#i have been on a bit of a music listening spree in general recently. just listened to some MF DOOM records

[shoechoe]

I never get it when Death Grips fans go on and on about how "everyone finds Death Grips unlistenable the first time they listen to it but then it grows on you" because I do not have that experience in the slightest. I listened to Takyon and got into it pretty much instantly. Funny because usually I have to listen to songs more than once for me to start liking them but the supposed "grows on you" music was an instant click

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation: Animage April 2021 Issue (Part 2)

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This month’s Animage article has more content than usual and mainly covers the music of Hanyō no Yashahime. That being said, I have decided to split the translation into three parts

Part 1: Interview with Kaoru Wada, Satō Teruo, and Nagura Yasushi

Part 2: Interview with NEWS

Part 3: Interview with Ryokuoushoku Shakai

Cour 2 OP “BURN” by NEWS

The current broadcasting opening theme, “BURN”, is a powerful song that fires up people who listen to it. Comments from the 3 members of NEWS who sing the song have arrived!

Shared Questions

Q1. To begin with, what sort of impression did you have of “Inuyasha”?

Q2. What did you think when you heard that it would be the opening song for “Hanyō no Yashahime”?

Q3. What are your favorites parts from the melody or lyrics?

Q4. How was the recording?

Q5. What were your thoughts after watching the complete opening video?

Q6. Going along with the title “BURN”, please tell us a recent incident that got your fired up!

Kato Shigeaki

A1. I was of course aware of the work but never had the chance to watch it. I once again felt how great the work was based on the huge response of (us) being put in charge of the opening of this current work.

A2. I was truly honored. It’s a popular anime and I was happy that I could hype together (with everyone) on Saturday evenings. I put all my emotions into (the song) so that “Hanyō no Yashahime” fans would enjoy it.

A3. In the anime, only the first one is played but in the full version, the interlude to the downward hook feels very good and in terms of me personally, I was in charge of that downward hook. Please look forward to it.

A4. To have the bridge bring together the rap and hook of the song, I sang while measuring the flow. Then there’s the downward hook that I mentioned earlier. This was a part I never really did until now, so recording it was really fun.

A5. I was so glad they made it look really cool, matching the sprinting feeling of the music. The timing of the title appearance was perfect. Also, the illustration that goes with the part where I sing “a flower blooming in the night” and the battle scene at the hook struck me.

A6. I caught a big tuna fish. It was quite large so it was a real struggle. Both my emotions and body were burned out…

Masuda Takahisa

A1. I love watching anime, so I watched the “Inuyasha” anime! I like Inuyasha of course but I especially like Sesshōmaru! His kimono and ornaments are so stylish, so I want to wear them someday.

A2. I was really happy! I was of course checking “Hanyō no Yashahime” which continues the world of “Inuyasha” which I watched in the past so it’s like a dream!

A3. We don’t have very many rock tunes amongst our songs and this song was born from this encounter so it’s a lifetime treasure! I do the beautiful melody, rap, and harmony so it’s hectic, but I think among NEWS’s song so far, this one shows our most passionate side.

A4. There’s a part in the hook where a falsetto comes in and singing it felt good. Depending on the part of the song, I will change character and sing. I sing strongly but gently. For the lyrics, I like the part that goes “The tightly tied love, the connected love”.

A5. I like how there’s flowers blooming all over when the lyrics go “a flower blooming in the night”! I waited in anticipation in front of the TV for the first broadcast and hearing our voices in the world of “Hanyō no Yashahime” got me excited. It would be great if NEWS’s song reaches the fans of “Hanyō no Yashahime”.

A6. I went to an electronics retail store for the first time in a while and they were selling every single genre. I got fired up and my shopping switch was ignited! I went on a shopping spree buying daily necessities!

Koyama Keiichiro

A1. I did watch the “Inuyasha” anime. Compared to Inuyasha, I liked Sesshōmaru who was very calm. His long silver hair is cool isn’t it. I don’t think it suits anyone other than Sesshōmaru. Everyone, did you watch episode 15 of “Hanyō no Yashahime”? It’s exciting. Towa and Setsuna really are!! For those who haven’t seen it yet, please go watch it!

A2. I watch anime quite a bit, so I understand how important it is for the opening to enter the story. Whether our song will give the anime a sprinting feeling and stir up the fans’ feelings of expectation. We’ll just have to do it! Is how I felt.

A3. This song doesn’t have an intro so to speak. It starts from the head hook and from there, the members’ singing connects it (to the rest of the song) immediately. This aspect gives the song a sprinting feeling which I like. In the full version, there will also be speaking lines so look forward to that.

A4. During recording, I sang with a lot of emotion so that the energy came through. All while having clips of “Hanyō no Yashahime” playing my head. There’s a phrase that says, “Wholehearted indomitable perseverance”. It’s a word that resonates with my way of life and thinking so I like it. My part has a lot of words, so it sounds cool when it’s sang firmly inserted into the sound.

A5. Seeing the footage change to match our song and sound was cool. Not only can you feel the bond between Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha from within the opening video, but you can also feel the strong message that they’ll definitely overcome the events that are about to happen.

A6. Lately this has been happening almost everyday but when I wake up, my stomach area feels suffocating. I feel something like a weight on top and when I open my eyes, my cat is sleeping sprawled out on my stomach right before my eyes. This happens every day. This is my best “got me fired up” story.

Accepting Setsuna is?

The lively opening video depicting Sesshōmaru, Inuyasha, and the parent generation, as well as the daily life and battles of the child generation consisting of Towa and the others. What catches the eye within that is the scene where Setsuna falls from the cliff. At the spot where she has fallen is Rin who is supposed be sleeping within the Tree of Ages. What does this scene mean…?

[lightwoodsmagic]

I’m worried about Liam and his album and I didn’t know where to go but you always seem rational. I feel awful because there’s only a few songs I like and the album isn’t getting good reviews but Liam DESERVES good things, and then everything with ‘both ways’ happened. I’m so sad for him, but do you think he’ll be okay? I don’t want him to be cancelled, but the song was such a bad choice? His image in the eyes of the public seems ruined. Please tell me what you think :(

Hi anon, 

Thank you for thinking of me, and for thinking that I’m rational. I know this has been sitting in my inbox for the better part of a day, but in order to be rational and approach this properly, I had to take some time to let myself play out all of my emotions. 

I’m here now! And I think I’m ready. This post is long though, so I’ve popped it under the cut. 

Before I start properly, there’s a few things I want to say first. 

- I love Liam, an absolutely ridiculous amount. Liam’s music isn’t the usual genre I would listen to, but I will always support him and his music, and his fashion, and everything else he does. 

- I am incredibly proud of him for finally being able to release his album.

- As anyone who follows me knows, I strongly believe Liam is queer, and closeted, and in a relationship with Zayn. Here’s a masterpost I made about it earlier this year.

- I’m realistic. Some things below may not be what people agree with, or wanna hear, but you asked for my opinion.

Okay. Here we go. I’ve divided it into sections to address your ask properly. I’m also aware that this is pretty late in terms of fandom, and I haven’t been on Tumblr, so people have no doubt said many of the things I’m about to say. 

LP1

First thing: don’t feel bad for only liking a couple of songs on Liam’s new album. Everyone’s music taste is different and it is completely possible to love and support someone even if you don’t absolutely love their music. It does not make you a fake fan, or mean that you love Liam less, or anything like that. Please don’t worry about that. It’s okay not to love the album. Completely okay. 

Also, YES. Liam does deserve good things, always.

You’re right; it hasn’t been getting great reviews, but even though I really enjoyed the album despite my musical preferences, some people are frustrated, and not just reviewers. People are frustrated that a third of it is collabs, that half of it is songs we’ve heard before (that weren’t just released as a lead up to the album), and that Liam seemed to hardly write on it. We’ve known for a while that something’s been up with Liam’s album, especially when last year he said he had a full album ready to go, and then suddenly it was like it was scrapped, and he had to start again. 

We also know that Liam is a brilliant writer; he wrote so much for One Direction. So many people completely disregard this because Liam once said that he was more about the melodies, and Louis more the lyrics. Under no circumstances does that mean he does not, and did not, write great lyrics, or just good songs in general. That kind of thinking is also what leads to a lot of Liam’s erasure from Home, which is something I also touched on in the masterpost I linked above. It’s something that frustrates me a lot, when people forget about his writing ability. It doesn’t help though when he didn’t, or maybe wasn’t allowed to, write more on his own debut album. 

Overall, in terms of his album in general, I’m exceptionally proud that it’s been released, and sad for him that it’s not getting great reviews. Reviews don’t always matter, though! The support for the album from other sources has been really brilliant, and I’m sure he was feeling the love (and still is, despite recent stuff that I’ll touch on now).

Both Ways

No matter how you look at the situation, no matter who you are or what you think of Liam, it is baffling to me that this song went through numerous people to be released, especially knowing that a large part of Liam’s fan base consists of young, queer women from his days in the band. 

It should never have been a surprise that the reception was bad; the people who are upset about it are allowed to be upset, and their feelings are valid. In a world where bisexual and pansexual people are constantly fetishised, it’s a kick in the face for some people. I’m pan, and while personally I wasn’t overly offended by the song, I did cringe at a couple of bits, and I have no right to tell other people how they should or shouldn’t feel. 

To me, there’s a couple of options as to what happened here:

- It was genuinely just a gross misjudgement on everyone’s behalf. People make mistakes. I hate cancel culture. At the moment, if this is the case and they all genuinely didn’t think it would be this bad, I’m not sure if Liam addressing it would be a good thing, or if it’d just make things worse. If he apologises, it’s going to seem disingenuous to a large number of people, but if he doesn’t, it’s like he doesn’t care at all about the people that’ve been hurt. It’s not a good place to be in. 

- It was a purposeful song put into his album by his team to push his narrative. Liam’s in a shit spot at the moment. A very large majority of the media attention leading up to his album used negative promo, like his ‘relationship’ with M*ya and the fight at the bar during Thanksgiving. Aside from very recently, Liam’s team have been a nightmare, and it’s frustrating when people can’t see that he’s in a situation just as bad as some of the other men. Would I be surprised if this explanation is the correct one? Abso-fucking-lutely not. I’ll touch on it a bit more in the next bit though. 

No matter what, the song was not a good decision, and was not going to go down well. Alllll of this leads onto…

How it affects Liam’s image

I’m separating this into three parts to explain it the way I think I need to; the part of the fandom who believes he’s queer and closeted, the part of the fandom who don’t, and the general public.

The part of the fandom that believe Liam is queer and closeted

Liam’s image hasn’t changed here. This whole thing has made this section of the fandom angry, frustrated, and sad. At a time when everyone should be able to just relax and enjoy Liam’s new album, we’re bombarded from all over the internet with people trying to cancel him. Angry because Liam is being absolutely attacked, especially at a time when he’s just spoken about how fragile his mental health is, and because there’s quite a few hypocrites around at the moment. Frustrated because there’s nothing that can really be done at this point, and when it comes to Liam, people never seem to care as much as they should. Sad because we love him so much and he deserves such good things, and people never seem to care enough to recognise that.

It’s also frustrating that people can’t, or refuse to, realise that Liam is just as closeted, has had just as much PR bullshit including at the moment, and suffered through forced interview after forced interview, and been made to say a million things. It’s also important to note that if Harry can have a stunt song, and Louis can have a stunt song, Liam can also have a song (even if not directly stunt related) added to his album to push through his current narrative. They’re different situations, different songs, and different explanations, but they all have the same running cause. Just something to think about. 

The part of the fandom that don’t think that

Fuck me, I never realised how massive a chunk of this fandom there is that does not give a shit about Liam James Payne. Can’t relate, but okay. In terms of his image here, it kinda depends; for some people, they’re not fussed enough to pay attention, but that can mean that they’ll just believe he’s an arsehole here because they can’t be fucked to look into it. People don’t have to be invested in all five of them, of course they don’t, but it might be a big negative here. 

For other people, the ones that seem to hate him for some reason, this adds so much more fuel to the fire. There’s a lot of people currently calling him out for homophobic things he said about Harry, which I’ve spoken about before but can’t find my own damn post but the masterpost I tagged at the start of this mentions it a tiny bit. When this swirled up again recently in the last month or so, which interesting timing, the media ran a TONNE of articles about how Liam had been talking shit about Harry. Harry liked the very next tweet Liam posted, even though it had nothing to do with him or the situation, and Harry wasn’t just on a liking spree. It seemed very much like a ‘hey, don’t worry, we’re all okay, don’t believe this shit’. This section of the fandom is exceptionally unlikely to change their mind about him unfortunately. 

I spoke about this very recently, but the fact that people can’t see Liam’s situation for what it is, and can see the others, is beyond frustrating because the patterns are INCREDIBLY similar, and there’s very similar situations. 

Also, Liam and Louis’ friendship is 100% legit. They’re very close. If there’s anyone out there who loves Louis and thinks he’s closeted, but hates Liam, do you really think Louis would love Liam so much if this was really who he was? Someone who doesn’t care about the community that Louis is obviously so fiercely proud of, and someone who talks legitimate shit about Louis’ partner? Of course he wouldn’t, because Liam is also closeted and stuck in a shit situation and made to say things in interviews to stir up One Direction drama for the media. Speaking of the media though…

The general public

When I woke up this morning and Mar told me about the hashtag that was trending on Twitter, I was instantly so emotional, for a lot of reasons. As I said before, I hate cancel culture in the easy way it exists. People are allowed to make a mistake, or slip up, or make a wrong move; everyone is human. It’s how they respond to it that should change things. 

There’s a couple of problems here, though.

- Liam can’t really respond to it in the way he needs to. Like I said before, I don’t know whether it’d be better or worse for him to talk about it. The only genuine way he could is to come clean about everything, and he can’t fucking very well do that, can he? So the apology will just be a lie, and people probably won’t believe it anyway. 

- People are more willing to forgive someone if it’s one mistake, but Liam’s team have fucked with his image so much that to the general public, it’s not one mistake. We know they’re not real, but if we step back from the fandom and try to look at it through the eyes of someone who knows not very much about him and only knows what the media pushes, it’s a slightly horrifying image. 

When I speak to my friends about Liam, people often think he’s arrogant, conceited, and your standard ‘gym bro’. The GP may remember the times he was made to say homophobic things, and if they don’t remember, they’re reminded in every new article. They see him as the young guy who dated a woman in her mid 30’s and got her pregnant, and who hardly sees his ‘son’ and therefore is a deadbeat ‘dad’. They see him now as the man in his mid 20’s who’s ‘dating’ a teenager, and the articles I’ve seen today all mention her, some mentioning the debate about her age and others trying to say the song is about her even though it was being written about three years ago. They see him as a man who has fights outside bars, and are told it was because of his underage ‘girlfriend’. They see him as an artist who sings about getting wasted, sex, and being rich. 

I know I’m setting a bleak image, anon, and I’m sorry, I am. I don’t believe a single word of the above obviously, and NO ONE should, but it’s the reality of the situation for the GP, and it shouldn’t be pushed to the back as if we should only blame other sections of the fandom for his image, or that this isn’t, realistically, how it looks for Liam right now. 

We know Liam as the kind, sweet, caring, protective, talented, queer man that’s been there for us through his music and his words, who’s been there for the boys the entire time since the band started, who’s suffered through addiction and mental health problems to come out the other side stronger than ever. 

They don’t know that, anon, and I don’t know what Liam will do to come back from this massive of a social media hit. There’s numerous articles slamming him, the hashtag trended for almost a whole day in Australia at least, and for some of the GP, it’s the final thing in a long list of bullshit that Liam’s supposedly done. Each article mentions all of the above things again too, and Apple Music even mentions Ch*yl and B*ar directly by name. 

