#carlos is fascinating to me in ways i cannot will not speak on but i think like. he has an Awareness that he is willing to speak on that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

obsoleteozymandias · 7 months

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Hiii I would like a matchup for Resident evil!

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Zodiac: Aquarius

Mbti: Isfp

Apperance: I'm 145 cm. I wear glasses for my nearsightedness. I have a bunch of beauty marks on my face and body. I have long brown hair and brown eyes.

Personality: A lot of people's first impression of me is very mysterious and serious, even mean in some cases. But when people actually speak to me they are shocked to find out I'm way more approachable then they assumed. When I get closer to someone as a friend my excitement and humor shows the most; I love to mess with my friends. I can be quite sarcastic and it shows both in my dry humor or when I talk back to people, so it can be both negative and positive. I can be quite the trouble stirer but it's always a response to someone being disrespectful first. I have a strong sense of justice and it can get me fired up if I don't relax fast enough.

Likes: Adventure, even small things like doing a new hairstyle or checking out a new bakery, helps keep things fresh for me and makes me satisfied. Being home and relaxing, especially when my social battery is low and I'm tired. Being creative and doing things like drawing or writing. I'm a creative at heart and always admire art/nature or look at things through a creative lens. I also love animals and find them so cute; it breaks my heart when I see a stray so I always feed them and help them in ways I can.

Dislikes: I dislike people who don't treat others with base level respect and empathy, it's the complete opposite of me. I'm an empath but because of bad experiences with said people I've had to learn to not be a doormat while still being compassionate, which then leads me to being fired up when I see injustice towards others or feel injustice for myself.

Love language: For both giving and recieving, my love languages are physical touch and quality time. Even platonically I'm very physically affectionate loving to hug my friends, but I'll be fine if my friends aren't as physically affectionate with me. Romantically it's different, I would need someone who's as physically affectionate as me able to reciprocate, if not it would lead me to overthink and get sad. Despite this I would still need breaks or else I'll get too overwhelmed and would be worried about being too clingy, but the distance helps make my affection and sweetness grow. I can also get a little more childish around my romantic partner.

I hope this wasn't too long lol. Happy holidays and thank you!

👍

== Resident Evil ==>

I match you up with…

Carlos Oliveira

If you’re looking for a partner who will be affectionate, I cannot imagine a better man than Carlos. He will smother you with kisses and hugs every time he comes back from a mission, and may well spend the hours after glued to your side.

He’s also something of a jokester as well, so you can count on your relationship being filled with laughter.

You feel comfortable enough around him to be childish, his warm nature and genuineness making being honest with him so easy.

He’d absolutely find you fascinating, especially when you come off as mysterious at first. He’ll want to know why you act the way you do.

But once he gets underneath first impressions, you two click like no one else. He just gets you, and you him.

He’s most enamoured with your strong sense of justice, as he shares it. He admires how passionate you are about caring for those who have been wronged, and he knows that you’ll never falter on your beliefs, and he is SO attracted to that.

Draw or paint him something and a small copy of it is going in his wallet, in his pockets, in everything. He keeps everything you make him close to his heart, especially when he’s away on missions.

Whether it’s traveling to a new country or listening to a new music genre, you two explore the world together, arm in arm.

#oz’s requests #resident evil x reader #resident evil matchup #resident evil #resident evil 3 #carlos oliveria x reader #carlos oliveira

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infinitelytheheartexpands · 3 years

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My Personal Opinions on Some French Grand Opéras

Here we go. I’ll be focusing solely on pieces in what’s widely considered the “Golden Age” of grand opéra (from 1828 to about 1870).

1828, Auber: La muette de Portici: never seen or heard so I cannot comment, but I do think it slaps that it helped start both the Belgian Revolution and the genre of grand opéra.

1829, Rossini: Guillaume Tell: I love this one. it’s one of the few grand opéras that has a happy ending and it’s fully deserved. it’s long but it all has a point-- the first act introduces us to the community spirit that drives the rest of the action; even though it’s called Guillaume Tell, it’s not just about Guillaume Tell. it’s about a whole movement coming together, with all these vividly-drawn people of different social statuses, ages, heritages, and livelihoods coming together to do good in the world in the face of oppression. also it’s Rossini so it bops start to finish. the finale is one of opera’s best. I could not have higher praise and admiration for this piece.

1831, Meyerbeer: Robert le diable: another rare case of a grand opéra with a happy ending, but it feels a bit more contrived, something I wrote about when I watched it about a year ago for the first time. it’s quite a clever ending, however, and I love that these lovely characters get a happy ending. Robert is the least interesting principal character both musically and dramatically; the musical highlights of the show are mostly Bertram and Isabelle’s big scenes. the former is also arguably grand opéra’s most exciting ballet sequence, the Act III ballet of the nuns (or as I like to call it, the Zombie Nun Ballet). it’s long but it is incredibly worth it. overall, I really do enjoy this opera although it is very much an uneven piece.

1833, Auber: Gustave III, ou le bal masqué: here’s a thing I wrote about it like 3 months ago and I stand by every word.

1835, Halévy: La juive: It’s damn near impossible to find an even remotely close to complete recording. However, what the recordings have is excellent. The score is marvelous all the way through, although for the most part I tend to prefer the ensembles to the arias (the exception, of course, being Éléazar’s 11 o’clock number). Speaking of Éléazar, he’s an extremely complicated and frankly uncomfortable character, toeing the line between being one of opera’s most complex characters, an even more complicated proto-gender-swapped-Azucena if you will, and being an unfortunate vessel of antisemitic stereotypes. This is made even more complicated because Halévy was an assimilated Jewish composer. On the whole, Rachel is the only wholly sympathetic character in the piece, although all five of the principals are lovingly scored.

1836, Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: *holds things in because otherwise I would write an entire essay about this opera and you all know that because I have done that several times* Both a great strength and a great weakness of this piece is its sheer wide-ranging-ness, particularly in terms of mood. Unlike, say, La juive, this opera does not have one overall mood, instead steadily progressing from bright, brilliant comedy to one of the most horrifying endings in opera. Dramatically, this is great for the most part, although the sheer amount of exposition in the first two acts may take getting used to. Just as the drama gets more intense and concentrated as the opera goes on, the music gets more intense- and frankly, more often than not better- as the opera goes on. The window/misunderstood engagement business is something I still struggle to see the exact dramatic purpose of, because I think the question of religious difference would likely be enough to separate Raoul and Valentine at the beginning anyway; to me, it feels like Scribe and Deschamps were struggling to find a way to integrate Nevers into the story, as he is crucial to the opera’s lessons about love and tolerance, so they stuck in a quasi-love-triangle in order to justify his presence earlier on. (Also, for goodness sake, could you at least have given him an onstage death scene?) Anyway, in this way the story can be a bit unwieldy and uneven at first, but stay the course with this one...and even a lot of the first couple of acts are wonderful. The characters are all wonderfully written if rather episodic in many cases, but this opera is ambitious and by the end, it’ll tear your heart to shreds. It’s amazing. Uneven, yes, but amazing nonetheless, and I will defend it to the death.

1840, Donizetti: La favorite: I’m not as familiar with La favorite as with some of the others on this list (I’ve seen two different productions once each and I have a recording of it saved to my Spotify library that I listen to bits and pieces of very occasionally) but I do think it’s an excellent piece overall. LÉONOR DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER. The music is lovely all around; I know Donizetti wrote at least one other grand opéra in full and part of another, both of which I need to check out because in its own way, Donizetti’s style works wonderfully with grand opéra.

1841: Halévy, La reine de Chypre: here is a post I wrote about La reine de Chypre. basically all my thoughts remain the same except I have to add: Halévy as a whole just needs more love. there’s a few other of his operas I have waiting (a recording of Le dilettante d’Avignon that has been sitting in my Spotify for who knows how long and a film of Clari with Bartoli and Osborn I’m also sitting on) but there are so many pieces that sound fascinating but have basically ZILCH in terms of recordings.

1849, Meyerbeer: Le prophète: before I say anything else about this opera, I need to ask a burning question: WHY THE HELL IS THERE ONLY ONE GOOD VIDEO RECORDING OF THIS OPERA?!?! on the one hand, I adore the Osborn/Aldrich/Fomina production; on the other, I would also like other productions, please. anyway, I said one time in the opera Discord that while Les Huguenots will probably always be my favorite Meyerbeer opera for an array of reasons, this one is definitely Meyerbeer, Scribe, and Deschamps’ strongest work. it is both unusually dark and unusually believable for an opera of its time—and the fact that it still holds up so well is disturbing to say the least. this opera thrives on complexity in all forms and yet has probably (and paradoxically) the simplest plot to follow of the four Meyerbeer grand opéras. the score is brilliant start to finish, mixing the best of bel canto, Romanticism, and something altogether darker, stranger, and more original. definitely one of the most underrated operas ever. the aforementioned production is on YouTube with French subtitles; give it a watch here.

