#it's not well written but I loved that bit because it's such a wonderful microcosm of the way torr is even before the murder cult thing

[ehlnofay]

19 for the worldbuilding prompts + Torr?

the profound quiet of a small settlement at night

North Eastmarch is freezing cold all over, but it wears different outside the city than within.

Torr would never call Windhelm warm – not even in summer months, no matter how used to it they are – but what little heat it has it clings to with great determination. The walls huddle together, trapping the air so that it’s either still and muggy or a howling wind, like each close-knit house is breathing in tandem. The heat of the people run up and down its streets, blood through its knotted stone veins. The city is alive, an ecosystem unto itself; its snow, dark with footprints, runs sludgy down the roads; a fireplace is always burning somewhere.

Outside of the walls, surrounded by nothing but empty air and snow-laden trees, a slow-moving stream running with barely a burble – it feels dead, in contrast. Silent. Branches reach needle-sharp across the blue-black sky, the ground is gleaming white and undisturbed by anyone else’s footprints, and the nearest fire is the barely visible gleam of the Kynesgrove mining camp, up the hill and through the sporadic spindles of the trees. The breeze ghosts past Torr’s neck and whips the mud-stained snow into a flurry.

In the city, Torr’s comfortable sleeping almost anywhere – as comfortable as they ever get, anyway. Some of the buildings have great gaps under the porch where the snow can’t reach and no-one ever finds them; there’s places in the nooks of the walls, and sheds built into the side of the house that people don’t lock, and Torr knows a few people besides who don’t mind him kipping on their floor every now and again, as long as he doesn’t ask too often. The outside isn’t like that. There’s not many places to go. He’s lurking around Kynesgrove tonight – on his way back from a quick venture out to get some things done that pay better than running errands around the markets – and there aren’t many options. The inn, which he can’t afford – the mine, which would be warm but is very guarded – the miner’s encampment or someone’s house, both of which would most likely result in being chased off. Besides, there’s a performative element to meeting people, especially adults, in strange places, and Torr’s not in the mood to play to strangers. So much of his being is caught up in Windhelm’s grimy alleys, tangled in the hair and fingers of its discarded children; he doesn’t know how to be himself away from it all.

But they don’t have to, seeing as there’s the rickety old sawmill on the edge of a stream feeding into the harbour. It’s not bad, as shelter goes; no walls, so the wind rubs its fingers wraithlike down Torr’s cheeks and tangles them in his hair, but at least there’s a roof. It looks newly thatched, too, the floorboards free of rot, the water-wheel still chugging creakily along. There’s no wood to cut here, all the nearby surrounding trees too scraggy to be worth the bother. The only big ones are part of the grove up on the hill. There’s no point in keeping the mill running, but Torr is glad it is; he watches the distant firelight flickering through the scrub, and listens to the splashing of the wheel. It’s proof that people and the things they make do still exist – if not necessarily here.

It really feels dead, out in the cold, with the leafless trees and the wind that doesn’t even whisper. It always does. It’s a bit discomfiting, which is maybe why Torr doesn’t go on out-of-city endeavours as often as perhaps he could; but really, there’s not work out here enough to make it worth it. There’s always problems with bandits on the road, but Torr’s not a good enough fighter for bounty work; there’s collecting plants and things to sell Nurelion, but that’s easy enough to do on a day trip. (And, really, it’s more for Torr’s own enjoyment, besides. They never even venture far south enough to get to the sulphur pools, which is where the more interesting things grow.)

This trip, though, is an outlier. Unusually efficient. Just a quick job for Niranye, scouting a merchant’s cart on the road – almost definitely for something shady, but that’s not Torr’s business, and it was too much money too easy to turn down. And then – just earlier today, foraging out in the wilderness as best as Torr (a distinctly urban animal) knows how – they’d come across a giant’s corpse, stiff and white as the snow it lay in. Torr’s no master alchemist but they know the value of a cadaver when it comes to brewing alloys and admixtures, so they set to with their blunt-edged dagger and now they’ve got a sack full of what may as well be gold. (Long as it doesn’t start to rot before they can get Nurelion to preserve it, anyway.)

Torr’s going to be rolling in it when they get back to Windhelm. They could use that money for nearly anything – pay off a few things they borrowed, new warm things now that winter’s coming back strong, bedrolls, waterskins. Endless options – which, strangely, is more exciting than it is burdensome.

It’s all the sort of decision that would ordinarily feel life-or-death urgent but right now feels – not small. Not insignificant, not at all, but distant. A choice to be made at another time, by another person.

(Torr’s whole being belongs to Windhelm’s back streets. They’re someone else, away from it all.)

That’s the other thing about leaving the city, spending time in the discomfiting slow-paced ghost-world outside. It’s quiet. Torr sits surrounded by the wind in the trees, the lazy murmur of the stream, the creak of the water-wheel, and nothing else.

He’s been called a worrywart (mostly by Griss in a strop) but to tell the truth he doesn’t think that’s true. Torr doesn’t fuss for the sake of fussing, he just doesn’t like to leave things undone; can’t stop until he finds a solution. Out here, alone, in the empty cold, there are no solutions to find – same old problems back home, he knows, but no steps he can take at this time to right them. That’s never true while he’s in the city, so he can never stop thinking about it, every choice and action accompanied by a buzzing background chorus of everything else he really should be doing – that really should have been done by now – that should never have been left undone this long, what was he thinking? Everything is urgent when it’s doable. But here and now, there’s nothing to do.

So Torr sits hunched on the board floor of the ramshackle watermill, huddled among their heaps of bags and blankets, and thinks of nothing at all.

Not strictly true. They think of supper – haven’t eaten since an apple this morning, except for some snowberries they found around noon, and it’s been a long day. They nabbed some turnips from the garden of the Kynesgrove inn on their way to the mill. They’re fresh, if nothing else – also covered in dirt, so Torr rises reluctantly from their pile of stuff to crouch on the banks of the stream and dip the vegetables in to clean them off. It aches like hell, the frozen water turning their joints to ice – they almost drop the turnip they’re washing, so they scrub it as best they can with the frigid pad of their thumb and whip their hands out of the water soon as they’re able. They stick their fingers in their mouth to warm them back up.

Even after all that time spent warming up their hands, arraying all their belongings back around themself to conserve body heat, the turnips are still cold enough to hurt Torr’s teeth when he bites in. He eats them anyway, relishing a little in the unearthly silence and the aching of his lips and palms. They taste delicious.

With nothing else to do after, the gnawing of his stomach sated, he wraps himself in his shawl and stares up the hill at the camp’s fire until it goes out. The stars wink into brighter being. The wind whistles through the whip-thin branches of the trees. The water-wheel creaks.

Torr sleeps, but he feels like he hears it all – a silent observer, an echo, a beginning – until morning.

[terranoctis]

Favorites of February

I got to enjoy some rather strong stories this month. They're not listed in this post, but I had more short films to watch this month than I did previous month, by nature of me being busier with family coming from out of town and then going on a trip. I have to say--it's wild to try and watch a short film at 3am right before you go to sleep because it's the only time you have to yourself in a house full of people. However, oddly enough, I think I watched more feature-length films this month that I liked a ton, more so than last month. I've managed another month! It's getting more difficult to slim down favorite selections from each category because there's so many good songs and stories out there. There's honestly a novel and a few other movies I thought about including as well, but this list of favorites is long enough as it is. As before, spoiler warnings with a few of my thoughts:

Films:

Anatomy of a Fall (2023) I can see why this film was nominated for Best Picture (notably it also won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, which is quite prestigious when you consider previous winners like Parasite). It's perhaps one of the best-written films and directed films I've had the chance to see this year, and provokes quite a bit of thinking into the human condition and how we perceive an individual in the microcosm of something like a death and suspected murder. The movie itself centers on whether a woman had involvement in her husband's death from a fall or not, but the film notably is more concerned with how it affects the various people about, like her son and her life in the center of the trial as well as the scrutiny everyone else has on them. I think this is one of the few movies that my words kind of inadequately fail to address how smart and good this film is. Sandra Huller is a tour de force in this film. That being said--I will say the way the court system is portrayed in this film is a little comical. I'm sure I don't know a thing about the French justice system--but in what world are people constantly allowed to interject during a cross-examination?

American Fiction (2023) I don't know if it will win, but I truly hope American Fiction wins for best Adapted Screenplay this year. I have one more film I need to see in the adapted screenplay category of those nominated for the Oscars, but I would say this one in particular was my favorite screenplay so far. Granted, I have not read the source material so I can't attest to how faithfully it adapts the novel Erasure, but as a film, I thought it was quite well-written. It's a film that focuses on how writing presents itself and the concept of embracing stereotypes in order to sell a book. I think it was particularly witty in its approach. Jeffrey Wright does a great job in his role. I kind of loved this movie in particular because it's about how language is used and depicted to sell--and the irony of having to sell out who you are in order to be something others think you are for.

Spirited Away: Live on Stage (2022) It's strange how this stage play feels more true to its source material, the wonderful Spirited Away film from Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, than all live film adaptations I can recall at the moment that I've seen of other animated films. The stage play embraces the strange spirits you see in the colorful world of Spirited Away and wholeheartedly delves into how stagecraft works. In contrast to how films embrace some visual effects, the stage play embraces wholeheartedly the audience's capability to experience a live stage play constructed of so many people working to perform. You kind of marvel at Kaonashi being made of several dancers shrouded in black. You giggle and watch in awe the various puppeteers who act the roles of the spirt creatures. You feel everything in the way Chihiro acts and the moving music from Joe Hisaishi. It's one of the best plays I've seen.

