m Not A Saint,” was co-written with Grammy Award nominee Julia Michaels before she decided to go out on her own as an artist. Billy’s sound is a Nashville-leaning modernized take on classic rock with a soulful raspy vocal that’ll likely make anyone a fan after just one listen.

OTW: Tell us about the writing process for “I’m Not A Saint.” 

Billy: It came from a conversation I had with a friend [and the] co-writer, Julia Michaels. That was the first time that we had met, which was three years ago. I was really nervous — I didn't know who she was. She didn't really know who I was, she had heard my voice and I had heard from a mutual friend who went on to be my publisher that she was incredible —  [and] bound for greatness. I was nervous — I swear all the time and then maybe a little more when I'm scared. At some point, we just started shooting the shit about things that we do that we shouldn't do — it was all just a joke. At some point I had said, "I'm not a saint, but I could be if I tried," like as a joke. She said, "Well, there's a song," and that was it.

OTW: Who are you most excited to see at Bottlerock?

Billy: I'd love to check out Muse, of course. We saw The Struts already and I love The Struts so much — good buddies of mine. I would've liked to see LANY.

OTW: what's next for you? 

Billy: Back to the studio — I'm working with some great people, producing some music, songs that I've written. Working with Linda Perry next week. I'm going to put a song out every four weeks.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One to Watch”?

Billy: Jessie Reyez — She put out a new tune a little while ago called "Body Count." It’s fucking awesome — So good.

THE NIGHT GAME

You might remember a tune called “The Great Escape” by an emo band called Boys like Girls. The former emo band was fronted by singer Martin Johnson, who started a new project called The Night Game, but it 100% different from Boys Like Girls. In fact, The Night Game sounds more like a modernized classic rock throwback like Don Henley of The Eagles’ solo career. After a break from being in the spotlight and writing for artists like Avril Lavigne, Martin decided it was time to return back to center stage, which has excited both old and new fans alike.

OTW: Tell us about your newest single, “American Nights?” 

Martin: It's funny, it kind of started out as a party anthem, like that was a little bit like just a song I was writing from the outside. [I] wasn't even sure it was going to be for me as an artist, but slowly kind of came into vision what it was really about — it's like the classic American blueprint, like “Born in the USA,” you know that kind of not-so-hidden message. What I got from that was like the upbeat sort of positive chorus that I had, [and] in the verses, I could show the true characters and the truth in what America is. I isolated three characters that stuck out of my head as the three sides of the coin and then included myself a little bit in there and, it's just about how everybody's got this undying search for the American Dream. Even if you don't live here, you do.

OTW: People have compared your sound to Bruce Springsteen and Don Henley with a strong 80’s vibe, what do you think of that? Did you do that on purpose?

Martin: Not really. It's funny — a lot of journalists have been saying 80s, 80s, 80s, but it's like, I kinda grew up in the 90s — I'd be too young to remember the culture of the 80s. My influences in formative years — I was doing musical theater. I [would be] in a show listening to the soundtrack, and I was in a little ska band — my background musically is very weird. Obviously, I'd listen to classic records that you would say influenced what this kind of is, but at the same time — I think a song should tell a story. A song's about a story, and an emotion and I wanted every sound that was on the record to tie into what that emotion was, based on lyrics. When I was making the songs, it wasn't really like, "Man, I need this to sound really specifically like this record from 1982 and you can only use this drum machine..." I just did what felt good and if chorus guitar chords felt good, then it's what I did.

OTW: You have an extensive background as a writer/producer, in between the time from Boys Like Girls to this project — how did you decide to make the jump back to being an artist?

Martin: You know, at the time it was really working for me, so I just kept at it. I lost track of who I was — I don't know if it all has to be negative in this big sob story. A lot of times in interviews they make this whole thing, "I lost track of what my musical identity was and I missed telling stories," which is true, but at the same time it was like, dude, it was fun. I've been quoted saying this before, — you get your first guitar, you're a kid, and then you look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, “I'm going to rock.” I did lose that kid, and I had an opportunity to say, "Hey man, before the gray hairs come in I want to sing.” I really want to sing and started playing music because I wanted to sing, I wanted to tell stories, I wanted to write songs — I have more stories to tell.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One to Watch”?

Martin: The Band CAMINO. We took them out on tour, they're really great. I like those kids.

JACOB BANKS

Jacob Banks has been releasing music since 2013, but he made his Coachella performance debut earlier this year and is currently recording his first full-length album. Jacob says about his songwriting, “I'm always two months ahead. You're hearing songs that I recorded a year ago. So once I put them out I'm thinking, okay, I've already written something else that I'm excited about.” His sound is a wonderful mix of modernized American Blues and Gospel, and his vocals will literally soothe your soul.

OTW: “Unknown (To You)” has over 10 million spins, how does that feel?

Jacob: The ungrateful answer is to say I don't care, which is kind of my answer, but at the same time I'm grateful because people have listened to it. But at the same time, I think if we quantify success via spins, I don't think it's a fair representation of how much a song means to someone. It just means they listen to it — it doesn't mean 10 million people love your songs. I'm more amazed that people come to my shows — you're choosing to spend your time. I think that's a more wonderful accolade for me.

OTW: What is “Unknown (To You)” about?

Jacob: It's kind of like, “say how you really feel.” Over the years, I think it's become more about just communication, especially between the dynamic of men. I think we're raised to feel as though speaking is some hard task, and it creates so much division between us and how we treat the whole world. Because we're just not raised or taught how to speak, and to be open in what we say. [James Blake] put out a song called “Don't Miss It,” and he released a statement saying every time he puts out music people always say “Sad Boy,” and he's like “Why can't I just share my emotions without being temperamental, or being classed as sad boy?” I think we're currently in the highest state of depression among men, and suicides, so I think it's important for men to share how they feel. In the same way I see some women crave men who talk to them, but in the event that they do, I see women say, "he's too nice for me." Aka, I'm not used to this kind of love. I'm not used to someone who actually wants to hear me.

OTW: What was it like working with Louis The Child?

Jacob: It was dope — we were only in the studio for one day. We wrote two songs, which one of that was “Diddy Bop.” They're just homies, man. It's always good working with friends — I spend time with them when I'm out in LA. I think it's rare that happens as well. It's work. You don't go to work and make friends with everyone you work with. It's very few people that hang around because you have some sort of special connection. They're really good guys as well, I'm a fan of their work.

OTW: What’s next for you?

Jacob: We just came off tour with X Ambassadors, we've been touring for like a year and a half straight. We're doing festivals until the end of September, and then September, I hope to drop an album.

OTW: Who would you say is another artist who is ‘One To Watch’ for you? 

Jacob: There's a lady called Maro that I absolutely adore. She does like really jazz inspired stuff, but she sings half in Portuguese and half in English — and she's the best thing since sliced bread for me.

RIVVRS

RIVVRS, AKA Brandon Zahursky is actually from Napa Valley, where Bottlerock takes place. And conveniently, many of the songs in his library contrast what it was like to grow up in Napa versus being a working musician in Los Angeles. His newest single, “Burn Me Up,” is the perfect example of his experiences with the egos of the entertainment industry as opposed the simpler life he lived before. RIVVRS’ sound could be described as Mumford and Sons with a dash of the ‘80s raspy icon, Bryan Adams — take a listen for yourself and see.

OTW: What was the inspiration behind "Burn Me Up”? 

RIVVRS: I moved to L.A. four years ago from [Napa], so you can imagine — It was a beautiful life up here, and it just kinda turned to egos — all these things kinda caught up to me. I'd say I definitely entered a phase of just not being comfortable in my own skin. [Which] is why I titled the first record Unfamiliar Skin, cause I wasn't feeling very comfortable in this whole new industry. I wrote [the song] to my girlfriend, with the intention of it being if all of this doesn't work out, I want you to know that I will still go back to the life we had — the lyric is "I could've had everything, but I don't want everything. I want you, and I want you to burn me up," — meaning "I want you to burn up my past self, so the person that I was when I wasn't the most comfortable being myself, I want that erased from your memory. I don't want that light to be the only light you see me in.”

OTW: Who are you most interested in seeing at Bottlerock? 

RIVVRS: Shakey Graves and Muse were the two I wanted to see today.

OTW: Who would you say is another artist is a one to watch? 

RIVVRS: Billy Raffoul.

FLOR

You wouldn’t get that flor has a comedic side by listening to their music — in fact, you’d likely think they were very serious after listening to the songs on their album, come out. you’re hiding. The tunes on their debut album have a synth-pop mellow vibe that fans have taken notice to — and likely are anxiously waiting for album number two to drop sometime this year. As for comedic elements, most of the guys were happy with being around wine for the weekend, except McKinley who couldn’t seem to decide on any drink of choice while in the nation’s most popular wine destination — seemingly a problem.

OTW: Is it true that you use voice memos to help remember your ideas for songs?

Dylan: It's interesting when you're doing a voice memo. Just out of the blue, you're listening [back] to it and you know the rhythm when you're recording it, but then you listen to it two days later and you have no idea what the rhythm is supposed to be. 

Zach: Yeah, it ends up sounding like some avant-garde classical piece. It just doesn't make any sense.

OTW: Why did you decide to title the album, come out. you’re hiding? 

Zach: Originally I wanted it to be Come Out of Your Hiding, and I was like, "that sounds messed up.” So I dropped a word and now it doesn't make any sense. But that's exactly why I like it. You can interpret that how you want. 

McKinley: It's about the insecurities of releasing something you've been working on and creating for years in your bedroom.

Dylan: ...And then all of a sudden you're putting it out to the world and, I mean, we got lucky and everyone, or a lot of people, liked it.

