Tumgik
#had this one friend and somehow it became public knowledge in our social circle he admitted to being a masochist and is2g OTHER people
backseatloversz · 5 months
Text
soz if any of them are stalking me & reading this but the grossed out sex-negative attitude the people i hung out with in high school had left irreparable damage on me I think
3 notes · View notes
thecottageinthedark · 3 years
Text
Sorting Persona 4
Here again with another Sorting Hat Chats post! This one’s for Persona 4. Full disclaimer; this is based just on the game, not the anime. Also it’s behind a cut cause it is LONG. And has spoilers.
The system I’m using is explained here by @wisteria-lodge.
The Persona 4 MC, whose name is either Souji Seta or Yu Narukami depending on which supplemental materials you go by, is a really REALLY loud Badger secondary. His power is based on making Social Links with NPCs and shifting to become whatever they need-and also on patiently grinding to level up his attributes. And because he lives so much in this secondary-plus the fact that on a meta level he’s kind of a stand-in for the player-his Primary is hard to see.
But where it gets revealed in the end is the decisive moment when the ending you’re going to get is decided. The Investigation Team have discovered that Namatame’s been putting people into the TV, and thus are assuming he’s the murderer-and it’s become horribly personal, because one of the people he did that to was Nanako, and even though she’s been rescued, she’s deathly ill thanks to the TV World’s poison.
And now you-and the MC-have a choice. The IT are baying for Namatame’s blood, ready to kill. One Badger Primary method would be to appeal to the fact that he’s a person, you can’t just kill people….but nobody’s listening. Another would be to dehumanise him and say, he’s a murderer, he needs to die for the sake of everyone-going along with all the fury of the group. A Lion would lash out too-less because everyone’s doing it and more from their own gut feeling, but that would still lead to dead Namatame. A Snake might kill Namatame because he hurt Nanako...or, in the Golden remake, if they’ve done Adachi’s social link, they might cover for him. Either way, they’d be prioritising an inner circle member.
And all of those get you bad endings. Especially the Snake choice to cover for Adachi.
What gets the good ending, the happy ending where the MC is fulfilled and at peace, is to ignore all the emotion that’s running so high, and order everyone to step back and take time to think about whether the theory of Namatame being the killer makes sense. Pounce on the niggling little detail that doesn’t fit, and realise that the assumption everyone is labouring under isn’t true. And then prioritise the actual truth over personal loyalties or emotional reactions.
Bird Primary.
Because of course. This is a detective story. Your party are called both the Investigation Team and the Seekers of Truth. Even the title song hints at it; find the truth (Bird) by getting together with others (Badger).
Yosuke Hanamura’s a young, immature Snake Primary at game start, with the selfishness typical to that. His Shadow throws that back in his face, and he realises he doesn’t like being an asshole whose secret gut reaction to murders happening is ‘well at least I’m not bored anymore now something is happening in this dead-end town’.
So he does two things pretty much at the same time; he widens his inner circle to let in first Souji and then the rest of the IT, and he adds a model on top to let him care about things outside that circle. I think it’s a Lion model-a young Lion, just like his Snake, that edges into Glory Hound, but keeps hold of the idea that you should do certain things because they’re just right.
(It’s not based on the MC, though the MC is undoubtedly his most important person, who he even calls his partner. But then, as I said, the MC’s Bird is very quiet, so it’d be hard for Yosuke to perceive it well enough to mimic it. I think it’s actually based on Chie, who is after all the inner circle member he has known longest!)
And his secondary? Yosuke’s a support guy. He lifts his friends up. His family run Junes, and he leverages that connection to create a base location for the IT and secure a portal into the TV world that’s big enough to be usable. When Teddie comes to the human world, it’s Yosuke who gives him a place to stay. He’s a Badger secondary, and again, this makes perfect sense. The Lover sorting. No wonder so much of the fandom ships him with the MC.
Chie Satonaka is LOUD and BRASH and if you are a jerk she will KICK YOU IN THE FACE. She is so goddamn Lion Secondary, and utterly unapologetic about it.
Her primary, I think, is Lion again. The reason she has gotten possessive of Yukiko (as her Shadow calls her out on) isn’t that she wants Yukiko to be just hers-it’s that she wants to be Yukiko’s knight. Saving the princess is actually a textbook Lion cause. It lets her feel heroic and brave.
But that’s not good for either of them. Damsel in distress is a shitty role, one that doesn’t allow Yukiko to be strong and capable herself, and Chie pushing Yukiko into that role is really straining their relationship. It’s also something that Chie herself knows is wrong-that’s why her Shadow accuses her of it. (“I am a Shadow, the true self...”)
So instead Chie changes gears, because oh look a new Cause just popped up! Find the killer and bring them to justice! And on top of that, there’s always sexist prats to kick.
Yukiko Amagi models Badger Primary, because it’s expected of her. Running an inn is a really Badger kind of job. She also models Badger Secondary, for the same reasons. She feels this is who she’s meant to be; sweet, gentle, socially adept, community-focused and hard-working. The traditional Japanese ideal of womanhood.
But it chafes. The weight of societal expectations feels crushing. She doesn’t want to do stuff just because she’s meant to, because people think she should. She’s an Internal Primary, and needs to follow the voice of her own heart.
And where that heart leads her...is back to the Amagi Inn, except now she’s decided that she’s doing this for herself. She needed to feel that she could actually choose to not inherit the inn, before she could realise that she wanted to run it. She’s a Snake Primary, and the inn is important to her because it’s hers.
Her secondary...actually I get the feeling she’s like Toph Beifong of Avatar, a Snake who likes to spend most of her time in neutral. She is delightfully quirky and weird, and owns that, but she doesn’t charge like a Lion and she’s comfy with wearing masks when the situation calls for it.
Kanji Tatsumi panics at the idea that he might be gay, and caretakes like a boss, and that might look at first sight like a Double Badger who’s scared that he might be one of the people he’s used to dehumanising. His Shadow screams that it wants to be accepted...but what calms it is when Kanji himself accepts it, and says that this resolution is about being true to himself. Kanji’s a Double Lion who burnt his primary because being given shit for the feminine, queer-coded parts of himself made him lose faith in his internal compass, worrying that it was leading him somewhere that he viewed as bad. Internalised homophobia’s a bitch of a thing.
Accepting his Shadow is the start of Kanji healing his primary-letting go of shame for being an oddball and telling the world to go fuck itself if it thinks it can make him conform. He does model Badger Secondary-as I said, he caretakes like a boss-but that’s more a thing he does as a gift to others. When it comes to solving problems, he charges in swinging, ready to beat up anyone from biker gangs to otherworldly monsters.
Rise Kujikawa is a cheerful, shameless Snake Primary, loving and ambitious. She became an idol to make friends, and enjoys the fame it gets her. And when she needs to take a break for the sake of her mental health, she has no compunctions about doing so.
But she needed that break because the idol life was stressing her out-unsurprisingly, it’s a really intense life. And the particular problem she had was to do with the conflicting expectations the public has of celebrities. Perfection is demanded...but so is authenticity.
Rise realised that she was face-shifting as an integral part of her career, and this knowledge sent her into a tailspin. The fans don’t like the real Rise Kujikawa-they like Risette. But who is the real Rise Kujikawa? She doesn’t know! It’s frightening! What if she’s just made of smoke and mirrors? How does she find out what’s underneath?
And the answer she comes to is that there is no real Rise Kujikawa...which is the same as saying that there is no false one. Rise is Risette is Rise, it’s all just her, adapting to the context as she needs to. She’s a Badger Secondary, and the act of performance is the true self.
And for her, that’s a good answer-it brings her peace. But now we need to talk about Teddie.
Because just hearing Rise say ‘there’s no real me’ sends Teddie into a Shadow crisis right there.
He completely fucking loses it. He’s a denizen of the TV world-he’s been immune to it all this time, never manifesting a Shadow, but this is what breaks him. And that just screams Bird Lion. It’s his Buzz Lightyear moment-or rather his first Buzz Lightyear moment, because there are two. This is the first, and he survives it by retreating into his Secondary. It allows him to bring Shadow Teddie under control...but this isn’t sustainable. He’s realised something terrible and can’t avoid that knowledge indefinitely.
And soon enough he admits it to himself (and to the MC). He is a Shadow, that somehow became self-aware. His Truth was never true. He can’t handle it, he has no idea how to even exist, and he outright tells the MC that he intends to commit suicide.
He recovers, though-and he does so because the MC tells him Nanako survived. That’s the first thing that gives him a glimmer of hope, because his Truth already had some Snakey elements in there about chosen people and ambitions. He comes back from the brink, reshapes his system to centre those Snake principles, and returns to the side of his friends.
Lastly, Naoto Shirogane, our other queer-coded character. (I’m using she pronouns for the sake of canon here-but I’m a firm believer in nonbinary Naoto, for the record.) I think she’s a Bird secondary-the only one of those here, jeez. She’s just so analytical. She’s a rapid-fire Bird too, Detective Prince working on a case, squarely in the middle of her comfort zone. But push her out of it-into a normal teenager social situation, say-and watch her squirm!
She has a Bird Primary performance, too. But performance is the operative word here. She’s trying to look adult and smart and collected, in order to be taken seriously by the police officers she works with. And she is smart, mind you, but that’s not the why of her though it is the how. It’s not Naoto who goes ‘wait, let’s think about this, we need more information’ at the crucial point, but the MC, who really is a Bird Primary. Naoto was the one to suggest doing a little vigilante justice vis-a-vis murdering Namatame.
