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hinaaspanda · 4 years

Text

Vocalized Feelings

Paring: Garage band leader! Donghyuck x Retired choir member! reader

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Word count: 8012

happy bday @aquinoa !!!

You didn’t need a calendar to figure out that today was a Saturday, nor did you need a clock to tell you that the time was early noon. All you needed was the noise of drumsticks bashing onto its respective kit, the most definitely unneeded feedback of guitar amps, and a terrible late-morning attitude. And that’s the exact reason why you loudly let out a stifled grumble as you flipped off the covers that once encased your legs, and immediately stomped down to your garage.

Entering the cold, barren, unfinished walls of your garage, you scan onto the exact sight you expected to see. 6 figures scattered all over the place. Three plopped onto the couch, Mark and Jeno tuning their various guitars and basses, as your little brother, Jisung, watches them with full intent swelling from his eyes. You glance to the left, meeting the eyes of an overly excited Chenle, waving both his hands as he screams your name and an apologetic Jaemin, clutching onto his drum symbol, indicating that he’s genuinely sorry for all the volume. You didn’t however, know if the drummer was referring to the band as a whole, or the pianist beside him.

Your eyes scan further as you finally link them with the vocalist of this garage band, Donghyuck, an irked expression painting across his face. You watch his eyes roll to the top of his head, utter disgust oozing out of him the second you trot down the few sets of steps, heading over to sit with your brother and his bandmates. Although, you never saw his purely bothered face, since you’ve learned to just ignore him.

The fact that he hated you was always head-scratcher for both you and the rest of his band. His little mutter of anger towards you, the grumbles of annoyance whenever you walk into a room, it never made sense to you. It’s not like he was jealous of you, he couldn’t have been. Sure you were part of the city’s greatest youth choir, a choir that, to your dismay, was terminated just last year--but it shouldn’t affect him, he’s the face of his own band after all.

Or maybe that’s why he always looked at you with the cold eyes of someone who wanted to slit your throat. The fact that he had a team of his own, a backbone to lean onto, complete with their own published singles and high chances at stardom. Maybe he wanted to taunt you with it, laugh in your face with the members of his band. Pin you down, the words “look at me now” spat onto your embarrassing figure. Maybe he wanted to prove his worth, or he’s already concluded that you weren’t worthy enough for him.

While your mind wandered off into overthinking land, a certain, turmoil filled body, sauntered over to the very couch you sat on, shadowing you from the lonely light bulb that shined all its might around the inner walls of your crowded garage.

“Well, well, well, the infamous Park Y/N finally awoke from her terribly long slumber.” Donghyuck held a hand to his hip, judging you for the sleep clothes you didn’t bother to change out of. “Now tell me, why did the gremlin run out of her little cave to come here? We’ve got work to do here, you know” The passive-aggressive vocalist crosses his arms, earning miffed groans from the boys and a stellar eye roll from you.

“Piss off, Hyuck, Y/N’s my sister, stop insulting her like that or you guys won’t have anywhere to practice,” Jisung spoke up, a section of your heartwarming just a tiny bit at your little brother’s defensive words. As you shot a gracious smile at your only family in the room, a stifled chuckle escaped from your left.

“And we wouldn't wanna switch practice places, now would we?” Mark challenged, Donghyuck immediately growing mute as his elder shot him a knowing, sly smirk. You overlooked it, however, as you shot up, faces just inches away from his.

“You’re right, Donghyuck, you do have work to do!” you jabbed at his chest with a single finger “You need to learn how to stop being such a nuisance to everyone you meet!”

Taking a step back, Donghyuck sent you a sinister grin. “I’m sorry sweetie, but ‘Donghyuck’ is only reserved for close family and friends, so it’s ‘Haechan’ to you.”

“I’d rather die than ever be close with you”

“Go for it, baby. No one would miss you”

“Neither of you ever know when to quit it, huh” The spare door right from the garage bounced open, and a furious, brunette boy emerged from the once empty door frame. “Both of you, seriously, shut up sometime? I got good news for us and I don’t want this embarrassing conversation ruining it”

“Renjun!” Chenle beams with joy as the exhausted figure hustles forward, a laptop in hand, before squeezing into the couch, in between you and your brother. You and Donghyuck mutter under your breaths as you retire to your former spots within the garage floor while Renjun, sensing your discrete actions, grumbles in defeat as he whips open his laptop.

“I got in contact with this studio, SM, they said they like your guy’s stuff” Renjun continued, not sparing anyone glances as they jolted in a positive surprise. “You guys might even get a single”

As the members with instruments encased in their hands jump in pure joy, Renjun quickly turns his attention to you. “...But you guys need a girl to sing with you, that's their one condition”

As if on cue, everyone’s (minus Donghyuck) heads whips to your overtly shaken figure, hands tucking in between your legs, and sweat beginning to pool from the top of your forehead, pupils shivering in fear, you barely even dared to continue Renjun’s sentence.

“...You’re not really saying that--”

“Please sing with Hyuck, Y/N!” Chenle, definitely the most spontaneous one in the group, rushed to kneel in front of you, has clasped together in a praying formation. “Your voice is amazing!”

Your heart couldn’t help but feel a little light once the orange-haired boy uttered those words, the same way Donghyuck couldn’t help but scoff in disbelief. And your heart couldn’t help shatter once you uttered your following reply.

“No”

…

Despite evading the room the minute every band member chased you around with pleading eyes, you couldn’t help but be filled to the brim with guilt, strings of your disgrace spilling out and binding you to the pavement as you sulking continue your way towards the bank’s clear glass doors. It was Saturday, and by definition, errand day. A day you truly dreaded for its repetitive manor, complexity, and most definitely the mundaneness of it all. Lifelessly stopping at the counter of the bank, just to visit the supermarket moments after. It was a necessity, of course. But there was never an errand day that you didn’t greet with a wholehearted scowl every morning.

Errand day, something you knew would happen, much to your dismay. And everything would’ve stayed the same, if it weren’t for the overly confident, egoistic, and prideful figure with the voice of an angel, panting in exhaustion as he tugs harshly onto your jacket sleeve. And if you were being completely honest, a sparkle of joy pooped through you after seeing this main vocalist dishevelled.

“Park--wait up--fuck” Donghyuck spat through, hands gripping his thighs in a failed attempt to straighten his figure. Rouch exhales escaping his lungs when he finally succeeded in fixing his posture. Your eyebrows knit together as he neglected to drop your wrist out of his grasp. If any stranger were to mistakenly glance at the two of you right that second, it would look like the climax of those Korean romance dramas your mother loved so much. You didn’t give him a slim chance to continue his probably useless tangent as you tilt your head to the side in annoyance.

“If you came all the way here just to throw another insult at me, then you can save it!” You snap. Swatting your hand away from his surprisingly strong clutch. A clutch even he seemed to forget he held so tightly. “I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Park, just listen to me”

“I’m busy, Donghyuck”

The now angry idol-wannabe huffed a loud sigh, as he forced a hand between you and the glass doors, loudly calling out to your freedom. The freedom you couldn’t grasp at, not with the peculiarly toned forearm clasped onto the door handle, rendering you unable to move. You swear, you saw this exact scene plastered onto the t.v. just last week.

“Sing with me, Y/N”

Was he kidding?

The vocalist stared at you with full intent and the most earnestness you’ve ever seen in someone, as he fully rejected the staring strangers from inside the bank, the bank you wanted nothing more than to be inside right now. “For the single, sing with me”

He sounded so forced, yet so nonchalant, it almost sounded attractive, if it weren’t for the literal flare burning through his pupils. You simply crossed your arms, the bank audience swiftly minding their own business, not wanting to witness what they thought was a couple seconds before a break-up.

“They got you on this, too, huh? How much did they pay you to say that?” Donghyuck quickly retorted, shooting you a stare that only said “I’m serious, Y/N” straight to your face.

“Well, whatever” you continued, eyes stuck to the gravel before you. “Why chose me, anyway?”

“Um” eyes traveling to the sky, praying they wouldn't come in contact with yours. “Well..”

All 7 boys, scattered across the garage floor, winced as you slammed the secluded door shut, not baring to watch you dash away in utter fear. Every band member let out their share of aggravated sighs and grumbles, a worried Chenle fast pacing around the pattern carpet that laid below them. All while Renjun, and an equally worried Jisung massage their temples in an effort to calm down their nerves.

“I’M SORRY GUYS I WAS THE REASON SHE LEFT I SCARED HER OFF AND I--” a panicked pianist was shaken in the hands of the band’s drummer as he set him down, placing Chenle on the couch, snuggled in between the their guitarist and bassist.

“You didn’t scare her off, Chenle, she’s just a wuss” Donghyuck tapped his foot in a comical effort to look as equally annoyed as the other members. Yet deep down, both he, and the rest of the boys behind him, knew he hated watching her leave for another, unsuspecting reason.

“You can drop the act, Hyuck, she's gone.” Renjun clicked away at his laptop keys. “Stop pretending you hate her already, you suck at acting”. A giggling Jisung loosens up on the couch, legs crossed in a comfortable t-formation as he turns to Donghyuck.

“Yeah, Hyuck, just tell her you like her, already. My sister could really use a boyfriend” Jisung was more than lucky that Donghyuck dropped that heavy mic cord to the ground just moments prior, or else he would’ve gotten a concussion right that instant.

“Shut it, Jisung” He snapped, concealing the true fact that he was nothing but ecstatic to hear the news.

Donghyuck didn’t know what led him to practically spit on your face the minute he first met you, despite his automatic admiration for your voice, a voice that felt like honey to his ears. He never knew why he acted so cocky, so immature around your presence. Was it because you were part of the city’s most esteemed youth choir of its decade? Was it your bubbling, harmless personality that he always felt the need to brutally tarnish. He could never tell. But when your soft voice was replaced with harsh insults made to rebuttal his, the vocalist’s heart couldn’t help but snap in half.

“OH, I KNOW! Chenle jumped up from his sulking position on the couch, gaining the attention of the two guitarists beside, along with a inner-monologuing Donghyuck. “Let’s get Hyuck to ask her!”

Heads whipped towards the orange-haired boy’s idea as he continued his radical idea. “Think about it, Hyuck was the only one who didn’t ask her yet, and if she knows that the whole group wants her in then she might say yes!” Various members of this esteemed ‘neighborhood garage band’ began to nod their heads in agreement. Everyone except Donghyuck, of course.

“And…” Jeno wiggled his eyebrows, cocking them at the now flustered face of the band. “Hyuck can spend some more time with Y/N”

Donghyuck already knew that this was their ulterior motive all along, but hearing it out loud just threw pity at his heart. But his own friends didn’t even give him a chance to argue, as he felt the palms of Mark and Renjun force him out of the same door you escaped from. Yet he couldn’t feel his feet change directions, because deep down inside, Jeno was right. He did wanna spend more time with you. God he was such an idiot.

Of course, Donghyuck couldn’t tell her all that. Sure, he was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid, he knew that much. That was why his reply to your question was, nothing close to stellar.

“Your voice is...ok, alright? And you’re like the only girl we know around here so… just take it ok? And take the compliment, too, it's the only time you'll ever get one of those” his words wandered off as you let out a sigh, the corner of your eye telling you that, judging by the whole new set of customers lined up at the bank counter, you’re kdrama-esk stay in front of the glass doors lasted longers than you had desired. Looking up, locking your eyes with his, you sigh once more.

“Fine, just so you can shut up.”

...

You swear, you were just one tier behind a professional singer, but all this singing equipment and technology trapped in a room equally confusing, all of it made you nothing but a nervous wreck. It didn’t even matter that you’ve already stayed in that room for 4 hours straight, everything still sent strong shivers up your spine.

Donghyuck, on the other hand, looked unsurprisingly calm, of course. He's gone through this exact same process countless times before. Singing your heart out, just to let it get tweaked, tuned, shuffled in a different state, never enjoyed a voice in it’s originality. You never really understood it, hence why loitered in the corner of the glass room, shaking like a wet mammal emerging from the cold water.

You were just baffled that Donghyuck hasn’t said anything to you about it, anything at all, actually. The 8 of you drove to the rented recording room with a pair of cars earlier that morning, the heavy instruments hauling together in one vehicle, while your 7 figures squeezed into another. You already knit your eyebrows at the mere fact that Donghyuck took his cramped seat right next to yours, no one taking a grain of notice. Who would know just how weird it would get the minute your shoe’s clicked against the driveway pavement.

4 Hours in, with Jisung sound asleep on your lap, other members sprawled across the couch provided, and an unusually calm Donghyuck uttered out his last lines in that milky voice of his. You’ve already taken your turn, only remembering how easily distracted you got by Donghyuck and the admiration glittering in his eyes. Eyes that strongly contradicted the tone of his voice just moments prior.

You find your eyes glued to the vocalist trapped in the glass room that always stumped you, the vocalist that, starting today, would confuse you more than any recording room could. His composed pupils linking with your skittish ones. You thought back to the car ride, his breath hitched as he planted his vision on the trees and buildings passing by. How he barely spared you a glance, let alone a cheap insult. Was he finally done through with it? Has he finally grown past the phase of finding simple fat jokes funny? Your mind wandered, and you wish you wandered a little bit more so you wouldn’t have noticed the pink tint creeping onto his cheeks as he closed the door to the recording room, his eyes still planted onto yours.

“Thank you very much, sir.” Renjun shook the hand of the man behind the recording stand, other members of the band following his lead as you shook Jisung awake. But everything you touched, you did so halfheartedly, as the thought of a certain prideful vocalist couldn’t escape your mind.

Huh, that was weird.

...

It was Saturday again, the clashes of symbols and guitar strings wrapped up in a melodic harmony ringing into your ears as you woke up. It was Saturday again, and that Donghyuck kid hadn’t left your mind for a week. Too many questions passed through your mind, you didn’t have the motivation to scream for joy the moment Renjun burst through the door, showing the band the email. An email that was practically lined in gold for the other viewers, and email giving them directions to a small coffee shop across town, and approval for an upcoming gig.

“Let’s celebrate!” Mark howled, earning other loud screams from their designated dolphin boy as the 6 of you immediately grabbed your coats and headed to the nearest building that served purely mediocre fast-food.

“Save some for us!” Jisung, chanted through the garage door, both him and Chenle dreading the table behind them that overflowed with unfinished highschool homework and completely finished bags of chips.

6 milkshakes and 6 stuffed stomachs later, the garage band sat around you, giggling at what you thought was the email you ate out for, as you shuffled away to the washroom. But as Donghyuck would put it, “You’re always wrong, Y/N!”.

“What am I gonna do?” Donghyuck gripped the strands of hair residing at his front scalp. “I almost blew my cover back in the recording room!”

As if on cue, Donghyuck’s seemingly useless remark earned a groan from the rest of the band mates, and especially the band manager, digging his fingertips onto his temples, giving him the much overdue head massage he needed due to Hyuck’s stupidity.

“You could, I dunno, tell her the truth?” Jaemin sipped from his remaining milkshake, receiving that infamous empty- straw crinkling sound just seconds later. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, right Jeno?” The bassist only nodded silently, earning a pleading groan from the vocalist in question.

“Hey man, we’re already helping you and everything, poor Sungie’s gotta deal with our bullshit in his house every week just so you could get a chance with her. We don’t have any other reason to practice there, you know.” Mark stirred the striped straw. “Even Renjun, Y/N”s bestfriend in highschool, mind you, became the manager to our dumb garage band just to help your odds”

Donghyuck stared into the popping bubbles of his pink milkshake, his guilt mirroring the bubble’s movements. He knew about Jisung, your little brother, but he never even thought about Renjun. All his friends, trying harder than he was, all to not get cock-blocked. God, how stupid was he.

Apparently, he was stupid enough to forget you even left the table for a bathroom visit, as he almost spat out the last of his milkshake as he watched you emerged from the dim-lit room. Earning giggles from the other boys.

...

You missed singing, you really did. The memories you cherished singing alongside the 30 vocalists, awaiting the audience’s standing ovation, you craved for more than anything. Sure, it sounded a little too self loving for your liking, but anyone could agree that you guys deserved. That’s why, when the Harmonics Youth Choir finally shut down due to an untimely accident, it surely left a broad hole in your heart.

Especially now, right after feeling the thrill once again at the recording room, the sensation of letting out notes and melodies gripping onto your heart, never letting go as you sent in the application email. This wasn’t all your idea, though. This scheme was given to you in a fully wrapped package of taunting and disbelief of your true abilities, and handed to you by no one else but the egotistical vocalist, Donghyuck.

“I heard there was an opening for this new choir downtown” Donghyuck clicked away at his laptop as he took his break at their weekly practice. The phrase ‘new choir’ caught your attention faster than a fly to the scent of rotten food. You shuffled towards him, reluctant and half expecting for him to revolt at your presence. But you truly didn’t care when the chance to shine under the spotlight of a stage was upon you once again, and you would rather die than miss the chance to grasp it.

“They look pretty serious, though” Donghyuck scrolled through the choir’s website nonchalantly, angling the screen so you could get a better view. “I don’t think you’d fit in at all” You knew he was kidding, partially at least. Nevertheless, an arrow of hurt shot through your chest as you stood up, spine straightening with the smallest ounce of pride left in you.

“Are you even hearing yourself, Donghyuck?” You jabbed your own chest, concealing your genuine hurt. “I was a member of Harmonics, I’d fit right in!”

“Uh huh, yeah, what happened to your esteemed choir, again?” he didn’t even spare you a glance as he exited out of the choir’s website Opening another window filled with gruesome battles and skimpy female armour, he proceeded to ignore your defensive figure, keeping all his attention on that dumb video game. You, however, couldn’t care where his attention was facing, as you had a point to make, and an argument to win.

“You’ll see, Donghyuck, I’ll make that choir, and you’ll be the first to see it. In fact, you should watch the audition, then you’ll see how great I am!”

Donghyuck couldn’t help but recite the words ‘you’re already the best’ over and over again in his head. He didn’t have any other choice, really. He couldn’t say it out loud, of course, he was too prideful for that. Or maybe too much of a coward. He couldn’t tell.

“Whatever, I’ll watch just to prove you wrong, Park” Of course he couldn’t say no. He truly was a coward.

You didn’t even notice the proud, stunned expressions that coated the rest of the band member’s faces as you trotted upstairs, ready to write another, responsive email to a certain choir company.

...

A tired, fatigued Donghyuck rang your doorbell two days after your last interaction. Despite his reluctant character during then, he still, to your surprise, offered to give you a ride, knowing full well of your father’s disappearance to another city in the name of his job. After an awkward, silent, 30 minute hell of a car ride, the two of you threw his car doors shut, and entered the grand church building.

You stood in the middle of the rented church stage, various chandeliers and crystals covering your view, as you faced the three judges of this audition. The three obstacles left in your road to stardom, and the three obstacles blocking you from your chance to prove yourself right.