I’m hoping for his sake that in a few days, this will all blow over, and it’ll be handled the way it needs to be handled. The problem is that I don’t know what the right way to handle it is. 

I think he’ll be okay. I believe he’ll be okay, I do, but I think in terms of the GP, he has a way to go. I want the very best for Liam, always, and I will always continue to love and support him. Everyone else should too, because right now, he needs it from us more than ever.

[beyondflashpoint]

Prologue 3: World’s Finest:

It was a quiet night, for Gotham. Quiet for Gotham still meant a surplus of muggers, purse snatchers, and various other petty criminals, who more often than not fled at the sight of any one of the city’s resident costumed vigilantes. That was fine by Damian. In the four years since he had assumed the mantle of Robin, donning the colorful tights to aid in his father’s nightly crusade, he’d experienced a fair number of not so quiet nights in Gotham.

In the early days he’d longed for the next complex caper, the next shadowy plot, the next Arkham breakout. But as time wore on he came more and more to appreciate the quiet nights. The mission wore on endlessly, and for Damian, and all those who fought by he and his father’s side, the quiet nights were the closest thing to rest.

Father was on one of his interstellar escapades with the Justice League. Damian had seen their work, and thought it mostly ineffectual grandstanding, so he understood the necessity of Batman’s presence among them. They needed someone who could get the job done. What he couldn’t understand was the necessity for him to have a chaperone.

Grayson had accompanied him on patrols every night since father’s departure, as if without constant supervision Damian might decide to go on a killing spree, or blow up a bank. Not that he minded Grayson’s company. He was an effective combatant, and contrary to Damian’s first impression he was actually competent with strategy and detective work. Unfortunately he also talked. A lot. Beyond the pithy one liners and snarky banter he fired off in combat, which could have been excused as psychological warfare, Grayson wanted to talk about everything. Was he reading anything good lately, had he made any new friends, what music was he listening to, did he have a life outside of the mission, when was the last time he’d washed the uniform? It was incessant. Countless tedious questions fired off in rapid succession, as if Grayson had a pathological fear of silence.

At least he’d finally stopped trying to set Damian up on play dates with the other teenaged vigilantes. That had been beyond frustrating. For a time Grayson had pitched a different cooperative mission, which he’d pestilently referred to as “team-ups”, every week. The last and least unbearable had been with the Kent boy, though he had ended up roped into irregular interactions with the child, outside of uniform, and preforming menial tasks unrelated to the crusade.

Blessedly, Jonathan was currently grounded, due to poor performance in mathematics. Perhaps he should have mercy and tutor the boy. He would consider broaching the offer after he slept.

“Mushroom swiss, extra onions, and large mocha, triple espresso. You know you really should cut back of the caffeine, Lil’ D. It’ll stunt your growth.”

Damian snatched the bag and beverage. “And you should cut back on the pizza. It’s starting to look like Pennyworth needs to let out your uniform again.”

“Very funny, brat.” Grayson ruffled his hair, before plopping down on the ledge beside him and settling into what looked like an overstuffed breakfast burrito, though he did pull at the fabric clinging to his abs when he thought Damian wasn’t looking.

“Anything happen while I was gone?” Grayson asked as he chased an exceptionally large bite with his own coffee.

“B-and-E on 18th, but GCPD was close enough to respond, so I let them handle it.”

“Why Damian, I didn’t know you were capable of sharing. How generous of you.” Grayson punctuated his feigned surprise with a dainty hand against his face. Damian narrowed his eyes, and returned his attention to his own meal.

“Tt”

“Jason and his ‘Outlaws’ got back to Blüdhaven this morning. I think they were doing something about the Lexcorp drilling operation in Smallville. The facilities definitely exploded, and explosions usually involve Jason. Surprisingly there were no casualties.”

“Jason has never broken father’s code, despite every opportunity to do so. His methods might be a bit extreme, but they are effective, and non-lethal.”

Grayson paused. “But I’m still your favorite brother, right?”

Damian smirked. “I’m no longer wishing you dead.”

Grayson laughed, then the two ate in silence. While Damian was washing down the last vestiges of his meal, Grayson stood and stretched. “So, I’m thinking we move towards the bay area. Seems like theirs always something to do there.”

“If you’re eager to stay busy, we could consult Oracle.”

Grayson shuffled awkwardly, then cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary. Between the police scanner and Al manning the bat-computer, we’ll know where we’re needed, when we’re needed.”

Damian got to his feet and stretched himself. It seemed there was some awkwardness between Grayson and the Gordon girl, probably stemming from a failed romance. Grayson didn’t talk about it, and neither did Oracle. He could probably ask Jason, but he didn’t care that much. So long as it didn’t effect the mission.

It was a short trip by rooftop to the bay area docks, and the two were in no real rush. This was a simple patrol, mostly for the sake of reminding Gotham that it’s guardians were constantly vigilant. Across the bay, the shining beacon of metropolis lit the sky as if to starkly contrast the shadowy gloom of Gotham. Damian had often wondered if property was cheaper on the Gotham-facing side of Metropolis. He knew from father that the reverse was true of Metropolis facing property in Gotham. On the other side of the Bay Bridge, the Hights loomed like towering castles, housing those of Gotham’s elite who preferred high rises to mansions. One of those buildings held a penthouse suite belonging to Father and housing a substitute Batcave far better outfitted than the many bunkers father had across the city. Damian had toured each of these facilities in his first week as Robin, and given them each a monthly inspection since. In recent months he’d taken to sleeping in the penthouse when he and father had one of their frequent disagreements. Before that he’d mostly gone to Jason’s Blüdhaven bunker, but a particularly awkward incident had put a stop to that.

Grayson was right about the frequency of criminal activity in the area, and the two had barely began their loop around the docks when they came upon a group of thugs brazenly unloading pallets of cocaine. The two separated wordlessly, each seeking a vantage point from which to survey the scene before acting.

Grayson went high, perching on top of a crane, Damian went low silently positioning himself on a shipping container right above the scum.

“I count six men, two in the truck, two in the container, and two patrolling. The guards have automatic weapons, but I’d be willing to bet all six are packing. How do you want to proceed?” Grayson spoke in a determined whisper, and Damian replied in the same hushed tones.

“I see five. One of the guards is heading your way. Advise pattern Gamma-12. Move at your command.” Damian never enjoyed handing over control, but Grayson had the best view of the battlefield, and would make the right call.

“Acknowledged. Guard two is on your 8:15. You may proceed with pattern G-12.”

Damian dropped onto the unsuspecting guard, who was exactly where Grayson had said he’d be. Before the man could make a sound, Damian clapped a hand over his mouth and struck key pressure points in rapid succession, rendering the man unconscious. With silent precision he moved towards the container and his next targets.

The truck was shaking as he stepped from the corridor into the loading area, and he knew Grayson was doing his part. When his targets moved into the container to start on another pallet he stepped in behind them and slowly shut the door. The thump of metal and frightened, agonized screams were the only indication of what was happening inside, and they faded into silence quickly enough.

When Damian emerged, Grayson was standing with his hands on his hips, no doubt preparing some quip or other. Before he could say anything though, a brilliant radiance lit the sky like daybreak come several hours to soon. And with a deafening crash, the meteor smashed into the bay, sending a wave far enough inland that puddles formed around their feet. The two locked eyes, wordlessly agreeing that it was within their responsibilities to respond, and made their way toward the crash site.

The scene was tranquil, if one could ignore the floating debris and wreckage of personal water craft that had congregated to the bay’s center, ringing the impact zone like the epicenter of a child’s temper tantrum. Damian and Grayson stood in silent awe, until Damian pulled the Geiger-counter out of his belt and set the device ticking.

“Al, how fast could you get us a boat to Gotham Bay, pier 19?”

“I’m picking up radiation, if minor. Our space rock is so lukewarm it’s practically cold.” Damian returned the device to his belt.

“I’ve dispatched the bat-boat you your location, Nightwing. Happy sailing sir.”

The two glanced at each other as the din of distant sirens and alarms died down. The cities on both sides of the bay were wide awake now, and they wouldn’t have long to investigate before the authorities moved in. The boat took just long enough for Grayson to become antsy, tapping his foot and drumming his fingers over his crossed arms. When the visor slid back to open the vessels empty cockpit, Grayson boarded without a moment’s hesitation.

Damian moved to join him.

“Hope Al packed some trunks. We might be getting wet Lil’D.” Grayson opined as Damian fastened himself in.

In leu of a response, Damian rolled his eyes, and the duo started across the bay to the epicenter of the crash. They had just reached their goal when the boat heaved and rolled over, flipped like a child’s plaything. Moments later a heavy thump resounded from the skyward facing underside of the vessel. Damian and Grayson situated their respirators, exchanging an understanding glance and Grayson opened the visor and the boat’s interior flooded with the oily bay water. At the last minute, Damian released the clasp on his cape, cutting the resistance he’d face cutting through the water.

The duo surfaced to a strange sight. Standing on wobbly legs on the slowly submerging underside of the bat-boat, was a young woman, soaked from head to toe, and wearing what looked like a silver and white wet-suit. Grayson, who had surfaced and disengaged his respirator first, cautiously joined her on the slowly sinking makeshift island.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” She jerked her head towards him, panicked, fearful. Damian was all to familiar with such mannerisms. He propped his arms on the boat.In response, the young woman muttered something Damian couldn’t quite make out.

“Miss, it’s okay. We’re here to help.” Grayson took a cautious step towards the young woman, who responded with a frightened shout and a shove at Grayson, who hadn’t even finished shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

Soaked to the bone, and standing on precarious, slippery footing, a slip or stumble would have been expected, even from one with the lithe grace of Grayson. Instead, he jettisoned a pained grunt and flew from the vessel, skipping twice across the water’s surface like a stone. Damian watched in shocked awe, and turning his eyes on the aggressor, saw the same look in her own eyes. They were blue. She met his gaze and shouted something else in that gibberish that was starting to sound vaguely familiar to Damian. Then she jumped as if to dive into the Gotham facing side of the bay. But instead launched at least fifty feet into the air, sailing in a clear arch to the docks he and Grayson had left moments ago.

“Grayson-“

“Still breathing Lil’D. Get after her. I’ll catch up.” Grayson sounded winded, and was barely suppressing what Damian was guessing to be intense pain, but he kicked off the boat and swam towards the docks nonetheless. Even at the brisk pace he set, it still took way too long to reach the shore. Luckily the young woman left a trail. Wet footprints and cracked pavement made the pursuit easy as following a hare though fresh snow. She was moving eastward, and inland.

Damian’s pursuit showed all the telltale signs of a frightened, if powerful, meta-human, just coming into her abilities. She needed to be stopped before she hurt anyone, before she hurt herself. Anyone else, Damian mentally corrected. He’d passed a few would be thugs or helping hands with significant (though fortunately non-lethal) injuries in an alley a few blocks back. Beams of crimson light shot skyward from the next street over. Damian hip-fired his line launcher and took the rooftop in time to catch a glimpse of the chaos on the street below, and the young woman illuminated by police flashlights as she floated gracelessly skyward. With very little time for mental calculations, Damian took a running start and dove across the gap between buildings.

He collided with the girl in mid air, directly above the middle of the crowded street, with thirty stories of open air between him and unforgiving concrete. His gamble paid off. Whatever method granted the girl flight had slowed their decent, and coupled with Damian’s momentum they came down in a slow arch, landing on the rooftop on the other side of the street. For his part Damian had to roll to disperse the excess momentum. The girl immediately rose from her knees to her feet with stony determination. She shouted at him in what he realized was an alien language.

“Tired of running, I take it. Come then.” Damian pulled the sword from his belt. It was blunted, had been for almost three years now, a concession made to ease father’s mind. But even without an edge it could break bones, bruise bodies, and dissuade antagonists. Before he had taken a ready stance, the girl launched forward at speeds that would even give Allen pause. The blade bounced and rattled on the rooftop, useless. Clearing thirty feet in less than a second, the girl had pinned Damian to the wall by his wrists. The impact had knocked the breath from him, and might have broken both of his wrists, had they not been cushioned by the meta’s fingers. As it was, her vice like grip was already bruising bone deep. A horrific crimson light radiated menacingly from her previously arctic blue eyes. Damian narrowed his own eyes, scowling. Mentally he was running through every possible counter, every potential method of escape. Then, she spoke again, and the nagging familiarity clicked.

“Where the hell am I? What the hell is going on?”

Damian mentally thanked Jon for the Kryptonian lessons, and formulated his plan. It would have to be fast.

“Welcome to earth.” He spat, smirking. The glow faded from her eyes, replaced by shock. Her grip on his wrists loosened, and Damian moved to the second step of his plan. He pushed forward as hard and fast as he could, planting his lips on hers. The Selina Kyle method. As expected, confusion, shock, and perhaps a touch of embarrassment caused the Kryptonian to fully release her grip and stagger backwards, giving Damian enough time to pull the aerosolized kryptonite/ knockout gas concoction from the led-lined pouch on his belt and spritz the girl with a healthy dose.

Once she had collapsed into a heap and Damian was sure that she was fully unconscious, he called Grayson.

It was just before sunrise when father returned, and on Damian’s insistence, brought the elder Kryptonian with him. Unlikely as it was, Kara Zor-El was his cousin, sent to earth from Kandor, the capital city of Krypton moments before the planet’s destruction. She was uncertain what had set her off course by nearly four decades, but she had finally arrived.

Within six months, she was fluent in English. In ten she was versed enough in her powers to earn Superman’s approval to shadow him in metropolis. After some convincing Bruce set her up in an unused apartment he kept in National City with an established civilian identity and all the paperwork that required. Before the end of her first year, Kara had blended almost seamlessly into earthling society, though under constant supervision from the Justice League. By that time even Batman’s considerable scrutiny waned. But Damian remained cautious.

Eventually, Supergirl’s fame and reverence grew to match that of her well established cousin, and the world mostly came to accept the new heroically inclined visitor from a strange world.

But the clock was ticking, and had been long before the alien child set foot of the strange new world. Events were already in motion that would call to question the meaning of the word hero, and the line that separates good and evil.

Tick

Tock

Tick

[lovemesomesurveys]

Have you ever sold anything online either on Craigslist, eBay, Amazon, etc.? If not, what is your website of choice like any of the above for buying things? No, I’ve never sold anything. I like shopping on Amazon, Etsy, and Ebay as far as those kinds of websites go. If the opportunity arose, would you ever go to a nude beach? Do you think you’d be comfortable enough, being naked among others like that? Absolutely not. I’m not comfortable naked, and I most definitely wouldn’t be naked in public. I’m waaaaaay too self-conscious. I don’t even wear bikinis or any kind of swimsuit. I also have no interest in seeing other people naked. You do you, boo, but it’s not my thing.  What was the last book you read? What about the book drew you to want to read it (plot, title, cover…)? Did you end up liking it? I recently finished a trilogy (The Jack Ryder Mystery Series). Well, what I thought was a trilogy but I discovered there’s actually 3 more. I’m about to start the 4th. I read a few other books by the author and enjoyed them and the description of the first book caught my interest. I was hooked after the first one and had to keep going to see what happened. Have you ever considered keeping a dream journal? If you have one, have you ever looked back on it at all of the odd/interesting dreams you used to have? I thought about it before, but I’ve never done it. I very rarely remember my dreams. I generally forget them soon after I wake up or just remember random bits of it. Do you think regifting is cheap, or is it okay? Have you ever regifted before? I mean, I’ve been given gifts that weren’t really my thing, but I knew someone else would really enjoy them so I gave it to them. I’ll tell them, though. I’ll be like, “Hey, so I got this but I already have it/it’s not really my thing, personally, but I know you like them so I thought you might be interested” or something like that.