OTW: Do you ever get nervous when releasing new music?

Zach: I knew that our fans were going to love it. Like, we'd been touring a little bit. I knew that they were going to appreciate it. It was terrifying to me —I don't actually go on YouTube to this day and I don't look at any comments because it's still terrifying to me.

McKinley: It's kind of scary putting yourself out there like that. And especially, it was our debut album. It might get scarier from here on out, cause we have expectations to fill.

OTW: Can you tell us anything about album two or future music?

McKinley: I feel like we feel confident about album two. And then maybe I'm scared of album three cause it's like four years away.

Zach: There's enough songs written, but we can write more and we can write better. And if we write more and better, then maybe we have zero songs for the album ready.

McKinley: [It’s] been a constant battle for us — that's why we did a deluxe version of our album. Some of the songs we wrote, at this point, like four years ago. Like our biggest single, "Hold On," we wrote when we were like 21 — and then it came out two years later. We probably have thirty-something songs sitting on the back burner right now. There's also no consistency in how those songs come to be — you can not write a song for three months, and then Zach will write six songs in a week.

OTW: Who would you say is your “One To Watch”?

McKinley: I would say Now, Now is a big one for us right now.

Dylan: They came out with a new record that just really, really resonated with all of us. It just sounds phenomenal. 

McKinley: I'm excited for the next COIN record [and] I think The Aces — They've got some cool stuff up their sleeves. Maybe an ace.

[xseedgames]

2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza Blog! #2

Our second 2017 End-of-the-Year Q&A Extravaganza is here! There will be more next week, but for now, we have some answers from:

Ken Berry, Executive Vice President / Team Leader John Wheeler, Assistant Localization Manager Nick Colucci, Localization Editor Brittany Avery, Localization Producer Thomas Lipschultz, Localization Producer

Question: Have you ever considered selling the music CDs for your licenses stateside? - @LimitTimeGamer

Ken: That's not really a business we're looking to get into, with the exception being when we've already printed soundtracks as part of a limited edition release and have some leftover. Music licenses are always tricky, and even if the publisher we licensed the game from completely owns their own music rights, they can self-publish digitally on iTunes worldwide so no need for us to get involved.

Question: If possible, would you please consider researching and localizing classic Korean-made PC xRPGs? & Do you have any interest in pursuing the localization of any of the large, beautiful Chinese RPGs that have been hitting Steam? Or are you focused exclusively on Japanese titles? - @DragEnRegalia & @TheDanaAddams

Brittany: The main reason we focus on JP > EN is because we're mainly an office of Japanese to English speakers, and we can verify the quality. We haven't completely ruled out the idea of other languages in the future, but we can't do anything to guarantee these games will be accurate yet. If we hired a person to localize games into a specific language, there's no checks-and-balances system in place for us to know we're investing in a project people will be happy to play because it's the best quality we can offer. Personally, I would hesitate to expand outside of JP > EN localization regularly until we've gained more experience as a company.

We've done a few instances of EN > FIGS, but since our games usually are very text heavy, even this is difficult. I would want to experiment with smaller games first. Hopefully, there will come a time when we can expand beyond JP > EN on a regular basis, since I’ve noticed some badass-looking games outside of the EN/JP languages. I also like the Korean developer Cheritz, who did Mystic Messenger. Jaehee will always be the love of my life.

Ken: We are definitely looking to expand where we source games from in the future and not just limiting ourselves to Japan. Definitely lots of good stuff coming out of China, Korea, and other parts of Southeast Asia these days, and we're big fans of Western indie games too. You will be seeing a lot more variety of games from us in the future, but that doesn't mean that we'll be giving up on our staple of games from Japan - they will be in addition to those.

Nick: I figured I’d field these not because I have any special ability to get XSEED to license a game (we’re all free to suggest games for consideration, which is pretty cool), but because prior to working at XSEED, I actually did localization for Korean and Chinese F2P MMOs.

There’s a lot of game dev talent in places like China, Korea, and Taiwan that we in the west are only tangentially aware of due to their games market being significantly different from ours. To generalize a bit, outside of Japan, Asia doesn’t have a strong lineage of console development, as existing consoles haven’t been widely available in most of those countries. Rather, PCs are where people in Asia play their games – online games in particular, with net cafes being popular places to log in and play.

One of the first bits of localization work I ever did in my career was for the F2P MMO Dream of Mirror Online, for which I handled seasonal quests and ongoing localization (the base game had already been localized before I got there). The developer of that game, Softstar, has a cool, long-running Wuxia fantasy RPG series in China known as Xuan Yuan Jian, one installment of which is available on Steam right now. Wouldn’t it be cool to release an anime-style wuxia adventure RPG here? As a fan of drama, martial arts, and sweet swordfights, it would be pretty rad.

Personally, I’m totally up for dipping our toes into games like this as a company, but there are some extra challenges to taking on Chinese or Korean games that we haven’t had to contend with during our work on Japanese titles.

Perhaps most important is establishing audience interest in these titles. Even if we find cool Chinese or Korean games (and I’m sure we could), if we don’t sense a market demand for those games, it doesn’t make sense to expend the effort to publish them. That’s not a statement on their quality; it’s an issue of market awareness. Japanese gaming has an advantage for us, in a sense, in that it’s been pervasive in Western culture long enough that the names, language, and even history of Japan seem less strange and foreign to Westerners now than they were 20-30 years ago. We’ve come to have a taste for Japanese games and culture, one could say. That sort of natural predilection doesn’t currently exist for games from elsewhere in Asia. I think that a good game’s quality will be self-evident enough that it can become well known, but it would take considerably more work to make people aware of and interested in a cool game from China, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, or elsewhere than it would if that game were from Japan. And given that XSEED’s marketing and advertising resources are admittedly smaller than we wish they were, licensing and localizing a cool Asian game for a Steam release could prove difficult if we couldn’t connect the game with enough of an audience that would appreciate it. Before you nay-say me, look around at the amount of Chinese or Korean games currently available in the Western market that aren’t MMOs or mobile games. It’s...not very many, is it?

Not to say we’re not interested, of course! There’s a huge amount of potential in games from Asian developers, and an ocean of possibilities to explore. But I think, before that happens, we have to either find a game we think would be a pretty sure thing our fans would enjoy, or see that there’s a demand here for these games. If you’re interested in seeing XSEED work on Chinese or Korean games, do feel free to write us, especially if you have suggestions of titles you think are particularly worth checking out or that you think are very “on-brand” for XSEED.

Question: What inspired you all to do this kind of work in the first place? Also, what is the story behind the company name XSEED? How did you all come up with it? - @TBlock_02

Ken: The company was founded by former members of Square Enix USA, including its president at the time, Jun Iwasaki. Other smaller Japanese companies would often ask him to publish their games in the West, and even though we came extremely close to starting a separate "Square Selections" publishing brand to distinguish our own titles from third-party titles, we were always just too busy working on Square Enix titles to have the resources to work on anybody else's. Once the new company was formed and the name finalized (we wanted our new business to grow and foster from an initial small "seed"), it was only natural to reach back out to the publishers in Japan who needed a way to release their games in the West.

Question: What was everyone's favorite game(s) to work on this year? - @ArtistofLegacy

Brittany: Trails in the Sky the 3rd. I was very emotionally connected to that game, and its text is something I think I'll be proud of for years to come.

Tom: Zwei: The Arges Adventure, hands down. Most fun I've ever had translating anything.

John: I had a lot of fun with the PR-side of STORY OF SEASONS: Trio of Towns (the Capy comics and marriage candidate intros), though significantly less fun with QA for the DLC.

Question: What's everyone's favorite song from the Falcom games you've released so far? - @Crippeh

Brittany: Can’t choose a legit favorite, but it took me, like, twelve hours to beat the Finale dungeon in Trails of Cold Steel II and I still listen to Phantasmal Blaze regularly.

Tom: I'm actually not a big fan of the Trails games (blasphemy, I know!), but I absolutely adore "Cry For Me, Cry For You" from Trails 3rd. One of my favorite Falcom vocal themes of all time. As far as non-vocal themes go, I've always had a soft spot for "The Depth Napishtim" from Ys VI, "Harlech" from Xanadu Next, "Casino" from Brandish: The Dark Revenant, and basically the whole soundtrack to Zwei: The Arges Adventure.

That’s it for now! Next week, we’ll be answering questions like:

- Ever consider making a podcast/commentary for one of your games? My favorite Twitch stream from XSEED was the Trails in the Sky the 3rd stream followed by Xanadu Next. - The PC port diary thing from CS PC was fantastic. I really liked a kind of…behind the curtain look at what goes into a PC port. (I'd be similarly curious for the localization process overall.) Do you plan on doing more of those for future games? - What are the requirements/makes it likely to get hired as a translator? Would self-taught people stand a chance? - Are there any games you've worked on in the past that you wish you could go back to and do differently a second time around? - What does the first day of a new project look like? What kinds of things are done right off the bat?

See you guys next time!

[shirlleycoyle]

Whatever Happened to AltaVista, Our First Good Search Engine

A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.

A quarter-century ago, one of the first major search engines came to life on the internet as an experiment of sorts—a public test of a server manufacturer’s primary product that anyone with a web connection could take a part in.

The experiment, for a time, proved more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. But the problem was, it was an experiment at heart that was never intended to be a business—and that meant better suited companies would eventually topple this innovation. Eventually, it would ensure that this cutting-edge idea would become a part of the past.

But nobody is going to encase the innovations of 1995 and 1996 in amber on the internet: Time does not stand still, and neither do web sites, no matter how important they are or once were. But it would sure be nice if we could.

