#This makes this phone (2017) older than my old phone (2018). But it's still way better than it 😭

[galactichelium]

Why did a 2:30 minute screen recording on my phone take up 824 MB of storage. THIS PHONE ONLY HAS 64 GB ?????

[castiel-kline]

once upon a birthday

Birthdays haven’t always been Jack’s friend, but he’s starting to realize that every May 18th he reaches is a miracle rather than a tragedy.

May 18, 2017.

Jack saw that combination of letters and numbers everywhere on his first day of life. He saw it on the corner of the newspaper on Sheriff Barker’s desk, watched her scribble it on a page of notes she was writing up about him, saw it light up on Clark’s phone when he opened it to show Jack something “cool.” 

It would be a while before he realized that date’s significance.

-

May 18, 2018

Jack was seated around a campfire with the other kids of the rebel camp, staving off their fear of the incoming dark by telling them a story. It was just the plot of Clone Wars, but since it didn’t exist in this universe no one called him out on it. 

Bobby’s voice carried over the sounds of the camp settling down for the night, low but still decipherable. 

“...our supply’ll run out by the 25th. We have to keep moving, get some more.”

Jack never did learn what they were about to run out of, because Mary’s response snared his attention even tighter.

“Remind me what day it is now? I lost track while I was… you know.”

“Right, I get it. It’s May 20th.”

And Jack stopped short in his tale, the realization that he’d been alive more than a year hitting him like a blast from one of Michael’s soldiers. The little girl next to him nudged his elbow and asked if he was okay.

“I’m fine,” he said, smiling gently. “It’s just that my birthday was two days ago. I only realized now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. We could sing to you now?” All the children nodded their agreement, but Jack shook his head.

“Thanks, but it’s okay. Besides, I need to finish telling you about Ashoka’s rescue mission, right?” They leaned in closer around the fire, and Jack went back to his narrator voice. “Now, she knew it would be a dangerous journey, but…”

That night when Jack was trying to sleep (Mary made him promise to attempt four hours, even though he didn’t really need it) he wondered if birthday celebrations lived up to their reputation. He wondered if his was ever going to be worth celebrating, given all the pain and death that day had brought.

With the new knowledge that he was a year old, Jack dreamed of his mother- wafting through hazy gold memories of a furniture warehouse, Castiel beside her, in the days before Jack was capable of hurting anyone because he couldn’t control his powers. In the days when he still felt safe.

-

May 18, 2019

“How’s it goin’, kiddo? Enjoying the quiet?”

Jack whirled around to face the Empty head on, unwilling to show just how much its appearance had startled him. It didn’t bother him much, per Billie’s instructions, but sometimes it liked to taunt him. Usually it appeared as his mother, sometimes Cas, but today it looked just like him.

“What do you want?” Jack asked, lifting his chin. His doppleganger mirrored the action, before smirking and sauntering closer.

“Oh, calm down. I don’t bite, I’m just delivering a message.”

“A message from who?”

Billie would just deliver a message in person, and no one else could contact him in here. Maybe Cas could-

“Hmm, I don’t know,” it interrupted Jack’s thoughts. “Time? The Universe? Anyway. Happy birthday, sport. Enjoy the official start of your terrible twos.”

With that the Shadow vanished, leaving Jack alone in the dark once again. He sat down and curled his knees to his chest, wishing there was a corner or a wall he could press his back against. He felt exposed and vulnerable in the vastness of the Empty’s nothing, and it was making him uneasy.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what his family was up to down on earth. Would they be sad? Too busy fighting Chuck to notice? Were they even alive?

He wished with all his might that they weren’t alone. Alone wasn’t what you should be on somebody’s birthday.

-

May 18, 2020

As endings went, Jack’s was shaping up to be okay. He’d finally had a good birthday- even if it was both impromptu and a few days early. He laid in bed, belly full of his first ever birthday cake, for once not thinking about his upcoming demise.

A soft knock on the door sounded, and Jack sat up in surprise. A glance at his phone confirmed that it was nearing four in the morning, which only thickened his confusion.

“Come in?”

When Cas pushed open the door, Jack smiled.

“You’re back!” he exclaimed, pushing off the blanket and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Cas pushed the door to a close behind him and shuffled further into the room. “Sorry, I know it’s late, but I had a feeling you’d still be awake.”

“Is everything okay? Nothing went wrong with talking to the angels, did it?”

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” Cas assured him. “The angels are going to keep an eye out for Amara, but that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

Jack frowned. Then why…?

“Happy birthday,” Cas said, pulling a gift bag out from behind his back. “I know it’s early, but I heard you celebrated while I was gone. So I picked something up on the way home.”

“Thank you,” Jack breathed, taking the gift and settling it on his lap. His first birthday gift.

Cas took a seat next to him, giving Jack’s arm a gentle nudge.

“You can open it now, if you’d like.”

Jack didn’t need to be told twice. He tore into the tissue paper, eagerly unveiling the surprise it hid from view. At the bottom of the bag was a teddy bear, clad in overalls that smushed down its soft brown fur.

“Your mother always wanted to buy one for you,” explained Castiel. “We placed the order, but it didn’t arrive before…”

“Before.” Jack sighed, throat suddenly tight with emotion.

“If you don’t like it I can take it back-”

“No, Cas, it’s great. I love it. Does it have a name?”

The question didn’t faze Cas in the slightest.

“Well, the official name according to the store is Marvelous Marvin. But I believe it’s customary to name a stuffed animal anything you’d like.”

Hmm. Jack studied the bear’s face for a moment, tilting his head. “Marvin’s good,” he declared. “I like it.”

“I’m glad.” Cas smiled, then stood up. “You should get some rest.”

“Wait!” He hadn’t meant to say anything, but as soon as the word was out he realized he really, really, didn’t want this day to end. “I saved a piece of cake for you. And I’m not tired, so…”

It only took about ten seconds before Cas gave in with a fond shake of his head.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

Jack followed him to the kitchen, Marvin under one arm.

His third birthday, and his first good birthday.

What would almost certainly be his last birthday.

-

May 18, 2021

There were many things in life Jack had learned to think of as little miracles. Some seemed utterly insignificant, like the flowers that managed to grow between cracks in the sidewalk. Saying hello to his mother should have been just as beautiful and commonplace, but to Jack every chance was more wondrous than the sun shining through a storm.

He whispered it now, breathing another miracle into being in two precious little words.

“Hi, mom.”

Kelly looked up from what she’d been reading, face lighting up in joyous surprise. She came forward and swept him up in her arms, and Jack allowed himself a moment to be grateful. In spite of everything, the universe allowed him to have this.

“I didn’t think you’d be back yet,” she said as she pulled away, her hands clasping his. “I mean, you said you had to fix all the parallel universes, and Cas said there’s hundreds of them…”

“I’m not done yet,” he said. “Amara’s still out there, and I’ll have to go back soon, but... I really wanted to spend some time with you today.”

Kelly frowned, concern taking over her features. “Is everything okay? Do you need help, or-?”

“I’m fine,” Jack assured. “It’s -on earth, anyway- it’s May 18th. 2021.”

Realization struck. “It’s your birthday.”

“I wasn’t sure if you’d even want to celebrate, because my being born wasn’t a good day for you, and-”

“Jack, baby.” Kelly put a hand on his cheek, swiping away the tear he hadn’t known was falling. “My death was not your fault. Okay? Of course I want to celebrate your birthday with you.”

“Really?”

“Really. We can call Cas down here, watch some movies, make a cake-”

Kelly was already moving to the kitchen, all ready to start baking.

“Mom, wait. I… I had a birthday cake once,” he told her. “And that was… special. Could we think of something else to do? Just you and me and Cas?”

“Of course, honey. It’s your day. Cookies?”

Jack nodded, and he smiled. Because in that moment it was crystal clear that each year spent growing older, especially those spent with the people that he loved most, were little miracles too.

And he had plenty more birthdays to look forward to.

[h0neyjaehyun]

☁︎ 𝐓𝐰𝐢𝐧 ☁︎

Summary // Tali gets an unexpected visitor and Chenle decides to tag along.

Characters // Talia Flores + Zhong Chenle +Miguel (ft. Nct Dream)

Era / Year // March 2018

Word Count //

"NOONA!"

"Yeah!"

"Someones here for you."

Tali's head perked up thinking of who it could be. All she know right now its 10am, Jaemin, Jeno, are out biking, Renjun and Jisung went to get groceries and Chenle just came. Then Straykids are too intimidated by the dreamies to come to visit her. She went out and saw someone who she hasnt seen since maybe the beginning of 2017.

"MIGUEL" She jumped up on him for a hug and he hugged her back he grunted for a second. Chenle was surprised at her action while her brother was expecting it. Even though they bicker a lot they miss each other.

"Hey Butterfly." He hugged her back. Chenle was now taken aback who he is, and also why everyone close to her that are not nct or who they know personally call her Butterfly, what does it mean??

"Chenle."

He hummed, as now he was focused on Tali.

"Chenle, this is my brother Miguel, and Miguel this is Chenle, he is Chinese and a 01 liner." Miguel made an :0 face and shook Chenle's hand.

"Nice to meet you, Tali has talked a lot about your group."

"Really? Tali doesn't mention you much at all."

"Yeah, I asked her not to, I find it weird thats all, I wanna know you guys personally and see who my sister is around you know?"

"Yeah, here let me show you around."

Chenle was nervous, he didn't show it, but he was. Miguel was a tall man, who was quite intimidating, plus he has his only sister around 18 guys (at the time), he is bound to worry no?

Tali looked at them with a smile, she didn't know her brother would come today, good thing she clean before he came. Now at the moment she is wondering when the boys are gonna come, and if they were what most likely gonna happen is chaos.

Jaemin would yell for Jisung and flop on the couch sweaty from being dragged to bike around. Jeno would probably take off his shirt. Then Jisung would come whining about not getting his favourite snack while Renjun is just done. She thought about all of that in that moment and she said....nah, they need to prepare I can't scar them like that.

"Hey guys, lets go get coffee, I haven't been out for a bit." Miguel raised an eyebrow.

"When was the last time you went out anyway?" He questioned her knowing damn well she probably hasn't left the building in a good week or 2.

"Ha, funny Im gonna go get ready." She ran away not wanting to get questioned. He shook his head and faced Chenle, he seemed nervous which he understood but wanted him to be comfortable so he can get close, and also to make him snitch on Tali for not taking care for herself.

"You don't need to be nervous, yeah I can tell you are." Chenle chuckled and nodded his head.

"Yeah I'm nervous, Im hoping to get a good impression on my friends brother and I can tell you this much, we love her we really do...but she's-

"distant, yeah I know, she knows too, she is just scared thats all." He clairfied.

"She is trying though, thats what counts." He seems to reassure Chenle and also him, that she will be able to get though it.

"Im ready~" She came out, and smiled at them. The two boys turned to her and gave her a smile right back.

"Alright Tali~, where to now? The coffee shop?" Chenle asked, Tali nodded her head, you can see the excitement running though her as she skips down the block. Chenle is a little behind her making sure she doesn't bump into someone or anything. Then Miguel is alittle more behind them, mostly observe Chenle and his relationship with Tali, thats what he mainly came for, to see dream but of course to his luck, they are "busy".

Tali described Chenle as confidence and a sweet boy, who is down to earth and energetic. He can see that, and he can also see the love Chenle has for his sister, he doubted them he wasn't gonna lie, he was scared for her not wanting her to go through more trauma then they already have. But the way Chenle looks at his sister is something else, like he would do anything for her, he can tell not in a crush way more of a older precious sister.

They arrived at the shop, they ordered and Tali was about to pay, then Miguel smacked her hand away about to give the cashier his card but then Tali pushed him, then Tali got holden back by Chenle and payed for the coffee.

Chenle shook his head at them. She got up and grab their coffee and then stuck her tongue out at Miguel and Miguel just glared at her since they are in a public space he decided not to "fight" here. She just looked him are you kidding me face. Honestly thats the first time Chenle has seen Tali somewhat hostile, but yet playful side.

They went to the park and walked around a bit while the two boys talked amongs themselves to get to know each other Tali was abit more ahead of them.

"So you are a singer correct?"

"Yeah Im a singer, I heard you were a model?"

"Yup, so what do you guys usually have days off, I was planning on a surprise visit but obviously no one was really there." Miguel said in a obvious tone.

"Yeah they are all doing their own things right now, let me check when we are available...NOONA!"

Tali turned.

"Yeah?"

"You off Wednesday?"

"Let me check.....yeah."

Chenle turned back to Miguel.

"Yeah we are available Wednesday. "

Miguel laughed, he started to like Chenle, now all he is wondering if the other guys are good, cause he knows there are like more then 7 guys at that worries him abit how overwhelmed she might feel. They noticed Tali on the phone and decided to sit on the bench while she was on the phone so they won't lose her.

"Yeah I'm out with Chenle...around 2 I guess...yeah see you." Tali walked back to the two.

"Who was it?"

"It was Mark, he was asking for the lyrics but I said I wasn't home so he will get them later."

"Whens later?"

"2."

"Ah, good cause I have a photoshoot to go to at 2 which is 30 minutes it takes..15 minutes to get there.....so-"

"You gotta go???"

"..yeah"

She sadly smiled at him.

"Bye bye." And she gave him a big hug.

"Bye bye my butterfly." He kissed her head and waved by to Chenle. Then the two started to head back home.

"So that was your brother?"

"Yup."

"He tall."

"I know."

"And intimidating."

"Yeah.....I wonder if the boys are home."

"WE ARE HER-"

What they see is what exactly Tali predicted, Jaemin was sweating on the couch but this time shirtless, Jeno was shirtless, Jisung was on the couch playing games and whining about not getting his favorite snack while Renjun was in his room.

Jeno first noticed them home and went to give a hug to Tali but Tali dogged and ran, while Jeno was after her. Chenle just looked at the chaos and shook his head. Jeno finally caught her while Tali was whinning about him being sweaty, and him laughing at her.

"So where did you guys go?"

"Coffee shop."

"Why?"

"Because we had an unexpected visitor~" Tali sang while she escaped Jenos grasp and sat next to Jisung that now was cuddling up to her. Jaemin raised an eyebrow.

"Who is the visitor?" Expecting it to be one of the straykids members.

"...."

"Tali.." Jeno warned her, they love Tali but they were still protective over her.

"My brother..." she whispered but they all heard her.

".....WHAT" They all said in disbelief. Then Renjun came out of his room.

"Whats with all the noise?"

"TALIS BROTHER CAME OVER."

"WHAT!"

"Yeah, he came over unexpectedly." She nodded her head slowly while make a :[ face.

"Yeah I met him." Chenle commented, then the 4 boys looked over at him with wide eyes.

"YOU WHAT?"

"Did you say anything stupid about us?!" Jisung asked worried.

"Nooo, listen I may make fun of us, but I'm trying to gain trust of Noona's brother okay? He's tall and intimidating." Chenle said while making his eyes big while saying tall and intimidating.

"Noona?"

"Hmm?"

She turned to a curious Jisung.

"How old is he?"

"Ohhh yeah how old is he, like is he older than you or younger??" Renjun continued.

"Uh, he is younger than me-"

"Oh so we are older?"

"No not exactly.."

"So is he adopted?"

"Nope, he is my twin he is just like 12 minutes younger than me..."