How often do you wash your hair? What do you think when you hear of some people not washing their hair for weeks at a time? Is it healthier, as they claim? I wash my hair 3-4 times a week. Weeks would be too long, but I think a few times a week is fine. I also dye my hair, so it’s best not to wash it too often.  Do you think President Obama should stay in office, or is it time for a new president? It’s time for our current president to be out of office. In general, do you like/get along with your mother’s or your father’s side of the family more? I get along well with both sides. Have you ever seen an animal give birth? Have you ever had a pet give birth before? Not in person, no. What do your plans usually consist of on Christmas morning? Are they the same this year? We get up early and sit in the living room while my brother passes out the presents and then when they’ve all been passed out we start opening them. We like showing each other what we got as we go. When we’re done, we mess around with some of the stuff for awhile. Christmastime this year is going to be weird given how this year has been. :( Do you like iPads/tablets or laptops more? E-readers or books? Laptops. I do a lot of my reading on the Kindle app on my phone, honestly. I have access to tons of books and it’s just really convenient. If you don’t get much snow where you live, do you wish you did get more snow? If you do get snow where you live, do you get a lot? Do you like snow? It doesn’t snow here at all, but I wish it did. If men could get pregnant too, would abortion still be as big an issue as it is? Yes. It’s still abortion and people have strong opinions about it.  What is something you want to try to accomplish within the next year? I don’t know. Have you ever had to “come out” to your parents about anything (sexual orientation, change in religion, etc.)? How did it go? No. Do you ever get drunk by yourself? No. I don’t drink. Has there ever been a time where you’ve forgotten something extremely important? Yeah. What’s the most unusual kind of pizza you’ve ever tried? Nothing unusual. If you were given the chance to decorate an entire house the way you wanted, with no limit to cost, how would you decorate it? I don’t have the creativity for that. Like, I’d have some ideas and certain things I’d definitely want to have, but I wouldn’t know how to go about decorating an entire house.  If you could have any kind of lava lamp, what kind would you have? Nah. What movie do you know by heart? There’s several. Has there ever been a time where you thought you were going to be great friends with someone, but it just never happened? Yes. What’s one of your favorite things to touch/feel? Something soft or furry, like my faux fur throw blanket. How often do you wear tights? I haven’t worn tights in years. I wear leggings everyday, though. If you had to choose, what’s the most important thing in your life at the moment? My faith, family, and health. Do you have Netflix? Yep. Has there ever been anything you’ve become interested in much later than other people? Yeah. Like with TV shows or movies, for example. Why is your favorite TV show your favorite? I have a lot of favorite TV shows. Describe your favorite picture of yourself, or post it. My baby photos. Is there a genre of music that some people would be surprised that you enjoy? I don’t think so. Assuming you have a Facebook, if one of your friends posted things that annoyed you, would you be more likely to delete them as a friend, hide their statuses, or just put up with it? I’d just hide their posts. I think you can like “mute” people or something like that on Facebook. Have you ever had a veggie burger? I had one once several years ago. Do you like candles? I wish I were into them cause they’re aesthetically pleasing and relaxing, but I’m not. What’s your favorite video game? Mario Bros everythijng. What was something you liked about today? It’s only 4:43 in the morning. Ask me later. When was the last time you passed out? Never. Do you think “friends with benefits” relationships could ever possibly work without anyone getting hurt? Not from my experience and many stories I’ve heard from other people. Someone catches feelings or you’re not on the same page and someone/both get hurt. It’s just too messy. Do you wear more sweatshirts or jackets? Sweatshirts. What was the last thing you had to drink? Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink. When was the last time you wore a sports bra? Never. When was the last time you went to a waterpark? I don’t do waterparks.  Does your best friend live close to you? My best friend is my mom, who I live with. Have you ever rode a train? Nope. Where did you get the shirt you’re currently wearing? The UC I went to. When was the last time you played Rock Band? With whom? I’ve never played Rock Band, but I loved playing Guitar Hero back in the day. I want to play! What was the last thing that you ate? Ramen. Who last messaged you on Facebook? My aunt. What were you doing Saturday at 1:30 pm? Sleeping. The last time you were intoxicated, what were you drinking? I think it was Jack and Coke. It was 7 yeas ago, so *shrug* Who last walked you home? When I was 19-early 20s I had a friend who lived like 10-15 minutes away walking distance and she and I walked around a lot to nearby coffeeshops and restaurants before she got her license. And to each other’s houses. Anyway, there were times she walked me home. What do you do to help your face from breaking out? I don’t do anything, honestly. Thankfully, acne just stopped being an issue for me when I got older. Apart from a couple pimples every now and then. Did you make any new friends lately? If so, what are their names and how did you meet them? Nope. Would you rather see your favourite band/artist in concert with 2 other people or have a free $20,000 shopping spree to Walmart? I’d take the concert for sure. I haven’t been to one in over 10 years, I miss concerts! Who knows when we’ll have any concerts again now. :( When was the last time you went out to eat? Back in early February. On a scale of 1-10, how anxious are you currently? At this current moment, like a 4. What kind of music do you listen to? I like variety. Various genres and artists across decades. What does your perfect day consist of? A day at the beach. Do you have any online friends? We have an awesome little survey community on here. I read your survey answers and I root for you. I want the best for you guys.  Would you dye your hair red? I do. I’ve been dyeing my hair red for 5 years. If your ex wanted to take you back, would you say yes? Nope. How is the weather? Right now it’s 57 F.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 31/10/2020 (Ariana Grande, KSI, Little Mix)

I haven’t heard that Ariana Grande album yet as of writing this but the lead single – and title track – “positions” has just debuted at #1 on the UK Singles Chart, her seventh song to hit the top and second this year after “Rain on Me” with Lady Gaga. Hence, that’s today’s #1 and we have a busy and pretty chaotic week of new arrivals. Welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

A lot of their debuts from last week were completely wiped out on this week’s chart which surprises me, especially for songs I thought would hit it big like “One More Time” by Not3s and AJ Tracey. Our notable dropouts here range from bonafide smash hits like “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek, which hit #1, although I always preferred “Swoosh” from the same album, to pretty easy and quick fall outs from songs I’ve reviewed in the past few weeks. We’ve got songs that peaked in the top 10 like “Rover” by S1mba and DTG and “I Dunno” by Dutchavelli, Tion Wayne and Stormzy but otherwise that’s mostly it as a lot of these drop-outs are just songs that didn’t really reach their charting potential or have mostly had their day in streaming, like the surprisingly quick drop for “my ex’s best friend” by Machine Gun Kelly and blackbear, as well as “Destiny” by D-Block Europe, “Tap In” by Saweetie, “FRANCHISE” by Travis Scott, Young Thug and M.I.A., “OK Not to Be OK” by Marshmello and Demi Lovato, “Airplane Mode” by Nines and NSG and even “Outta Time” by Bryson Tiller and Drake. If you’re worried about the loss of MGK’s song being too soon for whatever reason, don’t fret as “forget me too” with Halsey, a much better song, is here at #72, our only returning entry for the week. I might as well run through the biggest gains and falls, those both being last week’s debuts. “Train Wreck” by James Arthur absolutely surged up to #24 whilst “Hold” by Chunkz and Young Filly absolutely purged down to #59. To be fair to the general public, I think I’d rather listen to something from four years ago than that song as well. Anyway, let’s start our new arrivals with a couple really interesting choices...

NEW ARRIVALS

#75 – “Sofia” – Clairo

Produced by Rostam

Clairo is one of those artists where I feel completely out of the loop on, especially with all the recent buzz from TikTok, and I was not checking for that album last year, and whilst I didn’t mind her feature on Wallows’ “Are You Bored Yet”, I’d never been intrigued enough to check out the solo work until I guess here we see it on the chart, which is big for the genre of bedroom pop, which again I know next to nothing about. Now, I like lo-fi indie rock fine, but I’ve never really tried to look into the bedroom pop micro-genre – if anyone has any recommendations, that would be appreciated – so this will pretty much be a first gaze into not just Clairo but the entire scene surrounding her. I’m not a Vampire Weekend fan by any means but Rostam on production just give me hope, even if the mix here is a bit too drowned in reverb and echo to give the guitars any more impact when they really should have, at least I think so, they’re pushed back in a way that makes an already pretty calm, fleeting indie single even more lacking sonically. Clairo sounds great on this instrumentation, admittedly, albeit kind of uninterested, but it really is about that fuzzy distortion in the drop that feels... oddly anti-climactic and seemingly pointless considering how little progression is made before or after it. Maybe this genre just isn’t for me, but I feel myself turned off from how Clairo’s pretty beautiful vocal harmonies are not reflected by the production here, whether it be the stiff percussion, abrupt ending or overall lack of substance. This is kind of disappointing as I really wanted to like this. The song is a pretty vague but longing ballad mostly revolving around her crushes on people she saw in the mind, particularly Sofia Vergara and Sofia Coppola, hence the name, and I think it’s actually really well-written. I especially love how the chorus seems to acknowledge that not only are these crushes clearly out of her reach as a teenage girl just discovering her sexuality but also mentioning how afraid she is to really develop on any of these feelings because of how it’s prejudiced against and in some countries outlawed, but the song easily works as just a confession of love without really realising the statement, so it doesn’t feel forced or unnecessary. Sadly, I guess Rostam had to put his prints on this one, but the song itself isn’t bad at all. Hey, I’m not going to complain about a song where I can look at pictures of Sofia Coppola for “research”.

#74 – “All Girls are the Same” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Nick Mira

It’s so odd and kind of heartbreaking to see the Genius comments for this track where they say Juice is “up next for 2018”. It’s also pretty amusing to see some of these annotations...

God, I love Genius.com. This is a 2017 Juice WRLD track from the late rapper that was released as a single from his debut album, Goodbye & Good Riddance. I don’t really understand why this had a resurgence – again, I’m going to assume TikTok or some kind of remix – but it is funny to see a bitter, immature and sloppily-written song about heartbreak and how “all girls are the same” next to a lesbian love ballad on the chart... and above said ballad because we clearly live in a society. I’m not going to mince words here: this is a pretty bad song, at least in my opinion. All respect to Juice but he’s clearly not on top form here, with an uninterested and badly-mixed vocal delivery over a really dull, jingly trap beat with awful bass mastering. In fact, the whole song is mixed awfully and sounds really muddy which may have been the point but it doesn’t complement Juice at all. The lyrics here are purposefully immature and at times stupid, especially when he compares himself to John Lennon and is so desperate for a rhyme the dude says this unnamed girl is from Colorado. I’m not going to deny some of the lyrics here are kind of haunting now due to tragic circumstances but I still get a chuckle out of the vocoder on his voice after massive empty spaces in both the beat and vocal track that makes the song sound clearly amateurish (to be fair to Juice, he clearly didn’t have access to the best studio equipment but it doesn’t excuse the major-label streaming release sounding this sloppy), as well as that opening line.

Broke my heart, oh, no, you didn’t!

Yeah, I’ll take “Robbery” over this any day, or even “Righteous”. Sorry.

#73 – “Martin & Gina” – Polo G

Produced by Hagan, Lilkdubb and Tahj Money

It seems we have two melancholy trap-rappers from Chicago appear consecutively on the chart. I love those types of oddities. If you don’t know Polo G, you probably should, at least from his hit “Pop Out” with Lil Tjay last year, and this is his most recent hit. I typically find his brand of mournful Auto-Tuned crooning about life on the streets remarkably genuine in comparison to most rappers but also admittedly really boring, at least for now. I can see this guy becoming a lot bigger and better but as of now he releases so much music and the quality and effort seems to fall by the wayside more often than not. In typical 2000s bling-rap fashion, this hardcore street rapper’s biggest hit from the album The GOAT (perhaps a bit early to call there, Mr. G) is a guitar-based R&B love jam for the ladies, except it’s not a sex jam...

Girl, I can’t wait ‘til I get home to f*** the s*** out of you

Okay, well, that’s one line.

Man, I’m tryin’ to get to know you sexually

Okay, but at least he’s trying to get to know her. The song’s lyrics do have a genuine heartfelt sense of love and companionship with his unnamed woman, and some of these lyrics are pretty funny and pleasant, albeit shallow. I love how in the first verse he says that even on her worst days she still looks “kind of cute”, in a way that makes this song more down to Earth than other thugs-need-love-too songs, especially when he acknowledges the troubles in their relationship, which may be undermined by the unfortunate implications that come with that “Martin & Gina” comparison but that’s really not the focus of the song, even if it is the title. He may talk about the shopping sprees now but there is evidence here that Polo G genuinely wants to live his life with this woman, especially when he says he wants them to move out to California and live in a mansion. There’s flexing there for sure but it’s less out of a desire to sound “cooler” than the other rappers or the audience, and more out of a desire to make the most out of this relationship in case, as he knows he might have to, he should “pull the stick out and shoot” to protect her. It helps that this is a damn good song with Polo’s catchy flow in both the verses and that infectious chorus, as well as a really slick guitar lick behind that trap knock. Yeah, this is pretty great. Check it out.

#71 – “Spicy” – Ty Dolla $ign featuring Post Malone

Produced by Ty Dolla $ign, Westen Weiss and damn james!

It seems that Ty Dolla $ign has finally clocked that people like him for his features and not his solo work as he has released his most recent album fittingly named Featuring Ty Dolla $ign, following a trend of recent massive collaborative albums in pop music. This particular album features the likes of Kid Cudi, Kanye West (twice), Anderson .Paak, Nicki Minaj, Big Sean, Future, Young Thug, FKA twigs because, well, sure, and obviously, Post Malone. I haven’t listened to the album yet, I mean it sounds exhausting but I don’t necessarily like what I’ve heard. “Expensive” with Nicki Minaj is soulless, “Ego Death” with Skrillex, Kanye and FKA twigs is chaotically misguided and a massive disappointment, “Track 6” with Kanye, .Paak and Thundercat is way too boring for these four artists, and that’s all I’ve heard, except that “Dr. Sebi” interlude with Young Thug that I thought was actually pretty damn good for a one minute snippet. I did brief through some songs on the album right now as I was writing this and I wasn’t really a fan of any of it, not even the songs with Future and Young Thug, artists I actually really like. The song with Kid Cudi was pretty amazing though, which I pretty much expected, I mean it is Cudi after all and he’s really felt revived this year, even if he feels out of place on a sex song. The serpentwithfeet interlude definitely adds to that song though, and it actually leads into this track with Post Malone. This is their second collaboration after their #1 hit “Psycho”, but it’s a lot less interesting, replacing the serenity and smooth flows with more fast-paced trap skitters, hit-and-miss flows that only make Ty$ sound all that great in the tail-end of his verse. Post’s verse is out of place and feels like a regression for him, with the verse sounding like it was taken straight out of the Stoney sessions. The guys have no chemistry and Post doesn’t even contribute to a final chorus, which feels particularly odd as there’s not a bridge to round any of this out properly as it just transitions awkwardly to the sixth track, titled “Track 6”. At least Ty$ isn’t facing 15 years in jail for cocaine possession now, which is something I brought up a disproportionate amount of times in older episodes of this show, because, well, sure.