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (2021) I wanted to see this film when it came out a few years back, but for one reason or another, didn't have a chance to. I am honestly so happy I got to see it this month. It's a strange little film, a hybrid live / stop-motion animated film about a shell named Marcel and a man named Dean who films a mockumentary about Marcel's life. It's in some ways a slice of life film, though there is the through arc of Marcel's search for his family. The film is one of the most charming films I've ever seen and I couldn't help smiling when I was watching it. It's a film that illustrates community and connection in such a charmingly absurd way. It's a film that probably will be one of my feel-good films for years to come.

The Piano (1993) This is perhaps one of the best shot period films I've ever seen. There are beautiful shots in its cinematography, both in a wide landscape context and framed shots of mundane things like her portrait or a cup of tea. Its premise is strong too, with a mute female lead named Ada and a precocious young daughter moving to an island with her new husband and some local natives and a local farmer. There are some questionable choices in narrative: woman falls in love with man who tries to bargain with her into sleeping with him by holding her piano hostage. However, in this story, it's also one of the few choices Ada has made for herself and you can slightly forgive this plot choice in the face of the lack of agency she has in the overall context of story. Ada being mute adds a layer of complexity to this, but in many ways, Ada's story is also the story of any woman during this time subject to male's whims. It's quite telling her only sense of joy and independence is her love for her piano--and the film shows tragically quite how much her surroundings can take that away from her. Even the only love she has for a man is in relation to her piano. The piano is truly the vessel of her agency and the film beautifully illustrates all this. Sometimes even when agency has been taken from us though, we find it again in other kinds of places (and pianos) and try to live. I'm not sure I liked the ending, but I do like that it didn't have to end in her death, I think. So many times we've had that tragic Anna Karenina death that I don't necessarily want it every time a woman is forced to lose her agency and her love.

Song of the Sea (2014) As someone who has personally been into Irish/Celtic folklore and seen the artwork for Song of the Sea for years, I've always wanted to see this film. Having now seen it, it's perhaps one of my favorite animated films ever. It sort of brings the same kind of joy and wonder to my heart that Spirited Away did the first time I saw it. I'm certain the animation, music, and the story being steeped in that folklore puts it on a higher notch for me than it should, so I will admit I'm biased, but even so, I just sort of loved this film in the way I loved certain older fantasy novels as a child. It's like knowing that it's not going to be the best book for everyone else and it's not even technically the best animation out there for its time, but somehow it's just the book I want to read. So I loved it. Lisa Hannigan has also been a voice I've been listening to for years and I was pleasantly surprised to hear her in the film's soundtrack. The film also sort of had a personal connection for me, as a younger sister to one older brother. We don't always get along, but there's that kind of sibling affection that perseveres regardless-- as it does in this film.

Twelfth Night, performed at the Globe (2012) Twelfth Night holds a special place in my heart for being my first Shakespeare play and how it handles fluidity in gender roles and the romances depicted. This in particular was a fantastic performance that kept most true the comedic timing and staging I imagined Shakespeare envisioned during his time. TN being performed in the historic Globe theatre and having an all-male cast adds a layer of callback to the past where Shakespeare plays were staged with all men. Mark Rylance as Olivia is perhaps one of the funniest actors I've seen in a more traditionally-styled play--and yet it's also something I wasn't sure exactly if I liked. In my reading of the play, I always envisioned Olivia as a more reserved woman (with intelligence level to Viola's), even if there is comedy in her accidentally being besotted with Viola. Rylance's depiction brings Olivia to a whole new level of laughter (with impeccable comedic timing), but his performance also in some ways shifts Olivia to a shrill and impetuous woman in love. However, that's drama--there are only so much words on a page will do in acting. In the end, an actor brings the character to life--and I both liked and disliked how Olivia was brought to life. Nonetheless, this was a fantastic live performance that had me laughing the way I imagined a crowd of Shakespearean times had.

Literature

"An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos, Elektra by Sophokles, Orestes by Euripides", translated by Anne Carson I think tumblr users will know this translation in particular because it's the infamous lines Orestes and Pylades share with one another in the form of "I'll take care of you / It's rotten work / Not to me. Not if it's you." That line is still fantastic in the context of the play. That being said, I did think Elektra was the most interesting to me of the three plays. Elektra's words could be haunting and beautiful in some scenes. Anne's translation of the plays does a great job of making these Greek tragedies much more accessible to a contemporary audience, and she makes it more poetic. I read Orestes in a seemingly more literal translation prior to reading her translation, and she does a good job of making the words breathe and fun to read by comparison. I'm not an Ancient Greek scholar, however, so I cannot attest to how accurate her translations are. Fun aside to this is that I am watching a very intriguing performance, done with masks and drums, of all the plays of the Oresteia which I hope to finish sometime this year. There are three plays in the Oresteia traditionally, and in total, the trilogy of plays is five hours long. It should be noted the stage play's Oresteia notably differs from Carson's selection for Oresteia, since I believe it's all from Euripides whereas Carson selects from different playwrights for her collection.

"Circe" by Madeleine Miller So this month was clearly my Greek tragedy/mythology month. I finally took the time to read and finish this! I loved her other novel "The Song of Achilles" and knew I wanted to read this too. It's easy to compare the two since they're written by the same author, but they are also very different in themes and execution. If TSOA is about profound love for one person and the focus on a hero from one beside him, then Circe focuses more on loving your mortality and the experiences that come with it as the person experiencing it directly. It's a story that namely brings voice to a character in a margin of the Odyssey and other Greek tales. Miller continues to enamor me with how she writes. I shifted between reading it directly from a copy of the novel my friend gifted to me and listening to the audiobook of it, which gave me both experiences of the prose--and they were both good, in my opinion. It is a tad long-winded at times, but I still enjoyed it.

Music

"Give Me Love," Jessie Reid Her voice and the instrumentals in this track are beautiful and haunting at the same time. It's a song I find myself listening to on cold mornings and walks.

"Bottle Rocket," Jimi Somewhere I first heard this in Anyone But You and though the film was an alright film (enjoyable, but not the best rom-com out there), this song in particular sold the dramatic climax of the film. Its piano riff is one of the most memorable I've heard in a song in awhile.

"Too Much," girl in red So... as a pansexual/bi woman, I have heard of girl in red, but have not quite listened to her songs. I heard this new track while looking for new songs though and it kind of made me fall in love with her? It's a song right up my alley and perfectly encapsulates in lyrics the way someone you love can make you feel so small.

"lavender," JVKE (feat. Pink Sweat$) Happened to hear this song on a new release playlist and I rather like the music. Lyrically it's not quite that strong, but somehow the music and the layering of his voice in the track's production makes me keep listening to this song. I'm interested in hearing more of his songs in the future. He has some pretty good songs. Special shoutout as well to JVKE's Golden Hour, which I first listened to this month and should be on this list as well--but I didn't want to drag my list out.

"Amhrán Na Farraige", Lisa Hannigan There are several variations of this particular song, with and without singing, but I am particularly fond of the song being sung in Irish. The song is from a fantastic soundtrack written by Bruno Coulais and Kila for Song of the Sea, sung in this instance by Lisa Hannigan, whom I have loved listening to since I was in high school. It's such a beautiful song for a lovely, charming film.

[xoruffitup]

Annette: The AD Devotee Review

So I saw Annette on its premiere night in Cannes and I’m still trying to process and make sense of those 2.5 hours of utter insanity. I have no idea where to begin and this is likely going to become an unholy length by the time I’m finished, so I apologize in advance. But BOY I’ve got a lot to parse through!!

Let’s start here: Adam’s made plenty of weird movies. The Dead Don’t Die? The Man Who Killed Don Quixote? There are definitely Terry Gilliam-esque elements of the unapologetically absurd and fantastical in Annette, but NOTHING comes close to this film. To put it bluntly, nothing I write in this post can prepare you for the eccentric phantasmagoria you’re about to sit through.

While the melodies conveying the story – at times lovely and haunting, at times whimsical, occasionally blunt and simple – add a unique sense of the surreal, the fact that it’s all presented in song somehow supplies the medium for this bizarre concoction of disparate elements and outlandish storytelling to all coalesce into a single genre-defying, disbelief-suspending whole. That’s certainly not to say there weren’t a few times when I quietly chortled to myself and mouthed “what the fuck” from behind my mask when things took an exceeding turn to the outrageous. This movie needs to be permitted a bit of leeway in terms of quality judgments, and traditional indicators certainly won’t apply. I would say part of its appeal (and ultimately its success) stems from its lack of interest in appealing to traditional arbiters of film structure and viewing experience. The movie lingers in studies of discomfiture (I’ll return to this theme); it presents all its absurdities with brazen pride rather than temperance; and its end is abrupt and utterly jarring. Yet somehow, at the end of it, I realized I’d been white-knuckling that rollercoaster ride the whole way through and loved every last twist and turn.

A note on the structure of this post before I dive in: I’ve written out a synopsis of the whole film (for those spoiler-hungry people) and stashed it down at the bottom of this post, so no one trying to avoid spoilers has to scroll through. If you want to read, go ahead and skip down to that before reading the discussion/analysis. If I have to reference a specific plot point, I’ll label it “Spoiler #___” and those who don’t mind being spoiled can check the correlating numbers in my synopsis to see which part I’m referencing. Otherwise, my discussion will be spoiler-free! I do detail certain individual scenes, but hid anything that would give away key developments and/or the ending.