There was silence

"HE IS YOUR TWIN??"

"Yeah...."

"By the way."

Everyone looked at Chenle.

"He is coming over Wednesday..."

"Chenle...."

"Yeah?"

"Thats tomorrow..."

"I know.."

".....fuck"

[safetytank]

long-ass floral drama ahead

after the roaring successes of my Anders DragonAge Did Nothing Wrong & How To Dungeons And Dragons Good presentations, the host of the original had a follow-up DTL night and u KNOW a bitch is incapable of not doing Way Too Much while simultaneously leaving everything to the last minute

so here u go, customers i interacted with while working at one of the local florists between 2017-2018, organized and ranked for ur entertainment

commentary added bc most the slides were just a visual component to a textual joke & i won’t make u all sit through a 10-minute video rendition, u got shit to do

every single older guy cheating on his partner follows exactly the same script, it’s like they were made in a lab

some did manage to break away from the mold tho, usually younger guys asking sheepishly if we had “i’m sorry” balloons (we did) or the following 2 honorable mentions for bringing innovations to the field of cheating on ur wife

imagine using a BIBLE VERSE to try and convince your girl she should take u back bc something something FORGIVENESS

the audacity

the second honorable mention is the very first customer complaint my manager handled after he was hired on back in like 2012, which was a guy whose girlfriend had looked at his credit card statement the day after Valentine’s Day and saw he’d sent 13 other one-dozen rose arrangements so he tried to convince her it must have been a credit card glitch & that he’d call and get it sorted out and my manager was like “lmao fuck no you’re not getting a refund, u made ur bed now lie in it asshole”

number 4 is the time a customer wanted an order wired to chicago for a loved one’s birthday and have it be sent to their job and i was like “oh how nice where do they work” and they were like “the leather museum” and me, internally, thinking “wow like cowboy stuff :)”

it was not cowboy stuff

number three i don’t even give a shit about censoring the name on bc if you know Vickie Fucking Fitzgerald in real life there’s no punishment u could enact upon me that would be greater than having to put up with Vickie Fucking Fitzgerald in real life

this slide is an example of a normal message someone might write on a card that comes in a floral arrangement, like 4-ish lines of text on a little plastic fork that says “happy birthday, love NAME 1 and NAME 2″ or “sorry for your loss, love THE LASTNAME FAMILY”

Vickie Fucking Fitzgerald does not know how cards on floral arrangements work

like damn bitch just send a letter at that point jesus christ

fun fact this was also a wire order so the other florist called us on the phone to be like “uhhhhh is this....correct” and we had to be like “yeah” and they went “ok, cool, just checking, uh, so we had to staple 4 different message cards together to fit all of it” and we were like “yeah bet u did lol”

vickie fucking fitzgerald was a million billion years old and if u saw her name pop up on the caller ID you learned to fear it bc it meant you’d be trapped on the phone for between 10 and 20 minutes listening to her entire life story in between trying to take a gd floral order

one time she wanted a funeral basket sent out of state to FUCKING ALASKA and we’re on the east coast of the united states so we were like “ok well there’s a 4 hour timezone difference and it’s 8am here so they’re not even open yet, we’ll have to wait til 12pm when they open up at 8 and then we can wire it for you so we’ll take down your order and call u back when it’s time to wire it”

yall wanna guess how many times this bitch called back to waste our time before 12pm

VICKIE YOU WENT ON FOR CUMULATIVE HOURS ABOUT HOW YOUR HUSBAND WAS DIVORCING YOU AND I’M BEGINNING TO SEE WHY HE MIGHT WANT TO

#2 is of course the dumb horny bullshit, bc it turns out if u order online and the quality control manager isn’t paying A Lot of attention u can slip all kinds of shit into ur card messages (just don’t do the entire fuckin Iliad like VFF up there)

this one gets put in horny jail because of the sheer AUDACITY of contacting someone who has either 1. been broken up with/divorced recently, or worse, 2. THEIR PARTNER FUCKING DIED, and THEN TRYING TO THROW YOUR HAT IN THE RING WITH THAT “I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL, CATCH ME ON THE REBOUND BABY ;)” HORSESHIT

no comment

this one haunts me in the depths of night and will absolutely be the last thing i see when i close my eyes to slough off this mortal coil

this one yall get every single slide for bc the only reason it lives on in as much detail is due to me hopping on twitter immediately afterwards to preserve the memory while it was still fresh (the caller was not the ghost btw, she was a middle-aged acquaintance of the aforementioned Gay Nigerian Royalty Ghost)

shout out to every stock website i skimmed off for this presentation btw

we stan one gay ghost king (THIS JOKE WORKS ON MULTIPLE LEVELS)

WHY DID HE HAVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, YOU ASK

i cannot confirm literally any of this information please do not ask me to i was just paraphrasing what was told to me

here’s where we got into the really wild shit

if u ever worked retail u know this feeling

SO THE DELIVERY MANAGER COMES BACK IN THE DAY OF THE FUNERAL

and he’s like “so i walked in there to deliver the orders and the place was DECKED OUT in traditional fabrics, masks on the wall, everyone was dressed very traditionally, and i was like wow cool guess this guy was important” (he did not know about the International CIA Prosecutor stuff) and someone at the funeral home told him “oh yah we had to go all out bc the deceased’s family WERE A BRANCH OF THE NIGERIAN ROYAL FAMILY THAT HAD FLED TO THE UNITED STATES SOMETIME IN THE 80′S so obviously u can’t have a royal funeral and skimp on the decorations :)”

artist’s rendition

thank u for enjoying this little trip down memory lane also if u recognize urself or someone u know in any of these stories i blocked ur names out for a reason so don’t fuckin come at me ok

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

Will the real Taylor Momsen please stand up?

Think you know Taylor Momsen? Think again. After years of personal turmoil and soul-searching, The Pretty Reckless singer is back with a new album and a brand new outlook on life

On the cover of The Pretty Reckless’ upcoming album Death By Rock And Roll, lead singer Taylor Momsen lies naked on a grave. White hair flowing beneath her, gone are the eyeliner-rimmed raccoon eyes. Instead, it’s a stripped back image, one that radiates vulnerability rather than her usual defiance.

Shot by Danny Hastings, who was also responsible for 2013 album Going To Hell's more provocative cover, Momsen is proud of what it communicates. “It’s an untouched photograph," she tells Louder over the phone from her home in Maine.

"That was my intent, trying to show complete purity and baring myself. I wanted to express that you come into this world with nothing but your soul and that’s all you leave with, too.” She pauses. “I’m pretty proud of it, if I’m being honest.”

That vulnerability seems to be something Momsen is starting to feel comfortable with after a lifetime in the spotlight. Now just 27, she started a modelling career aged just two. She later became known as Jenny Humphrey, the Gossip Girl character audiences loved to hate, before leaving to focus on her music career, forming The Pretty Reckless and releasing their first album in 2010. She must be exhausted, we motion. “I don’t know if I feel older or younger," she replies. "I have experienced a lot. I feel like I have lived a billion lives. Some days I feel like I’m two years old and sometimes I’m 107. It depends on the day."

Speaking carefully but freely, Momsen’s answers are peppered with small, shy laughs. She’s spent the last several months locked down, leaving only briefly to film a music video for recent single 25. “I feel like I’ve been handling it relatively well, but I’ve certainly had my moments. I think everyone has their breaking point. It’s a lot! It’s a really fucked up year!” She pauses, before finding her way to a bright side. “I think this is a really humanising time.

"Everyone’s lifestyle is different, and where you come from and how you’re handling the situation is different, but we are still all in essentially the same space and point in time together.”

The peace in Momsen’s voice is hard won after a painful couple of years for her and her band. The first blow came in 2017, when The Pretty Reckless landed a spot supporting childhood hero Chris Cornell. He died by suicide on the tour, shaking Momsen to the core: “After we were on that Soundgarden tour and we played the last show – when I woke up to the news the next morning I was beyond devastated. I still don’t have words to express how crushing that was. I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t in a good place to be public. I removed myself from the public eye. I cancelled everything. I needed to go home and reflect on what had happened.”

She fell into a deep hole, spiralling and cancelling any upcoming shows. In 2018, feeling ready to rebuild her life, the band started speaking to their friend and longtime producer Kato about the next step. Just as they had pulled themselves together, they got another tragic phonecall: “He’d died in a motorcycle accident. That was the fucking nail in the coffin I guess, for lack of a better term."

“I just went so, so down into this hole of depression and substance abuse. I was a train-wreck and I didn’t know how to get out of it, I didn’t know if I would get out of it. I didn’t care. I had kinda given up on everything. I was like, I don’t even know if I want to do anything ever again.”

Eventually, Momsen had to make a decision: “It was either death or move forward. Luckily I chose to move forward, but it was tough there for a while.” She’s candid about how much she struggled: “I was not well. I returned to music because it was the only thing I knew how to do. It’s the only thing in my entire life that’s always been there and supported me. I started listening to records that I love and started from the beginning again.” She sat down to write, finding that it took no effort – Death By Rock And Roll poured out of her, in part inspired by Kato.

The album is named for a song, the first single, that Kato suggested ten years ago: “He said “write a song called ‘Death By Rock and Roll,’” and we started it and never finished it and nothing came of it. When he passed it became very relevant again, and so we finished it.”

The song starts with his footsteps walking down the hall. She’s insistent that it isn’t morbid, but an homage and an optimistic battlecry: “I have one life and I’ll live it the way I want.” The band wondered whether they could even work without Kato – “the hole and loss was so grand”. They chose to, eventually finding a kindred spirit in the producer Jonathan Wyman. “He is the sweetest, kindest soul on the planet, a great engineer and producer, an amazing friend. We called him up and made the record in Maine,” she says, adding that it was the first album she and bandmate Ben co-produced. “He allowed us to be the train-wrecks that we were at the time and let us go through all the range of all the emotions and was so supportive throughout the entire thing. He really helped us to accomplish something.”

The album itself is classic Pretty Reckless: big guitars, old school rock'n'roll influences, with touches of jukebox Americana. But there’s something different, too, and maybe it’s the feeling of “complete rebirth” that she wanted to imbue it with. Around the middle there’s a turning point, with more vulnerable, personal touches. On 25, Momsen breathily sings of her disbelief that she made it this far: 'and all through my teens, I screamed that I may not live much past 21, 22, 23, 24.'

It’s an honest declaration: “We recorded it right as I turned 25. It’s very much just an autobiographical song of me at my lowest reflecting on my life and trying to put that into music somehow. I’m really proud of that song. I’m proud of the whole record, but I think that song was a shift in my writing.” She calls 25 the first “stepping stone towards that light.”

Those moments of tenderness and reflection are wrapped up, of course, in the in-your-face rock and roll that Taylor Momsen has always loved. Cynics and critics have questioned her authenticity, and that of The Pretty Reckless. But ten years into her music career, it’s pretty clear rock runs through her veins. She’s dorky and obsessive, running through rock'n'roll history from the 60s through the 90s, sheepishly apologising when she hasn’t heard of a newer artist I mention. “I don’t pay attention to new stuff. It’s bad, I should,” she laughs. She references music with an ease that only comes to a true nerd, gushing about rock: “It’s ballsy and cooler than everything else. If you’re not afraid of it, you find the freeing aspect of it. Nothing beats it.” True to its word, Death By Rock And Roll is full of heavy guitars and snarling vocals. A true catharsis.

In the last two years, Momsen feels like she’s aged ten. “They were extraordinarily hard. To the point where I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through them. I think there’s no way to go through that tragedy and trauma and not come out, if you make it through, not as a different person but with a new perspective,” she tells me. Her fight with her mental health is ongoing, but she’s learned to manage it: “If you don’t, it’s very easy to take a wrong turn and that can be hard to come back from.”

She’s found that music has been her one grounding stone, holding her down to earth: “I can listen to music and it brings me back, almost like meditation. It brings me to reality and completely takes me away, too.”

Momsen is reflective, reckoning with thoughts she had long held. Starting her music career as a 17-year-old girl, she was often indignant about the idea that misogyny impacted her possibilities. With time, though, she’s reconsidered: “I was so in denial for so long about sexism, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve realised it exists. Misogyny is a real thing, and it’s unfortunate that it is, but it is. There are a lot of shitty things in life but we have to deal with them, and hopefully we progress as a society and this becomes a topic we don’t ever have to discuss again,” she laughs.

“I’ve recognised it more as I’ve gotten older that there is a boys’ club when it comes to rock'n'roll and it is a struggle to break into that and be accepted and treated with the same respect as if you were a man.”

Recently, Momsen appeared on Evanescence’s Use My Voice, a song Amy Lee wrote when inspired by assault victim Chanel Miller. Momsen is open in her adoration of Lee, who took The Pretty Reckless’ on their first big tour, telling me that Amy’s perspective on misogyny in rock is far “more developed” than hers. “I love Amy, she’s just the kindest person and so talented. We really learned a lot from that experience in so many ways. I have the utmost respect for her, I love her.” She adds that she was impacted by seeing Evanescence when she was nine: “It was very cool to have that be our first proper tour, suddenly I was opening for a band that I had gone to see with my dad. It was very full circle.”

Understandably, after a lifetime of scrutiny, Momsen is at times reticent to answer certain questions, aware of how things can get twisted. She avoids the internet, finding that, “maybe it’s because of how I grew up, but it can get very toxic very quickly.” But she indulges more annoying questions with patience and grace. I ask her, is the 'Jenny died by suicide' line in Death By Rock and Roll a sly reference to her Gossip Girl character Jenny Humphrey? She laughs: “I’ll leave that to the listener’s interpretation.”

She’s willing to explain, however, in far greater depth, why she feels that way: “I think it’s unfair to the listener when the artist explains things directly, I think it takes away from the magic.”

“Once you put the music out into the world, it’s so exciting, but on the other hand it’s almost sad. The body of work you’ve been slaving over is so precious and it’s so yours and so intimate, and suddenly it doesn’t belong to you anymore. It belongs to everyone else,” she pauses, “I think that’s the beauty of music but it’s a strange thing because it doesn’t matter what the song means to me, it matters how it connects to you and whatever you relate to it." She says that hearing Roger Waters elaborate on Pink Floyd lyrics that meant a lot to her once spoiled the magic: “Since then I’ve been very cautious to not over-explain. I really do think that it’s unfair to the listener. It’s not about me, it’s about you, it’s about the audience.”

Death By Rock and Roll is, conversely, a commitment to life. After a year relaxing at home and three years attempting to recover from a constant succession of blows, Momsen is aching to get back out on the road and see her fans again. “I get to go on stage every night in front of an audience who care and connect to music that I slaved over and worked over and hypothetically move them and give them the experience of a lifetime,” she laughs, calling it the “greatest job on the planet.”

“I really miss it. There’s nothing else like it, that high that you get from playing a show, that adrenaline, that feeling. It’s the best drug on the planet. I feel like an addict and I’m going through withdrawal.”

The last few years have taken it out of Momsen, but she has come out of the other side with peace and an enriched perspective. That growth is audible as she speaks, and it’s woven into the fabric of Death By Rock And Roll.

“You can’t beat that feeling of complete rebirth,” she tells me. Maybe for once, she doesn’t seem either two years old or 107, but a very wise 27.