It’s with that in mind that I write about AltaVista, Digital Equipment Corporation, web domains, and how important history can turn into the basis of some random company’s crass marketing scheme.

In honor of AltaVista’s 25th anniversary this month, I’d like to lament the loss of its original home to the gods of search engine optimization.

Do not expect a backlink.

270GB

The combined size of the two hard drives that Scooter and Turbo Vista, the machines that ran AltaVista, sported as of early 1996. (As tech legend Bob Metcalfe wrote in InfoWorld at that time, the two machines worked in tandem, with the more modest Scooter, with a 20-gigabyte hard drive and 1 gigabyte of RAM, fetching the pages, and Turbo Vista, with two gigs of RAM and a 250-gig hard drive, storing those findings and serving them up to web viewers.) The machines, which stored a modest amount of information between them by today’s standards, essentially existed to show off just what the DEC Alpha processor could do. In fact, that was the reason AltaVista existed in the first place: The person who came up with the idea, Paul Flaherty, had been tasked with showing off the power of a new line of DEC computers, and had the spark while on vacation. It was eventually developed by DEC employees Michael Burrows and Louis Monier.

AltaVista, as it appeared in early 1997. Image: Internet Archive

How AltaVista, our first good search engine, fell into the digital abyss

Digital Equipment Corporation survived for more than 40 years as an independent company, but it was a company built for an earlier era of computing—and while it adapted better than contemporaries like Wang Laboratories, it ultimately began to struggle at the start of the 1990s, and ultimately could not find its footing into the modern day.

But on the way, less than three years before the company was sold off, DEC almost accidentally stumbled upon a mainstream web application that in many ways is more familiar to regular users than the groundbreaking PDP and VAX computer lines that the firm made its name on in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

During that period, DEC was one of the most important computer companies around. Founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957, the two former MIT researchers leveraged venture capital to build computers for industry—and found success by focusing on relatively small minicomputers over mainframes. DEC was an important company for computer history, but it missed out on trends as fundamental as the personal computer and (initially) the popularity of UNIX-based operating systems, and the company struggled to reshape its fortunes throughout the 1990s.

An example of the DEC Alpha chipset, of the kind used to power AltaVista. Image: Wikimedia Commons

AltaVista came to life as a part of this turnaround effort, which starts with a processor line called the DEC Alpha. The Alpha, a 64-bit RISC microprocessor line, was well-positioned to compete handily with major CPUs of the era from companies such as Intel and IBM on the speed front. It was a worthy competitor that gave DEC a chance to make a comeback, but price ultimately was the deciding factor for many buyers—and DEC couldn’t compete with the Intel Pentium on that front, at least in the desktop and workstation market.

DEC, trying to kickstart things, needed a way to promote what the Alpha could do, and it was decided that a project to highlight the Alpha’s capabilities at chewing through a massive database was just the way to do it. And what better database to chew through than the World Wide Web? Hence, we got AltaVista, a shining example of what a struggling company’s server hardware could do.

DEC was not new to the internet—hardly. In 1985, the company registered one of the first commercial domains on the internet, DEC.com, as technology companies staked their claims for top-level domains. But the Digital.com name, registered in 1993, was the one that most users associated with DEC in the 1990s, thanks to AltaVista.

At www.altavista.digital.com, regular users could search the web for items with a degree of depth and sophistication that most other search engines could not offer at that time. It was groundbreaking: Someone had built an internet search engine that treated the internet with the respect it deserved.

So why did AltaVista lose? Well, while it was a great idea for a marketing tool, it was almost as if DEC didn’t realize that the search engine was a worthy business on its own until it was too late. Which meant that after they built the thing, they naturally would face competition from companies that did understand this, like its eventual conqueror Google.

A September 1996 New York Times article described it as such:

By floating Altavista, analysts said, Digital is hoping to receive more recognition for developing a cutting-edge Internet technology. That could boost sales of Digital computers much the way Sun Microsystems has benefited from its development of the red-hot Java computer language, even though Java itself has generated relatively little profit, and Sun has so far announced no plans to spin it off.

(The Sun comparison is apt, though Sun was far more adept at figuring out what to do with Java than Digital ever was with AltaVista.)

In The Search, a 2005 book on the rise of Google and the search engine in general, Wired cofounder John Battelle blamed a corporate culture that didn’t know how to handle having its kind of innovation under its roof:

To borrow from the present, AltaVista was the Google of its era. In 1996, it was arguably the best and most-loved brand on the Web. It presaged many of the current innovations and opportunities in search, from automatic language translation to audio and video search to clustering of results. And as a business AltaVista attempted—and failed—to go public three times in three short years under three different owners. Possibly most instructive, AltaVista was the product of a company that was an extraordinary success in its original business but ultimately failed because of hidebound management unwilling to drive by anything other than the rearview mirror.

Ultimately, despite being the most popular search engine as recently as 2000, a series of poor decisions—including the misguided and eventually reversed choice to turn the search engine into a Yahoo!-style portal—ultimately ensured AltaVista would lose its place in the digital conversation. It was sold off multiple times, generally as part of a larger corporate segment, and by the time Yahoo! acquired AltaVista as a part of its 2003 purchase of Overture Services, AltaVista had become yesterday’s news, disconnected from the domain name that had berthed it years prior, and ultimately forgotten about by most regular internet users.

During the last decade of its life, it was essentially a shell of its former self at Yahoo!.

“Earlier this year, we announced an ongoing effort to sharpen our focus and deliver experiences that enhance your daily lives. As part of that, today we’re shutting down a few products so we can continue to focus on creating beautiful products that are essential to you every day.”

— Yahoo!, in a 2013 announcement—deep in the Marissa Mayer era of the company—that it was shutting down AltaVista. (If you visit altavista.com, it redirects to Yahoo! Search.) The shutdown had long been rumored, first appearing in a slide by the company’s chief product officer suggesting things that should be shut down to consolidate the company’s offerings.

Digital.com, as it appeared in 1996. Image: Internet Archive

Why, as an internet user who cares about history, you shouldn’t visit Digital.com to learn about DEC

In late 2020, AltaVista and DEC are two dusty segments of internet history, things that don’t see the light of day very often. But it’s worth noting the irony that the best way to learn about AltaVista in 2020 is not through the top result of a search engine.

If you do a search for AltaVista on the web at this time, the first result that comes up is for a site called Digital.com (note: all links to this site intentionally link to the 1996 Internet Archive version of the page). Rocking the headline “AltaVista Search Engine History Lesson For Internet Nerds” (linked via the Internet Archive for reasons I’ll explain below), you might think that this historical research project is noble in nature.

With a professionally written article, it seems to be very insightful and informative in nature.

But the truth is, it’s something of an internet bottom-feeder. It exists primarily to help create a top-of-funnel stream of content for Digital.com’s primary goal in 2020—a site focused publishing AI-driven software reviews that it can then make money from.

Digital.com did not start like this—first registered in 1993 by DEC, the site was the second home of the company, after DEC.com. But DEC, like its most famous consumer product, passed through a few hands as it faded out of view. In 1998, the company, which saw its minicomputer offerings fall into a tailspin that the Alpha processor line was unable to stop, was sold to Compaq. Compaq, in turn, had over-invested in the enterprise market and was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2002, with parts of the legacy DEC splintering between HP and HP Enterprise when that company split in half in 2015.

Digital.com, as it appears in 2020.

In the process of all this splintering, the Digital.com domain, which had been owned by HP for many years, was sold off in 2014 after many attempts by the tech giant to get rid of it. In 2015, meanwhile, a firm named Review Squirrel got its start, and that company later acquired the Digital.com domain, soon taking that name for its company.

Long story short, this historically important internet domain name—which hosted one of the first popular search engines—is now being used to launder some random company’s search engine presence, and if you search for AltaVista, DEC, or any piece of internet history related to Digital Equipment Corp., you’re essentially clicking on an ad for the former Review Squirrel.

I am a scholar of internet history and a noted hater of backlink schemes, and when I first learned of this site a few months ago—after receiving a backlink request from them, of course!—my brain nearly exploded. It was as if someone took everything I hate about the modern internet and combined it into one domain.

“I do not publish unsolicited resources, sorry. I’m sure Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson would be excited to know that their company’s primary domain name was being used as a content factory,” I immediately quipped as soon as I got the email. (I, of course, did not hear back.)

I will admit: As of right now, there is nothing stopping owners of culturally important domains from preventing their future reuse in non-respectable ways. For example, TheFrisky, once a popular women’s blog, now leverages its near-decade worth of search traffic as a cudgel, taking advantage of its decaying cultural role to help push up the identity of a Serbian music producer.

Now Digital.com isn’t arguably doing anything as sketchy as that, but it is doing something that I find equally as distasteful—it’s leveraging a bedrock piece of internet history in an effort to help push up its own marketing presence.

A year ago, I wrote about why websites with strong historic relevance should gain some sort of protection from this kind of thing, citing the way that Yahoo! had frequently mistreated its properties throughout its history as one reason for that. Yahoo! is only a side player in the saga of Digital.com, but I think its story nonetheless reflects the same general issue: Businesses do not care about history unless it’s something they can monetize.

Digital.com treats history as the top of the funnel, but you should see how dark the bottom of that funnel gets. It’s not pretty.

In a way, I’m glad Digital.com exists, even though I hate everything about what it represents. It’s as strong of evidence as I can find in favor of my argument that we need a way to protect dormant but historically important domain names from being reused for commercial reasons.

It shows what happens when large companies prioritize a quick buck over an important legacy. You can argue that HP had its hands on the internet equivalent of a Honus Wagner baseball card and decided the responsible corporate thing to do was to see what happened if it put the card up for auction.