Her real Primary is Lion. Being a detective is a Cause for her, not a Truth, and she is blazingly certain of her own sense of what’s right-so much so that she doesn’t stop and check it against other people’s. And she inspires people! She doesn’t even mean to, and certainly doesn’t know why, but she is just so cool that people flock to her and admire her. ‘The Detective Prince’ is, when you think about it, a really Lion Bird kind of title!
Her Shadow has two issues with her. First, it harps on the gender angle. Hey, self, there’s that thing about your identity that you’ve been refusing to think about! You need to go poke at it! And then it breaks down into a scared child. Self, your performance is eating you alive. You need to do it, yes, the Cause demands it, but you also need to be able to stop sometimes and let yourself have emotions!
In short:
MC/Souji/Yu: Bird primary, Badger secondary
Yosuke: Snake primary, Badger secondary, models Lion primary
Chie: Lion primary, Lion secondary
Yukiko: Snake primary, Snake secondary, with Badger primary and secondary models that start out pretty unhealthy for her. 
Kanji: Lion primary that starts out burnt and begins to unburn after his Shadow fight, Lion secondary. Models Badger secondary.
Rise: Snake primary, Badger secondary
Teddie: Bird primary, Lion secondary. Falls dramatically and recovers by shaping his system to be more Snakelike.
Naoto: Lion primary, Bird secondary, performs Bird primary
25 notes · View notes
Text
Camilla Leach
Today’s post, entitled “Camilla Leach: A sophisticated spitfire (1835-1930)”, comes from Paula Seeger, Design Library, University of Oregon, with significant contributions from Ed Teague, Retired Director of Branch Libraries, University of Oregon. All photos are courtesy of University of Oregon Libraries.
Tumblr media
Summary
Ultimately known for her role as the founding librarian-manager of the Design (formerly Architecture and Allied Arts) Library at the University of Oregon, Miss Camilla Leach left a legacy of caring for student success and ambition throughout her long career. Only in the last third of her life did she find a role in the library, with the majority of her time spent in the classroom or dormitory, supervising and guiding the lives of young adults, especially girls. Miss Leach constantly updated her position during a long career trajectory, never losing her love of the arts and French culture and design. She travelled to Paris in her 30s, was committed to the plight of French orphans during WWI, and translated Auguste Racinet’s L’Ornement Polychrome (Paris, 1869-73) for the benefit of the students of the University of Oregon.  This fascination with French culture and artistry bestowed an air of sophistication to Miss Leach. Combined with her “go-getter” determination that impressed the administration and faculty, Miss Leach’s keen observational skills and broad knowledge let her anticipate the needs and interests of her loyal colleagues and patrons. This unique mix allowed Miss Leach to win over those who doubted she could take an active role in organizing a new library and departmental administration office at the age of 79. Even though she “retired” twice from the libraries at the University, Miss Leach remained active in the community and social circles, giving talks on the relation of art to library work to civic groups into her 90s. Piecing together her history, as well as reflecting on her legacy, is a worthy exercise that re-emphasizes a lifelong commitment to arts education and wisdom born from the strength of longevity.
Background and Early Career
Miss Leach’s history has been difficult to completely trace. We assume certain facets of her life and try to fill the gaps within her story for which we do not yet have evidence, such as Miss Leach’s education and much of her early life. While we know she was born in Rochester, New York in 1835, and there are some accounts of her attending East Coast schools, we next find definitive mention of her in 1855. While still living at home in New York, her profession was listed as “teacher” at age 19 in the New York state census of 1855, indicating she began her teaching career early.  Using broad searches of historical newspapers, we can see that she travelled south and west, taking a position at a teaching college in 1859. Her title was Governess and assistant teacher of the “English branches” at East Alabama Female College (also called “Tuskegee Female College” at its founding in 1854, later “Huntingdon College” after the institution moved to Montgomery). By 1865, she arrived in Chicago and was granted a teaching certificate to teach at a number of public schools including Skinner school and the main Chicago High School. It is during this time Miss Leach was elected to be “Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature” at the high school and a wage dispute was noted (1870):
Miss Camilla Leach was recently elected professor of English literature in the Chicago high school, but the board of education refuses to pay her over $1000 for work for which her male predecessor received $2,200.1
It is unknown whether this dispute led to her resignation, but shortly after, in 1871, Miss Leach applied for a passport to travel to Europe to study art and visited Paris in 1871-72, becoming well-versed in French art and architecture. After Europe, she returned to a position as a high school teacher in St. Louis in 1872-73, and was announced as a teacher at the Washington school for Minneapolis Public Schools in 1878. Another newspaper account in August 1878 mentioned that she was an art instructor in a Placerville, CA, ladies’ seminary and private school (TAE Academy). Having settled in Oakland, CA, from 1879-89, Miss Leach taught drawing and French at the Snell Seminary, a “boarding and day school for girls” that operated from 1878-1912. While at the Snell Seminary, Miss Leach perhaps learned more about opportunities that could be found in Oregon. During her tenure, one of the Seminary’s founders, Dr. Margaret Snell, began an affiliation with Oregon State University (then called the Corvallis College and the State Agricultural College of Oregon) through a Corvallis resident who happened to be staying in the Oakland area caring for an ailing relative. Dr. Snell went on to found the department of “Household Economy and Hygiene in the Far West,” the first in the western U.S. and went on to a great legacy at Oregon State.3
Tumblr media
Perhaps also influenced by Dr. Snell’s continuing education in the East, Miss Leach attended Bryn Mawr with “Hearer” status in 1889-902 and it is assumed that this is where she completed her education about “library methods”. Returning to California, Miss Leach was introduced as Mistress of Roble Hall, a ladies’ dormitory at Stanford University in 1891, the first year Stanford started enrolling students. After administrative and facility restructuring, she was let go from Stanford in 1892, heading north to Portland, OR.
Miss Leach stayed five years in Portland working as a private tutor and head of a private school, perhaps of her own creation, within a wealthy businessman’s household. These many years spent as an educator, administrator, and overall caregiver of young student lives had now prepared Miss Leach for a more significant career transition as she was recruited by the University of Oregon in 1897 to become their first dual registrar-University librarian, beginning her new role in libraries. It is unknown what motivated this career change for Miss Leach at about age 60--or age 50: In subsequent census records Miss Leach somehow gets ten years younger.
University of Oregon Career
In 1897, the University of Oregon in Eugene recruited Miss Leach to be the school’s first registrar while also serving as the University’s librarian in a combined position. The dual job was split in 1899, when Miss Leach became “only” the University librarian and, later, the school’s first art librarian. She contributed to the school’s publications, offering a review of Bryn Mawr and several original pieces of poetry for the University’s yearbook and monthly journals.  The University originally had a small library collection, based mainly upon generous donations from professors before state allocations were negotiated, and the collection was relocated several times before the first purpose-built library opened in 1906.  In 1912, Miss Leach retired from her library position, but continued to teach in the art school as a drawing instructor and teacher of art history, which she continued throughout her next role. At the time of her “retirement” as a reference librarian from the main library, the local newspaper told of her reputation:
Miss Leach is perhaps better known than any other one character upon the Oregon campus during this time. She knew personally every student from freshman to senior, and has hundreds of sincere friends among the Oregon graduates all over the state.4
Resistant to fully retiring, and beloved by faculty and students, Miss Leach continued to work in the new main library until 1914 when, at the age of 79 years, she became the founding librarian and administrative assistant at the new School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Her transfer to the new location was met with doubt by the founding Dean of the school, Ellis F. Lawrence, who was resistant to hiring a 79-year-old to the post. He expressed his doubts to the University President, and was reassured that Miss Leach could hold her own and make worthy contributions. Dean Lawrence described his first meeting with her as particularly memorable:
When I [met] her at the first staff conference I was very conscious that there was a divine fire in the proud little figure before me. It was shining through the brightest pair of the darkest eyes I have ever felt boring into my soul. After listening to my outline of procedure and objectives, Miss Camilla leaned over the table and in the snappy, crisp utterance I was later to know so well, she said, “Sir, I was teaching art before you were born.” If she had said ‘thirty years before you were born’, I feel sure she would have been within the truth. Naturally I thought – here is a Tartar to deal with, and anticipated plenty of excitement. Little did I know how deliciously that excitement was to be; how surprising and invigorating it could be! Miss Camilla was placed in charge of the Art Library. Before I knew it she had that department functioning more efficiently than I had thought possible, even in my fondest dreams. But her work did not stop there. She became our matriarch, tradition builder, exemplar of manners, personnel officer – and very much in evidence as advisor to the Dean.5
Indeed, students took to calling her the “Mother of Our Library” and Aunt Psyche (Pidgy), a
[G]uiding spirit since its inception….All of us have been visited by her kindly interest, -- the serious have been led to that exact niche where Volume X lies; the frivolous (and everyone knows that some of us often go to the library on missions quite foreign to study), -- we have been ushered into her acquaintance by the sharp tap of her pencil or by the censure of her warning nod. But however that may be, each of us, as we step out into the world, is to carry a pleasant recollection of Miss Camilla Leach.6
Another story of Miss Leach helping students, while displaying her expertise in French architecture, is noted in the Eugene Guard newspaper from Saturday, April 20, 1918: A girl on campus had a friend stationed in France, but the US military would not reveal the location. The girl’s friend sent her a photo with a cathedral in the background. The girl didn’t recognize it but another friend suggested she take it to Miss Leach, the art librarian. Sure enough, Miss Leach immediately identified the cathedral and the girl was able to locate her military friend.7
In addition to her teaching, library, and administrative duties, Miss Leach consulted with library colleagues and was in attendance at the earliest foundational meetings of the Oregon Library Association (1904). Her attendance at local arts events is well-documented in the local newspapers, as are the frequent talks she would give to local civic organizations (one titled “The Relation of Art to Library Work”), and her reputation as a fine sketch and free-hand artist was known throughout the Northwest.