1855, Verdi: Les vêpres siciliennes: Vêpres is an opera I love dearly although I have yet to find a production that is completely satisfying. I think it’s because this opera is a lot deeper, a lot more complex, and a lot more troubling, frankly, than people are willing to go. also it should be performed bilingually and I am dead-set on this: the dissonance of an opera about French capture of Italian land being sung entirely in either French or Italian is always a little off at least (and also part of the reason why my brain probably adjusted to hearing this opera in either language better than, say, Don Carlos). but anyway, neither side comes off particularly well here, particularly due to the violence and sexual assault on both sides of the equation: both Montfort and Procida are heavily in the wrong, and while Verdi sympathizes with both for personal reasons (Verdian Dad in the former case, Italian Liberator in the latter), there is a lot of troubling stuff in here. nevertheless, the music bops, the story is intriguing, and I think we can all agree that Henri and Hélène both deserved better, especially considering how close they got to bliss (although I think we can also all agree that the end of Act IV twist to almost-rom-com is pretty abrupt).

1863 (full opera: 1890), Berlioz: Les Troyens: I wrote this review of Troyens after watching it in the Châtelet 2003 production in December 2019 (first time ever watching it) and I still stand by just about every word. Such a fascinating opera, great adaptation of the first few books of the Aeneid, marvelous score (of course, it’s Berlioz!)...but could there be a ballet or two fewer, Berlioz? Or at least shorten them up? And that’s coming from someone who likes ballet. But anyway, in every other respect it’s absolutely marvelous. Some people say it’s the greatest French opera ever, and while I hesitate to say that, it comes pretty damn near close.

1865, Meyerbeer: L’Africaine (Vasco de Gama): Vasco da Gama/L’Africaine is even more troubling—much more troubling—of an opera than Vêpres to me and I wrote a whole thing here as to why. I still stand by most of it, although upon reflection, I feel like the ending that drove me so crazy has virtually the exact same idea behind it as the end of Troyens/Book IV of the Aeneid: empire has consequences and those consequences hurt real people, who, though different and not among those perceived as “heroic”, are worthy of being treated as human, not being collateral damage. (I’ve written at least two essays about this for different classes, both specifically in regards to the Aeneid.) It may be time to revisit this one. The score is lovely, after all, although it didn’t stand out to me as much as others by Meyerbeer.

1867, Verdi: Don Carlos: *holds myself back from writing a 10-page essay* y’all, there is a reason that when someone asks me what my favorite opera is, I always choose this one even though I’m horrible at favorites questions. it’s Verdi, grand opéra, romantic drama (SO MUCH romantic drama and SO MUCH gay), political drama, religious/social struggle, personal struggle, social commentary, spectacle, intimacy, masterful characterization all in one. what more could you want? I first saw/heard this opera in Italian long before I did in French, so my brain is more hardwired to hearing the Italian but both are good. my motto is “Italian or French, I don’t care, but Fontainebleau has to be there.” fuck the four-act version. I mean, I will watch four-act versions but five-act versions are just superior. I’d prefer uncut performances (the first part of the garden, the Lacrimosa, the extended opening and ending), but these aren’t dealbreakers for me. it’s the perfect synthesis of Verdi and grand opéra, much less unwieldy than Vêpres (as much I love that one), both musically and dramatically.

1868, Thomas: Hamlet: Part of me wishes this was more faithful to the actual source play (why??? the??? fuck??? does??? Hamlet??? live??? although there are alternate endings), but part of me also realizes that the play is already four hours long as is and singing it plus ballet would make it WAY too fucking long. This does a pretty respectable job. The music is gorgeous, by turns almost sugary-sweet and thrillingly ominous. The Murder of Gonzago scene is an absolute masterpiece. The Mad Scene is justifiably one of opera’s best (although I’m not sure it was a good idea to have that and a frequently-cut 20-minute ballet with no relation whatsoever to the main plot to make up all of Act IV). There are a lot of bops in this one. The four principals are closely followed and still very well-drawn. Both of the stagings I have seen were excellent. An underrated opera.

1869 (grand opéra version), Gounod: Faust: Another of my absolute favorite operas. Since this existed for a decade before its transformation into the grand opéra we all know and love, I won’t comment much about its actual format and adherence to grand opéra tropes aside from saying the Walpurgisnacht ballet is one of grand opéra’s best and extremely good at giving off Vibes TM. I used to hate how the character of Faust was written and thought he was incredibly boring. Not anymore (although of course, I still hate him as a person. fuck him tbh). This opera has a reputation for being saccharine and old-fashioned and I think that’s a bunch of garbage right there. It’s about the search for eternal youth and the expectations of conforming to social values and people’s struggles with themselves when a) they “fall short” and b) when the world ostracizes them for being “different” and “out of line”. I am also firmly convinced that Marguerite is the real protagonist of Faust (like how I’m convinced that Valentine is the protagonist of Les Huguenots if there even is a singular protagonist in that opera but I digress). The music slaps. People need to stop cutting whole scenes out of this. I’m still undecided on the order of the church and square scenes of Act IV. Marguerite and Siébel just need everything good in this world.

Anyway, those are my two cents! I tried to keep these pretty short, so if y’all want any follow-ups, let me know!

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

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Next Round: The World’s Largest Cork Producer Fuses Nature and Technology

Airing between regular episodes of the “VinePair Podcast,” “Next Round” explores the ideas and innovations that are helping drinks businesses adapt in a time of unprecedented change. As the coronavirus crisis continues and new challenges arise, VP Pro is in your corner, supporting the drinks community for all the rounds to come. If you have a story or perspective to share, email us at [email protected].

In this “Next Round” episode, host Zach Geballe chats with Carlos de Jesus, director of marketing and communications at Amorim Cork. Amorim has been operating for over 150 years and produces cork for a plethora of different industries, from wine and spirits to Birkenstock sandals. Wine stoppers account for 70 percent of the cork industry. And although alternative wine stoppers made of plastic and glass are beginning to hit the market, de Jesus elucidates why cork should be irreplaceable.

Not only does the interaction between cork and the bottled wine profoundly affect its taste, but the harvesting of cork is essential to our ecosystem and keeps food on thousands of agricultural workers’ tables. Tune in to learn about this often overlooked aspect of the wine world, as well as the various high-tech quality-control tactics being developed to ensure that the cork being produced today is the best the world has to offer.

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Zach: From Seattle, Wash., I’m Zach Geballe, and this is a “VinePair Podcast” “Next Round” conversation. We’re bringing you these conversations in between our regular podcast episodes in order to focus on the range of issues and stories in the drinks world. Today, I’m speaking with Carlos de Jesus. He is the director of marketing and communications at Amorim Cork in Portugal. Carlos, thank you so much for your time.

Carlos: Thank you for having me.

Z: My pleasure. This is a topic that I personally, as a wine lover and professional, find fascinating, because I think so many people who drink wine don’t really think much about the cork, except in the 10 seconds it takes them to get it out of the bottle. But can you tell us a bit about what the basic steps are in actually manufacturing a cork?

C: Well, there are dozens of steps and dozens of years before we are able to to pull the cork from a bottle of wine and hear that iconic sound — it’s actually one of the few culturally relevant sounds across different cultures, different age groups, even different continents, you name it. It is something that we all recognize as a carrier of normally good news, if not straight-out celebration. But before that iconic moment happens, most people don’t realize that you cannot touch a cork oak tree (where we harvest the bark from) until the tree is about 25 years old. Now, the first harvest happens after a quarter of a century but does not give us cork good enough to make a wine stopper. And by law, you cannot go back to harvest that cork again until at least nine years have gone by. But that second harvest still does not give you the top-quality cork that we look for. So off the bat, you have 25 plus nine, and then plus another nine years. So 43 years of growth and care before that cork is ready to produce top-quality cork. Then that’s when the journey begins — it’s a very, very long time. Once the cork is harvested, which happens between June and August, depending on the weather, and because the weather is changing and the climate is changing, we need to adapt sometimes and start a little bit earlier in June or late May. But essentially, it’s a summer activity. And once that bark is harvested, it goes into a quality- control perimeter for the next six to nine months before each one of those planks is assessed and analyzed and it is decided what can be done with it. What can be done today with cork ranges from wine stoppers, of course, and for spirits, that’s still 70 percent of our approximately 800 million euros in annual sales. But the vast majority of the quantity does not end up in the wine bottle. It goes from anything that ranges from flooring to aerospace and defense materials, to our beloved Birkenstock shoes.

Z: As for cork that does go for wine and spirits bottles, maybe not from a technical standpoint, but what are the qualities that set it apart from cork that is for less rarified use?