[rhyslucia]

If you're pro-military, you shouldn't vote for trump

"Some 489 national security experts — including 22 four-star officers — have endorsed Joe Biden for president.

'I believe the current administration is a real threat to the republic,' says Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who served as the Army's No. 2 officer before retiring in 2012. 'I had to stand up and be counted.'"

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If you're Christian, you shouldn't vote for trump

"While the president has delivered on some issues of concern to us, such as economic reforms and trade deals, his immigration policies are cruel, undermining his pledges to life and religious freedom. For instance, while we cherish unborn lives, we also value the lives of thousands of children who were separated from their mothers or fathers by the "zero tolerance" policies of the administration at the Mexican border in 2018.

Our commitment to life also compels us to do everything that we can to end human trafficking. The administration has decided to suspend the life saving elements of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, the passage of which evangelical Christians proudly championed under George Bush and the flouting of which evangelical ministries like World Vision and International Justice Mission have decried.

Our convictions on life also are why we strongly believe the United States should continue to be, in the famous words of George Washington, "a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong." Rather than continue the life saving tradition of asylum and resettlement of refugees, the administration has shut out persecuted refugees with its immigration policies."

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If you value American lives, you shouldn't vote for trump

“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” he said in a Feb. 7 call with journalist Bob Woodward. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

“This is deadly stuff,” he said.

At the time, Trump was telling Americans that the U.S. was in little danger and that the outbreak would soon go away on its own.

Asked about those statements in March, Trump said he wanted to downplay the threat. "I wanted to always play it down," Trump told Woodward. "I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic."

In the same interview, he went on to acknowledge the gravity of the threat facing even young adults. "Just today and yesterday, some startling facts came out. It's not just old, older. Young people too, plenty of young people," Trump said.

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

Are you, or have you ever met a woman? If so, you shouldn't vote for trump

Donald Trump, current president of the United States, has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment, including non-consensual kissing or groping, by at least 25 women since the 1970s.[1][2] The accusations have resulted in three much reported instances of litigation: his then-wife Ivana made a rape claim during their 1989 divorce litigation but later recanted that claim;[3] businesswoman Jill Harth sued Trump in 1997 alleging breach of contract while also suing for nonviolent sexual harassment but withdrew the latter suit as part of a settlement for relating to the former suit; and, in 2017, former The Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos filed a defamation lawsuit after Trump called her a liar.[4]

Trump in 2017

Two of the allegations (by Ivana Trump and Jill Harth) became public before Trump's candidacy for president, but the rest arose after a 2005 audio recording was leaked during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump was recorded bragging that a celebrity like himself "can do anything" to women, including "just start kissing them ... I don't even wait" and "grab 'em by the pussy". Trump subsequently characterized those comments as "locker room talk" and denied actually behaving that way toward women, and he also apologized for the crude language. Many of his accusers stated that Trump's denials provoked them into going public with their allegations.

Another type of accusation was made, primarily after the audio recording surfaced, by several former Miss USA and Miss Teen USA contestants, who accused Trump of entering the dressing rooms of beauty pageant contestants. Trump, who owned the Miss Universe franchise, which includes both pageants, was accused of going into dressing rooms in 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2006, while contestants were in various stages of undress. Trump had already referred to this practice during a 2005 interview on The Howard Stern Show, saying he could "get away with things like that" because he owned the beauty pageants the women and girls were competing in.

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

Do you support racism? If not, you shouldn't vote for trump

In unguarded moments with senior aides, President Trump has maintained that Black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality, hindered more by lack of initiative than societal impediments, according to current and former U.S. officials.

After phone calls with Jewish lawmakers, Trump has muttered that Jews “are only in it for themselves” and “stick together” in an ethnic allegiance that exceeds other loyalties, officials said.

Trump’s private musings about Hispanics match the vitriol he has displayed in public, and his antipathy to Africa is so ingrained that when first lady Melania Trump planned a 2018 trip to that continent he railed that he “could never understand why she would want to go there.”

When challenged on these views by subordinates, Trump has invariably responded with indignation. “He would say, ‘No one loves Black people more than me,’ ” a former senior White House official said. The protests rang hollow because if the president were truly guided by such sentiments he “wouldn’t need to say it,” the official said. “You let your actions speak.”

In Trump’s case, there is now a substantial record of his actions as president that have compounded the perceptions of racism created by his words

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

Do you enjoy advances made by science? If so, you shouldn't vote for trump

The Trump administration and 115th Congress have been actively dismantling science-based health and safety protections, sidelining scientific evidence, and undoing recent progress on scientific integrity.

Below is a running list of attacks on science—disappearing data, silenced scientists, and other assaults on scientific integrity and science-based policy. The list provides a representative sample of threats to the federal scientific enterprise.

FDA Now Lacks Authority to Halt Use of Inaccurate Coronavirus Tests

In a move strongly opposed by FDA officials, the agency will no longer use science-based checks to regulate a broad swathe of laboratory tests, including coronavirus tests.

CDC Coronavirus Testing Guidelines Were Modified by Political Officials to be Less Scientific

The White House’s Coronavirus Task Force and HHS changed the novel coronavirus testing guidelines on the CDC website to fall out of line with the best available science.

EPA Refuses to Regulate Rocket Fuel Chemical in Drinking Water

The EPA has officially announced that it will not regulate perchlorate, a common ingredient of explosives and rocket fuel, in the nation’s drinking water supplies.

Fetal Tissue Research Blocked by a Biased Advisory Committee

13 out of 14 NIH grants submitted since September 2019 that involve fetal tissue are likely to be rejected based solely on the recommendations of the Human Fetal Tissue Research Ethics Advisory Board at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

White House Demands Rewriting of CDC’s COVID-19 Guidelines for Schools

Vice President Mike Pence ordered the CDC to rewrite their school opening guidelines for reasons that appeared to be primarily political.

Trump Administration Takes Away Hospitalization Data From the CDC

The Administration mandated that hospitals bypass the CDC and send data on COVID-19 hospitalizations, to a private third party.

Trump Administration Endangered People Evacuating From Coronavirus-Infected Cruise Ship

State Department officials overrode science-based concerns of CDC officials and allowed 14 infected people to board an airplane with over 300 non-infected people

White House Hides Economic Analysis Showing COVID-19 Downturns

The White House will forego the publication of an economic analysis on budget projections in the summer of 2020.

NOAA Fisheries is Restricting the Use of the Words “COVID-19” and “Pandemic”

An official memo, issued by NOAA, stated that the agency’s “preferred approach” is making “no reference to anything COVID related” in public-facing documents.

Trump Administration Buries COVID-19 Information For Religious Communities

White House officials instructed the CDC to delete certain sections of a COVID-19 guidance measure for communities of faith

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Sorry I forgot to copy over my sources, but it's very easy to Google and find, just, all the reasons to not vote for trump. If you're feeling apathetic or like your vote doesn't matter, it does. If nothing else your vote will stick it to the egotistical, thin skinned, racist, misogynistic, hateful, lying, fascist ass-hat. If not for love of the country or hope for the future, get out and vote out of hate of who trump is and what he stands for. #VoteHimOut

[viostormcaller]

So this wasn't originally gonna be that theory post I was gonna make, but fuck it, there's a LOT of evidence here and I need to unload it all. I'm scrapping my old theory in favor of this one. Everything I have to say, I'm saying right here and now. [WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD]

There is something EXTREMELY FUCKING IMPORTANT that I've noticed that's been happening since the first episode of Stories Untold...

Almost (key word being almost because there are some exceptions) every glitch has some sort of VHS filter/old school TV/radio audio or visual effect. They're not the same glitches from before/during KJSE. No, these ones are WILDLY different. But why? In a time period where technology is very modernized, why are the glitches mimicking those of older tech?

Remember in Stories Untold, after the first episode, where the door opens behind him and then after the thunder and lightning we see Jack trapped behind the computer? What if -- and hear me out bc this is a fucking insane theory -- but what if Anti found a way to teleport Jack's consciousness -- not his body, just his mind -- to an era where low-fi tech was used, like the 80s (the opening door symbolic for Anti breaking into Jack's compromised, comatose mind and attacking him in his own "home" so to speak)? So that way the other Egos, living in a modernized era and mostly confined to the limits of reality and physics (uh, aside from Marvin and JJ), can't reach him. He's stuck Jack in an old computer, his consciousness trapped. And that's why a lot of the glitches we see match those of the games with VHS filters on them, because the glitches we see are not coming from a new computer, but an old one.

And so, maybe... Schneep is trying his best to figure out time travel, how to go back to the past, and pick whatever date Jack has been specifically warped to and retrieve him and bring him back?

But... he can't just do it once he figures out the equation. He has to test it first. As a doctor, he should most definitely know you can't just perform a procedure without testing it first. Which is probably why he had a random, seemingly meaningless date --March 25th, 2017, on his screen. Because he must think that maybe, if he goes back just far enough, on a day where nothing happened and Anti was dormant, he can carefully give himself a proper buffer to slowly alter things between then and KJSE. And, if not, he can do the equation again (because technology hasn't changed much since 2017 so this would still be possible to do using the same exact tech), and port back even further, to the date that Jack is stuck in.

And I think someone has already TRIED to get Jack back. You know who it is?

Jameson Jackson. My proof? This line:

Jameson would not say this if he was actually from the 20s like we all think he is. One thing most of us seem to agree on is that JJ has the ability to time travel. I think he tried to go back, miscalculated, and sent himself back way too early in time. This is where Schneep would come in: Trying to test something involving physics without an equation or a proper hold on what it is you're actually trying to do is in general an all-around bad idea. Schneep was in the process of trying to figure out the equation. He doesn't know how to do it just yet, though, coming up with errors, and to make matters worse, he was teleported in the middle of working to who-knows-where. If Jameson and Schneep were to work together, with JJ's magic and Schneep's calculations to guide him, one or both of them can go back to the proper time and retrieve Jack.

But problem! Anti is going to make this hard for them. You think he would take this lying down? Fuck no! He sees what Jameson was trying to accomplish and sees where he failed. Anti got ahold of JJ, puppeting him and trapping him in the 20s. He's stuck there now, as if to rub salt in the wound.

Now, you may be asking: "But Vio, we saw JJ in Try To Fall Asleep, helping Marvin wake Jack up!" To that I say you're right, we DID see JJ, but we didn't see a CURRENT version of JJ. You know what we saw? A screenshot of the only proof we have that JJ exists. You know who we DID see? Marvin. Current, 2018 Marvin. Marvin was trying to let Jack know, through the static, that he needs to find a way out of the era he's stuck in, that he needs to flee, because what happened to JJ, as he shows, has happened to him. And so every glitch with that VHS filter on it is Anti teasing us, letting us know exactly what happened to Jack, and that there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. And that morse code, saying "WHERE AM I"? Jack obviously doesn't know where he is -- he's in an unfamiliar era. His body is still stuck in the present, which is why he CAN hear Chase (even though Chase doesn't know it) and why he can still recieve Marvin's message, but his consciousness is no longer in our time. And this is why time is broken. His body is in one era, his mind in another. That gap, that rift, is more than enough to be catastrophic if something isn't done about it. Not only this, but the only way to effectively keep Jack's consciousness stuck is if he's reliving the same day over and over, his brain stuck on a specific date so he can't move forwards, and all the while dealing with constant, confusing, endless nightmares that keep him disoriented long enough so he can't find a successful way out. And this is why we hear him yelling "Let me out!" In First Winter. He's stuck and is, once again, just like in Say Goodbye and Always Watching, calling out to us for help.

Now, you may be wondering how this all connects to the present and what Marvin has to do with all this, since the teleportation seems to be his doing. What happened to Marvin in between then and now? Why is he suddenly teleporting everyone? What's his goal? Well, he needs them all in one place. They need to stage a series of rescue missions. Find a way to grab JJ back from the 20s, then with the help of JJ's time travel, Schneep's calculations, Marvin's magic and Jackie's abilities -- whatever those may be -- as a defensive measure, they can successfully retrieve Jack from the period in time he's stuck in. And in the process, hopefully figure out exactly what Anti is, how he was created (because even though his creation is our responsibility, there has to be more to it than just that) and how to beat him.

But isn't Chase the protagonist? Where does HE fit into all this? Well, it's simple: Chase is going to be the one who brings Jack back to the present. He has no abilities, meaning all magic placed onto him is an outside force. Nothing within him can interfere with it. A normal, ability-less person like Chase is the PERFECT candidate for time travel. But FIRST, they need to find out what's connecting Anti to Chase and how to sever that connection so that Anti can't interrupt the procedure and interfere, which is why Marvin's birth date was on the eviction notice. He's responsible for the eviction, going by this logic (as he must know what happened to him after Dark Silence, hence the case number): Keep Chase away from the house Anti possessed and get him out of there by any means possible; get him away from his car, where Anti has also connected himself since Chase has been living there (and since cars are pretty high-tech now); and port Chase to a safe location without his phone so that Anti can't connect himself to that, either, and without his whiskey so Chase can keep himself safe and not further impair his ability to make rational decisions.

The Egos, they're not alone in this, either. No, they also have OUR help. We are going to help them. We have influence on how this story goes. We can alter things to turn out for the better. We affect canon, more than canon. After all, without us, Marvin wouldn't exist, and he's playing a crucial role right now -- without Marvin, we may not have a chance at this.

We have one mission, and our mission is this:

Bring him. Bring Jack back home.

[princessanneftw]

The Crown's Erin Doherty on playing Princess Anne – the voice, the hair and the style

By Caroline Leaper, Senior Fashion Editor for Stella Magazine.

As she joins acting royalty for the new series of the hit TV show, the actress discusses her transformation into a princess and just how long it takes to create THAT ’do

Erin Doherty is explaining how much fun it is to pretend to be very, very posh when you’re not. In the lead-up to playing Princess Anne in the new season of the hit Netflix drama The Crown, she says that she spent days practising her best royal voice in mundane scenarios, and offers to order a smoothie at the café we’ve met in ‘as Anne’, by way of demonstration.

‘Anne’s accent, and the whole family’s accent, is so weird,’ she laughs, snapping back into her own south London dialect. ‘It’s alien to me, I’ve never heard anyone else talk like that. My natural voice is the opposite. I watched YouTube videos and would practise when ordering a coffee, or speaking to people I didn’t know. The reactions were brilliant; I’m looking casual with this crazy posh voice coming out of me.’ Indeed, today she looks quite unroyal in her Breton top, khaki trousers and Birkenstocks.

Playing the Princess Royal is Erin’s first major television role. The 27-year-old from Crawley had a small part in the BBC adaptation of Les Misérables this year, and appeared in an episode of Call the Midwife back in 2017, but has otherwise stuck to the stage, graduating from Bristol Old Vic Theatre School to The Young Vic and The Old Vic, after being hailed a rising star of her generation. She is palpably excited about being in The Crown, and refreshingly honest about how she’s ‘winging it’ on one of the most anticipated TV shows of the year. She does, I should say now, deliver an incredibly convincing Anne. When casting director Nina Gold told her she had got the part, she celebrated by having a curry.

The Crown season three will span more than a decade, from 1964 to 1977, warranting an all-new cast to play the ageing royals. 
Olivia Colman picks up from Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth, Tobias Menzies follows Matt Smith’s Duke of Edinburgh and Helena Bonham Carter takes over from Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret. We’ve reached the years when the Queen’s children are coming of age; Erin’s Anne is in her late teens when we meet her, and is full of fantastically feisty opinions about being ‘launched’ as an adult in the Royal family.