To start, I’ll cut to what I’m sure many of you are here for: THE MUSICAL SEX SCENES. You want detailed descriptions? Well let’s fucking go because these scenes have been living in my head rent-free!!

The first (yes, there are two. Idk whether to thank Mr. Carax or suggest he get his sanity checked??) happens towards the end of “We Love Each Other So Much.” Henry carries Ann to the bed with her feet dangling several inches off the floor while she has her arms wrapped around his shoulders. (I maybe whimpered a tiny bit.) As they continue to sing, you first see Ann spread on her back on the bed, panting a little BUT STILL SINGING while Henry’s head is down between her thighs. The camera angle is from above Ann’s head, so you can clearly see down her body and exactly what’s going on. He lifts his head to croon a line, then puts his mouth right back to work. 

And THEN they fuck – still fucking singing! They’re on their sides with Henry behind her, and yes there is visible thrusting. Yes, the thrusting definitely picks up speed and force as the song reaches its crescendo. Yes, it was indeed EXTREMELY sensual once you got over the initial shock of what you’re watching. Ann kept her breasts covered with her own hands while Henry went down on her, but now his hands are covering them and kneading while they’re fucking and just….. It’s a hard, blazing hot R rating. I also remember his giant hand coming up to turn her head so he can kiss her and ladkjfaskfjlskfj. Bring your smelling salts. I don’t recommend sitting between two older ladies while you’re watching – KINDA RUINED THE BLATANT, SMOKING HOT ADAM PORN FOR ME. Good god, choose your viewing buddy wisely!

The second scene comes sort of out of nowhere – I can’t actually recall which song it was during, but it pops up while Ann is pregnant. Henry is again eating her out and there’s not as much overt singing this time, but he has his giant hands splayed over her pregnant belly while he’s going to town and whew, WHEW TURN ON THE AIR CONDITIONING PLEASE. DID THE THEATER INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE BY 10 DEGREES, YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT IT DID.

Whew. I think you’ll be better primed to ~enjoy~ those scenes when you know they’re coming, otherwise it’s just so shocking that by the time you’ve processed “Look at Adam eating pussy with reckless abandon” it’s halfway over already. God speed, my fellow rats, it’s truly something to witness!!

Okay. Right. Ahem. Moving right on along….

I’ll kick off this discussion with the formal structure of the film. It’s honestly impossible to classify. I have the questionable fortune of having been taken to many a strange avant-garde operas and art exhibitions by my parents when I was younger, and the strongest parallel I found to this movie was melodramatic opera stagings full of flamboyant flourishes, austere set pieces, and prolonged numbers where the characters wallow at length in their respective miseries. This movie has all the elevated drama, spectacle, and self-aggrandizement belonging to any self-professed rock opera. Think psychedelic rock opera films a la The Who’s Tommy, Hair, Phantom of the Paradise, and hell, even Rocky Horror. Yes, this film really is THAT weird.

But Annette is also in large part a vibrant, absurdist performance piece. The film is intriguingly book-ended by two scenes where the lines blur between actor and character; and your own role blurs between passive viewer and interactive audience. The first scene has the cast walking through the streets of LA (I think?), singing “So May We Start?” directly to the camera in a self-aware prologue, smashing the fourth wall from the beginning and setting up the audience to play a direct role in the viewing experience. Though the cast then disburse and take up their respective roles, the sense of being directly performed to is reinforced throughout the film. This continues most concretely through Henry’s multiple stand-up comedy performances.

Though he performs to an audience in the film rather than directly to live viewers, these scenes are so lengthy, vulgar, and excessive that his solo performance act becomes an integral part of defining his character and conveying his arc as the film progresses. These scenes start to make the film itself feel like a one-man show. The whole shtick of Henry McHenry’s “Ape of God” show is its perverse irreverence and swaggering machismo. Over the span of what must be a five minute plus scene, Henry hacks up phlegm, pretends to choke himself with his microphone cord, prances across the stage with his bathrobe flapping about, simulates being shot, sprinkles many a misanthropic, charmless monologues in between, and ends by throwing off his robe and mooning the audience before he leaves the stage. (Yes, you see Adam’s ass within the film’s first twenty minutes, and we’re just warming up from there.) His one-man performances demonstrate his egocentrism, penchant for lowbrow and often offensive humor, and the fact that this character has thus far profited from indulging in and acting out his base vulgarities.

While never demonstrating any abundance of good taste, his shows teeter firmly towards the grotesque and unsanctionable as his marriage and mental health deteriorate. This is what I’m referring to when I described the film as a study in discomfiture. As he deteriorates, the later iterations of his stand-up show become utterly unsettling and at times revolting. The film could show mercy and stop at one to two minutes of his more deranged antics, but instead subjects you to a protracted display of just how insane this man might possibly be. In Adam’s hands, these excessive, indulgent performance scenes take on disturbing but intriguing ambiguity, as you again wonder where the performance ends and the real man begins. When Henry confesses to a crime during his show and launces into an elaborate, passionate reenactment on stage, you shift uncomfortably in your seat wondering how much of it might just be true. Wondering just how much of an animal this man truly is.

Watching this film as an Adam fan, these scenes are unparalleled displays of his range and prowess. He’s in turns amusing and revolting; intolerable and pathetic; but always, always riveting. I couldn’t help thinking to myself that for the casual, non Adam-obsessed viewer, the effect of these scenes might stop at crass and unappealing. But in terms of the sheer range and power of acting on display? These scenes are a damn marvel. Through these scenes alone, his performance largely imbues the film with its wild, primal, and vaguely menacing atmosphere.

His stand-up scenes were, to me, some of the most intense of the film – sometimes downright difficult to endure. But they’re only a microcosm of the R A N G E he exhibits throughout the film’s entirety. Let’s talk about how he’s animalistic, menacing, and genuinely unsettling to watch (Leos Carax described him as “feline” at some point, and I 100% see it); and then with a mere subtle twitch of his expression, sheen of his eyes, or slump of his shoulders, he’s suddenly a lost, broken thing.  

Henry McHenry is truly to be reviled. Twitter might as well spare their breath and announce he’s already cancelled. He towers above the rest of the cast with intimidating, predatory physicality; he is prone to indulgence in his vices; and he constantly seems at risk of releasing some wild, uncontrollable madness lingering just beneath his surface. But as we all well know, Adam has an unerring talent for lending pathos to even the most objectively condemnable characters.

In a repeated refrain during his first comedy show, the audience keeps asking him, “Why did you become a comedian?” He dodges the question or gives sarcastic answers, until finally circling back to the true answer later in the film. It was something to the effect of: “To disarm people. It’s the only way I can tell the truth without it killing me.” Even for all their sick spectacle, there are also moments in his stand-up shows of disarming vulnerability and (seeming) honesty. In a similar moment of personal exposition, he confesses his temptation and “sympathy for the abyss.” (This phrase is hands down my favorite of the film.) He repeatedly refers to his struggle against “the abyss” and, at the same time, his perceived helplessness against it. “There’s so little I can do, there’s so little I can do,” he sings repeatedly throughout the film - usually just after doing something horrific.

Had he been played by anyone else, the first full look of him warming up before his show - hopping in place and punching the air like some wannabe boxer, interspersing puffs of his cigarette with chowing down on a banana – would have been enough for me to swear him off. His archetype is something of a cliché at this point – a brusque, boorish man who can’t stomach or preserve the love of others due to his own self-loathing. There were multiple points when it was only Adam’s face beneath the character that kept my heart cracked open to him. But sure enough, he wedged his fingers into that tiny crack and pried it wide open. The film’s final few scenes show him at his chin-wobbling best as he crumbles apart in small, mournful subtleties.

(General, semi-spoiler ahead as to the tone of the film’s ending – skip this paragraph if you’d rather avoid.) For a film that professes not to take itself very seriously (how else am I supposed to interpret the freaky puppet baby?), it delivers a harsh, unforgiving ending to its main character. And sure enough, despite how much I might have wanted to distance myself and believe it was only what he deserved, I found myself right there with him, sharing his pain. It is solely testament to Adam’s tireless dedication to breathing both gritty realism and stubborn beauty into his characters that Henry sank a hook into some piece of my sympathy.

Not only does Adam have to be the only actor capable of imbuing Henry with humanity despite his manifold wrongs, he also has to be the only actor capable of the wide-ranging transformations demanded of the role. He starts the movie with long hair and his full refrigerator brick house physique. His physicality and size are actively leveraged to engender a sense of disquiet and unpredictability through his presence. He appears in turns tormented and tormentor. There were moments when I found myself thinking of Conan the Barbarian, simply because his physical presence radiates such wild, primal energy (especially next to tiny, dainty Marion and especially with that long hair). Cannot emphasize enough: The raw sex appeal is off the goddamn charts and had me – a veteran fangirl of 3+ years - shook to my damn core.

The film’s progression then ages him – his hair cut shorter and his face and physique gradually becoming more gaunt. By the film’s end, he has facial prosthetics to make him seem even more stark and borderline sickly – a mirror of his growing internal torment. From a muscular, swaggering powerhouse, he pales and shrinks to a shell of a man, unraveling as his face becomes nearly deformed by time and guilt. He is in turns beautiful and grotesque; sensual and repulsive. I know of no other actor whose face (and its accompanying capacity for expressiveness) could lend itself to such stunning versatility.