C: Well, we’re looking at some key factors here that include, for example, the thickness of the cork plank. It has to have the right thickness for cork to be pumped horizontally. So if it’s too narrow, you’re not going to have the diameter necessary to punch out a cork. It also has to have a uniformity in the cellular structure that makes it look and feel very, very smooth. This has a direct bearing upon the oxygen transfer rate, for example, that cork is going to allow once it’s inserted in the bottle. Another incredibly important aspect, and certainly today, is the sensory performance of that cork. For example, one thing that we stopped doing is punching corks or even doing anything with the part of the bark that it’s in contact with the soil. Why is that? Because if you plot a distribution curve for the precursors of TCA — we’re not talking about TCA at this stage necessarily, but certainly the precursors of TCA — if you plot the distribution of those microorganisms (that in certain circumstances can create that problem in cork) then you’ll see most of them will be, not surprisingly, closer to the soil where the humidity is higher, where the everything is much easier for these little fellas to survive there, rather then further up on the tree trunk. So it’s an incredibly complex product. But again, you’re looking at an incredibly complex cellular structure. Just to give our listeners an idea, nature manages to pack, on average, 800 million cells into that little cylinder that you pull from a bottle top, and each one of those cells has an incredible elastic memory. Each one of those cells, when you compress the cork, even if you compress it over decades and decades and even centuries, when you release that pressure, it immediately tries to get back to its original size. And that’s why cork works well on a bottle or in our shoes, as I was joking about the Birkenstocks and many other brands that use cork shoes. But crucially, each one of those cells also carries a little bit of a gas that is very similar to the air that we breathe. And that, once inserted in the bottle, will help shape the evolution of that wine in a very, very unique way. So it’s quite a fascinating material, to be honest with you.

Z: Absolutely. I think, as I said at the beginning, it’s something that most people, even wine lovers, take mostly for granted. But that’s one of the reasons why we were really interested to get a little more detail about the manufacturer. So can you tell us a little bit about the history of Amorim? In addition to what we think of as the traditional cork, what are maybe some of the other cork-based products that you guys offer for wine and spirits?

C: Well, we celebrated 150 years as a company in 2020, so not a lot of partying— the plans we had for celebration in 2020 went quickly out the window. That was a little unfortunate, obviously, because it’s a big benchmark. The important thing is that we were able to keep our supply chain intact. We produce 5.5 billion corks every year. That’s a lot of bottles that need to be stopped, because if you fail, then people simply would not have wine on their supply chain. The whole team — there are about 4,300 people at Amorim, in dozens of countries, on all continents — we were able to maintain that supply chain intact. And I think when you look back on 2020, you will have at least one great thing: seeing the ability of people to come together in so many circumstances throughout the world. Here, that same thing happened. Those 5.5 billion stoppers are not all the same. In fact, they reflect the myriad of price points, wine types, wine qualities, and wine varietals that you have from all over the world. To give you an idea of a spectrum, a cork stopper could be as much as three dollars a unit, or a cork stopper can be four or five cents on the dollar. But again, that only reflects the myriad of types of wines that we can buy.

Z: I know that Amorim has a history of making what we’d consider classic corks. But also, as you said, you do meet a wide range of demands throughout the industry. Are there some products that our listeners — because we definitely have listeners who are in the wine trade itself — would be interested in knowing about?

C: When you say that we make classical stoppers, well, yes, we can make a classical stopper. What you and most people would consider a classical stopper — a natural whole cork stopper carved as a single piece from the bark — of a bottle of wine we’d like to drink but unfortunately we don’t, because it’s hundreds or thousands of euros a bottle. That cork goes through rigorous quality control. To give you an example of the type of quality control that it’s subjected to, it goes through a machine. It’s a technology called “NDtech,” as in undetectable technology. It’s a machine that has to find, or not, as little as 0.5 of a nanogram per liter of TCA, and it has to do that in seconds, with such a reliability that we are able to go to our clients and say, “Yes, there is absolutely no detectable TCA in that cork.” We do this dozens of millions of times every year. I asked one of the scientists to try to explain that because it was difficult to wrap my mind around that. What’s 0.5 nanogram? What does that mean, exactly? I know the pharmaceutical industry does quality control in parts per billion, but that sounds easy. The analogy that they gave me was that it’s the equivalent of finding one drop of water in 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools. A drop of water in 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools in seconds with reliability, because otherwise, we’d be in trouble. So I don’t think there’s a lot of classicism on that kind of approach. What I think it embodies is something that I came to believe more and more — it’s a blueprint for a lot of the problems that we collectively are facing today as a society, and that is the ability to grab something that nature gives you and wrap technology around that to make it even better. A natural whole cork stopper or a technical cork stopper made out of micro-agglomerated granules is exactly that. We grab that unique cell structure that nature gave us. NASA, by the way, calls that cell structure “nature’s own polymer.” We grabbed that, we wrapped technology around it, and made a product that was good, but had a problem. That product had a “small” problem — small because it’s measured in nanograms, but not that small — because it has a big affinity with 2,4,6-Trichlorophenol, that molecule that can ruin a bottle of wine even at very few nanograms. So it was quite a challenge. But I really think going forward that the more we bring nature and technology together — not as mutually exclusive players, but as a symbiotic approach to life in general —I think if we look at that, it’s not just the cork industry that will be able to grow as solidly as we have been for many years, but some of the other propositions can benefit from it also.

Z: So I know we’ve talked a lot about TCA as the biggest issue that consumers, producers, and obviously cork manufacturers like yourself face with cork. But are there other things that you’re also checking for in terms of quality that may be also interesting to know about?

C: Well, TCA was never the No. 1 or even the No. 2 quality problem that cork had. In fact, today, we can say with absolute confidence that we have defeated TCA — we just launched two new technologies on the 19th of January. These technologies help to extend to natural whole cork stoppers the type of guarantees and the type of performance that we already had with micro-agglomerated stoppers at Amorim for a long, long time. But we needed to check for other things. It has to do with, for example, the structure of the cork on the inside. The structural integrity of a cork is a function of what you see on the outside, but also what lies on the inside. You cannot destroy that cork to look at what’s going on inside. But if there is one canal from one end to the other, then you would have a lot of oxygen ingress into that bottle, and that would lead to premature oxidation of the wine. You don’t want that. So you have to develop technology. A lot of this technology is powered by algorithms that are incredibly powerful. But today we have the ability to employ more than a dozen quality- control checkpoints that need to be to be accounted for before a good cork is considered exactly that. A good cork today is very different from what it was 20 years ago.

Z: And I have a silly question, but I’m going to just ask it anyway. Do you, as a person who works with cork all the time, have a preferred method or a preferred tool for removing a cork from a bottle?

C: Yes. I’m not going to refer to actual brands, but I think we all know what we’re talking about if I say that it has to have a double lever, and it has to have the right coating on the actual screw. In Spain, there’s an amazing collection of corkscrews, and when you look at some of these pieces, it makes you nostalgic for the days when people took a lot of care to make artifacts. In the world of wine, we should not lose sight of that.

Z: You like what I would consider a traditional waiter’s corkscrew — nothing big and elaborate like some of our listeners definitely have at home.

C: I think they are beautiful to look at, but I don’t use them at home. I think my wife opted to use some of the heirlooms that we have there. But yes, a waiter’s corkscrew is very practical. It works and is reliable. If I get home and open a bottle of wine, that’s what I would use.

Z: Very cool. I just have one last question for you, Carlos. You talked a little bit about the scope of different products that Amorim makes. Obviously, we’re in an era where there are — maybe more than ever before — a number of different ways to close a wine or spirits bottle, whether that’s a screw cap, or a glass stopper, or whatever. I’m a romanticist at heart, so I love corks just because of the tradition, but I also recognize that is one argument for cork. I would love for you to make an argument — maybe you make a romantic argument, but also maybe just a very practical one — about why cork is still, at least in your eyes, the best way to close a bottle of wine or spirits.

C: Well, it’s not just in my eyes. Seven out of every 10 bottles of wine in the world today in the 21st century are closed with cork, to give everybody an idea. There’s no exact single source of information about how many bottles are filled and stopped every year around the world, but we’re pretty convinced that it’s somewhere between 19.5 and 20 billion bottles that are filled and stopped every year around the world. If you think that’s a lot of wine, yes, it is. But there’s a lot of wine that is not even considered here: everything that goes into a can, or a bag in a box. But of that 19.5 billion, 12 billion are closed with cork. Screw caps are about 5 to 5.2 billion. But then you still have a lot of plastic out there. Single-use plastic wine stoppers in the 21st century make no sense whatsoever. When you look at cork, you look at cork as the right option. It’s not just because all of us fell in love with opening a bottle of wine that had the cork in it. So something must have gone on throughout that interaction between the wine, the glass, and the cork. There are enough technicalities that that can be an entirely different podcast. We could do that one day for sure. But the technical aspects of the wine and cork interaction, we’re just beginning to understand them now. Then, you have that cultural relevance about wine and that sound that I mentioned a while ago. If you believe, as I believe, that there is a strong cultural role in wine consumption, then that certainly is important. But there’s a third item here that is only going to get more important, not less — and that has to do with sustainability. You can harvest cork without ever damaging a species that has been around for millions and millions of years. The cork forests of the western Mediterranean basin support one of the 36 hotspots of biodiversity around the world. If you think of some of the other 35, you think of places like Borneo, Costa Rica, the Amazon, the Pacific Northwest, actually. So we’re talking about a wealth that goes well beyond the borders of Portugal, and Portugal is the largest producer of cork in the world. But the migrations of species and birds do not obey political borders, as we all know. Also, regulation of water cycles — it’s absolutely fundamental that you have native species to protect the southern European flank from the advances of the North African desert. The list just goes on and on and on. It actually creates the best paid agricultural job in the world, which is harvesting cork: 135 euros per day. It affixes people to the land, and each one of these corks can retain as much as 562 grams of CO2. One single stopper. So when you look at where the world should be heading, how can you discount what is not only the only truly sustainable option for wine stoppers, but what is actually a blueprint of how you can balance people, planet, and profit? That’s what the cork industry does, that’s what the cork forests offer, and that’s what the wine industry makes possible. As I alluded to a little while ago, 70 percent of the value created for cork still comes from wine stoppers. So the good news is that when you open a bottle of wine, you’re not only opening a bottle of a great product, you’re also making a direct, measurable, and demonstrable contribution to maintain one of the world’s best sustainable stories. That’s what wine is all about, also.