#69 – “Whoopty” – CJ

Produced by Pxcoyo

CJ is an “up-and-coming” rapper with only one song that pretty quickly went viral. There’s something fishy about this. The only other song by CJ on Spotify and I assume other streaming services is this CashmoneyAP-produced trap song called “On Me” that is completely garbage. It does sound pretty odd that while he doesn’t sound dissimilar in “Whoopty”, this uninterested Auto-Tuned mumbler took three years to get another song on streaming and now he’s an energetic New York rapper using a beat that was literally uploaded to the producer’s website as a “Pop Smoke type beat” weeks before “Whoopty” was released, which, by the way, was an immediate viral hit on YouTube. Very strange, very unusual but not very worth talking about as the one thing “On Me” and “Whoopty” have in common is lack of quality. Sure, I like the Indian sample but it’s quickly drowned out by the booming 808s and pretty rote drill beat. Somehow, CJ sounds too energetic and excited to the point where he’s out of place on a beat this menacing. He sounds like a joke made by a record label to create some kind of popular generic drill track and it does not help that there’s a single verse, with part of it repeated as a bridge, and two repetitions of the same over-long chorus. When Pop Smoke rapped over beats, he was aggressive, sure, but had a smoky voice and a lot more charisma than this flat tonal sandpaper CJ brings to the table. It’s almost offensive to Pop Smoke’s legacy that this was rapped over his “type beat”.

#57 – “SO DONE” – The Kid LAROI

Produced by Omar Fedi and Khaled Rohaim

I figured I’d have to talk about this guy at some point, well, what better time than in the midst of a lot of mediocre American hip hop, although this isn’t American, rather it’s actually an Aussie at it this time, with this 17-year-old kid propped up by Internet Money and Lyrical Lemonade and mentored by the late Juice WRLD. This kid really likes capital letters, and naturally I listened to his last hit “GO!” with his mentor Juice... and, yeah, it’s not good. That hook is stupidly infectious – and the pre-chorus is actually more so – but his delivery is obnoxious and unconvincing, especially in comparison to Juice on the same song. Man, I wish that entire song was as good as its pre-chorus. Anyway, this is a new song, not taken from his debut mixtape aptly and rather politely titled F*** LOVE. It uses an unorthodox ukulele loop as its main sample but once again I’m not a fan of this guy’s immature delivery. Maybe in a few years this Kid LAROI will sound less like a Kid LAROI and more like a genuine rapper but right now he is just barely keeping on beat with a jangly pop beat that would sound really interested if accentuated by the right rapper but here it doesn’t work at all. I do actually appreciate some of the lyrics here, even if they are repetitive and vague. Hey, at least they’re family-friendly PG clean for the most part so he’ll get that radio push, but it’s not like it’s matters here in the UK. I’m sure this lad is the hottest thing to come from Australia this year... okay, well, maybe the second hottest – but I’m not a fan, even if some of these melodies are promising. In fact, I really like some of his ideas, especially in the chorus, I just think that tragically, Juice could have done them more justice than this Kid LAROI ever could. Sorry.

#47 – “Bad Guy” – Morrisson and Loski

Produced by BKay and Harry James

Duh. Okay, so these are both UK drill rappers who I’m not very familiar with although I’ve heard of Loski before. Morrisson is a complete unknown to me. They’re both from London, as one would expect. Is the song any good? Well, I do like that chopped violin sample but Morrisson is only vaguely convincing when he claims to know Vinnie Jones and to be Stone Cold Steve Austin, and when he mentions getting “white-boy wasted” with a woman sniffing coke, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that’s actually the point. I mean, the chorus says this:

You need people like me so you can point your f***ing fingers and say, “That’s the bad guy”

The issue here is I’m not convinced. Morrisson’s double-tracked vocals aren’t intimidating or menacing and are mostly overshadowed by a pretty great beat. His delivery is also something I’m not a fan of and while I can’t say he’s uninterested or not putting his all into it, it just sounds weak, especially when pitted against this beat. Loski is here too, but he doesn’t add much to the “bad guy” idea, especially when he starts talking about The Simpsons and Family Guy. Not Mr. Burns or even that angry chicken that fights Peter, just Stewie, Brian, Bart and Homer. Admittedly, “shell out the whip like Mario Kart” is a pretty fun line and I appreciate his flow more than Morrisson’s... but, yeah, I’m not really a fan. I like the concept but it misses the mark on execution.

#44 – “Golden” – Harry Styles

Produced by Kid Harpoon and Tyler Johnson

So this is the opening track to Styles’ sophomore effort, Fine Line, an album I thought was mildly entertaining pop rock at best and lazy, absolutely worthless trite at worst. I don’t mind Styles’ take on classic 70’s pop and glam rock but I’ve also never found it interesting, and the songs are at times disjointed and at most times just plain boring. I understand I’m probably alone in this but I really disliked this album and I’m not excited that he’s pushing yet another single. The beeping keys that start the song are immediately met with the crash of a drum beat that sounds as flat as Harry’s singing in that obnoxious, sloppy intro refrain. The verse is equally as awkward, with the song lacking in any kind of substance other than that one line of “You’re so golden” which has been overly annotated by fans on Genius to mean a lot more than it does and should. It’s a confession of love but unlike “Sofia”, there’s very little to grab onto in terms of compassion for the singer and I quickly lose interest in what little story there is to the track. The bridge with the high-pitched guitar squealing and squeaky pitch-shifted murmuring is over and done with as slowly as possible and that refrain of nonsense vocalisations just continues without fear or even self-awareness of how annoying it is. This is probably ultimately harmless but it annoys the hell out of me and whilst I predict success for the track, I really hope against it as I absolutely do not like this at all.

#39 – “Teadrops” – Bring Me the Horizon

Produced by Jordan Fish and Oliver Sykes

Yes, that Bring Me that Horizon. Yes, the metalcore band. At least they used to be metalcore and definitely on that heavier side of Kerrang!-core, but what I’m more amazed by is how they continue to ditch the sound and continue to get bigger as they do so. After 14 years, you’d think these guys would stop getting Top 40 hits – hell, the only other hit they had before 2020 was “Drown” – but this is their third this year! I’ll admit I’m not really up to speed on Bring Me the Horizon – I listened to their last record (which was just fine but honestly probably worth listening to for “wonderful life” alone) but not this EP that the singles have been from, and definitely not their older stuff. For the sake of REVIEWING THE CHARTS, however, I did listen to their earlier singles – you can’t say I don’t do much for this show – and I’m overall not really sure on how to feel about this stuff. I still like “Drown” – and always have – but I’ve never been too big on metalcore so I’m actually surprised how much I really enjoyed the Linkin Park rip on “Sleepwalking” (which I’m impressed I remembered the chorus for). I remember liking the practically nightcore track “ouch” and, yeah, it still slaps. Some tracks are very heavy on the electronic, and “Can You Feel My Heart” is reliant on that vocaloid drop, about two years before that became the norm in pop. Just from a skim of their biggest singles, I’m honestly kind of a fan, especially “Throne”, even if I feel like the EDM influences just kind of go nowhere. Also, none of this screams “metalcore” to me but I don’t know, these guys seem to change their style a lot with the only thing staying consistent being Oliver Sykes, and his tone that shifts between nasal pop-punk-style crooning and chopped-up Auto-Tune growling. I talked to a friend about them and they like their earlier stuff mostly, although he “wouldn’t recommend” their debut album to anybody at all. Another friend said he refuses to listen to their music based on the pretentious title of their third record and honestly I think that’s a pretty fair decision. This song sounds like pretty standard BMTH, or at least from what I can gather from the singles and the formula they follow. It starts with a funky and cute, chirpy electronic groove before it’s drowned out by heavier drums and heavy metal guitar riffs, but this time said electronic groove is less integral to the instrumental and the shift to a funkier bassline in the verse might honestly be for the best, although I do love the way the instrumental is chopped up a bit at the end of each repetition of the chorus. It makes the song sound a lot more unique and even if it sounds just as 2012 as their 2012 stuff, I honestly think that’s fine, especially with that abrupt sharp contrast of his raspy yelling over breakbeats quickly followed by some crooning with light piano backing, which may make the song feel messy or structurally disjointed but honestly it works for the chaotic tone of the track and the angst that is presented in the lyrics. Also, although I haven’t evaluated this band since I watched a couple videos on Kerrang!, this feels oddly nostalgic. Huh. Some additional musings: That falsetto Sykes hits in the chorus is great. My friend said that he couldn’t finish the last album they put out which isn’t a good sign but to be fair to them it was an hour-long IDM record, because, well, sure. I’ve written way too much about Bring Me the bloody Horizon at this point so I’ll just move on but I’ll make sure to check out some of their stuff after this.

#37 – “Loading” – Central Cee

Produced by HARGO

Now back to normality, at least I think so. This is another UK drill artist I’ve never heard of. I like this beat, especially that sample of the horns that I’m surprised wasn’t found by crate-digging but it works pretty well under the drill beat; it sounds like a menacing “gangster” song, especially because of how that sample reminds me of 1930s Chicago. I’m not good on my American (or gang) history so that might be nonsense but you know what I mean, right? Black-and-white footage of men in suits gambling whilst women surround them and they all got their money from drug trafficking and they send out hits. Something like that, I don’t know. The song is kind of boring though, this Cee guy has zero charisma and the references to COVID make this immediately dated (not that this song is lyrically all that interesting anyway), and by two minutes the beat has run its course and just starts getting annoying. Yeah, not much to say about this one at all, but it could have been better.

#8 – “Sweet Melody” – Little Mix

Produced by Peoples, MNEK, Morten “Rissi” Ristorp, Oliver Frid and Tayla Parx

I wonder if now that I listened to Bring Me the Horizon for half an hour straight that the last four songs all sound worse, or at least less interesting, in comparison. Well, I doubt that really, I think these songs will just end up being less interesting. I mean, five separate producers on a simple three-minute pop track? This’ll be as market-tested and manufactured as possible, as one would expect from Little Mix. I didn’t mind their last couple promo singles but this song seems to have some actual traction and even a high-budget video behind it and hence it debuted as high as #8. Well, is it any good? Well, it’s no 2013 Bring Me the Horizon, that’s for sure. Jokes aside, the nonsense vocal refrain is kind of awkward and the R&B production here is kind of minimal and just... off, particularly in the first verse and refrain, where the singing and hard 808 is met with only accompaniment from one stray snare that is just... there? The drop doesn’t feel like it has a proper build-up either, and doesn’t even feel like it lives up to that non-existent tension. I do love the harmonies towards the end of the track and the “he would lie, he would cheat over syncopated beats” line is kind of a bar, I suppose, but yeah, this production is awkward and I’m not sure if it really does the girls’ talent justice. I would have preferred something more dramatic and with more of a climax than the skittering hi-hats and vaguely dancehall-inspired bass grooves, but alas, here we are with a pretty mediocre, uninteresting track, which wasn’t exactly unexpected.

#3 – “Really Love” – KSI featuring Craig David and Digital Farm Animals

Produced by Digital Farm Animals and Mojam

Ah, the trio we all didn’t know we wanted but definitely deserved(?): YouTuber KSI, legendary R&B singer Craig David and a couple virtual elephants. KSI is more than a YouTuber or prankster now to be fair to the guy, with songs like “Lighter” he has cemented himself as a genuine pop star and not in the way that songs used to get viral or even back in 2017 with Jake Paul. KSI is taking this stuff seriously and having fun with it, and, hey, he beat up Logan Paul once or twice so I guess I respect the man to some extent. I’m honestly surprised he got Craig David to be on the song with him. I mean KSI may be popular but I never put much thought into his music or even think it’s any good although the song has clearly debuted this high for a reason. Craig David has a janky hook that just plopped onto the track for a chorus and bridge, with pretty generic lyrics about love, which KSI develops on in some oddly specific ways. He’ll buy this woman Amazon Prime – I hope you enjoy the Borat sequel, guys – and she’ll “wreck his balls like Miley”. Classy. Honestly, the song is mostly fine – KSI’s flow is kind of awkward and stiff still but it’s a lot smoother than it usually is and he does deliver a pretty convincing performance here, as does Craig David, who sounds as great as he did 20 years ago over this groovy house instrumental, with a great bassline that really does fit Craig David more than it does KSI. The trap breakdown is pretty well done as well, which surprised me as I assumed the song would lose all momentum afterwards but, no, it keeps on chugging. This is listenable and far from bad but it’s mostly just a serviceable pop tune. I have no issue with this sticking around as it probably will. Now for the big one:

#1 – “positions” – Ariana Grande

Produced by TBHits, Mr. Frank and London on da Track

Man, I’ve just reviewed 12 songs, I do not feel like talking about the biggest and most important one now. Well, maybe it’s not that and instead the fact that I have this conflict with Grande’s music where someone so unbelievably and obviously talented sounds so incredibly disinterested in the songwriting and production, to the point where her performance is irrelevant. Sure, sweetener and thank u, next had their highs but the former is a complete mess and the latter feels so dull and oddly characterless. Again, these albums aren’t all bad but I feel like they’re still so rushed and infuriatingly so, with Grande having very little involvement, or at least it sounds like that in these albums. Regardless of how much she contributes to each record, it always comes out the other end sounding impersonal, so I’m actually glad she dropped the pretence and is now just doing purely sexy R&B stuff. I haven’t listened to the full album yet but with song titles like “34+35”, I can kind of expect what I’m going into here. That said, I’m not really a big fan of the title track and lead single here, although I can understand why it debuted at #1. Firstly, the video where she becomes the President of the United States for practically no reason is great. Secondly, the beat is pretty good and produced by London on da Track, who I’m kind of disappointed didn’t put his producer tag here. It would have at least been kind of funny hearing it transition into Grande’s sweet whispery vocal tone. I like the slick trap percussion, cricket sound effects and that chirpy guitar pluck, and especially those strings in the second pre-chorus which sound genuinely awesome. Ariana’s a great performer but the chorus is kind of weak, especially lyrically – I don’t mind the opening and main line about switching positions, hell, it’s kind of clever, but “I’m in the Olympics the way I’m jumping through hoops”? Really? The bridge is also pretty short and lazy; I feel like it could have actually been done away with or put as an intro and would have worked just as well replacing the second chorus with that final chorus, background whistle notes and all. That said, the song is a solid lead single and I am kind of excited to hear the rest of the album, even if this is at least somewhat of a retread.

Conclusion

What a mixed bag. I’m generally pleased with what we have here though and I am going to give Best of the Week to “Teadrops” by Bring Me the Horizon with an Honourable Mention to Polo G for “Martin & Gina”, although Clairo would have gotten close without Rostam on the boards. There’s nothing all that bad here except “Golden” by Harry Styles which does get an easy Worst of the Week, with a Dishonourable Mention to CJ’s “Whoopty” for just being lazy. Here’s this week’s “spooky” top 10 – it is Halloween after all:

You can follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for political ramblings if you so wish but I wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you like Keir Starmer, but all politics aside, thank you for reading this far and I’ll see you next week.