We all know the plot, or so we think, as The Crown is based on real events. But the brilliance of the show is that we don’t know which bits of history creator Peter Morgan will zoom in on. Season three might cover the time when, in 1974, Ian Ball attempted to abduct Anne and hold her to ransom for £3 million. (‘Not bloody likely,’ she famously said to her kidnapper, and her father Prince Philip quipped, ‘She would have given him a hell of a time in captivity...’). We might get to see Erin in bridal attire, as Anne’s first wedding to Captain Mark Phillips took place in 1973.

Erin is tight-lipped about which events do and do not make the cut. ‘You know what happens to Anne,’ she says. ‘It’s not hard to guess. But Peter makes these people so fascinating because of the way he focuses on stories which might not have been the headlines everyone remembers.’

Anne’s story, Erin says, was largely unknown to her before she began researching ahead of her audition. ‘Princess Anne, honestly, didn’t mean anything to me,’ she explains. ‘Like a lot of people who grow up in Britain, I think, [the Royal family was] always just there. My family watched the Queen’s speech at Christmas, but other than that, you feel a bit removed from it. I had to research her and then I realised, wow, this woman is awesome. I fell in love with her.’

Anne’s reputation as the reluctant, truculent royal, who was more interested in riding horses than wearing ballgowns and playing the part, has come good of late. Where once the tabloid press dubbed her ‘rude’, ‘dowdy’ and ‘austere’, her dependability, cracking wit and commitment to public duty now see her celebrated as the most hard-working royal each year (she completed 180 days of engagements in 2018, 20 more than Prince Charles). And her never-wavering signature style suddenly chimes with the fashion industry’s new drive for more sustainable shopping. ‘At 69, Princess Anne’s country-chic look and penchant for rewearing couldn’t be more on trend,’ a fellow fashion editor of this newspaper wrote back in August.

Erin discovered pretty quickly that her new ‘family’ is full of eccentric, fun and 
complex characters. In one of her first scenes, she is sitting around a television with the Queen and Princess Margaret for tea, cigarettes and whisky, to watch Royal Family, the famously ill-fated 1969 BBC documentary (the reception to it was so bad that it was banished after airing, with the press suggesting director Richard Cawston’s fly-on-the-wall approach had ‘cheapened’ the monarchy). In real life, of course, that meant cosying up with her new co-stars, a cast of national treasures and Oscar-winners.

‘Scenes like that were surreal, but everyone was so normal on set,’ Erin says. ‘Seeing someone like Helena be so calm and cool has been a gift. What makes it weird is that I then go home to my houseshare and my housemates are like, “Your job is insane, did you see Olivia Colman today?” I obviously can’t tell her that they love her in Fleabag every day, that would be weird. And ultimately I’m trying to be like her daughter and build this relationship up with her, so the main goal for me is to forget about the fact that she is Olivia Colman. My dad is the worst for it, he took a flight and texted me, “I’ve just seen Olivia Colman doing the BA safety advert – tell her she’s great in it.”’

As well as the voice, the other thing to get right when becoming Anne was the hair. Today, Erin’s hair is soft, straight and centre-parted. She says it takes a lot of work to mould it into the Princess Royal’s trademark style each day.

‘The hair takes a solid hour and a half,’ she laughs. ‘Most of that time is spent backcombing and setting it with hairspray. Sometimes if it’s not poofy enough, we have to use a sponge doughnut underneath to hold it up more. I’m no wiser as to how she actually does hers. It must be pretty solid, as she doesn’t change it much.’

In Anne’s youth, Erin points out, the Princess typically only set half of her head, leaving some hair down and smooth at the back. For season four, though, which started filming this month, Erin is expecting to double her time in the hair chair, as Anne switches to her mainstay full halo. ‘It takes even more time if she’s wearing any sort of a hat,’ she groans. ‘I brace myself if it’s a hat day.’

Costume was crucial to Anne’s character. This season of The Crown will revisit the Princess’s fashion heyday in the ’60s and ’70s, when she wore sharp checked suiting and chic flares, and was photographed by Norman Parkinson in the era’s Pucci-esque saturated floral prints. Costume designer Amy Roberts recreates some of Anne’s most memorable outfits – many of which would still look relevant and stylish today.

‘She was so on-trend in the 1960s and ’70s. She figured out her style at that age and she has stuck with it ever since,’ says Erin. ‘I created a Pinterest board of her outfits and I saw this amazing thing of Anne throughout the years, reusing her gowns, sometimes rocking it again 20 years later. I love that about her. She must not get rid of anything.

‘My favourite outfit, though,’ she continues, ‘is the one in the first scene you’ll see from me. The idea is that her parents have just pulled her away from riding and she’s 
angry and stressy, so I’m wearing riding boots and stomping around.’

Erin understood that, of all the looks, this would likely be the one that the Princess Royal herself would favour too. ‘So often she’s in these amazing ballgowns, but you can tell that this would be her preference,’ she says. ‘It just feels more like her. Because of her sporting side, I don’t think she gets enough credit as a style icon. You meet some people who remember that she was fashionable, but a lot are like, nope, she’s just horses.’

Ah, the horses. For Olympic athlete and European eventing champion Anne, riding has been a passion since childhood. For Erin, it was a case of all the equestrian gear and no idea.

‘I’d never been horse riding before filming this, it was the first time I’d ever put on jodhpurs,’ she admits. ‘After my initial meeting with the casting team, my agent rang and was like, “Are you OK with horses?” The part was still in the balance, so I said, “Yeah, of course I am.” As soon as I put the phone down I thought 
I can’t believe I’ve just said that. It’s notorious that actors will say they can do something and learn how later, isn’t it? I was petrified. Luckily I had 
a bit of time, so it’s sorted now and I can ride.’

Horses may not have been on the agenda for Erin growing up, but football was. ‘I was pretty good – I was scouted to play for Chelsea,’ she says. ‘I really hated school, so I lived for the weekends; I’d play football on a Sunday morning, and then in the afternoon I would go to stage school. When I was about 14, the schedule was getting so intense that my dad said I needed to choose one. I still do my keepy-uppies in the garden. I’d love it if someone remade Bend It Like Beckham – I’d be totally prepared for that part.’

Erin is one of three children (she has an older sister and a younger brother), and her mother, a retired medical practice administrator, and father, who works in airline operations, split up when she was four and now, respectively, live in Guildford and Folkestone. She’s living in south-east London in a houseshare with strangers who have become friends, and who work in entirely different fields. She grew up, she says, happily hanging around in Croydon wearing a tracksuit. ‘That was our best town to go to with your friends.’

When The Crown was first released, the original cast found themselves famous around the world. Appetite for the show is especially high in the US where, as Erin points out, ‘they flip for the royals.

‘It exploded for the last cast didn’t it?’ she considers. ‘They’re all pretty high-profile now. It’s mental what could happen, but I’m really not prepared for it and I also don’t think it’s healthy to expect it. Imagine thinking your world is going to change then nothing happens, that would be heartbreaking. I don’t think people would really recognise me in the street anyway, I look quite different when I’m not made-up with the hair.’

Claire Foy and Vanessa Kirby, particularly, benefited from the magazine covers and fashion status that came with the territory, as designers from Erdem to 
Gucci vied to dress them on the red carpet.

‘I’ve never really done a red-carpet event,’ Erin says. ‘I was speaking to my publicist and I think we’re going to get a stylist to help. Honestly, these conversations are so alien to me. It’s actually more intimidating to do these things where you have to be yourself. I can get very anxious and I’m more of an introvert if I’m not acting, so the simpler these things are and the less I have to think about what I look like, the better.’

Her photo shoot with Stella is the first that she’s done, an experience that she enjoyed, she says, because she was able to treat it like playing a role.

In her own life, comfort takes priority. ‘My style is pretty androgynous,’ she says, ‘I’m all about not abiding by gender norms, not because I have any particular view of myself that way, but I like messing things around and trying different things. I’ve always been sporty and I’m drawn to clothes that are baggy. What I hope is that you’ll still be able to see me [even when I’m dressed up on the red carpet] and I’ll look back and think this whole experience was amazing and fun, not a surreal period of my life that I didn’t really live in.’

It will be surreal, probably. But Erin seems to have put in the work to ensure that her portrayal isn’t a caricature, and she has got under the skin of one of the nation’s famously-hardy senior royals. She did weeks of research, listened to the historians on set, nailed that voice and even investigated Anne’s Chinese zodiac sign, just in case it gave a crumb of insight to work with. ‘Anne’s a metal tiger,’ she confirms.

Talented, funny, hard-working and, crucially, not at all starstruck by the royals. It is, likely, exactly what the Princess Royal herself would want from the person deemed tough enough to play her.

[punninglyswift]

I could stay.

Every album has come at the perfect time in my life when I needed it most and because of that the albums make me remember those times, maybe just in flashes, but even if it’s a not so great flashback, I look back on it with happiness and that I genuinely believe is thanks to you, @taylorswift

Since I was a sophomore in high school when Red came out I think I really can explain what I said above for the past 3 albums more clearly...but it goes for debut through Speak Now as well. Let’s do each album, shall we?

Taylor Swift - the album had been released a bit by the time I heard songs from it. I was performing in my school’s talent show and this meant 2 performances because my very catholic elementary school made us audition to see if what we were doing was appropriate and to plan out the order I guess. I was playing classical piano, which I’ve done since I was 3. There was a girl named Carly who was 2 years older than me and she was auditioning with a song I’d never heard. It was called Our Song and it was catchy as HELL. (My fifth grade self knew what was UP) She sounded great too, so she got into the talent show but rumor had it they didn’t want the word “kiss” in a song that was to be performed (remember the “very catholic” part? Yup.) - so I heard another catchy as hell song but this time it was one where my mind AND my heart went, “wow....that’s how I feel about life” and it’s still accurate to the way I feel about that PERFECT song today: that song was A Place in this World. I was going into middle school. Middle school, high school...we can all agree we see their problems...bullying is unfortunately real. With your self titled debut album I finally had songs I discovered on my own, nothing against the music my brothers always played for me (Coldplay, Green Day, the Foo Fighters, The Lonely Island - yes I’m on a BOAT, motherf****** I’m sorry I get really into it) - I had anthems thanks to you, I also thought HARD about love cause even at that age I crushed on guys a lot but all in my head because boys are weird. Still are. Onto Fearless....

Fearless. Soon after the talent show, I mean a year or two, my mom got me Fearless after a piano jury. I flipped through the lyric booklet. It was like reading a prize winning book. (Ayyy Grammys foreshadowing) and the SONGS...I was in middle school. 7th grade I believe...and guys would play stupid but hurtful pranks on me and I had a great group of friends but the hurt definitely got to me...but I had an album telling me that yeah sure- “they might be bigger, but we’re faster and never scared..you can walk away, say we don’t need this; but something in your eyes says we can beat this”. I had an album that gave me a song my mom and i smile so big during cause without my mom and without our little mom & daughter trips downtown (dc) or to New York in the holidays, or just taking a walk or browsing in random stores, I don’t know where I’d be but I know my happiness wouldn’t exist. I again had anthems as well as slower songs that taught me about love. And little did I know Fifteen would be THAT song I needed for the high school journey that was growing closer and closer.

Speak Now. That powerful fairytale of an album written entirely only by you, Taylor. I was about to enter high school - an all girls high school. Also around this time I started watching SNL every week thanks to your time as host AND musical guest during the Fearless era and watching that show is a favorite Saturday night activity now. I used to (i still kinda do this) have to convince myself whatever feelings i felt re: mainly crushes were valid instead of just thinking they were. I always thought I was being irrational. I’d think up scenarios in my mind of spilling the feelings and having it go perfectly. Those scenarios never happened in real life. I guess I told myself I wasn’t good enough for whoever I liked to like me back. Unfortunately that mindset still exists...I tend to go, well this kind of guy would never...and it hurts. And I’m hurting myself by doing that. So Speak Now was the epitome of you, Taylor, being the person who can perfectly illustrate whatever feelings we all have, but using your own examples. I’d need TED talks on feelings and owning your heart and Speak Now was that 24/7 TED talk. Especially with Enchanted. “The words I held back” there are so many words I want to say to honestly every guy I’ve had an actual crush on. (I specify “actual” because one of the first crushes I had turned out to be a douchebag! Fun!!!) and then again with Mean, that helped me and still does when I encounter bullies. I encountered bullies (and cyberbullies! FUN!!) in middle & high school a LOT. But I did grow to be “big enough so they can’t hit me” - I’m still quite short, but you get my point. And Never Grow Up was again a reality check for me growing up, and the lyrics were so real that sometimes I couldn’t listen to it when it came on shuffle or on the CD because sometimes you can’t deal with that reality. But it’s a favorite song and I’m forever grateful it exists. Long Live is the song that is a full on letter to the friends and family members who have helped me grow and become who I am and weren’t temporary and didn’t make me feel bad about myself. They all have crowns in my opinion. (Lover - Out August 23) Speak Now was also the first TOUR of yours I attended and I remember being speechless seeing you rise out of the stage. And hearing your voice telling me “I don’t think you should wait, I think you should speak Now” - truly those words are the reason I have in the past several years told guys how I’ve felt. It’s never worked out but telling them lifted weights off my shoulders and it’s never been a negative experience. Seeing that tour live in all its theatrical, magical goodness made me the happiest person ever.

Red. I have a weirdly clear memory of driving to target with a friend after school let out in 2012 to buy a copy of Red before rehearsals started for Hairspray, the show we were doing that fall. I didn’t have a way to listen to it at school yet so I just kinda held it and stared at it. True story. To me, Red was the Speak Now that dealt with bullies and was better for it and came out stronger than ever. Red again was like wow does Taylor know exactly what I’m feeling? It wasn’t even a QUESTION. I Almost Do - again with the speaking now. And the line in Treacherous - “I can’t decide if it’s a choice, getting swept away” is everything I feel all the time SWEPT into a BEAUTIFUL SENTENCE. And with your words since the very first album I’ve felt like wow she seems like my best friend. And it’s beautiful.

1989. While it goes for every album, this was the first time I remember having a lightbulb moment of holy crap I needed this album at this moment as a 17 year old driving to college with my mom. At least..i heard Shake It Off while attempting to listen to the livestream on my phone. That’s kinda what college is, or what it can be - shaking it off, a new you but the same you. Literally though - you shaped that beautiful album around finding yourself when you didn’t have to necessarily in love in a big city. My city was Chicago, but the sentiments are the same. (Go ramblers!!!) It was tough, adapting to a big school and making all new friends - and I didn’t really have an actual group of friends until sophomore year. Now I can’t get rid of them and that’s the best thing, I love em with my whole heart. 1989 still helped me be like oh these feelings are valid, and like “god I’ve felt that way more than once...thank goodness for Taylor” - referencing specifically I Wish You Would - cause I didn’t have in depth conversations about anything like that with anyone. 1989 gave me dancy, positive, self confident vibes and I rode that positivity train through college.

reputation. Speaking of riding a positivity train through college...there were low points along that journey. reputation came in 2017, during my senior year of college. Going out into the “real world”. The year before was 2016 - a year that gave me unforgettable study abroad experiences and honestly helped me grow so much in happiness and in general - I actually spent that summer canvassing and phone banking for Hillary Clinton, I was so fired up. That fire went out for a brief, heartbreaking moment in November 2016. I cried all night, and then each night after that for 3 days; sometimes calling my mom and grandma, sometimes just remembering how hopeful I was. And how far it felt like we had to go. The fire came back, and I was angry but empowered. Cue senior year. I was taking all the classes I loved and writing kickass papers about political violence as well as the amazing book Gabriel by Georges Sand which challenges gender norms, and I felt ready but also not ready for whatever was next after graduation come May 2018. November 2017, réputation came into our lives. Like 1989, it was a well rounded story I needed to propel me through whatever came next, but different...I knew I needed to have more of a “take no shit” attitude and rep really helped me with that. Hell, I definitely credit listening to I Did Something Bad on my way to a morning class with helping me be brave enough to raise my hand because I KNEW what I had to say and I KNEW it was good enough and I just HAD TO be BRAVE enough to say it. “I’m doing better than I ever was...” = same way I felt and honestly that’s in a large part thanks to you.