Z: Well, I think that’s a wonderful place to leave it. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your insight and knowledge about this part of the wine industry that we don’t think about all that much. So thank you so much, and I look forward to chatting again in the future.

C: My pleasure.

Thanks so much for listening to the VinePair podcast. If you love this show as much as we love making it, please give us a rating on review on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or whatever it is you get. It really helps everyone else discover the show. Now for the credits. VinePair is produced and recorded in New York City, and in Seattle, Wash., by myself and Zach Geballe, who does all the editing and loves to get the credit.

Also, I would love to give a special shout-out to my VinePair co-founder, Josh Malin, for helping make all this possible, and also to Keith Beavers, VinePair’s tastings director, who is additionally a producer on the show. I also want to, of course, thank every other member of the VinePair team who are instrumental in all of the ideas that go into making the show every week. Thanks so much for listening, and we’ll see you again.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: The World’s Largest Cork Producer Fuses Nature and Technology appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-amorim-cork/

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johnboothus · 4 years

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Next Round: The Worlds Largest Cork Producer Fuses Nature and Technology

Listen Online

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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Or Check Out the Conversation Here

Carlos: Thank you for having me.

Z: As for cork that does go for wine and spirits bottles, maybe not from a technical standpoint, but what are the qualities that set it apart from cork that is for less rarified use?

Z: You like what I would consider a traditional waiter’s corkscrew — nothing big and elaborate like some of our listeners definitely have at home.

C: My pleasure.

Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.

The article Next Round: The World’s Largest Cork Producer Fuses Nature and Technology appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/next-round-amorim-cork/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/next-round-the-worlds-largest-cork-producer-fuses-nature-and-technology

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emmetohboy · 5 years

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Favorites 19

Helado Negro. “And we’ll light our lives on fire just to see if anyone will come rescue what left of me.”

LISTEN: Sofi Tukker: Ringless Jamila Woods: Basquiat Big Thief: Century Helado Negro: Please Won’t Please Kota the Friend: Hollywood Joan Shelley: Teal Big Thief: Not Anderson .Paak: Jet Black Twain: Run Wild Dori Freeman: That’s How I Feel Angie McMahon: Slow Mover The New Pornographers: Higher Beams Rob Curly: Faded Sampa the Great: Any Day Cataldo: Ding Dong Scrambled Eggs Lloyd Cole: Violins Mark Mulcahy: Happy Boat Amber Mark: Mixer J. S. Ondara: Saying Goodbye Cuco: Bossa No Sé Tyler Lyle: Marina Karaoke The Japanese House: Follow My Girl

Here we sit between the final holiday of this year and the first holiday of the next one. Again, I am attempting to encapsulate my past 365 days of cultural consumption in a post. It feels more difficult this time around. Not because I enjoyed less. Quite the opposite. I feel the past year brought such varied creative stimuli that I struggled to recall much of it. That said I’ll let this flow and ask permission for an addendum, usually worked back into the overall recap in appropriate places, this year simply attached to the end. But before the beginning of the next one.

I’m going to dive headfirst into the record I easily spun more than any other this year, perhaps several years – Helado Negro’s This is How You Smile. Working creatively under the name Helado Negro, Roberto Carlos Lange is a musician of Ecuadorian decent working across genres and languages. I became aware of his work for the first time in 2011 with his release of Canta Lechuza. Reading reviews and listening to tracks I felt conceptually kindred to the work but for whatever reason the songs themselves did not resonate with me. In 2019 when This is How You Smile was released I curiously read a review that mentioned the title’s referencing a work by Jamaica Kincaid. Kincaid’s story Girl first appeared in the New Yorker in 1978. The work is accessible and brief so I read it before listening to one note of the record. When I finally did, I was transfixed. It is the kind of work I wanted to share with anyone who would listen, even texting friends about it at inappropriately early morning hours as I listened; Justin would love this; This is right in Venessa’s wheelhouse, my sister, old friend from college I hadn’t spoken to since his divorce this is a good reason to reconnect. The funny thing is it’s not a record that is inclined to draw people in right away. It’s not built on irresistible hooks or propolsive beats. It unfolds quietly across simple but lush instrumentation, drifting back and forth between English and Spanish, often in the same song. “Running,” the first single, is as unassuming as a track can be. Languid and gentle it practically intends to lull the listener to sleep.

In June I drove with Mrs. OhBoy across two states to see Lange perform with a stripped-down two-piece band at the always wonderful Grog Shop in Cleveland. Knowing my sister lived within shouting distance I invited her to join us. The band played the new record in its entirety front to back. I’m not usually a fan of this live show format but Lange worked it magically. A lighting issue kept the stage darkener than intended for the first few tracks. When it was finally rectified the band and the audience all decided we preferred the previous illumination and the lights were dimmed again. Sometimes songs ended cleanly and abruptly. Sometimes saxophones or digital loops made it impossible to mark when one song ended and the other was beginning. The room seemed to shimmer with each note and gentle phrasing. When the set wrapped, I asked my fellow attendees their thoughts. Mrs. OhBoy summed up my total experience with the work of Helado Negro beginning with Canta Lucheza through his newest, at first, I wasn’t sure but then I thought ‘oh I get it.’

The second and third records I consumed with voracity this year are the tandem from Big Thief, U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. This quartet is working at the top of their game. And work they do. I had the pleasure of seeing them performed in 2018 at the Voodoo Music Festival in New Orleans. Nearing the end of their set Andrianne Lenker announced it was to be their last live performance of a perpetual two-year tour during which they had released two records. They took only the smallest of respites from touring recording and releasing both U.F.O.F. and Two Hands. They seem to be constanly creating. The Beetles played 292 shows at the Cavern Nightclub in Hamburg – Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule – how do you get to Carnegie Hall? - and in July of this year I speculated Big Thief to be the best band in America. Watching the four piece perform you get the sense that they could finish each others sentences but are just as likely to let each other ramble on for hours.

There are countless clips of the band playing live that make my case but I’m fond of this intimate little performance.

Speaking of musical acts improving on themselves with each release, this year brought a new e.p. from the duo Sofi Tukker. Nothing about this infectious act fits with the rest of my musical tastes. But how am I supposed to quit them if they keep putting out records like Dancing on the People. The integration of rock-oriented guitar licks and the multi-cultural cross pollination keep the musical arrangements from falling into rote dance patterns. And on “Ringless” Sophie Hawley-Weld composes lyrical quality akin to Stephin Merritt - “I'm more than the worst thing I've ever done. I’m less than the best thing I've ever won.”

Earlier this month NPR’s Ann Powers published a fascinating piece, Songs That Bend Time. Featured in the article-playlist combination is Chicago’s own Jamila Woods. And rightly so considering her latest release is entitled Legacy! Legacy! and each track pays homage to pioneers that Woods admires. The entire record is astonishing in both composition and performance. “Basquiat” is a great place to start.

It seems I am perennially placing Joan Shelley on my yearly favorites list but truthfully, she was absent last year. 2019 brought Like the River Loves the Sea, another lilting work with her frequent collaborators Nathan Salsburg, James Elkington and Will Oldham. Recorded in Iceland where, as Joan tells it, they were unable to find a banjo anywhere, the record wonderfully utilizes the angelic violin and cello work of Þórdís Gerður Jónsdóttir and Sigrún Kristbjörg Jónsdóttir. Teal and The Fading are true standouts in a solid lineup of Shelley compositions.

“Hollywood” by Kota the Friend was my unofficial song of summer. And two of my long-time heroes, Lloyd Cole and Mark Mulcahy notably had their best records in a turn. Mulcahy brings us The Gus and finds him pushing his story telling prowess to new heights. The track “Late for the Box” treads onto George Saunders level observations. Cole’s Guesswork reunites him with Commotions partner Blair Cowen and effortlessly blends some of Lloyds previous electronic instrumental work with his more noteworthy singer songwriters’ efforts. It feels retro and current at the same time. Similarly, “Higher Beams” from The New Pornographers latest effort, The Morse Code of Brake Lights is as close to a new 70’s-era Genesis song as we may ever hear again.

I was able to carve out a little more time for reading in 2019 than previous years. Not a lot but enough to keep multiple books going at once. I haven’t been able to maintain such a practice before. Maybe I grew into it. Or more likely the specifics books I chose allowed for it. I’ve been making my way through John Berger’s Portraits form nearly two years. Its structure is pefect for picking up, putting down and then picking up again. I cannot imagine another person writing more eloquently on the experience of humans creating and interacting with visual art. His writing is cerebral but not lofty. His language is precise yet textural. In a way I hope never to finish this book.