Well, I’ll tell you what happens—there’s a chance that someone without a lot of respect for history gets a hold of it and decides to take the card out of its plastic case just because they can. And honestly, that scares me, and it’s something I fear someday might happen again with an even more valuable card.

The internet needs to start retiring jersey numbers. Digital.com was the equivalent of the number 23, and we’re letting a third-stringer wear it.

Whatever Happened to AltaVista, Our First Good Search Engine syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[rockrevoltmagazine]

IBOTW: The Midnight Preachers

Irish rock band The Midnight Preachers released their new single titled “Pusher Woman” to all digital outlets via The Label Group/INgrooves. The band also released the official music video for the single that was drawn by the band’s very own Emer McLaughlin on her iPad.

Pusher Woman (Official Video) – The Midnight Preachers:

Or hear the song here 

http://rockrevoltmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Pusher-Woman.mp3

  “Pusher Woman” was written by Eoghan MacSheain & Emer McLaughlin, produced by John Henry and mixed/mastered by Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal (Sons Of Apollo, Asia, Guns N Roses).

Formed in the north-west of Ireland in late 2017, The Midnight Preachers blasted onto the Irish music scene with a distinctive hard rock sound. Avoiding the modern trappings of overexposure on social media, the band’s approach is to leave more to the imagination of the listener, and to make the music their priority. Featuring rich vocal harmonies, Fender Rhodes piano and classic rock style riffs, their first single “California” debuted at #2 on iTunes in Ireland, on New Years Day 2018.

Following an Irish tour which culminated in a headline show with legendary guitar player Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (solo artist / ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist), The Midnight Preachers returned to the studio, recording their upcoming debut EP Desert Hymns.

THE MIDNIGHT PREACHERS IS:

Eoghan MacSheain – Singer / Guitarist / Pianist & Producer

Taking influence from the wild on-stage presence of Rory Gallagher, Eoghan provides an energetic and ‘out there’ performance. As a guitar player, his hard rock sensibilities have led to him touring and performing with Bobby Kimball (Toto), Chris Slade (AC/DC), and signing endorsement deals with DiMarzio Electronics, Vigier Guitars, AMT Electronics and Breedlove Guitars.

Emer McLaughlin – Singer / Bassist

Emer’s voice has been compared to Stevie Nicks, Kim Carnes and Norah Jones, and her bass playing to that of Phil Lynott. With a blues infused alto range, she sings lead, as well as backing vocals, and co-writes all of the band’s material.

  Emer McLaughlin answered a few questions for us to help you get to know the band a little bit better 

Why did you pick your band name?

We chose the name ‘The Midnight Preachers’ because we think that it summons a really strong set of visuals that amplify what the music is about, or at least set a tone of intrigue, which is something we’re really interested in as artists. 

  Anything you would like share, from new merch to upcoming shows/tours or songs/albums? 

We recently released our 3rd single, ‘Pusher Woman’ and its available on all major streaming sites, we hope to release our final single in the coming months and tour in the new year, if Corona allows it! We will also have a new merch store up and running where you can purchase our EP, T’s, hats, fun stuff like that! 

  How do you describe your music to people? 

Like Skynyrd and Fleetwood Mac got in a bar fight. And Skynyrd won 🙂 

  How do you handle mistakes during a performance?

Happens to everyone so it’s usually best to laugh it off and call it Jazz! Sometimes mistakes can make the performance more interesting, or a whole new idea can stem from a mistake – that has happened to both of us in our songwriting. 

  What are your immediate music career goals? (Next 1 to 3 years.)

Our immediate goal is to focus on the music as much we can in these hectic times as we’ve been given the rare opportunity to take our time, refocus and explore creatively. We will release the final track of our EP, ‘Desert Hymns’ in the coming months, followed by our debut album in the new year which we’ve been working on for some time and cannot wait to have out in the world – And beyond that, touring as much and as safely as we can in coming years and continuing to do what we love. 

  What type of recording process did you use? Who produced your recording?

Our recording process has been an epic learning curve, from recording with our producer, John Henry, who we worked with on ‘Desert Hymns’ to learning to record and produce on our own, we’ve found the experience thus far to be hugely educational. We’ve also been fortunate enough to work closely with Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal, who mixed two of our EP tracks and mastered them all. 

  Tell us the brief history of your band. 

The band came together in 2016, Eoghan asked me to join soon after and since then we’ve performed shows all over Ireland and have been fortunate enough to be the band at the Bumblefoot music camps. We’ve recorded our EP and hope to release our debut album next year. 

  Which instruments do you play?

Eoghan plays guitar and keys, Colin drums and I play bass. 

  Describe your first instrument. Other instruments.

My first instrument was a JC acoustic guitar which I managed to steal from my older brother as I was jealous he was getting lessons and I was not 🙂 

I swapped guitar for the bass when I was 16.

  Who are your musical and non-musical influences?

Our shared musical influences include Fleetwood Mac, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Skynrd and Rory Gallagher. 

Otherwise I find inspiration in artists such Agnes Martin, Georgia O Keefe and Andy Warhol 

Thank you so much! 

Emer 

    Connect with The Midnight Preachers (click icons):

IBOTW: The Midnight Preachers was originally published on RockRevolt Mag

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[robotloveskitty]

Good news and Bad news!

Ahoy there! It’s been awhile since you’ve heard from us, we’ve been very quiet on here since trouble began. 

Thank you for sticking around, we have really lovely fans, I don’t know what we did to deserve you all!

I have good news, and I have bad news, I’ll give you the bad news first. We are putting Upsilon Circuit into the “Cupboard of Lost Games” indefinitely.

The good news is that we aren’t giving up, and have a new game we’ve been working on called Super Tony Land that brings some elements of UC with it. ..But more on that later.

It was incredibly hard to write anything about UC. It’s been nearly a year since we initially halted production, but it still makes my chest tighten up thinking about it all. It took me 6 tries, but I did my best to write this, because I feel like I owe everyone the best explanation I can muster. I tried to really be open, because so often game cancellations offer very little real information.

Since this was a 3 year journey, it’s a long tale, so get comfortable!  

The concepts for UC grew from a small idea we had because I really enjoyed watching people livestream our (then) newly released game Legend of Dungeon. It grew into an exploration of mortality in games, and so much more. We loved and still love all the things that UC was supposed to become.

So, if we loved it, then why did it get cancelled?

If passion was all it took, I’m sure many other games would exist. Money, time, and luck seem to be big factors based on what we’ve seen and experienced. And the bigger your project, the more you need of each.  

It was an incredibly ambitious project for the two of us. We knew failure was very possible, and I’m proud that we tried anyway.

Why did UC fail?

The oversimplified answer would be that the scope of the game was too ambitious and we underestimated the time and money needed. In reality, for any project, there are many things that can go wrong that influence these things.

As with anything, it’s.. ..complicated.  But the big troubles for us were: Scope, pushing beyond our capabilities, jumping into a partnership for funding, and overwhelming stress.

The scope:

UC’s concept had many game elements highly intertwined and reliant on each other, so cutting features without changing the functionality and direction of UC was impossible. It was also difficult to explain fully to people, including our team.

Pushing beyond our capabilities:

We are just two self taught indie game devs. To make UC, we hired people, signed with a partner/incubator near the end, and then managed a large team, all for the first time.

In hindsight, these were things that we not only didn’t know how to do well, but also made the two of us very miserable.   

Jumping into a partnership:

Instead of scaling the project back when we realized our money would run out long before release, we pushed ourselves harder and kept going, and eventually signed with a partner to help fund the last leg of UC’s journey.

Signing with a partner or publisher and bringing in a larger team are very normal things to do in the industry. However.. they were entirely new to the both of us. Learning (about setting and meeting Milestones, dealing with various issues, and managing a large team) on such a complex project turned out to be very bad for us and UC. No one really did anything markedly wrong, but nothing seemed to go the way it was supposed to. Which in part led to the next point..

The overwhelming stress:

New to running a team stress. New to having partners stress. Crowdfunding stress. Partners pulling out mid failing crowdfunding stress. Having to tell a team “sorry and goodbye” stress. So much stress.

We felt like we had something that could change the gaming world forever, and we were so passionate about it. When things went belly up in the third year, the emotional hit was debilitating.

Bleh!

We really wanted to find a way to finish Upsilon Circuit anyhow, but the truth is, even if it wasn’t saddled with stress and emotional burden.. we’ve already put too much of our money into it. We can’t even support ourselves for long enough to complete a game this big right now.

Looking back on it all now, it’s hard not to feel like we were making a game that the world didn’t want. We knew that it was an out there idea, but that was why we felt that making UC was so important.

We knew publishers wanted something less experimental and risky.. But it was a bit surprising when the gaming community showed so little interest, since articles about UC had reached millions. 

When we lost our partner and shut down our crowdfunding campaign, we made a Patreon, and reached out to the tens of thousands of people on our newsletter. We didn’t get enough pledges to cover the cost of our shared office space, let alone paying even one person.

While there were people who were very generous and amazing, it felt pretty terrible to see something people had seemed so excited about struggling so much to get support when it was truly needed.

When we finally shut everything down, we both thought we might never enjoy making games again. We felt like garbage. We drowned in that for a long time.

You can learn a lot from failure, and we certainly did.

Things we learned from our failure (your own mileage may vary):

Take the project’s timeframe, and triple it. Then triple it again.

A unique idea can add an “I need to get this out before someone else does it” feeling. Let. That. Go. No good choices were made from that feeling.

Don’t bring on full time artists or audio people until the project is really ready for them, use placeholder art and sounds, when you can. Things change, and we redid a lot of our art.