So now I’m not in school anymore, I graduated in May 2018, and I’m still trying to find a place in this world. I live with some of my best friends in Chicago, I’m trying to work on a campaign soon, currently working retail at a crafty store, and when I don’t think I’m going anywhere I remember that I have to own who I am and embrace my creativity and my passions - and take the occasional break to help plan my friend’s 23rd birthday party which has themed everything so gotta get to work on that. And Lover? There’s NO doubt in my mind it will be any different in terms of coming at the perfect time in my life. And I know this: it’ll be magical. Thank you Taylor. Sorry this is an actual essay, I love you always.

- Isabelle

@taylorswift

[journeynaut]

This decade I went from being 14 to 24. From my understanding this means this decade has pretty much shaped my tastes, beliefs, and personality more than any other decade will. It’s also an important decade because at the beginning of the decade I felt like a real person, and now I feel like a ghost that occasionally almost inhabits the same space as this flesh prison.

Anyway, here’s a list of games that shaped me in reverse chronological order for maximum pretension. Spoilers and typos will be abundant. 

Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018)

I like little, mostly irrelevant prepping activities in games. Currently, I’m playing Death Stranding, and my Norman Reedus always puts on a cap. Mostly to cover up his weird little pony, but also just as a thing to do to focus before a mission. Like, listening to Friends in the Armed Forces by Thursday before the helicopter lands. Like, grabbing your wallet in the morning. Or, like in Arthur Morgan’s case, putting on a bandana before being a nasty crime boy.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true. I always play characters as good and pure as possible. But after I got done doing my good boy crimes I could always return to camp. Sure, camp was always moving as we ran, but the people were there every time. The world of RDR2 is beautiful, I think the characters were my favorite thing about this game. The entire plot was that camp, the outcasts in it, and the dreams they followed. They fused a cowboy simulator with a cult simulator. It says, don’t worry, friend - just keep going and Eden is the next job.

This is a game where you give, break, and are broken in pursuit of a lie. This is a game where your perfect life never arrives and the simple pleasures you find are taken. In the end, you only do whatever little bit of good you can, thank your horse for carrying your weight and the weight of everything you carry, and lay down to go peacefully.

Night in the Woods (2017)

This last decade took my memory from me. When I was a freshman in college taking an intro psych class, the class took a short term memory test. I got second in the whole class. Now I’m sitting here trying to remember who said what in this game. But regardless, one character says something like, “Getting older is your list of first times growing shorter while your list of never agains grows longer.” Heavily paraphrased, probably.

I think there’s a Bojack Horseman episode where he says, life is a series of closing doors, isn’t it? In our modern capitalist hell, very few don’t get trapped. This game understands that sometimes you can’t get out, and sometimes you just need to break some fluorescent bulbs at a dumpster. Or in my case, procrastinate on my life by playing this game while everything fell apart around me.

World of Warcraft: Legion (2016)

Tanking in WoW was my most fulfilling gaming experience of the decade. I wasn’t great, but I could be good occasionally. There are a few moments of genuine pride I can remember. Which, now that I think back, might be some of the last times I felt pride.

I had never played WoW or even an MMO before Legion, but everyone has to get into an MMO when they’re in college, right? So I got into it for about a year, and I played it way too much. So much so, I lost myself after I stopped, both personally and in games. It was hard for me to stick to any game for a long time after I stopped playing, and it honestly still is.

It wasn’t the tanking or the pride or the addictive design elements that kept me coming back - it was the people. This became a Return To game for me. Whether I was playing seriously or just goofing off, I would return to the trans mog shop in Stormwind. There were a few players who would gather consistently and talk between queues. I barely knew anything about these people but I spent hours there with them. There was my healer and best friend who I played with every day. There was the carpet layer from Hawaii. There was the player we always assumed was a young girl but turned out to be some rich man? And behind the anonymity of my characters I was able to comfortably interact with the regulars and the passerbys and mess with the assholes. I learned that pretending to be an actor playing someone else is the best way to talk to people.

Even though I barely knew these people they became friends in the modern way people become friends where you see them every day, but are also shocked to find out any detail of their personal lives. I often wonder what happened to all the people I played with. I never said bye to them or anything. I wasn’t planning on never playing again. One day it just happened.

I’ve often thought about playing again. When WoW Classic came out I thought about playing it. I’ve even thought about getting into FF14. But you can never go home, right? Some things that were good can’t be good again.

Inside (2016)

God, this is extremely my shit. I don’t have anything touching or personal to say about this. Every moment of this game is so tight and perfect, and the aesthetic is spot on. Run on, my child, go be one with your blob friends.

Or maybe I just like it because I too am a disgusting blob monster haunted by a dreary dilapidated landscape.

Firewatch (2016)

The plot of this game is messy overall, but I think about the character interactions all the time. This is a perfect example on how good dialogue isn’t realistic. It should be what we want reality to be. Henry and Delilah have such a believable relationship, strictly because I wanted to believe in it. I wanted to believe two people could always be so perfect and so witty.

And Firewatch just won’t let you believe in it. At the end you can beg and beg for Delilah to stay, and she won’t. The game gently pats you on the head, and says, sometimes people are too broken to be perfect with each other.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

The PC version lets you set custom music to play as you drop in from the helicopter for your missions. This led to me hearing the beginning to Thursday’s Friends in the Armed Forces god knows how many times. Sure, maybe a 2009 emo song blaring out of a helicopter in 1980’s Afghanistan doesn’t exactly fit, but the mood fit. And it helped set the mood for the routine of going on missions.

Routine is what this game does so well. It’s an incomplete game with a not great story, and it fails at being a good Metal Gear Solid game. But the routine and mechanics blend together to create one of the best playing action games ever made. I never got tired of walking around my base, of boarding my helicopter to go drop into the desert, of launching random animals into the air with reverse parachutes.

This game also led to me formulating my Return To/Go Out theory of games, which I believe most games fall into. An old Mario game is a great example of a Go Out game. You never return anywhere; the princess is always in another castle. The Animal Crossing games maybe exist as the perfect example of a Return To game because you never even go out anywhere. You’re always there, where you mean to be. MGSV falls mostly on the Return To side of the spectrum, as it focuses on building up and managing your base and the people on it, something I’ll always be a sucker for.

Her Story (2015)

This is one of the last games that made me feel smart. As a person who feels chronically dumb as shit, that’s pretty rare. Sure, everyone in my life, and the university I went to, and all my grades say I’m not dumb. But we know that’s just because I tricked them all, and I’m actually a complete fool. But diving into this game’s wild and twisting non-linear story made me feel like a detective.

The Witcher 3 (2015)

Move out of the way Skyrim. The Witcher 3 was actually the best fantasy game of the decade. I played through all of The Witcher 2 in preparation for 3. I became so invested and involved with this universe. I feel like I should have so much more to say about this. In what was a very turbulent year of my life, this was the perfect escape. The world, writing, and characters are all so beautifully done. The DLC provides an emotional finale for the story. I never understood Gwent? But I did everything else in this game, and I still think about escaping into it again.

Also Triss for life.

Also also god, that show sucks shit though, doesn’t it?

Life is Strange (2015)

I love everything about Life is Strange. I love the melodrama, the stilted dialogue, the songs that still make me cry. I love the weird high school that resembles no high school ever. I’m not too much of a fan about what it says about me as a person though.

See, I let the entire town die to save Chloe. The crazy part is that I didn’t even think Max and Chloe were good together. When the game gave me a chance to kiss Chloe, I didn’t take it. I thought they had been apart too long, that they had too much personal baggage, that they were going through too much. But when the moment came I couldn’t let her go. I let the entire town get blown away to save her.

Transistor (2014)

Hey, do you want a cyberpunk, post-rock fueled, murder revenge love story?

Transistor had such an impact on me that Red and the Transistor are still my phone’s wallpaper and lockscreen. It’s the game I always mean to get around to playing again, but year after year I don’t. Maybe one day I will, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself about most things in life.

Regardless, this game acts as a perfect spiritual sequel to the studio’s first game, Bastion. In Bastion, everyone wanted to live in the perfect world that had been, but was now destroyed. In Transistor, the world exists - it’s there and could theoretically become whatever people want, and yet, no one wants to live in it. You’re not even trying to save the world; you want escape as much as anyone else. You just need revenge for the small part of your personal world that has been taken.

Also, at the end you get to basically fight yourself, and I’m such a sucker for when games have you fight someone with the same powers as you.

Gone Home (2013)

I had never been in love when I played this game. I thought I had, but being a teenager is dumb and weird. Of all the first times I wish I could experience again in games, this is up there on that list. Maybe even the top. Mainly because I understand love now, and I think it would make this game hurt more.

Both times I played Gone Home I sobbed, and I’m certain if I played it again, I would sob again. This was the first game to impact me in that way. As I’ve grown more and more dead inside, as I feel less and less, I seek those experiences out. Why yes, I would like to play whatever the sad new indie game is. Why yes, I would like to listen to that song that makes me emotional over and over. That scene in a show made me cry? Yes, I will absolutely watch it again.

Gone Home, like Spec Ops, taught me so much about what games could be and do. In a decade of walking simulators, Gone Home still stands out as one of the best.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf (2013)

Animal Crossing is the best goddamn game series of all time, and this is the best one because you can stack fruit.

Hotline Miami (2012)

I have never done cocaine in the 80’s, but that’s pretty much this game, right? This murder simulator game does something to your body on like, a visceral level. Imagine it’s like your 20th attempt on a level. Your hands are shaking with adrenaline, but you have a careful plan. It immediately goes bad so you just panic and start running around knifing fools and it somehow works out anyway. That’s the thing that makes this work so well, and also the thing the devs absolutely did not understand when they made Hotline Miami 2.

You know what else makes this game great? The vibes. Miss me with your vibe checks if you’re not putting off Hotline Miami vibes. It’s the trippy and psychedelic story, it’s the way you have to walk through the bodies of everyone you just murked at the end of the level, it’s the game constantly asking if you feel good about what you’re doing. Hotline Miami and Spec Ops made me reevaluate how I thought about violence in games. Which isn’t to say I don’t play violent games, just that I think more about what the games are asking me to do.

Borderlands 2 (2012)

My experience with Borderlands was different than how most people played it. I didn’t really uh, have friends, so I played it alone. But it wasn’t an inferior experience. I got to play my haiku spouting sniper at my own pace. All the guns were mine. I could laugh at the dumb jokes as long as I wanted.

Hey wait, actually, is this game still funny? If I thought it was extremely funny originally, would it still hold up? Like, Mr. Satan being Mr. Torgue still has to be funny, right?

Anyway, most of the DLC for this game is pretty mediocre or just straight up bad, but the Tiny Tina DLC is some of the best DLC of the decade. Those madmen just made D&D in a goofy ass game where guns yell at you when you shoot them, and somehow made it an emotionally resonant end to the story.

Spec Ops: The Line (2012)

We all really missed what this game was trying to tell us, huh? It constantly asks you if you’re okay with the dehumanization of minorities and the glorification of imperialism and the military that runs rampant through games. Here we are going into 2020, and goobers are still trying to argue games don’t have politics in them. Anyway, gamers are dumb as shit, and we should have listened to Spec Ops more.

Portal 2 (2011)

This came out at the beginning of this decade, huh? Guess I gotta break out the walker and sign up for AARP. Anyway, being funny is hard. I mean, I’ve never managed to be funny so I assume it’s hard. I mean, sometimes my life is funny in a cosmically ironic way, like I’m god’s personal clown and not in on the joke.

Anyway, anyway, the puzzles are fantastic, and Portal 2 is funny as hell in a way I’m pretty sure would still hold up. The humor is definitely more overt than the original Portal, but Cave Johnson is a god tier character. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, and I still remember Cave Johnson lines from like, 8 years ago.

Minecraft (2011)

*twirls mustache* Not to sound like a hipster, but I started playing Minecraft in 2010 before release. My first world seed was the most perfect seed I ever encountered. It was a large island, the size of which, I never encountered again. Like, it was big enough that it felt like I had to branch out to explore, but also small enough that I could know it all. Playing on that island was the most pure experience I had with Minecraft, in retrospect. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I didn’t realize that actually everyone else was way better at building things and playing the game than I was.

But eventually you get bored of everything, right? So I found a server and joined the forums. Over time I grew a bit bored of the game, and eventually realized I wasn’t very good at it. But I stuck around on the forums. Like, for years. Playing on that server, even as my time actually playing lessened, and being on the forums defined my teenage years.

I had a complicated relationship with the forums and the game, though. I’m not good with people. That’s just something I’ve had to learn to accept. But I’ve actually gotten better over the years. Back during my teenage years I was awful with people. I was antisocial, standoffish, pretentious, etc. I also felt like I couldn’t get anyone to like me, which I now realize was my own fault. There was a group of players I wanted to be a part of, but also could never really break into. The game and forums became what I was experiencing and also everything I couldn’t experience. It’s what I did every day but also what I was missing out on. Even today my thoughts on Minecraft are complicated. That one song, you know the one, always makes me emotional.

I originally had a different end planned to whatever this list is. It was gonna be a pretentious ending about how a few years ago I tried to go back and play Minecraft but just couldn’t because you can never go home again. I was gonna talk about my first world seed and the optimism and exploration I experienced, and it was obviously gonna mimic my decade. Because, you know, pretentiousness. But I can’t do that now.

See, I just looked up that server, and I found out it’s still active. The website looks like when I left. The same people are in charge. It’s like a time capsule. Due to a lot of personal turmoil, I asked for a server ban and a forum ban to stop myself getting back on in January 2015. That was when my time with Minecraft came to an end. But here’s the crazy thing: a couple of weeks ago, almost 5 years after I quit, someone posted on my forum profile that they missed me. And we weren’t even close friends, I thought. I mean, no one liked me, right? And it wasn’t just this one person. Multiple people had left similar messages on my profile over the years.

Normally I don’t like when people have memories and perceptions of me. Like, hell is other people, right? But this kind of hurt my insides deep down, like nothing has in a while. I don’t quite have words for it because it’s so personally tied to how I felt about Minecraft, and thus the forums, and thus a lot of this decade. Does this mean that multiple people I’ve encountered over the decade miss me? That some amount of people greater than zero miss me not being around?