I haven’t read much George Saunders, only Civilwarland in Bad Decline, but when I finally opened Lincoln in the Bardo I poured through it. It can be a difficult read at first. But like Helado Negro, once I caught on to what the artist was doing (oh, I get it), every word was a joy.

Superheroes and deep mythologies are not my cup of tea, but Watchmen is fantastic. To be honest we have their final episode yet to view. We are cherishing it in a way we had previously with the final episode of Catastrophe. The writing is clever and complex. The performances are so good that one cannot imagine any other actor playing any of the roles – Jean Smart? Wow!

Counter to Watchmen, although there is certainly an aspect of mythology, is Lodge 49. AMC has announced they are not renewing it, so we hope it finds a new home. What is so unique about this set of characters and their tales is how ultimately low the stakes are, yet how much the viewer is compelled to care.

I have not seen Parasite yet although it is on the list for this week. We don’t go to the theater a lot, but we did go to see Knives Out. Pure fun. I wore a broad smile for the final 15 minutes of this caper. A fantastic ensemble and masterfully woven story. Not to the lcomplexitiy of the time-jumping Watchmen, much more immediate with the stakes made clear early. That’s what makes this a fresh take on an old genre.

So, here’s the forewarned addendum. One of the books I’ve juggled since Thanksgiving was recommended to me by a friend upon our adopting a new dog, an English Setter. My friend is an avid outdoorsman and has had two retrievers since I’ve known him. Both of the dogs were impeccably trained and behaved which is always important, but can be especially so for larger and active breeds. He told me he used a book called Water Dog to train his retrievers. It is an old book written by Richard A. Wolters and published in 1964. And the bulk of it, as the title suggests, has to do with teaching a dog to retrieve ducks for hunters. Wolters is wry and no-nonsense from the opening paragraph. He threads scientific data with gut instinct and acknowledges that some of his views may be questionable, but his results speak for themselves. Addressing the theory that you’ll ruin a hunting dog by keeping it inside the house with the family, Wolters proposes it was “thought up by some old house wife who hated dogs.” To be sure I am not recommending this because of the results it has brought us with our new four-legged family member. I have only just begun utilizing the books techniques. And as the largest percentage of them relate to laying in a blind and waiting for fowl to approach, be shot and then retrieved, I will never use most of it. But I have read every word, never thinking that a hunting dog manual would be a book that I joyfully balanced in the mix of everything else I intended to experience this year.

*Update (or addendum 2?): We watched the final episode of Watchmen. Go directly to HBO now. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. It is mind-bendingly entertaining and provocative. And yet I hope they make not another second of it. It’s not possible to match the quality of these nine episodes.

Under the wire musical addendum. The Japanese House: “Follow MY Girl”

I almost forgot about this gem of a record. Good at Falling came our way back in March. Running the last errands of the year (dog treats to keep pups occupied during a pajama clad New Year’s Day) the randomizer in Apple Music reminded me. So glad it did. And that I prepped this space for late entries. Happy New Year. .

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fapangel · 7 years

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pastebin /fphUX9Qy follow-up tangent to plot vs characters

https://pastebin.com/fphUX9Qy

You totally missed the "setting" part of that question, or does that come under "plot" for you? What drove me to ask the question originally was advice from an editor, who recommended that "Plot should be finished before you work on characters, and setting comes last." His reasoning for this was that he'd seen too many people get caught up in world building and character building, but end up not having a plot to speak of (granted a lot of people who paid him were "muh OCs muh mary sue" FFnet writers but he applied the same advice to original works).

Would you agree with his advice? Is getting too caught up in world-building/character-building something you've suffered from, or the opposite with plot, even?

THIS:

His reasoning for this was that he’d seen too many people get caught up in world building and character building, but end up not having a plot to speak of (granted a lot of people who paid him were “muh OCs muh mary sue” FFnet writers but he applied the same advice to original works).

Abso-fucking-lutely correct.

Some people are just in fucking love with worldbuilding - witness the endless circlejerks over such things on /tg/. As interesting as it can be, I’ve personally never understood it. In a more historical/technological context it can be fascinating to me - working out an alternate history 1930s where airships worked, or to a further extent, working out the details of a dieselpunk world - but the kind of worldbuilding I see most people dive into is the “pure fantasy world created from a blank slate” kind, where they’ll spend hours drawing fucking mountain ranges on maps and inventing variants of elves to populate the thick forests on their slopes, and shit.

Now there’s a lot to be said for unique worlds, and all - truly gifted writers can bring these places to life - but worldbuilding is something more immersive and evocative than specific, I think. It’s the background flavor. The end result is far more than just the sum of the parts, which is the key to setting, I think. But the simple truth is that most, if not all good plots can work in multiple different settings. Stories are about people, and as much as our world has changed over the last few thousand years of human history, people tend to stay the same. If you swap Fremen for Arabs and Spice for Oil and giant fucking worms for Toyota Hiluxes, Dune is just Lawrence of Space Arabia, isn’t it? Well, the Toyota Hiluxes are cooler than those stupid fucking worms, but you get the picture. The point is, you need to tell a damn story, so no matter how lovely the setting is, if you have no STORY that’s in you, screaming to be told, the setting won’t matter one damn bit. And people who tend to love and obsess with world-building tend to have a vision of a world in their head, more than any one story, is the problem. They have to translate that world-vision in their head into terms of the stories they see taking place in that world - refine that initial vague idea of a world of high adventure and sweeping vistas and sword-and-sorcery into something more concrete enough to get a grip on. Then they can get to work - because now they know how the setting matters to the story. Instead of becoming obsessed with the cultural habits of the Deep Dwarves of Asshole Mountain or something, they can focus on evoking the setting when it advances the whole tone and impression they’re going for - even if said things are integral subtextual goals of the plot itself, you at least need to know what those goals are, first, before the setting works for you and not against you.

I think much the same applies to his comment about putting plot before character. Some people lose themselves in designing intricate characters - this, in fact, can define an entire class of novel called “literary,” which tends to focus on the endless travails and internal struggles of a character’s thoughts and emotions within their own mind. Without a plot to throw the character into challenging, contrasting situations, the conflict has to come from somewhere, and so naturally it comes from within. Or sometimes it just comes from within the same plane; i.e. another character whom they are in bitter struggle against. The contrast of character and setting is again present in To Kill A Mockingbird, (the lusty life-loving fighter pitted against the dour, stifling environment) but it’s the battle of personalities and wills between Murphy and Nurse Ratchet that really define the story. In No Country For Old Men the plot only shows up long enough to drop a mortally wounded Mexican with a suitcase of cash into the story to set up the primary conflict - two men who are driven, resourceful and possessed of a great and terrible will, fighting one another because there’s something they want (the money) and they’re willing to fight to the death to keep it.

But you see? That’s plot. Even the “man versus man” part of it is plot, even before you get to the single dead Mexican with a suitcase of money - that’s just the initiating incident, the single excuse, change, deviation from status quo that starts the conflict rolling. And now that you’ve got that conflict - which is what a plot, reduced to its barest essence, is - you’ve got a story. Man versus man, man versus nature, man versus himself - the three basic plots. Versus. Once you have that, it doesn’t matter if it’s between a cowboy and a hired killer or Santa Claus and Colonel fucking Sanders - or if they battle in Arizona, or on the fucking Moon in the 31st century. Because without the plot, you can drop cowboys and killers and Santa and Sanders onto Mars in the 41st century with a pile of rayguns and a time-portal to 1950s Arizona and it won’t mean anything because they’ll just sit there wondering what the fuck they’re supposed to be doing.

So I’d put it in this order:

Plot: Because every story is about a fight, and one that you’re interested in. If you can name what fight you want to see (man versus man, man versus self, man versus nature, or even all three,) then you have a starting point. You have a goal, to work towards.

Character: Because characters want things, and there’s usually something or someone stopping them from getting it (sometimes even themselves,) and that at least implies a conflict, or points you right at it. It’s less direct than having the conflict itself in mind from the get-go, but it’s more direct than-

Setting: Because settings don’t usually have inherent conflicts. Elf-Dorf frenemy spats and such can exist, but the truth is that any of the usual conflicts can be inflicted upon your character any way you need - up to and including dropping Carlos Corpse Moneybags on them or having aliens abduct them to make them play the deadliest game somewhere else in the galaxy. If you can get away with that - and obviously, they have - then finagling your character into conflict isn’t that damn hard that you need to write entire settings to set it up.