Make sure all contracts clearly state what happens if things get cancelled, or situations drastically change.

Hiring more than one or two people means managing them part time, or full time. We now know that we hate managing people, and are terrible at it.

No matter how smart and awesome your team is, if you can’t get someone 100% behind your idea, your project will suffer.

Having a partner or publisher is a lot like having a boss while also being a boss. Some people like it, but we will likely stay indie or die trying.

Don’t sacrifice your own well being or happiness for a dream. Yes, we’ve sacrificed a lot in the past, we lived in a tree house in the woods so we could keep making games before. But there is a limit, and we found it with Upsilon Circuit, and we stubbornly ignored it and payed the price mentally.

Kittens make things a lot better.

If we had it all to do over again it would have been a very different game, but maybe we could have finished it, or at least avoided some of the worst moments.

So what now?

It’s been a year, and after many conversations, we have found no solutions for bringing back UC. ..But we have healed a little, so we are taking the ideas, story and world, and building them into our future games

We started working on a new game called Super Tony Land this year, and it will be part of UC’s legacy in its own way.

Super Tony Land is a physics platforming adventure game that has many worlds, a story, and easy access to user created levels and entire game worlds. Imagine if Cave story, Mario Maker, and Besiege had a dynamically lit baby.

In Upsilon Circuit the story was something we wanted the players to unfold and influence.. To give creation to the audience, experience it ourselves, and encourage Streamer/audience connectivity. To give real power to the players.

For Super Tony Land we’ve designed an extensive level editor, with visual programming blocks and NPC/Story tools. Anyone can build worlds or challenges in the free editor that we will be releasing alongside the game. We hope that communities and content creators will build and share their own universes, and we are looking forward to playing them!

Here’s the teaser trailer we just released! 

If you’ve been with us for the long haul, you might notice that this is actually a sequel to Tiny Plumbers!

This new game won’t be a lot of things that UC was, but it will be the game that the two of us made that helped us remember how important making games is to us.

It will be available on Steam this spring!

That’s about it for news!

Both of us are thankful to our team during UC’s development, and to our community and friends that have been there encouraging and supporting us throughout this journey. 

We will keep doing our best to make the games we want to see exist, for as long as we are able to make games.

Here are a few links you might want:

If you want to stay up to date on all things RLK, jump on Twitter!

If you want to chat with us or catch streams we have Discord

If you want to support development we have our RLK Patreon here

Thanks for your continued support and understanding!

Your co-pilot, 

Kitty

[clarencenicholsonata]

6 Brilliant Ways to Use Social Media to Connect With Industry Experts

When trying to grow your business or make a name for yourself in your industry, creating connections with industry experts can be a great way to generate recognition.

You always want to be 100% genuine in these connections so that you don’t seem overly promotional and self-serving, and there’s a right and wrong way to go about them.

That’s why I’ve put together this guide to help you use social media to connect with the top experts in your industry and make genuine relationships. Use these tips as guidance when reaching out to relevant thought leaders.

1. Write About Them

The first strategy that I’m going to talk about is creating content surrounding a few of the top experts that you’re hoping to connect with.

There are a few different approaches to this, varying on your comfort level in reaching out to experts as well as how new you are to the industry.

We’ll start with the most basic way you can write about or mention top industry experts, and lead into more complex and intimate article types.

Mentions in Your Article

The most basic way you could include an expert within an article would be simply to mention them by name when you source one of their articles or quote something they’ve said or written in the past.

Many people feel most comfortable starting out like this because you’re not making an article all about an expert or a handful of experts. Instead, you’re creating your own content and focusing on a separate topic, but you’re still working in an expert’s opinion.

Not only does this give you an opportunity to connect with them on social media to let them know you’ve mentioned them, but it also helps provide even more credibility to your piece of content.

Once you’ve published your article, it’s time to promote it.

You can connect with any experts that you mentioned on LinkedIn and send them a message to let them know you’ve referenced in an article. You might also consider sharing the article on Twitter and tagging the expert(s) you included as well.

Here’s an example of a conversation that stemmed from a newsletter mention.

Reaching out directly and sending a link to the article/newsletter/source where you mentioned them can be a great way to start off a potential connection with thought leaders in your niche.

Roundups

The next level option has two different avenues, one requiring more outreach than the other. I’m talking about putting together a roundup article, or aggregating similar content.

The first type of roundup post you could create is more about generating awareness and starting to create connections on social media, and is likely the route you’d want to take if you’re relatively new in your industry.

An example post like this would be, “Top 10 [Your Industry] Blogs to Read Right Now,” where you list out the top bloggers in your niche, link to their blogs, and explain why you love them. Another example is this article I wrote on Instagram accounts to follow.

You don’t have to reach out to anyone until after you publish your post and begin promotion. When you share your article, you can tag each person included in a really organic way, helping to generate attention around you and your post.

And just like with the last type of article, you can easily connect with each person on LinkedIn and shoot them a quick message to let them know they’ve been named in your roundup.

Speaking of LinkedIn, this can also be a great place to start conversations surrounding topics for upcoming articles, and also leads us to our second type of roundup – one that quotes experts.

This article on building an online community is the perfect roundup that sprung from a conversation on LinkedIn. The writer reached out to 21 different experts to get their feedback so she could compile them all together in an article.

Other great expert roundups can be found in these articles, one on time management for college students and another on influencer marketing tips. Both include direct quotes from tons of relevant thought leaders in their respective spaces.

You can find even more examples of this type of roundup on Wishpond’s blog and get some social media marketing tips or ecommerce growth strategies from industry experts.

One great way to share these posts is by creating social media graphics with expert quotes to share on Twitter and LinkedIn and further these connections.

Interviews

The final option when writing about experts in order to create relationships is to do a full scale interview with an expert in your niche.

This will definitely take some outreach, and you may need to send a couple of follow up emails before you hear a response, but could absolutely be worth your while.

You can conduct an interview in a number of different ways, whether you choose to send questions over email or LinkedIn message, or whether you choose to hold a video interview on a live streaming platform.

You can create an article surrounding your interview, then share it on social media, tagging the expert. As this is a much more intimate collaboration, they’re also likely to share your interview, strengthening your online relationship.

Here’s an example of a social media post teasing an upcoming Instagram Live interview, creating even more of a relationship between these two connections.

2. Engage With Their Social Media Content

Another key strategy for connecting with industry experts on social media is to start conversations and regularly engage with their content.

Reply to tweets of theirs that resonate with you, comment on Instagram photos of theirs that you love, and things of that nature. Ask them questions and start real conversations.

You want to always ensure that you’re crafting genuine responses to their content to actually earn a reply back and to create real connections.

There are several social media tools that can help you to stay on top of new posts from accounts you want to watch, so you’ll never miss an opportunity to engage. (And while you don’t want to obsessively comment on every single post, this will help you find ones you have an authentic response to.)

Here’s a great example of a writer authentically crafting a response to someone else in her industry’s tweet.

Follow Masooma’s lead and start engaging with people within your industry much more often.

3. Share Their Content

Put together a list of the top experts you’d love to create connections with. Read their blogs or online articles often and share the ones you love most on social media.

Each time you do this, be sure to tag the author. This can help to grab their attention, and they may respond to thank you for sharing.

If they do, this is a great opportunity to grow your connection by telling them exactly what you loved about the article or what your thoughts were about certain things they may have written.

This is a great way to start a real conversation with thought leaders that you want to make a good impression on.

If you’re unsure of how to go about this, here’s a great example that shows you just how easy – and effective – this can be. (If you didn’t notice, the expert this tweet author tagged retweeted the post!)

You don’t need to stress too much on how to craft these posts. Simply include the post’s topic, tag the author, and include a bit about what makes the post so awesome.

Furthermore, you should also share their social media posts. Whether you retweet or quote tweet their post, share a post on LinkedIn, or even add an Instagram post onto your Instagram story, this is a great way to catch their attention.

Be sure to add your own commentary like in this example below.

Giving your input is a great way to offer more to your own followers as well as create more of an opportunity for the expert to reach out to you with their own thoughts.

4. Be Active on Social Media

Have you ever found someone’s social media profile that looked interesting at first glance, but upon further inspection, you realized they haven’t actually shared anything of substance since 2016?

Don’t let that be you.

If you grab an industry expert’s attention, and they go to check out your profile, you want them to be entertained.

If your entire social media presence consists of only one type of content (i.e., promoting your blog posts or auto-sharing Instagram photos to your Twitter or Facebook), or you haven’t actually posted in a year, people aren’t going to follow you.

You want to make sure you’re both active on social media and posting a variety of content. Entertain potential followers, and entice them to want to stick around or engage with your content.

Here are a few ways you can make sure to do this:

Schedule Content: Don’t waste your day away on social media. Instead, spend a few minutes each day or week compiling content to share, then schedule it ahead of time with one of these social media scheduling tools.

Start Conversations: Start conversations with people all over the platform, not just the experts you’re trying to court. This way, you always have something going on when it comes to your online presence and people can see that you’re active.

Go Live: Whether it’s for an interview with an expert or a solo livestream, going live on social media is a great way to keep up with your online presence and social media trends. Put together a few talking points and just speak to your audience.

Schedule Regular Check-Ins:Managing your social media presence all day every day can be exhausting and lead to burn out where you just don’t want to talk to anyone.

That’s not your goal here, so make sure you schedule regular 15-minute check-ins where you can be in the social media zone, but it won’t consume your life or your daily routine.

5. Collaborate On a Contest or Giveaway

This is a great idea if you and the experts you’re aiming to connect with have a similar or joint target audience because it gives you a chance to give back to your audience.