[novadreii]

a diatribe about the emotional unpacking i’ve been doing this summer, specifically regarding my anxiety, how it’s affected me, and how i’m trying to drop kick it in the face. 

i will be honest and say that this weekend i’ve been sitting with some mild anxiety. mild, but still there, enough to set off alarms. just this...undercurrent of fear about the future. i go back to school in exactly 1 month, and getting my degree means more to me than arguably anything right now. some of you have been watching me bitch about this for years, but i’m stubborn as fuck and refuse to let it go. it’s not about the status, or the diploma. it’s a struggle of significance for me; since 2012 i’ve wrestled on and off with my mental health and this made staying in school consistently impossible. so in 2015 i made the decision to not go back until i was properly ready. a lot has happened since then, but to make a long story short, i’ll never be more ready than i am now. finishing this means everything to me; it means digging my heels in, working hard, and earning something for myself. something that, for a long time, i really lost hope that i was even capable of achieving.

but as always, doubt always starts to creep once the deadline approaches: what if i fail again, what if i can’t handle it, what if i drop out and have to work boring low-level jobs my whole life, what if i panic, what if i can’t do it?

every piece of text on the subject that i’ve ever read, every meaningful message from all my favorite books/series, has pointed me towards this one solution for when i’m paralyzed with fear: just feel it, sit with it, don’t run from or avoid it. and once you’ve done that, go through your fear and do the thing you’re afraid of anyway. that’s called bravery, and if you repeat this process enough times it will give you the confidence to keep doing it in the face of anything you fear. how often have we heard that being brave is not synonymous with being fearless? fearless is a lofty concept, an ideal, but honey, it’s just not realistic. everybody has fears. the most incredible people throughout history had their own fears; what sets them apart is how they dealt with them. 

my methods for avoiding pain/fear these days are 1) weed 2) tv/video games in excess and 3) avoiding my responsibilities/doing anything that would progress my life. obviously this will not work out for me, not in a long-term sense anyway. 

so recently i’ve just....stopped using coping methods when i’m getting into my fear. i do anything other than my usual destructive habits. i force myself to clean in a frenzy, i listen to loud music on my headphones, i go for a walk around the block, i read a book, i’ve even forced myself to do boring paperwork that i was avoiding. i make a challenge out of forcing myself to do the exact opposite of what i really want to do in that moment.

and THAT’S where the magic happened for me. once i confront Fear and do it over and over and over again, it begins to lessen. i’ve done this before, and i survived. it wasn’t that bad. it was worth the effort it took to just deal with it. 

the truth is that everything in life is a trade-off. you can’t get anything you want without sacrificing something of equal value whether it’s money, time, energy, or any other resource. and on the flip side of that coin, you can’t just avoid your life and desires, not without paying for it emotionally. so logically speaking, if both paths are equally as difficult, if they take roughly the same amount (but a different TYPE) of effort, which one will i choose?

it’s become obvious to me now, whereas it wasn’t before, that i should choose the path with the end result that is most worth it for me. depressed bastard who never did anything with her life? or...who knows? someone who actually tried and maybe got SOME of what she wanted? so now that the two choices are so clear, i’m beginning to feel drive, determination, and ambition again. goddamn, i was born with those traits burned into my personality and identity; losing them temporarily during the last few years fucking hurt, i really did lose a part of myself. but they were just dormant, inactive, because i can feel them faintly taking root again. and it feels friggin amazing. 

so nowadays i’m practicing a new skill: willpower. i believe it is absolutely a skill that anyone can cultivate and work on. i realized that i can force myself to do shit i know i should be doing instead of running from my problems. knowing that i will feel so much better if i just address and overcome what is scaring me is enough to motivate me. i can do this without resistance, without wanting to go hide in my bad habits. my awareness (my true self, separate from ego), knows the right answers, the correct path. i can physically do what i know needs to be done even if my mind is screaming at me to self-destruct instead; i have that power, because i am not my mind. none of us are; we are the awareness behind the mind, so to speak. if this sounds too new-age for you, i’m sorry. but i’ve been reading books on the topic for years without understanding completely. it made about 75% sense to me up until now, and i found the missing piece. mindfulness, the Self, the Ego...it’s all interconnected, and i used to think it was more religious BS that I didn’t care for. but it really isn’t. it’s a logical approach to heal yourself emotionally, and it starts with recognizing that your internal dialogue, your thoughts, and even your emotions, do not make up who you are, so you don’t have to be a slave to them. i wish i could articulate this better, but i barely understood it myself when i first started researching the topic. but something inside me knew that the answer i’d been looking for was somewhere in this train of thought, so i’ve kept with it (if you’re interested, the one book I would recommend is the power of now by eckhart tolle. i know, i know. but it really is the most easily digestible medium for this subject. just know you will have to engage with it and put in the work to fully understand). 

so anyway, that’s what i did this weekend. no weed, no mindless distractions, no emotional eating, despite the low burning of fear about school in the back of my mind. i cleaned the shit out of the kitchen and my room instead, which was distracting and physically tiring. then because i still felt restless, i went for a jog. now i’m showered and tired, about to watch a movie that i feel i actually earned. i think Fear produces a nervous energy that i can dispel with any kind of physical activity, which takes the edge off and makes it bearable.  

and lo and behold, by not being destructive at the first sign of feeling afraid, i didn’t burst into flames or anything. sure, my heart rate might jump for a bit, i might feel a bit sweaty/nauseous for a couple minutes. but then i swallow it and continue on my path.  by going through Fear instead of doing a 180 away from it, i can continue moving forwards instead of backwards. i can grow and progress, not stagnate. and another hard lesson i’ve learned is that the stagnation from avoiding my life has arguably caused me the most pain, far more than the fear of life itself. 

i isolated myself from my friends (missing one of their weddings which i have to try to not beat myself up about for the rest of my life). i stalled in my education. i was cut off socially, emotionally because i was in denial, and going nowhere. 

so i think i’ve just reached a point where anything is better than this. than a lonely, unfulfilled future where i reach none of my potential. on my deathbed all i’d feel is profound disappointment. and to that idea my gut reaction is HELL NO. is this what they mean about actually hitting rock bottom, even though i felt like i’ve hit it countless times before?

because now, i am finally willing to fight for what i want even if it’s the hardest thing i’ll ever do. once school starts, my days are gonna be long as hell. work during the day, and schoolwork on evenings/weekends, so logistically i need to make my life flow to accommodate how hectic my schedule will become. i’ll do so with the following steps:

gonna clean my apartment and car to stepford-levels of cleanliness (in progress, about 50% done). will also go on an organizing spree. i’m generally a neat person, but it could always be better you know? my state of mind is usually amplified by the state of my surroundings, so that’s one of the best ways to help myself.

gonna stock up on non-perishables/cat supplies/toiletries to keep effort spent on grocery shopping and errands to a minimum from september to december. 

gonna nail down a healthy meal prep routine so i can properly fuel my carcass through everything. cereal for dinner won’t cut it anymore.

in general, i will develop solid self-care routines in the areas of sleep, fitness (will work in occasional exercise where i can to let off steam), food, and giving myself mental breaks. again, this will keep me from losing my shit. 

this is my 4 point plan, and notice how little of it has to do with school itself. but i know that if i take care of myself properly, i can ground myself enough to get through anything. 

studying, homework, going to class, the pressure of exams...i feel confident, finally, that i can take all of it on. in fact, i’m starting to feel my old competitive spark slowly coming to life again, and i’m tempted to say bring it on.

and sure, Fear isn’t going anywhere. i haven’t vanquished it or anything. far from it; it’s still right there, making my chest tight when it gets really bad. but what’s changed is that i’m not afraid of Fear itself anymore. that is a huge distinction i’ve had to make, and it’s taken me years to get here. it’s much easier to do The Thing and confront Fear while doing so, rather than avoid both The Thing and Fear altogether. because that way of life was miserable for me, whereas option 1 will actually yield results. and weirdly enough...avoiding Fear doesn’t even make you like, less afraid or anything. what the hell?

so, after years of struggling and cowering and letting myself off easy for everything, it’s that simple. i’ve boiled my approach down to something weirdly logical and direct, because i’m over this shit, to put it elegantly. i will enthusiastically and unabashedly go after what i want in life, and when Fear inevitably pops up on occasion, as it always will, i’ll acknowledge it with a nod or a small dab (lol), and then continue doing what i was doing. i can be afraid without letting it paralyze me. fear isn’t really able to stop my body from doing what i want it to, i can actually smash my way through that mental barrier. i think that is what is at the core of the concept of bravery, and anybody is capable of it (yes i got that from soul eater, a life-changing message). 

so i simultaneously feel insanely motivated and driven for the first time in years, and also scared as shit. it’s the strangest feeling, a kind of nervous euphoria. but it’s okay. knowing that if i just trust the process and take things a day at a time, i will get to where i want to be eventually; that makes it so much easier. in my mind, this lends incredible significance to every little step along this journey. keeping good work habits and taking care of myself are what it’s going to take, and truly understanding that every Good thing i do for myself, even the tiniest thing, is what will get me there one day. it removes resistance from my thought process, and resistance is usually what gets me to cave, and run away. it makes every difficult, necessary step worth it to me, and that is what fuels me.  

so ultimately, my conclusion is this: i’m just going to have to get strong enough to carry my fear with me throughout the whole journey and use it to fuel me, instead of letting it pin me in one place for the rest of my life. and that’s the thing: invariably, over time, the relative burden of that weight decreases as you get stronger. 

so knowing that, how could i not just charge forward like a maniac, fear be damned? because the truth is that i can overcome it in the present moment with enough effort, and in time, it won’t take anywhere near the same amount of effort. pain is always temporary, so i don’t need to fear it right? i just have to use pain, and Fear of pain, and that’s the promise i’m making to myself as i attempt to close an unpleasant chapter in my life. 

i’m finally getting back my drive, my spark, when for so long i just tried to convince myself i didn’t actually want the things that i did. i thought that my goals were unobtainable, that i was too weak or incompetent to achieve them, so i may as well convince myself i didn’t even want them in the first place. isn’t that sad? it really is, and i’m trying to reflect on Past Me with compassion, instead of frustration for all the lost time and unhappiness. it won’t change anything, and i want nothing more than to move forward. because one day, it will all have been worth it. 

[lowat-golden-tower]

Singing In Quiet

HAPPY BIRTHDAY @galaxy-starheart why the fuck can i still not tag you tumblr plz

I heard you had a thing for this ship. So I hope you enjoy. :D I may or may not have been inspired by a recent Mark upload. >u>

(For those unaware, this is about Sexyplier and Brother Jeremiah. You know, Mark egos. Go check out @alcordraws for more deets. uwu)

Sexy was beautiful.

No, Sexy was more than that. Sexy was funny, smart, witty, creative, kind, generous and a plethora of other positive adjectives one could find in a thesaurus. Jeremiah could go on and on for days about the wonders of his boyfriend.

Which was precisely why he never felt good enough. Plain looking, shortly cropped hair, simple clothes and glasses. He was a younger Mark. A scrawnier Mark.

Not like Sexy, with his long, dark hair and toned muscles. He was the older Mark. The more defined Mark without the baby face and instead hosting a gorgeously chiseled jaw. No nerdy glasses. Stunning no matter what he wore, which was often very little.

No, Jeremiah just couldn't compare. He often wondered why Sexy bothered with him at all. He had to do something. Something to show Sexy he was worth it. Otherwise, Sexy might realize just how out of Jeremiah's league he was, and leave him for someone better. Someone more suave and handsome and smooth talking.

Mark had a girlfriend. Amy was a lovely person; all the egos loved her, or at least tolerated her existence. Surely he'd have a tip or two, surely he'd know how to maintain someone's interest. Jeremiah turned to Mark's videos, combing through them, searching for that thing that made Amy find him worthwhile. That kept her with him for all these years. There had to be something.

He found it in a recent video. A cover Mark had tried for the first time, with his guitar. It was rough around the edges and Mark was clearly nervous, but even so his angelic chords managed to shine through.

Music. Singing.

Of course. How could Jeremiah have forgotten? Sexy had some of the most beautiful vocals he'd ever heard. Granted, all the egos shared some degree of Mark's singing ability, and perhaps Jeremiah was a bit biased. Still, Sexy enjoyed music, and he knew he was a fantastic singer. Jeremiah couldn't compare to Sexy's beauty, or his charms, but maybe... just maybe...

He could sing.

That was how Jeremiah found himself knocking on Mark's door with an acoustic guitar in his hands, instead of his usual bible.

Mark was understandably surprised. Not only was it odd to find an ego on his doorstep, but for it to be Jeremiah, and with a guitar? He blinked and rubbed at his eyes in an effort to make sure they weren't playing tricks on him. "Jeremiah? What are you... you're not on another Mormon spewing spree through town, are you? Because, you know, that's not gonna work on me."

Jeremiah gave a sheepish grin. "No, nothing like that. I just... I wanted to ask, if maybe... you could give me some guitar lessons?"

That set Mark to blinking again. He scrubbed a hand at his eyes and face. "Wait... what? You want me to... what? Lessons? Since when did you want to play the guitar?" He paused, then squinted at Jeremiah. "...where did you even get a guitar?"

Jeremiah's grin became a bit more strained. "I bought it. Of course. And, uh... no reason really. Just... saw your video, and thought it'd be interesting to learn." He rushed forward, hoping to evade anymore questions. "So are you going to teach me or not?"

Mark frowned and scratched at the back of his head, but eventually shrugged. "I mean... yeah, okay. I can spare some time. I'm still practicing myself, anyway... so I'm not sure how great of a teacher I'll be."

Jeremiah's shoulders relaxed, and his smile smoothed out some. His death grip on the neck of his guitar loosened. "I'll take whatever you can give me."

Thus the lessons began. Jeremiah hadn't taken the time to learn many things in his existence, but when it came to Sexy, his determination was stoked into a roaring blaze. He sat through session after session with Mark, almost daily, going over chords and bars and rhythms. It wasn't long at all before his fingers bled, and he came home to the treehouse covered with bandaids.

"What happened to your hands?" Sexy would ask, frowning, gently turning over the digits in his own to examine the bandaids.

Jeremiah hated lying to Sexy, but he needed this to be a surprise. He always came up with some excuse or other to satisfy his boyfriend's concern.

Oh, I was helping Bill with the garden.

I got into a scuffle with Opinion Minion again.

Chef needed help in the kitchen, you know I'm not the best with a knife....

Sexy never seemed to fully believe Jeremiah, but he accepted every excuse. He would scatter kisses across Jeremiah's fingers, and then move onto his face; loving, tender, slow. Sexy cared about him so deeply. It was precisely the reason he pressed on, working through the pain and frustration and road blocks.

"Have you been practicing on your own at all?" Mark asked one day.

Jeremiah winced. "I can't. Se... I mean, I have no privacy for it. I don't want the others judging me." He swallowed. Jeremiah still hadn't confessed his reasons to Mark.

Mark had pursed his lips into a frown. Much as he wanted to reassure Jeremiah, he understood that anxiety all too well. He wracked his brain, knowing solo practice was important to getting better. "What if... I introduced you to someone? I think he'd have just the solution."

Jeremiah was wary, but he was also desperate. His anniversary with Sexy was coming up, and he needed this song to be perfect. So he accepted Mark's offer, though he found himself quickly regretting it when he was led to the doors of Egos, Inc. itself. He stayed close to Mark, having been inside the building before but never without Sexy at his side. Somehow, his boyfriend always gave him a confidence boost. It certainly didn't help Mark was leading him to a part of the building he'd never been to before. Usually, they just borrowed the more extensive kitchen space.

Yet Mark took him past that area and deeper into the halls. He knocked on a door, and it was opened by one of the androids- not the truly terrifying ones, but the odd one. The misfit: Bingiplier. He'd greeted Mark enthusiastically, attempting to do the same with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah had managed a shaky greeting in response. It was enough, and they were invited into what appeared to be a studio. Mark pointed out the ego they were actually here to see- Mark Bop. Of course. How could Jeremiah be so dull? Even if he wasn't familiar with all of the main egos, everyone knew about the musical one. Why didn't he think of coming to Mark Bop for help before?

The ego was more shy and subdued than Jeremiah expected. It was a welcome temperament, though, in the wake of his rattled nerves. He resisted the urge to pilfer some of the expensive equipment, and instead thanked Mark Bop profusely when he conceded to lending Jeremiah one of his recording booths. Finally, he would have a private place to practice. No worries about Sexy or one of the other egos catching him. No fear of his surprise being spoiled too early.

He really owed Mark for this. Maybe he'd return that blue flannel he'd snatched a while back.

Maybe.