Anyway, this has gotten off track, but also maybe it hasn’t. The point I was trying to make was to make a pretentious list about how silly little things we do in our free time can affect us years later in ways we won’t realize and sometimes can’t understand.

In conclusion, games track better with the most personal moments of my decade better than almost anything. Games are great. The people who play them are often terrible. Video games forever.

[uh-velkommen]

A Speech About Skam for my Public Speaking Class

*note: has been dumbed down for disinterested americans and a 5 minute time limit*

When was the last time you’ve seen an accurate portrayal of Ramadan being celebrated in the media? Or an latina casually slipping spanish words into english conversations? When was the last time you’ve seen teenagers in t.v. shows look and act like actual teenagers? Most of the time when people are facing hardships in life, they look for solace in television shows or youtube videos. We as humans like to know that we are not alone in what we feel and go through. However, turning towards the media for such things has proven to be useless for marginalized people. Movies and television often fail to give the underrepresented a proper voice. When I was in highschool, struggling to understand why a love interest constantly wandered in and out of my life without remorse, I never thought that I would see a character from a web-series deal with the exact same experience. I never thought that I would come to understand said love interest because of something I had seen online. Something of which they knew nothing about. When I came across a Norwegian web series/tv show called Skam, I realized that I haven’t been giving enough attention to what I would see on t.v. I never gave thought to the possibility of seeing people I could relate to, deal with issues that I have dealt with. Skam was a show that had the realism and representation that a lot of media lacks nowadays. It showed me characters who used modern slang and celebrated cultural occasions. It showed me a diverse cast of African Americans, Middle Easterners, Latinx and Hispanic people, Every letter in LGBT including P. It showed me Muslims and Christians co-existing. I saw women and men of all shapes and sizes. It was eye opening.

Skam is created by Screenwriter, Julie Andem. Andem wrote, produced, and directed the show which aired season one of four in September of 2015. The show is basically a drama centering around a group of kids who go to the same high school. Andem's goal when coming up with this show was to give teenagers an accurate portrayal of what it is like growing up in the center of Norway. She had students who actually attended Hartvig Nissen High School (grades 11-13) audition regardless of their previous acting experience and then proceeded to use the school as a set location. Skam talked about many real topics that teenagers deal with such as, Relationships (Sexual, Romantic, Friendships, Family), Substance abuse, Eating disorders, Sexual assault, Feminist ideology, Religion, Intersectionality, Homosexuality, and Mental illness.

The way the show was presented was very different from what Norwegians were used to. Andem made the show as interactive as possible to allow viewers to fully immerse into the stories even to the point where normal people would mistake the actors for their characters on the street. Each of the characters had actual social media pages that were updated frequently either to progress the story or to add more depth to a character. The show would also release screenshots of conversations and group chats the characters would have with each other as a way to give the viewers access to the characters’ phones. Lastly, rather than making the viewers wait until the end of each week for a new episode, we would get clips throughout the week. The clips would correlate with real time so if something important were to happen to a character at 1 o’clock p.m. we would get a clip at 1 o’clock p.m. Usually the monday through thursday clips would act as build up to something dramatic that would happen on friday. Weekend clips were rare but whenever they were released, they wouldn’t contain plot altering details. The point of all this was to allow the viewers to coexist with the characters and it gave us a sense that we were part of the story.

The show became internationally popular during the third season in mid 2016. It was about a 16 year old boy’s struggle with religion and his sexuality. Because the show was only targeted towards norwegians, non-norwegian viewers could not get access to the show as easily. This led to people finding ways to save the episodes and photo releases, translate them to english or add english subtitles, and then re-release them through hard to find websites to avoid copyrights. After the show blew up all over the world, Andem, unable to keep up with such fame, decided to release one more season as a finale to the show in 2017. However, that was not the last time we would hear of Skam. In early 2018 there had been talk of making the show more accessible to it’s international viewers. This was done by creating carbon copies of Skam, set in different countries. The characters and plot lines would stay the same and the new show-writers, with Andem’s permission, attempted to maintain the essence of the original Skam and it’s realism. The best part of these remakes, is that they were adjusted to fit their countries’ cultures. Season one of the Skam remakes all aired throughout 2018, taking place in Austin, Texas. Paris, France. Rome, Italy. Madrid, Spain. Berlin, Germany. Antwerp, Belgium. And Utrecht, The Netherlands. Funnily enough, each of the remakes have become subject to the Skam treatment in which the episodes were all taken and translated by random polylingual citizens of said countries.

Skam and it’s counter parts have been excellent at displaying what it is like to be a teenager in today’s culture and society. Even if you find that you have aged out of its target audience you can still find comfort in the episodes. Older people have mentioned the nostalgia they feel from watching. The overall message that Skam has pushed to convey is Alt Er Love. Norwegian for, Everything is love. The show has taught us to accept everyone for their differences. It has shown us how to overcome our struggles and to seek help in others. Skam was truly created for everyone and that is why it will always have a place in my heart.

[futurewriter2000]

I am finally going to say it.

Lately it hasn’t been easy for me. It was never easy for me but somehow I managed to be positive about it. 

Let’s start at the begining. 

Year 2000 a girl was born. A girl who went home in a blue suit because everbody expected a boy. They expected my parents to have a son but guess they were all disappointed at that. 

Year 2002 she found herself her first friend who became her best friend for the next 11 years of her life. That same year her father’s mother passed away and her father wasn’t the same ever again. He was attached to his mother and I believe she came second place after himself, into loving. 

From all my years in Kindergarten, I hated it the most. I was shy and quiet. Kids used that against me. They bullied me and made fun of me. That’s why I kept to my corner and drew but I never thought drawing would ever get me in trouble. See, I was afraid of my father. Everytime my mother left for work, I cried. Everytime I went to kindergarted, I cried. Everytime my father came to get me, I cried becasue he smelt of alcohol and cigarates. Kids in kindergarten made fun of me. I hated kindergaten the most.

2006 another girl one month older than the first girl moved into the neighbourhood. They became close friends and she made the girls- my childhood worth remembering. But there was this one problem with me. I was overweight. You see I had lunch in school and every time I came home, my father forced me to eat. He used to shout at me for not eating the whole plate. He shouted at my older sister (by three years) whenever she couldn’t eat the whole plate and he stormed out of the kitched, smashing the chairs on the floor because two kids couldn’t eat a full plate. I couldn’t eat a full plate but I remember how terrified I was of my own father, so I forced myself to eat the full plate.  As a kid I was never bothered with that but my mother kept saying to stop eating so much but my father encouraged me on. They used to fight over my weight. 

My First Grade was good but for some odd reason nobody could remember my name. Of course, my name was different from any other names they’ve heard. Like Sara, Katja, Maja, Petra... normal names. Mine was odd and I have always hated it because it was odd. Who can remember and pronounce the name such as mine. So I was a fat, shy kid in Middle school. An easy target for bullies. I was terrified most of the time. Going to school and going home. My parents argued a lot. I fought with my sister a lot. It was just...more bad memories than bad...that’s why I don’t remember them much. Because I don’t want to. 

2011 came and it was the most horrible year. My mother’s father was sick and it had been tough on my mother. He raised her because her mother, my grandmother, used to beat her when she was young. When my grandparents divorced, my mother and uncle stayed with my grandfather. It wasn’t easy since my grandfather had a tendency to be quite strict and old fashioned. He had a short temper and thin nerves. He terrified me but now that he’s gone, I realized I loved him. I loved the way he sat under his linden tree with his cat and that is a great memory to have. My grandfather and his Jack. Though he was very ill and his sickness took him quick but it took him in my birth month. Instead of being happy that my birthday is coming soon, I was terrified of what might happened. I only wished he wouldn’t die on my birthdays. That didn’t ease things. He died six days after my birthday. My mother was never the same.

More fights came after. I remember this one night when my dad was so drunk he- he lost control. I was in the living room with my mother and sister when he was shouting on the top of his lungs. I was petrified, along with my mom and sister. He started throwing dishes out of the dishwasher. He threw the lunch over the balcony which I had to go get the other morning. I could never look at him the same. Every night since then, whenever my father goes drinking I stay awake and wait. I am afraid, every night.

2013 came and I got sick. I had my apendix removed. I remember that day. I remember I couldn’t eat. I saw the food in school and I couldn’t eat. I came home, my tummy was hurting and I told my mom that very same day it did. She told me to go to school. (By then...for years my mom and dad haven’t been sleeping together in the same room. He kept sleeping in the living room). She was sleeping in my bed with me that day. I went to school, couldn’t eat lunch in school or lunch at home. I went to sleep but I couldn’t really fall asleep becasue it hurt. The next thing I new I went to the doctors and they diagnosed me wrong. They sent me home but it got worse. Fever was high and I was shaking. I don’t remember much but I was waiting in the hospital for 4 hours. My dad didn’t even bother to wait with me and my mom. He went drinking that very same day. I was in pain and he went drinking. That hurts me still. I had two surgeries in one whole month. The doctor said I was strong and she said I could have died perhaps if I was a day late. My mom lost it. 

2015. First day of high shool. I was put in a class without any friends. All my friends were put in one class but they threw me in the other. Funny thing, the 4th year couldn’t even spell my name right. I was alone most of the time but then I became friends with the wrong crowd. They made me come out of my shell but they also corrupted me. A good girl turning bad. What a cliche. But I wasn’t bad. I was dumb and naive. 

2016. Second year of high school. All my friend from first year had to repeat the first year while I went into the second one. We distanced ourselves from each other and I was again, friendless. I barely rememeber that year because most of the time I was sleeping. I slept through the whole year, crying myself to sleep each night. I wanted to kill myself, many, many times. To see how tempting it was to just...leave. But music pulled me out. And I am thankful for those artists that did pull me out. 

2017 was worse despite the good summer I had. I went to my first concert, was taken to my first McDonalds and finally had a pleasure of seeing my beautiful capital city. See, in all seventeen years of my life, I haven’t seen my capital city or was even taken to the shopping center there. My father never wanted to take us.  Third year was okay. See, that year I fell in love with one of my classmates. He changed during the summer and he came out of his shell as well. I still feel butterflies in my stomach whenever I think of him. He was my escape for a while. 

Until 2018. That year was crucial. I remember I didn’t sign up to trip to Spain with my class but the day they had to leave, everybody was happy but me. The night before my father came drunk home. He came home drunk up his ass, thinking my mom was cheating on him with his best friend. My mom was many things but she wasn’t a cheater. She was loyal and she still is. He grabbed my mother by her neck and started squeezing. I remember I couldn’t breathe for a moment when that was happening. My sister, skinny as she was, grabbed my father from behind and pulled him away. You see, my sister was a softie but when she was upset or angry, she had this way of her adrenalin coming through her veins and suddenly she became the Hulk of her own. I remember going for my mother and comforting her, checking if she was breathing, chechink if she was okay. Of course, physically she was...mentally not so much. My dad grabbed a knife and put his hand on the table. He shouted: “IF I AM A CORRUPT MAN, THEN LET GOD HELP ME CUT MY FINGER OFF! Do you want me to cut my finger off!” And my sister, the Hulk, came rushing to pull him away. I remeber the next day I woke up. My head was heavy, my face was completely motionless. I couldn’t smile or move.  I was numb but I still went to school. I remember my classmate, a girl, asking me if I was okay. After I said no, she ignored me. Different was with my other classmate, a guy. We were good friends and he kept looking at me, it was history class, and he went like. “Are you angry at me?” and surprised as I was to hear him ask that, I said no. I could never be angry with him. And he asked me. “You haven’t smiled all day. It’s weird not seeing you smile.” and I put a fake smile on, the largest my numb face could stretch and I knew he saw right through it but God knows I am convicning. “I’m fine.” I said. He did make my day better. For some odd reason I felt like he cared. My mom left August that year. She did cheat on my dad but after the strangling. I couldn’t blame her. My father is a difficult man and a bastard.

I remember my mom saying that she couldn’t come back here for what she did but she promised me that as soon as she get a big enough apartment she would take me with her. I held on to that promise but I think she didn’t. 

See in June that same year I dropped out of school and I went to another school but because I knew that other school was wrong for me I came back to my old one. I remember the day my mom told my dad. I was sleeping in my mom’s previous bedroom. For that time I thought it was because she had larger bed but deep down I knew it made me feel closer to her. She was gone but this bed was closest I had of her. And he came in and started shouting and insulting me, just like he did with my mother. My sister was in Bosnia with my cousins but I couldn’t because I had school. We were alone, he was shouting and I remember his works like he spoke to me a minute ago: “You think you’re SO INTELLIGENT! Well, you’re not! You’re not! You are hundred years behind the bear and you will be nothing but a failure! You are dumb! Like your mother!” and I remember him calling me names like kucka (which means a whore) and prasica (a bitch) and govno (shit). I remember I got out of bed, put on my sweatpants that I’m wearing at the moment. I remember putting on a sweater without a bra on. I didn’t even think. I took keys and my phone, a wallet and my shoes and I was running out the door. I was running and crying in my socks. My shoes were in my hands. I didn’t even bother to put them on. I just grabbed them and left and I ran. I ran until I reached the first street lamp and I remember my whole face was wet. From sweat? Tears? Buggers? I don’t know really. I ran to my mum and I remember she was already on the phone with my dad. He was cussing her, threatning her, saying he will kill us all. I remember taking her phone and just cutting him off. I remember crying in her arms all night. It was 4am when I went to sleep. I had to get up at 6 to straight things out for my school. (7th Spetember)

I came back but I couldn’t face my father. I couldn’t and the worst part is I never forgave him for what he did. He made me an 18th birthday party but what he never knew that since my grandfather died, I hated my birthdays. It was the time my grandfather was sick and everybody was just grieving over the not dead man yet. I hated my birthdays since 2011. And I hated my 18th birtday especially. I cried that same night but I remember my crush giving me the sweetest gesture of wishing me a happy birthday. I remember as if it was yesterday. He had his birthday a day before mine. He was definetly something. And you see, everything was going okay until the fourth years, the class I was supposed to graduate with, finally had their prom. And I cried that night because I was supposed to be there. And since then everything was pretty much going straight down to hell.

It’s 2019 now and all I’ve been getting is the slap of realization. My father will never change. I live with a monster. My mother forgot on her promise. My sister doesn’t care about me. She thinks just because I don’t cry in front of everybody.Just because I am not revealing any emotions to people, because I am closed up that I don’t feel. But at one point she is right because I don’t feel anymore. There is a pit inside of me, dark, deep. And all I know is that I’m having so much pain inside of me that all I want is to die. Because I said. Death is quick and beautiful. Death is final peace. Death is sleep for eternity. And I want that. I cannot deal with life. I cannot even think anymore because reality hits when you realize you have nothing. When you realize your whole life has been nothing but pain and missery with a few good moments, there isn’t much to think about but to leave already. I was a broken condom. My mom wanted to abort me. My dad wanted to sleep with my aunt on the day I was born. I was sent to a psychologist when I was five years old because some dumb ass school teacher accused me of saying that I sucked my dad’s dick. And she showed them a picture I drew where I drew my dad with high waisted pants and a small upper body. I drew my sister and me beside him holding hands, and I remember my mom was on the other side but only because there was no space left on the paper. And the psychatric said that’s a problem. I drew a bird and they said it was a dick. Like what kind of bullshit is that. It’s a fucking bird. A cute ass bird. Life wasn’t nice to me. Ever. I don’t want it anymore. That’s the point. And people, even anonymous messeges here on Tumblr can call me grumpy and bitchy and a bad person and send me insults in other languages but you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care anymore because I am done with caring. Because my 2002 best friend is not my best friend anymore. My close friend from 2006 is a fake friend that made me 13 years to realize that. Nobody cares. Nobody should ever care for me because like they say. I am forgettable in every way. Maybe my writing isn’t amazing. It definetly isn’t the kind to remember. My face is not that special to remember. God knows I met the same guy three times and introduced myself to him three times because he couldn’t remember me. I am forgotten. I will always be forgotten. And everything I wrote here...this will be forgotten because nobody cared enough to read it till the end.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Weekend Picks: 2/21-2/23

Big Head Todd and the Monsters

BY JORDAN MAINZER

There were no live picks for yesterday, but plenty for the weekend!