Consider reaching out to business owners and thought leaders within your niche to put together a contest or giveaway where the prize is a combination of everyone’s services or valuable digital products.

There are tons of ideas you can come up with to gather entries, whether you have them take a quiz, insert their email address or another creative method.

You can easily create a signup or entry form for your contest with an online form builder like Paperform or, ahem, Wishpond, creating a seamless contest or giveaway entry process.

Here’s a great example of a contest put together by a lot of industry professionals, whether individual experts or relevant companies, for a prize fit for a top notch course creator.

Need help with your next contest ?

Book a free call to learn how our team of contest experts can help you create high converting Instagram contests today.

6. Be Professional

Last but not least, make sure you’re starting genuine and professional conversations with each expert you hope to connect with. You don’t want to appear to be trying too hard or cross boundaries into being too friendly in a professional setting.

Make sure all of your responses offer some kind of value to the conversation. You know how to network in person – all you want to do is translate those same ideas into the digital space.

Be kind, helpful, and friendly, and you’ll start to create genuine connections with industry experts in no time.

To help you understand a bit more about what you should and shouldn’t be doing, we’ve put together a quick list of do’s and don’ts.

Do’s

Watch your language. You’re not having wine-fueled conversations with your best friends, you’re creating professional connections online.

Perform a grammar check. Don’t let embarrassing typos hold you back. Proofread your posts or use a tool like Grammarly.

Mind your privacy. Pay attention to which profiles are private and which are public, as well as how much information you share online.

Share what makes you unique. You do want to entice people to follow you and connect with you, and that involves sharing your interests and opinions online. Just be careful about being too opinionated about controversial topics.

Don’ts

Make it all about you. Your job here is not to be promotional and self-serving. It’s to create some give and take in your professional relationships.

Share inappropriate comments or photos. Keep everything professional and PG. There’s no HR, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still make others uncomfortable.

Make disparaging comments about work.Never speak negatively or name call employers, clients, colleagues, etc., because it could easily get back to them as well as tarnish your reputation.

Be nosy or cross lines. Remember that you’re creating surface-level, professional relationships. Don’t try to pry or ask too many questions.

Start Creating Genuine Connections on Social Media

Feeling fired up and ready to start some conversations on social media? Remember what we covered. Write about your favorite experts, engage with them on social media, share their content, collaborate with them, be active online, and of course, remain professional.

About the Author

Chloe is a Content Marketing Manager at Visme, an online graphic design software. She loves to write about digital marketing and design and find new ways to engage audiences through content. Chloe is based in Charleston, SC, where she loves exploring her city with her son.

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[pixelproductions]

Guide to Creating a Successful Content Marketing Campaign

Think of this Guide as a sort of content marketing 101 primer. You’ll learn the key principles of content marketing strategy as well as sophisticated ways to research, refine, and improve your team’s content marketing output.

This post will help your team:

• Brainstorm campaign ideas that broadly resonate in your market

• Create customer-centric content that generates leads

• Use data to better focus on your customer’s needs

• Boost your traffic and conversions with advanced selling principles

I. Content marketing principles  

Whether you’re writing a blog post or thinking of a new webinar campaign, I’ve found these six principles to be at the heart of successful content marketing.

1. Make the customer successful.

Writing feels abstract. But our customers come to our website with concrete problems. If they don’t grow their client’s Instagram followers, they could lose the business. If they don’t find a faster way to create reports, they need to work late fighting with a frustrating spreadsheet. Before We try to hit our goals, we need to help the customer solve their problems. Everybody agrees with this. But often content marketing attempts to solve the company’s problems (tell people about our product features so they fill out a lead form) before solving the query that brought the reader to the page.

2. Make it real.

To make the customer successful, you need to write about what they actually struggle with. The best way to do this is to root content in a real insight. Talk to the sales team. Talk to customers. Look for concrete problems that people are trying to solve. Managing the corporate complexity of global and local teams is not a concrete problem. Instead, “how do I get our local offices to actually read our brand policies?” is closer to what people are actually trying to do in their daily job.

3. Make it simple.

Your reader isn’t dumb. And you are not smarter than your reader. But they also don’t have time to wonder what you meant by “integrate your workflows to drive higher revenue.” Use concrete language. Write so simple that a fifth grader can understand it.

4. Make it sound human.

Short sentences and short paragraphs work best. Avoid big words. When you find a sentence longer than 15 words, consider chopping it into two. Strive to include a mix of long and short sentences. Avoid generic language. A writer’s job is to destroy cliches.

5. Make your advice immediately actionable.

As Rand Fishkin noted in his content marketing manifesto, the reader needs to be able to walk away from your content and immediately do something differently to grow their traffic, use a new social network, or impress their boss with advanced knowledge.  A lot of content offers generic advice (such as “optimize your social media profiles”) instead of giving people advice they can go and try out right after reading. Ask yourself: after reading this content, what can the reader go and immediately apply to their job?

6. Make things you’re proud of.

Don’t settle. Create things you are proud of. Fight for good work. When you encounter an obstacle, build a better way.

Five questions to stay on track:

Does this help the reader? Are you actually solving their problem (“this is how you increase your sales”) or masking product information as advice (“how to increase your sales = book a demo with our sales team”).

Is this rooted in a specific, tangible, and real customer problem? Saving time on social media is not a problem. But spending four hours trying to create social media reports for your boss in Excel is.

Is this fake content? You know the problem (customers want more sales from Instagram) but does the advice actually show them how to solve this? To make the customer successful, your advice needs to provide concrete steps that helps them solve their challenges.

Is it actionable? After reading this content, what can the reader go and immediately apply to their business?

Are you proud of this? Is it simple? Does it sound like a human? Is it something you’d share with your friends?

II. The best types of content to create

From blog posts to webinar presentations, here are the five best types of content we’ve found to drive traffic and attract leads.

1. Do the work for them

Spend five hours reading about trends in the industry and then summarize your findings. This saves your reader time—they only have to spend 10 minutes to gain what took you five hours to find.

2. Write about your company’s values

“To ensure you don’t go down the rabbit hole of forgettable content, write about what you know and write with conviction . . . the best writing comes from your unwavering belief in how things should work,” says Intercom. Express simple messages such as “social media is changing businesses” with stories.  Such as: “how a wine-lover built a global business with his Twitter handle.”

3. Learn something and then share the how-to

Figure out how to do something (like setting up conversion tracking in Facebook) and then explain how to do this with clear steps. Make it real. Ask someone to try to do the steps after you write it—but before you publish it.

4. Share something they can’t find anywhere else

Share something only your company knows. For example, a study based on company data or a customer story you heard from sales.

5. Do the thinking for them

Spend an hour brainstorming marketing tactics a company could do. Then write a list post with your creative ideas. Most people don’t have the luxury to think. You do. Even a few ideas can help them look smarter in meetings.

III. Where to find new content ideas

Customer and product research

As the legendary copywriter Eugene Schwartz said: “Listen to your customers and the mind of your market. Learn more about the product. These two sources will never fail you.”

Trying to grow traffic by 20 percent in the next quarter? Stuck for a marketing campaign idea? Overwhelmed with creating a strategy to reduce churn?

The answer is in the mind of your market or in your product. There is no other source of inspiration.

This is a simple point. But teams rush to whiteboards, hoping their creativity will pull a solution from the air. As a result, you get generic strategies, pun-filled ad campaigns, and surface content. The role of creativity isn’t to produce ideas from nothing. Instead, creativity connects the dots between two sources of input: product and customer knowledge.

Go on a sales safari

One of my favorite strategies that I learned from Pamela Slim, a popular speaker and marketing consultant, is a sales safari. A sales safari helps you observe customers in their natural habitat. This helps you find ideas for products or campaigns by understanding the concrete problems your customers stumble over each day.

Use these five questions to guide your safari.

ONE, what is their knowledge level?

Does your company collect information about different deals that you’ve won or lost? If so, a good method to research an audience’s knowledge level is to look at these notes to see who is involved in typical deals.

For example, if the brief is to write for the travel industry look for a travel deal. Then look for the different people (the customer, not your sales team) involved in the deal, their job titles, and names.

With that information, go to LinkedIn and Twitter, find their profiles, and then look at the content they share regularly. You can build a search stream in Hootsuite and regularly see what they like to share and the level of knowledge they have about social media.

TWO, what is the concrete problem they are trying to solve?

This is harder to find. People don’t talk about it on their LinkedIn profile. The best place to begin here is to talk to sales. Book a meeting and ask about what their customers ask about on a daily basis. Even better, see if you can sit in silently on an actual sales call.

A few places to look:

Look for a public Facebook Group where prospects talk about their daily struggles at work.

Search Inbound.org, Quora, and Clarity for people asking questions. Varying results here but you can uncover some gold.

Talk to real people. Talk to the sales team, interview an expert in the field (such as a consultant who works with the vertical), or interview a customer to learn about their daily challenges.

Search for a book on the topic. Such as “Social Media for Dummies.” Then go to Amazon. Read through the reviews. You’ll get a human picture of the actual pain they were trying to solve by reading the book. Joanna Wiebe, an author and copywriter, first introduced us to this tactic.

THREE, what have they done already to try to solve this problem?

It’s rare people have never tried solving the problem your product solves.

What’s more likely is that they’ve tried to solve the problem, bought your competitor’s software, and failed. Copywriter Ray Edwards calls this your buyer’s “try-fail cycle.”

Good content says, “this is what you are struggling with, here is a solution.” But great content says, “this is what you are struggling with, here are the things you’ve probably already tried and why they didn’t work out. Here is what to do instead.”

FOUR, what’s the transformation?

