#helen money

[dustedmagazine]

Helen Money and Will Thomas — Trace (Thrill Jockey)

Photo by Jim Newberry

Trace by Helen Money/Will Thomas

Trace brings together experimental cellist and composer Alison Chesley (i.e. Helen Money) with the soundtrack composer Will Thomas for a thrilling set of atmospheric soundscapes. These 11 tracks range from spare explorations of the cello’s natural sound to dystopian techno architectures in a sequence that, per Thomas’ background, sustains a tense narrative drama.  It’s mood music for the sci fi action movie in your head.

Chesley and Thomas have worked together before, but never in such a sustained way. Trace’s expansive palette suggests that they have just begun to explore their points of intersection. The disc opens with “Someone Out There,” a moody concoction of low-end tone washes and bell-like scrapings. Across this looming, atmospheric background, big arcs of bowed cello sound swagger, a classical, almost baroque timbre in a sea of post-industrial alienation. The cello sounds very much like a cello in many of these cuts, the unaccompanied “Abandon,” in particular but elsewhere as well. It is often caught up, however, in a bracing, rhythmic club-strobed rush. These songs soothe and accelerate your pulse, sometimes in such close succession that it’s hard to pinpoint where the shift occurred.

“Thieves,” an early single, pounds a booming techno rhythm, filtering in heavily altered, processed voices and an agitated cadence of cello. The cut punches and pulses in a visceral way. “Tilt,” similarly, swallows string sounds in the buzz and clangor of industrial rock. It hisses with static and crackles with electricity. Everything is super charged, shocking and ominous.

Yet there are also quiet, contemplative intervals, like “Half Asleep” with its plinking high piano and long, luxurious bowings. The notes build as Chesley plays them, swelling up to fill the space allowed, as piano keys blink on and off in the background. “Half Awake” is likewise lyrical with ruminative chords in piano, answered by cello musings.

A few cuts balance these impulses, like “Trace” with its baroque, dancing cello motif that snaps with sudden discords, and throbs with rich, vibrato ease. Yet there’s an adrenaline rush in the way that the piano pounds a note until it turns into a rhythmic engine and the swirl of cello whirls around skittering beat and occasional bottom-dropping crashes. It’s nervy and beautiful, restless and ever circling, a bubble of anticipation baked into the way it hits your ear and brain. and a piano playing one note over and over until it’s just a pulse.  

In 2020, Dusted’s Jonathan Shaw reviewed Money’s Atomic, calling out its “bracing beauty and vulnerable immediacy.” That’s all here as well but add to it a bit of cinematic suspense and driving narrative. Trace thrives in a state of motion and excitement, flaring like a spy movie from action to contemplation to moody resolution.  

Jennifer Kelly

[radiophd]

helen money -- midnight

[harrietvane]

So, in Busman’s Homeymoon, Lord Peter buys Harriet Vane a mink cloak worth 950 pounds (according to the Dowager Duchess’ journal entry), but he buys Tallboys for “only” 650 pounds.

Even bearing in mind that real estate really did used to be cheaper, do you understand how that is possible? Or how to find out more about relative purchasing power? I used an online calculator website which gave me some figures, but it still seems insane that one could buy an entire Elizabethan farmhouse for 2/3 the price of a garment! Very curious to learn from others who understand this better than I do.

Ah, I see my esteemed colleague @oldshrewsburyian has also had some interesting thoughts on this, so I'll link that here as well before I begin.

So, it's a legitmate question, and there's no catch-all simple answer (in the gotcha sense of 'why didn't i know that bit of cultural Truth'), but there are mitigating factors that take it from a ridiculous price comparison, to merely outlandish. Even taking into account that the coat is quoted in guineas, not pounds, and that PW says the bank valued Talboys at £800 via a mortgage (the paid price was a discount, for paying in cash quickly, which is Plot Relevant), it gets us to roughly the same place, value-wise. Or shall we say PRICE-wise, rather than value, as I'll get into below. There's several factors at play here - they mainly relate to class, and spending power:

-The house is Not That Great, in terms of the kind of property that PW would usually be buying. I mean it is still a large-ish house, big enough to have 2 adults and small children in, but it's not what would be on his radar normally. The only reason they know about it, it that it's near a place where HARRIET grew up as a child. It's not getting any high marks in particular Beauty, Convenience, or Quality - the main reason HV's drawn to it is sentiment, rather than anything else. They both know that they will have to significantly add to it, and alter it, in order for it to be a comfortable home. That would usually be out-of-budget for someone in Harriet's position, who would expect to buy something that meets her needs 'as-is'. Most people looking at buying that house would be Harriets not Peters, so it might be a tough sell.