2/21: Objekt, Smartbar

Here’s what we wrote about Objekt’s Cocoon Crush when we named it our #6 album of 2018:

“An artist solidly known for his bold exploration of techno, Objekt now takes a plunge into a new kind of ethereal beauty on Cocoon Crush. A foray into ambient music, Objekt subverts a lot of what we have come to expect from him. The line between digital and analog is smeared. Tracks are ungrounded, punctuated still by percussion and synthesizers, but in patterns and textures that materialize in mysterious ways. And just as they appear, they stutter and morph in ways unexpected to the listener. The cold machinations of the dancefloor are still present; they are just stretched and masked in exciting and rewarding ways.”

Darwin and Flower Flood open.

2/21: Knuckle Puck, Beat Kitchen

We previewed Knuckle Puck’s set at Durty Nellie’s two years ago:

“Covering last year’s Riot Fest, I found Knuckle Puck the worst set of the festival, though I did remark that the band’s new, unreleased material had the crowd’s attention as much as their released material. As it turns out, the album versions of the songs are pretty good. Shapeshifter, released about a month later in October, was exemplary of what Knuckle Puck do best–write catchy songs with powerful melodies and hooks, enough to showcase the band’s more-than-capable instrumental prowess while avoiding the try-hard singing that plagues so many of today’s emo bands.”

Cleveland power poppers Heart Attack Man and Wilkes Barre hardcore band One Step Closer open.

Objekt; Photo by Kasia Zacharko

2/21: James McMurtry, Old Town School of Folk Music

We previewed James McMurtry’s show at FitzGerald’s two years ago:

“James McMurtry plays tonight as part of the 37th Annual American Music Festival at Fitzgerald’s, still touring strong off of Complicated Game (one of our favorite albums of 2015) like he was when it first came out. When we caught up with him last November, he said of new songs, 'I’ve jotted them down on my phone as I’ve gone along. That whole record was written on an iPhone3. Unfortunately, I dropped that phone, I don’t have the cool Notes app anymore.' Well, either he’s got a new phone or doesn’t need one, because late last year, he released 'State of the Union', a trademark jab at fascism and racism. It might not be as succinct as him telling us 'There never been a good Nazi a day on this earth dead or alive,' but at least there’s hope for more new material.”

2/21: Raphael Saadiq & Jamila Woods, Vic Theatre

Last year, Raphael Saadiq released his first album in 8 years (since the great Stone Rollin’). Jimmy Lee is named after, inspired by, and partially about his brother who died of heroin overdose after contracting HIV many years ago. As such, whether singing or inhabiting the character of his brother, Saadiq is at times uncharacteristically somber. He’s at the other end of a barrel of a gun on “Sinners Prayer”, reflecting on his wrongs, wondering whether it’s too late: “When a sinner is praying, God, will you hear it?” He wears a heavy burden on the funky, stomping “Something Keeps Calling Me”, the song’s wailing guitar solo in the bridge a mirror to his emotions. Saadiq calls out society, too, just as much as himself. “The people are mad,” he sings on “This World is Drunk”. The one-two punch of anti-mass incarceration jams “Rikers Island” and “Rikers Island Redux” presents the issue as simply as it should be put: “Too many n***as in Rikers Island / Why must it be / Set them free.” The former expresses its anger with upbeat piano and a simple refrain, the latter with spoken word over gentle guitar strums.

Best, though, are the reflections of grace that rise above the despair. On “I’m Feeling Love”, over a slower, more warbling funk, Saadiq, singing as his brother, is thankful for the little that he has. And on the skittering, rolling “Glory To The Veins”, he again distills his brother’s death to what matters: “I lost a brother to AIDS / Still, he laughed every day.” We’re lucky that as he gets older, reflecting on his life, and playing live reflecting on his career in Tony! Toni! Toné! and all the legendary artists like D’Angelo and Solange that he’s produced, Saadiq is willing to impart his wisdom.

Jamila Woods’ LEGACY! LEGACY! was one of our favorite albums of last year:

“Yes, Jamila Woods’ stunning LEGACY! LEGACY! is a tribute to important artists of color. What makes it stand out among other tributes, however, is the remarkable way Woods is able to present how each figure has guided her. Take opener 'BETTY', about funk artist Betty Davis, a woman married to a far more famous jazz trumpeter who gets his own song later on. Woods explores the gender and power dynamic in the relationship and uses it to make a personal and universal plea: 'Let me be, I’m trying to fly.' Fly, she does. On 'ZORA', over a hip hop beat, Woods succinctly declares in an all-time line, 'My weaponry is my energy', the drive and desire the catalyst in the noble goal to make her mark on the world as a black woman as opposed to while being a black woman. In various interviews surrounding the album release, Woods spoke about being inspired by black artists who perform and make art truly for themselves independent and often in spite of the race of the end consumers. 'Motherfuckers won’t shut up,' beings 'MUDDY', referencing Muddy Waters adoption of electric guitar because white audiences would talk over his sets; 'Shut up, motherfucker,' she sings inversely on 'MILES', 'I don’t take requests.' But the percussive, jazzy 'EARTHA' best encapsulates her aims of self-love and ultimate pride. 'I used to be afraid of myself,' Woods admits before stating, 'I don’t wanna compromise.' Ultimately, the refrain of, 'Who’s gonna share my love for me with me?' is the mindset by which Woods approaches relationships throughout the record and then life itself. You can be a part of it, but she comes first.”

DJ Duggz also opens.

2/21: The Wailers, SPACE

We previewed The Wailers’ set at Old Town School of Folk Music last year:

“Bob Marley might not be around, but his original band, containing many of the original members and their children, continues to play his songs. Seeing them in a venue as small as this is rare.”

Tonight at SPACE--an even smaller venue--they play two shows, an early and late one.

Joe Henry

2/22: Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Vic Theatre

We previewed Big Head Todd & The Monsters’ show at the Vic Theatre two years ago:

“The Colorado jam band that saw mainstream success in the 90′s is touring fresh off of last year’s heavy New World Arisin’. In 2016, as Big Head Blues Club (the band’s project with a wide array of blues legends like Cedric Burnside and Charlie Musselwhite), they released Way Down Inside. But for the full potential of Big Head Todd and the Monsters, go a few years back and try 2014′s Black Beehive, a rawer, more diverse blues record than you’d expect from the band who recorded 'Bittersweet'. What’s for sure is that live, they’ll lean heavily on the new material while not forgoing their more beloved classics.”

They haven’t released a new album since then but have released a new song every month as part of a series. They should play some of these live, including gospel piano ballad “Hard Times Come No More” and the funky, rollicking “Train of Storms”.

Nashville band Los Colognes open.

2/22: Todd Barry, Thalia Hall

We previewed Todd Barry’s sets at SPACE two years ago:

“So, this isn’t exactly music, but deadpan comedian Todd Barry is performing 2 stand-up sets in one night at SPACE. Commemorating his 30 years of being a comedian, he’s going on another crowd work-only tour like the one documented in his 2014 special Todd Barry: The Crowd Work Tour. From watching that and his most recent Netflix special Spicy Honey, Barry’s dry observational humor is effortlessly tailored to specific crowds and cities, making this one of the must-see comedy events of the year.”

Even if tonight isn’t crowd work-only, he should do some of his specialty.

Chicago-based stand-up comic Chelsea Hood opens.

Hot Snakes

2/22: Joe Henry, Old Town School of Folk Music

Since we last saw Joe Henry five years ago, he’s done quite a bit of production work and released two albums, 2017′s Thrum, and last year’s The Gospel According to Water. In between the two, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer; considering that, the latter takes on weight. It’s, first and foremost, raw, from the guitar playing on “Famine Walk” to the title track. But Gospel sports moments of beauty, too, as on the woodwind of “Mule” and rich vocal harmonies of “In Time For Tomorrow” and “The Fact of Love”.

Americana duo Birds of Chicago open.

Pissed Jeans; Photo by Ebru Yildiz

2/22: Tim and Eric, Chicago Theatre

Who knows what Tim and Eric will bring to their Chicago stop of their Mandatory Attendance tour, other than their purported "brand new spoofs, goofs and insanity” and “special surprises.” The last time I saw them, Dr. Steve Brule showed up and almost married Jan Skylar!

2/22: Hot Snakes, Pissed Jeans, & HIDE, Empty Bottle

Music Frozen Dancing is upon us again, with suggested donations benefiting the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless! Go and donate!

We last listened to Hot Snakes from the medical tent at September’s Riot Fest. Since then, they’ve released the first two of four seasonal 7-inch singles leading up to the next LP: the burner “Checkmate” and wonderfully plodding laziness anthem “I Shall Be Free”. (The latter’s 7-inch has “A Place in the Sun” as an exclusive.)

Hot Snakes also play Sunday night at the Bottle with an opening set from post punk band Pink Avalanche.

Allentown hardcore band Pissed Jeans haven’t released anything since 2017′s Why Love Now, but they’re thankfully back to warm your pants before Hot Snakes. Maybe they’ll have some new songs to play?

Local industrial duo HIDE (artist Heather Gabel and percussionist Seth Sher) released their second album last year, the raw, disgusting Hell is Here. The drum programming and screaming is just as cringingly visceral as the recorded sounds of vomit hitting a toilet that end opening track “Chainsaw”.

Synth band Crash Course in Science, arty The Hecks, and local punk band Hitter also open.

[keepingupwithlinmanuel]

Lin-Manuel Miranda Gets the Job Done

But perhaps nothing else stirs Miranda's passion quite so powerfully as Puerto Rico, the U.S. territory where his parents were born and which has suffered so much tragedy since the hurricane hit in 2017. Original estimates put the death toll at just 64, but a George Washington University study commissioned by the local government and released in August 2018 put the total at 2,975 lost lives -- more than Hurricane Katrina. Many of the deaths were avoidable, linked to a lack of emergency and relief services and a full year of power outages. "The power grid is key to everything, and so many of the heartbreaking stories we're hearing about were preventable," says Miranda. "There weren't fridges around for medicine. Health centers were without power."

...

As part of his hurricane relief efforts, Miranda works with the Hispanic Federation, a nongovernmental organization that has given a lot of support to Puerto Rico's recovery. His father, Luis, is the group's founding president.

To aid in the recovery, Miranda has raised millions through TeeRico and his star-studded single "Almost Like Praying." "Through the Hispanic Federation, we've been working on providing solar energy for health centers so if everything goes down again -- it's a very fragile and outdated power grid, and I'm not confident it got fixed post-Maria -- there will still be medical care available," he says. "In some parts of the island, it's business as usual, and in other parts there are still no traffic lights. Everyone's still going on the honor system, and that's become business as usual, which is very sad. In some ways, it's back to normal, and in some ways, it will never be normal again."

...

But Miranda is quick to explain that each project "works different muscle groups" and that he's not really working himself into an early grave. "I have a lot of help. I sleep. I take my kids to school and tuck them in each night. I'm not some kind of sleep-deprived tortured writing animal," he says. "Some days, I feel like I'm constantly trying to kick the pedestal out from under me that people are trying to put there."

The Gmorning/Gnight book came about as a result of the Internet. "There's no magic behind that. All I'm writing is what I wish someone would tell me that morning. If it's about anxiety, I'm probably feeling anxious. If it's about 'pace yourself,' I probably put toothpaste in my coffee," he says. "The more personal I get, the more it resonates -- which is an amazing lesson as a writer. Those are written and done, and all that's left is for people to have it."

A biography of Fosse and Verdon, written by Miranda's Wesleyan classmate Sam Wasson, inspired the upcoming FX series. "I put it in the hands of Tommy Kail [a director-producer and frequent Miranda collaborator] and Andy Blankenbuehler, our choreographer from Heights and Hamilton, who's as close to a modern-day Fosse as I know," he says. "That's not really work for me; it's helping put talented people together in a room and saying, 'OK, keep going.' "

Of Tick, Tick... Boom!, he says, "I know I'm going to have to wait to make it, because I want to make sure the screenplay is everything it can be. We really just started kicking the tires on it in earnest, and I don't think it'll get into production until late 2020. And playing Lee Scoresby feels like a vacation, even though it's hard work, because it doesn't require any part of my brain to be writing. So when you look at it that way, it's not really all that much at once."

Part of the reason Miranda's fan base is so vast and devoted is his goofy, self-deprecating personality -- he's a West Wing geek (the Hamilton line about "looking for a mind at work" was lifted straight from the series), and he once told Conan O'Brien that he totally freaked out upon meeting "Weird Al" Yankovic, saying "I have no chill whatsoever." It's as if he is simultaneously the hippest and the dorkiest guy in the room.

"It would take so much more energy if I had to pretend to be cool," he says. "I don't know how to do that. I feel very lucky that Hamilton came along at a time in my life when I already knew who I was. I was married, I had a kid. When you have that level of success as a person and you're still trying to find out who you are and what you want to be in the world, it can knock you off your feet in a very real way."

He pauses.

"Of course, I could still get knocked off my feet at any second," says Miranda. "Let's not predict anything!"

Best of Wives and Best of Women

Helping keep Miranda on an even keel is his wife, Nadal, whom he praised as "the reason everything gets done" in his heart-wrenching "love is love is love" speech at the Tonys shortly after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, FL. His high-traffic Twitter feed is punctuated with mini "one-act plays" featuring dialogue from the Miranda household, which often involves Nadal keeping any sign of ego from her husband firmly in check.

"Vanessa is an absolute superhero who manages to do her own legal work while still nursing a baby," he says. "She's also not really a theater person. So if I've written something and she likes it, I know I've cleared a higher bar than someone who loves show tunes full stop. If Hamilton has gone beyond the base of people who like musical theater, it's because of her."

The couple is still adjusting to life as parents of two. "We're not outnumbered, but our attention can be split," he says. "The baby is still very dependent on us, and the 3-year-old is testing boundaries all the time. The 'threenager' thing is real! There can be nights she's with the baby and I'm with the older one, and we both fall asleep without checking in because we're freaking exhausted! So we really have to focus on taking the time to be with each other and not let drift happen. That's the foundation, not only for our kids, but for ourselves."

To ensure that he's fully present for his family, Miranda enforces a "no Twitter on the weekends" rule, deleting the app from his phone every Friday night and reinstalling it Monday morning. "It's an absolute addiction, and this is the only way I know to really not do it," he says. "And then I go into the week with energy because I've had the weekend off."