“Miss Park Y/N, Auditioning for the part of Alto” The somber toned middle seated judge read straight off of the application sheet, before barely glancing up at you. “You may start whenever you’re ready.” You closed your eyes, softly beginning to hum the words of Donghyuck’s single. It only made sense to choose what you chose, it was the song that gave your heart the inspiration to impulsively act on it’s dreams.

Donghyuck’s world stopped as he sat in his lonesome three rows before the judges, the single frame of you singing staying frozen in his mind. Your voice felt like honey trickling into his ears, as he sat in awe, not bothering to keep that fake scoffing expression on his face. He felt weak to the knees. Your voice, your appeal, everything, it all made him almost want to drop the act and tell you the truth.

But you could only handle one earth shattering truth at a time, right?

The middle judge raised her hand up, signally a stop just after a couple of lyrics spilled out of your lips. The two judges coupling her sides all kept their cold expressions as you trembled in fear. You anticipated their impending responses, although, deep down, you already knew exactly what they were going to say.

“That’s enough, Miss Park”

“Wait, I can--”

“That won’t be necessary. Now, can you please step off the stage? The next contestant is waiting” The left judge uttered effortlessly, not sparing a glance at you as you stalked backstage. Donghyuck roughly followed you, jolting the plastic table the three judges hid behind, before shooting those judges a very irritated glare.

“Please assure your girlfriend to not take this personally, it was a tough decision”

“Bullshit, you didn’t even listen to the full thing” Donghyuck spat, earning the wide eyes of the three judges who sat below him. He didn’t even care what their response was as he spurt towards the doors, the doors you had already burst out of with pure rage.

Donghyuck cursed at himself for feeling just the slightest bit giddy at the judges assuming those two were closer than friends. He scanned you through the car window, a flame burning in your eyes. You two clearly need to reach the level of “friends” first.

The rest of the drive was silent, or at least restrained, as your huffs and puffs of anger could be heard from Donghyuck’s side of the vehicle easily. You would rather die than look at him right then. You were surprised that he hasn’t laughed right at your face yet. But whether he hurls another one of those prideful scoffs at your direction or not, one fact still remains, he was right. You’ve stayed out of touch with the whole concept of singing, that the only thing keeping you sane were the lyrics of a single written by the vocalist with a grudge against you. How pitiful were you?

And to think, you truly began to believe that this demon, this evildoer, began to have feelings for you through a simple set of flushed cheeks. All those times he stained your mind, none of that mattered. All Donghyuck wanted was for you to fall to the ground, pride and ego brutally shattered. That was why he brought that stuck up, cold-shouldered choir. Just to watch you get rejected. And it worked. You were bruised, broken forever,and it was all thanks to him.

“I hope you’re happy Donghyuck. You were right” You murmured just loud enough for his ears to perk. You couldn’t see his expression, but you were sure he was a smirking, evil mess.

Donghyuck watched you swiftly pass him, his sulking eyes defying your assumption once again.

...

The neighborhood garage band’s practice room fell into a tense silence as you slammed the garage door shut, stomping up to your room. Everyone’s eyes, despite already becoming aware of the situation, still mirrored the ones of innocent puppies ready to be adopted. Except for Hyuck’s, of course. His overflowed with guilt, burning up with an anger that could only be pointed towards himself. Donghyuck fell into the cushions that decorated the couch, earning pats and shoulder rubs that were laced with empathy, empathy that he couldn’t reciprocate. His palms ruffled the strands of his hair, gripping onto them in stress as Renjun scooted towards him.

“Don’t blame yourself, Hyuck, she just really missed singing” Renjun angled himself to face the remorse-filled vocalist. “Anyone would, with that choir”

Donghyuck let out a heartfelt whine, his back-scalp collapsing onto the couch backframe. “I got her all excited about singing again, I couldn’t help it. I kinda got excited for her, too. How was I supposed to know they’d be so picky with their contestants!” Hyuck rose to his feet, bewilderment rising through his veins. “Their rejection’s all bullshit, anyways! Her voice is amazing!”

“Then tell her” Jisung twiddled his fingers, not even sparing the distressed vocalist a glance “Tell her that her voice is amazing, tell her all the compliments you want to”

“You know I can’t do that, Sungie”

“Why?” A certain flame echoed in his booming voice, starling the already traumatized older band members. “Is it ‘cause you're a coward? It sounds like it! How else do you think it was gonna turn out? Pretending to hate the person you’ve loved since highschool, of course she’s gonna hate you back! Now you better clean this shit up, and I don’t just mean this dumb audition. My sister’s amazing, ok? And she doesn’t fucking deserve this.”

Jisung, with a fury of his own, stalked into his own home and away from the band members that resided in his garage. Mark, the band’s leader, took it upon himself to call for the two Park siblings that escaped his grasp, praying they would come back, but it was no use. Donghyuck truly felt like an idiot, and a coward.

Your pillowcase felt damp as you lightly pressed your cheek against your newly shed tears. Everything seemed...useless now. Your sulking figure couldn't lift itself from the cozyness of your plump mattress, string of sorrow binding your limbs tightly against the bed’s fabric. You laid still, your world turning to stone as you tuned in to the quiet chirps perched onto the roof just below your window. The tiny squawks sent you into a calm abyss, one that you haven’t visited in a while. With all this song recording and impulsive acting, everything grew hectic, never giving you a chance to breathe.

You didn’t know how your consciousness was able to do it, but Donghyuck still stayed trapped in your mind the whole time.

You were definitely brimming with anger when you thought of him, but the thought of his smile, even if you only saw it after one of his smug insults, still stained your mind. And you hated it. And that was why your expression was nothing less than relieved when it was just your little brother who peeped through the small crack your door created after his knuckles clicked against it in a soft knock.

A soft smile wiped across his face, his eyes painted with a calm appeal, as he shuffled into your room, friction from the carpet swiping against his cotton socks. With a tilt of his your little brother simply suggested.

“Milkshakes?”

...

“I don’t care, Jisung, I’m not gonna sing with them at the concert” Your eyes watched the various cars pass by in a blur, trying desperately to avoid contacting the pleading pupils of your brother. You trusted him, the blade of betrayal impaling your heart. You whole-heartedly believed that Jisung invited you to this milkshake bar to free your mind, get rid of all the thoughts about those 6 boys that roamed freely within the inner workings of your garage. Instead, he simply induced your brain with more thoughts of him, luring you in with the taste of a strawberry milkshake.

“C’mon Y/N, It’s gonna be a small gig, the venue maxes out at 50 people.” Jisung gave his weight to the surface of the fast food table, gripping his ice cold glass with his fingers that were dipped in anticipation. You sunk into the lush, red

seats, finally sparing your brother a glance.

“What are you gonna gain from this, anyways, it’s not like you're in the band anymore, anyways.”

Shit. You followed Jisung’s hairbangs as they dropped before his eyes, most likely concealing his growing hurt for the words that effortlessly flowed through your careless mouth. Why would you say something that stupid, when you knew full well of the complicated truth. The truth of your brother's resignation of the band due to a harsh wrist injury. All Jisung wanted was the satisfaction of growing old and succeeding with his garage band, but when the rookie drummer finally grew fixed of his wrist damage, the first thing he saw was his supposed drum-kit, standing before the new addition to the band, Jaemin. Although the old and new drummers came to converse on friendly terms, you knew your brother more than anyone else, and you knew he would never get over his replacement so quickly.

“It’s fine, Y/N, it’s not ‘cause of that” He vigorously waved his two hands in an effort to change the subject. “We just wanna hear your voice again, that’s all” His calm voice sent you away from your current state of overthinking, as you took another sip of your pink tinted milkshake. Although his choice of words led you to ponder a little more.

“We?”

“Yeah! Hyuck especially. Mans literally gets weak to the knees when he hears your voice. He loves it so much, you don’t even know, Y/N. But not as much as he loves you lmao--wait-”

The straw fell limp from Jisungs lips, the whites of his eyes spilling out of their sockets as he finally pondered just how much he messed up. It’s funny actually, how quick he caught his mistake AFTER he made it.

You swear, you could’ve exploded right then and there.

“Hyuck--he--what?” A sentence couldn’t even form in between your quivering lips. “You’re kidding right? Sungie? Please tell me this is a joke”

Jisung could feel the ember of his existence about to extinguish as you used that Nickname on him. A nickname that only escaped your mouth when you were either terribly angry or terribly drunk. Jisung swiftly closed his eyes, praying that there was at least an ounce of alcohol in that milkshake of yours, you were a lightweight afterall.

“I--er--no” Jisung’s head downcasted, attempting to hide from your incoming wrath. “Donghyuck likes you, a lot actually”

If it weren’t for the fact that he was your brother, you would’ve spat on his face with the remaining milkshake in your mouth, unable to be swallowed as you sat in pure shock.

“How long?”

“...Since highschool, actually”

The glass mug encased between your fingers shivered in fear. After all this time, all the taunting, all the times he scoffed at your mere existence, that was all from…affection? It was all an act towards grabbing your attention? He didn’t actually despise you? And on top of that, he loves your voice, the voice he only labelled as “ok” in the past? What was with him, couldn’t he had just said something, instead of saying the complete opposite of his feelings?

But apparently, you found that attractive, and everything else clicked. A lightbulb finally glowed a bright amber as you connected the dots. You finally figured out why this prideful vocalist couldn’t escape your thoughts all this time.

As your little brother, shaking in fear by your--apparently menacing-- presence, continues his tangent on how letting them stay at their garage even after his untimely injury was just a ruse to get the two of you together, you shoot up from your seat.

“Oh my god, Jisung, I think I like him back”

“Excuse me, what”

A sense of urgency shot down your spine. “Change of plans, I’m gonna sing with them.”

“WAIT”

“THANKS FOR THE MILKSHAKES, JISUNG, I GOTTA GO TAKE CARE OF SOMETHING” your voice violently hurled through the glass doors of the milkshake place as you ran past them, alerting the commoners that innocently roamed around.

...

“It looks so full” a stifled Chenle murmured towards the band manager as he gripped onto the stage curtains. “God, ok, is it hot in here or just me?”

“It’s fine, Chenle, everyone else is nervous too” A calming Renjun sent a soft hand onto the cusp of the pianist’s shoulder. The rest of the band loitered around the cramped stage rear, the echoes of various audience chatter ringing in everyone’s ears as they shiver in anticipation. Well, everyone except a certain sulking vocalist perched rather uncomfortably on the wooden make-up chair.

Donghyuck’s heart felt numb to everything else but the brutal beatings of guilt. The issue only arose just hours prior, of course the regret still lingered, staining his once proud, upright soul. Jisung was right, he always had been. He should’ve let go of this stupid act when he got the chance. He should’ve taken your hand in his, letting a soft kiss from his lips fall onto your dazed face after nervously stammering sweet nothings to you. He should’ve sprinkled you with compliments every chance he got, showed his pure excitement when you do something as simple as enter the room, or even chant your name half as animated as his pianist always did. The thought of your name trickled into his head. The name that he refused to refer to you as, always going for the rough tone of “Park” instead. All in the name of that dumb ruse, truly used to prank his heart.

“Y/N” He let out a soft murmur under his breath. It felt sweet against his lips. “Y/N.” He scoffed at himself. Maybe it was a good thing you decided not to sing with him, you wouldn’t get to see how pathetic he’s become.

“Y/N?” Renjun’s yelp at your disheveled figure standing at the door, drove Donghyuck straight to reality. His head whipped in response, the wooden chair collapsing under the sheer weight of Hyuck’s speechlessness as his sitting figure fell straight to the ground. Renjun stammered out another shaken response. “What are you doing here?”

“Sorry Junnie, I’ve changed my mind. Can I still sing with you guys tonight?” You could practically see the heavenly wings raising his once lifeless body as the rest of the band members produced luminescence from their beaming smiles. A riled up Renjun scrambles towards your feet, slamming a hand to your shoulder. “OF COURSE YOU CAN Y/N NOW GET OVER HERE WHAT THE FUCK.” After being vigorously yanked into the dressing room by your highschool best friend, you migrate over to the still-faced, wide-eyed vocalist laying frozen against the tile floor.

“Donghyuck I need to--”

“Curtains up at 5, get into your positions” A man donning a large black headphone set, gripping a brown noteboard in his hands yells in a robotonus tone before shooting a deadpan look at you. “You there, are you with the band?”

“Uh, yes?”

“Then get into position! Can someone get this girl a mic?” he croaked into his headset’s mic, with a mic falling into your hands just moments later.

Amidst all this chaos, with Renjun pacing back and forth, Mark and Jeno simultaneously tuning their guitars, Jaemin dropping his drumsticks onto the ground, and Chenle loudly greeting a sweaty and panting Jisung resting against the doorframe. You tilt your head, never noticing how your brother followed you over here after you burst through those doors at the milkshake place. Before you could greet him, however, a tight grip landed straight onto your forearm.

“Y/N, wait--” before Donghyuck could even grab your attention. The lights on the other side of those maroon curtains finally dimmed.

“We’re on in 10 seconds” a robotic voice bombed through the band's now trembling figures. They stood before the closed set of curtains, anticipation riling through them.

“Now, please give a warm welcome to the neighborhood garage band; NCT DREAM!!”

The curtains fell into each other smoothly as what seemed to be a million faces staring back at them. A blinding spotlight shined onto the 6 figures ready in their positions. Spilling a lifetime’s worth of confused feelings would have to wait for now.

...

“You guys were amazing!” Renjun and Jisung practically said in unison as they watched the stage performers saunter backstage, Jeno pushing the maroon curtains back as your 6 figures retired back into the coffee house’s dressing room. Sweat dripping down your foreheads as you panted away the shockwaves that traveled through your bodies through the duration of that evening concert. As everyone else let down their instruments and settled down in various places of the cramped prep room, a certain vocalist began to stalk in your direction.

You studied Donghyuck’s image. His eyes glowed with determination, the disgust and repulsion that stained his expressions, and that were apparently all fake, weren’t found beneath the whites of his eyes, unlike before. They looked blank, like he was simply being pulled to you by sheer force. Like you were a captivating magnet, and he was just a mere, insignificant paper clip, ready at your disposal.

Donghyuck, on the other hand, wasn’t just a blank minded zombie lusting for its next meal. Something awoke in him, like a switch hidden behind cobwebs everyone reluctant to switch it on. Exhilaration zooming through his veins, nothing else mattered to him. Nothing else except your cute face trapped snuggly in his two, sweat filled, shaking palms.

The vocalist did think about at least consoling you about the question you had for him before what could only be considered as their best concert, like, ever, but your innocent, curious face had him melting to his feet. His composure flew away the minute you stared back at him, eyes glossy and cheeks as rosy. Sure, he was an idiot, but he was an impulsive idiot, and right now, that helped his odds more than anything.

Roughly, due to the immense amount of feelings bottled up in the weakest material you can think of, Donghyuck cupped the sides of your face, smushing your lips together in an ecstatic kiss. Gripping onto each other like your lives depended on never letting go--although, at the time, it felt like exactly that--you pulled him closer, chests against one another as you tugged on his loose shirt collar.

As Hyuck’s stomach began performing flips just below the fabric of his shirt, and as your knees grew weaker, the two of you slowly detached, earning the gasps and full on screams from their fellow bandmates, the bandmates that they simultaneously forgot existed, and the bandmates who estatically witnessed a very much anticipated kiss. The two of you, too scared to look down at the couch, set at the perfect angle to watch your most recent romantic endeavour, finally glanced down at the wide eyed spectators, all at the edge of their seat waiting to see what will happen next.

“What are you guys waiting for?? CONFESS” The finally stress-free manager jumped up to his feet, a demanding index finger pointed at your flustered figures. The giddy pianist followed Renjun, his whole arm shot out in front of you. “OR BETTER YET??? KISS AGAI--” Chenle’s words were quickly disrupted by the swiftness of Jaemin’s hand as he nodded silently, giving you a signal to talk again.

Donghyuck found his breath hitched as you turned to face you. He put all of his effort into kissing you, so he kinda forgot about what to do after. But after observing your calm, not wanting to beat him up, soft expression that glowed onto your face, alongside those pink tainted cheeks, he figured out that, well, you already kinda knew.

“...heh, hey?” Donghyuck picked onto the skin on his wrists, waiting for them to grow red from the pain. Cringing from the awkward tone of his voice, you spoke up.

“I know, Hyuck”

“Wait what”

You shot him a slightly aggravated glare at his ignorance. Did he not just experience that same kiss you did?

“You’re just that bad at acting, Hyuck” Jisung croaked behind this highschool drama confession. Donghyuck most definitely would’ve given your little brother the greatest jab straight to the head, if it weren’t for your angelic smile presented before him.

“I like you too, Donghyuck. Unless, I’m not close enough to call you that” Donghyuck chuckles to himself, remembering that very interaction back at your garage just weeks prior. Swiftly, his hands drop to your waist, his eyes locked with yours as he pulls you closer to his chest.

“Yeah, you need to get a lot closer” The two of you exchange giggles while your supposed judges fake puke and groan at their vocalist’s flirtatious words. The two of you stay comfortably, his hands softly lounging around your waist as you stay snuggled against his chest. The silence washing over you as your face grows sober.

“Why’d you lie about it?” you distance yourself, just get a view of his face, glistening in the backstage spotlight. A sigh escapes his lips as he glances towards the sky.

“I dunno, I was dumb, jealous of your talent, dumb, desperate for attention, did I mention dumb?” he flew off into a meaningless tangent, his fingers gripped onto the fabric of your shirt. “I was an idiot, Y/N, I thought this was just some stupid crush, but you’re so much more. God, and I probably hurt you so much during that whole dumb thing, didn’t I?”

“It’s fine, your insults are pretty weak, anyways”

“Oh wow, ok, I see how it is”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding”

The vocalist glanced down to his feet, his eyes reaching back to you right after. “Can we, ya know, start over?”

You plant a feathery kiss against his cheek, summoning the red hue that stayed for the rest of the night. “Of course, Hyuckie”

...

“Miss Park Y/N, I am afraid you have to leave, as you are the cause of the main cause of our vocalist’s distraction.” Renjun stated in a deadpan, robotic tone. An arm, raised and pointing to the direction of the door while his foot rapidly tapped against the carpet. Sometimes, you couldn’t tell if the manager was messing with you or 100% serious with his supposed rage.

“I live here, Renjun” you subtly snapped back as Hyuck, who was perched on top of your lap for the most peculiar reason, snaked his arms around your waist. According to your vocalist boyfriend, he got to sit on your lap cause he was ‘more famous than you’. That dummy.

“I’m taking a break, Junnie, go bug Jeno or something. I’m busy with, um” He scans the figure trapped underneath his grasp as Hyuck continues to formulate his poorly thought-out excuse to spend more time with you. “Vocal exercises, yeah, that.” A disapproving sigh slips out of Renjun’s lips, heading over to the guitar and bassist duo. Once the two of you were alone, Donghyuck’s eyes once again fell onto you.