-The house has no power, and limited plumbing: There's dark references to DRAINS by the dowager duchess, it's entirely possible that this house has no modern plumbing at all - they make the comparison that the huge palace the Wimseys grew up in wasn't plumbed until recently, but then again they do have about 800 servants, whereas Talboys is just a regular house: they will have Bunter alone (at first), with an assist from Mrs Ruddle. There's mention of "a cistern" with some basic valves, but the scullery is mentioned as having a copper, from which hot water is "scooped into a large bath-can" - a copper being, simply, a large metal basin over a fire, in effect. No running hot water, maybe no flushable loos - it's a factor. They also talk specifially about having to electrify Talboys themselves - it's candles and lamps until then. It's fancy camping. By the mid-1930s, a lot of middle-class buyers would expect a little more convenience in both water and wiring, unless they had significant support staff, which Talboys would not be expected to house.

-There's probably no farm! It's a farm house - not a wider land purchase. People like PW's brother the Duke are wealthy primarily because they own land, not because of the big palace they have (which eats money, rather than generates it). The land is what gives them spending power, because other people are paying them rent to live on it, farm on it, or both. PW's own personal 'younger sibling' wealth is also mentioned somewhere to be primarily in real estate (assumed to be in London) - sad to say: he's a landlord, and that's why he's rich. Talboys, on the other hand, as a purchase, would not, in almost any way, be expected to generate revenue through either farming, agriculture, or charging rent. Until they invent house flipping in 80 years, or until the motorway goes through in 40 years, there's not much expectation that Talboys would increase all that much in value.

-Lastly, there's a massive disparity in what The Market Will Bear when we compare a basic residence vs a luxury item (like a mink coat) in the mid-1930s. This is not particular to that time, though. Like any first-year economics student will tell you, the price of something is not it's intrinsic value, it's what someone is WILLING to pay for it. If someone is willing to pay such a price, that's the price it will be. So, we're not comapring Objects, we're comparing Buyers: the the main purchasers of a slightly run-down farmhouse located nowhere special are Harriets, and main purchasers of mink coats are Peters. Talboys is priced for Harriets. The mink coat is priced for Peters.

Compare for example, a contemporary parallel: the Hermes Birkin bag. It's a leather handbag with a starting retail price of about USD 11,400. Just for the bag. Then, you have fancier versions of the fancy bag, eg wikipedia tells me one version sold at auction for USD 380,000 in Hong Kong in 2017. Now, the Harriets of today are not buying a Hermes Birkin handbag, but they are probably trying to buy slightly run-down houses outside urban centers for (one hopes) slightly less than 380k. The Wimseys of the worlds are clearly buying Birkin bags. In that way, it's actually pretty easy to get to a place where Person A might buy a single luxury item for X pounds, and Person B might buy a whole residence for X pounds, and neither feel like they'd done something insane. The key here is in a Wimsey/Vane marriage, they run up against this concept immediately, and repeatedly.

There's a good reason the first epistolary section of the novel is almost entirely taken up with money chat - the ring, the purchase of shirts from Burlington Arcade, the marriage settlement, the gift from the bride to the groom, the mink coat, the bitchy exchange between Helen and Harriet about HV being allowed "six free copies of her book" to distribute. These people come from 2 fundamentally different experiences of the world. They might have gotten engaged using the word 'Magistra', specifically to emphasise their fundamental equality (in the context of learning and the mind, to begin with), but it can't be denied: there's gaps that need to be bridged. They both know parts of their married life will be spent in attempting to do that, hopefully to their mutual satisfaction. Mention of a mink coat for 950 guineas is a nice, neat shorthand for illustrating what's still at play between them here.

[ofdinosanddais1]

I think my favorite moment of Knives out is when whatshisface is harassing Marta essentially and he's like "if you give the inheritance back, we'll get your mom an immigration lawyer so she doesn't get deported. We'll have money for that." and then Marta's like "or I could just use the inheritance money to get my mom a lawyer without any intervention from you." Like absolutely iconic moment.