[napoleondidthat]

‘To Protect Napoleon Is My Career,’ One Collector Vows

By Ted Loos, New York Times

Sept 7, 2018

According to Oscar Wilde, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.

The Paris-based collector Pierre-Jean Chalençon does not have to worry about the latter problem. Mr. Chalençon has become renowned for a hyper-specialized field: He buys, sells and exhibits Napoleon-related art and antiques.

The people who know him call him “a character” (said the fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac); “a strange man” who has “a good heart” (said the Napoleon expert Bernard Chevallier); and “so enthusiastic he makes me look like a stick in the mud” (said the American collector Christopher Forbes).

And Mr. Chalençon, 47, has parlayed his niche interest into wide fame, currently appearing on the French TV show “Affaire Conclue,” a kind of mash-up of “Antiques Roadshow” and “Shark Tank” that might be called “Done Deal” in English. Contestants try to sell an antique or object of value to him or to several other expert buyers on the show’s panel.

For those who want to see what Mr. Chalençon has been up to when he’s off the air, a selection of about 30 items from his collection are on view at the Grand Palais during the art fair La Biennale Paris, in the exhibition “Napoleon: L’Empereur Sous la Verrière” (which could be translated as “The Emperor Under the Glass Roof”).

“To protect Napoleon is my career,” Mr. Chalençon said in a phone interview from Paris.

Indeed, he meant it literally: He said he made his living from his interest in this particular slice of the past.

He was speaking from the Palais Vivienne, his grand historic home in the center of Paris, built in the early 18th century for a minister of Louis XIV. Not only does he live there and store some of the 1,500 to 2,000 objects in the collection there, he also rents it out for events like weddings.

“It’s a 300-year-old building where almost everything is intact,” Mr. Chalençon said. But he has stuffed a lot into the gilded envelope: Napoleon-themed paintings, ceramics, books and manuscripts, and furniture. Some of it was owned or used by the emperor himself; other items are depictions of him or high-end homages, or were owned by members of his family.

The collection includes one of Napoleon’s wedding certificates, which Mr. Chalençon bought from Mr. Forbes (it had originally been collected by his father, Malcolm Forbes). Mr. Chalençon also owns an armchair circa 1801 by the renowned furniture maker Georges Jacob; it was in the Tuileries Palace during Napoleon’s reign. And the collector doesn’t treat it like a museum piece: “I use it,” he said.

Mr. Chalençon is probably the world’s “most significant” collector of Napoleona, said Paul Gallois, an associate specialist in European furniture and works of art at Christie’s London.

“Only a family member would have more,” Mr. Gallois added.

For anyone who doubts it, the Biennale exhibition includes the emperor’s coronation baton, as well as a madras scarf he used when in exile on St. Helena, the second of his two banishments. Also on display is a rare goblet and set of cutlery seized from Napoleon’s carriage during the Battle of Waterloo.

The fact that Waterloo — the Dutch city (now in Belgium) where the British and Prussians defeated the emperor — has become synonymous with the concept of downfall highlights the hold that Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) still has on imaginations, particularly Gallic ones.

( A baton, made of wood, silver gilt, gilded bronze and silk, and studded with bees, a symbol of his reign, was used to proclaim Napoleon emperor during his coronation in Paris. )

Napoleon may have ruled for only some 15 years, but his empire-expanding mind-set, brilliant victories like the one at Austerlitz and his grandiose style continue to resonate.

“It’s very French to collect these things,” Mr. Chalençon said, perhaps understating the case.

But Mr. Castelbajac, who designed the Biennale exhibition of Mr. Chalençon’s trove, as well other elements of the fair as its guest creative director, said that the collector was also an outlier in at least one way.

“With this material, you expect someone older and conservative,” Mr. Castelbajac said. “But he’s a rock ’n’ roll collector.”

Mr. Chalençon said he identified with the famously brash ruler. “Napoleon was a self-made man,” he said. “And I am a self-made man.”

He was born and raised in the suburbs west of Paris to a family he called “simple,” adding that his trajectory showed that “a guy from nowhere” could have “dreams come true.”

His lifelong obsession began early, he said. “I was 8 years old and my father gave me sketchbooks about Napoleon,” Mr. Chaleçon said. “After I finished, I asked him, ‘Was he real?’”

( Very rare cutlery with the imperial coat of arms. It was seized from Napoleon’s carriage at the Battle of Waterloo. )

When he was told yes, the wheels started spinning. “I said, ‘Wow, I want to go to his house,’” Mr. Chalençon recalled. They went to Château de Malmaison, Napoleon’s last residence in France, which is now a museum.

“I met him when he was only 19, when I was the director there,” said Mr. Chevallier, who is also the author of a book on the Empress Josephine, Napoleon’s first wife. (She bought the Malmaison, a country retreat, in 1799.)

“He was fond of Napoleon,” Mr. Chevallier said. “I should say: crazy for him, actually.”

Having known Mr. Chalençon for decades now, Mr. Chevallier said one defining characteristic of the collector was, “For him, business is business,” notably that “sometimes he sells a part of the collection to get new items.”

In June 2017, Mr. Chalençon offered a suite of about 30 objects at Christie’s London. “Great collectors are always upgrading,” said Mr. Gallois, of Christie’s.

For his part, Mr. Chalençon is also working on expanding his territory — at least when it comes to exhibiting his trove. Part of it is scheduled to be on view at the Shanghai Himalayas Museum beginning in December, and his dream, he said, is to show it on a grand scale in New York City.

And after 20 years of actively collecting his specialty, he is still chasing new treasures, not all of which make it into his net. Late last year, he was outbid on a piece of gold from one of Napoleon’s crowns. It sold for about $750,000 to a Chinese collector, he said.

Asked whether this constituted a personal Waterloo, Mr. Chalençon was quick with a retort.

“I don’t know about that,” he said. “But it was not an Austerlitz, either.”

SOURCE

[harry-sussex]

“Why do you care that Prince Harry got engaged?  What does that have to do with you?”

When I hear these questions, I think of the weeks before and after November 27, 2017.  And I think of the following story, one that is incredibly personal, but one that means so much to me.

This time last year, things in my life were... not so good, to put it simply. 

Over the week of Thanksgiving 2018, the following things happened:

My boyfriend had just broken up with me weeks before, and my best friend and I weren’t speaking.  I was lonely and sad and heartbroken and I couldn’t talk to anyone about it because my best friend and I were on bad terms.

My dad got on an emergency plane to Ohio to discuss treatment and surgical options because my older sister had just been diagnosed with Stage 2 Breast Cancer.

My grandma, who was in a private room in a nursing home at the time, was forced to move to a double room, and she did not react well (she would die barely a month later).  I had to be there multiple times a week to ease her into a roommate situation, after 16 years of living alone.

I was forced to manage an entire office during the holiday season by myself because my boss was on vacation and my dad was with my sister.

Between the nursing home, my extended family, my clients, and my boss, my phone rang seventy-two times the day before Thanksgiving.  72.  That doesn’t include calls I made myself.  All while I was trying to wrap things up at work, peek in the nursing home to check on my grandma, and handle cooking dinner.

Because my dad was in Ohio, I had to cook all of Thanksgiving dinner by myself.

My dog ripped his ear open on something while I was at work the day before Thanksgiving and I had to run him to the vet mere minutes before they closed.  He got blood all over my apartment and guess where Thanksgiving was held last year?  You guessed it - my apartment.

My dad arrived home at 8pm on Thanksgiving Eve, and I couldn’t get down to the city to pick him up from the airport while still cooking dinner.  My mom and my sister couldn’t handle the traffic so he had to take an Uber all the way to my house, except his phone was at 1% battery and he had never taken an Uber before.  My dad is... not fond of doing new things, to put it lightly.  I spent an hour on the phone - instead of doing the nine million other things I needed to do - because he’s kind of helpless, not going to lie.

Then Thanksgiving Day came.  My dad was supposed to get up early and give me a hand with everything.  They were at my house - all three of them - and I could have used a hand with the turkey, the stuffing, etc.  But, I didn’t get an ounce of help.  They kicked back, relaxed, and talked a lot about how tired they were from their busy week.  They drank.  I didn’t get to kick back and relax, and I’d argue my week was the busiest out of all of theirs.

I didn’t say a word.  I was tired, I was hurt, I felt lonely and abandoned and used.  I didn’t say a word.

Hours and hours and hours later, everybody was gone, except for my parents.  My dad fell asleep on the recliner, my mom was watching TV on the couch, and I - finally, after a long day of cooking and cleaning and acting the happy hostess - had time to take a peek at my phone.

And when I got to Tumblr, I knew something big was happening.  Rumors were buzzing about Prince Harry getting engaged.  These rumors weren’t just regular tabloid fodder, either.  We knew that Ms. Meghan Markle was in London, and that she had just gotten a manicure and a facial.  We had only recently seen them together for the first time at the Invictus Games in Toronto, so we knew their relationship was serious.  We knew that even the most reputable royal reporters were murmuring amongst themselves.  People who hadn’t been on Tumblr for months, years, even, were coming back in droves to be here for when the bomb finally hit - for when The Prince of Wales announced the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle.

Needless to say, I was freaking out.  Once I pieced things together, I literally screamed.  In doing so, I woke up my dog, and, more unfortunately, my dad.  He was stressed, he had been drinking, he was tired, and he hates being woken up.  I’m not going to get into the details, but the ensuing few hours were... not fun.  I had all but forgotten about the good news that Prince Harry may be engaged.  Things at home were just too miserable.

Then, the next day... nothing.  And the next day.  And the next day.  And I had all but forgotten about the one tiny thing that made me happy on Thanksgiving Day, the one glimmer of hope and happiness between a terrible week and a terrible end to my holiday.

And then, Monday morning, I knew my dad was still feeling guilty - as he should have.  I wasn’t answering his calls or texts really, not since he left my house the Friday before.  But, at 6:30 AM on the morning of November 27, 2017, I got the text from my dad that changed my entire mood, my entire week, month, year, even:

“Happy engagement”

When I first read it, groggy after waking up on a Monday morning, I had no clue what it meant.  And then - I realized.  I checked the Kensington Palace Twitter and Instagram feeds, and then I checked Tumblr.  I swore I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  Once I finally came to the conclusion that I wasn’t dreaming, that what I was reading was real....

I screamed, and then I cried.  The happiest tears I remember crying in so long.

I threw my personal laptop in my bag and sped to work early so I could watch the photocall live.  When my dad got to work, I was engrossed in my personal laptop.  Prince Harry and his fiance were on TV for the world to see and nothing, nothing could wipe the smile off my face.  Family and friends were calling me to tell me.  My grandma - 88 years old and all but deaf, miserable in her own right - called me, yelling into the phone to tell me that Prince Harry was off the market.  My friends - many of whom were there when I stayed up all night for Princess Charlotte’s birth, who watched me take so much happiness from these strangers across the pond but who never cared themselves - called me as they woke to the morning’s news.  I could hear the smile in many of their voices when we spoke.  Their smiles had nothing to do with Prince Harry and his new fiance - they had everything to do with me.  Me and my happiness.  I will never, ever forget that.

It may be strange to be that emotionally invested in the lives and happiness of a stranger.  I don’t pretend that it’s normal.  But that Monday morning, after all of the horrible things that had happened in the previous week, and after a terrible few months, my heart lifted and my soul was healed, if only temporarily.  The happiness of these two strangers - one of whom I had loved for years and years and years - was everything to me that day.  Come to think of it, their happiness makes me happy, even now.  Sometimes, it’s hard for me to be happy all by myself.  But that day, when the engagement of Prince Harry’s engagement to Ms. Meghan Markle was announced, I felt so happy, so purely, purely happy.  I needed something like that after the weeks prior, and Prince Harry delivered.  I will forever be grateful for the timing of his engagement.

When the engagement interview aired, I couldn’t believe that I was watching it with my own two eyes.  I shut the phones off at work, locked the door, and even got my dad to watch with me.  He was sitting there, mostly watching me.  He’s not interested in the royals but he knew what this meant to me.  Watching Harry and Meghan together, officially, for the first time, was everything to me.  Everything.  My heart soared watching him shiver at the word “husband,” hearing them talk of their trip to Botswana, hearing Meghan talk about William and Catherine’s support, hearing about her having tea with the Queen and the corgis... the entire time.  I’m pretty sure I was a mixture of smiley and teary and ecstatic for the entire twenty minutes.  I cannot begin to put into words the feeling.  It was everything to me.

Did the engagement of Prince Harry to Ms. Meghan Markle bring peace on Earth?  Did it end hunger and poverty and prejudice and violence, or fix the environment?  No.  Not at all.  But on that day, on November 27, 2017, their engagement helped me.  I have always, always loved Prince Harry, but their engagement sealed the deal for me.  Their happiness that day saved me, if only for a little while.  I will forever be grateful for the both of them for providing me that.

The first time I saw my grandma after the engagement, I joked about the two of us going to London to watch The Royal Wedding.  She was 88, mostly bedridden, and couldn’t even make it out of the nursing home to come to Thanksgiving.  Yet, we joked about going together.  I would pick her up at the nursing home, I’d drive us to JFK, we’d get on the plane, and then I’d bring a wheelchair and wheel her to the wedding myself.  We joked about it a lot.  She didn’t even have a passport and there was no way she could sit through a six hour flight, but when I thought about going to London to watch Prince Harry’s wedding, for some reason, I always thought about bringing her with me.

Less than a month after their engagement was announced, my grandma died.  2:30 AM on the morning of December 26th, just barely missing Christmas.  I won’t get into the details of that day, but I was heartbroken.  I had just seen her the day before for Christmas Day, and she was happy and vibrant and full of life, and then she was gone.  Just like that.

A few weeks later, I made a decision.  I was going to England to watch The Royal Wedding, and I was going alone.  My grandma would have been so happy, so proud - once I came back safely, that is.

The wedding came and went, and my trip to England came and went.  I had a fantastic time.  I cried the entire time watching Prince Harry and his bride, the new Duke and Duchess of Sussex, pledging their lives to each other in front of the world’s audience.  It was an amazing experience and I will never regret getting on that plane.  Never.

When I came home, I went to go see my grandma’s grave.  The grass still hadn’t grown over where they buried her completely.  I sat down in the grass, and told her, “I went to England, Grandma.  I saw Prince Harry get married.”

When I think back to the engagement of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle, of course I think of the heartache and pain I was experiencing in my own personal life.  But, more importantly, I think of the pure, unbridled joy that was in my heart when I read the good news.  Their happiness made me happy.  Their happiness continues to make me happy.  I will never, ever apologize for that.

Today, I’m doing much better.  Can I prove that my happiness started coming back after their engagement?  No.  

But, in my soul, I feel like parts of myself started coming back after I got on that plane to watch their wedding.  I had lost myself to depression and anxiety for a long time, for many, many years before their relationship even started.

But, when I got on that plane, I felt myself coming back.  For the first time in so long, I felt parts of myself coming back.  And I can attribute that feeling of wholeness, of happiness, of pure joy, all the way back to the engagement of Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle on November 27, 2017.

So when I hear, “Why do you care that Prince Harry got engaged/married?  What does their relationship have to do with you?”  I think, nothing.  It has nothing to do with me.  But their happiness, their well-being, that has everything to do with me.  I never thought that two strangers across the pond could bring so much joy to my life, but I am forever, forever grateful that they did.