Quick note here that he was given a reddish-brown birthmark on the right side of his face for this film?? It becomes more prominent once his hair is shorter in the film’s second half. I’m guessing it was Leos’ idea to make his face even more distinctive and riveting? If so, joke’s on you, Mr. Carax, because we’re always riveted. ☺

I mentioned way up at the beginning that the film is bookended by two scenes where the lines blur between actor and character, and between reality and performance. This comes full circle at the film’s end, with Henry’s final spoken words (this doesn’t give any plot away but skip to the next paragraph if you would rather avoid!) being “Stop watching me.” That’s it. The show is over. He has told his last joke, played out his final act, and now he’s done living his life as a source of cheap, unprincipled laughs and thrills for spectators. The curtain closes with a resounding silence.

Now, I definitely won’t have a section where I talk (of course) about the Ben Solo parallels. He’s haunted by an “abyss” aka darkness inside of him? Bad things happened when he finally gave in and stared into that darkness he knew lived within him? As a result of those tragedies, (SPOILER – Skip to next paragraph to avoid) he then finds himself alone and with no one to love or be loved by? NO I’M DEFINITELY NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL, I’M JUST FINE HERE UNDER MY MOUNTAINS OF TISSUES.

Let’s talk about the music! The film definitely clocks in closer to a rock opera than musical, because almost the entire thing is conveyed through ongoing song, rather than self-contained musical numbers appearing here and there. This actually helps the film’s continuity and pacing, by keeping the characters perpetually in this suspended state of absurdity, always propelled along by some beat or melody. Whenever the film seems on the precipice of tipping all the way into the bleak and dark, the next whimsical tune kicks in to reel us all blessedly back. For example, after (SPOILER #1) happens, there’s a hard cut to the bright police station where several officers gather around Henry, bopping about and chattering on the beat “Questions! We have a few questions!”

Adam integrates his singing into his performance in such a way that it seems organic. I realized after the film that I never consciously considered the quality of his singing along the way. For all that I talked about the film maintaining the atmosphere of a fourth wall-defying performance piece, Adam’s singing is so fully immersed in the embodiment of his character that you almost forget he’s singing. Rather, this is simply how Henry McHenry exists. His stand-up scenes are the only ones in the film that do frequently transition back and forth between speaking and singing, but it’s seamlessly par for the course in Henry’s bizarre, dour show. He breaks into his standard “Now laugh!” number with uninterrupted sarcasm and contempt. There were certainly a few soft, poignant moments when his voice warbled in a tender vibrato you couldn’t help noticing – but otherwise, the singing was simply an extension of that full-body persona he manages to convey with such apparent ease and naturalism.

On the music itself: I’ll admit that the brief clip of “We Love Each Other So Much” we got a few weeks ago made me a tad nervous. It seemed so cheesy and ridiculous? But okay, you really can’t take anything from this movie out of context. Otherwise it is, indeed, utterly ridiculous. Not that none of it is ever ridiculous in context either, but I’m giving you assurances right now that it WORKS. Once you’re in the flow of constant singing and weirdness abound, the songs sweep you right along. Some of the songs lack a distinctive hook or melody and are moreso rhythmic vehicles for storytelling, but it’s now a day later and I still have three of the songs circulating pleasantly in my head. “We Love Each Other So Much” was actually the stand out for me and is now my favorite of the soundtrack. It’s reprised a few times later in the film, growing increasingly melancholy each time it is echoed, and it hits your heart a bit harder each time. The final song sung during (SPOILER #2), though without a distinctive melody to lodge in my head, undoubtedly left me far more moved than a spoken version of this scene would have. Adam’s singing is so painfully desperate and earnest here, and he takes the medium fully under his command.

Finally, it does have to be said that parts of this film veer fully towards the ridiculous and laughable. The initial baby version of the Annette puppet-doll was nothing short of horrifying to me. Annette gets more center-stage screen time in the film’s second half, which gives itself over to a few special effects sequences which look to be flying out at you straight from 2000 Windows Movie Maker. The scariest part is that it all seems intentional. The quality special effects appear when necessary (along with some unusual and captivating time lapse shots), which means the film’s most outrageous moments are fully in line with its guiding spirit. Its extravagant self-indulgence nearly borders on camp.

...And with that, I’ve covered the majority of the frantic notes I took for further reflection immediately after viewing. It’s now been a few days, and I’m looking forward to rewatching this movie when I can hopefully take it in a bit more fully. This time, I won’t just be struggling to keep up with the madness on screen. My concluding thoughts at this point: Is it my favorite Adam movie? Certainly not. Is it the most unforgettable? Aside from my holy text, The Last Jedi, likely yes. It really is the sort of thing you have to see twice to even believe it. And all in all, I say again that Adam truly carried this movie, and he fully inhabits even its highest, most ludicrous aspirations. He’s downright abhorrent in this film, and that’s exactly what makes him such a fucking legend.

I plan to make a separate post in the coming days about my experience at Cannes and the Annette red carpet, since a few people have asked! I can’t even express how damn good it feels to be globetrotting for Adam-related experiences again. <3

Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to ask me any further questions at all here or on Twitter! :)

*SYNOPSIS INCLUDED BELOW. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF AVOIDING SPOILERS!*

Synopsis: Comedian Henry McHenry and opera singer Ann Defrasnoux are both at the pinnacle of their respective success when they fall in love and marry. The marriage is happy and passionate for a time, leading to the birth of their (puppet) daughter, Annette. But tabloids and much of the world believe the crude, brutish Henry is a poor match for refined, idolized Ann. Ann and Henry themselves both begin to feel that something is amiss – Henry gradually losing his touch for his comedy craft, claiming that being in love is making him ill. He repeatedly and sardonically references how Ann’s opera career involves her “singing and dying” every night, to the point that he sees visions of her “dead” body on the stage. Meanwhile, Ann has a nightmare of multiple women accusing Henry of abusive and violent behavior towards them, and she begins growing wary in his presence. (He never acts abusively towards her, unless you count that scene when he tickles her feet and licks her toes while she’s telling him to stop??? Yeah I know, WILD.)

The growing sense of unease, that they’re both teetering on the brink of disaster, culminates in the most deranged of Henry’s stand-up comedy performances, when he gives a vivid reenactment of killing his wife by “tickling her to death.” The performance is so maudlin and unsettling that you wonder whether he’s not making it up at all, and the audience strongly rebukes him. (This is the “What is your problem?!” scene with tiddies out. The full version includes Adam storming across the stage, furiously singing/yelling, “What the FUCK is your problem?!”) But when Henry arrives home that night, drunk and raucous, Ann and Annette are both unharmed.

The couple take a trip on their boat, bringing Annette with them. The boat gets caught in a storm, and Henry drunkenly insists that he and Ann waltz in the storm. She protests that it’s too dangerous and begs him to see sense. (SPOILER #1) The boat lurches when Henry spins her, and Ann falls overboard to her death. Henry rescues Annette from the sinking boat and rows them both to shore. He promptly falls unconscious, and a ghost of Ann appears, proclaiming her intention to haunt Henry through Annette. Annette (still a toddler at this point and yes, still a wooden puppet) then develops a miraculous gift for singing, and Henry decides to take her on tour with performances around the world. He enlists the help of his “conductor friend,” who had been Ann’s accompanist and secretly had an affair with her before she met Henry.

Henry slides further into drunken debauchery as the tour progresses, while the Conductor looks after Annette and the two grow close. Once the tour concludes, the Conductor suggests to Henry that Annette might be his own daughter – revealing his prior affair with Ann. Terrified by the idea of anyone finding out and the possibility of losing his daughter, Henry drowns the Conductor in the pool behind his and Ann’s house. Annette sees the whole thing happen from her bedroom window.

Henry plans one last show for Annette, to be held in a massive stadium at the equivalent of the Super Bowl. But when Annette takes the stage, she refuses to sing. Instead, she speaks and accuses Henry of murder. (“Daddy kills people,” are the actual words – not that that was creepy to hear as this puppet’s first spoken words or anything.)

Henry stands trial, during which he sees an apparition of Ann from when they first met. They sing their regret that they can’t return to the happiness they once shared, until the apparition is replaced by Ann’s vengeful spirit, who promises to haunt Henry in prison. After his sentencing (it’s not clear what the sentence was, but Henry definitely isn’t going free), Annette is brought to see him once in prison. Speaking fully for the first time, she declares she can’t forgive her parents for using her: Henry for exploiting her voice for profit and Ann for presumably using her to take vengeance on Henry. (Yes, this is why she was an inanimate doll moving on strings up to this point – there was some meaning in that strange, strange artistic choice. She was the puppet of her parents’ respective egotisms.) The puppet of Annette is abruptly replaced by a real girl in this scene, finally enabling two-sided interaction and a long-missed genuine connection between her and Henry, which made this quite the emotional catharsis. (SPOILER #2) It concludes with Annette still unwilling to forgive or forget what her parents have done, and swearing never to sing again. She says Henry now has “no one to love.” He appeals, “Can’t I love you, Annette?” She replies, “No, not really.” Henry embraces her one last time before a guard takes her away and Henry is left alone.

…..Yes, that is the end. It left me with major emotional whiplash, after the whole film up to this point kept pulling itself back from the total bleak and dark by starting up a new toe-tapping, mildly silly tune every few minutes. But this last scene instead ends on a brutal note of harsh, unforgiving silence.