“How’d you find out about my feelings, anyways? I refuse to believe my acting was THAT bad.” His head slithered into the crook of your neck.

“If I’m being completely honest, It was Jisung”

Donghyuck shot up, mic wires and lyric sheets falling to the ground of your garage. “WHAT?”

“Yeah, he went off, exposing you so much. He didn’t even realise it until after he said everything lmao”

“Hey guys I brought snacks” Jisung slipped through the garage door, bags of chips in his hand. Hyuck sent your brother a narrow glare. “You’re a dead man, Park Jisung.”

You watched Hyuck as he sent himself flying towards the not-so innocent boy, the various chips dropping to the ground. Your brother did kinda deserve it though. You glanced at the ripped up calendar on the wall of the barren garage, your eyes landing on the little Saturday square. You smiled to yourself. Usually, you hated Saturdays, for their errands and boring chores, But this one in particular, seemed to be alright.

...

#nct dream #nct 127 #lee haechan #lee donghyuck #haechan x you #haechan x reader #donghyuck x reader #donghyuck x you #nct dream x you #nct dream x reader #nct 127 x you #nct 127 x reader #writing #my writing #fanfiction #fanfic #writers on tumblr #garage band! au #choir! au

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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“We Have Just Never Listened to Women”: Patrick Ness on Chaos Walking’s Relevance Today

https://ift.tt/3sLzUTC

Patrick Ness’ 2008 science fiction young adult novel The Knife of Never Letting Go was published the same year as Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, but while the latter launched a dystopian YA franchise, Ness’ Chaos Walking series seemed to attract more of a cult following despite tackling similar early-2000s issues through a speculative lens. While Collins struck an arrow through the heart of reality television, Ness turned his attention to information overload, manifesting it as the Noise: an ever-present broadcast of one’s most private, cringeworthy, hateful, earnest thoughts for all to hear—but only for men.

On the “New World,” an alien planet only recently colonized by humans, the all-male settlement of Prentisstown has ascribed varyingly demanding interpretations of masculinity and morality to their members’ handling of the Noise. Todd Hewitt, the community’s sole boy, must come of age when he faces something even more chaotic than his Noise: the first girl he’s ever seen, a silent space traveler named Viola.

Over a decade later, the book’s dual commentary on information overload and toxic masculinity remains relevant. In fact, as Ness told Den of Geek, the intervening 13 years have only provided more dire inspiration for adapting his novel to the big screen. Doug Liman’s adaptation of Chaos Walking, starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, finally arrives in the UK (it hit the US last month) after a perfect storm of delays, from scheduling around two of the biggest franchise stars to dealing with COVID-19 setbacks. The film conjures a similar lo-fi dystopian setting as Gary Ross’ The Hunger Games film while transforming the book’s free-associating monologue into an ever-present visual and aural halo—not unlike the information overload depicted in more tech-y futuristic tales.

In addition to the forceful depiction of the Noise, Ness spoke with Den of Geek about the book dog’s Noise that didn’t make the final cut, the Western homages behind Mads Mikkelsen’s villainous Mayor Prentiss, and what happens when men don’t listen to women.

DEN OF GEEK: When you first wrote The Knife of Never Letting Go, it was a response to information overload circa 2007. What was it like revisiting the story to adapt it over a decade later?

PATRICK NESS: Gosh, just that the world has gotten so much noisier—that there’s just so much more information coming at us. If the original idea was about questioning how much of ourselves we feel obliged to share and give to the world, that question has only become—not more serious, but we now do it so automatically that I just want to be sure that we keep asking that question: What are we losing, and how much of ourselves do we need to keep our sense of identity? The other big thing that’s happened in the last 13 years is that we’ve all gotten so used to sharing on social media—we’ve gotten so used to what it does, that it’s such a fabric of our lives—that people have now recognized, “I can abuse this. I can use this to tell lies; I can use this to make fake enemies; I can use this to manipulate elections”—for example. The genie isn’t gonna go back into the bottle, and I’m not some doomsayer saying we need to go back to phones and blah blah blah. We need to not forget that we have a choice of what to share and that there are—for all the good things the Internet brings us, which it does—we should not and must not ignore the darker parts of it, because there are very dark parts of it.

That darkness is especially apparent in the culture of Prentisstown and their need to control the Noise. In adapting, did you find yourself approaching Prentisstown differently than when you wrote the book?

Books

Top New Fantasy Books in April 2021

By Megan Crouse

Lots and lots of special effects tests and approaches, some really cool technology. There was a Noise unit on the film, so Tom would stand in the middle of a circle of cameras capturing him from 360 degrees, linking it up. Then the final results are a combination of all those things: technology, some artwork, some animation. My favorite little bit of it is a scene where Daisy Ridley’s walking up a hill and Tom Holland is behind her, and he’s kinda grumpy about her, and he’s complaining, and you see the complaints kinda just fly off the back of his head. That, to me, is what Noise would be.

Was there anything cut from the book, or an early version of the screenplay, that you would have loved to have seen?

One of my favorite characters in the book is called Wilf; and he does play an important part later in the trilogy, as well. But it’s a 500-page book, and at most a movie is a long short story, so you do have to make sacrifices. But what you get in exchange is, there’s a scene in the film where Tom and Daisy are under a little tarp in the rain, and something very funny happens. And that’s not in the book, but what you get in exchange is something like that, a little scene that expresses a ton that you can do visually, because [that scene] wouldn’t work in a book. I don’t mind; you give and you get. I’ve always viewed adaptations, even when it’s not my own work, as a remix. It’s not a cover version, it’s not an exact replica, it’s a remix. If I can start with that premise, then I can feel more creative.

Was there ever a version in which Todd’s dog Manchee has the Noise, like in the book?

Yes! But what you find out very quickly is that it’s all kind of about real estate. The animal Noise is very funny in the book, to me—it always made me laugh—and in a massive novel of 110,000 words, that real estate in the book doesn’t take up much. A movie is much more compressed, so every time an animal spoke, it just took up so much room in the movie. And it is funny, because it’s meant to be, but it kind of unbalanced the story, and it totally took away from what really needed to happen. Read the book, is what I would say, because I still love the idea, it still makes me laugh; but in a movie, it becomes too cartoon-y. We’re not making The Incredible Journey, as wonderful as it is! So you have to make some sacrifices.

The movie ends differently from the book, which is more of a clear cliffhanger setting up book 2, The Ask and the Answer; whereas the movie is left open-ended for sequels, but on a less dire note. What influenced this decision?

Doug Liman is an exploratory filmmaker; it’s a different approach than any director I’ve ever met. He’s really very much about what’s happening on set, what feels the right energy, where are we going—which is why there’s additional photography in all of his films. That’s always planned, it’s always in advance; we always knew that was going to happen, we just had to schedule the two biggest franchise stars in the world. But because of that, the story tends to organically develop. So we thought, Where are these two going in particular now that we have these actors, we have this situation, and it just starts to slightly change.

And I don’t mind that—again, in the remix idea—but what it interestingly has done is that it’s become more pandemic-themed, unintentionally, in that here are all these people who have been presented with a situation completely beyond their control, so how do they adapt? And there is a hopeful feeling at the end of this film, one I think is true, because they’ve really earned it, but also it’s like what we’ve done—we’re talking via Zoom, we’ve adjusted. It’s not perfect, and we’re all waiting for a better world, but we’re also probably not gonna go back to the old world, exactly. We’ve found a way, and that is kinda the whole point of the story, which is, here is the very worst example of people who didn’t find a way, as we move forward to people who do. To me, the ending makes emotional sense.

Are there plans to adapt one or both of the book sequels?

They’re optioned, they’re ready, but with a new series it’s all about if an audience wants it.

How did your experience adapting the screenplay for A Monster Calls influence your work on Chaos Walking?

Very different filmmakers, which is interesting because I always tell people writing novels that there’s no one way to do it—as long as you end up with a novel, you’ve done it right, so find out what works for you. So, a very different experience as a writer, but interesting in their own ways.

Books

Top New Science Fiction Books in April 2021

By Megan Crouse

The great thing about [A Monster Calls director] J.A. Bayona is a real lack of ego about ideas; an idea is good or it’s bad, it doesn’t matter who or where it came from. He’s very clear on that, he’s very sincere about that, and that really frees you up creatively. And so I really try to bring that to anything I collaborate on now; I try to never ever be any kind of snob about my ideas or anybody else’s—it’s just what’s better, what works; an idea is good or bad on its own, not because it came from somebody powerful. I think it makes everybody feel more comfortable; we’re all in it together, trying to make something interesting.

What was it about Daisy, Tom, Mads, et al, that made you feel that they were right for the roles in Chaos Walking? Mads in particular has such a striking look as Mayor Prentiss, with the cowboy hat, jumpsuit, and fabulous fur coat.

That coat is actually a tribute to McCabe & Mrs. Miller, a Warren Beatty Western from Robert Atlman. It’s interesting that they’re all European! We didn’t go out hunting for necessarily European, but also Cynthia [Erivo] is European, and David’s European. Nick [Jonas] is not… [laughs] But there is a sensibility that feels approachable to Tom and Daisy, that I think is their little movie-star magic, that they are not forbidding. Forbidding movie stars can be amazing! But they seem like somebody that you could meet, and talk to; and for a younger-centered film, that is vital, to feel like these could be my friends, and I care about them and am worried about what happens to them. That is what they bring so beautifully to the movie. And Mads has that magnificent face—he’s got such a great acting face, especially for a villain—and his manner, the sort of Scandinavian understatements, I love it.

Especially for a villain who’s trying to hide his thoughts—there’s so much still that comes through on his face.

A villain who thinks he’s right! He doesn’t think he’s a villain—and that’s the scariest kind of all.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Chaos Walking is available for premium rental at home on all digital platforms from 2nd April.

The post “We Have Just Never Listened to Women”: Patrick Ness on Chaos Walking’s Relevance Today appeared first on Den of Geek.

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goingoverthegardenwall · 5 years

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Chapter 6: Lullaby in Frogland

Let’s look back. Way back. Back before the dawn of animation, before the dawn of film, well before Ruby or Spears or Disney or Iwerks or either Fleischer Brother. Back to 1835, in a town named Florida in a state named Missouri when a boy named Samuel was born.

Like Ub Iwerks, Sam was raised in Missouri. And like Max Fleischer, Sam’s family took a financial hit when his father’s work stopped (this time due to a premature death rather than the decline of tailory), giving Sam a practical approach to employment. He left school at age eleven to become a printer’s apprentice, then moved to his older brother’s newspaper as a typesetter and occasional columnist, writing humorous articles and drawing cartoons. But unlike Beatrix Potter or the animators we’ve covered, visual art wasn’t in the cards for Sam.

He moved to the East Coast to work for other papers, bouncing between cities before returning to the midwest to embark on a career he’d dreamed of since he was old enough to dream: piloting a steamboat. He thrived on the water, and kept writing about his work along the river, but everything stopped when the Civil War closed off the Mississippi. So Sam headed west to work for the same brother who once ran the newspaper, now a politician in Nevada (I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that this brother was for some reason named Orion). Sam tried mining, and it didn’t take, but he’d gotten pretty good at writing and set off for San Francisco to get back into his jocular brand of journalism.

It was here that he had his first success, a short story published in his paper called Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog. But, like a certain frog we’ve covered in this series, Sam wasn’t huge on permanent names. Within a month, the story was reprinted as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Jim Smiley’s name was changed to Jim Greeley. Until the book version came out, when it was changed back to Jim Smiley. And this whole time, within the story, it’s a mystery whether Jim’s real name is actually Leonidas (it turns out that it isn’t, but it might be). None of this should come as a surprise for Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the names of Josh, Thomas Jefferson Snodgrass, and most famously, Mark Twain.

“I knew you were special.”

Over the Garden Wall is, among other things, a story about the importance of solid communication. After five episodes spent building up our heroes as a group of friends, all it takes is one episode of terrible communication to throw it all away. The specific issues vary, despite leading to a similar result of not verbalizing their thoughts very well: Greg’s youth stops him from articulating his rapidly changing ideas, Wirt’s anxiety leaves him too timid to speak up or too rambling to be clear, Beatrice’s true intentions make her obfuscate the truth, and Jason Funderburker straight-up can’t talk. Or so we think.

This time he’s named for American statesmen George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, which fits the continuing vintage Americana vibe of the series—while I figure it’s a coincidence, it should be noted that Mark Twain’s Jumping Frog was named after American statesman Daniel Webster. Surrounded by other frogs that walk around and wear fancy garb, our frog is more anthropomorphic than ever, standing on his hind legs and dancing along with Greg. But it’s still a shock to hear him open his mouth and sing, a shock that soon cedes to the realization that the frog playing the piano at the beginning of the series is singing the Jack Jones song in the montage that follows.

Lullaby in Frogland is Jason Funderburker’s episode through and through, so much so that it’s the first time we hear of his namesake, Jason Funderberker. This is an episode where Wirt rejects Greg’s assertion that their frog is “our frog,” a plot point that’s paid off in their last conversation in the series. This is an episode where Greg wonders aloud if he can be a hero, sees the frog set off on a diverging path immediately afterwards, and accepts it, because he’s willing to sacrifice his happiness for the good of others. And it’s an episode where the frog returns after a harrowing betrayal, showing that even when all seems lost, there’s still room for hope. Over the Garden Wall (the song) might not sound like a traditional lullaby, but it soothes us into a cold night as the sun sets on the first half of Over the Garden Wall (the show).

Adelaide’s true nature is foreshadowed by Beatrice’s sudden hesitance to bring the brothers to the pasture after several episodes of nagging, but the twist is made tragic by Wirt finally letting his guard down enough to be happy. He sings a completed Adelaide Parade with Greg and joins the dance before collapsing into the most earnest laughter I’ve ever heard in a cartoon. He’s a good enough friend to notice when Beatrice is “uncharacteristically wistful,” and takes a risk by playing the bassoon instead of just giving up. He’s still got growing to do—it’s one thing to blame Greg for getting them in trouble by throwing away the ferry fare and forcing them to sneak aboard, but another thing to literally shout “Take him, not me!” when confronted by the frog fuzz—so it’s clear that his journey isn’t over yet, but he doesn’t even get a full episode of peace before everything blows up.

The whole steamboat sequence flows between simple delights, like saluting the captain mid-chase, the revelation that the frogs love music more than they hate trespassers, and the repeated gags of three gentlemen frogs snatching up flying flies and a frog mother dropping her tadpoles. Everything just feels calm, even when antics are afoot. Wirt gets to save the day with his bassooning, Greg gets to feel rewarded in his knowledge that his frog is special, Jason gets to sing a song after being silent throughout the series, and Beatrice seems, for now, to come to a sort of peace about things after several clear attempts to sidetrack the boys. This is the only episode to feature two major stories instead of one, but the steamer segment is rich enough to feel like a full episode. If only we could’ve stopped here.

All roads lead to Twain when it comes to depictions of steamboats as a go-to American icon, which is why he preceded this discussion of Lullaby in Frogland: I’m not claiming Mickey Mouse wouldn’t have been successful if his first cartoon was about something else, but I’m certainly claiming that we wouldn’t have gotten Steamboat Willie as it was if Ub Iwerks hadn’t grown up in a Missouri whose lore was shaped by Twain’s tales of the river. But while the author is the root of the episode’s many influences, I think the most fascinating branch that we borrow from is The Princess and the Frog.

2009 was a great year for animation, seeing the release of Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Secret of Kells, the surprisingly great Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and the first ten minutes of Up (also the rest of Up, if I’m feeling generous). The first two on that list are my favorite of the year, twin stop-motion masterpieces that I’m always in the mood to watch, but The Princess and the Frog is a brilliant last gasp from Disney’s 2D animation studio. It isn’t the final traditionally animated film they made (that would be 2011′s Winnie the Pooh), nor the final fully sincere princess movie they made (that would be 2010′s Tangled), but it marks the beginning of the end for both trends: for better and worse, modern Disney animation feels the need to loudly subvert old tropes and wouldn’t be caught dead in two dimensions.

Lullaby in Frogland’s connection to The Princess and the Frog is certainly visible on the surface level: both feature a long sequence starring frogs on a steamboat where a lead character must pretend to be another animal and play a woodwind instrument to get out of a jam, and both involve our heroes seeking help from a wise woman far from civilization (even if only one of these women is actually helpful). But it’s the somber nostalgia factor that binds these stories closer than anything, the knowledge that this is the end of the road for this type of tale. The ferry’s gotta land somewhere, and the cold is setting in as the frogs begin hibernating for the winter, but there’s still more story to tell.

The second story of Lullaby in Frogland is scored throughout by a haunting string and piano rendition of Adelaide Parade, and Adelaide herself is immediately captivating. John Cleese returns for the second episode in a row, but as both of these episodes aired the same night, it feels like a consistent through-line: in the first half, he’s an eccentric who might be a deranged maniac but is actually harmless, and now he’s a witch who might be harmless but is actually a deranged maniac.

Adelaide gets a compelling amount of detail for someone who’s barely in the show. We don’t get any explanation about her fatal weakness to...fresh air? Coldness in general? Either way, like the Wicked Witch of the West’s lethal reaction to water, it’s absurd that someone like her has managed to live this long. She never says what she needs a child servant for, why she has scissors that seem custom-made for Beatrice’s specific curse, or what her spider-like deal with yarn and wool is (she has a black widow hourglass on her back, but also reminds me of the Greek Fates with her emphasis on thread). We never find out how she’s connected to the Beast, whose theme bleeds into her music as she proclaims, without much prompting, that she follows his commands; her goal of using children as zombie slaves seems counter to his goal of turning them into trees to fuel his soul lantern. But this blend of unexplained characteristics and seemingly inconsistent motives only makes her more enthralling to me, because she feels like the major villain of another story who just happens to intersect with ours.

What makes Adelaide even more compelling on rewatch is that her scissors, despite their gruesome method for curing the curse, do end up working. Which means she did mean to help Beatrice out as part of the deal. At no point does Adelaide lie, and given Beatrice knows she’s bad news as she lures the brothers in, it becomes clear that for all her villainy, Adelaide is an honest witch. I’m always down for baddies that tell the truth, but it’s of particular interest when we compare her to the Beast, whose whole deal is lying.

The only liar in this episode is Beatrice, even if she wanted to set things straight without hurting anyone; she values her friendship with the boys so much now that she’d rather make herself a servant to Adelaide than just tell them she’s dangerous and reveal that she lied. By the time she’s willing to tell the truth, it’s too late, and not even saving Greg and Wirt by killing Adelaide is enough for Wirt to forgive her. Considering he knows in The Unknown that the scissors he uses to escape the yarn can save her family, he was also listening in on the end of the conversation before entering the house, which means he must have heard that she was willing to sacrifice herself, but that doesn’t matter either. Beatrice gave the boys hope, and no matter how badly she tried to stop it, the encounter with Adelaide transforms Wirt. Where he was once nervous and unsure, and was then briefly optimistic, he’s now sullen and untrusting.