There’s a final reason - stories are all about characters, and the importance of plot is largely because it exists in such intractable, interwoven interdependence with the agency of the character, as I described a few posts back. That means the setting cannot overpower the character - the setting has to be a reflection of the character, rather than the character being a reflection of the setting. Even if the character is a product of the setting - like Conan the Barbarian - it’s still Conan who holds center stage, because he’s walking, talking and kicking ass. Because he has agency, and if the plot doesn’t come to him, he goes to the plot, shanks it in the face and steals all its gold and shit. The dark and gloomy city and the dark and gloomy Noir Detective are reflections of one another, sure - but the City is the backdrop, the playing field, and the Detective is the one making the plays and carrying the ball. The City can be a 1920s metropolis or a 2150s dystopian future-world of hovercabs and seedy sexbots working the streetcorners - as long as it reflects the character. One character fits multiple different settings. And because the character - and their inextricable connection to the plot - are so important, the element most capable of changing to accommodate the others tends to be the setting. Setting is something you can change and fine-tune to requirements. Even for the world-building obsessed nerd, it’s silly to go making the entire world in great detail, because you won’t know half the locations you need till you’ve a character to live in it. What would The Shark of the Land be, if he had no Whirlpool of Dickass Octopi to fight through, or no dark trials to survive in the dreaded Cave of Tits? What’s the point of building a fantasy world if you can’t whip a fucking cool haunted canyon and shit out of your ass as the situation demands? More to the point, how will you know what makes a world worth adventuring in, unless you have an adventurer traversing it?

That editor knew his shit. Listen to him.

Don’t just imagine a setting.

Imagine yourself in that place.

And you’ll know what to do.

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torontohypnotherapist · 6 years

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OCTOBER 30 — GEORGE GURDJIEFF QUOTES

BEFORE YOU CAN HELP OTHERS... YOU MUST KNOW YOURSELF AND BE ABLE TO HELP YOURSELF

One day, Mme de Hartmann told us that Gurdjieff was going away for a cure, and that if any of us wished to speak to him before he went we could do so that afternoon. There were now eight of the younger pupils left, all from America. I was very nervous, not knowing what to ask, yet not wanting to lose the opportunity. We sat on the grass in the bright autumn sunshine and waited. At length he came out and slowly walked to his chair. First one and then another got up and went to him. I put off my turn as long as possible, for my mind was a blank, but as I got up, the questions came to me, and, sitting at his feet I said, ‘Mr Gurdjieff, I would like to have stayed at the Prieuré, but I’ve made arrangements to start a book business in America; also, I want to get married, though I have no one in mind at the moment. And I want to help others.’ ‘All these can be of use,’ he said. ‘Very necessary to get money for life. You go and start your business, then later perhaps we go into business together. About marrying; first you must distinguish between woman and wife. Wife is always, woman temporary. If you marry now perhaps not last. Later perhaps. Also, before you can help others, be of real use to others, you must know yourself and be able to help yourself. Now you are egoist, mind always on yourself. You must learn how to be egoist for good aim, then you will be able to be real altruist and help others.’

That was all; but the force behind the words, like a fresh breeze, cleared my cloudy mind of sentimentality, the ‘slight emotion exaggerated by muddled thinking’ that had accumulated over the years about sex and ‘doing good’. When he went indoors to rest, I walked through the forest pondering his words.

~ CS Nott “The Teachings of Gurdjieff - A Pupil's Journal” ...

THE BEST-EQUIPPED LABORATORY ON EARTH FOR THE STUDY OF DEAD SOULS

The next day he [Gurdjieff] drove us to Monte Carlo, the "other end of the stick” from our rugged alpine outing. This day he went deluxe all the way, giving us a practical example of his favorite aphorism — "When you go on a spree, go whole hog . . . including the postage.”

He led us to the most stylish restaurant in Monte Carlo — his cafe in the Place du Casino, just in front of the columned gaming halls. He found trout on the menu, ordered it for all, cooked in fresh butter, the only way he would eat it. Then he told us we had exactly one half hour before the platters would arrive at the table. With a smile he announced how we would spend that half hour:

"One custom I have, always in Monte Carlo. To all the children I give money and they must play all in the Casino, and after — give me half their winnings. So now...” To those of us deemed children — Margaret, Solita, his brother and me, he gave one hundred francs each and waved us off to the roulette tables.

Years before, Wendy and I had visited the Casino. With the writer’s acquisitiveness for detail, I had studied the fascinating machinery of Chance and the unlikely people it fascinated young and old, bejeweled and poverty-frayed, regal and plebian, a cross section of humanity such as I had never seen packed together in one place, obeying with identical gestures a single voice, the croupier’s calling on all to place their bets. As I had watched the gamblers’ faces spellbound by the gyrations of a small steel ball it did not occur to me that I was looking at the faces of slaves.

Now, on the return, the familiar scene had an aspect of real terror. The same people seen years before seemed to be there still. With a shock I thought I recognized one or two of the more eccentric-looking players. They were in their same places, at their same preferred tables, placing their same careful bets on the red or the black, the odd or the even, the "saddle” or the carré, and writing the table’s winning plays in the same tally-keeping diaries (slightly thicker books now) that lay beneath their fingers. As I stared with my inner eye at the faces of slaves who had died to everything in life but the turn of a gaming wheel, I understood why Gurdjieff had sent us into the Casino, the best-equipped laboratory on earth for the study of dead souls.

I understood something more as soon as I placed my first bet. My objective eye almost ceased to function. I fought not to identify with my lonely chip standing rashly on a single number; but I watched it, as the zombies around me were watching theirs, as if it was a piece of myself laid out there on the green baize. ‘We will not identify,’ I commanded silently. I felt a slight perspiration break out on my forehead when the croupier swept in my losing chip. I tried to tell myself that this was because I was gambling with Gurdjieff’s money (which I madly hoped to quintuple at least) but I knew in my inner world that only a hairsbreadth of self-possession separated me from my green-faced neighbors around the table, reflecting the baize at which they stared. At the end of the half hour, our gaming foursome met at the door of the Casino. Solita had two hundred fifty francs, I had a hundred fifty and Margaret and the brother were cleaned out. The winners paid back to Gurdjieff the half of the take which he accepted with a great act of blank-faced astonishment.

~ Kathryn Hulme “Undiscovered Country” ...

THE POWER OF CHANGING ONESELF LIES NOT IN THE MIND, BUT IN THE BODY AND THE FEELINGS

Fontainebleau Friday, 19 January 1923

To all my questions: “Has anyone thought, while working today, about the last lecture?” I invariably receive the same answer—they forgot. And yet to think while working is the same as to remember oneself. It is impossible to remember oneself. And people do not remember because they wish to live by mind alone. Yet the store of attention in the mind (like the electric charge of a battery) is very small. And other parts of the body have no wish to remember.

Maybe you remember it being said at lectures that man is like a team consisting of passenger, driver, horse and carriage. There can be no question of passenger, for he is not there, so we can only speak of the driver. Our mind is the driver. This mind of ours wants to do something, has set itself the task of working differently from the way it worked before, of remembering itself. All the interests we have related to self-change, self-alteration, belong to the driver, i.e. are only mental. As regards feeling and body—these parts are not in the least interested in putting it into practice. And yet the main thing is to change not in the mind but in the parts that are not interested. The mind can change quite easily. Attainment is not gained through the mind; if it is through the mind, it is no use at all.

Therefore one should teach, and learn, not in the mind but in the feeling and the body. At the same time feeling and body have no language; they have neither the language nor understanding we possess. They understand neither Russian nor English, just as the horse does not understand the language of the driver, or the carriage the language of the horse. If the driver says in English: “Turn right!”— nothing will happen. The horse understands the language of the reins and will turn right (only obeying the reins), or another horse will turn without reins if you rub it in a customary place, as for instance donkeys are trained to do in Persia. It is the same with the carriage—it has its own structure. If the shafts turn right, the rear wheels go left. Then another movement and the wheels go right. This is so because the carriage only understands this movement and reacts to it in its own way. So the driver should know the weak sides, or the character, of the carriage. Only then can he drive it in the direction he wishes. But if he merely sits on his box and says in his own language “go right” or “go left,” the team will not budge if he shouts for a year.

We are an exact replica of such a team. Mind alone cannot be called a man, just as a driver who sits in a pub cannot be called a driver who fulfills his function. Our mind is like a professional cabby who sits at home or in a pub and drives passengers to different places in his dreams. Just as his driving is not real, so trying to work with mind alone will lead nowhere. One will only become a professional, a lunatic.

The power of changing oneself lies not in the mind, but in the body and the feelings. Unfortunately, however, our body and our feelings are so constituted that they don’t care a jot about anything so long as they are happy. They live for the moment, and their memory is short. The mind alone lives for tomorrow. Each has its own merits. The merit of the mind is that it looks ahead. But it is only the other two that can “do.”

~ "Gurdjieff's Early Talks 1914-1931" ...

BUT DON’T EAT THE NEXT TO LAST

YT: Two weeks ago in reply to a question, you told me to leave something on my plate at every meal. I did this exercise without obtaining a clear result. Should I continue? What’s more, when I’m hungry - and I’m almost always hungry - it is impossible for me to work. It is a continual struggle for me and I don’t know how to get out of it. I can bear hunger, but I cannot work. I am always brought back to my body. If I’m hungry, I stay with my hunger.

GURDJIEFF: So nothing has changed? Absolutely nothing?

YT: It seemed to me that for two or three days there was a slight change. This sensation of always being brought back to the life of my body may have been less strong. However, I’m always brought back to my body.