This is where marketing skill comes in. Prospects will tell you basic outcomes such as “We want to increase our social audience.” But they won’t tell you their true desired outcomes: “I want this to be a big campaign win so that my boss keeps me on this important client account.” Great content speaks to the organization’s vision and the prospect’s individual career goals.

Read the book “Crossing the Chasm” to learn how transformation means different things to different people. For example, a young disruptive company buys software for different reasons than established organizations.

Go to your brand positioning for ideas. At GrowthPix, my manifesto helps to align content strategy with my values and belief. By expressing your company’s or blog’s vision with customer stories, blog posts, and guides, you’ll avoid having too many messages out there in the market. It’s the glue that keeps your content thematic and memorable.

FIVE, how can the product help them?

At some point, you’ll need to show customers how your product helps to solve their challenges. Be an expert in your product. This gives you better ideas (such as ways to reduce churn or better onboard users). Use it in your everyday work. Read technical manuals. Master new features.

IV. Advanced principles to grow your conversions

Once you have a direction, here are a few things to help refine your content.

Be generous

“Content marketing’s goal,” says Rand Fishkin, the founder of the software company Moz, “is not to convert customers directly.” The goal is to build familiarity, likeability, and trust. One of the greatest skills you can develop as a marketer is to learn how to give without asking.

Create more than unique content

Unique content isn’t enough. Being useful isn’t enough. People need to remember you. They searched for days for strategy advice. They found mediocre advice. Then they found your blog post. You cared and actually helped them. The goal of content marketing is to arrest the reader in their search. They’ve found their mentor.

Hide your obvious sales language

One of the first things you learn in sales is to sell benefits, not features. Completely true. But what you don’t learn is that the best salespeople hide their selling techniques. “Drive more revenue” sounds like advertising. It’s a benefit we’ve all heard before. Peter Thiel’s book “Zero to One” is a great resource. He shows that if you want to be good at selling, you need to learn how to hide your tricks.

Go advanced, rather than basic

“Don’t include advice, tips, or tactics that more than 20 percent of your audience already knows,” says Rand Fishkin. When in doubt, go for more advanced than too basic.

Make your CTA (call to action) congruent

AND NOW IT’S TIME TO SELL SOME BENEFITS.

If you spent 1,000 words being a funny, likable expert, you don’t need to shift into your sales voice to get them to download a guide. This breaks the mirror. You’ve already built trust. So just tell them in the same voice what to do. Keep it casual. For example, “here’s a free downloadable template that will help you craft a professional social media strategy, including a PowerPoint template to present your strategy to your boss or clients.”

[blschaos3000-blog]

Its 3:52 pm

Welcome to “8 Questions with…..”

In doing this series and especially of late,I have been really blessed to be able to talk to a lot artists that I have on a “wish list”. These are people whom I really want to talk with but I don’t think I’ll get a chance to. Ashley Kate Adams was on the list. I first was introduced to Ashley Kate and her talent when the cheetah and I watched a excellent film called “1 Message“. Its a story about a young woman who gets breast cancer amd who is slowly falling into a deep depression. When the young woman meets a man online while tracking down her family tree,the connection changes her life on so many levels. This is a movie that I loved quite a bit and I thought Ashley Kate Adams did a great job in what I found later was her feature film debut and she was only 21 when she filmed it. Since then I have been following her career and chatting once in a while on Twitter. Last week I decided to take a chance and ask Ashley Kate for a interview and to my surprise answered “Yes,I do” within 5 minutes. While we were talking,I asked about her new big project,”Boy Hero” which is set during the 1954 Senate Comic Book Hearings and where publisher Williams Gaines and his legendary EC Comics were grilled because of the content.  It was also during the height of McCarthyism and the Hollywood blacklisting,a dark and despairing time (as well as a forgotten period). As soon as we as a society are allowed ,Ashley Kate is kicking “Boy Hero” into high gear and we’ll be posting updates on how the film is progressing. * As you can see,Ashley Kate is a woman on the go,go,go!!  I am so happy that we got a chance to catch her in mid-stride so she could slow down enough to answer her 8 Questions…….

Please introduce yourself and tell us about your latest project?

Hello! My name is Ashley Kate Adams & I am an actress, producer & writer living in NYC! Right now we are so excited to be introducing Frankie! The Musical Cast Concept Album to the world. It releases this Friday, May 29th, on Broadway Records and will be available everywhere music can be streamed. Frankie! The Musical (@frankiemusical) is written by 16-year old Composer and light, Elise Marra. The album is produced by AKA Studio Productions & Mitchell Walker!     Our other main project is “Boy Hero”, a feature film inspired by the Comic Book Trials of 1954. I wrote the 1950’s period film which was inspired by a panel I saw called “When the American Librarian Saved Comics” by Carol Tilley. The film is rounding out development and will be Produced by AKA Studio Productions, Pigasus Pictures & AR Productions and will film in Cincinnati! Please follow us (@boyheromovie) for more exciting updates on fundraising development and production of the film. 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

How have you been coping with Covid-19 pandemic? How are you staying creative and focused?

   I have been thinking a lot about this recently. I’ve been coping with Covid-19 productively. I think many things prepared me for this, the main being thing being the sudden loss of my father in 2016 to cancer. During that time I had to learn to balance many things in conjunction with being completely gutted out with grief. During that time I turned to creating to heal myself and process my emotions so during this pandemic I have followed suit. I’ve actually been working at home with my production company since 2011 so that routine feels like a continuation. We were very lucky, we had just gotten many incredible projects like Frankie! in the can before it felt as if the world froze. Now these projects are able to bring joy to others during this time. On Friday’s I’ve been going LIVE with #BYOP to lead conversations on Grief & Productivity for the Creative @ashleykateadams on Instagram. It’s been important for me to try to help folks navigate this time! 

 When did you first catch the acting bug and what was the reaction like with your family and friends?

I don’t know if I ever caught the acting bug I was kind of just born into the industry. It is what our family does as our family business. You know some families might have a restaurant or a heating & cooling company, we are performers. My parents, who also majored in musical theatre in college (that’s how they met) were VERY honest with me about how hard my future was going to be to move to NYC and pursue this full-time but they knew it was what I was called to do. And I got to make space here for my sister 10 years my junior, Audrey Belle Adams, who recently began her adult career also based out of New York City. 

 How did you land the lead role in your first feature film “1 Message”? What three things did you take with you from the experience? How important is faith to you?

I actually landed my role in “1 Message” thanks to my father. He pitched me at a dinner meeting where the director happened to be. I then auditioned and got the role. That film taught me a lot. The first was that leading a film and being on camera 14 hours a day, 6 days a week is an extremely challenging job. Which leads me to the second thing, I learned how to treat actors on set. The “1 Message” experience is one that seeded in me the need to become an independent film producer to make sure I was always taking care of my actors in an extremely supportive way. Environment, transparency & discernment are everything on a project. The third thing I learned was how strong and aware I was even at a younger age on set. Faith is important to me. It is important to me to believe in something much bigger than yourself. 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

   Which do you like more? Doing TV/film work or live theater and why?

I love both equally but for different reasons. Right now I am very much falling deeper in love with film. I love learning and because I was raised literally at a theatre, in film there is still so much to learn for me. I love each new project on any side. It’s a blast to me navigating each nuance! 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

 What  have been the three pieces of advice given to you in regards to being a performer?

Wow! Great question. “Your best secret weapon is yourself”. That was taught to me by the head of my musical theatre program at CCM, Aubrey Berg. He was correct. I would say the next is to “Be a kind person who people enjoy working with” from Sandra Rivera of Dancensation Studios and the most recent from this past winter break  to “Keep saying yes to the right things and keep expanding” from one of my high school mentors, the great Gail Benedict. 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

 What roles challenge you most as an actress and how do you adapt to make the role yours?

Wheeew. For me the biggest challenge of my actor life was doing “A Christmas Carol(e)”, a one- woman show, directed & written by Alex Freeman. It was terrifying because it was only me on stage for 70 minutes. All I could do to survive it was to walk through it and continue to adapt. Every. Single. Second. I had to be truly present without a fourth wall. There was no protection, no sheen. I love hiding behind characters. I revel in it. It allows me space for courage to be more vulnerable. I’m a weirdo, my prep is usually reading, researching and then I adapt my breath and body. Everything else just kinda happens. The magic of acting! 

 How did the idea for #BYOP come about? What makes a good producer in your opinion?

#BYOP (Be Your Own Producer) came from seeing the need for it. As a producer, actor and creative I can only take on so many projects full time at once but #BYOP allows me to be available to you and your project on an hourly basis. It also teaches content creators how to producer so they can become sustainable and independent! During the pandemic it expanded to teaching these intentions in a group digital setting. The brand is continuing to grow and diversify. In development are many exciting new pieces, perhaps something you could listen to and something you can hold. Stay tuned and be sure to follow @ashleykateadams for updates! ! ; ) 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

You created a one woman show called “A Christmas Carole” for the theater, where did you come up with the idea and how hard is doing a one person production on a nightly basis?

I helped to create the show but I cannot take credit for the idea or writing on that one, that was my creative partner in crime, Alex Freeman. We put it up in 6 days with the help of our two amazing stage managers. It’s exhausting and exhilarating doing a one person production. I lived like a nun during the day to stay calm and preserve all of my energy for the performances. I still can’t believe I did it! 

 How important are awards to you as a performer?

Awards are not important to me as a performer, but the respect and nod that comes because of them is appreciated. I got my first best actress award in 2018 for Alex Freeman’s two-hander “Love” at the New York Theatre Festival. It’s hard being a woman in the business on every side. Especially as a Producer. So when a group of people decide not only that you  “did well” but that you should be “acknowledged”, that is nice. 