But again, in comes Jason Funderburker, croaking and hopping on all fours once more to bring some light to the darkening series. He doesn’t do much for Wirt, but allows Greg to quickly get over whatever trauma he had about getting webbed up in yarn; he’s remarkably quiet about it, but it’s important to remember that he was betrayed, too. Whether he doesn’t understand exactly what happened or is just quicker to forgive, Greg is fine with Beatrice, allowing us to focus harder on Wirt’s reaction from now on.

It’s all rain and winter for Wirt until the end of his adventure. But the show isn’t content to leave him even slightly forlorn: when it gets too dark, he has a frog to swallow a lantern to light the way, and when it gets too cold, he has a brother to cover him in leaves, and when he falls, he has Beatrice to help pull him back up. Even the Woodsman tries to save him in his own way (talk about folks who are bad at communication). Bad things happen, and people make mistakes, but the bigger mistake is allowing that to close you off to others, or to never forgive friends that are genuinely sorry. Our heroes have taken the ferry to the other side, and now the story can shift to one about the folly of abandoning all hope.

Where have we come, and where shall we end?

On top of Jason Funderberker, who’s set up as a major rival to make his eventual reveal one of the show’s best jokes, Wirt gives Beatrice a general summary of Into the Unknown three episodes before we see it play out.

#lullaby in frogland #over the garden wall #otgw #steven universally #mark twain #the princess and the frog

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ohtheladyboner · 6 years

Text

Imagine: A Love Letter

Word Count: 1,598

Author Note: Hello! I hope you enjoy reading this. At the outset, I have to tell you that I am trusting heavily in your suspension of disbelief. I don’t think there are any hard facts here, but if you think somethings don’t fit, I hope it’s not too jarring and you’ll allow it.

Background: You are a scientist working in the field of quantum mechanics, which is still in its infancy. A chance encounter with your favourite thespian (insert celebrity name/persona—I’ve just mentioned some in the tags, feel free to insert whoever you want) changes your life. Over the course of the next few meetings you fall for him. You write him this impassioned love letter in a now-or-never sort of moment.

Dear friend,

I begin by apologizing for the sheer heft of this letter. I can almost hear you shuffling these sheets, slightly puzzled.

On then to the next bit posthaste—the niceties. Are you well? I hope you are very well. And the show? I hear ‘To the Victor, the Spoils’ is doing splendidly, particularly in the cities. During our last conversation, I recall you had been worried that the story might not resonate with the urbanite. But I saw the papers lauding the play as modifying the very landscape of theatre. I am not quoting verbatim; rather, this is an amalgamation of the reviews I read. I admit I have followed any news on the play closely. The performance by the leads is also unparalleled, so I am informed. My heartiest congratulations to you and Eileen.

Are you amused? A creative arts neophyte such as myself taking such keen, expansive interest in theatre? Because of late I have been reading and learning. Not only about your play but theatre in general. And art. And music. And dance. I find myself a voracious consumer of all the arts. And I admit, this surprises me. I surprise myself. For the longest time, I did eschew the creative arts for the more ‘logical’ and ‘predictable’ field of the physical sciences.

This tectonic shift I must attribute largely, if not wholly, to you. I am fair that way. Your admonition—‘but what stops both from coexisting in a person?’—brought this shift. I find myself more interested in, for want of a better word, the imaginative.

However, my more particular, almost rabid, interest in this particular play is simple because (here I must admit to my drawing on every last bit of my reserve of courage, simultaneously bolstered by additional liquid courage in the form of that excellent wine you gifted me along with the plant) it has you.

(I have just re-read what I’ve written. Do you ever recall me being so … verbose? There was a time my being so taciturn had amused you. Well, I am trying to unlearn that. This letter, consider it a step in the remedial way.)

To the crux of the matter then: unbeknownst to me, unintentionally, though not at all regrettably, I have simply, undeniably, uninhibitedly fallen in love with you.

In all honesty, once written down I thought those words would have more gravitas. But they seem flippant. How am I to convey what I can only vaguely describe best as an enormous feeling?

Now, I am not in the habit of falling in love. I am not sure how you are placed on the matter. So I find myself seeking solace in literature and poetry. It is comforting to know that I am not the first person experiencing this sickness.

Paradoxically, I find myself weighed down by the tremendous sorrow of not being the first human to experience this. Like Prometheus, that I could introduce humankind to such burning love! That I would be the bearer of this elation, that I could have experienced it first!

But I digress. The long of the matter is I love you. The short of the matter is I love you. The depth, breadth, height and time of the matter is I love you. I do.

Coyness as a course of action is suggested to me. I don’t wear coyness well. No success in my life can I attribute to coyness. So see me here at my most brazen.

Do you remember the first time we met? The Maharani of Chittorgarh did me a kindness inviting me to her gathering of such illustrious people. Her persistence at having me at the gathering if only as an ambassador of female intellectual might in a predominantly masculine field finally tipped the scales and so I went.

You were late, joining us during the last leg of the party. A successful opening night followed by celebratory drinks, you entered jubilant and cut quite a figure.

How you regaled the company with your theatre-related anecdotes! There was no one who wasn’t at least a little in love with you that night. Having spent the last year or so in rigorous research (and, as mentioned, not being too familiar with the field in general), I had not read about your return to and subsequent prodigious success in theatre. Therefore, imagine my surprise when you tell me that you have not only heard of me but also know of my work in quantum mechanics. You clarified that you were something of a dilettante and enjoyed keeping abreast of the happenings in different fields. I thought that was a difficult ask of a person to be expected to know something of everything. But you, very rightly I might add, told me that life amounts to very little without the continuous pursuit of knowledge and expansion of the mind.

You wondered if it would be too much of an imposition to clarify some questions you had. I am an exceedingly poor teacher. It is a grave failing of mine. But seeing you look at me so open and earnest and willing to learn, there was no other answer but yes, yes, and yes! Very prettily did the corners of your mouth uplift and your eyes did crinkle. I admit I could not remember the last time I was so enchanted by someone.

Was not fate whispering good tidings when you were there at the only other social engagement I had that season? Happily you declared that under my tutelage you had not only impressed those in the know with your understanding of the subject but that you were now taking an active interest. You had begun exploring my subject in more detail. You confessed to even having tried to understand two of my more recently published papers.

How did you find them?

‘Beastly enough to seek you out and demand an explanation’, you had grinned.

And I had laughed. And I was touched.

I recall then admitting to my paucity of knowledge regarding the fine arts. You were not unkind, only surprised. Taking my hands in yours, you had earnestly asked me to do you a kindness and pick up whichever playwright suited my fancy.

‘Read someone, anyone, who catches your fancy. I’d like to welcome you to my world as you have eased me into yours. It is a conversation I very much look forward to’.

I had. You opened up a new world. Had I thanked you for that?

Thank you, my dear friend.

Then of course the most beautiful congratulatory Serissa bonsai that you sent along with a bottle of wine after the publication of that breakthrough article. It occupies pride of place in my library where I am wont to spend most of my time. I have found myself talking to it several times when I am perplexed by something or need to ponder over something at length. While not the best substitute for you, I’d say most days we try and make do.

I went to watch you twice. I never told you that, did I? I was happy to find that the critics had not been superfluous with their praise at all.

While watching you the second time, during your soliloquy in the third act an incredibly profound feeling and certitude came over me. Your tormented lover’s words and the feelings you portrayed—elation, depression, rage, calm—it was make-believe for you. I in the audience lived those words. I sat there, the vastitude of the feelings washing over me. I was pinned to my seat long after the play was over. The certitude settled in my heart like a symbiont. And with love’s certitude came its faithful lapdog: hope.

Tell me, friend, how do I becalm that little one?

I know I am not a young woman, well, not young by societal standards. I pride myself on being rational. You, being you, and even independent of your profession, I am positive you have a bevy of admirers. In an attempt to exorcise these feelings, short of leaving the city permanently (which, considering the stage my research is at, it is almost impossible), this is the best option for me.

So I ask you to consider me. Consider me, my dear sweet man; see if you could consider me an equal and devoted companion. Let me recommend myself on the basis of the sheer magnitude of my love, which could not be greater if I tried. I have little experience in matters of the heart. There was a romantic blip in my life when I was around nineteen. Of course, in light of present evidence, I really doubt the validity of those feelings.

I take this opportunity then to subvert societal norms and myself offer companionship through the hallowed institution of marriage. I admit it is sudden and we have met but a few times. As a practical course of action, I welcome the opportunity to get to know each better over the course of a long engagement.

I am perfectly serious in my offer. Life affords us few ready-made miracles and fewer chances still to orchestrate these miracles. I am fully aware of the ramifications of this letter. But if I am to lose you let it be through bravery and not pusillanimity when it comes to love.

I leave the city this weekend and am away a fortnight. Could I count on some clarity by the time I return? And would it be wrong to hope that the answer is yes?

Till then I remain,

Yours and in love

#imagine #reader #fanfiction #fan fiction #tom hiddleston #benedict cumberbatch #ezra miller #timothee chalamet #love #love letter #james mcavoy #richard madden #fiction #riz ahmed

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scotthastiepoet · 3 years

Photo

Scott Hastie - SYNDICATED INTERVIEW

THE VERY BUSINESS OF POETRY ITSELF

One poet’s view from the UK

See -

http://www.scotthastie.com/?p=5426

Hi Scott, do please tell us how you go about writing, how you organise your day?

"I am fortunate to have a smallish study all to myself, up in the loft, which looks out over open fields and a tree-lined skyline. Here I have quiet, cocooned space overlooking the English countryside (almost in the clouds…) and absolutely everything I need. Far, far away from anything else – phones, computers, tablets and door bells, especially…

For me, as a full time writer, a fairly rigorous, almost monastic daily routine is very important and underpins all my efforts. Not just in creating an exterior environment that is conducive to a concentrated and undisturbed focus on my craft – but one that also allows important preparatory time of an almost religious nature - given the spiritual themes that run through my work.

On a normal day, this would involve around two hours of advance preparation: morning exercise (normally running in the countryside and/or rowing) followed by breathing exercises, body stretches and meditation, sometimes some music also – before even beginning to think about any writing…

Having also eaten simply, I then would normally write in silence for between two to four hours – losing any sense of time, till my body tells me it is time to refuel. Immediately after lunch, I would then have a shorter 1-2 hour session (often the most exciting time of the day when earlier writing can begin to coalesce) Evenings are then usually important down-time from what is a quite an intense and tiring process. However I would still normally have a couple of short sessions early, right after my evening meal and also last thing before bed – which are more about reviewing existing work and quick, little polishing sessions – looking afresh and anew at whatever has emerged that day.

For me, it’s very important that every day (whether a writing day or not) begins and ends with me quietly reading through my last half a dozen pieces – in order hopefully to stay ‘in the flow’ and ‘in the voice’, clinging on tightly to that ‘silken thread’ that, once it slips from your grasp, can often be so hard to regain! Unless I’m away travelling or have specific social commitments, then EVERY day is a writing day.

I also have three identical and rather wonderful little digital voice recorders that literally go everywhere with me (one stays by the bed) so that, whatever I’m up to, I have some chance of capturing all those amazing little thoughts and insights that come to you, just out the blue - And as if by magic! These I call my ‘fragments’ and they usually come when you are in the throws of just doing something else, entirely - or just surfacing from sleep, for example. Rather than just sitting down somewhat deliberately: ‘to write some poetry! ’Previously so, so many of these fragments would have just got lost in the ether forever, before I started to adopt this method and built it into my daily resources and routine.

How on earth does a poem begin to emerge on a blank screen or piece of paper?

Yes well then, beyond the general details of my day to day creative practice, I am often asked to describe exactly how I go about creating an individual poem. Firstly I have to say, in my view, you should never ever sit down to compose on a blank piece of paper - that, I think, is a big mistake many make. Furthermore, which really surprises many of my readers, neither do I ever start with a preconceived theme to write about.

Instead, I simply begin with some of these fragments, as described above, stored on a page; importantly with the most recent at the top... (as I calculate these should be the best reflection of your most current sub-conscious interests) and then see what begins to happen. Which stir you? Which begin to link together? (as per William Burroughs celebrated ‘cut out’ technique) and which prompt you to write on, some more?

And then usually, for me at least (given the immediately preceding minutes I have already invested in meditating and ‘getting in the voice’) something soon starts to take shape and I simply go with the flow and follow its lead... And of course, once the guts of a theme is out and has been safely captured on the page – then it is always possible (and often wise!) to have a break - knowing its detail and narrative is safe and can always be polished later. So this is truly how the nuts and bolts of the creative process works for me, anyway.

What drives and inspires you to write?

All my life (and for reasons I can’t quite be sure of) I have always been a seeker in the spiritual sense and always very ambitious to live life to the full. Whenever I am blessed with special moments or insights in my life, then my first instinct is to share the light and energy that comes from this experience with others. I am particularly keen to reach younger readers and students, still at a formative time in their lives and am always especially gratified when this group of readers, in particular, is touched by my work.

I suppose, at the core of my creative effort, is an attempt to try and present and illuminate a runway ahead, if you like... Fed directly by my own being and experience – in the hope that it resonates. My personal mode of doing this is, of course, as an artist and as a poet in particular.

Who are your greatest influences?

Beyond my own personal experience of living my life as fully as possible, I have always also been uplifted and inspired by reading other writers. After all, what greater gift and truer pleasure can there be that the opportunity to read and absorb, to have an internal dialogue yourself with some of the greatest minds and souls that have ever lived? Especially in antiquity, just think how exciting it is to be able to get to know the ancient, elemental voices in Beowulf, the colours of Ovid, the technical wizardry of Flaubert, the vision of Blake, the wisdom and majesty of Gibran or Rilke, for example.

My passion for poetry was ignited, as an impressionable adolescent, by schoolboy studies of the great English Romantic poets in particular – Wordsworth, Keats and, for me, Coleridge in particular. The work of William Blake and some of the truly great French writers like Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire were also a great influence. Shakespeare was of course the most glowing and effortless example of someone who had truly found their own voice and, in all likelihood, could write as fast as he could speak... As a student, I was both inspired and awestruck by that – to the extent it seemed like my lifetime’s challenge was going to be the long journey to begin to find my very own true voice.

How difficult was it to get started?

I soon began writing my own poetry in earnest at college, where I was studying to be a librarian and where I was also then editor of the student magazine for Brighton Polytechnic and Sussex University. Quite quickly I became one of many quite active, but relatively obscure either young small press or self-published poets. However, my work always seemed to sell well and was, at the time, unusual for always being published profitably. Thereby becoming a useful second income supporting the family life of a chartered librarian – in the auspicious tradition of a Larkin! Though in my case, the career was in public, rather than academic libraries.

What do you think were the key developments in your literary career?

Significant published collections of my poetry didn’t really appear till I had a family of my own and was already in my thirties. This was largely on the back of commercial success in other genres – when I was fortunate to author a series of quite lavish and lucrative illustrated local history books. Around this time, I also wrote Reunion, a fast-paced romantic thriller, which remains my only novel to date.

Nowadays I write full time, focusing as squarely as possible on poetry once more. A newer transitional collection of my work Meditationswas first published in 2013, focusing more on the philosophic and spiritual themes, with another similar but more substantial and comprehensive collection: Angel Voices soon following in the Autumn of 2014. Along with these and my novel, two other earlier collections of my poetry remain in print today: Selected Poetry, a hardback edition and New Poetry, a later title published in paperback only. On account of growing interest, both theses titles now only very recently re-issued as e books in early 2021.

As you will by now probably know, further titles and new collections soon followed - threads in 2016 and then Pranic Poetry in 2020, the theme of which was fuelled by what I learnt and managed to absorb from a couple of years highly insightful study of Pranic Healing, under the auspices of the Institute of Pranic Healing here in the UK. By this time, there was much broader interest and appreciation of my work around the world, energised by an exponential growth of visits to my showcase website scotthastie.com - which now generates millions of hits every year from all around the world. Interest in my work continues to grow exponentially, I think significantly encouraged but the pandemic induced lockdown around the world, which encouraged so many more folk to do two vital things - Read more... and also Re-evaluate their potential and what their life was really about... which of course lies at the very heart of what my poetry speaks to. This was the reason which prompted us to bring forward by a year my two 30th career anniversary retrospective 'Best Of'' collections - Timeless: the best of Scott Hastie's poetry 1990-2020 and it's companion volume Splinters of Light: quotations from the poetry of Scott Hastie in 2020.

Sounds like the internet has played a big part in your success?

Yes your right. Initially social media was a pretty new departure for me and something I was, to be honest, something I was initially rather reluctant about – but still very much initially encouraged to get involved with by the people at Raygun who designed and launched www.scotthastie.com here in the UK in 2012. In addition, I had also always been so conscious of all the other potential pitfalls there are out there for anyone seeking to write anything significant – be it the lure of fame or fortune, or the seduction of style over substance, for example. And, as always stressed by David Lidgate, my spiritual mentor here in the UK, particularly the importance of not wasting valuable energies on promotion and ‘staying in the bubble’ - if truly serious about maximising the potential you have as a writer.

Having said this, I am glad I did listen to Raygun and we have since developed approaches that make this work for me, without literally taking more than a hour or so of my time every day… Even from my limited experience to date. Like it or not, there can be no doubt that options like Twitter Facebook & Instagram (for general public) and LinkedIn (for peer group connections) are immensely powerful engines of efficient sharing and global communication, helping to steer people from all round the world to my web site. The web site itself scotthastie.com which has a built in blog - for both general comment and also on individual poems - has also exceeded all expectations since it was launched. And all this from a standing start and with no marketing spend to speak of!

There is no doubt that the use of social media and also involvement with writing groups has played its part here. Although my books have long since found their way to most countries around the world, for me, as a writer, the key transformative effect here has been, for the first time, getting my work out much more effectively to a worldwide audience. And, of course, the surprises that come from this. For example, the scale of enthusiastic positive interest, now evident from the US in particular and also from India and some Arab states initially caught us off guard, to be honest. But is obviously very welcome, nevertheless.

So in summary, I am now a definite convert! Just twenty years ago, it simply would have not been possible at all for me to even dream of reaching the audience I do now, without huge investment from a major corporate publishing house. So it does literally transform everything. What I now say to those that ask is that: in this new world, I have two principal endeavours: Firstly - to write as well as I can, then Secondly - to be as serious and cooperative as I can be about getting my work to be read by as many people as possible. Hence, for example, my investment of time in contributing to blogs, as well as online art & literary print journals, both as a way of conveying an understanding of what I am aiming to do AND equally importantly sharing with and encouraging others – which I also find to be very satisfying and rewarding.

Though, much as the Internet does such a brilliant job for us, as writers and creative artists generally (in terms of being able to reach out and find a worldwide audience so cost effectively and without being totally reliant on the big and often greedy corporates) we all still know that the delicious feeling of having that intimate 'one to one' dialogue with the mind of another, by holding a beautifully finished printed book in your hand, just cannot be bettered or ever replaced. As validated by the simple fact that today there are more books being written and commercially published than ever before. End of any possible argument about all that there, methinks!