GURDJIEFF: Continue for another week, but a bit differently. I told you not to eat the last bite. You may, if you like, eat the last bite, but don’t eat the next to last.

~ “G. I. GURDJIEFF — Paris Meetings 1943”

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coolmadeforschool-blog · 6 years

Text

Partial Essay

Ximena Arrache

A01176802

Tecnologico de Monterrey

Emma Freeman

Partial essay

During this essay, I will be discussing two particular texts viewed in class, and although they seem to have nothing to do with each other, I think both give a bigger meaning to the writing and its subjectiveness can both express ideologies and assumptions that i find fascinating. The first text I will be discussing is Alberto Blanco’s “La raíz cuadrada del cielo” this book full of poems is also full of humor and possibilities for endless interpretations. The second text I will analize is Carlos Fuentes’ Chac-Mool, This second text is a lot less open for suggestion as it is a story that transparently relates to Latin American culture and colonialism, although it does not explicitly say so, it shows a clever twist on history and has a very colorful play on its characters.

“La

ciencia

me enseñó

Que

el sol no es

El centro del universo;

El sol

Me enseñó

que la ciencia tampoco.”

(Blanco, A. 2016 “La raíz cuadrada del cielo”)

This is the starting poem for Alberto Blanco’s La raíz cuadrada del cielo, and it's the perfect introduction, it's a simple text, if you read it, but its meaning has a further message. He refers to science throughout all of his poems in this book, but most of this “science” he speaks of, he also plays with and gives every word a different or even at times a double meaning. Science taught me that the sun is not the center of the universe; The sun taught me that science isn't either.

We all had science class growing up, which means at some point we learned that the sun is the center of our solar system, but we also know our solar system isn't the center of the whole universe but merely a simple small part of it. The sun and its impact and powerful energy, its significance to us as human beings, is also a metaphor for a life outside the study of science, life itself without giving it a bigger or strict meaning. During an interview with Kimberly A. in Las formas del instante, Entrevista con Alberto Blanco, The author or la raíz cuadrada del cielo said: “Aquí se trata de la raíz cuadrada del cielo. Evidentemente la raíz cuadrada del cielo es la tierra. Y todo esto tiene sentido del humor. Sí, todos estos poemas tienen mucho sentido del humor. Un sentido del buen humor que, en general, les urge a los científicos.” He clarifies that his humor is present during his writing of la raíz cuadrada del cielo, a humor that is urgent to scientists. Reading through la raíz cuadrada del cielo, I became fascinated by his way of writing about time, his poems reflect a loopwhole experience when it comes to time and space, the way he expresses this is by using analogies on time and how we perceive time and how its measured, for example, there is an infinite amount of fractions of a second in a second and there is an infinite amount of seconds in time, which means there is an equal amount of milliseconds and seconds, although one infinite is bigger than the other. This and many more enigmas are presented in his poems which creates an opportunity for speculation and subjectivity in his writing.

In the other hand, Chac-Mool, written by Carlos Fuentes is a story that presents itself in many aspects that are very much alike real life history regarding colonialism. The story begins with a narrator, that in the story is or was friends with our main character which is Filbert. Filbert documents in a journal, read by the narrator, about his experiences with an ancient statue he calls the Chac-Mool, he later discovers the Chac-Mool has a life of his own and becomes interested yet a little bit scared of this instance, and although he cannot make himself capable of leaving the situation he stays and documents the whole thing. Chac-Mool starts out as an interesting entity, it is mentioned that he invested time storytelling fascinating Filbert. Later in the story the Chac-Mool becomes destructive and takes advantage of the space and resources around him, drinks wine, trashes rooms and for some reason claims an excessive amount of water. By the end of Filberts journal, he describes his plan to escape the Chac-Mool, a plan we know has failed and ended with Filberts life. Although there is more to the story, the main aspects of it are very clear to me, specially the aspects that relate to the real life events that this story foreshadows. The Chac-Mool represents Latin american culture and people while Filbert, is in representation of the real life colonization, but here is where the story takes a twist as its the Chac-Mool who “colonizes” Filbert, the steps for this colonization are the same, at the beginning the perpetrator starts out as nice and makes Filbert treat him as a god, in exchange for stories and knowledge the Chac-Mool offered, but then as history goes, the colonizer takes advantage of resources and land, which in this case was the house and the wine, and forces labor out of the resident.

While it is not explicitly declared that this comparison is on purpose, and as well as Alberto Blancos poetry, anyone could have subjectively understood a different story to the reading, the resemblance to real life and the message it portrays by changing the roles of its characters is very powerful.

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oosteven-universe · 6 years

Text

Taarna #3

Taarna #3 Heavy Metal 2018 Written by Alex De Campi Illustrated by Esau Escorza & Isaac Escorza Coloured by Carlos Cabrera Lettered by Adam Wollet Taarna discovers why she was summoned to the war-torn planet and given her ultimate mission - infiltrate the Priests' base and kill the Sky-God! I am so completely and utterly impressed with the fact that Alex can write a story featuring a woman who cannot speak and yet get the reader to love her and be fascinated by her and everything she does. By the price tags on Minnie Pearl’s hats this has so many qualities to it that just suck you in and make you a part of it before you know it’s happened. I find it interesting that this fits in with what you would think of when you see it comes from Heavy Metal and yet it also transcends that and is so much more. I think the level of talent that we see here is sensational and as such you really need to pay attention to more than just the company putting something out. The way this is structured is fantastic and Alex has found a way to create this whole ebb & flow to the story that is wonderfully done. We have seen Taarna and her friend be suited up to be used as fodder for the Priests and finally left on the battlefield where they believed her friend to be dead. Taarna knew she was still alive and took her and walked away. Where she walked to well that’s where this issue picks up. I like the fact that we are past needing to have an opening that has to behave like one, that it must capture the attention to keep reader wanting to see more. If you are at issue three you’re already a part of this story. We finally get to see what drew Taarna here and why she is needed. The man she met on the battlefield is the one who summoned her here to defend his city, he’s a lord after all. What we see and learn here is nothing near what I was expecting to see or learn. The mind that Alex has and the way that we see the amount of time that passed since the beginning of his story until lying on that bed astonished me. The creativity and imagination here is mind boggling good and the roller coaster ride that is Taarna and her life and what she’s meant to do yeah it’s just wow. I am going to assume, which I know I shouldn’t do but.., that Esau and Isaac are brothers and the work they do here with Carlos blows my mind. This is incredible in it’s attention to detail, the manipulation of the varying weights in the linework to create subtle, soft or bold lines and thus showing texture and weight well it is masterfully done. I wish this were the standard because it’s so well done and the imagery and colours that we get are why European and South American artists find themselves so in demand. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows a stellar eye for storytelling. The way we see backgrounds utilised and how the panels are full but not crowded is superb. If you consider yourself a comic book fan, fanboy/fangirl or whatever then you know there is so much more to the industry than DC, Marvel or even Image and it is books like this one right here that demonstrate why you should be reading more from the other guys nowadays. The quality and level of storytelling happening within these pages is something that you NEED to be seeing pure and simple.

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po8ofhearts246 · 6 years

Photo

Individual Project (week 29/final)

The final week of individual project was upon me and it has certainly been a bumpy one. With the basic layout of the presentation complete, it was now time to add the final details from continuing to find suitable images to writing a few lines when necessary. I also had the opportunity to improve upon a few details as stepping away from this module to focus on other deadlines allowed me time to think of possibilities that I had not considered previously. The most prominent changes centred around the theoretical methodology from going into greater detail as to how each step would function. But also providing a visual illustration of the methodology from its initial conception to it improve form during the experimental phase. Upon the completion of the presentation, I began to rehearse how I would present my work to Carlo and Matthew. This continued across Monday and into Tuesday evening, as the next day would be Wednesday, the day of my presentation.

Before setting off, I decided to have one last check through to make sure everything was in order and once I was satisfied with the results. I set forth to the University, ready to present my work to Carlo and Matthew. This however did not go as smoothly as I anticipated for while colour did arrive for the session, Matthew was actually busy with another I was not actually aware that we had a session. This was because of a misconception I had as the way Carlo described this arrangement indicated to me that both he and Matthew had mutually agreed upon these timeslots for the 9th of 10th of May. When in truth I was supposed to discuss the time of my presentation to both Carlo and Matthew to decide the appropriate time for all parties. I admittedly felt like a moron for misunderstanding the situation but Carlo assured me that this dilemma could be easily remedied and she and I arrange with Matt the presentation for the next day at 11:15 to 12:15. Strangely enough, this blunder proved to be a blessing in disguise as Wednesday was not a good day for Matt and first day was far more convenient for him to hold the presentation. Thus I returned home to prepare myself for the following day.