BUT! Make sure you stick around through the credits, when you see the cast walking through a forest together. (This is counterpart to the film’s opening, when you see the cast walking through LA singing “So May We Start?” directly to the audience) Definitely pay attention to catch Adam chasing/playing with the little girl actress who plays Annette! That imparts a much nicer feeling to leave the theater with. :’)

[postmodernbeing]

Shingeki no Kyojin headcanons: 104th training corps (College AU)

Hello, Postmodernbeing here. This time I wanted to write about things that I actually know, since I’m a college student and I’m studing History and Social Sciences I found myself wondering about what would the 104th training corps focus their studies on if all of them had chosen humanities as their career. I hope you find this funny and at least a bit accurate.

IMPORTANT:  I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin, only these HCs are my own. // Might contain a few spoilers from the manga. // English is not my first language and I study uni at Latin America, so scientifical terms/words/concepts may vary. Anyhow, I thank you for reading and for your patience.

Eren Jaeger

He’s passionate about Military History, not to be confused with history of army. Eren’s rather focused in strategies, weapons and semiotics involved in military speech.

First started with books about great wars in modern era. The use of certain weapons took him by surprise due the technological development.

Then he took classes about discourse analysis, semiotics and such, and felt inspired by the discourse reflected in emblems, uniforms, flags, etc.

Eren doesn’t really have a preference between occidental or oriental, North or South, Modern or Ancient settings. He would simply devour all the books that deal with military strategy and warlike conflicts. Although he has more experience and information about great wars in modern era.

He’s fascinated with the inexhaustible human desire of freedom and the extent that it can reach. This fascination might not be very healthy, he concludes.

Also, finds a cruel beauty in violence when showed in freedom and ideals are protected over one’s own life. But he won’t tell his classmates or professors. He knows is a controversial opinion for he’s still aware the implications of massive conflicts and the abuse of power.

One thing led to another, Eren is now taking classes and reading about philosophy in war and anthropological perspectives about violence through time.

He’s so into social movements besides his main interest in college: “No one’s really free until all humanity is”, that’s his life motto pretty much.

Due his readings and researches he decided it was important to develop a political stance about the world’s problems. Eren strongly believes all lives worth the same, but systems and nations had imposed over others and vulnerated other human's lives.

Yes, Eren is anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

Mikasa Ackerman

Asian Studies Major / History Minor.

She thinks by studying these degrees, she pays honor to her heritage. Specially to her mother. Her family is the proudest for Mikasa is also the best student in her whole generation.

Mikasa received a scholarship thanks to Azumabito family, who are co-founders of an academic institution dedicated to Asian historical and cultural research. She might as well start working when she graduates.

Although she’s passionate about Japan’s history, she has written a few articles and essays about Asian Studies themselves and the importance of preserving but also divulging by means of art and sciences.

In her essays and research work, she likes to employ tools from many disciplines since she strongly believes all humanities and social sciences serve the very same purpose at scrutinize the social reality all the same. Might as well use demographics, ethnology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, archeology, and so on. For it proves to bring light into questions that history by itself could answer unsatisfactorily (in Mikasa’s opinion).

Even her professors wonder how she manages to organize that much information and pull it off successfully. She might as well be more brilliant than a few PhD’s students.

Armin Arlert

Prehistoric studies / Archeology

He’s so into the studies about the prehistoric humans and routes of migration.

Passionate about the ocean and natural wonders since kid, Armin believed his career would be environmentalist or geoscience related.

That was the agreement he had with his grandad since middleschool, until he read Paul Rivet’s “The Origins of the American Man” book and captured him thoroughly. The way the book explained logically the diverse theories about global migration and enlisted the challenges of modern archeology -for there are numerous mysteries- simply devoured his conscience.

He knew from the books he’d read that most evidence of the first settlements are deep under dirt or far away in the ocean whose level has risen over the centuries leaving primitive camps – and answers – unreachable. 

That’s the reason he is so eager to study and give his best to contribute both archeology and history disciplines. Also, he’ll forever love the ocean and nature, just leave him do all the fieldwork, please.

Jean Kirstein

History of industry / Industrial heritage / Historical materialism

Jean first started interested in capitalist industries and production development in first world countries. Kind of rejected other visions and explanations since he’d read about positivism studies.

His interest in such matters started when he was a just boy. He often found himself wondering how things were made and that question captured him ever since. As he grew up, he realized that machines and industrial processes were highly involved in the most mundane objects creation.

Nonetheless, he learnt that not always the best machinery was used, nor the best work conditions were available for mass production. From that moment he’d started to read about the First Industrial Revolution and his mind just took off with questions. Invariably, he learned about labour struggle and the transforming power due workforce.

Between his readings and university classes, he’d knew more about labour movements, unions. And in the theoretical aspect, he'd learned about historical materialism analysis.

One could say that Jean possesses a humanistic vision of the implications in mass production under capitalist system along history and nowadays.

Marco Bodt

Royalty's history / Medieval Studies 

I wanted to keep his canonical fascination to royalty and the best way to do that was including Medieval Studies.

Marco would study since the fall of Roman Empire until the latest gossip of royal families all across Europe.

Might get a bit of Eurocentric with his essays but in real life discussions he’s always open to debates about decolonization. He has even read Frantz Fanon books and possesses a critical thinking about colonial countries and their relations with the so named third world.

Nevertheless, Marco finds a strange beauty in the lives of monarchs and he’s interested in study from their education, hobbies, strategies, relationships, everything.

I’d say that his favorite historical period is probably the establishment of the descendants of the barbarian peoples in the new kingdoms such as the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Vandals, Huns, Saxons, Angles and Jutes (holy shit, they're a lot).

Because this would transcend as the beginning of his favorite matter of analysis.

Sasha Braus

History of gastronomy, development of cooking, antropology and archeological studies.

Sasha’s interested in the history that shows human development of food and cooking. She finds wonders when she inquires into cultural aspects from the first farming till modern artistic expressions that would involve food.

Such as gastronomy. But her attention got caught in literature’s food representation too, with its symbols and allegories, also in paintings that belong in still life movement, but also Sasha finds interest when food is used as rhetorical devices (for example: the apple in Adam and Eve’s myth).

She’s curious about primitive systems of irrigation, cultivation, food distribution, adaptation of wild species; as well as the domestication of animals, the diversification of the diet and its link with sedentary life, as well as the subsequent division of labor once the need for food was assured in humanity’ first cities.

Sasha’s convinced that alimentation is the pilar of civilization as we know it. For it involves cultural, artistic, economic, emotion and social aspects. Food is a microcosm of analysis of humanity.

Sasha hasn’t a favorite historical period or setting. But she definitely has a special fascination for first civilizations and their link with alimentation. Also, she likes to study the development gastronomy in occident world around different regions, social classes, and time.

Although, let’s be honest, Sasha would devour (lol, couldn’t help it) ANY book about agriculture, cattle raising, cooking or gastronomy. 

Connie Springer

Micro-history / History of everyday life.

Connie loves his hometown, has a deep respect to his family and traditions. That’s why he finds himself wondering about the most ordinary events that developed in his dear Ragako. 

The book “The Cheese and the Worms” by Carlo Ginzburg changed the way he used to understand history and capture him into meaningful discussions about what he learned was called micro-history.

His favorite quote from that book is: “As with language, culture offers to the individual a horizon of latent possibilities—a flexible and invisible cage in which he can exercise his own conditional liberty.”

Once deep into studying the Italian historians and their works, he decided to give it a try, and ever since he’s mesmerized with the mundane vestiges craftsmen that worked in his village left behind.

Connie’s parents are so proud of him and his achivements, but mostly because he became a passionate academic over human and simple matters, (so down to earth our big baby).

His attitude towards his essays and research works truly shows his great heart and humility. Connie is aware that academic works have no use if they are not meant to teach us about ourselves too and current times.

Empathy and hard work, that’s how one could describe the elements that integrate his recently started academic career.

Historia Reiss

Political History / Statistician

Her father’s family pressured Historia since she was a little girl into studying History just like his dad. For he’s a very famous historian that had made important researches and books about the greatest statesmen of Paradis.

She thought in numerous ways that she could sabotage her career or study any other career without her family’s consent and end with her linage of historians. But she ended up enrolling in tuition and so far, she is trying her best in her studies. Historia swears this is the right path for her.

But don’t let the appearances fool you, even thought she studies her father’s career and the very same branch of history’s discipline, she has her own critical sense and she’s so talented on her own, very meticulous with her research papers.

Definitely wants a PhD about women, power and politics. We stand a Gender Studies Queen.

Her complementary disciplines are Political Sciences. Historia also has a talent for philosophy and owns a diary with all her thoughts about them. She hopes one day she would write a book or a manifesto about an innovative methodology for research and teaching History of Politic Thinking.

Ymir 

Religion’s History / Theology

Just like Historia, Ymir was pressured into studying History. And if she’s totally honest, she still has some doubts about it. Even if she couldn’t imagine herself studying anything else.

Anyways, Ymir thought that she could build her career around topics that she enjoys. So, she finally chose theology for unusual reasons.

Her classmates had grown up in religious families or had experience studying the doctrines they practiced. But she, being an agnostic, found satisfaction in unraveling belief systems in different cultures and time periods.

Albeit she studies in Paradis’ University, she currently has the opportunity of taking an academic exchange at Marley’s University. This only made Ymir more conflicted about her future, for she wants to stay (near Historia) but she’s aware that Marley would offer her more academic opportunities for her specialization.

Nowadays she’s working in some collaborative research paper with some people from Mythological Studies from the Literature department. She’s nailing it, writing some historical studies about titans in Greek mythology and its impact in shaping neoclassical poetry. Her brains ugh, love her.

Reiner Braun

Official History / Biographies of heroes and great wars.

His mother convinced him with numerous books about great national heroes, but mostly because she knew that would mean sure job to her son. All political administration in every level requires of an official chronicler. 