With the solo practices, Jeremiah was able to begin piecing together his song. Mark's guidance was paramount, and even Mark Bop offered up a suggestion or two whenever he happened to be around. It was coming together, slowly but surely, and Sexy was none the wiser. He only hoped his growing absences from the treehouse weren't giving his boyfriend the wrong impression.

When the day came, Jeremiah texted Sexy to meet him in his bedroom. In reality, he was waiting outside, standing in the small clearing beneath the treehouse with his guitar at the ready. He could clearly see into his own bedroom window from his position, and once he spied Sexy's silhouette he fired off another text.

Look outside.

It took a few moments, but eventually the window was opened to reveal the surprised, stunning face of Sexy staring down at him. He pressed his hands to the windowsill and leaned outside. "Jerry? What're you doing down there? Is that... is that a guitar?"

Jeremiah tried to grin, but his lips trembled too much. His fingers were shaking as well where they rested on the strings. Sexy was spectacular, leaning out the window in his adorable pink crop top with his dark hair flawlessly framing his face; breathtaking. It took him several tries to find his voice. "Sexy. We've been together for... for a year now, and... I just wanted to do something for you. To... to show you just how much I love you. So... listen, okay? This is for you."

Sexy had his hands pressed over his mouth, brown eyes wide with a mixture of disbelief and adoration. Jeremiah took it as a sign he could continue, and drew a deep breath.

He messed up the first chord. Resisting the urge to curse under his breath, he bit at his lip and tried again. The notes were practically muscle memory by now, but his anxiety was making his palms sweaty; his fingers slipping. Jeremiah furrowed his brow and muscled through it, looping the intro of the song once over when his voice failed to work.

But the words couldn't hide forever, and soon they were spilling out. "When your legs don't work like they used to before... and I can't sweep you off of your feet...."

Maybe it was a cheap move, picking the same song as Mark. He'd just been inspired. The song was so romantic, and he couldn't hear it without thinking of Sexy and himself. It was perfect. "Take me into your loving arms. Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars. Place your hand on my beating heart."

His version was less so, but... Sexy was still listening. He was still watching with rapt attention, so Jeremiah would keep playing, keep singing. His anxiety never dissipated, but his confidence grew the deeper into his performance he got. His voice evened out and his grip on the guitar became more sure, the notes flowing into a steadied rhythm. At some point, he'd closed his eyes, just allowing himself to feel the music and sing from the heart.

That's what Sexy was to him. His heart. This song could never convey it enough, could never compare, but it was something. Finally, he had something. "Thinking out loud... baby, we found love right where we are...."

The final chords of the song trailed off and Jeremiah drew another deep breath. His eyes were still closed as he tried to compose himself, tried not to think the worst of the ensuing silence. Had Sexy left? Did he hate it? Did he think Jeremiah's efforts were stupid? Not enough? What if he-

The sound of footsteps rushing towards him had Jeremiah's eyes flying open, just in time for him to receive an armful of crying Sexy. Stunned, he held his boyfriend close, the guitar awkwardly hanging off his shoulder to the side. Sexy was burying his face into Jeremiah's neck, hiccuping and sobbing, pressing wet little kisses there while he clung to Jeremiah like a drowning man. Jeremiah's heart hammered away in his chest. "Sexy...?"

"I love you so much."

Color flooded Jeremiah's cheeks. He shrugged his guitar around to his back so he could hold Sexy closer, better. Gently, one of his hands rubbed down the elegant curve of Sexy's back. The other carded fingers through his soft, black hair. His own lips trembled again while his heart performed backflips. "I... love you too, Sexy. So much. You mean... the world to me, and... thank you. For staying with me...." His voice cracked, and he gave a little sniffle.

Sexy laughed, raw and wet and incredulous, and pulled his face out from Jeremiah's neck. It was red and puffy from his tears, his nose running, bangs sticking to his forehead and in Jeremiah's opinion he was still the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen. "Of course I'm with you, you big dumb idiot! I wouldn't want anyone else- I don't want anyone else. I want you. It's always been you... it will always be you...."

Jeremiah let out a soft sob of his own, brown eyes misting over with the threat of tears. He choked a little on his words, "I love you so much. I don't..." He hiccuped, and Sexy pressed a finger to his lips.

"You don't have to do anything else but kiss me, damn it." Sexy was smiling. He removed his finger in favor of cupping Jeremiah's face in his hands, thumbs stroking along his flushed cheek bones. "Kiss me."

Jeremiah could do nothing but oblige.

[theairportau]

the airport AU, part 119 by rjdaae and hopsjollyhigh

Previous parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 101, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10 111, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

---

DARIUS

The smile that Darius offers in return is tinged with an unusual sadness. “I am happy here,” he agrees. “I just wish it were that simple for everyone else- here, this is our stop.” He ushers Christine off of the train, walking just behind her to be certain not to lose her as a new wave of people enter, moving the opposite direction. They emerge onto a platform that smells of old food and wet stone, and he motions for her to follow him as he heads towards the gate; once the noise of the crowd fades, he continues speaking. “I’m happy, but I know that Khan isn’t. He couldn’t bear being in Iran any longer, but spends every day missing it. I don’t know if there’s a place in the world right now where he could really be happy. Paris is isolating to him, though. And with what happened the other day, he’s only retreated more in the past few days.” He isn’t certain whether he can make Christine understand what he sees every day- has been seeing for years now. She never knew him as he was. He remembers Khan being athletic and cunning, constantly moving, always doing something- now, more often than not, Khan spends his days sitting in a chair, watching things that he doesn’t care about on television and waiting for Erik to have a problem. Without Erik as his project, Darius fears that Khan might fade into nothingness. He seems like a shadow of a person sometimes, just barely moving around the apartment. And Darius feels so helpless watching him- no word of comfort seems to make any difference. Day by day, he deteriorates, collapsing in on himself in a private struggle that Darius has no ability to aid him in. “I swear,” he sighs. “Khan will talk all day about the help that Erik should be getting, but he would never accept any help for himself. It got worse when we got to Paris, I guess, but nothing in Iran helped him, either.” He sets his jaw for a moment, attempting to clear his head. He wanted today to be about having a good time with Christine, but some issues just seem to permeate every facet of his life- and he has so few people to talk to candidly about it. He forces a smile that seems a bit more optimistic. “It’s a lot, I don’t mean to spill it all on you. Out of everyone here, I’m just sorry you got picked by the most dysfunctional trio in Paris,” he says, really only half-joking in an attempt to lighten the mood.

---

CHRISTINE

As the spartan grey concrete of the train platform slowly gives way to bright glass and steel, Christine is quiet, only giving the occasional nod when Darius looks across at her; the way she sees it, she’s said enough already. Memories nudge at the edge of her mind, but sharing them would be too presumptuous—too painful. She’s left walking a delicate line: listening closely, trying to give her friend’s worries the full attention that they merit—but at the same time, trying to keep herself from thinking too deeply on what he is telling her. She sweeps her gaze over their new surroundings, trying to distract herself from the painful knot welling up in her throat; here, too, decoration for the holidays has begun, and the sight of a strand of Christmas lights sends Christine’s eyes to the floor again.

Maybe Darius picks up on the things that she isn’t saying; or maybe he regrets the turn of conversation for his own sake, his eyes sad and distant and reminding Christine, ever so briefly, of those of the man of whom he speaks—a resemblance born of shared pain, if not shared blood. Whatever the case, he tugs his expression into a new smile; apologizes; clearly trying to shake the pall of the past few minutes. Christine has the grace to offer a small smile of her own at his joke, but the overall look speaks more of sympathy than it does amusement.

“Even if you *were*,” she rebuts, in a tone lighter than she feels, “I wouldn’t wish to have been picked by anyone else.”

---

DARIUS

Finally, the returning smile feels natural rather than forced, as they push away from the upsetting nature of their conversation. “Well. Maybe it’s a bit selfish, but we’re all certainly glad that you’re here,” he says to her, and takes a few steps to the side before stopping to look around at their surroundings. They’ve made their way properly into the mall, and here, there are no strange looks for conversation in a different language- tourists from all over the world wander the vast halls with shopping bags. The murmur of conversation is everywhere, bright bursts of laughter standing out like rays of light. People lean against railings and take pictures together, giggling and making faces; it always brightens Darius’ mood to see such crowds of people. “Paris has such wonderful decorations for Christmas,” he says, gesturing to the festive garlands that have begun to appear around the area. “I love to look at all of it, even if I don’t celebrate it. The streets are beautiful when it snows, and there are lights everywhere- it really makes a dreary season so much more tolerable,” he says, motioning for her to follow him as he starts moving through the crowd, going slowly to be certain that she doesn’t fall behind or get lost. “Even without the holidays close, this place is a lot to take in. This place has everything. So you’re not going to be the only one shopping today,” he says good-naturedly. “I haven’t been out for clothes in a long time, so we’ll both get some new things.”

---

CHRISTINE

For a moment, she envies him—able to enjoy the colourful trappings of the holiday from a safe distance; appreciating each light and piece of tinsel for its own merits, without the ache of the things that *should* have been there. At the same time, his enthusiasm helps to draw her thoughts away, reminding her of how much there still is *to* appreciate. She smiles again as she follows Darius forward into the babble of shoppers.

It’s hard to believe that this *isn’t* a routine trip for him; even putting aside the fact that he always seems to be dressed like someone out of a magazine, Darius seems as comfortable amongst the upscale shops as he does back on his own street. For her part, Christine feels out of her depth. On all sides, expensive-looking goods shine from behind walls of plate glass—with even-more-expensive-sounding names hanging overhead; a few familiar logos jump out amidst the tangle of French, but none are places that she could have afforded to consider shopping at before now. Her eyes trail across the window of each shop as they pass, and she lets herself imagine actually *buying* the things she can see on offer; reminds herself that that *isn’t* such a far-fetched idea, after all, anymore.

“I’d…like to find a jacket,” she says, her voice sounding unsure in her own ears; light glints from a display of brilliant, cut-crystal figurines, echoed in the flash of Christine’s eyes as she turns them towards Darius. “I mean…I don’t *have* to get one *here*. But… Everything else I need is really basic—just a couple of shirts, maybe a spare pair of jeans. I can find them somewhere else. I can find *a jacket* somewhere else. But…it would be nice to find, well, a *nice* one,” she finishes, sounding no more certain than she had to begin with—and doubting that she’s making half as much sense.

---

DARIUS

As clear as it may be in her voice and disposition, Darius is at a level of distraction that does not allow him to absorb Christine’s uncertainty. The suggestion of shopping for a jacket sounds like perfect fun to him; he replies with his usual cheer. “Of course!” he says. “There’s no shortage at all of places to get nice jackets here, I’m sure you’ll find something you like. Here, we can start right in here.” He leads Christine gently by the arm into the nearest clothing store, an H&M. It’s a good start, he thinks- he shops there, anyway. Plus, he has no concept of how much money Christine has. If he took a moment to consider it, he may have realized that it would be of some comfort to her that he expects Erik to have given her money. He knows as well as anyone that Erik is predisposed to give vast amounts of material wealth and to the people he cares about, occasionally in place of a functional understanding of how friendships actually work. But he isn’t thinking about the potential awkward situation that it could cause for her- he is focused on shopping, and his own budget. And the display of slim-fit patterned shirts to his left as he enters the store. The majority of the store is women’s clothing, so he points a few basic areas out to Christine and giving her instructions to meet her by the dressing rooms before disappearing into the men’s section. The sound of conversation is muted here, and blocked a bit by the music coming through the speakers. It is a bit more peaceful than the general mall outside. As much as he loves to buy new clothes, he is cautious with money. Having hired the new manager recently, he isn’t looking to go on any sort of spree, and walks in loops debating for some time- he doesn’t want to buy more than a couple things. And he already has so many pastel and printed shirts at home. He ends up with a sensible forest green collared shirt, and a more relaxed fit in slate gray to try on after a solid amount of time picking through racks and weighing options against one another. Not the most exciting things he could buy, but he does indulge a little bit, picking a black silk scarf off of the rack- there are plenty of things that it could go well with, he reasons. And right outside the dressing rooms, he finds a rotating rack of accessories- sunglasses. He stands in front of the spinning mirror, trying on nearly every pair on the rack as associates hover nearby, seemingly anxious about whether he intends to pick apart their display, and he waits for Christine to come over.

---

CHRISTINE

Christine could almost laugh when she notices the logo that Darius is steering her towards. To come so far—what will Mama say, when she learns that Christine’s first footstep into the world of ’Parisian fashion’ landed in a store that they had once lived just down the street from.

As Darius vanishes between a display shelf and a rack of coats, though, Christine is rather grateful for the familiarity of her surroundings.

She adjusts her purse on her shoulder, turning to scan the stacks of neatly-folded blouses on the nearest table; the rows of skirts and dresses hanging just beyond. She wanders forward, idly skimming through the rows.

It’s uncanny, really: other than the specific pieces of clothing on display—and the abundance of euro symbols—she could nearly be back in Gothenburg.  

Back in Gothenburg, in those days when Paris was only the most misty dream; before she ever needed it to *be* more than that.

“Puis-je vous aider, mademoiselle?”

Christine startles, a soft, “—Va?” escaping as she turns her gaze away from the small cluster of mannequins that she suddenly realises she’s been staring at; a young woman with short-cropped black hair and a lanyard returns her gaze.

“Puis-je vous aider?” repeats the girl, perhaps two or three years younger than Christine herself; she gives a meaningful glance towards the display of mannequins, and Christine shakes her head, suddenly understanding.

“Ne–non. Non, merci,” Christine says, taking an apologetic step backwards. “Um… Ça va.”

The other girl purses her lips, but only gives a shrug before moving off towards a pair of young teenagers who seem on a mission to unfold every t-shirt within grasping range.

Christine glances up at the mannequins again, actually focusing on them this time. The nearest wears a furry-looking sludge-coloured sweater over glossy red pants that practically sparkle in the bright lights of the store. Her nose wrinkling in a mixture of amusement and distaste, she leaves the questionably-attired figure behind, and forges forward  into the grove of clothing racks, determined to begin her exploration in earnest.

It doesn’t take long to spot the assortment of jackets that hang at one corner of the store; more difficult is resisting the impulse to seek out the clearance rack instead. It’s a strangely discomfiting feeling, simply *considering* spending more money than strictly necessary, and she tarries—assuaging her conscience by picking up a couple of shirts with comforting red stickers on their tags, along with a flower-dotted skirt that’s nearly as cheap as anything she could have bought secondhand.

Her first instinct, when she finally allows herself to consider the jackets, is to find something on the order of the one that she’d had before; after all, it had always been a favourite of hers, with its light, silky fabric, precisely the shade of a clear morning.

But she discards the idea nearly as quickly as it comes to her; it’s too easy now to picture that pale blue nylon shot-through with red.

Something different, then. Something that won’t bring to mind blood and panic.

Browsing through the racks, she quickly finds several options that practically *define* ’different’: jackets that are close-fitting and sharply-tailored, rigid where the old one was yielding,  as opposite to it in style as they are in colour. Without letting herself look at its tag, she pulls one from its hanger—faux leather with a wide collar, in a purple so dark that it’s nearly black—and carries it over to a nearby mirror; holds it up against her shoulders.

It does look different; that she can’t deny. She tilts her head to the side, smoothing a hand across the dimpled leatherette. Its dark shade makes her hair look even brighter by comparison, and the rugged material feels solid, secure.

But as much as it doesn’t remind her of her old jacket, it doesn’t remind her of *herself* either.

Her lip quirks as she gives her reflection one last glance before turning back to the clothing rack.

And then, after digging through a few more rows of jackets, she finds it.