Philosophy of Academic Rigor and Student Advocacy
Miss Leach had a sense of humor that she rarely indulged, but there were certain topics that were sure to raise her ire. In one instance, as regaled by Dean Lawrence in his memorial writing, a painting professor teaching Civilization and Art Epochs was discussing symbolism with his class. It was reported that he used the example of the serpent, once a symbol of wisdom, but over the years mixed together with many ingredients and encased in a skin, much like a sausage. This description, when relayed to an incensed Miss Leach, caused her to question why culture and wisdom should be treated with levity. She often wondered why artists and architects could not have higher academic standards. Dean Lawrence described her struggle with the habits of scholarship:
Knowledge was to her the basis of her philosophy and conduct, though she little knew how much her intuitions and her fine intellectual common-sense tempered that knowledge. … [T]he idiosyncrasies of the creative artists often irked her. Yet she came to participate valiantly in the methods of the School which called for the freedom necessary to bring out the creative urge in each student.8
To demonstrate how Miss Leach advocated for her students, Dean Lawrence told of a new student who worked extremely hard and produced decent results for one who had no artistic background, which thrilled Miss Leach. However, after flunking out at the end of the term, causing the student to leave without even a good-bye, Miss Leach arrived at the Dean’s office, furious at a system that would let go of a potential genius and lobbied on his behalf. She urged the Dean to reconsider the student’s case and bring it before the Faculty. Together they won the case and the student was reinstated and went on to “make good,” much to the satisfaction of Miss Leach.
Legacy
Miss Leach completed a handwritten history of the University of Oregon in 1900, likely one of the first written of the 24-year old institution, with a volume still found in the library’s Special Collections and University Archives department. During her time at UO, Miss Leach, along with other library and University staff, were interested in caring for French children affected by the war, particularly in 1919. This seems entirely appropriate and in line with Miss Leach’s fascination with French culture and arts.
Camilla Leach finally truly retired in 1924, primarily due to declining health after a fall, and losing her eyesight. She moved back east and died in Jonesville, Michigan (near Battle Creek) in 1930, while staying with a relative. Dean Lawrence wrote a tribute to Miss Leach after her death, describing her ultimately as an “exquisite cameo who was classic in her perfection.” He noted that she was in the process of translating Auguste Racinet’s L’Ornement Polychrome (Paris, 1869-73) for the benefit of the students. The Racinet volume can still be found among the collections of today’s Design Library, which in 1992 was the focus of an expansion of Lawrence Hall, the home of the College of Design. 
Tumblr media
There are several other books still containing the bookplates indicating they were purchased with the fund set up for the “Camilla Leach Collection of Art Books,” a special collection in the University Library that remained well after Miss Leach’s death. The fund, set up in 1923, was described as a perpetual fund designed for purchasing art books from the interest earned each year. Mrs. Henry Villard, widow of one of the pioneer founders of the University, donated and suggested that a portion of the yearly endowment to the libraries from the Villard gift should be set aside to build up the Leach fund. There are several newspaper accounts of faculty members, and their families, donating books and financial support to the fund. In addition to books purchased, over the years as Miss Leach’s history became better known, library staff have unofficially named a two-story reading room the “Camilla Leach Room” in her honor. The room enables study and research and is used to present selections from the library’s collection of artist’s books, rare books, and other artifacts. 
Perhaps the most touching of Miss Leach’s legacy is how she influenced her initial detractors. Dean Lawrence fancied himself a bit of a creative writer, and one can find several complete and incomplete short stories and novella manuscripts among his personal writings in the archives of the University of Oregon Libraries. In addition to the 6-page memorial tribute that Lawrence penned that was devoted to Miss Leach (excerpted above), one can also read an incomplete 60-page murder-mystery novella. The protagonist who is able to solve the case faster than the sheriff?  A Miss Marple-like character named “Miss Camilla Chaffin” described as wearing a Paisley shawl, lace collar, and a lavender ribbon in her hair. She was the “oldest of the old-timers” and was friendly with the “dear old doddering Dean.”9 
As we piece together Miss Leach’s legacy, her strength is revealed in her loyal determination to provide the best resources and environment for students in order to nurture their creativity and scholarly output. Her ability to expose interests, and proactively anticipate the materials needed for letting those interests flourish, were among her special gifts to the students she served and the colleagues she assisted. Her legacy continues today in the resources and services that are at the forefront of today’s Design Library.
Tumblr media
  Notes
1 “Untitled News Article,” Weekly Oregon Statesman, March 18, 1870, 3.
2 Program, Bryn Mawr College, p. 252. Accessed through Google Books.
3 “The 'Apostle’ of Fresh Air...Margaret Comstock Snell (1844-1923)” George Edmonston Jr., OSU Alumni Association, undated. http://www.osualum.com/s/359/16/interior.aspx?sid=359&gid=1001&pgid=536
4 “Veteran U.-O. Librarian Retires with Honor,” Oregon Daily Journal, October 4, 1912.
5 Ellis F. Lawrence, “Miss Camilla – A Portrait” (Eugene, Ore., 1930), in Ellis Fuller Lawrence papers, Ax 056, Box 13, Special Collections and University Archive of the University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, 2.
6 “Miss Camilla Leach,” in Oregana, 1912 vol., 23.
7 “Censor Sleeps on Job,” Eugene Guard, April 20, 1918, 4.  
8 Ellis F. Lawrence, “Miss Camilla – A Portrait” (Eugene, Ore., 1930), in Ellis Fuller Lawrence papers, Ax 056, Box 13, Special Collections and University Archive of the University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, 4-5.
9 Ellis F. Lawrence, “The Red Tide,” in Ellis Fuller Lawrence papers, Special Collections and University Archive of the University of Oregon Libraries, Eugene, also in Harmony in diversity : the architecture and teaching of Ellis F. Lawrence, edited by Michael Shellenbarger, Eugene, Or. : Museum of Art and the Historic Preservation Program, School of Architecture and Allied Arts, University of Oregon, 1989.
  Other sources consulted
●        1903 Webfoot (University of Oregon Yearbook)
●        Bishop’s Oakland Directory for 1880-81 "Containing a business directory, street guide, record of the city government, its institutions, etc." (varies). "Also a directory of the town of Alameda" (issues for <1880-81-> also include Berkeley). Compiled by D.M. Bishop & Co. Description based on: 1876-7. Published: San Francisco : Directory Pub, Co., <1880-> Open Library            OL25463540M. Internet Archive bishopsoaklanddi187778dmbi. LC Control Number 11012620. https://archive.org/details/bishopsoaklanddi188081dmbi  (Listed as teacher at Snell’s Seminary)
●        “Board of Education,” Chicago Tribune, October 9, 1865, 4.
●        “Board of Education,” Minneapolis Tribune, June 22, 1878, 4.
●        “East Alabama Female College,” South Western Baptist, November 17, 1859, 3.
●        “Former Undergraduates That Have Not Received Their Degrees,” in Program Bryn Mawr College, 1903-04, 1906, 283, https://books.google.com/books?id=GKRIAQAAMAAJ.
●        “General Register of the Officers and Alumni 1873-1907,” vol. 5, no. 4, University of Oregon Bulletin (Eugene, Ore.: University of Oregon, 1908), http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11152.
●        “Gift of $100 Received,” Eugene Guard, November 6, 1924, 12.
●        Henry D. Sheldon, The University of Oregon Library 1882-1942, Studies in Bibliography, No. 1 (Eugene, Ore.: University of Oregon, 1942), http://hdl.handle.net/1794/23064.
●        "New York State Census, 1855," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9BPY-97K6?cc=1937366&wc=M6G3-GZ7%3A237407901%2C237457701 : 22 May 2014), Orleans > Kendall > image 15 of 40; county clerk offices, New York. (teacher at 19)
●        “Salary Dispute,” The Illinois [Chicago] Schoolmaster A journal of educational literature and news v. 4 1871, 260 https://ia601409.us.archive.org/5/items/illinoisschoolma41871gove/illinoisschoolma41871gove.pdf
●        “SPOTLIGHT ON A LEGACY: Treasures of the Design Library” Ed Teague, 2014, https://library.uoregon.edu/design/century
●        “TAE Academy,” Placerville Mountain Democrat, August 10, 1878, n.p.
●        "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSDX-B6R : accessed 15 April 2018), Camilla Leach in household of Mary E Cox, South Eugene Precincts 1 and 2 Eugene city, Lane, Oregon, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 112, sheet 8A, family 162, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,348. (age = ten years younger)
●        “Untitled News Piece,” Eugene Guard, May 1, 1928, 6. – Talk “Relation of Art to Library Work”
●     “What’s in a Name? Design, and Library” Ed Teague, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Sept. 12, 2017. http://www.acsa-arch.org/acsa-news/read/read-more/acsa-news/2017/09/12/what-s-in-a-name-design-and-library
8 notes · View notes
caithyra · 4 years
Text
Review: The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #1) by Ashley Gardner
So, I’m binging on historical fiction and thought that maybe I’ll make a few reviews. This particular review came about because the author trained the readers to read a certain way and then did not realize the implications when the a reader would read the whole book that way and not just the scenes the author wanted them to read like that.
I am of course talking about the character of Louisa Brandon, who is, according to the summary of the fifth book in this series, Captain Lacey’s good friend even after five books, even though he should have cut her out his life years before the this book and at least have cursed her out and never talked to her again halfway through this book. Yeah.