You love to sing,what makes a good song and which three Broadway scores would you love to sing if given a chance? Who is your favorite singer/band at this moment?

I do love to sing! It’s a part of my identity even though I’ve been more internal as of late with my creativity. I would say three Broadway scores I would love to sing through would be “Waitress”, “Sunday in the Park with George” and “The Sound of Music”. My favorite singer is my sister, Audrey Belle Adams @abelleadams, always and forever because she has the most flexible vocal instrument I have ever heard and my favorite band right now is M.N.O.P. @MNOP_music. They have rockin’ folk punk music, a kick butt lead female singer & a really cute drummer : ) 

 How important is self-promotion to you and your career? 

Self-Promotion is a large part of a creative career. In the age of social media & “influencers”, it has to be. I have not always been good at it. I had to learn to produce others to get comfortable producing & promoting myself. 

 What do you like to do on your down time?

In my downtime I like doing yoga, going on walks, listening to true crime podcasts, reading, taking class and spending time with my loved ones. 

 The cheetah and I are flying over to watch to you in “A Christmas Carol(e)” but we are a day early and now you are stuck playing tour guide,what are we doing?

If A Christmas Carol(e) played NYC and there was a day off I would say to spend the morning in Central Park, afternoon around Bryant Park popping into the Strand Book Store & the Bean coffee shop and to spend the evening in the theatre district enjoying an OPEN Broadway. Late evening in the village hopping venues and listening to live music! 

(Michael Kushner Photography)

  I want to not only thank Ashley Kate for chatting with us but also for being inspired to make “Boy Hero”. I cut my fanboy teeth reading EC Comics growing up. When I read William Gaines bio and found out just how close that comic books were to being banned,it was shocking. Without Gaines and a slew of others,including many librarians fighting this censorship,there would no “Star Wars”,Marvel or DC or many cultural icons we take for granted today.     Like I wrote before,this is a forgotten piece of American history and much respect to Ashley Kate and her production team on making this film to hopefully remind us of what we almost lost.

Ashley Kate has several different ways that you can keep track of her and her various projects.

You can follow Ashley Kate on her InstaGram page. You can check out Ashley Kate’s next project via her IMDb page. You can also follow “Boy Hero” on InstaGram as well. You can also visit Ashley Kate’s personal website by going here.

Thank you for reading and supporting (and sharing) Ashley Kate’s interview. Feel free to drop a question below and stay tuned for updates about “Boy Hero”. You can also read past “8 Questions” interviews by going here.

8 Questions with………..actress/producer Ashley Kate Adams Its 3:52 pm Welcome to "8 Questions with....." In doing this series and especially of late,I have been really blessed to be able to talk to a lot artists that I have on a "wish list".

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Bernardine Evaristo, Olga Tokarczuk, Virginia Woolf and other women authors you should read - books

It might be unfair to say that we should celebrate women on a particular day while on other occasions we question women’s safety, health issues, navigate around violence against women worldwide and more. March is also the designated month to celebrate the literary works of women around the world.With the written word in the digital age and the growing platforms on social media, people are connected through a lot more than shared interests that might not have been able to be discussed until a little over a decade and a half ago. From important topics such as gender, feminism, self-care, mental health, body positivity, environment, climate change, to evergreen discussions pertaining to poetry, spoken word, romance, erotica, relationships among others, the conversations are aplenty as much as the platforms - social media, podcasts, videos, blogs and more.A popular quote that circulated on social media a few years ago read: When you see a person reading a book you love, it’s like the book is recommending the person. When it comes to finding the right gift to give, there’s nothing like a book in paperback or Kindle form or any literary gift which will remind you of each other everytime you recollect the memories in your mind. Gifting a book is not just a basic gift, it’s a gift of knowledge and something everyone will love and cherish. When you recommend and gift literature to someone, you’re bringing them closer into your inner circle and nothing can trump that feeling. ALSO READ: Top 10 Instagram handles to follow if you love quaint, beautiful book cafesThis International Women’s Day, we’ve compiled our list of women authors you must read, their popular books and why you should read them. The list can never be narrowed down into a handful and we’re glad about that, but this list is simply in order of the classic nostalgia factor, recent mentions, and popular voices extending beyond books: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Since her iconic TED talk which subsequently became a bestseller, We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has written several other novels namely Purple Hibiscus, Americanah and others which have found a place in many hearts, bookshelves and night stands. As of today, Chimamanda is an important feminist voice and multitasks as a fashion influencer on Instagram, all while inspiring other women. In We Should All Be Feminists, she brought up oft ignored yet necessary discussions on being treated equal like the man whom she was entering a restaurant with, being presented the bill because she too had the purchasing power along with several other pointers highlighting what feminism means and should be rightly perceived as instead of being confused for a particular ‘kind’ of feminism. There is no variety, it just is. Louisa May Alcott: Having written one of the most popular literary classics, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott changed perceptions about women back in the nineteenth century. Little Women was a coming-of-age story of a kind of four sisters who lived with their mother and waited for their father’s return from war. The story develops into more complex themes of falling in love, dealing with loss and an ailing parent and more. This book was followed by sequels on the March sisters titled Good Wives, Jo’s Boys and more. Jane Austen: Through the six novels Jane Austen wrote, she created vivid fictional worlds, drawing a large part of her literary material from the lives led by the English country gentlefolk that she knew of or had met during her lifetime. Austen had a magical knack of transforming the stories of unremarkable people and situations into notable works of literature. Even in the present day, Jane Austen’s storytelling skills inspires awe and finds newer fans every day. The best part, her headstrong female characters who would always stand their ground. Enid Blyton: One of the first reasons to begin reading, Enid Blyton has fed the imagination of many children across decades through her characters in The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, Noddy and many more. The author’s literary works can easily be credited with taking you back to the carefree days of the summer holidays from school, waking up at leisure, enjoying great food at home and also learning about usually unheard of concepts such as ‘high tea’ and ‘supper’ in Indian homes. J.K. Rowling: The seven-book-long Harry Potter series is J.K. Rowling’s most famous work to date and have been touted to be a children’s books when they first released a little over 20 years ago and became a sensation soon after. It is, however, inaccurate to assume that one of the most-loved authors in the world today, wrote only for children. A large part of the content in the Potter books is layered and dark - something you wouldn’t understand without personal experiences or learnings from around you as time goes by.The Bronte Sisters: Charlotte, Anne and Emily Bronte originally published their poetry and literature under male pseudonyms. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey came out in 1847 but after great trouble of finding a publisher. Emily Bronte is only credited with writing one of the greatest stories of love and loss in Wuthering Heights, however, Charlotte went on to write other titles in her lifetime. Toni Morrison: The first African-American woman to become a Nobel Laureate in Literature, Toni Morrison wrote her books managing her job and single-motherhood. Her works, even though fictionalised accounts of the African-American experience, belonged to a world similar to her own but remained invisible from mainstream literature at the time. She was unapologetically flawed and broken from her experiences, but the characters she wrote into existence – black and mostly female – remained true to her cause. Their lives were woven together by love, pain, trials and triumph and can be seen in all her works beginning with the widely popular Beloved.Bernardine Evaristo: The Anglo-Nigerian author, whose book, Girl, Woman, Other follows the lives and strife of twelve contrasting characters from different walks of life tied for the coveted Man Booker Prize last year. Mostly women, black and British, the characters tell the stories of their families, friends and lovers, through the years. Olga Tokarczuk: The 2018 Nobel Prize in literature laureate, made her debut as a fiction writer in 1993 with Podroz Iudzi Ksiegi (The Journey of the Book-People). Olga Tokarczuk’s third novel Prawiek i inne czasy which came in 1996 was a breakthrough. Tokarczuk is the author of eight novels and two short-story collections and her books have been turned into plays and films and translated into more than 25 languages, including Catalan, Hindi and Japanese.Virginia Woolf: A video by TED explains why one should read Virginia Woolf, saying that “if William Shakespeare had a female version, it would be Virginia Woolf”. The prolific author’s haunting language, her insights into a wide array of issues including historical, political, feminist and the non-linear approaches to the narrative which she adopted, exerted a major influence on the modernist genre. Through her popular books like To the Lighthouse and The Waves, Virginia Woolf became one of the three major English-language Modernist experimenters in stream-of-consciousness writing along with noteworthy names such as James Joyce (Ulysses) and William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury). Candace Bushnell: Sex and The City became a phenomenon on television with its six seasons that spoke about adult friendships, finding love after 30, getting married after 40, fashion weeks, open conversations about men, desire and so much more. Over two decades later, the show is a pop culture phenomenon with dedicated pages on social media. But it all started with Candace Bushnell’s genius chick-lit that took the world by storm. The author has since also written a prequel that talks about Carrie Bradshaw coming to New York City and working her way up the journalistic ladder, meeting her friends and more. A sequel also released last year and is titled, Is There Still Sex In The City? Sophie Kinsella: She is the quirky brain behind the very popular Shopaholic series that also got made into an equally popular film, except on opposite shores. Madeline Wickham, who writes and is best-known by her pen name Sophie Kinsella, inspires young minds through the simplicity in her writing. It’s usually the simplicity one misses the most while dealing with the other complexities of life, and Kinsella’s writing fills that vacuum just fine. Aside from the Shopaholic series, Kinsella has written other interesting stories namely The Undomesticated Goddess, I’ve Got Your Number, an endearing story of a teenager dealing with depression in Finding Audrey among other titles. Have you read any of these authors’ works? Tell us your favourite authors, titles and why you loved reading them. Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter Read the full article