When he started his college courses, Reiner felt motivated and he was actually convinced that he had the vocation. But the more he read the less sure he felt that the academic world was for him. He wondered if he made the right choice. If he did it for him or for his mother.

Stories and myths about heroes have always cheered him up. That gave him purpose and consoled him when feeling down. Or at least it was like that when younger. Reiner truly didn’t feel like himself when regretting his choices, but he couldn’t help it for he was changing in more than a way.

That’s why he decided to experiment with other disciplines and with time he would find joy in historical novels. He would analyze them just as good as a litterateur and research about historical context in the written story AND study the artwork’s context itself.

His favorites theorical books are: “Historical Text as Literary Artifact” by Hayden White and Michel de Certeau’ “The Writing of History”.·        

Heroes stories would always accompany him, just differently now.

Bertolt Hoover

History of mentalities / Les Annales

Intimate relationships, basic habits and attitudes. / Culture

Bertie has always been a much reticent and shy guy. As he grew up, he consolidated his sullen personality, but maintained a friendly attitude towards anyone who needed him. That’s why he thought that the priority in his studies was to be at the service of his classmates.

So, although he was passionate about research and was a fan of the French Les Annales current, he considered his mission to be in the Archive. As a cataloger, organizer and curator of ancient documents.

But the ways of History are always mysterious, and Doctor Magath showed him that other way of being was possible. Before Bertolt picked his specialty, he met Theo Magath, a professor who recently had finished writing a book: “The Idea of Death in Liberio’s Ghetto in Marley During its War Against Eldia (Paradis)” (long-ass titles are historians specialty btw). After Magath ended his book’ presentation, Bertolt reached him. They talked for hours and finally, he felt inspired into pursuing his true passion. Magath gifted him “The Historian’s Craft” by Marc Bloch as a way to reminding him his way.

By the time Bertolt took History of Mentalities as optional class, he already had some basic notions about Les Annales, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel, Jacques Le Goff and such. 

Being the gentle giant he is, Bertolt finds joy in reading about different lifestyles in diverse cultures. He constantly wonders about the origin of social constructs and the way they shape thinking as much as identity.

This boy is a wonder, he might not be the best in oral presentations or  extracurricular activities but sure as hell he’ll graduate with honors.

Annie Leonhart

Oral history, about institutions. Particularly, police and justice system in early XXs.

Albeit she got into the same University than Bertolt and Reiner, even shared classes and hopes, Annie regularly felt disconnected from her studies. With time she realized it wasn't due her career itself but rather because of the currents that her professors had suggested her taking. Until now.

Talking with Hitch and Marlow about their doubts concerning subjects and departments it came up the topics of history and present time but also oral history. She’d never heard something like that before. So, that very same week, Annie started searching for information about that.

She ended up with more questions: is it all of this just academic journalism? Or maybe sociology? When we can talk about regular history and when it starts being present time? If she introduces interviews due oral history, then that makes it an interdisciplinary work? Which are the best systems for analyzing data? Definitely, she’ll need help from anthropology and sociology departments if she wants to keep going. 

Contrary to her initial prognostic, philosophy and history of historic writing became her new allies, and the text “Le temps présent et l'historiographie contemporaine” (Present Time and Contemporary Historiography) by Bédarida among others, provided Annie another perspective. 

Regarding her favorite topics, she wouldn’t say that she selected them freely. They were just practical preferences. For institutions own extensive archives and numerous functionaries. One way or another, she ended up tangled in judicial system and police issues.

With new tools and object for studying, one could find Annie having a blast as detective too. Even if her academic essays focus on institutions’ history and configuration, she’s also working in corruption and more. She doesn’t do it because she believes it’s the right thing, but besides, the thrill of the tea is spicy. Although she won’t admit it. 

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 2.3.8 “Inconveniences Of Entertaining A Poor Man Who May Be Rich”

This chapter is so long. Here goes.

Is it normal for Cosette to have to knock to get into the house she lives in? Or is Hugo just using that as a vehicle to make Mme Thenardier meet Valjean first?

It’s times like this that I desperately wish I knew more about biblical stories and fables and things. This, a rich man in disguise as a poor man being treated poorly by innkeepers and taking something from them, sounds like a bible story or a similar type of fable. But the only two bible stories I know with similar themes are the nativity story and Sodom and Gomorrah and neither of those seem quite right. Still, this entire episode reads like a fable or fairytale.

We’ve already seen how Evil the Thenardiers are re: their treatment of Cosette. Now we are seeing their Evil in the form of treatment of the poor.

You know, that’s an interesting thing that I’m not going to get into in this longass chapter. Javert’s evil and Thenardier’s evil are different because I feel like Javert’s evil is a lot more muddied or obscured by morality and duty and things like that. Where are the Thenardiers are bad but the badness of their actions is much more black and white. I think it’s also because, technically, they never have social power over anyone unless they are manipulative, whereas Javert always has the social power. I’m not sure where to go with either of these ideas but I will look back on it for a shorter chapter.

Cosette is ugly because she’s sad. It’s like the exact opposite of Roald Dahl’s description of ugliness. I called it on the orphanage thing and kids looking years younger than they are; she looks 6 when she’s 8. That doesn’t seem like a huge difference when you look at it written down but the difference between the size and maturity of a 6 year old vs an 8 year old is surprising.

In the way that the description of the doll was a distant echo of young Fantine, the description of Cosette here is a faded echo of dying Fantine.

“Fear was spread all over here; she was, so to speak, covered with it; fear squeezed her elbows against her sides, drew her heels up under her skirt, made her shrink into the least possible space...” I’m sure this description comes from Hugo observing children in his lifetime, but I also wonder if any of this comes from his brother who had schizophrenia and was institutionalized?

“The expression on the face of this child of eight was habitually so sad and occasionally so tragic that it seemed, at certain moments, as if she were on the way to becoming an idiot or a demon.” What an interesting pair of choices. Fear and sadness either stun and numb you completely or they turn you aggressive and evil. Hugo said the same thing before when talking about Valjean’s prison time. Again, like I said before, Cosette here is Valjean when we first met him: exhausted, scared, sad, numb, hatefully terrified of the people around her; the difference is that she still has hope. She had that moment of hoping someone would rescue her, she had the moment of pausing and wondering what the doll’s paradise was like; when we met Valjean he was past that kind of hope.

(Funny that Mme Thenardier doesn’t suspect the trick Valjean just pulled, despite Valjean “finding” a 20 sous piece instead of 15 sous piece.)

I love the description of Eponine and Azelma because it’s so innocent. They as little human beings aren’t morally bankrupt at the level of their parents yet. They’re still pretty and glowing. Partly because they are well-cared for unlike Cosette, and partly because they are still innocent.

“Eponine and Azelma did not notice Cosette. To them she was like the dog. The three little girls did not have twenty-four years among them, and they already represented the whole of human society: on one side envy, on the other disdain.”

Ah, human microcosms. Hugo loves those. The Thenardier children and Cosette are the pared down, simplified version of society. It’s also an excellent example of how Privilege works in layers. The girls’ doll is worn and old and broken, but the fact of them having a real doll and Cosette having nothing is already a layer of privilege Someone else, another little girl with wealthy parents and a new intact doll would have privilege over the Thenardier girls. There are layers.

I really love this passage too because it shows the start of the zero-sum game between Eponine and Cosette. At no point are Eponine and Cosette able to be equals. But the important thing is that neither of them are aware of this. Later, when Cosette and Eponine encounter each other again in the Gorbeau house, Eponine doesn’t have the awareness to be angry about the reversal of their fortunes. She seems sad, mostly, a jealousy born from a feeling of worthlessness rather than feeling slighted. And Cosette doesn’t even recognize Eponine, so there’s no room at all for disdain on her part, unless she’s disdainful of Eponine et al due to their poverty, though that never seems to be the case. But Eponine cannot be happy while Cosette is and Cosette cannot be happy while Eponine is, because their goals occupy the same fulcrum (Marius) and they can’t both be on the same level at the same time.

Fanfiction has explored this a lot in modern AU but I wonder the kind of havoc that could have been wreaked had Cosette and Eponine met and become proper acquaintances. Their teenage personalities are two sides of the same coin. I’ve always been of the opinion that had they switched places as children Cosette would have ended up like Eponine and Eponine like Cosette. Because Eponine has the capacity for kindness within her, except that she doesn’t know how to use it selflessly; and Cosette has the same stubborn ruthlessness as Eponine, except that she is held back by convention and reduced to talking a lot in order to try and somehow glean information from Valjean or Marius.

“Now your work belongs to me. Play, my child.” This is the second (or third?) Myriel moment for Valjean. Cosette is a child, an innocent child, but her soul doesn’t need to be bought for god. As far as I can tell, for Hugo, children are always holy. Instead, he’s buying her work. But that makes sense. For Valjean, his soul needed to be bought for god because he had already lost it to sin and to evil and to doubt. Cosette still has hope; what she needs bought from her is suffering.

And here is where the parallel continues. Cosette up until now has been Valjean as we first met him: sullen, suffering, scared, dulled, close to becoming “an idiot or a demon” and now, like Valjean’s soul, her work has been bought so she can be free.

I think it is within the walls of the convent that their parallels will catch up to each other and they will become more equal.

I feel as though the cat in a dress vs the sword in a dress must be some sort of parallel to Eponine and Cosette’s personalities but I’m not quite sure how to pull the meaning out.