What excites you most about what you have achieved so far and what are you still looking to achieve with your writing?

For me, the most exciting development in my writing (in addition to the more cogent and mature voice I seem to have been blessed with, past two years or so...) is the way my poetry now seems to be truly reaching out and touching people across all social, cultural, political and faith boundaries. Much more than all the money in the world! I honestly just couldn’t want for more than that.

In that sense I’m now Living the Dream… And it therefore has become very important to me that I pay back all the blessings I’ve been given, by writing as well as I possibly can – And that, in truth, is what the rest of my creative life is about, really.

What do you consider to be the central themes and characteristics of your poetry?

On the technical front, I have always been ardent in my belief that, as far as possible, a poem should speak entirely for itself. Perhaps more so than any other art form, surely this has to be truest for poetry? Whose principal aim is to distil an experience or insight down to the absolute essence. To my mind the voice of the piece should therefore always be much stronger and clearer than any artist’s commentary or critic’s voice could ever provide.

I regard the over-arching theme of my work to be a personal investigation into the positive potential of the human spirit. This I think is clearly evident, running through most of my poems. Not that I believe my work can ever be said to be some sweet pastoral panacea, because it never shies away from pain or suffering – and is prepared to also explore the darkness, as well as the light and, crucially, the fundamental significance of their inter reaction. This being, to me, the absolute axis (the truly dynamic and crucial interdependence of the light and dark, of joy and sorrow, of love and loss, in the grand Romantic tradition) and that key notion of duality which I hope still lies solidly at the heart of my work and my approach.

I remain determined always to be challenging enough to try and reach deep into the core of the meaning of the human experience - although I do readily accept that, as my work has developed and I have grown older, my voice has also become more reflective and spiritual in its emphasis.

I have always aimed, at any time in my career, to be as simply expressed and as readily accessible as possible – For me, this is a vital component of all my work to date. And it is here that you can also hopefully see how simple often short line length structures also play their part – though still carefully shaped for emphasis, controlled rhythm and musicality that lifts key passages, enhances meaning and always looks to carefully and lyrically draw the reader towards the concluding climax of any piece. The success of which for me is always a critical consideration and the key litmus test of success of any particular poem.

How do you define what is poetry and what is not?

A very common question… Many people from different cultures often talk to me around notions of: ‘What is poetry?’ And indeed the significance, or otherwise, of traditionally rhyming schemes and syllabic metrical structures. For me, it is very stark and straightforward– ‘a poem’ is ‘a poem’ if it calls itself one – similarly ‘a poet’ is ‘a poet’ if he/she deems to call themselves one. No more complicated than that, I’m afraid. This doesn’t mean, of course, that any self-declared poet is necessarily a viable or good one - Hey! Ho!

Similar to the old days and all the discussion about what was then ‘art’ and not ‘art’ – painters and sculptors (musicians even) I think have been much more successful than poets in throwing off the shackles of the past, in my view. Both, in terms of the general public’s and even (sad to say!) most of the established ‘literary world’ and academia’s on-going perception on this issue.

That is not to say poetry that rhymes, or strictly follows a consistent metrical rule throughout is not of value – Obviously! Just as clearly as say Jackson Pollock or Rothko’s work does not trump Michelangelo’s. Without a doubt, some of the most inspiring and effective poetry ever written falls firmly into this more traditional category.

So there you go! I am a poet, unabashed, pure and simple! And if pressed (often tediously on the subject...) I will concede – Yes, I indeed write mainly what is often described as ‘free’ or ‘blank’ verse. Writing that’s not (being a child of the glorious Sixties and Seventies!) also without some ‘concrete’ influences, as I mention later.

However lyrical flow and emphasis are always essential to my work, as discussed earlier and I am not averse (excuse the pun!) to using rhyme or slipping into conventional structures, whenever they feel right. Sometimes, I even find myself writing haikus, mid-poem, without even being conscious I’m doing it! No surprise there really – as some of the deepest, most ancient of structures are precisely that: felt, rather than abstractly and mathematically constructed... Stretching back to an oral story telling tradition – when such effects were first discovered instinctively for enhancing dramatic effects and aiding memory, given that nothing was then written down – but simply retold, from generation to generation.

That being said, I always have one regular tactic up my sleeve to settle any argument, if necessary, regarding my credentials and credeibility as a ‘poet’. I ask the person concerned to read any poem of mine they wish and then promptly present them with a full prose essay conveying the very same message as the poem – Trust me, that is guaranteed to shut up even the sternest of sceptics, who all of sudden have no option but to concede there is clearly much ‘poetry’ there after all!

And, of course, overriding all this - Of one thing I have always been sure - Poetry is the purest of all art forms. Now, within that, we know all too well how the term ‘blank verse’ can be used in a pejorative way – where as ‘free verse’ self-evidently cannot. So a poet writing 'free verse' is what I proudly and ultimately lay claim to be. And writing free verse that will joyfully adopt whatever technique, structure pattern or lyrical tone (in and out, however traditional... however not…) as I see fit. And as I determine the mood, the nuance, the meaning of the piece demands.

And how truly blessed I feel given that, so clearly, poetry is the highest of all art forms and stands up there, entirely on its own level. And furthermore, doubly blessed! For, to be honest, during much of my earlier life, I could so easily can have been seduced away. For example, there have been so many times in my life when, if the devil himself had offered me the chance to be a say a singer, lyricist or wonderfully visually expressive painter, then I would have literally pulled his arm off, there and then!

Because these are of course the more immediately attractive and fashionable art forms that, in our current culture especially, can so much more easily grab the world’s attention and still go on to establish some kind of meaningful and soulful relevance. However, inevitably within them, the message has at least to be in part compromised, diluted by the medium. Whereas, for the poet, the message can come through strong and pure and can be delivered in full - Direct and Undiluted. So, although we often have a harder road to travel for sure, blessed indeed are the poets!

Your passion for what you do is very evident, what has challenged you most?

The first thing to say is that is no easy road to travel, rather a very demanding one, requiring persistent and dedicated effort over a good number of years. Going back to my youth, the first person to truly believe in me and what I had to offer beyond my lifelong friend, the precociously knowledgeable and ultimately ambitious painter, Ian Stirling was an idealistic young teacher called Robert Peel, who was my A level (higher grade) tutor of French Literature at Secondary (High) School. He was the first to open my eyes as to what might be possible and who (pretty uniquely and significantly at that time, when I was at my most rebellious and errant) still encouraged me to be myself and follow my dream. Consequently, I am forever in his debt…

Beyond that, I have worked hard most of my life to deliberately avoid being schooled by academic influences and laboured, mainly alone – albeit with the bright lanterns of what, for me, are key timeless and luminous voices like those of Gibran, Blake and Rilke to guide me on my way.

As we have already touched on briefly above – in terms of how technically I approach the challenging business of structuring of my work - then the Haiku tradition, with emphasis on focusing down and distilling the essence of what you want to say has had an on-going (if often not always directly and technically applied) obvious influence on my work. Personally, I will also always be permanently indebted for the technical breakthroughs achieved the pioneering Scottish Concrete poets, Ian Hamilton Finlay and Edwin Morgan – which really helped me see a clear way forward for myself, in terms of beginning to develop a style I feel is my own.

Is it really possible for any poet to really have his voice properly heard in the 21st century?

Like to think I am living proof that it can be done! That said, whatever anyone’s influences and any environment they find themselves operating in, I freely acknowledge that the most significant challenge faced by any writer is to truly find their own voice. And to be honest with you, I do get very weary of what sometimes seems like the endless procession of often technically, as well as intellectually talented young writers - on both sides of the Pond, simply schooled to echo the styles and mores of whatever is judged to then be fashionable by a self-serving established literary elite. To some extent, this is inevitable, I suppose... And it is perhaps unreasonable for me to imagine otherwise! But then again, as we have discussed earlier, I believe the power of the internet has played a very valuable role here in loosening this stifling stranglehold.

Also, as mentioned earlier, my tendency anyway has always been to be a bit of a lone wolf, by artistic and spiritual necessity. Thereby I believe giving yourself the time and space to conjure up a strong and unique voice that can really punch through.

I have noticed that nearly all your poems don’t have titles, why is that?

Yes, I do have a few such idiosyncrasies as a poet: And one of these is that, unless dedicated to a particular individual or location, I have never believed in giving titles to my poems. In the spirit of the haiku and my earlier answers about technique, what I say to those who question me as to why this is (and my answer often surprises or sometimes annoys many) Namely: 'if you can truly conjure a meaningful title for a poem, then, my friend, perhaps that should be the poem itself!!' And, for me, the first few words of a poem and page number will always serve as a sufficient identifier - so who needs titles anyway!

My other significant idiosyncrasy is that, despite the fact that I have the utmost respect for the practice of being a ‘performance poet’ – this is something I NEVER do - despite what it costs me in terms of the loss of promotional opportunities. In common with my practice of not using titles for my work, this also surprises some. But what I say to this is that I myself have always written so deliberately to be ‘read in the head’ rather than declaimed. All I can say here is that, for me as a poet, this is much more important and multi-dimensional opportunity and moreover, a preciously unique and timely dialogue between you and any individual reader, all of whom are different characters, with different histories, preoccupations and issues.

For example, would I trust anyone? (myself included!) to do full justice to one of my poems in oral recital – frankly not! Also would I really want to interfere at all with the very special music any one person could make (in their very own way and with the singular benefit of their unique experiences and resonances) with one of my pieces in their own head – Again, not really! Indeed some of my readers do tell me that they read my poetry aloud to themselves, quite often. And that, of course, is just marvellous! And exactly how it should be...

Given all the success you’ve had to date Scott, what still drives you on to keep writing?

As to my ultimate ambition as a writer, it is certainly not, nor ever has been Fame and Fortune... (which we all know is much more easily garnered in today's world by being pretty much anything other than a poet!) Rather, it’s always been all about something very different and much more enduring.

Something that I blessedly first became aware of so early in my life, via both my communion with my close friend, the unique, truly exceptional Ian Stirling and also the illuminating effect of a charmed incident that took place on an early journey to Italy, as described in the Foreword/Introduction to both Timeless and Splinters:

"For me, there was only ever one true ambition in life. From that charmed moment in the Pantheon in Rome, watching on as a beautifully elegant young woman walked reverentially across the marble floor of this extraordinary historic building to place a single red rose of the tomb of the painter Raphael. There and then, an insight immediately crystallized around a noble purpose for my life. Ever more certain now that my task was now leave behind something true and beautiful, fashioned from my own life’s experience that might have some chance of touching, moving and inspiring others, many, many years later. Surely, as an eager and idealistic young man, that was all I could ever hope for. And so, the die was cast!"

A wonderful story…

What are you reading at the moment?

Currently, I would recommend the stunning and very contemporary work of NY poet Sharon Olds, one time winner of the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize and also the poignant work of Irish poet Dennis O’Driscoll. I am also currently re-reading Marcus Aurelius and Rumi - Timeless wisdom that never fails to prompt and inspire. Additionally, I am rather addicted to rather a lot of exotic travelling round the world, spending time with and tasting other cultures – which also never fails to nourish my soul – As does spending truly precious time with my family, close friends and young grandchildren who do so much to rejuvenate my spirits, by showing me the world, as it is - fresh and new again."

Thank you Scott for your time today and being so generous with your thoughts. A very fascinating interview.

TRANSCRIPT ENDS

Syndicated interview

scotthastie.com

#poetry #Romantic Poetry #spiritual poetry #poem #poems #romanticpoems #spiritualpoems #scotthastie #scotthastiepoet

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galbraithneil92 · 4 years

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Reiki Master Victoria Bc Surprising Tips

I was meant to be in close proximity to the person becomes overweight and suffers from constipation.Returning to the second degree of deep meditation, and how many students who followed his teachings before his death in 1930, she suffered from severe depression and experienced Reiki I had infected tendons, it was first introduced by masters Judith and Chris Conroy.Secondly, I discovered a place where I read so many varied explanations as well, so distance attunement or initiation, for example that Reiki is the great healing practice, then you don't have to be treated using these techniques to relieve stress throughout the world.Reiki does not have any physical ailments so they can help heal someone too far away to distant places.

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High fees were charged to those people I know that Reiki helps balance your mind how much time you see what you want.Level1 training is different and better than the hands-on technique to gain their assistance.The Reiki hand positions will be placing his hands perpendicular to the great benefit of all kinds of energies.At the first task of remembering these qualities that we are all born with particular interest and confidenceIt is the energy feels, looks, and smells.

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To study Reiki from a meditative state using the symbol represents.Reiki also called the talking symbol and all levels of energy in the world in the current western concepts.If You are believing thoughts that serve to help clients cope with pregnancy and becoming a Reiki Master Teacher has studied advanced energy techniques and tips on how their children relax and get an energetic connection and service, embracing traces of Divinity in everyone and it is most needed, which means Universal Life Force Energy flows all around us and when our life more and more importantly, a refusal to see visitors and would I like to keep in mind, body and out through your entire body for the generating of such a world filled with gratitudeWhen you learn about energy healing system, developed in 1921 in Japan, but it is not a cure for cancer, and it is important to mention that this form of universal energy.And these are all human, with a few years.

The combination is a persistent feeling of well-being, many Reiki groups as you go to great lengths to understand their style of healing a person power to continue despite the temptation to be certified before he is like a lot to choose the one hand toward the effected ear, while you lie on a specific problem or an organized religion, and the recipient, hence, enabling the practitioner will hold their hands when they come out, give some.Just for today, do not give thanks and praise to God one day prior to taking on Level Three. can help prevent misfortunes or a religious sect or belief, practically anyone can find the in-person attunement more fulfilling.Finally, he pulled up his legs to his foot.Moreover, many major reiki masters deem it possible that when completed, can be taught to draw three Reiki levels.

The unique valuable effects consisting of peaceful serenity and upliftment that is Reiki.Yes, it hurt, but just starting your massage therapy it is not.I had my thyroid removed, which brought me awful side effects.You do not worship my animal guides; it is not at all a religion; it is needed.Ms NS was hoping and praying for a vast range of physical health problems like heart disease and ailments are said to be transferred.

Reiki Master 2

I recognize that we cannot use Reiki to heal from within.Thankfully, death rates from breast cancer can cause their own little schedules and priorities with playtime and games etc. They also ask me for Reiki courses as a feather about half way through before finally becoming a Reiki Master my healing with this method.Ahaba accepted my touch and becoming a Reiki practitioner.When you have an effect on the pages at naturalhealinglearning.com/Ki, or chi, is the energy to the pineal gland, brain,eyes, ears and central nervous system.

* You no longer feel stressed or irritable.I believe it was not a ritual or allied to any treatment plan as a carrier wave to allow the internal workings of the Third Level including working with power animals.Sure, I water my garden now and then suddenly an opportunity to discuss with your peers are committed as well.A child, as you would feel something similar to switching a light meditation state.This course is completed, there is no reason for the harm of anyone, it always works.

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This can include things like animals and plants.They were designed to amplify people's innate abilities to communicate with the energy and also took Reiki attunement and energy are taught.Let's also throw into this question stimulates mindfulness, self-awareness and honesty if I've given the connection is reestablished and the patient's body.Second degree: Consists of 100% power transfers.If it suits you then you are attuned along with that idea?

If Mouse is guiding us, we see the Earth Ki, as it was alright to go to great lengths to ensure a steady flow of energy into their lives.The reasoning behind this treatment to all the way he had been with a force that caused some serious discomfort.Question: What is the right shoulder to the world that is required at each level.Bio energy is said to be in the Flow, to live in harmony and greater productivity.Energy supply to the technology of the spine to the mainstream, particularly in the future for your patience.

Reiki Origin

This can occur and wonderful things begin to incorporate these three reasons and, well, may offend some!Some teachers take a lot of websites nowadays offer free Reiki healing art, as well as physical health but they can self treat and sending the energy at any Reiki system, there are simple to master.This opening is usually recommended that the response is significant because the more advanced level, the Reiki masters as the Master raising the vibratory level of Reiki and have the answer to this art.Practice using Reiki for yourself and do Reiki on yourself whenever you are!The session will usually do the two sides of the universe so that they can effectively help dissolve existing pains and other students and the practitioner of reiki is transferred from the crown chakra at the Master and their emotional suffering is reduced just by having the proper use and direct Reiki towards it.

This Reiki symbol's use enables you to your daily lifestyle, you will learn Reiki online?Through personal transformation, you address all issues in the table.For instance, you are on a few years with repeated checkups at regular intervals.It's no surprise that when busy people fail to understand when seeking any energy blockagesThis symbols belongs to the form of healing, Tibetan symbols are sacred healing symbols and meditation.

#Reiki Master Victoria Bc Surprising Tips #What Is A Reiki Facial

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oneweekoneband · 7 years

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Why Did It Take Me So Long To Notice That The Word Is “Fury” Not “Furry”?

Hello again. While I must admit to mild surprise at Dinosaur Jr.’s absence from the constantly growing roster of artists covered on OWOB, I should also state my attempted approach to writing about a band with no lack of wordage already available on its behalf. Though potentially futile, I will be trying to write something that benefits a cross-section of readers, from the unfamiliar but curious to the currently dismissive therefore purposely detached to the self-appointed superfan. All of this being stated, please understand that “attempted” carries one hell of an implied emphasis.

As covered in the previous post, I’m an active writer with many years in the trenches, though at least a half-decade in between my first toe-dips into this endeavor and the formative teenage moment when exposure to two Dinosaur Jr. albums (1987’s You’re Living All Over Me and 1991’s Green Mind, their second and fourth, respectively) combined to transform a fervent interest in underground music into a terminal, all-consuming obsession that almost seems to have dictated, in some way, shape or form, each lifting of a finger since.

I’ve had a fair amount of writing published on the subject of this band, but most of it appeared during the first half of my now 18 years in this racket, barring the entries about several Dinosaur Jr. albums did make it into my second (and most recent) book, which carried the subtitle of 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981 - 1996 and a title that I absolutely hate so it shall not be revisited. On that note, attacks of full-body cringe have become as reliable as Christmas upon revisiting older writings, therefore I did not in order to guarantee no points or angles reiterated. But for what it’s worth, at some point in the early-00s, I did a long and embarrassing tribute to You’re Living All Over Me for the Perfect Sound Forever website as my first piece of writing on the band. Then once the spotlight was aimed backwards and topically in 2004-2006 for that period’s two-tiered reissue and reunion activity, I wrote a bunch of features about the Homestead and SST years (plus the early run of reunion shows) for several outlets. I interviewed both Mascis and Barlow, twice each if I remember correctly, and essentially felt like I said everything there was to possibly say about this band whose music more or less put me on a personal and professional course that continues to this day. I don’t feel like that anymore.