Quick Spoiler-free Review: 4/10. First Person POV but with little interior life of the POV character beyond complaints. The mystery ended up being of secondary concern to the Louisa annoyance for me in the end. All the characters and the narrative cannot stop praising Louisa Brandon when they should hate her. The first two chapters are basically filler because the characters speak in cryptic remarks instead of like normal people... You get the idea.
But let me rant a bit about Louisa Brandon. And I will do so in a way that’ll hopefully be helpful for other writers who might make the same mistake.
SPOILERS AHOY (But not of the mystery’s conclusion, because that’s got nothing to do with it)!
Basically, we are told to read more into what the characters say/write than what they say at face value, which is a given in mystery stories, but in this particular story, doing such means understanding the solution of several parts of the mystery (a maid obviously being infatuated with her murdered master while claiming she was not; a missing girl’s letters to a friend mentioning something in a previous letter yet the previous letter does not contain it, suggesting that her friend left a letter between out to hide this something, but the friend refuses to admit it).
Now, for some backstory about Captain Gabriel Lacey, Louisa Brandon, Aloysius Brandon and Janet Clarke. This is a very abbreviated, as close to spoiler-free version, I could get:
Basically, Louisa is married to Aloysius Brandon. Aloysius, Lacey’s commander, took Lacey under his wing during the wars in the army and they became the best of friends (Lacey continually thinks about how they loved, yes, using that word, each other). Janet was the wife of a lower ranked soldier who died, and became Lacey’s lover, and they were happy. At some point, Louisa’s honor was threatened, Lacey did some calling out, Aloysius became jealous and sent Lacey on a suicide mission, Janet (some point before the suicide mission, I think, I was sort of glazing over by this time) went home to take care of a sick sister (no promises made between her and Lacey) and married Clarke (who died before the start of this book), Lacey now hates Aloysius but could not take him down without ruining Louisa as well so he now lives on half-pay and most of his thoughts are about how much everything costs and how depressed he is and how his temper gets away from him (he’s been traumatized, betrayed and discarded, basically, by the Brandons).
Also, Louisa continues to hound Lacey to forgive her husband so that everything can go back to the way it were before when Lacey loved her husband and her.
Anyway, in this book, Lacey runs into Janet, who is being courted by another former soldier from his troops, and they rekindle their relationship. Lacey is happy when he is with Janet, and he talks to Janet about everything and she cheers him up when he’s depressed and whatnot (like, sex with her literally brings him out of his melancholic spells, and she apparently always had this ability and did it back in the army days too).
Then, some chapters later, we get this scene which begins with Janet and Lacey making love and then Janet breaking up with him:
She looked down and away. “Mrs. Brandon told me what you have become. I can’t be a burden around your neck, Gabriel. I won’t. You have burdens enough of your own.”
I stilled, anger filling me. “What I have become? Dear God, what the devil did she tell you?”
“That you are hurt. That you were broken.”
And then Lacey’s anger and pride takes over and yadda, yadda and then his female neighbor (who eavesdropped) who steals from him (even when she’s come into a larger amount of money, which he arranged for her) says that Louisa Brandon was right, that Janet was just using him (hello pot, calling someone a kettle when Janet’s not a kettle) and being a burden and whatnot (even though this is never, ever shown in the text. All Janet is shown to want in the text is a happy relationship with a husband who cherishes her, which Lacey most certainly does. It’s everyone else who says that she wants something Lacey can’t give, not Janet nor her behaviour at any point in the book).
But look at that scene and read it with the knowledge that what isn’t said, but implied, is just as important as it is with the letters and maid.
So... The wife of a superior officer of Janet’s late husband/future husband/lover, who is also richer and of higher social status, basically tells Janet to abandon her lover because he’s too broken to carry the burden of Janet (who happens to be the only good woman in this entire book who unreservedly made Lacey happy).
How, may I ask, did the topic even arise to discuss between the two of them? Like, how? The only reason why anything pertaining to such a thing would come up is if they discussed Lacey and Janet hinted that she rekindled their relationship, and then Louisa went ham on breaking them up, uncaring as to what their relationship truly is (at this point, it has only been shown as positive to Lacey, with the only negative being the period they were broken up), since there’s no way Janet could (or would) tell anyone but her most intimate friend details, and Louisa is not that friend.
Louisa really, really don’t want any other woman in Lacey’s life, is what I got from that scene. And it is reinforced as instead of comforting himself with Janet and talking to Janet, Lacey then derives comfort and talks to Louisa. Who is married, and not showing any inclination to leave her husband, not even temporarily, for an affair.
And then the last scene of the book compares Louisa’s forgiveness of Lacey with God’s forgiveness as she kisses his brow (still being married and in love with the man who tried to kill Lacey in a fit of jealousy and sent Lacey into a life of half-poverty). Both by Louisa and Lacey.
And it hit me that Louisa is just like those Female Best Friends (tm) of boyfriends who are totes friends with the girlfriends, they just try to monopolize the boyfriend’s time, suggest to one or the other that they are incompatible/better/worse than the other/spread rumors in social circles and so on. Heck, Louisa might be a full blown narcissist forcing her husband and Lacey to play pick-me games (hence why she wants them to reconcile; it is easier to play them against one another if they actually interact).
Basically, by the end, I believed that Louisa Brandon loves having Lacey and her husband fight over her as an ego boost, and she doesn’t care how she must ruin Lacey’s life to keep it that way (after all, being obsessed in a one-way infatuation with her is better than being in a loving relationship with any other [lesser] woman, in Louisa’s opinion, according to my read on the situation).
I went online to read reviews to see if anyone else caught it.
And then I found out that in the fifth book’s summary, Louisa is still Lacey’s good friend.
Wat.
So, apparently I read the book wrong, then? After following the instructions in the supposed main plot of the mystery? Or this is a “slow burn romance” in which Louisa systematically depriving Lacey of options over a period of many books is considered romantic, and that I should somehow root for their relationship?
Or maybe the author just didn’t realize what she wrote, when she wrote the Janet break up scene and the comparison between Louisa and God by Louisa herself, and with Louisa coming out on top (giving the forgiveness Lacey worries God will deny him). Also, there was very little hints (if any, I don’t remember any except exclaimations) that Lacey had any religious leanings until he went to GodLouisa for forgiveness.
And that, I think, is where other writers can learn from the mistake of trying to take the expedient option (Janet referring to Louisa as an authority on what poor, broken Lacey needs), which implies things that the author never meant, instead of actually doing the work to show what was meant (showing that Janet uses Lacey, have Janet break up with Lacey in favor of her future husband because she was just having a bit of fun or something, actually have Janet tell Lacey that he can’t give her what she needs in a husband, et cetera. There are so many other options than “Louisa, who is a third-party whom we never tell our intimate details to yet somehow is an expert on you and our relationship told me to break up with you!”).
Also, the way the female characters were written (except Saint Louisa) was... Yeah, it wasn’t great.
Also, a sixteen year old street prostitute is not practically elderly in her profession, OMG! Plenty of women in their 40s and 50s walked the streets! I do not know any sex work history in which the workers that walked public streets were considered old at sixteen!
And that was one of many other iffy, ahistorical things in this book (chiefly, because it was so unnecessary, being that Janet wouldn’t tell Louisa any pertinent details to make Louisa’s meddling justified and not just a fit of possessive jealousy. Like, imagine telling your late spouse’s boss’ wife the intimate relationship you have with a former employee of her husband’s that quit after the husband abused him, and then going “alright!” when she tells you to break up with him).
0 notes
rememberthepastme · 6 years
Text
02/02/19
So much has happened to me it’s a little unbelievable I’ve waited so long to make another post. Let’s start at the beginning. I very quickly got out of that frat, thank god, and got on with my life. It was terrifying in the moment, but it makes for a pretty funny story now. That event doesn’t even begin to compare the trauma of what happened in my social life after.
So as the year began, I was looking to carve out my social circles. Obviously, I started with my GHP friend group as nearly all of us came to the same college. We hung out together for a little bit, but it just wasn’t the same and it eventually fell apart. After Wet Friday, where the group split apart and left me behind to go to sleep at 9pm instead of going to a party, I didn’t really want to spend that much time with some of the group anyways. 
I was spending a lot of time with Ruby, as we still had a good friendship, and she introduced me to the Gays, a group of gay students who had met in a collective groupchat before the year began. They were a very cool group and I really enjoyed hanging out with them, but as I made new friends some of them became closer to me than I was expecting. At the time my breakup with Savannah was still fresh, and I hadn’t put much effort into trying to spend time with her so we could remain friends, so when someone expressed interest in me romantically, I thought it would be a good chance for me to get over Savannah.
How wrong I was. That person was Cris, one of the most emotionally manipulative and damaging people I’ve ever met. I don’t remember exactly how we first met, but I do remember how we almost dated. This was now a few months into the semester, September I believe. Ruby had gone through a few boyfriends and was currently spending a lot of time with my roommate, so for whatever reason she came over to see Jared and brought along Cris, who I didn’t know all that well at the time. We watched some Youtube videos and I showed some of my favorite creepy ones, and while Ruby and Jared curled up together, she flashed shy smiles at me from across the room. I got the hint, and the next night I was hanging out with Ruby and Yasamin when she texted me asking if I wanted to come hang out in her room and watch some more creepy Youtube. I said yes, thinking that it would be nice to start a relationship and my friends were happy for me. 
I got to her room and we went up in her bed and watched videos on Youtube, then we listened to some music, cuddled a bit and discussed our lives. She revealed to me her cutting scars and how awful her life had been before coming to college, but she reassured me that she was much better now. However as the night went on Cris kept coming on to me more and more and the more we talked the more I began to realize how I didn’t really want to be in a relationship at the time. I excused myself and went home thinking I had made a healthy decision. 