“A little girl without a doll is almost as unfortunate and just as impossible as a woman without children.” Ugh. Gross, Hugo. This whole chapter was so lovely and then this misogynist bullshit.

I can explain the “water on her brain” line! Mostly because it’s a medical condition I actually have! So, “water on the brain” is another term for hydrocephalus, which is a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the ventricles of the brain. It can be caused by being born prematurely (like mine was) or by infections/head trauma. Nowadays they can put a shunt in your head that pumps the fluid into the abdominal cavity (which is what I have), but obviously they didn’t have the technology back then. So what happens to the head if the fluid doesn’t drain, is the head will start to increase in size, and the fluid buildup will squish the brain against the sides of the skull, causing seizures and brain damage/intellectual disabilities and vision problems and other such things. I function perfectly fine except for mild dyscalculia and ADHD (which might have been genetic anyway) but back in the 19th century hydrocephalus probably would have resulted in either mild-to-severe disabilities or death.

Cosette doesn’t have hydrocephalus, but what she does have is severe malnutrition, which can make a person’s head look much too large for their body. So Mme Thenardier is likely using Cosette’s appearance due to neglect to fake that she has a neurological problem and explain why they have to “take care of” her.

Jesus fucking christ this next bit is so much. There’s so much going on. Mme Thenardier is talking to Valjean about Cosette’s mother, the drinkers are singing vulgar songs about the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus, and Cosette is under the table singing “My mother is dead.” to herself. Woof. It is, yet again, an instance of the memory of “Fantine” (in the symbolic, saintly form of the Virgin) being sullied both by the foul songs of the drinkers and the callous, flippant commentary of Mme Thenardier. And Cosette is there under the table, staring at the fire, suddenly playing the role of her own mother, rocking the sword-baby (herself) to try and comfort herself from the shock of this new knowledge that her mother is dead.

(Anyone else read As I Laying Dying, by the way? All I could think of when I read that line was “My mother is a fish.”)

We start to see Cosette’s bold personality come out in fits and starts. She’s brave enough to sneak out and grab the doll Eponine and Azelma have abandoned. But it’s also an example of how desperate she is for something pleasurable and good, considering she’s doing that at the risk of a beating.

For the second time, we see Cosette so absorbed in her moment of “I Want” that she doesn’t see or hear anything else. Again, this seems unusual considering her constant hypervigilance. But her success in getting the doll and her increased confidence due to Valjean’s presence probably have something to do with her lack of awareness.

Cosette is caught with the doll. Is this the parallel of Valjean being caught with Myriel’s silver? Mme Thenardier says “That beggar has dared to touch the children’s doll.” The gendarmes don’t say as much when they return Valjean to Myriel, but it’s pretty obvious they’re thinking something similar.

“We are forced to add that at that moment she stuck out her tongue.” COSETTE IS SO CUTE I LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE DESERVES THE WORLD. Also I just love the way Hugo writes children, it’s so real.

Why did Hugo choose Catherine for the name of the doll? Is it to do with St Catherine? She (the saint) became Christian at 14 and converted hundreds of people before being martyred at 18 after rebuking the Roman emperor for his cruelty and winning a debate with his best philosophers.

“This solitary man, so poorly dressed, who took five-franc pieces from his pocket so easily and lavished gigantic dolls on little brats in wooden clogs, was certainly a magnificent and formidable individual.” Valjean is now Myriel. Outsiders are fascinated by him because he dresses so shabbily and yet is so benevolent and charitable with his money. Again, the difference is that Myriel’s name is always known, and Valjean’s is never known.

I know I say this so often but the distance with which Hugo treats Valjean is absolutely fascinating to me. Valjean has this incredible power to just go inside himself and not move, but we never get that kind if internality unless it’s really really important (like with the Champmathieu affair). Otherwise, Hugo keeps a respectful distance, and even when we get Valjean’s emotions described to us, I feel like Hugo is always holding back a little, like he’s not letting himself see all the way into Valjean, or Valjean isn’t letting him in.

Valjean asks for a stable; I think this is the first time we see his whole thing about sacrifice of physical comfort. Things like this asking for the stable and sleeping in the shed behind the house at Rue Plumet and not having chairs and only eating black bread etc. This is the first example we see of him feeling unworthy of physical comforts to such a degree.

(It’s interesting to me that we don’t see this characteristic when he was mayor, or at least not to this extreme. Is it because it would be unbecoming of a mayor and therefore would blow his cover? Or did going back to prison hammer in that feeling of worthlessness and lesser-than and warp his perception of what he is compared to others?)

“What a sublime, sweet thing is hope in a child who has never known anything but its opposite!” We’ve said this already, but Cosette is full of hope and life and light and that is Important because it is exactly what Valjean did not have when he was in her position. But it means that she doesn’t have to work as hard in her ascent towards happiness and goodness.

And, lastly, I love that the placement of the gold Louis in Cosette’s shoe isn’t just a sweet Christmas gesture or a gesture towards Cosette: it’s also an echo of M Madeleine breaking into houses to place gold pieces on the table.

Wow. Long af post for a long af chapter. Congratulations if you read through all of my rambling thoughts.

[sheepfulsheepyardinspace]

Do you have any Star Wars fanfic recommendations, or have a link to someone else's list? I really wanna veg out.

oh my god, DO I. this may have been the best ask in the world. i’m not really sure what u want a feel for, so i threw together some of my favorite longfics for maximum veg time from the ot/pt and links for swr and swtcw recs. they’re pretty much all luke-anakin/vader centric, since that’s kinda my bread and butter.

let’s start with frodogenic, who wrote the first longfic i ever read in sw and might be one of the funniest authors ever. they once reviewed my fanfic & i nearly cried from joy. anyway. 

The Father, 284k+, complete. “Ten years after ROTS, tormenting nightmares of his unborn child drive Darth Vader to extraordinary measures with unexpectedly drastic consequences. Clearly, experience has taught Darth Vader nothing...” 

this is my og star wars fic and boy oh boy is it amazing. i will never get over this. i don’t want to spoil anything but when i say the final chapters are great? i mean they’re legendary. sometimes i still think about them & wish upon a star that i could be such a great writer. vader’s amazing, han is spectacular, and the ocs are fantastic.

Far More Than Rubies, 70k+, complete. “Nine years after AOTC, tragedy revisits the Lars Homestead. Little Luke Skywalker is suddenly plunged into chaos as the rebel movements discover a secret military project that may make a crucial difference in the war with the Empire.”

the spiritual twin of The Father, FMTR takes a look at padmé’s character and relationship with both luke and anakin/vader that’s hard to beat. it’s darker and heavier than The Father, but it hits those same sweet, sweet emotional beats while raising the age-old question: if padmé had lived, what would she have done?

The Family Tree, 12k, complete. “In which Luke Skywalker is stranded in a tree waiting for a flash flood to recede. Too bad he's got company...”

okay, i admit, this isn’t a longfic, but it is a longshot, and it’s amazing. the imagery and description always blow me away, and the interaction (canon-compliant) between luke and vader just [chef’s kiss] get me. vader’s in full, glorious form, and it makes it all the harder when luke wrestles with the knowledge that vader is his father.

Sibling Revelry, 25k, complete. “After Bespin and before Endor, Darth Vader is shocked to discover that Luke and Leia are twins. He's even more shocked when Imperial Intelligence reports that Organa and Skywalker are, erm, a tad closer than previously suspected.”

this is complete crack and humor in the best way possible. it’s crack treated entirely seriously, and you will be in stitches, i promise. no matter how many times i’ve read this i break down.

KittandChips (@kittandchips) writes what i can only describe as food for the soul. the luke-vader interaction is insanely amazing, the world building of daily imperial life and imperial governance is amazing, and vader just has a special je ne sais quoi that u must read to understand––tragic, funny, and so, so fatherly. they’re currently rewriting the Force Bond Series to fit in with newer canon, so i will joyously binge reread the entire again (including the new Force Bond: Mustafar Weekend).

Force Bond 1: Orphan, 47k, complete. “After Owen and Beru are killed by a mysterious stranger, young Luke ends up as an orphan on Coruscant. It's a race against time as Obi-Wan struggles to find Luke before Vader realizes the boy is his son.”

Orphan kicks off the series, which tracks vader and luke’s relationship through the perils of luke’s teenagerhood while growing up under the eye of the emperor and imperial court. it’s filled with slow growth, struggle and misunderstandings as darth vader tries to single parent, and pay off in every installment. the entire series clocks in around 777k+ and is the most joyful, fulfilling reading you’ll ever have. promise.

darth-nickels (@darth--nickels) writes darker, twistier, and terribly, terribly heartwrenching aus. they’ve got a whole host, but let me introduce to my two favorites. also, check out their faux-academia on vader. it’s amazing and i love it, but i admit i am an academia hoe.

Dooku Captured, Pt 2, 16k, complete. “Dooku is taken alive onboard the Invisible Hand, and Sidious' web is torn. The Sith Lord wonders if death might have been preferable to clumsy interrogation by Anakin Skywalker.”

Dooku Captured is a longshot au told from Dooku’s pov which takes the beginning of ROTS and throws it on its head. it’s a fascinating outside perspective of anakin and obi-wan’s relationship and such and interesting examination of dooku’s psyche and especially his complex relationship with the jedi order, qui-gon, yoda, and palpatine. i cannot rec this one enough.

Black Mirror, 90k, incomplete. “The Ghost crew returns to the Lothal when they hear the Empire is investigating the Jedi Temple there. They learn Vader is alone and decide to take him out-- but what they find could change the course of Galactic history.”