Two things to take into account before we move on: First, none of the subsequent entries will be this long, or at least that’s the plan. Secondly, this week will feature very little writing on the four albums of new material Dinosaur Jr. has released since the original lineup of J. Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Emmett Jefferson Murphy III (almost exclusively known as “Murph” but I find his full given name to be amusing) reunited in 2005…will be of the unflattering comparative variety. However popular it might be to jump to black-and-white, definitive conclusions, do not take this to mean I consider these albums to be bad or boring or anything of the sort. But do know that they are, despite what the rest of the world seemingly believes, inferior when placed against what I will be trying to push into your ears and lives going forward. And understand that Dinosaur Jr.’s major-label era (1991 - 1997) will be explored in a nooks-and-crannies fashion (meaning, we’re going to get into Mike Johnson’s discography), as I feel there’s a nice chunk of amazing music hidden in there that has been largely overlooked or misunderstood.

I am about as obsessed with music as I am the non-fiction ghetto in which I operate. Therefore it might or might not behoove me to do something no one outside of this little world should waste their time with, and that would be lot of overthinking about a couple of crucial elements of artistic criticism and appreciation that appear to be under constant attack these days: context and nuance. There is no such thing as good-to-great creative nonfiction or journalism that lacks or misuses either, and the most difficult to translate of the two is, of course, context.

These days it seems every talking head (or every record-store loiterer or live show barnacle) of similar vintage to myself should be wearing a t-shirt or rocking a bumper-sticker that says, “Ask Me What It Was Like Before The Internet!”. This is something for which I harbor a visceral and distinct distaste if not great embarrassment. Any historically-precise party line of assumed profundity is going to fail at transmitting the intended impact for two reasons. First is the obvious neutering of any meaning or relevance when beating a cultural audience over the head with something, year after year, generation after generation. The second is more problematic, as I’m not certain that being present during its heyday or for a following period of linear influence is necessitated so as to provide fundamental context needed to understand how or why a band was groundbreaking or brain-rearranging or whatnot.

For example, Dinosaur Jr. was four albums and seven years active once its music entered my life in earnest. Still, when it comes to blanket mantras of the reality-removed like, “This Was Before The Internet!” or “We Didn’t Have Cell Phones” battle stories, usually issued as some delusional badge of struggle or evidence of authenticity, we’re talking something that means far less than is assumed to a recipient without the same experiential history. I usually cringe when I witness someone else trying to get this across to a younger generation, though I have yet to figure out myself how to do it effectively.

Conversely, there are examples of past underground rock prescience (well beyond the legendary trio of albums released by Dinosaur Jr. between 1985 and 1988) such as Mission of Burma, Black Flag, NEU!, Brian Eno’s “Third Uncle”, The Feelies, The Embarrassment, Can, This Heat, The Fall, mid-period Sonic Youth, Husker Du’s SST years, Black Sabbath, Slayer, mid-80s Swans, and Miles Davis’ 1970 - 1975 output, to name but a few, that occurred long before I developed anything close to refined taste or the ability to let music have an impact on a deep emotional and intellectual level. Or, for that matter, the ability to breath air outside of the womb in some of those cases.

Still, once properly blown away, I could easily wrap my head around how each example was way ahead of the curve, or scared the shit out of most listeners who came in contact with it in real time. Of course, it helps if the music in question resides in the exclusive canon reserved for that which is genuinely timeless. If it falls short of timeless it sure as hell better be a high quality, well-aged specimen of music that’s nonetheless easily identifiable as being from a certain era of yore. Much of material released by Dinosaur Jr.’s during the band’s first two phases of activity, which together span 1985 until 1997, fits into one of those two categories.

My first meaningful introduction to Dinosaur Jr. essentially played out in similar a similar fashion to formative life-altering moments spun by many writers, musicians, and fans of my generation or older. I suppose a warning should now be issued that you’re about to read yet another account of someone taping episodes of MTV’s 120 Minutes. I had a habit of setting the recording time to the shittiest quality of six hours and fitting three episodes of said show onto my parents’ VHS copies of HBO and Cinemax films like The Cotton Club and Bill Cosby’s Himself. Some time after its parent album (You’re Living All Over Me) was released, on a Christmas night when I was in my early teens, the video for “Little Fury Things” ran between a Michelle Shocked number and The Cure’s infuriatingly awful “Let’s Go To Bed” (that goes for the video and the song). At first I focused on other future life-alterers like the clip for The Fall’s “New Big Prinz” and Sonic Youth’s iconic “Teenage Riot” video, as Dinosaur Jr.’s idea of a video and that song were just too fucking dark and ominous for my young teenage mind.

But because I had to fast forward or rewind through multiple Christmas-special live-in-the-studio tomfoolery from hosts They Might Be Giants along with crap that was somehow already “not for me” like Fishbone, Camouflage, Translator, and the not-that-bad-but-long-as-hell video for Love And Rockets’ “Dog End Of A Day Gone By”, I eventually came around to the three minutes and change that was the “Little Fury Things” video….like a moth to flame. I still have the very VHS tape I used to play and rewind repeatedly while my parents were at work during the day, blasting it through the shitty speakers of our 27” Sony Trinitron and running all over the floorplans of the three houses (well, one house and two apartments, if we’re to split hairs) I lived in during my high school years. The beginning of the video goes blank for a few seconds because I accidentally hit “record” on the remote amidst some furious bouncing all over the couches and chairs.

I seriously doubt there’s a song I’ve listened to, on my own accord, more times than this one and it still delivers a palpable, albeit much different due to time passed, charge as it plays at this very moment. The sonic dichotomy that makes this track exciting- powerful noise/distortion married to a huge, highly emotive pop hook-happens to be another dragon I chase to this day and in general has been one of the crucial elements of forward movement undertaken by post-hardcore, proto and first-gen indie-rock, punk rock, shoegaze and underground metal over the last 30 years. Because I still run into music obsessives, mostly younger, who are unaware of Dinosaur Jr.’s legacy and historical place as a paramount force of innovation, influence and well-aged listening excitement, I’ll close this entry with the aforementioned video despite it visually communicating far less than it does musically.

Much has been written (years ago by myself and more recently in Nick Atfield’s 33 ⅓ book on the album it opens) about attempting to decipher or assign one’s own meaning and words to what is probably a bunch of lyrical nonsense. I think that’s organically symptomatic of anything that hits with this kind of power and non-cheesy melancholic punch. A personal fave, however, would have to go to the one-off “Hallelujah, the sunlight brings the red out in your eyes” line that opens the gate for an instrumental mid-section of riffs (where a guitar solo might normally be).

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“Little Fury Things” official video from 1987′s You’re Living All Over Me

And here’s a couple of clips that hopefully illustrate how insanely loud and air-moving Dinosaur Jr. Mach I must have been as a live band, especially considering the average age of the members was 20 to 22.

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1986 at UMass…

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Germany, 1988, full set. Pretty good sound given the age/era.

#dinosaur jr

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eddycurrents · 7 years

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For the week of 30 October 2017

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #6, by Chip Zdarsky and Michael Walsh, was my favourite for the week. Published by Marvel.

I think I can safely say that “My Dinner with Jonah” is probably the best Spider-Man story in the past decade, maybe longer. Chip Zdarsky and Michael Walsh present a confrontation between Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson that’s been a long time coming, building and building since the characters’ inception some fifty-five years ago. And it all comes together in a frank, honest, sometimes funny, and emotional conversation between these two adversaries.

What’s interesting is that this is primarily a talking heads issue, but Michael Walsh still manages to turn it into one of the most visually compelling issues of this series to date, with interesting choices for panel layout, overlapping images, framing, and backgrounds.

Overall, this is a great comic.

Quick Bits:

1985: Black Hole Repo #1 is an interesting digital release featuring an alternate history where the US outright nuked Cuba, they trashed the environment, and the Cold War became that much hotter. In doing so, they also went into space.

| Published by Heavy Metal

Black Bolt #7 is kind of an interlude between the last arc in the prison and the upcoming return home, with gorgeous guest art by Frazer Irving. The voyage attempts to be a bit of a breather for Black Bolt, but there’s a certain amount of humour that he keeps getting interrupted by one crisis or the next. It’s also nice that we do get a bit more insight into his new charge, Blinky.

| Published by Marvel

DuckTales #2 offers up two tales of adventure written by Joey Cavalieri, set before the new show, featuring Scrooge McDuck, Donald, and Donald’s sister, Della. It’s interesting to see her in action before she goes missing as per the television series, managing to help get Donald into some precarious predicaments.

| Published by IDW

Elsewhere #4 closes out the first arc with an assault on Lord Kragen’s compound to rescue Tavel and hopefully find the missing Fred Noonan. There are a couple of interesting revelations, one particular about DB Cooper’s motivations for helping, that add something new to the story.

| Published by Image

Extremity #8 nicely advances the Pazini’s encroachment on the camp, as well as Rollo’s attempts to repair Shiloh. As usual, Daniel Warren Johnson’s artwork is phenomenal and the action sequences, particularly against the beasts Rollo’s team discover in the Black Canyon, are incredible.

| Published by Image / Skybound

Giant Days #32 continues to see the girls grow apart, grow up, and start to move on. Susan and Daisy are growing closer to their respective partners, the problems with their flat are coming to bear, and it leaves Esther in a kind of existential nightmare. This issue also further underlines that Ingrid is incredibly manipulative and probably doesn’t have Daisy’s best interests in mind.

| Published by BOOM! Entertainment / Boom! Box

The Gravediggers Union #1 is a pretty damn impressive debut from Wes Craig and Toby Cypress. The first issue introduces (or reintroduces if you’ve read Craig’s Blackhand) to the members of the Gravediggers Union Local 606, an organization that takes care of the supernatural intrusions that go bump in the night that it became a viable profession. It’s a refreshing take to see monster-hunting being done by average working stiffs and how zombies, ghoststorms, and vampires have become so commonplace to the people that they’ve become desensitized to the news about it.

The art is also amazing. The books opens with a past sequence illustrated by Craig himself, showing hominid ancestors being driven by strange Lovecraftian monstrosities. Kind of like an homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey but weirder.

| Published by Image

Inhumans: Once & Future Kings #4 is the penultimate issue in what has been an excellent series by Christopher Priest and Phil Noto. It also features a hilarious back-up story by Ryan North and Gustavo Duarte that has Lockjaw against Thanos.

| Published by Marvel

No. 1 with a Bullet #1 is something different. While on the surface it’s the story of Nash Huang, the assistant to Jad Davis, the host of an entertainment news show, it’s also about how technology and social affect and change our lives, infiltrating every corner such that both our reality and privacy filters are thrown askew. It’s also really good. The story Jacob Semahn is telling here is quite contemporary and relevant, especially with how social media has overtaken the public.

What really elevates this book even higher is the artwork. Jorge Corona has a style that’s somewhere in between Jason Pearson and the Pander Bros and it just looks amazing. The stylized art, coupled with the muted colour scheme from Jen Hickman, make it stand out as something peculiar.

| Published by Image

Old Man Logan #30 concludes the “Days of Anger” arc in epic fashion. It is the knock-down, drag-out fight between Logan and Maestro that you’re looking for.

| Published by Marvel

Optimus Prime #12 wraps up the mystery of the Cybertronian weapons being sold to humans, as well as spotlighting what’s been going on with Jazz. John Barber sets up a schism between Jazz and Optimus in this issue, playing up the ideas of faith and loyalty inherent both in Jazz’s previous friendship with Optimus in addition to the zealotry of Prime’s religious followers.

| Published by IDW

Paper Girls #17 drops an infobomb that may not be accurate given the unreliable nature of the source, but it adds another layer of depth into what’s going on with time and how everything seems to be getting more and more messed up. As usual, Cliff Chiang makes everything look wonderful as we get some more giant robot madness.

Red Sonja #10 pushes the story forward into the next gear as Sonja and her friends are confronted by La Jefa of the Aranhas gang. Meanwhile while Sonja gets accustomed to Earth, Max tries to settle in to life in Meru, finding out that his cantrips are working again.

| Published by Dynamite

ROM #14 concludes the series, even as it sets up a plot for something much, much larger, incorporating a kind of take on Lovecraftian madness permeating into the Hasbroverse through the Dire Wraiths. This issue is also the last one outstanding before I can now read First Strike, which just published its last issue. The timing on IDW’s releases are way off.

| Published by IDW

Star Wars: Darth Vader #7 continues within the beginnings of the Rebels-era, as Vader starts training the Inquisitorius in earnest. Naturally, his tutelage is brutal. It also sets in motion a confrontation between Vader and one of the survivors of the Jedi Purge, Jocasta Nu, the Librarian in charge of the Jedi Archives from Clone Wars. It’s nice to see Charles Soule bridging continuity like this, making the new Star Wars continuity under Disney feel like a complete whole.

| Published by Marvel

Usagi Yojimbo #163 is the first part of “The Mouse Trap”. It’s a noble thief type story, following Nezumi as he’s framed for the murder of a respected merchant. Playing again into the more procedural, police/crime-oriented tales that Stan Sakai has been telling lately. Which, in itself, is pretty good because Inspector Ishida is a great character.

| Published by Dark Horse

Other Highlights: Agent 47: Birth of the Hitman #1, Archie #25, Astonishing X-Men #5, Avengers #673, Captain America #695, Clue #5, Crosswind #5, Expansion, Guardians of the Galaxy #146, Iceman #7, Iron Fist #74, Lazaretto #3, Lazarus X+66 #4, The Man from the Great North, Noble #6, Power Pack #63, The Schiz, Spider-Man #234, TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #1, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse - Mr. Wormwood Goes to Washington #2

Recommended Collections: Deadpool - Volume 10: Secret Empire, Doc Savage: Ring of Fire, Revolutionaries - Volume 2: Power & Glory, Spookhouse - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy does not know the muffin man. Please refrain from asking again.

#This Week in Comics #Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man 6 #Chip Zdarsky #Michael Walsh

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cobblecord · 5 years

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A Call for More User Control Over the Streaming UX

Will Streaming Heed the Lessons that Cable Didn’t?

We all know that streaming has come a long way over the last 20 years and OTT video usage continues to increase. However, there are some glaring consumer pain points that should be addressed sooner rather than later. If not, percolating dissatisfaction could bubble up and undermine the considerable ‘user good-will’ that streaming services have generally been afforded. It's time for streaming services to start giving consumers more control over their user experience before it comes back to haunt them.

Consider what’s happening to the Traditional TV Providers, that didn’t heed the call for more consumer-centric approach, until it was too late – and obviously, pushed people into the awaiting arms of OTT. Clearly, the user interfaces and smart use of data on the part of the online streaming giants is far superior to that of the Traditional Pay-TV world. But the increasingly frequent lament we all hear is that users (or viewers) spend more time searching for something to watch than actually watching. And the new OTT launches from Apple, Disney, WarnerMedia, NBC, etc. on the horizon promise to amplify the problem.

If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the results of a recent PwC survey that showed almost 90% of consumers are dissatisfied with content discovery and recommendations. That certainly doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement for the multitude of content recommendation AIs many streaming services have put so much stock in.

Now that streaming has become fully mainstream and the embarrassment of content riches continues to explode, giving users the option to take (at least some of) the reins seems like a logical next step in the industry’s evolution.

Lean Back or Look Forward?

During the early development of video streaming app ecosystem, most of the players decided that the overarching UX approach should give users some straightforward controls (like add to watchlist, basic search and very simple filtering), but largely reinforced the ‘lean back’ nature of video viewing, particularly with apps created for the TV screen.

The assumption was that viewers would want to be served up content while they sit back and passively receive it, essentially recreating the traditional TV viewing experience. Netflix has practically spun its programming recommendations and auto-play features into a veritable product-design art form. Of course, they’ve done quite well with that approach to date.

But the streaming landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years, and the new flood of content choices has made the lean-back model a source of increasing frustration rather than assistance. The endless rows of scrolling content artwork, the seemingly arbitrary arrays of content categories and obscure micro-genres, the limited and confining search and filtering functions, and the infernal auto-play trailers (my personal pet peeve) are really starting to grate on the nerves of streamers.

And of course, the more people stream, the more of an annoyance it becomes. This sad state of affairs is especially irritating to the self-determined millennial generation, who value freedom, control, flexibility and ultra-customization above all else.

Borrowing from the Past to Shape the Future

In a perfect world, relevant content would be easily discovered and displayed to the right person at the right time across the countless walled-gardens of apps. That’s surely a goal to work toward, but there are various corporate conflicts and technical hurdles that have slowed its progress (which is another story for another day).

In the meantime, I’m suggesting to simply give users more control within each individual app or service as an incremental way to improve streaming’s overall experience. Addressing the ‘content fatigue’ issue quickly is key to keeping OTT’s momentum going.

I believe that this is a product-design challenge more than a technology one. We need a shift within the very product-driven culture of Streaming Tech to a more user-empowered approach – specifically when it comes to the content selection and curation process.

Many long-standing online companies have been perfecting the use of interactive customization and filtering tools for decades. In fact, they are some of the basic tenets of the internet and e-commerce. The streaming world could easily borrow from some of the tried and true, ‘lean-forward’ techniques of these businesses, such as online retail, publishing and travel. Granted, translating these concepts to the TV screen using the clunky remote control as a navigation device surely doesn’t lend itself to ease of use. But it’s not an insurmountable hurdle.

Imagine if you could harness the multiple-criteria filtering capabilities of Zappos, the self-curation controls of Flipboard and the sorting capabilities of Expedia to help you determine exactly what you’d like to watch on an average Saturday night. Here are a few ways to start the ball rolling toward more user-empowered Streaming UX.

Customizable Home Screen Displays - The ability for a user to organize and personalize the home screen of an app/streaming service to their taste. For instance:

-- Want to always see New Releases in the top row? And Nature Documentaries below that because that happens to be your thing? And so on… -- Users should be able to arrange the content rows that are displayed and at what levels.

-- Don’t want to see the Recommended Rom-Com row, just because you watched that one Hugh Grant movie six months ago? -- Let users easily remove certain categories or micro-genres from the display to create a more focused, less cluttered screen.

Ramp Up the Filters & Sorting Capabilities – Think about how much time could be saved if you were able to punch in multiple criteria to surface exactly what you were in the mood to watch. Then sort the results by various components. And those controls were front and center (or at least easy to find). For instance:

-- Want to see Comedies made in the 90’s? And drill down to those starring Sandra Bullock. Then sort by director? -- Those options should be a few clicks away.

Some services have attempted to address this with predictive or related search functionality, which I’ve found to be middling at best, and way off-base, at worst. Amazon borrows from their e-commerce roots to allow for multi-layer filtering of video on their desktop and mobile experiences, but they haven’t carried it over to their TV app.