The cut isn’t so different from that of the purple one—but the soft, dove-grey suede from which it is sewn is entirely distinct. A strip of imitation lambskin rounds the cuffs and collar: silky curls that brush against Christine’s fingertips as she reaches to take it from the rack, her purse strap slipping from her shoulder in anticipation.

She doesn’t wait to get to the mirror before shrugging the soft garment on over her sweater dress; she doesn’t have to see her reflection to know that the jacket is *her*. But she makes herself *see* it—lets herself be *convinced*—before she allows herself to check the price.

Her smile shakes a bit when she reads, ’70 EURO’.

She looks into the mirror again.

This is what Erik *wanted* her to do with his money. Even before he offered to help her pay for anything (and everything) else, hadn’t he insisted specifically upon replacing the jacket that she’d sacrificed on his account?

She peels the jacket from her shoulders, her grip on the soft fabric light and noncommittal as she carries it back towards the display.

The other clothes that she has picked out still lay where she left them, on a shelf beside the rack.

She picks them up, shifting the grey jacket into her other arm, before scanning for the dressing rooms where Darius asked her to meet him.

---

DARIUS

Still oblivious to any turmoil going on in Christine’s mind, Darius turns at the sound of her footsteps, a ridiculous pair of blue-tinted sunglasses taking up far too much of his face. “What do you think of this new style?” he asks, tossing his shirts over his shoulder to strike a pose- narrowly missing hitting the rack itself. He turns back and mutters “sorry” at it, then looks back at her and flicks the glasses down his nose enough to peer over them at her. “Ah, you found a jacket! Look at that. It’s nice,” he says cheerfully, and removes the glasses from his face altogether. The hovering employee walks away as he puts them back and turns away from the display. He hasn’t managed to mess it up- or to knock it over completely. “Looks soft. Is there anything else you need in here?” he asks. “I don’t have to try anything on, I shop here enough that I don’t need to try these things on.

The coat does suit her- its gentle gray color only accentuates the clear blue of her eyes; it truly looks Nordic, with the muted colors and lambskin. Whatever Christine’s doubts may be, Darius immediately makes the connection between her and the coat; it just seems to make sense to him that she would buy it, given that she’s looking for a coat, anyway. He doesn’t pause to consider the price.

---

CHRISTINE

Christine keeps her grip loose on the jacket as she walks, still pretending as if she might simply change her mind and return it to the nearest rack at any moment—still wary of the whisper that tells her that she *should*.

She knows there’s no *rational* reason for it, for any of it: no reason for the nagging feeling of dread that rolls like an undertow beneath her pleased expression; no reason for her to put the jacket back, or to feign that she might do so.

The jacket is perfect. Just her style; just what she *needs*. Nothing like she’d imagined, and yet exactly what she was hoping for.

Other than the price, at least—but, thanks to Erik, she shouldn’t worry about that either.

‘Shouldn’t’. Easier said than done.

Yet, even as a part of her balks at each footstep that carries her farther away from the winter-wear department, her light touch only just keeping the jacket from slipping from her bent elbow, there is another that twists its invisible fingers ever-tighter into the faux-suede treasure—small and tentative, but wonderfully selfish and unworried, smiling a smile that is kept secret only from her own fretful conscience.

The grin—and her nervousness—cracks into a laugh when Christine finally finds Darius: he may have the *style* of somebody in a magazine, but perhaps not the *grace* to go along with it; she bites her lip, muffling her amusement as her friend turns back around.

“Thanks,” she replies to his comments, adjusting the jacket to give him a better view of it, “it seemed really nice. And I do really need it.” She bites her tongue before she’s able to comment on the price.

She glances at the various pieces of clothing that Darius holds. “I found a couple of other things, but I don’t really need to try them on; just some t-shirts. And…” she separates the skirt from her own small pile of items, “I don’t think that I need *this* one, anyway; I can just put it back. There isn’t really anything else I need here."

---

DARIUS

“Great!” Darius says, cheerful as ever. “It all looks wonderful, you do need some new things. It just feels nice to wear new things sometimes.” He glances around the store; the music is loud, and the lighting is beginning to give him a bit of a headache- like he’s been looking at a screen for too long. “Okay, then. I like shopping, but it can be exhausting, can’t it? Here, we’ll check out and go get a coffee or something, think about whether we want to go anywhere else.” His hand brushes her shoulder briefly as if to whisk her along as he heads towards the checkout; he’s satisfied with what he has, and she seems content with her purchases. He turns back to her again as he walks. “They’re used to people who can’t speak perfect French here, it’s a popular tourist mall, but of course you can ask me if you need any help with the cashier,” he tells her over his shoulder. “I could do the transaction for you, but it’s probably good practice to try, right? And even better in a touristy area where they expect it.” The line isn’t terribly long, and an array of amusing products make the wait seem short- bargain skin care products, cheap makeup and jewelry, and even more sunglasses for Darius to examine. He plops a floppy black wool hat on Christine’s head, and laughs, his voice bright. “Look at that. Fancy. But it’ll squish your hair,” he says, removing it just as quickly and setting it back on the shelf before a cashier finally calls him over to pay. He takes one last look back at Christine before he heads over, and reassures her- “just call over if you need me!”

---

(Part 120)

[sinceileftyoublog]

The Rock*A*Teens Interview: Don’t Call It A Comeback

Photo by Brett Falcon

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Long regarded as one of the most underrated rock bands in a decade that produced a lot of great rock bands, Cabbagetown, Atlanta, Georiga’s The Rock*A*Teens (not to be confused with The Rock-A-Teens) have enjoyed a recent resurgence thanks to their first album in 17 years, Sixth House. Released on Merge Records in June, it sounds as urgent as the band has ever sounded. They take a little time to reflect but mostly go on to do what they’ve always done best: tell the stories of others, whether the young outlaws on “Turn and Smile” or the gutter dweller on “Listen, Sonny Boy”. Musically, they haven’t lost a step, either. With Tim Delaney, Rafael Pereira, and Spencer Willis behind the booth, plus Bob Weston mastering the album, The Rock*A*Teens perfectly balance raw punk and psychedelic effects to create an album that sounds great along their Merge contemporaries. Add a Chris Verene album cover (Verene, along with Kelly Hogan, was once in the band), and you’ve got yourself something warmly familiar, yet still essential.

I talked to lead singer Chris Lopez about the album over the summer. Read our interview below.

Since I Left You: What point were you trying to make with Sixth House, either to a new generation of listeners who might be hearing you for the first time or people who are revisiting you after many years?

Chris Lopez: I don’t know if we were talking about a point. Just to make the coolest songs for ourselves as we possibly could. Something we would want to hear, I reckon. There wasn’t much of an agenda. Finishing it was kind of the goal [laughs]. Not to be too in your own head trying to finish something. To let it go after a while.

SILY: Do you think you continued where you left off?

CL: I think so. But there’s years in between of new influences and life experiences over that much time. People changed. We approached it a little differently. We kind of approach every record differently. But I think we know what we can do easily, so we tried to consciously steer away from that as best we could to make something different.

SILY: Can you pinpoint any influences or life experiences that had a direct effect on the lyrics or music?

CL: Nothing really specific. Lyrically, I’m always kind of jotting things down. I carry around a piece of paper and a pen in case I think of something, hear something, see something. There’s a big bag filled with papers of phrases and things. Over the years, I’ll reach in and pull something out. It’s kind of a note to self--hopefully I can remember what I was thinking when I wrote it down. Title, song ideas, phrases, lyrical snippets. Then, I try and flesh those out. Either they’re successful or abandoned.

As far as musically, I don’t know--just kind of absorbing things from over the years, but nothing specific. Specific things in songs--“I think this is kind of like a Spacemen 3 part, or this is what so and so would do, or this is the part of the movie where this happens.” Trying and go down that road. We worked out a bunch of songs, and these were the ones we thought were the most successful, musically and lyrically. Our older records we made really fast. I was always under-prepared. We did a lot of writing as we were making it. This one was really consciously worked on--the rhythm of the singing, the words. There was a lot of self-editing going on.

SILY: How long had these songs been around? How long had you been working on them?

CL: It varies. A couple go back quite some time. We got back together and did a bunch of shows, and after that, we were like, “We need to make a record.” They go back 2-4 years. Some are really new. Some we immediately started working on. As we were making the record, some songs were very, very new, so we hashed them out in the studio and then recorded them. Those are always the most fun. It’s a fun experiment in the lab. You don’t have time to overthink it. If it’s something you’ve been working on for two years, you’re almost getting tired of it. There’s not that sense of discovery.

SILY: I want to ask you about a few songs specifically. “Turn and Smile” sounds like a breakup song. Is that what it’s actually about?

CL: In my mind, that song is a breakup song, but it’s a breakup like these two characters are involved in some sort of caper. Something’s going on. A double crosser gets double crossed. It’s kind of like some wild youths on a wild spree of some sort. He gets left behind. She goes on. This part in the song--we made a video for the song that explains things a bit better, and then you’ll be like, “Oh, okay!” There’s a part where he’s talking to a detective in an interrogation room, and it’s basically him recounting the story. It’s quite a narrative type song.

SILY: There seem to be a couple tracks rooted in a story, but to the outsider, you could be talking to your younger selves. “Listen, Sonny Boy”--were you addressing your younger selves?

CL: You’re not the first person to say that. No, I don’t think so. I could be. A lot of this, if you psychoanalyzed it, could be directed at myself. If that’s what you get out of it, that’s great. In my mind, it’s talking to a little street urchin type character trying to see their way to a better life, and that person is trying to help them.

SILY: Are all of the songs on the record these stories of generic characters?

CL: They’re not generic; they’re quite specific.

SILY: Are they based on real people?

CL: Some of them are, absolutely. I’m not gonna say who, but yeah. I’ve talked to people about this before--a song can start one way, move somewhere else, and then come back. A lot of it for me is very visual, so I can see everything playing out in my mind. But I can’t be descriptive in a song as I can on the page.

SILY: Have you ever thought about doing a visual album or doing a video for every song?

CL: I would love to do something like that. But just the one we did was intensely time consuming. If I had the time and the money and maybe the technical ability, it would be great to bring those songs to life the way I see them. That’d be fun.

SILY: On “Closest To Heaven”, when you sing, “Take a deep breath and blow the cobwebs away,” are you talking to the band?

CL: Oh yeah. That’s definitely about getting the band back together.

SILY: The song has some squalling feedback in the beginning that carries through the song. It’s an obvious intentional choice, but it’s a funny image, because traditionally, that’s the sign of a rusty band.

CL: There’s a bunch of little doohickeys stuck here and there.

SILY: What was the recording and mixing of the album like?

CL: We tried to do it several years ago. We made demos on phones or recording apps. We went to a friend’s house in Athens who has a studio in his basement and tried to record the songs. Then we went to another friend’s house and recorded a version of “Go Tell Everybody”. That kind of helped us figure out what we were gonna do, and we settled on a studio close to here. We went to one place to record the drums, went to another place and added stuff, and went back to the original place and mixed it. We bashed out the skeleton and then put some meat on the bones.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the record title?

CL: We got to that point where we were trying to think of something. That’s another thing I had written down. “6th House” is part of astrology. This is the sixth house I’ve lived in--I’ve moved around a lot. It worked on multiple levels. And then Chris Verene had that incredible photograph, so I was like, “Yep, this is what it’s called!”

SILY: Did you know that photo was going to be the album art right when you saw it?

CL: That’s in Galesburg, Illinois. It’s part of a project that Chris has been doing for three decades about his family who live there. I went through a lot of images, and that one of the tree on the house and a disaster averted--it doesn’t seem like there’s much damage as there could have been--I just liked that it epitomizes our walk through this world a little bit. 

SILY: Did you know you wanted to use a photo of his?

CL: Most definitely. We’ve used a lot of his photographs in the past, and I kind of wanted to keep the tradition. So it’s kind of a throwback to earlier records stylistically.

[cheapibizaholiday1]

Will the Expansion of Plano’s Legacy Hall Feed a Suburban Shift in North Texas Nightlife?

The Box Garden at Legacy Hall. courtesy Box Garden

The high-density centers of Dallas and Fort Worth have always offered the lion’s share of concerts, plays, operas, and food and art events with a plethora of venues, museums, and restaurants. Denton’s DIY venues and music school courtesy the University of North Texas nurtured emerging talent; new restaurants and development followed. In the last year, suburbs have been making a major push to outbid the cities at the North Texas triangle’s three points for top-notch food and music.

Take, for one, the Toyota Music Factory, which opened in Irving late last year. With its accompanying restaurants, the complex is now competing with Dallas’ front-running venues for popular touring acts like Post Malone, Ray LaMontagne, The Killers, and Joan Jett.

CityLine is stepping up Richardson’s game with dozens of forthcoming eateries, not to mention high-end apartments, office buildings, and a hotel. Then there’s The Star in Frisco, which just welcomed Chef José Andrés’ only location of Zaytinya outside of D.C., along with local stalwarts Dee Lincoln Prime and Cane Rosso.

Consider Plano. The Shops at Legacy have been holding down the North Texas ‘burbs nightlife game for the last fifteen years. Plus, 2017 harkened the arrival of a development just across the tollway at Legacy West: a buzzy three-story food hall with more than 20 food vendors, nine bars, and its own brewery and canning operation called Legacy Hall debuted in December.

Its most recent addition, an outdoor music venue called The Box Garden, quietly assembled some well-known Dallas names to run its programming. The result just might give North Texas’ historic live local music monopolies a run for their money. For now, the growth is moving some players around on the board.

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Heads turned when the creative director for Deep Ellum’s Bomb Factory and Trees, Gavin Mulloy, announced last month that he’d left his post at two of Dallas’ most important venues to assume the marketing director role at Legacy Hall. Soon afterward, Mulloy’s longtime collaborator Trang Nguyen left The Bomb Factory; she landed in Uptown at The Rustic.

One of Mulloy’s key job functions was to book bands at venues, and he became synonymous with Deep Ellum music, often acting as the public face for the big rooms via his involvement with the music community at large. At Legacy Hall, he’ll collaborate on music and events programming for The Box Garden, which he’s done independently and for venues like the Granada Theater before signing on with the Bomb Factory and Trees.

Mulloy joins another booking maven, Tim Ziegler, the former general manager of the Granada Theater, in spearheading the programming efforts at Legacy Hall.

Is this just the first wave of major Dallas culture-creators migrating to the suburbs? Will more follow? Mulloy, for one, still lives in Deep Ellum. It’s too early to say whether he’ll ditch his southern denizens in favor of a suburban pad and shorter commute. As for Ziegler, a musician with a sleeve of tattoos who’s been with Legacy Hall since last April, the M Streets are still home. He’s “East Dallas to the core,” he says.

In Mulloy’s case, the job change was prompted by the growth opportunity with Legacy Hall, which is already breaking ground on similar food halls in Nashville and Atlanta. And, of course, Legacy Hall offered him more money.

Despite people’s assumptions about the ‘burbs, Mulloy assures that they aren’t “uncool” as pop culture or the historic lack of culture, specifically in North Texas’ suburbs, would have us believe.

“I think we all listen to the same music and like the same TV shows,” he says. “Think about this: Scott Beggs [who owns Three Links] has a chess night that’s killing it in Deep Ellum. Every time you go in there now, there’s people playing chess at a punk rock bar. You wouldn’t necessarily associate chess with being ‘cool’ but it’s keeping his bar open and busy.”

“I think this perception of what’s cool in the suburbs versus what’s cool in East Dallas or downtown is a bit of a misnomer because I don’t think areas of towns can be cool, or rooms can be cool,” Mulloy explains. “Rooms are just boxes. It’s what the people in that box do, and the ideas they can generate.”