It's only trumped by Helen just smashing open the puzzle box because she wasn't having any of Miles' bullshit. And then smashing every other thing that Miles owned.

Like these moments are comedic in their own little way like these scenes are used in movies for a dramatic twist and to see those tropes just smashed open is just absolutely hilarious and I love every second.

[aestheticballpit]

Got to perform with Helen again at another Grand Opening! She was fabulous as always, and it was wonderful to see everyone together! 🩷💛🩵

[radiophd]

helen money -- nemesis

[eightdoctor]

it’s so funny reading through the edas where the 8th doctor is this endlessly complex and magical figure whose intentions you can never quite parse before going to one of the later big finish audio boxsets like stranded where they flattened his characterization like a bug

[b3l-ange]

Rewatching Daria

[cheemscakecat]

What happened to the BLU Meet the team

So I headcanon that BLU Team is a lot more distant, private, and professional than RED. Before Scout joined, Medic was the only one who knew Pyro was a woman and had somewhat befriended her. Soldier was the only one who bothered to talk with Spy of he didn’t have a medical issue.

So when the other director rolled up to BLU, Soldier and Medic were the only two who willingly gave an interview. And Scout got shoehorned into it as the youngest member [since Cheryl’s masked].

Soldier’s interview went the best. He basically said they weren’t fighting regular civilians, and weren’t tearing up a country over the gravel; they got to choose to fight without the same consequences of a “real war”.

Scout heard the director stupidly list things about him that he shouldn’t know, like his hometown and details about his early life. Things that he had to provide for his BLU paperwork, but this rando shouldn’t have. Pauling had to beg him to finish the interview since she couldn’t get the rest of the team to cooperate.

Now BLU Scout and Pyro are a developing power couple, and he has no romantic interest in Pauling; so his reason for finishing the interview was not fueled by love. Rather, he didn’t know what sort of punishment awaited her if she failed to get the interviews. He got her call over the phone about her yearly test where Admin sends assassins, and decided it would be better to throw her a bone than let her face Helen’s wrath.

He chose to go with the workplace drama angle since Spy always talks down to him for being the youngest. And kept the details as vague and optimistic as possible.

Medic’s interview was the reason why Admin abandoned the director shtick after this specific BLU team was told they were making a documentary for new hires. BLU Medic was deemed an expert during the respawn failure crisis and had to be present at failure sites, perform surgeries, and document in excruciating detail [per Archibald’s demands]. The director tried to get him to go into detail on the failure drama, and he refused.

“Those cases are classified. I am only permitted to show the footage to a patient’s teammates if there is a new, relevant respawn accident occurring. But the issue was resolved years ago, and I have not received clearance to share the documents and footage. Besides, I do not want to worry the new recruits if the failures are not a risk anymore.”

The director however, was very similar to the one sent to RED team and would not take that for an answer. He kept trying to goad Dr. Ludwig into giving him the gory details on respawn failures and the number of dead patients, to Pauling’s horror. She knew that either Helen or her mother had put that confidentiality policy into place, and it was not wise to break it.

The doctor suddenly looked to his right and jolted like he saw a ghost, and stayed distracted for about a minute before he managed to shake it off and give another curt refusal to defy the rules. That was one of the last things they recorded, the actual last being a forced assurance that times were much better now and the new recruits should not worry themselves about respawn.

Helen was never a good person. She used people for a living, including Pauling and Saxton Hale. But she was not stupid about it. She was good at reading people. And when she watched the footage of the Medic’s interview, it peaked her interest enough to go through her old files and revisit the respawn disaster.

83 mercenaries on both BLU and RED teams died before Jules Archibald and his lackeys were sufficiently threatened pressured into finding the actual solution. 179 other mercenaries were injured in some way by a respawn failure and lived to keep the tale a secret. And from the very first failure, this BLU Medic had been attempting to treat the mutilated mercs.

It was a special kind of person who would stay through Jules hmming and hawing about putting money and resources into finding the solution. With 262 total respawn failures concentrated in the Americas and no other Medics labeled experts and given clearance to operate, there was enormous pressure on this man. And it had cracked him somehow. He’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and the hallucination caught on camera was that illness in action.