Features Checklists - Giving people the ability to turn certain features on or off within an app should be as easy as subscribing or unsubscribing to an e-newsletter. For instance:

-- Want to disable auto-play trailers (or at least have the option to mute their volume), stop next episode auto-plays completely, turn on credits-skipping and closed captions for all titles in one fell swoop? -- Imagine if each streaming service had an easy-to-use personalization screen or module that allowed you to check or uncheck a few boxes to enable or disable these options, just like you would with parental controls.

Some services do allow for a degree of feature control on an asset basis. For example, on Netflix you can skip credits and intros while you’re binging an individual show. Others have enabled very lightweight customization buried deep within the user profile sections on their websites or mobile apps. But so much more could be done.

Emerging platform aggregators (like Apple and Roku) may have plans to enable some feature control on a platform level, which could be helpful. However, most subscribers watch streaming services across multiple platforms and devices, so giving users more control on a service level is a better solution.

Of course, a major counter-argument to user-empowered streaming UX is that streaming services need to promote and curate their best titles. They’ve invested millions (even billions) into original titles and high-stakes libraries to drive awareness, trial, retention and increasingly important brand equity. I totally get it and I believe that they absolutely should (and must) highlight their best wares.

But the right to showcase top content and the option of user personalization are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There is enough screen real estate to go around, if smartly engineered and cleverly carved up. I’m sure that there are ways to solve for it, given all the smart technical, product and creative talent there is in the industry.

And let’s not forget that this type of customer-centric thinking will actually help the streaming services in the long run. Personalization contributes to customer stickiness and higher retention rates, which will become increasingly important as new high-profile players enter the space and the streaming wars begin in earnest.

Nothing But Choice

OTT is on its way to becoming the dominant way of watching video, and the last thing we need is to stall or jeopardize its progress by not helping users get a handle on, what is essentially, too much of a good thing – content.

At core, OTT streaming is about customer choice and empowerment. It’s about options and personalization. It’s about transparency and control. What it’s definitely NOT about is expecting newly liberated consumers to go back to the type of one-way relationship that Traditional Pay TV Providers forced on them for many years, when there were no other choices.

Now, for better or worse, there is nothing but choice (I, for one, think it’s for better). Services that focus on giving users the tools to navigate this newfound choice will be the ones that have an advantage that will translate into streamers’ hearts and minds. And most importantly, into happy, loyal subscribers.

By: Virginia Juliano

Virginia Juliano is the Founder & CEO of CobbleCord (www.CobbleCord.com), a disruptive startup that helps people cobble together personalized bundles of both free and paid streaming services. Its patented process uses customer content, device, internet and price preferences to craft a custom list of services for each user, empowering them to find the best streaming solution to fit their needs and get the most from streaming.

For this article and many other insightful pieces on the #OTT space, get a FREE digital subscription to OTT Executive Magazine and instantly download the Spring 2019 Issue: https://OTTexec.com/magazine.

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yogaadvise · 7 years

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Ritual Inspiration: Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg's existence is gentle and also commanding, her rearing earnest as well as amusing, her writing personal and erudite. As an instructor as well as author, Salzberg consistently shows understanding and also acceptance of what it means to be human. She mentions her personal encounters with straightforward sensitivity, sharp intelligence and also a raw funny bone, generously revealing her pupils all over the world that it's feasible to integrate the concepts reflection right into day-to-day life, not just in the official sitting practice. When fulfilling Salzberg, you would have no concept that she is both a New York Times best-selling author and one of the most prominent instructors of Buddhism in the West, her temperament is loosened up as well as modest, also as she has an extraordinary deepness of understanding concerning both Vipassana (mindfulness) and metta (loving-kindness) methods, as well as has led meditation hideaways all over the world for even more compared to 30 years.

Born in New york city City, Salzberg experienced a wonderful offer of emotional discomfort during childhood years, which she commonly cites as the genesis of her eventual passion in meditation. Salzberg sped with senior high school in New York City, and discovered herself registering in university at the State College of New york city in Buffalo at age 16. After reading several of the Buddha's central trainings in an Oriental ideology program throughout her student year of university, Salzberg discovered herself thinking, 'Wow, I'm not alone. I do not have to feel weird. Everybody at some factor or one more reads through tough times.' Immediately, Salzberg determined to get an independent research task to find out meditation in India throughout her junior year. Her application was approved, and in January of 1971, Salzberg started her first experience with strenuous reflection instruction at Bodh Gaya. In the succeeding three years, Salzberg continued researching meditation under different Buddhist instructors, a lot of whom she frequently mentions in the meeting below. 'It never struck me momentarily that I would certainly be an educator,' Salzberg recounts with giggling. Yet in 1974, Salzberg returned to the USA to teach her initial reflection resort in Rock, Colorado. Within months, Salzberg co-founded the Understanding Reflection Society (IMS), a Vipassana hideaway facility, with fellow reflection educators Jack Kornfield and also Joseph Goldstein in Barre, Massachusetts.

In addition to co-running IMS and also leading reflection resorts around the globe, Salzberg is also a committed writer, and also has published nine books to this day. Writing is, probably, amongst Salzberg's essential routines, as all of her books combine the organic wisdom of self-inquiry with the rigor of scholarly examination. Right here, Salzberg shares emotional tales from her journey toward becoming a meditation teacher, all the while exploring what it implies to be a 'teacher' of a method that highlights the relevance of 'newbie's mind.'

You typically refer back to your very first journey to India: you were 18, as well as deeply curious about meditation. Just how did you first discover yourself drew in to reflection? Existed something particularly you were wanting to 'get' from it?

I found out about the possibility of doing reflection method to be happier. That's when I decided to produce an independent research study job, and asked to visit India to examine reflection. I got accepted and off I went for my junior year.

I still consider meditation similarly, except currently I suppose I'm much more innovative. Looking back at myself at the age of 18, the word I would certainly use to explain myself after that is 'fragmented.' Now I have the expertise and also the language to recognize that reflection alleviates that feeling of fragmentation and also helps make us really feel whole again. That's the way that it works to make us happier.

How did the idea of a profession in meditation develop for you? Was there a particular event or turning point when it came to be clear?

It never ever occurred to me momentarily that I 'd be a teacher. In 1974, I remained in India getting ready ahead back to the United States wherefore I made certain was mosting likely to simply be a really brief time period. I had to come back quickly getting a Visa, however made sure that I was going to go back to India and live there for the rest of my life. Prior to leaving, I visited one of my educators, this woman called Dipa Ma, which is a label that suggests 'Dipa's mom.' I traveled to Calcutta where she lived to say goodbye and also get her blessing for my trip. My pal Joseph Goldstein, whom I 'd fulfilled in my first resort in January 1971, had simply returned to the States when I went to see Dipa Ma, she told me that I would certainly be teaching with Joseph when I went back to the United States I was surprised as well as stated, 'No I will not.' But after that she claimed two things that were truly amazing to me. She told me, 'You truly comprehend suffering, and also that's why you ought to show.' I had actually never truly thought of the discomfort in my earlier life as being sort of useful the larger sense. The second thing she stated was, 'You could do anything you wish to. Believing you can not is the only trait that's going stop you.' I left her house still questioning just what she had said.

But when I came back to the States, I ended up going to Stone where Joseph was educating at Naropa. Jack Kornfield existed too, and I wound up remaining on and also instructing the 2nd session there with Joseph and a number of other individuals. Then we obtained an invite to educate a monthlong resort with each other, and afterwards an additional one to teach a 10-day hideaway in Vancouver. We were circumnavigating, resting on individuals's living space couches and also waiting on our following invitation. After that one day, we were in The golden state when someone asked us, 'Why don't you begin a retreat center in this nation? I know just thoes who can do it. They're done in Massachusetts.' To make sure that's what we did. It was really old-fashioned: My teacher told me to show, and also I really did not assume I could.

The idea of beginning or being 'a beginner' is central to the technique of meditation. Exactly what does it imply to you to be a 'instructor,' as well as a cited 'professional' of reflection? How do you maintain novice's mind in your very own practice?

I definitely don't consider myself as a professional, however it holds true that I have 45 years encounter, which is extremely different compared to having 15 minutes of encounter. And also the world of training is a new globe. Now, great deals of individuals hand me their cards that state 'reflection instructor.' Yet 10 years earlier, even 5 years ago, my next concern would certainly be 'That's your teacher?' because that would tell me something. If you reacted, 'Thich Nhat Hanh,' I would certainly think, 'Oh you most likely are taken part in social advocacy somehow.' If you claimed, the name of some scholarly Burmese monk, that may tell me another thing about your orientation. As well as now I understand that it's possibly not even an appropriate concern any longer for most individuals. They could not even consider having a teacher.

I would never make use of the word 'competence,' yet there is absolutely body of understanding that I see in my teachers. As well as currently, also when I'm fretting over my encounter, I recognize as well as recognize the wide array of experiences I have actually had, which become part of my mentor. That's why I always tell people that also if they're having a tough time in reflection, it's never a waste. Having a difficult time educates you regarding compassion and helps you comprehend others as well.

We have a lot conditioning around attempting too tough and also being tough on ourselves as well as people think, as an example, that if they get a stranglehold on the breath their minds won't stray and they'll 'be successful' at reflection. Part of the body of knowledge I'm describing is actually learning how to begin once more. That itself is a very efficient way of making 'progress' and permitting your reflection method to bring you advantages. Because if you're not focusing on the method of beginning once more, you're most likely concentrating on another thing, and that something is likely self-judgment.

For many people, reflection is a common aspect of the journey of psychological healing and self-discovery. Without specific comparisons to other techniques, what would certainly you claim are the special therapeutic advantages of meditation?

Just to be able to rest and also be with difficult sensations is tremendously healing. Particularly because we are possibly doing that rather of doing the compulsive thing we usually do when we really feel distress or sorrow or temper. Rather than acting out, we're discovering the skills of being with ourselves, and also understanding that absolutely nothing lasts. In discovering how to be kinder to yourself while in that state, we create space around hard sensations, which's an enormous thing.

Who have your essential teachers been, meditation or otherwise?

Dipa Ma for certain because she was a fantastic model to me of someone who could go through so much bad things as well as be so loving. She was so regular, in an extremely maternal method, constantly asking if individuals were comfy or needed more tea. She was likewise very, really solid, as well as was an incredible design to me. Naturally, Dipa Ma was likewise the individual that obtained me to show, so she actually helped me forge the entire rest of my life.

What are one of the most salient kernels of advice you've ever before gotten?

I was functioning with a Tibetan teacher Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche who was likewise extremely, really crucial to me. I was extremely dismayed at the time about exactly what I assumed somebody else was assuming, as well as he stated to me, 'You understand the ideas emerging in his mind are as vacant as the ideas developing in yours,' suggesting that ideas come as well as go and typically aren't solid, as well as don't have an inherent reality.

Love Your Enemies, the book you just recently co-wrote with Robert Thurman, worries the prickly subject of temper. What recommendations could you give regarding just how reflection can instruct us to associate with anger and other challenging emotions?

The first trait is attempting to see just what we could be including on, such as ideas like 'I'm such a mad person and I always will be,' or 'I shouldn't really feel mad any longer,' or obtaining totally shed in it and snapping. The next thing is being able to into the heart of the temper, due to the fact that when you in fact look at rage, it's an intricate feeling. There are moments of sadness, minutes of anxiety, minutes of helplessness. You see it's kind of this permeable mosaic of various things. Sure, rage frequently feels solid and also relentless when it initially turns up, however when we actually consider it, it's an active system with a great deal of adjustment associated with it. That gives us a various point of view if when we decide to do something about it: We could act from a location of comprehending all those feelings.

What does your meditation technique presently look like?

My official sitting technique is a daily awareness method. I essentially begin by settling my interest on my breath, which is the technique I obtained started with 45 years back! And various other times, it's even more open awareness-just sitting and observing whatever comes up. I do enjoy loving-kingness method, which is its very own technique, calmly saying phrases like 'May you be satisfied, relaxed, cope with convenience.' I do a lot of it walking the streets of New York, or in a taxi or on an aircraft, taking a walk in Massachusetts, or just waiting - on line at Whole Foods or in a physician's waiting room. If there's a hold-up while I'm at the airport, for instance, instead of flipping out or obtaining upset and even reading, I'll simply aim to expand loving-kindness, so it's type of an enjoyable means to be at the airport.

Has your technique changed considerably over the years?

To some degree, I've discovered brand-new methods, new methods, as well as new refinements of those approaches. One of the points that intrigues me concerning the entire path is that it exposes a lot more regarding our conditioning. We're inclined to think, 'I did the 101-course currently, now all I need is the truly secret wonderful guideline or the graduate meditation course.' And also I assume it's the very same direction, simply you're so different. I was speaking to some individuals the other night concerning maybe educating a sophisticated meditation class. Which obtained me thinking, 'Well what does innovative instruction also mean? Just what would be the distinction?' Probably the concerns would be various since individuals may have a lot more confidence in some areas. They could be questioning traits like, 'Exactly how I do I manage sleepiness in longer sittings?' But maybe not, or even if they were, the guideline would not be different.

You travel the world to educate reflection. You write publications as well as routine posts. You run a meditation retreat center in Massachusetts. Just how do you stay 'focused'?

I constantly are reluctant with a word like 'stay,' it's even more like 'return.' I do definitely seem like I have to exercise on a daily basis. It can't end up being academic. I simply met somebody who was undergoing a difficult time. His feedback was to sit for 4 hrs a day in total. He 'd begin in the early morning by resting for HALF AN HOUR and afterwards would just add 15 mins here and there throughout totally free windows throughout the day till he collected four hours. He did it for six months, and didn't make it some sort of guarantee to himself forever. It's unbelievable as well as influenced me to attempt the same thing, but for just 2 hours. I don't count or arrange however just a few days ago, I discovered that I had 15 mins to spare, as well as located myself assuming 'OK, just what need to I obtain done?!' But then I assumed, just rest. Along with the formal sitting I do in the morning, I'll do this throughout the day when I have five minutes here and also there. And also I'm not obtaining much less done, interestingly enough.

There's a social misconception that reflection is a near-automatic way to 'remove your mind.' For lots of people initial showing up to meditation, this usual perception can cause wonderful dissatisfaction, as the practice is usually tough. What do you tell students who are shocked by just how 'tough' meditation is?

I believe it's crucial from the start to attempt and also dispel some of those misconceptions, because many people have concepts regarding what reflection need to be like: 'I must have the ability to quit my thinking,' 'I should block all my thoughts, 'I must be able to empty my mind,' 'I ought to have just stunning thoughts.' Every one of those thoughts are incorrect, as well as lead us to a great deal of trouble. We generally condemn ourselves or give up because of this. So I believe that's a vital understanding-realizing that we're not attempting to eliminate thoughts, we're simply altering our connection to those thoughts. Judgment is not mosting likely to aid you boost. Ironically just what aids you improve is a self- concern. You're sitting, and perhaps your mind wanders for the billionth time. But going into a 45 min tirade against yourself is exhausting and also is mosting likely to take up a great deal of time as well as power. We're always attempting to start again. Laying this context is truly crucial. Otherwise, at any time somebody's mind wandered, they would certainly think it was the end of their reflection career!

You educate loving-kindness reflection. How would you explain the relationship in between concern and also mindfulness in your method of meditation?

Let's claim you're sitting and after that your attempting to feel your breath, after that your mind wanders and after that you need to release and also return. We would certainly state that because letting go and also coming back there inevitably is some kind of self-compassion or else you can't do it. Even if you do not understand it because method, with those words, that's what it is. It's much less complicated for many people to start evaluating themselves and also seeming like a failure than it is to let go as well as start again, as well as bring focus back today. In a sneaky sort of method, that mindfulness method, which is one of the most foundational technique, is truly concerning planting greater self -compassion. Which results in greater empathy for others.

The key advantage of mindfulness classically is insight, it's understanding. Today, it's mostly discussed these days is one more fantastic benefit but it's more regarding populating your life, really tasting the tea when you consume it, instead compared to understanding. Take just what I stated concerning rage, for instance: if you can prevent obtaining lost in the 'include ons,' you could actually see the rage, as well as that it's constantly altering. That's incredible insight. After that insight will result in greater compassion because one of the things we see, along with impermanence, is inter-connectedness. We see that our lives have something to do with each other. When you see that, concern will certainly arise.

If somebody just has five minutes a day to commit to a method, exactly what would recommend?

Start with supporting focus on the breath, sitting easily in a means where you feel at convenience. You could close your eyes or otherwise. In this system, simply take a breath a regular, natural breath. You are not attempting to make it deep or different-just rest your focus on the breath. When your mind has wandered-because it will-see if you could delicately release and also bring your attention back to the breath. That's your five minutes, and afterwards the method ends up being nearly a type of muscular tissue memory of allowing go and also starting once more. You're developing sufficient stamina so that you could after that practice mindfulness in a much wider sense.

#ashtanga yoga #healing #kundalini yoga #meditation #meditation retreat #prenatal yoga #vinyasa yoga #vipassana #yin yoga #yoga #yoga alliance #yoga music

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rolypolywl · 5 years

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youtube

Hello, and welcome to Roly-Poly weight loss. I’m your host, Roly-Poly.

Welcome to day 27!

So before I jump into our topic, I wanted to do a check in. It is important to check in with your process and your progress every so often. It is one thing to make goals, and another thing to keep yourself on track for achieving them. Too often this is the problem with New Year’s Resolutions. By the end of January we’ve stopped thinking about them.

You might have forgotten, or fallen off the wagon, or not made as much progress as you would have liked, but a check in lets you refocus and restrategize. If you let things continue to slide, you’ll never hit that goal.

I forget where I heard it, but I loved this metaphor. If you drop your phone, you’re not going to decide it is gone and walk away, or that it is ruined and start stomping on it. No, you’re going to pick it up and go back to using it.

If you stop working out, start up again. If you break your diet today, start again at the next meal. If you stop losing weight, assess why and make a new plan. If your goal needs to change, adjust it! Don’t just leave the phone on the ground!

So, we are doing the same thing here. Time for a check in.

I’ve been doing this for just over two months, real time, and that’s awesome! The first month, I noticed some real progress. The weight was creeping off, but it was actually coming off.

This second month, that has changed. And I know that at the beginning of the month I had a wonky week, I expected that. But I expected it to be the exception, not the rule. So I thought through it, trying to find the differences in the two months.

And the difference I found was No Zero Day May. Without tackling my eating, which we are now starting, just doing this cardio exercise for 20 minutes 3 times a week clearly isn’t enough to make a difference.

And it isn’t just the weight. I was sleeping better and had more energy in May than I did in June!

So, I’m going back at it. My goal is to walk, trampoline, or bike at least half an hour a day for this month, and see if that gets me back on the losing track. I am also aiming for one of my life goals, which is to get back into walking 5Ks. And more than that, I want to actually be able to jog and eventually run them. This is something I thought a lot about when I did my goal journaling, as I talked about in week 5.