Around a week later, Jared’s frat hosted a party that he invited Ruby and some of the others in the group to, including me and Cris. I came and had a few drinks, but as the night went on it became more and more miserable. Cris only had a single drink and was immediately drunk off her ass, which for her apparently meant rubbing herself all over me whenever she could. I was extremely uncomfortable and kept moving away, but drunk as she was, she didn’t pick up on that. I stopped drinking because I didn’t know what would happen if I became too intoxicated to stop her. Eventually Ruby and Jared began smoking cigarettes and were much drunker than me, and I had had enough. As I went to leave the party, Cris caught me and asked where I was going. I said I couldn’t stand the smoking and I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy the party. She responded with, “Well, maybe you and I could go back up to my room to escape this place,” or something to that effect. I was fed up at this point, so I pulled her aside and said firmly, “Look Cris, I like you as a friend. I am not in a place to be dating right now and I don’t think of you that way. I’m sorry.” She was rather shocked, and I quickly left. By the time I got back to the dorm, she had sent me a very large amount of snapchats apologizing profusely in an extremely self-demeaning manner. I told her not to worry about it, thinking about her mental health. 
The next day, she joined Ruby and I for breakfast and as we walked together, I noticed she was limping. I confirmed with others later that she had, in fact, gone home and cut herself after I left. This knowledge destroyed me, and I found it very difficult to spend time with her afterwards. When I did summon the courage to, she would repeatedly make references to still being in love with me and how I was one of only two or three people she had every truly loved. Every single time she became drunk, and sometimes even when sober, she would tell me this and then proceed to talk about how horrible she is and how she doesn’t deserve love. Much later, I found out that she stumbled upon porn that had someone that looked like me in it, and she would rewatch it often. It was exhausting being around her. 
Cris continued to antagonize the group and stir up drama, and it peaked when she slept with a frat guy and claimed that he had raped her. Now, I don’t know the exact details behind everything that happened so I’ll reserve judgement and give her the benefit of the doubt, but the people that were there say nothing of that sort ever happened. In any case, Cris’s mental health deteriorated rapidly. She began to cut regularly, and threatened suicide a number of times. Many members of the group spent night after night reassuring her and telling her that she was loved. After the 4th or 5th time, the group was at its limit. Almost everyone had been personally affected by Cris in some way, and no one had the emotional capacity to deal with a suicidal woman all night again. So backed up against the corner and out of options, Daniella called the cops and told them that Cris was going to kill herself. Cris was sent to the hospital that night and put on probation, meaning she couldn’t spend any time on campus that wasn’t in a class. She was furious. In the days afterwards, she would tell anyone that would listen how she wasn’t really suicidal and calling the cops was a huge overreaction, and whoever did was a piece of shit and a horrible friend. Of course, she somehow found out that it was Daniella and told her even worse things than she said in public, and demanded that Daniella pay for her hospital bills. When Daniella revealed this to the rest of the group, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Cris was more or less excommunicated and everyone agreed that it was better for everyone to cut her out of our lives. Nowadays she’s back living on campus, and I still can’t stand to be around her. If I ever see her I take extra steps to avoid such a toxic person.
That wasn’t the story I sat down tonight to write, but it will have to wait for another night. Just recounting that was exhausting. I hope I never have to meet someone like Cris again.
0 notes
nancygduarteus · 6 years
Text
The Inevitable Aging of the Internet’s Famous Pets
Several years ago, a couple from Twitter contacted Star Ritchey with a request: They wanted permission to put her name in their will. Ritchey had never met the couple before, but they wanted her to inherit their dogs.
“They don’t have kids, but they have bulldogs, and they reached out and said, ‘If something happens to us, we don’t know what would happen to them,’” Ritchey told me. “They said they knew that even if I couldn’t keep them, I’d get them to a good rescue.” The couple had decided Ritchey was right for the job because of her favorite hobby, which is posting about her own beloved bulldogs—the Frenchies Emmy and Luna—on Twitter.
After Ritchey started her Twitter account in 2013 as a fun, way to occasionally tell the world how much she loved her previous dog, the English bulldog Georgia, she quickly got pulled into a realm of social media she didn’t know existed: bulldog Twitter. There, people bond over their shared devotion to their dogs, share pictures and stories, and often meet in real life. Posting from her dog’s account quickly became a normal part of Ritchey’s day.
Then, in 2016, her relationship to that social-media circle evolved from simple fun to something deeper: Georgia was diagnosed with cancer. Ritchey had to navigate new emotional terrain with people who normally wouldn’t be involved.
[Read: How dogs make friends for their humans]
Posting enough about your pet that strangers become emotionally invested in them might seem a bit absurd, but as the barrier between online and offline life vanishes, it’s only natural that more elements of people’s emotional lives begin to migrate to digital spaces. Even for those who don’t maintain accounts specifically dedicated to their pets, a world in which our lives are more public and interconnected than ever presents a challenge. What should you share as your pet’s health inevitably starts to deteriorate, and what happens when you tell thousands of people that something you love is dying?
The most well-known version of digital pet cosplay happens on Instagram, where the visual nature of the platform helps some particularly cute and well-photographed pups rise to fame beyond their roles as adored family pets. Dorie Herman is the steward of one such clan of pups, the Kardoggians. She started out with Chloe, who passed away last year, and now she has Cupid and Kimchi—three senior rescue chihuahuas with a following of 161,000 people.
With older dogs, medical problems come with the territory, but that doesn’t make it any easier to share. “When something’s wrong with them, it forces you to say it out loud, which makes it a little too real sometimes,” says Herman. In addition to the well-being of her pets, she also worries about how their health impacts the strangers who are emotionally invested in them. “If I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t want to worry them, or for people to feel like I’m manipulating their emotions,” Hermansays. She’s careful to wait until she has concrete information from her veterinarian before saying anything publicly.
Once Herman began to post about Chloe’s medical problems, people on Instagram who loved her dogs gave her an incredible amount of comfort. “I’ve never felt more surrounded by love and care,” she says. Although it’s been months since her death, Chloe’s fans are still grieving with her. “People reach out and ask me how I am, and tell me they were looking at pictures of her and missing her,” she says, which makes her own grief less isolating. “I can talk about my dog to so many people who actually know who she was and loved her the way I loved her.”
Hilary Sloan, the dog mom to the Bean family of Instagram-famous rescue pups (and a former coworker of mine), sees her dogs’ health problems as a way to educate her six-figure following about their own pets’ health. “I have a lot of access, and that’s the privilege of my platform,” she says. “I wouldn’t hoard that knowledge, that’s not who I am as a person. I love dogs.”
She and her husband recently lost Louis, an elderly Cavalier King Charles spaniel who rarely appeared on her account (he didn’t like dressing up, Sloan says). The couple experienced the same outpouring of support Herman did when Chloe died. Now, the family is treating 11-year-old Ella Bean for thyroid problems and posting frequently about pet health, including videos from vet checkups and live Q&As about things like doggie CBD and acupuncture. “I chose to share Ella’s condition because maybe someone else will notice their dog changed,” Sloan says. “Maybe they’ll do what I did and get blood work right away instead of waiting.” (Ella is doing great, if you’re worried.)
But you don’t have to own a bona-fide furry influencer for the internet to rush to your aid in pet tragedy. When Georgia was sick, Ritchey, the bulldog owner, decided to share what her family was going through with her friends on Bulldog Twitter—her dogs have a few thousand followers—and she was overwhelmed by the depth of support she received. “Even my husband, who doesn’t do their social-media stuff, would sit for hours and read through these messages,” she says. The outpouring wasn’t limited to tweets. “We had more flowers sent to our house that you could imagine. People were going to mass, doing things for her at their church,” says Ritchey.
[Read: The movement to bury pets alongside people]
Lisa Lipmann, the lead veterinarian for Fuzzy Pet Health in New York City, thinks sharing an aging pet’s health struggles online is a good impulse that can help viewers to be vigilant about their own pets’ health. Seeing someone, whether it’s a friend or influencer, guide a pet through medical treatment on social media can make it easier for people to identify problems in their own animals. “A lot of people start to say, oh, they’re slowing down, or aren’t their old selves,” she says. “Often we can attribute those things: It’s not old age, it’s arthritis or some other ailment that we can treat, if we know about it and if people visit their vets.”
No one wants to contend with a loved one’s mortality or give people bad news, but in a community built around short lifespans, the promise of eventual grief is the price of entry for loving an animal, even if it’s not your own. “We have cried over so many dogs we’ve never met in the past five or six years,” says Ritchey. Maybe in that shared experience of decline and loss, people find it a little easier to lean on each other. Georgia may have passed away, says Ritchey, but she lives on in the friends she made because of her, like the couple who included her in their will. “She was just a little bulldog who was our world, but somehow she meant a lot to everyone else too.”
from Health News And Updates https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/pet-communities-are-last-nice-place-online/581440/?utm_source=feed
1 note · View note
ionecoffman · 6 years
Text
The Internet's Pet Celebrities Get Old, Too
Several years ago, a couple from Twitter contacted Star Ritchey with a request: They wanted permission to put her name in their will. Ritchey had never met the couple before, but they wanted her to inherit their dogs.
“They don’t have kids, but they have bulldogs, and they reached out and said, ‘If something happens to us, we don’t know what would happen to them,’” Ritchey told me. “They said they knew that even if I couldn’t keep them, I’d get them to a good rescue.” The couple had decided Ritchey was right for the job because of her favorite hobby, which is posting about her own beloved bulldogs—the Frenchies Emmy and Luna—on Twitter.