To that end, Mulloy and Ziegler are luring some of Dallas’ biggest talent up to Plano to grace The Box Garden stage, including Sarah Jaffe on May 18 for its grand opening weekend. Her’s is one of the few ticketed events at the mostly free venue, which has already sold out; plus Vandoliers and Kirk Thurmond and the Millennials on May 19; the Polyphonic Spree on June 2; and Bright Light Social Hour comes up from Austin on June 3.

“Just do cool shit and people will come to see it,” Mulloy asserts, expressing no surprise that Sarah Jaffe, one of his and Ziegler’s favorite local musicians, already sold out. “Yeah, we’re certainly not trying to force it, because people can see through that,” Ziegler adds. “She’s the perfect [person] to represent what we’re trying to do here: local, strong, empowered, cutting-edge, and constantly evolving.”

The duo has plans to keep the space filled with not just music but other fun events throughout the year, including Mario Kart competitions that will be projected on the giant LED screen suspended behind the 600-square-foot stage, Wiffle ball tournaments in the massive outdoor space (picnic style seating can be removed for flexibility), plus a roller rink during nice weather, and an ice rink during winter months to keep people coming out when the weather isn’t so nice.

The guys aren’t hemmed in creatively — they’re not beholden to ticket sales at the fledgling venue. “There’s really no boundaries yet,” Mulloy states gleefully, to which Ziegler adds, “There’s certainly a lot of ridiculous ideas thrown around in meetings, but out of those ridiculous ideas, we get some traction.”

“It’s all built around discovery,” Ziegler explains. Legacy Hall bills itself an incubator for food vendors to get a local foothold before expanding their operations elsewhere, and The Box Garden operates with a similar vision as an incubator for talent that’s already recognized locally to grow to the next level. Mulloy and Ziegler plan to book regional and national touring acts as well.

“What it boils down to is, we’re just throwing parties. It’s not a symphony, we’re just helping people have fun at the end of the day,” Mulloy says. “If you’re around fun people, having fun is easier, and that’s what I see from everybody here. I threw the best parties of anyone in college; Tim throws the best parties of anyone in his group… We’re assembling an all-star squad. I might just be the least talented person here,” he says wryly.

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[umnachtung]

survey stealing prof strikes

A How artistic are you? Pretty much I guess? I mostly draw tho. But I like singing and dancing and I recently got more into writing.

Do you want to go to Africa? I kinda want to see Egypt tbh.

AC/DC or Aerosmith? neither ->same

Do you know what Armenia is?

Yeah.

B

What’s your beer of choice (if any)? Störtebeker Bernsteinweizen probably 

Do you know the title of Buffalo Springfield’s one-hit wonder? probably but I suck at recognizing names.

Do you have a brother? (Do you like it that way?) No, but maybe I am. -x-files teme playing-

Which bank do you use? Spaßkasse

C Which comedian do you most enjoy? IDK, McElroy brothers?

Would you ever live in California? Nope.

Is it possible/likely that you’ll become a cat lady? Probably.

How many different countries have visited? 3

D Do you believe there’s a devil? No.

Does eating dessert often make you feel guilty? Naw.

Can you legally drive? Nope.

What have you been diagnosed with (if you don’t mind sharing)? Nothing yet. But I have finally some psyche appointments.

E How often do you drink energy drinks? never-> same

Where did you live when you were 11 years old? Berlin, Germany

Do you like the actor who played Edward Scissorhands in that movie? Eh. -vague hand gestures- Never cared much for him.

Have you ever felt an earthquake? nope.

F When was the last time you saw your father one-on-one? Yesterday.

Do you think French is the most beautiful language? Not the most, but I think it sounds neat.

Is Friday your favorite day of the week? uhhh... i supposeee?

Have you listened to Jimi’s song ‘Fire?’ nope.

G Do you have real gold jewelry? Lmao

How often do you watch ‘Gossip Girl’? Never. I dont care much about live action shows tbh.

Is Google your homepage? yup

Do you like Geico’s commercials? What is that?

H When did you last feel happy? :T HRRRMMN

Do you prefer Hollister, Hot Topic, or H&M? none of these tbh.

Did you dress up last Halloween? No, but I went to a convention cosplaying for 2 days close to Halloween so I guess that counts.

Would you voluntarily watch the History Channel? depends on the topic of the show -> same

I Have you ever been on an island? No..???

Would you be able to locate Indonesia on a globe? yes.

Do you know if Iceland or Greenland has more ice? Yeah.

Did you watch the last presidential inauguration? Naw...

J Do you enjoy jogging?  Maybe if i was in a isolated chamber with no one around to watch and in silence.

On which instrument could you most easily play ‘Jingle Bells’? guitar???

How much do you know about John Lennon? Nothing much really.

Do you know how Jell-O is made? Hot water and jelly powder probably, just in big quantities.

K Have you tried Krispy Kreme doughnuts? (Was it love at first bite?) Nope. I donut know how they taste.

Are you very afraid of North Korea? Not really.

How many pairs of khaki pants do you own? none -> same

Have you ever been a fan of the Killers? Naw. I don’t listen to much of their songs.

L Does it bother you when couples are lovey-dovey in public? Yeah, because I think it’s kind of gross for some reason? Not much a fan of PDA. I really don’t like it in video or movies either if they go on full on make out spree. Hand holding and small affectionate gestures are ok tho.

Do you have your own lighter (why or why not)? No, but I kinda want one.

In how many languages (besides English) can you count to 100? 2

What’s your favorite lollipop flavor? uhhhhhhh, lime?

M Do you believe in miracles (why or why not)? I believe in random favorable occurrences you cant manipulate the chances of happening.

What do you think of shows like Maury and Jerry Springer? Don’t know em, Don’t care?

Do you care that Mars (the candy co.) uses deadly animal testing? This is new to me.

How did you form your opinion of marijuana? Through observing people affected by it around me. It seems, uh... harmless compared to other drugs? would try in safe environment but not as a joint. -shrugs-

N How often do you sleep naked? idk i dont keep count of that.

Do you actually check the Nutrition Facts before eating something? not really.

Who is your favorite musical artist/band beginning with ‘N’? Nine Inch Nails ????

How nerdy are you (in what ways)? Obscure niche nerdy with all that roleplaying and character making but not much into popular fandom stuff these days. I am too slow for it. Batman is ok?

O What do you think about olives? give them to me.

Are you much of an outdoorsy person? I would if the outdoor was not so noisy. 

How big of an Oprah fan are you? Not at all. We don’t have the show here so -shrugs-

How often do you shop online? Never. No moneys.

P Are you looking forward to your prom? If you already went, how was it? no proms in Germany -> can confirm.

How are your local policemen? Wearing blue, driving around in cars. iDK.

What is your ideal PB&J sandwich like? Eh... not much of a fan of those.

What do you think of the movie ‘Pineapple Express’? don’t know it -> same.

Q How true is the saying, ‘quitters never win and winners never quit’? kind of problematic. because sometimes you have to quit if it affects your future well-being imo???

Do you prefer Quiznos or Subway and why? None of them.

Have you learned the quadratic formula yet? (Do you remember it?) I did and i forgot  about it. Could def get into  it again but currently idfk how that one works. What is the one question you most want to ask someone and who? When will my motivation come back from war?

R How many rooms are in your home? 3

Do you like raspberries? yesss

What’s one of your best memories from during a rain storm? The experience of a pitch black night by a lake and the lighting turning the scenery black and white for a moment. pretty intense and cool.

Have you actually read Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’? No, don’t care about this “classic.”

S Do you know any Sign Language? a little??? What is your sleeping schedule generally like? 2 -4 am til 12 - 14 pm :I

How well do you sing? okayish?

How often do you listen to 60-70’s music? a lot recently. Especially 70s psychedelic rock.

T What do you think of Twitter? I have one. It’s still confusing.

How much do you value the Ten Commandments? They are reasonable. Actually I think they should be a given(4th to 10ths). Weither you believe in a God or not? Like just be a fuckin’ decent human being?

Are there many trees where you live? yeh!

How much taller/shorter do you wish to be? I’m decently sized but a bit taller would be cool?

U Where do you usually buy your underwear? bon prix, h&m, c&a ?

How do you define ‘ugly’? Gross and morally unacceptable behavior?

Do you like to shop at Urban Outfitters? We dont have that here.

V Would you like being described as ‘voluptuous’? Uhhh... idk. describe me as bode instead?

For listening to music, do you like to crank up the volume or keep it calm? depends on the song and if I am alone at  home or not.

Do you ever watch the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show? No. the hell...?

Would you agree that ‘variety is the spice of life’? yeah.

W Are you currently on wireless Internet? no.

Can you recall memories of learning how to whistle? Yeah, my family made fun of me for not doing it right.

Do you go to White Castle or just vicariously through ‘Harold & Kumar’? Sure, just let me walk over  the fucking ocean to get there, I suppose.

Have you gone to Washington, DC? Did you like it? (OR do you want to go?) What even is there that makes it interesting to go there?

X Why did you need your most recent x-ray and what were the results? For my wisdom teeth surgery last year. I now am wisdom teeth free.

When it comes to ‘xoxo’, do you interpret ‘x’ as the hug or the kiss? I honestly read it as it says and not think much of hugs and kisses.

What does X stand for in Roman numerals? Can you write the previous number? ten. IX

Why do you think xylophones are only popular with young children? Because no one shows you big xylophones and that they can be cool beyond the age of 5.

Y Can you explain the meaning of the yin-yang symbol? Balance between two opposites?

Do people more often mistake you as being younger or older than you are?

I have no clue.

Did you know that yawning is contagious?

yes.

Would you like a bottle of Yoo-Hoo or it’s not really your thing? What even is that?

Z How many places’ zip codes do you know by heart? 

None.

What comes to mind when I say ‘Zero to Hero’? Robots movie and disney hercules.

[alexstrick]

Language Learner's Journal: Phone Calls and Timed Breaks

[This is a continuation of Taylor's blog series where she details some of the week-in-week-out lessons that she learns through her Arabic studies and coaching work together with me. For other posts in the series, click here.] 

I haven't written in this space in a bit because I've been taking breaks, both extended ones and daily small ones. At first I was anxious about "wasting" time by taking a sort of staycation holiday, but I'm seeing now it did me well.

Two friends came to visit me around Ramadan, and I threw a lot of my daily habits to the wind to enjoy having them here. One stayed an entire month – having a friend from Rio de Janeiro to pound pavement around this city with me during the unique time which is Ramadan was a fine way to enjoy what is otherwise a rather quiet and still time. I think together we made as many Jordanian friends as I had otherwise made in the six months before she came. We went to multiple yoga classes, including the Indian embassy's "International Day of Yoga," took a makeup shopping spree with two young women we met at Amman's Roman amphitheatre and waded through Wadi Mujib with a guide who seemed happy to have any clients during a slow month. There's something to be said for the "reset" button you can push when you have the novelty and joy of seeing a place through a visitor's eyes. 

Even as I wasn't studying formally and took a month off from classes, I still had useful, spontaneous ways to put my language to use. I got a speeding ticket on the way back from the Baptism site, which taught me some useful new vocabulary words (مخالفة غرامة، رخص). I even tried to argue with the officer that we couldn't see the sign because it was covered by a tree, but I was not successful (that said, the ticket was only 20JOD). During a week-long trip to Greece, a friend who took me to Athens' central fish market told me one of the men working at a booth was Syrian, so I went and introduced myself. It is a motivation super-charger to see how someone lights up to hear their own language when everything else around them sounds like Greek. 

When my trips were finished, I sat down with Alex's "Mastering Arabic" to review and refresh my study methods. I'm doing decently with motivation, a topic Alex covers at length. Learning Arabic has always been a project stemming from intrinsic motivation, something I chose to do for and by myself. I have no hoops to jump through to please an employer or scholarship committee – for now, I define my own success, which usually is satisfaction at being able to make a phone call or recalling a precise and useful word I've studied and putting it to use in the real world. 

"Mastering Arabic" did prompt me to think more about time organization methods, which I had let slide into just some vague sort of maximalism ("I have the evening free and will study as much as possible.") Two methods that have been useful are to divide tasks into discrete parts and then "reward" myself by taking a break afterward. That may mean: Read one story in حكايتهن from the UNRWA and then take a break by chatting on Whatsapp, or make Anki cards for 45 minutes then go do pushups while listening to Despacito. 

I've also made more active use of a language notebook. In the past, I took notebooks to class, but wasn't proactive enough to take it to stores or pull it out as soon as a friend and I part ways. One of my favorite exercises now is to try to recall new words or types of sentences I heard the soonest possible after I finish an activity – that recently included زبيب and شمندر after trips buying groceries, and اخبرني عنك and شو خطة الليل؟ when I listened in on phone conversations. I heard a friend say ...كنت رح اشتغل في محل بس كان عندي مشكلة and jotted it down. I've been feeling that what I lack is many basic speaking forms and daily vocabulary, and as simple as many of these things are, I didn't know them beforehand – I wouldn't have know how to say "I was going to do X" and that it was such a simple construction. I've long been a podcast fan, and now, when circumstances permit, I listen with a notebook beside me to jot down anything new. (My favorite new podcast discovery is عيب، which is in Jordanian colloquial Arabic and on subjects very accessible to me.) I've returned to private classes twice a week with a fabulous new teacher, so I bring her the questions that have accumulated in the days between our meetings. 

Alex is a big proponent of making phone calls, which for me is one of the final frontiers for language learning – it's hard to have no visual cues and introduce yourself coherently when you are a disembodied foreign voice over the phone and ask for things like interviews or deliveries. Thankfully, each successful call boosts my confidence a bit more, though I can't say I'm great – I stutter and stammer a lot, and I speak much more simply than I know how to speak if you gave me a quiet space and time to compose my thoughts. Still, to my delight, I was able to speak several times with a business whose employees I sought to interview, to my landlady to complain that she's been locking our veranda door unnecessarily, and to order food deliveries and try to explain where I live ("between the liquor store and the dukan of fulan"). My comprehension rate is variable – I understand nothing my building's haris tells me on the phone other than a general sense that he is granting or denying my request, but, thankfully, he seems to understand me.

A final reflection on taking breaks: When I was hosting visitors, I had moments of stress about how behind I was getting. I could do some calculation for you about how many words I "lost" by kicking back and speaking more English, Portuguese, and Spanish on a daily basis than Arabic. 

That said, the break served me well. One, it was nice to reflect on what language skills are – not a one-time performance but a world of abilities we keep in our pockets and pull out often at unexpected times. I haven't been in a Spanish class in about ten years, but I still am making friends and enjoying pop music in the language. Many of Alex's techniques are about how to maintain language abilities, i.e., not how to just do well on a test but recall vocabulary even several years from now. 

Two, athletic comparisons have always made sense to me when it comes to tackling this difficult project which is learning Arabic. My Rio de Janeiro guest added a new layer to that analogy when she began to show me what she was learning in her advanced yoga and acrobatics classes back home. My mode of exercise had long been about having time to daydream while I threw my body into motion, muscles and mind unattached while I ran ten, fifteen, twenty miles with little effort and thought. A pushup, on the other hand, or playing a competitive strategy-based sport was always difficult to me. The difference, my guest said, is attention to form and control and knowing that it won't "be natural" and effortless in the beginning. We practiced yoga chaturangas and headstands, two exercises that require total concentration and engagement rather than "zoning out." We also talked about rest. Nobody will run well if they run every day; yoga always ends with a savasana "corpse pose." The rest makes us more energetic and more engaged the next time we work out, pushing forward the frontiers of what one day will become natural for us. 

P.S. – This blog writing was also a timed activity. I went a little over my allotted hour-time block, but still wrote swiftly. Now, I'm off to do some pushups.