I arrived early and made sure that I was both physically and mentally prepared for the presentation. Carlo was already present as he was attending another presentation for one of my colleagues, James and it was not long after that Matthew joined us. We made ourselves comfortable and then I began my presentation. Despite my practising, things did not quite go to plan but if Of Mice and Men is anything to go by, this was perfectly normal. After I was finished speaking, the two began their questioning with Matthew going first. He mainly enquired about things that he felt didn't quite make sense like how the introduction I had written implying that I had already conducted the research despite it only being the introduction. Though he did gave me some leniency, being aware I have issue in that particular area. In contrast, Carlo's enquiries emphasise what further research could be conducted to expand upon what I had already done. I have trouble thinking of an answer at first. But after some contemplation, I came to a interesting conclusion. Integrating the second film method of colour narrative into a game story provided a few interesting points of note. But only employing one method would limit the capability of the methodology I had created. Therefore, it would be necessary to incorporate the other three methods for only when all four were used together with the theoretical methodology reached its full potential. As such, if I was placed in a situation to further research the subject, I would conduct further research into how the other three methodologies could be incorporated into a game story and also conduct further experiments to acquire definitive proof that these methods could be incorporated effectively into game narrative.

Carlo had reached a similar conclusion, but he wanted to see if I could reach such a conclusion by myself. And was pleased that I had done so. Thus the presentation had reached its conclusion and Carlo and Matthew requested I take my leave so they could discuss in private my performance in this module and assigned me a grade based on the criteria is I had covered during my individual project. Though I cannot say for certain what grade I will receive, I can say with confidence that Carlo and Matthew will assign me a grade that is the truest reflection of my ability and hard work.

Reflection

Of all the modules I have undertaken throughout my time in University, this one was the most personally challenging of all. It required me to look at different subjects from entirely new angles and though I had issue grasping this new approach at first. I slowly began to develop the mindset that opened up new possibilities to exploring a particular subject.The subject of this project was of great fascination to me as some of my favourite games had a more artistic visual aesthetic and encouraged me to learn why they had such an influence on me. The background research allowed me to learn many interesting details about colour from how they attain their individual names, the effects they could have on one's body and mind and how each colour attained its individual meaning. I will admit that my enjoyment of the study was somewhat dimmed by the necessity to constantly reference the work of others when's documenting my work. But I understood that it was a necessary evil and the references provided me with a better understanding of how one could use colour to tell stories.

However, a constant challenge was ever present throughout this study and that was the artistic aspects of a nature. As it is well documented, autistics interpret information differently than others and so I had to be extra careful to ensure I fully understood what was being asked of me. This was not always perfect as I had delayed conducting my experiment as I had misinterpreted information my supervisor had given me. A particular problem in my case was that my autism affected my ability in spelling and grammar, meaning that I could have made one or two errors and yet be completely oblivious to their presence as was the case with the first draft of my final report. As part of my final grade was dependent on using these aspects effectively, I was in somewhat of a complicated situation. Fortunately, I was able to request aid from my study mentor to work together me to check that the spelling was correct and the grammar was understandable.

All in all, the study was filled with a number of challenges and I think I did rather well in overcoming them. I was able to learn all manner of new and fascinating details about the nature of colour and was able to devise a new way for games to use colour in their designs. It is even possible that I will have the opportunity to revisit this research and perhaps expand upon what I have already done. Though likely in a personal capacity. Though my study will likely not be the best of its kind. I am quite satisfied at how it turned out. And any grade I receive will have been earned through my efforts and hard work.

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trendingnewsb · 7 years

Text

Imagine living with this crap: tempers in Venice boil over in tourist high season

As residents leave and visitor numbers soar, the citys quality of life is being eroded. This summer, irate locals have taken to the streets

Emotions run high in Venice, the Italian island city that fascinates visitors even as it exasperates the dwindling band of local inhabitants.

Venice is still known as La Serenissima, the most serene, and was once a place where the population rubbed gracefully along with visitors made up mostly of intellectuals, writers and artists. It is difficult now to imagine that happy coexistence, when you wander through the intricate maze of alleys and waterways and speak to local people. Depopulation and mass tourism have long been causes of local despair. But this summer it feels as if a tipping point may not be far away.

Earlier this month an estimated 2,000 Venetians marched against a tourism industry they argue has eroded their quality of life, that is damaging the environment and driving residents away: Venices population has fallen from about 175,000 in the post-second world war years to 55,000 today.

Carlo Beltrame, one of the events organisers and a researcher in humanities at Venices Ca Foscari University, yearns for a time when taking a motorboat was not stressful or when a trip to his doctor in the Rialto Bridge area did not involve getting caught up in the slow-moving tourist throng.

Around 2,000 people leave each year, he said. If we go on this way, in a few years time Venice will only be populated by tourists. This would be a social, anthropological and historicaldisaster.

Whether irritated by selfie sticks, noisy wheelie suitcases or people snacking on one of the 391 bridges, Venetians contempt towards the 28million visitors who flood the city each year has reached alarming levels.

On a July morning in Cannaregio a neighbourhood tucked away from the congested Piazza San Marco area you can still catch a glimpse of the authentic Venetian lifestyle. The scene playsout much as it does in otherItalian cities: smartly dressed people chat animatedly as they shop atthe butchersand bakers or congregate at the bar. Children play freely on the streets.

The area remains mostly undisturbed by tourists, but Luciano Bortot, who was born here, is feeling anything but serene. Youre asking me what its like to live with this crap? he said. It used to be wonderful, we had lots of artisans the problem now is the mass tourism, the people who come for just a few hours and see nothing its as much of a nightmare for them.

Like many of his neighbours, Bortot despises the behemoth cruise ships that chug through the Giudecca canal four or five times a day, emitting fumes before disgorging thousands of people on some days as many as 44,000 into the historic centre.

A ship glides into the city one of several every day. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

He also laments the surge in the number of B&Bs, which make it impossible for residents to find a home to rent on a long-term contract.

With its carnival, star-studded film festival and the Biennale art exhibition, Venice has a long history of cultivating tourism. It is an industry that brings millions to the coffers each year and provides thousands of jobs. The city cannot live with it or without it and, even among themselves, it seems that stressed Venetians are becoming increasingly fractious.

Venetians of today are not so proud, not like our ancestors were, said Michelangelo Adamo, 23, a restaurant worker who is training to be a boat skipper so that he can escape to the quieterislands. They dont really care about art or culture, they drive speedboats and eat junk food, its more like Miami Beach.

Another resident of Cannaregio is Galliano di Marco, the CEO of VTP, the Venice passenger terminal that manages and provides services to the cruise liners and their passengers. Originally from the central Abruzzo region, he enjoys life in Venice, despite being a target for those involved in the No Big Ships activist group, which for years has battled against the cruise liners and in June held an unofficial referendum in which Venetians voted in favour of ousting the ships from the citys lagoon.

Venetians are quick to point the blame at cruise-ship passengers for the demise in their quality of life, arguing that they stay for only a few hours, spend little money and leave a trail of litter in their wake.

Di Marco disputes this, citing figures that paint a different picture: only 1.5million of the 28 million visitors to Venice each year arrive on a cruise vessel, with the rest coming by bus, car, train or plane. With an average age of 65, they spend between 120 and 160 per head, bringing about 250m to the city each year. The passenger terminal also provides jobs for an estimated 5,000 people.

But the well-publicised controversy, which even prompted New York mayor Bill De Blasio to urge his Venice counterpart, Luigi Brugnaro, to ban the ships, has left VTP and the cruise industry in turbulent waters. With this in mind, since taking on the role in December Di Marco has striven to strike a compromise between the sector and the activists, devising a plan that would see the ships instead take a longer journey into the lagoon via the Vittorio Emanuele canal.

The proposal needs approval from the Italian government, but is backed by the cruise companies. It will take 1.5 hours longer to enter and leave the lagoon, but the cruise companies accepted that because they want to keep Venice on their itineraries its one of the top three destinations in the world, he said.

Its not our call, but we are doing whatever we can to take the big ships away from the Giudecca canal because really, enough is enough.

Map of Venice

Di Marco is less conciliatory towards demands for the passenger terminal, a vast, well-structured area that also provides services to hydrofoils arriving from Croatia and Slovenia, to up sticks to Marghera, an unsightly industrial area on the mainland.

Theyre trying to build a ghetto for the cruise passengers and I will fight this as much as possible, he said. At the moment passengers arrive in the living room of Venice; in Marghera it would be like welcoming them in thetoilet.

The citizens who marched recently carried banners reading: Im not leaving. But despite their determination to stay, they are pessimistic about the future. Residents were hoping that Unesco would send a strong signal to the authorities by following through with a threat to place the world heritage site on its endangered list. Instead, the organisation recently granted the city another year to come up with measures to protect its monuments and preserve its fragile environment.

It feels as if were at a point of no return because its already out of control, said Beltrame. He would like tourist numbers to be limited, while focusing on improving the quality and promoting the city as a hub for scientific and maritime research.

Luciano Bortot, meanwhile, looks with envy towards the neighbouring semi-autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige, which until the end of the first world war was part of Austria.

He believes the answer to Venices woes lies in the Veneto region, among Italys richest, obtaining greater, if not full, independence from Rome. A non-legally binding referendum will be held in October. Venice would be better managed by Venetian heads, not Roman ones, he said. If we had an official referendum, Veneto would definitely vote to break away.