After Ritchey started her Twitter account in 2013 as a fun, occasional way to tell the world how much she loved her previous dog, the English bulldog Georgia, she quickly got pulled into a realm of social media she didn’t know existed: bulldog twitter. There, people bond over their shared devotion to their dogs, share pictures and stories, and often meet in real life. Posting from her dog’s account quickly became a normal part of Ritchey’s day.
Then, in 2016, her relationship to that social-media circle evolved from simple fun to something deeper: Georgia was diagnosed with cancer. Ritchey had to navigate new emotional terrain with people who normally wouldn’t be involved.
Posting enough about your pet that strangers become emotionally invested in them might seem a bit absurd, but as the barrier between online and offline life vanishes, it’s only natural that more elements of people’s emotional lives begin to migrate to digital spaces. Even for those who don’t maintain accounts specifically dedicated to their pets, a world in which our lives are more public and interconnected than ever presents a challenge. What should you share as your pet’s health inevitably starts to deteriorate, and what happens when you tell thousands of people that something you love is dying?
The most well-known version of digital pet cosplay happens on Instagram, where the visual nature of the platform helps some particularly cute and well-photographed pups rise to fame beyond their roles as adored family pets. Dorie Herman is the steward of one such clan of pups, the Kardoggians. She started out with Chloe, who passed away last year, and now she has Cupid and Kimchi—three senior rescue chihuahuas with a following of 161,000 people.
With older dogs, medical problems come with the territory, but that doesn’t make it any easier to share. “When something’s wrong with them, it forces you to say it out loud, which makes it a little too real sometimes,” says Herman. In addition to the wellbeing of her pets, she also worries about how their health impacts the strangers who are emotionally invested in them. “If I don’t know what’s going on, I don’t want to worry them, or for people to feel like I’m manipulating their emotions,” Hermansays. She’s careful to wait until she has concrete information from her veterinarian before saying anything publicly.
Once Herman began to post about Chloe’s medical problems, people on Instagram who loved her dogs gave her an incredible amount of comfort. “I’ve never felt more surrounded by love and care,” she says. Although it’s been months since her death, Chloe’s fans are still grieving with her. “People reach out and ask me how I am, and tell me they were looking at pictures of her and missing her,” she says, which makes her own grief less isolating. “I can talk about my dog to so many people who actually know who she was and loved her the way I loved her.”
Hilary Sloan, the dog mom to the Bean family of Instagram-famous rescue pups (and a former coworker of mine), sees her dogs’ health problems as a way to educate her six-figure following about their own pets’ health. “I have a lot of access, and that’s the privilege of my platform,” she says. “I wouldn’t hoard that knowledge, that’s not who I am as a person. I love dogs.”
She and her husband recently lost Louis, an elderly Cavalier King Charles spaniel who rarely appeared on her account (he didn’t like dressing up, Sloan says). The couple experienced the same outpouring of support Herman did when Chloe died. Now, the family is treating 11-year-old Ella Bean for thyroid problems and posting frequently about pet health, including videos from vet checkups and live Q&As about things like doggie CBD and acupuncture. “I chose to share Ella’s condition because maybe someone else will notice their dog changed,” Sloan says. “Maybe they’ll do what I did and get blood work right away instead of waiting.” (Ella is doing great, if you’re worried.)
But you don’t have to own a bona-fide furry influencer for the internet to rush to your aid in pet tragedy. When Georgia was sick, Ritchey, the bulldog owner, decided to share what her family was going through with her friends on Bulldog Twitter—her dogs have a few thousand followers—and she was overwhelmed by the depth of support she received. “Even my husband, who doesn’t do their social-media stuff, would sit for hours and read through these messages,” she says. The outpouring wasn’t limited to tweets. “We had more flowers sent to our house that you could imagine. People were going to mass, doing things for her at their church,” says Ritchey.
Lisa Lipmann, the lead veterinarian for Fuzzy Pet Health in New York City, thinks sharing an aging pet’s health struggles online is a good impulse that can help viewers to be vigilant about their own pets’ health. Seeing someone, whether it’s a friend or influencer, guide a pet through medical treatment on social media can make it easier for people to identify problems in their own animals. “A lot of people start to say, oh, they’re slowing down, or aren’t their old selves,” she says. “Often we can attribute those things: It’s not old age, it’s arthritis or some other ailment that we can treat, if we know about it and if people visit their vets.”
No one wants to contend with a loved one’s mortality or give people bad news, but in a community built around short lifespans, the promise of eventual grief is the price of entry for loving an animal, even if it’s not your own. “We have cried over so many dogs we’ve never met in the past five or six years,” says Ritchey. Maybe in that shared experience of decline and loss, people find it a little easier to lean on each other. Georgia may have passed away, says Ritchey, but she lives on in the friends she made because of her, like the couple who included her in their will. “She was just a little bulldog who was our world, but somehow she meant a lot to everyone else too.”
Article source here:The Atlantic
1 note · View note
latestnews2018-blog · 6 years
Text
Sources: Colin Kaepernick's Legal Team Expected To Subpoena President Trump In Case Against NFL
New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/sources-colin-kaepernicks-legal-team-expected-to-subpoena-president-trump-in-case-against-nfl/
Sources: Colin Kaepernick's Legal Team Expected To Subpoena President Trump In Case Against NFL
After months of circling President Donald Trump during NFL depositions and discovery, Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers are expected to force Trump directly into the ongoing legal battle between the quarterback and league.
Kaepernick’s legal team is expected to seek federal subpoenas in the coming weeks to compel testimony from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other officials familiar with the president’s agenda on protesting NFL players, sources with knowledge of the quarterback’s collusion case against the NFL told Yahoo Sports.
The aim will be a dive into the administration’s political involvement with the NFL during Kaepernick’s free agency and the league’s handling of player protests, sources said. This after recent disclosures that multiple owners had direct talks with Trump about players kneeling during the national anthem. The content of those conversations between Trump and owners – as well as any forms of pressure directed at the league by the administration – are expected to shape the requests to force the testimony of Trump, Pence and other affiliated officials, sources said.
What has to happen for Trump to be subpoenaed?
Due to the nature of the rules in collective bargaining grievances, reeling in sworn testimony from the political sector will create at least one additional hurdle for Kaepernick’s camp. The quarterback’s legal team first must notify the system arbitrator of the need for targeted depositions beyond the boundaries of the agreement between the NFL and the player’s union. That would entail presenting a detailed argument to the system arbitrator overseeing the grievance, spelling out the relevance and impact that testimony from Trump or others could have on the grievance. If the arbitrator rules the testimony would be justifiable, that would open the door for Kaepernick’s attorneys to seek the subpoenas in a district court under the Federal Arbitration Act.
That’s also where the process would get more complicated and contentious.
AP
This Jan. 1, 2017, file photo shows former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick speaking at a news conference. 
Should the system arbitrator and a federal judge find there is a basis to force Trump or others to sit for depositions, it would raise an argument over whether the president can actually be compelled by the courts to sit for a deposition. Trump could choose to ignore the order or simply decline, leaving it up to the justice system to enforce the subpoena.
Whether that would ever happen is a significant matter of debate.
Trump’s lawyers already fighting subpoenas in Mueller case
Multiple media outlets have reported Trump’s lawyers have already argued to special counsel Robert Mueller that the president couldn’t be compelled to comply with a criminal subpoena in the Russian collusion probe. It stands to reason if Trump would refuse to sit for a deposition in an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, he’s also likely to refuse to comply with a subpoena from a district court stemming from Kaepernick’s arbitration case.
Complicating matters further? Even if Trump was attracted to lock horns more directly with Kaepernick, doing so in a deposition could potentially expose the president legally if it is found he somehow bore responsibility for NFL owners refusing to offer Kaepernick a job.
Still, there is also a flip side for Trump, whose head-on verbal barrage against the NFL over protesting players has been a red-meat issue politically, stoking his base and creating a staple talking point he has continually revisited. In theory, taking part in the Kaepernick case would give him the opportunity to air his thoughts about the quarterback face-to-face in a deposition – much the same way multiple NFL owners have done in the process. It would also offer Trump fertile material for his steady diet of social media and “Fox & Friends” appearances, which can’t be discounted.
How will Kaepernick’s team build an argument to subpoena Trump?
But long before that quandary comes to fruition, Kaepernick’s attorneys will be tasked with illustrating a connection between the quarterback’s unemployment and Trump’s pressure on the NFL regarding protests during the national anthem.
With that in mind, multiple incidents could factor prominently into the request for subpoenas. Among a few (but not all) that could ultimately be referenced by Kaepernick’s attorneys:
• In August 2016, as a Republican presidential candidate, Trump went on Seattle radio station KIRO and remarked of Kaepernick protesting during the national anthem: “I think it’s personally not a good thing, I think it’s a terrible thing. And, you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him.”
That could prove to be significant, because it can be framed as the “clock-starting” moment when Trump’s interference in Kaepernick’s livelihood first began, then extended and became amplified into the presidency.
• In March 2017, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft joined Trump on a flight aboard Air Force One in which the two men engaged in conversation. The next day, at a speaking event in Kentucky, Trump bragged that NFL owners weren’t signing Kaepernick because they were afraid of him.
“Your San Francisco quarterback, I’m sure nobody ever heard of him,” the president said. “… There was an article today that was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that? I just saw that. I just saw that.”
In a later deposition in the Kaepernick case, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross testified Kraft told NFL owners he had spoken to Trump about players kneeling during the anthem. It wasn’t clear if that conversation occurred on the Air Force One flight or a different date.