With the BLU medic being so loyal and so damaged mentally, Helen wasn’t willing to reveal her trick to BLU team as she had with RED. He was too valuable an asset for her to sour his allegiance to BLU and her Administration. There would always be someone like Redmond and Blutarch and Jules looking to cut costs, making a terrible decision like the one that caused the respawn crisis. Helen needed people with the heart and naivety to clean up those messes.

After she had managed to get Pauling to shut up and stop apologizing, she told her she had changed her mind about the rest of the interviews. She would instead rely on the spies around the world that were mining their teammates’ information and sending it to her, as she had been. And BLU team would never know the purpose behind the documentary director.

The director was not wise enough to stop asking Fritz to break his confidentiality contract. He just kept trying to make him spill the secrets. Ludwig hated talking about it, hated it back then and hated it now. He didn’t want to picture the death and gore that surrounded the respawn crisis.

The heartbroken and panicked teammates asking why he couldn’t save the affected patient, the mass departure of quitting mercenaries. Some of them were fearful of experiencing a failure and left before it could happen to them. Others had to quit because their injuries left their bodies scarred and weakened for life.

This director reminded Fritz of Jules’ middlemen that always had their noses upturned and asked endless questions. Stupid, weak men who never lifted a finger to help operate or prepare a cadaver for its funeral. Men who were too uninvolved to see what he’d seen and made excuses not to see the carnage with their own eyes.

His blood was about boiling when it appeared. It sometimes did, in the corner of his office, or his bedroom, or just barely in his peripheral view. But he wasn’t expecting it to be sitting so close it could have snatched him up. The demon.

Its skinny, black clad form was surrounded by black smoke, which was not unusual. What was unusual was that it was roiling like an angry sea and whipping in irritation like a cat’s tail. When the demon tried to play “friendly” and lull him into a false sense of security, the smoke was always slow moving like it was meant to look soft and safe to touch.

Even more alarming was the look on the pale, sunken eyed, stolen copy of his face that the demon wore. Its black eyes glittered maliciously with furrowed brows and stared into the director, as though it was trying to burn a hole through his face. Its mouth was set in a deeper frown that Ludwig had ever seen from it previously, jaw clenched in fury.

Fritz nearly jumped out of his seat when he turned and saw it hunching its shoulders like a panther waiting to lunge at the man across from them. Looking about as evil and dangerous as he had always known it to be. He was wise not to fall for its false gentleness.

The thing must have seen him move out of the corner of its eye, because it too smoothly turned its head and looked at him, abruptly softening its gaze. It was very little comfort that he knew it was an act, when that thing could easily get him if it decided to give up the deception and attack. The black eyed demon stared at him for an uncomfortable amount of time before the director saying “Hello-o? Anybody home?” drew it’s attention back towards him, looking surly and cruel once more.

Fritz choked out a final statement for his part of the documentary, trying not to let the pounding heart in his throat jump out onto the floor. By the time he was done, the demon had moved to the right wall and was staring at him with the more docile look. Stupid demon. Thinking I’m going to fall for that.

[laniidae-passerine]

Amazed with how many people say they like Birdie or they find her, not Kate Hudson but her, genuinely attractive. Did you completely miss the point? As an attractive white woman, Birdie Jay can get away with saying “Jewy” as an insult, can get away with comparing herself to Harriet Tubman and implicitly can get away with doing blackface. People forgave her, because she’s just a little stupid, she didn’t mean it, it wasn’t her fault! All she needs to do, as Peg outright states, is give a half apology and lay low and then the world will get over it. But the things she did are still horrific. Her racism is still racism, regardless of whether it comes from hate or ignorance. Birdie Jay is not a good person and you’re not meant to think she is.

[therealcrustythecat]

... I totally turn up tricks behind the dumpsters I lied

So if any of ya freaks are into furrys and have 40$, 40$ is 40$...

(This is a joke... not for crusty, tho he needs the money)

[leek-inherent]

More War and Peace characters as my little ponies :D This is Dolokhov, Anatole, and Helene. Their cutie marks are a shield, a rose / wine glass, and a crown.

I’ve now done two sets of w&p ponies, the Rostov kids and these guys. I plan to do the Bolkonsky household next, but I don’t know what cutie marks to give Lise and Bourienne, so I’d appreciate any ideas :)

[partlyironic]

did shane madej effectively utilise his anti-capitalist swag when he helped found a company that he and many employees rely on for their livelihood?