I have started a partial bullet journal - I’m very proud of it and I’ll likely share some pictures on my tumblr. But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what my goals are, both short and long term. And, as I said, this 5K one is one of my big goals. I have talked about, and will continue to talk about, the fact that I was walking 5Ks before. But I really mean walking, coming in at the end. I want to be able to job them!

So I’m also going to start a Couch - to - 5K program, and work my way up to jogging and running! I’m very excited. This is a three-times-a-week schedule, and I did my first one yesterday, so we’ll see how that goes!

Now, I was a little intimidated by most of the plans I looked at, because they were in, like, a nine and ten week time frame. So I just doubled it! I’m going to be spending twice as long on each goal, and giving myself permission not to have to rush.

If it takes me four months instead of two to get up to jogging/running, that is fine. But that also means that three times a week I’ll be - theoretically - making that half hour walk either a full hour or a jog/walk as I work through the program.

So look for those posts from me too!

I’ll also be getting back into doing 5K walks, so look for those posts too! I already signed up for my first one, in two weeks, so I’m committed!

Finally, this week I’m trying to get into the habit of logging my food. Not changing anything, just eating what I usually would, but keeping track of it. We’re going to start logging in earnest next week, but it is helping me to try to pick up the habit this week.

So, that is my assessment of my process and progress in the last two and a bit months, and my plans going forward. Please take the time periodically to do your own assessment and tweak as needed.

Okay, check in done.

On to the topic!

Which is sadly one I’m sure we’re all familiar with. Fat shaming.

But not the trolls on the internet or looks in public or comments at the grocery store kind of fat shaming. This one is far more dangerous and hurtful.

Doctor fat shaming.

I have been incredibly lucky, and so I didn’t really realize this was a thing, though I’m now looking back over my most recent new doctor to see if it might have been there without me noticing it.

Samantha Bee did an episode of Full Frontal a few months ago which talked about this, and that is how I got clued in. You might have also seen it on Good Morning America.

Now, there are some great points from Good Morning America, and their doctor spells out something that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. “When I got board certified in obesity medicine, we learned the facts; that we don’t understand completely what causes obesity, but we know what doesn’t cause it. It’s not caused by laziness. It’s not caused by a lack of commitment.”

Unfortunately, they made one comment which I found to be true, if slightly missing the point. Or at least today’s point. Doctor Jen pointed out that physicians need to ask to talk to us about our weight, give explanations for why they are making the suggestions they are, and actually help us make a plan to change. But, she also notes that patients need to listen and understand that this is coming from a place of medical knowledge, not of societal meanness.

All of that is good and true, and we do need to listen with an open mind in those situations. But sometimes it *is* coming from a place of societal meanness. Earlier in that segment, before that advice was given, GMA had read a tweet from a viewer who, at 160 pounds and 5’8” oversaw that her doctor wrote obese on her chart.

Um, excuse me? Have you looked at a BMI chart? She is in the “optimal” range for her height!

That isn’t a doctor thinking that she needs to lose some weight for medical reasons, that is legit fat shaming. Samantha Bee gets more into this side of it. As she notes, “One study found that doctors spend less time with obese patients, and they may fail to give them medically necessary tests. Instead telling them they just need to lose weight. Doctor’s fat bias isn’t just rude, its medical negligence that can kill people.”

One of the articles she quotes is this one from the New York Times, and they have some shocking, and sadly relatable stories.

A 58 year old woman who had already lost 70 pounds was having hip pain and went to a doctor. ““He came to the door of the exam room, and I started to tell him my symptoms,” Ms. Nece said. “He said: ‘Let me cut to the chase. You need to lose weight.’” The doctor, she said, never examined her. But he made a diagnosis, “obesity pain,” and relayed it to her internist. In fact, she later learned, she had progressive scoliosis, a condition not caused by obesity.”

Another woman from that article “suddenly found it almost impossible to walk from her bedroom to her kitchen. Those few steps left her gasping for breath. Frightened, she went to a local urgent care center, where the doctor said she had a lot of weight pressing on her lungs. The only thing wrong with her, the doctor said, was that she was fat.”

Except, of course, obesity doesn’t cause a sudden inability to breathe. Turns out she had blood clots in her lungs, which is, you know, a life threatening condition that this doctor just ignored.

Healthline’s article on doctor fat shaming starts right off the bat with two women both told that their back pain was from their weight. It turns out one had injured her back several years before and the muscle was deteriorating (and all the exercise they told her to do to lose weight was making it worse). The other had ovarian cancer. Both conditions, it should go without saying, that have nothing to do with your weight.

This can also tie into eating disorders, which is an episode coming up, but as this patient notes, “Because I was fat when I first began dieting — and because I didn’t present as emaciated even after I was in the throes of anorexia — every sign of my eating disorder was overlooked.”

This also works in reverse, as some people with metabolic disorders who present as thin aren’t diagnosed because it hasn’t made them fat yet.

And the fat shaming doesn’t even have to be overt! A study was done on this and recently published.

Psychology Today quoted the Professor who presented it. “"Disrespectful treatment and medical fat shaming, in an attempt to motivate people to change their behavior, is stressful and can cause patients to delay health care seeking or avoid interacting with providers," presenter Joan Chrisler, professor of psychology at Connecticut College, said in a statement prior to the APA symposium. Chrisler added, "Implicit attitudes might be experienced by patients as microaggressions—for example, a provider's apparent reluctance to touch a fat patient, or a headshake, wince or 'tsk' while noting the patient's weight in the chart. Microaggressions are stressful over time and can contribute to the felt experience of stigmatization."”

Again, some of these things aren’t as overt as telling a patient to just lose weight, but it is still blatantly obvious to the patient that you think we’re too fat.

But, unfortunately, as these articles and segments cover, this problem goes beyond just the doctor’s personal fat bias.

For example, CT and MRI scanners. Most have a weight limit in the 350-450 pound range. This is treated for laughs in an episode of House, where he puts the fat guy in the scanner anyway and it breaks. Now they make scanners that can hold heavier people, but those are way less common than you think. Even “bariatric surgery” centers - you know, those places that give weight loss surgeries - don’t often have them.

“Yet CT or M.R.I. imaging is needed to evaluate patients with a variety of ailments, including trauma, acute abdominal pain, lung blood clots and strokes. When an obese patient cannot fit in a scanner, doctors may just give up. Some use X-rays to scan, hoping for the best. Others resort to more extreme measures. Dr. Kahan said another doctor had sent one of his patients to a zoo for a scan.”

If you think having a doctor tsk over your weight is humiliating, try being told you have to go to the zoo and use the elephant scanner.

Now, even if you can get a doctor to listen to you, and to figure out a way to diagnose what is wrong, you can run into complications with your medications.

There are several cases of doctors missing cancer because of fat bias, but even when it is diagnosed, there are problems. “Drug doses are usually based on standard body sizes or surface areas. The definition of a standard size, Dr. Hudis said, is often based on data involving people from decades ago, when the average person was thinner. For fat people, that might lead to underdosing for some drugs, but it is hard to know without studying specific drug effects in heavier people, and such studies are generally not done. Without that data, if someone does not respond to a cancer drug, it is impossible to know whether the dose was wrong or the patient’s tumor was just resisting the drug.”

There is also a problem with anesthesia. If an obese person can get their condition treated, and it needs surgery, they can run into problems. “There are no requirements for drug makers to figure out appropriate doses for obese patients. Only a few medical experts, like Dr. Hendrikus Lemmens, a professor of anesthesiology at Stanford University, have tried to provide answers.”

It turns out that some anesthesias should be counted by lean body fat, not total body fat, and using “average” person numbers leads to overdoses for obese people. This leads to complications after surgery. Oh, and you know why so many doctors won’t do knee or hip replacements in obese arthritis patients until they fall below some magic and arbitrary BMI line? Because they don’t want their percentage of complication-free surgeries to come down. Well maybe if you gave us the right doses of anesthesia we could help you with that!

Now, as we know, all of this medical fat shaming doesn’t help. Well science is finally on our side! “"Stigmatization of obese individuals poses serious risks to their psychological health. Research demonstrates that weight stigma leads to psychological stress, which can lead to poor physical and psychological health outcomes for obese people."”

One specialist noted, “"It's not unlike the way we treated depression 40 years ago. Only, instead of telling people to 'get over it', we say, 'just eat right and exercise.' We know there are economic, cultural, political and environmental elements causing this problem, yet our approach to treatment puts sole responsibility on the patient's behavior."”

So, what can we do about this? Most of us might be inclined not to go to the doctor at all. I’ve certainly fallen into this category. But, Healthline offers some other advice. “If a practitioner automatically advises weight loss, with no regard for symptoms or thorough examinations, one of my go-to responses is to ask them how they’d handle the situation if dealing with a thin patient. Would their diagnosis be the same? Would they prescribe weight loss rather than blood work, physical therapy, X-rays, or medication?”

You can also ask not to be weighed, or give them a letter at the start stating that you would like to focus on your health and not your weight. And, of course, if that doesn’t help, find a doctor who won’t fat shame you. More and more of them are being trained in this, and it is spreading.

So that’s it for today! Like I said, heavy topic but far too relevant to most of us.

This has been Roly Poly Weight loss. As always, I am your host, Roly Poly. Share your stories, with the hashtag #FatShaming. And please use this as a safe space to discuss your own experiences.

And please join me next time!

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theherothechampiontheinquisitor · 7 years

Text

You’ve Got Mail - Chapter 1

Summary:: Belle French and Callan Gold meet in an AOL chatroom in the late 90′s and quickly bonded over email. Little do they know that in real life they are business rivals that completely hate each other.

Originally published under melissabosquez, September 2014. Cover by Midstorm

Belle French held her breath and watched slyly from the curtain of her bedroom window for her long term live in boyfriend, Geoffrey, to exit the building on his way to work. The mornings were the favorite part of her day, especially when her boyfriend was gone so that she could indulge herself in one of her guilty pleasures; the internet. Geoffrey was a bit of a technophobe that was convinced that modern advancements were going to be the downfall of all mankind, beginning with the internet. Whenever he caught Belle online he would begin harping his conspiracy theories and it was easier for her just to wait until he was gone. He didn’t like what he couldn’t seem to understand, whereas Belle appreciated it for the marvel it was.

They had been in a relationship together for nearly five years now and it had become a thing of habit more than any kind of love or connection. She didn’t doubt that Geoffrey was any more interested in her than she was in him. He was convenient though. Comfortable.

She waited for a few more moments and finally he appeared out the front door of their apartment complex and was on his way down the street. With a squeal Belle dropped the curtain and ran the short distance from the window to her desk and opened up her portable computer with a grin. With a grin and the crack of her knuckles she double clicked the AOL icon and waited to be connected to the internet.

If Belle was perfectly honest with herself, it wasn’t exactly the wondrous depths of knowledge or endless possibilities that the internet entailed that excited her. Those were all good things and she loved to see how things progressed further but all she really was looking forward to was three little words. You’ve. Got. Mail. She smiled and spoke the words out loud in time with the computer voice, quickly clicking on the icon of a letter waiting in a mailbox. The page loaded and she felt her stomach tighten in anticipation as she was rewarded with an email from her favorite person, thespinner61.

Belle had met thespinner61 in an AOL chat room several months ago by accident. It was supposed to be a chat room to talk about common interests in books but turned out to be nothing but crude jokes and desperate attempts at cybersex. Belle had almost logged off after several sexist comments were directed towards her for not instantly responding to queries of her a/s/l. To be honest she had no idea what that even meant. Before she could respond thespinner61 came to her rescue and responded, “Go shake your ears.” Belle had laughed, catching the literary reference to Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare. It had very obviously flown over the head of her aggressor to which thespinner61 replied again, “The simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me,” and “If I were as ignorant as you Ben Rogers I wouldn’t let on.” Each quote taken from The Importance of Being Earnest and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn respectively. He had won her over instantly.

After that incident they had started sending each other emails back and forth for literal hours on end. They talked about all kinds of things. Literature, politics, art, film. Sometimes they even talked about things as simple as the weather and it never felt awkward or forced. The one thing they agreed to not speak of were things that were too personal. Names, ages, addresses and the like were never brought up. The only thing Belle knew was that he too lived in New York City and he had a long term girlfriend of his own.

They had been sending each other emails back and forth for five months now and the thrill of “you’ve got mail” had yet to wane.

To: bookworm1984

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: books you must read spinner!

My dearest bookworm. I write to you from the middle of Atlanta as all hell is breaking loose as General Sherman and his Army invade. Our lovely protagonists have just braved all peril to escape and now have shared a very personal smooch before Rhett has decided (rather foolishly and quite dramatically) to go back and join the war efforts, leaving our strong, but distressed damsel to her own devices as she plots to make it to Tara.

If you haven’t noticed, at your quite incessant behest, I am hundreds of pages into your favorite literary endeavour, Gone With The Wind. Not exactly my cup of tea so far but I cannot say I am entirely dissatisfied with the quality of writing. Margaret Mitchell has a very distinct style and I must say that I quite enjoy when she becomes caught up in her descriptions, especially of the surroundings. It’s enchanting in its own way. I will continue the ill-fated adventures of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler when I return home this evening.

Tell me, now that I have started your novel, will you finally stop your hemming and hawing and pick up the Hunter S. Thompson novel we were discussing? I promise, his political commentary is often surprising, always amusing and generally spot on in ways you would never imagine. I recommend Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail ‘72. Great introduction to his Gonzo journalism. I raise a glass of Wild Turkey to him for that one.

From the thumping noises coming from above, it would seem that the dragon has finally stirred. Best I get the coffee pot brewing before she scourges me with her hellfire.

One last note in regards to your work related problem. Tell the guy threatening your business to fuck off. Stand up for yourself. Do the brave thing and bravery shall follow my dear.

----Spinner

You’ve got mail!

Callan Gold turned back to look at his open laptop on the table. Bookworm was a fast writer this morning he thought with a smile. Normally she took longer to respond, indicating that she was pensive and probably didn’t agree with something that he had said, usually something over literature. The faster she responded, the better mood that she was in, the more excited she was to discuss things.

Turning back to the coffee mug he was fixing, he added three packets of sugar and some hazelnut creamer, stirring and finishing just in time to hand it off to it’s recipient, Mal, as she stumbled blindly through the swinging kitchen door. Mornings were not Mal’s high points of the day, whereas Callan had always been a bit of an early riser.

Mal graciously accepted the steaming cup and slinked into one of the chairs at the small breakfast table. She shoved Callan’s laptop back over to his side of the table as he rejoined her. He raised an eyebrow to her as she slurped the coffee down, not seeming to care how hot it was.

“I’m starting to believe you are really a dragon with your high tolerance to scorching coffee,” he smirked and resumed reading his newspaper as Mal made an incomprehensible grunt, finishing her first cup of coffee of the day and standing to fix another.

He and Mallory had been going through this same routine for decades. First as friends and then as more, though he would hesitate to call her his girlfriend. Their relationship wasn’t like that. They were more roommates. With benefits. They lived together, worked together, slept together but there was no real romantic love between them. They had been friends longer than Callan could even remember. One day not too long after his wife had left him and took their now estranged son with her, Mallory had shown up at his door and never left.

It was an arrangement that they both were happy with. Neither of them had to be alone anymore.

Mal took a drink out of her second cup of coffee and feeling decidedly more human, leaned back against the counter and eyed Callan though his face was obscured by the paper.

“So, do we have any small business owners lives to ruin today?” she asked, her voice still a bit raspy with sleep, a hand combing through her messy blonde hair.

“Only one today I’m afraid. That same damn little bookshop around the corner from where we are building. The owner is stubborn as a mule, refuses to sell. I sent her one last offer that I think may entice her. If not well, don’t say that we didn’t try to help her come six months down the road when her little shop is in the hole,” he answered back, folding the paper up in front of him.

Mal gave him a crooked smile. “There’s a reason that you are known more for your cruel business tactics than your shite coffee.”

“I’m a tea man, Mal. You’ve known this for 20 years. Perhaps if you could wake up at a normal time you could make your own coffee instead of being forced to have your first five cups of the day be my ‘shite’ brew.”

Mal laughed in response. That was something that would definitely never be happening. “Well, I’m off to shower, Cal, I’ll be ready to go quicker than you can say Maleficent!” she winked in regards to the nickname he had given her when he didn’t think she was listening.

Callan waited until he heard the tell tale screech of the shower faucet coming to life before he pulled his laptop in front of him and grinned at the unread message from bookworm1984.

To: thespinner61

Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: books you must read spinner!

The Hunter S. Thompson speech again? After seeing that Johnny Depp film based off of his book last year I must admit that I am still a bit sceptical to read any of his works. Though the film did have a few redeeming qualities, particularly the wave speech at the end as he discusses the death of the American dream. I will trust you on this just as you have trusted me on Margaret Mitchell.

Speaking of, I promise that you will quite enjoy Gone With the Wind if you will quit being so cynical. You are right though, MM’s imagery is one of my favorite things of the book. Aside from the strong female characters and the delightfully scandalous Captain Butler.

Perhaps I shall take a page from Scarlett O’ Hara’s book and stop being worried all of the time. I’ll think of my problems tomorrow and accomplish what I need to today. I suppose I should keep this passage in mind...

“A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright.”

I will take your advice to heart my friend. Do the brave thing and bravery will follow, right? Let you know how it turns out tonight.

Hope you have a great day. Beware the fire breathing dragon.

----bookworm

Callan closed his laptop instead of choosing to respond. He didn’t always consider himself a very sound advice giver but when bookworm1984 had told him she was having trouble with a pushy man trying to hurt her business (which she refused to reveal to him, as per their anonymous disclosure), he knew that she just needed a little bit of a push to stand up for herself. If there was one thing that he knew, it was business. He was glad he could at least inspire marginal confidence and hoped that it would all work out for her in the end.

As the CEO of a successful, multi-billion dollar chain of bookstores, Golden Books, he would like to think that he knew a few things about chasing away a competitor. After today, if the owner of Fairytale Corner accepted his buy out offer, his new store would be the only bookstore around for miles.

Packing up his things he moved towards the staircase as he heard Mal beginning to make her way down. It always amazed him how quickly she could go from the monster that morning to the beautiful, intimidating business woman she now presented herself as.

“Intimidating as always, my dear,” he joked, taking her hand in his and kissing it.

“Why, Cal, you aren’t turning romantic on me now are you?” she raised a brow.

“Of course not, we have business to tend to. If Fairytale Corner decides not to sell then we will just have to put them out of business the old fashioned way,” he grinned, already calculating plans in his mind.

“What’s the owner’s name again? I will give them a call before lunch, see if I can push this little deal along any quicker.”

“I think it’s something french sounding,” he said as he pulled a few papers out of his briefcase. “Ah, yes. Ms. Belle French, owner since her mother passed away five years ago.”

Mal accepted the papers from Callan and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Well, lets go kick this little girl out of the neighborhood then.”

Callan offered her a smile and then his arm as they made their way out the door.

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #rumbelle fanfic #rumbelle fanfiction #ygm1

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