AP
President Donald Trump has continued to criticize the NFL and its players over past protests. 
• In September 2017, Trump spoke directly to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who later revealed during his deposition in the Kaepernick collusion case that the president told him, “Tell everybody [in the NFL], you can’t win this one. This one lifts me,” and that the player-kneeling issue was a “very winning, strong issue for me [politically].”
• Also in September 2017, Trump blasted NFL players during a speech in Alabama, taking direct aim at the jobs of kneeling players.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ” Trump said.
• In October 2017, Trump again spoke directly about Kaepernick, and again suggested NFL retribution against the quarterback for his kneeling during the anthem.
“I watched Colin Kaepernick [in 2016], and I thought it was terrible, and then it got bigger and bigger and started mushrooming, and frankly the NFL should have suspended him for one game, and he would have never done it again,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “They could have then suspended him for two games, and they could have suspended him if he did it a third time, for the season, and you would never have had a problem. But I will tell you, you cannot disrespect our country, our flag, our anthem. You cannot do that.”
• Also in October 2017, Trump admitted to orchestrating a walkout of an NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and Indianapolis Colts, in which Pence attended the game briefly and then left when players knelt during the national anthem.
• In late October 2017, a handful of NFL owners met with a select group of players during the league’s New York meetings. In a confidential meeting that was secretly taped and then leaked to the New York Times, Kraft can be heard referring to kneeling as the elephant in the room.
“The problem we have is, we have a president who will use that as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America,” Kraft said, according to the Times. “It’s divisive and it’s horrible.”
The Times also quoted other owners at the meeting talking specifically about Trump’s impact. They included Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie, who reportedly said, “We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whomever else,” and Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula, who reportedly worried that, “All Donald needs to do is to start to do this again. We need some kind of immediate plan because of what’s going on in society. All of us now, we need to put a Band-Aid on what’s going on in the country.”
• In March 2018, Ross told the New York Daily News that Trump had influenced him to reverse his support of players who chose to kneel during the anthem. It was the first time that an owner said publicly that Trump had influenced their stance on the issue.
“I think initially I totally supported the players in what they were doing, because it’s America – people should be able to really speak about their choices and show them [in] doing that,” Ross said. “But I think when you change the message, about, is it support of our country or the military, it’s a different message. When that message changed, and everybody was interpreting it as that was the reason, then I was against the kneeling. …[Trump’s] message became what kneeling was all about. From that standpoint, that’s the way the public is interpreting it. So I think that’s really incumbent upon us to adopt that, because that’s how I think the country is now interpreting the kneeling issue.”
• In May 2018, after the NFL passed a rule prohibiting kneeling during the national anthem – but allowing players to remain in the locker room during the ceremony if they wish – some owners admitted that Trump had impacted the league’s motivation for creating a rule. The day after the NFL passed the rule, Trump once again revisited his remarks about players’ job statuses or whether they should be in the country if they didn’t stand for the anthem.
“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing – you shouldn’t be there,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” “Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”
That is only a handful of some of the incidents reflecting Trump potentially influencing NFL owners on either Kaepernick or kneeling players. It doesn’t account for all of his statements or address the multitude of tweets he has sent about the issue – nor other private conversations that have reportedly occurred inside the NFL about his impact.
It remains to be seen whether the totality of those incidents will be enough to convince the system arbitrator in Kaepernick’s case or a federal judge to conclude that forcing depositions of Trump, Pence or others is necessary. But that appears to be the next avenue of pursuit for Kaepernick’s legal team, in a case that has only seemed to gain more traction with each passing month.
This post was originally published on Yahoo Sports.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window,document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’); fbq(‘init’, ‘1621685564716533’); // Edition specific fbq(‘init’, ‘1043018625788392’); // Partner Studio fbq(‘track’, “PageView”); fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’, “content_name”:”Sources: Colin Kaepernick’s Legal Team Expected To Subpoena President Trump In Case Against NFL”,”content_category”:”us.hpmgspo” ); fbq(‘trackCustom’, ‘EntryPage’, “section_name”:”Sports”,”tags”:[“@partnersyndication”,”@nosyndication”,”@yahoo”,”@yahoosports”,”@health_depression”,”@health_adhd”,”@health_models”,”@health_erectile”,”@health_ibs”,”nfl”,”sports”],”team”:”us_huffpost_now”,”ncid”:null,”environment”:”desktop”,”render_type”:”web” ); waitForGlobal(function() return HP.modules.Tracky; , function() /* TODO do we still want this? $(‘body’).on(‘click’, function(event) HP.modules.Tracky.reportClick(event, function(data) fbq(‘trackCustom’, “Click”, data); ); ); */ );
0 notes
aboardthessbae · 7 years
Text
Home
Fifth trip report: Home 100ug LSD tab 25 June 2017 Self Took the tab at ID10T midday so I would still be peaking for Madeon whose set ended at 11. I was there alone, surrounded by people of all ages. As I came up, I kept repeating to myself to calm down because of how extremely easy it was to be overwhelmed there; I've never put big sarah so out of her element and on display. It was horrifying honestly, the knowledge that I could easily get caught on this drug. During the comeup, I passed a VR booth where they let people play a puzzle game with the goggles. After some consideration, I sat down at the end of the queue to play. I was so embarrassed when it was my turn because I was shivering and shuddering, so the left and right controllers on the screen everyone else was looking at were shaking a lot. The puzzle itself was so difficult for me because I felt so disoriented. One of the features of the game was teleportation because you can't physically move around too much and man oh man was that something else entirely. I never got the puzzle done because in my state, that was asking way too much of me even though in reality it was a simple task. I began to trip hard, and as much as I told myself to stay calm, I knew that would not be possible. I was surrounded by swarms of people, billions of judging eyes scrutinising my behaviours and waiting to get me in trouble. I was alone, already a pretty strange sight to see a solo attendee let alone the fact that she's tripping major balls. I was listening to music, and for the first time in a long time, I let myself be washed over by Porter's music. Scared of losing touch with reality and appropriate social conduct and knowing I wanted to let it overcome me and that my typical response would be overly conspicuous, I walked as quickly as I could to the bathroom and locked myself into a stall. During this entire time, I was typing down my thoughts as I typically do, and most of it at that moment was my paranoia that I wasn't acting normal. But I realised all I was doing was staring down at my phone typing as I walked to my next destination as quickly as I could and that in doing so, I was acting normal. That is so typical of people, maybe an extreme example, but still, just trying to get to their next task or their next conquest or their next source of what passes as happiness before they get their fill and are bored, staring down at their little screens and giving no time nor attention to the world around them. When I got to the bathroom, I began to sob, and I created a shelter for myself in that horrible little public bathroom stall. I quickly put down toilet seat covers, but found that sitting on the toilet further confused my body and its needs and functions. I climbed onto the tiny toilet paper dispenser attached to the left wall and put my feet up on the opposite wall's trash can. I began to heavily regret tripping in such a majorly public scene, feeling like I abused my beloved Lucy, and was dangerously considering staying in that stall for the rest of the day till Jai Wolf and Madeon. Alex got to the venue with his cousins. I convinced myself that to make the most out of the day, I'd have to enjoy the moment over the drug, even if it meant I couldn't listen to my own music. I asked myself when I would allow myself to listen to my music. And my answer was home. But what I had to settle for as home was either the bus back or Matt's house. And I realised, yes those are safe places, but they aren't home. My music is what makes a place home to me. I went to join them. I watched Alex buy something from someone, which was so strange. He asked the seller "How much for this?" "10 dollars" "Okay," and he handed him 10 dollars. I was baffled at the idea of monetary values. This useless piece of green paper that we collectively decide has some set worth that we use to exchange for real goods. It seemed such a foreign concept, though it's the only way I've known all my life. How does something that unnatural have so much hold over our lives, from the moment we're born to the moment we die? Being with Alex and his cousins, I felt the courteous thing to do was to be social and stay in conversation with them, but it was so overwhelming on top of the thousands of conversations that were already going on in my head. I had to remind myself that I can make myself alone whenever I want. It was strange that I was able to hear every word around me clearly and comprehend none of it. My inner voice seemed to drown out their meanings. It was so easy to get overwhelmed, anxious, frightened, and my mind would run in messy circles, amplified by the anti-introvert environment. But when I let myself listen to my music, it became my sole focus, all I could accept as existing as it left no room for anything else I could perceive or conjure. One of the most strikingly new opportunities this trip and my environment allowed me was the ability to observe people—friends, individuals, crowds— up close. And as uncomfortable as it made me, it intrigued me that much more. I knew that I'd feel perfectly fine around other animals, beings we can define as part of nature, but man? Man is so evolved, the species separated itself from nature, became wretchedly intelligent enough to dictate thoughts and motives and behaviours that go beyond mere existence. I wished so much for it not to be illegal to be on acid in public because all I wanted was to be outside but still be allowed to have my primal hysterical reactions to music. I love sobbing to music, it's a physical release of all the emotion I experience when listening, which is also why I feel compelled to heave and purge when that release comes to a peak. I realised that I actually love being emotional, having the ability to experience a wide range of emotion; it's one of the many privileges of being more than an animal. I felt like it was a waste to not use that ability and harness it to express myself. I compared myself to how I used to be, thinking it was pathetic to be empathetic, but I came to decide if empathy is at all part of the reason music moves me so deeply, it's serendipitous. I think a lot of my understanding of the way people think and behave comes from my own experiences being on multiple edges of the human persona spectra. I kept yearning to somehow maximise, capitalise my time, thinking I needed to make every moment meet its potential. I felt as though all around me was undulating, pushing and pulling my helpless self and controlling my circumstances. It was new, I was so used to being able to force things my way because I was alone. It was terrifying, and it stoked more internal chaos. But I realised that every moment is already at its best potential, I can be at my maximum happiness without changing my surroundings or circumstances but by changing my perspective. Then the fear turned to entertainment, and I started having fun just living. It was strange focusing my energy onto the external rather than the internal, felt as though I was a matterless spectre perceiving all things, an outside observer. The guilt that I felt before over having put Lucy on extreme display and throwing her into a sea of this strange alien species taught me a lot about Lucy and myself. I saw that I trip as a way to escape from people, that my sense of isolation is partially responsible for my superiority complex, why I see everyone as a plebeian. In the tent, I first thought festivals were just a mass gathering, a reminder, of human filth, but I constantly brought myself back down and prevented myself from believing I was better by reminding myself that just like me, everyone else is trying to maximise on their time and enjoyment too. When I engrained that idea in my head, criticism turned into observation, and observation turned into admiration. I stopped seeing people as cockroaches and began to really appreciate that they just want to have fun in their own ways. And when everyone's focused on having a good time and sharing that time with others, there is no malicious intent and people aren't so bad. And everyone looked so beautiful, exotic. Humans appeared as crafted creatures, each one so different from the last. This appreciation extended itself to individuals too. Usually I do a lot of introspection, study and learn about myself, but I was now trying to grasp the essence of who people were, especially the people in my life. I marvelled in the idea that sharing even a single moment with someone means you know at least a small part of him. I found meeting people so phenomenal—here's the same creature as the 7.3 billion minus one rest of you, and yet it's not the same creature at all because this thing has its own past and life paths, likes and dislikes, dreams and thoughts, ideas and outlooks, and I wondered how we are this diverse. I was a little sad to know I wasn't able to reach that transcendence and clarity and feel clever, but all I really cared about was music, so it was okay. Any trace of regret that remained was decimated the moment Jai Wolf came on. I made my way to the front of the crowd, where I could see his face as he created the art that I was consuming all at once. I was astounded by this creation I was witnessing as if it were a gift just for me. I was basking in the present and the present. As Like It's Over came on, memories of my first trip spilled into my mind and forced out more tears. When I experienced my first trip's egodeath, I was alone, inconsolable till I heard Like It's Over. It felt as though it somehow extended itself to me and enveloped me, and my devastations subsided, overcome by oneness and a quiet, serene kind of beauty. When Jai Wolf played it, I was overwhelmed by the privilege I had of experiencing that moment at such a deeply personal level. Jai Wolf's set ended, and I made it even farther forward to see Madeon. A lot of the time being there with Madeon made it feel like I had the gift of reliving Shelter Live. I was so happy to be drinking in his music next to a friend I made who was as much of a fan as I am. As Madeon performed right there in front of me, I laughed because I felt as though I was marrying him. As I searched for words throughout the day, forming coherent, maybe even eloquent, sentences felt as though I was flipping through my mind's dictionary at a rapid rate, scanning for the exact word I needed to wordsmith my thoughts. Getting back to Matt's was such a struggle. I walked to the bus stop to catch my bus, which was late, making me think I was stranded for a while. The bus ride was a few hours long, and my phone was barely on with its battery in the single digits. I worried about how Matt would pick me up from the bus station so I asked him for his number to memorise and use someone else's phone to call him when mine died. I quickly figured out that memorising a string of ten numbers in my state was a challenge so I used sign language, thinking it was at least worth a shot to use muscle memory. My phone's lack of battery brought up many dilemmas. I needed to keep it on for as long as I could to savour my music. I also was finally in a dark and relatively solitudous place and allowed to think. I came to great epiphanies and as a greater achievement still, I managed to connect all these ideas together in the most satisfying and encapsulating way. These ideas and connections and the significance of them all are lost to me now because as much as I wanted to, I knew I couldn't afford to write them down. My phone finally gave out and I was forced yet again to make the most of my situation, on a bus playing music I disliked. When I got to the bus station, I borrowed someone's phone to call Matt, who came to get me promptly. I froze while I waited and deeply regretted not bringing a jacket, but when I saw Matt and Josh pull up, waves of relief and comfort and triumph came over me. I was proud of myself for proving my ability to take care of myself or at least find ways to keep myself alive for a day on acid in a strange, unbeknownst place called the Bay Area. The morning afters of my trips usually span at least a day but this one only lasted the morning as I lied in bed staring up at the ceiling, not even writing my report because I couldn't bring myself to. It ended when I got myself out of the room and was greeted by Matt and Josh downstairs. Having friends around really numbs the usual dense pain of loneliness that comes after Lucy has gone.
0 notes
nicolaschristofides · 7 years
Text
Visual Communication |  Personal Module Evaluation
Books give a soul the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. This was the first quote for our brand-new module EMTN. For this brief we had to communicate messages and meanings though a creative visual narratives. To begin with we had to choose a book to work on, out of the forty classic books I turn down with three to choose from The Tales of Two cities, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Picture of Dorian Gray. I started working with the tales of two cities but as I was reading the chapters and watched the movie I wasn’t feeling inspired and change path by following the Dorian Gray.
The Picture of Dorian Gray was written by Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, born  16 October 1854, Dublin, Republic of Ireland was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Died 30 November 1900, French Third Republic.  The Picture of Dorian Gray is a philosophical novel by Oscar Wilde, first published complete in the July 1890 issue of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine. The magazine's editor feared the story was indecent, and without Wilde's knowledge, deleted roughly five hundred words before publication. Despite that censorship, The Picture of Dorian Gray offended the moral sensibilities of British book reviewers, some of whom said that Oscar Wilde merited prosecution for violating the laws guarding the public morality
The issue gained lots of critics “Poisonous book”,” 'Constantly hits, not obscurely, at disgusting sins and abominable crimes”,” The terrible pleasure of a double life”. My point of view is that the message of the book is that behind every happiness lies obscene truths. In every success such as a celebrity, a business, an economic development will always have to sacrifice, reaching to the top.
The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the story of a young man whose portrait ages instead of him. He sins with impunity and commits increasingly vile acts while his picture grows disfigured. Young Dorian Gray's life takes a turn when he meets Basil Hallward, an artist who paints a portrait of Dorian. Unbeknownst to Basil, the picture has somehow become enchanted, and it ages in Dorian's place. Free to sin without consequences, Dorian lives a life of debauchery and freedom. He acts on his every desire, committing unspeakable acts that leave his portrait disfigured. Basil is horrified by this, but his friend, Lord Henry Wotton, encourages Dorian's sinful ways. In the end, Dorian decides to reform. He plunges a knife into the portrait, thus breaking the spell. He's found dead in his home, horribly disfigured by his sins.
Dorian Gray is beautiful young man, naive and good-hearted until corrupted by vanity. Dorian makes a faustian bargain: his body remains young and beautiful, while his portrait alters to reflect his age and increasingly guilty conscience. He eventually seems to bring corruption, pain, and death to all inhabitants of the social circles in which he moves.
The effect that Dorian bond his soul to the painting I wanted to create an alternative book to attract also young readers to gain the sense of the book. My first ideas were using water colors and painting through the old pages, other idea was a “Hidden story” a box covered with words as part of the novel and to have a hole which you can see inside hanging words of the book. Book folding was an idea that I thought about but an old one. Also, a photoshoot might be a good outcome which for example a soldiers portrait with lights out and you can see only his face and another picture when the lights are open and the reveal of the truth exposes the soldier with dead bodies, crimes etc. to reach at his position.  
My final Idea that I created it has parts of the previous ones and parts of the book. I created a book box. Using pieces of wood, I created the “skeleton” the structure of the book by binding them with “hot glue” and nails. To get that specific wood I had to go to Coventry to find it and cut the pieces and brought it back to Birmingham. For the covers of the book I decided to use the laser cut technique as I believe this project was meant to experience new ways of creating visuals. I illustrated my cover though photoshop and illustrator for the typography and then because I need to laser cut it, engrave the book I learned how to use Corel Draw X7 to export my file. Alan Dino Hebel & Ian Koviak were two designers that I found online that their work is amazing and got inspired. The most frustrating moment of my project, I booked an appointment for the 15th of May at 18:30 we were at the workshop until 21:00 and could print it right. I had to go the next day the slots were fully booked but “lucky” for me we managed to set an appointment the next day to cut it out. When the pieces of the laser cut were ready I engraved through the lines with a pencil to give more shade and emphasize. On the one side of the book I decided to add a lenticular design to attract the audience (buyers/readers). On the one image, I decided to place myself as a young -sins free person and on the other a sinful- old portrait as Dorian’s. Creating the old portrait was fun by watching videos on the YouTube of makeup tutorials I tried in front of the mirror to create the look. Using trigonally wood I glued the strips out of the cutting images to create the lenticular effect. Furthermore, using the two images I created a gif also starting from the good going bad. In the center inside the book I placed six electronic candles with a flame effect which you can turn them on and off with a remote control, aside I place the portrait like a prisoner as Dorian had his portrait locked away. In front of the portrait I added three rows of curved transparency paper the create the illusion of mirroring of the portrait and the candles. Last but not least I created an application to attract the younger audience. You can read the book through the application and you can connect wirelessly to the “book box” as it contains a wireless speaker build it. You can also create your own” Dorian Gray” portrait which you can share and view on social media. Also, the app associates with iBook and Audible. At this project, the way that I archived my submission I wanted to do a physical creation to try something different from the last three modules I learned a lot, I really enjoy it and the new experience with the laser cutting.
0 notes