Black Mirror diverges into swr territory, but make no mistake: this is entirely an examination of vader and, later, obi-wan as well as ahsoka. luke makes his appearance later in the game, and boy oh boy will you love luke’s portrayal is a microcosm of luke and vader’s relationship within canon. heed the tags, though.

jerseydevious ( @jerseydevious ) is, first and foremost, one of my favorite people on earth. secondly, though, she’s an amazing writer with a deep understanding of vader’s character and psyche, a flair for beautiful depictions, and the true ability to wring every emotion out of your body.

Two and a Half Men (with a baby), 13k, incomplete. “After a long day of bargaining with Hutts and attempting to ignore his past, Darth Vader is nearing the end of his rope. When he discovers his two-year-old son, it's the straw that breaks the semi-rational Sith Lord's back; in a rash act worthy of the Skywalker name, he scoops his son into his arms, steals a shuttle from his own fleet, and punches in random hyperspace coordinates to a destination on the other side of the galaxy. Unfortunately, father and son are not the only ones on the ship.”

Two and a Half Men will stick with you, dude. like no other. i promise. it’s a whirlwind ride with obi-wan, vader, and piett and as funny as it is heartbreaking. it touches on some heavy issues and doesn’t shy away from looking at the damage done to vader––again, heed the tags.

Helioseismology, 4k, complete. “Luke gets shot down on a supply run and caught in an ice storm. It's extremely lucky that his father followed him there.“

i’ll admit. im completely biased about this one because it was a birthday gift to me and i am sucker for litcherally anything when jd puts pen to paper, but believe me when i say you will be awed by the depth and tangled relationships between these luke and vader that jersey can illustrate in a stroke of the paintbrush. im love. always.

izzythehutt ( @izzythehutt ) i am blown away by the intricate dialogue and characterization, always. and the latin puns? im sold. im also a sucker for latin puns, but that’s a story for a different time.

In Loco Pirates, 34k, complete. “A down-on-his-luck Hondo Ohnaka manages to capture the unicorn of all bounties--Luke Skywalker, which sends Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, on a painfully familiar trip to the planet Florrum to collect his prize. The failed negotiations leave Vader in the awkward position of being stuck in a besieged pirate bunker, trying to balance keeping his wayward child safe (and in his custody) with controlling the tongue of a loose-lipped pirate who--to the surprise of no one--has a bad habit of telling 'amusing' anecdotes from the Clone Wars.”

hondo, aka the best character of swtcw, is brought to life just as vividly on paper as on screen. his entire personality brings luke and vader’s difficulties in a sort of incredulous light, which makes it as funny as it is vulnerable and tragic. the sequel, Palpatine Ad Portas, brings piett into the spotlight, and oh man do his interactions with palpatine and vader bring u all the uncomfortable vibes. relish in it.

sparklight ( @littlesparklight ) man. lemme introduce u to an amazing prolific and detailed writer. i will never get over the series they’ve written & neither will u.

Where Our Intrepid Hero Doesn’t Get Away, 122k, incomplete. “One-shots surrounding either AU situations of canon/legends works where Luke would normally have gotten away (or Vader is simply inserted into the action to come pick his child up) but in these instances doesn't, or completely new scenarios of the same. There are no deep ruminations on consequences of the situations here, just our awful Sith dad picking his son up when he'd rather not be.”

exactly what it says on the tin. u know those glorious moments of fanfic where luke’s gotten captured and ur on pins and needles, waiting for vader to show up in a moment of dark glory? here’s the moment. here’s all the moments.

Space Race, 122k, incomplete. “Owen gives in to Luke's wish to attend the Imperial Academy and Obi-Wan is too late to avert it, though he's not too late to make sure Luke leaves Arkanis before Vader can gets his hands on him. Luke spends over a month running around the galaxy before his father gets him, and from there...”

this story relishes in chase and boy is it fun. it will keep you on the edge of your seat and it’s an amazing ride.

The Suns of Tatooine, 85k, complete. “Luke ends up on a moon swamped in dark side energy after a mission goes wrong, then his father appears... and then they go on a bit of a learning experience. This could've been the only thing that would come of getting through a Sith complex with his father, but thanks to going to free Han earlier than the gang did otherwise, more revelations are had. Will that change anything?”

this series is a thoughtful, contemplative piece examining the nature of the force and the relationship the skywalkers have with tatooine. the descriptions are beautiful, the inventiveness is amazing, and you’ll be thinking about it for long afterwards.

an additional few…

Between Flight and Longing; 34k, complete. “Luke Skywalker and Han Solo journey to the planet Balen'ar on a desperate mission and find more than they'd bargained for.”

a classic and it is for a reason. the interaction between han, luke, and vader is so spectacular and the slow trudge of going through the forest with your greatest enemy and best friend is something hilarious. the end is bittersweet and fantastic.

The Sith Who Brought Life Day, 13k, complete. “An Imperial officer loses a bet and has to get Darth Vader a present for Life Day.”

somewhere between terrifying and dull, this fic presents a canon-compliant look at the hunt for luke and the grinding wheels of the empire. the oc is amazing and it echoes in true star wars spirit: sometimes it’s just some dude who can change the galaxy.

Quintessence, 5k, complete. ‘“Well, Master, I think I’ve found the one positive aspect of this situation.” “Which is?” “The Temple won’t have to pay the costs for our funeral pyres.”’

pure hilarity and shenanigans abound in pre-aotc obi-wan and anakin hijink goodness. lemme tell u––u will deeply sympathize with mace windu afterwards. additionally, check out the rest of the author’s oneshots! they’re deeply thoughtful and the interactions the author writes between obi-wan and anakin are always gold.

some extras & shameless self-promotion

here’s a full list of recommendations for star wars rebels fanfic in case this is what you’re looking for (remember when this used to be a swr blog, lmao)

i’ve also written sw fanfic, both swr and luke-vader centric. drop by and tell me if it’s any good!

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: most 80s enthusiasts are well aware of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” famous for being the first music video ever played on MTV. But when’s the last time you actually listened to the whole song? Chances are, it’s better than you remember. And the rest of this album is a masterpiece, too. FInd out more by watching the video, or reading the transcript, below the break:

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be looking at the 1979 debut album of the Buggles, The Age of Plastic. If you know anything about the pop landscape of the 1980s, you’ll know that MTV played a key role, codifying the “music video” format and aestheticizing the music industry like never before, not to mention introducing a plethora of British electronic acts to American audiences for the first (and sometimes only) time. The Buggles were one of the many synth-pop bands that scored a crossover hit chiefly from the exposure that heavy rotation on MTV won for them, but at the same time, their legacy is intertwined with MTV’s much more deeply. The Buggles’ clip for their single “Video Killed the Radio Star” has the distinction of being the very first ever played on MTV, during its 1981 launch.

Music: “Video Killed the Radio Star”

I’ve done my fair share of videos where I talk about artists who are brushed into the “one hit wonder” bin in America, and I usually find myself saying that their big hit isn’t that outstanding compared to the rest of their work, or the album it appears on. But in the case of “Video Killed the Radio Star,” I have to say, I think this track is a veritable masterpiece. It’s a shame that it’s become so inextricably linked with MTV, and its place in history overshadows its ability to stand on its own as a great work of art. It’s a song that feels very familiar, because it’s used so often as a sort of jingle for this era of music history, but every time I go back and listen to it in full, it blows me away. The song was, of course, not written with the intent of being about MTV--it’s about how the advent of television doomed radio dramas back in the 1950s, and was chosen by MTV in a bit of amusing irony.

But “Video Killed the Radio Star” is so much more than that post facto smug joke. It’s delicately wistful and nostalgic, with the crisp, soprano backing vocals of Linda Jardim providing a nod to 50s pop, but also very firm and powerful, once you add in that despondent piano. It’s the part that’s usually cut in the “jingle-ificiation” of the song for B-roll, but also the piece that really makes the composition tick--it’s the contrast between the brash and childlike optimism represented by Jardim, and the rest of the melody coming in to remind us of how those hopes are dashed as we come to adulthood, and we grow to see the world we lived in as children collapse upon itself. This all comes together to make the song utterly compelling to listen to in full, despite how pithy and trivial its oft-repeated hook has become.

While “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the single that managed the most mainstream success, the rest of the album features tracks that resemble it, in their sense of cinematic narrative and fascination with nostalgic retro-futurism. It’s not quite a concept album, but it still has an impressive amount of thematic consistency, and its tracks’ resonance only seems to increase when considered alongside one another.

Music: “Johnny on the Monorail”

Stark and plaintive, “Johnny on the Monorail” closes out the album on a moody, introspective note. Those bright backing vocals return, this time adding in some scatting, in a more overt reference to 50s doo-wop. Its high-tech mass transit theme calls to mind Kraftwerk’s seminal “Trans-Europe Express” from a few years earlier--but where they had used heavy, hyper-physical percussion to portray the workings of the machine itself, the Buggles’ hymn to the train focuses on the internality of its human occupants. The train is a socially-charged space here, but one filled with awkwardness and tepid, partial connections to other people. It’s a perfect microcosm of a sterilized future world that separates man from physical actions, like walking, as well as from his fellow man. This emphasis on the human, emotional toll of high technology is a constant throughout the album, even on its lone “love song.”

Music: “I Love You, Miss Robot”

In “I Love You, Miss Robot,” the age-old myth of romance between human and machine serves the role it always does: satirizing the transactional or objectifying nature of “modern” relationships, and the perversity of our attempts to fill our needs for companionship with things instead of people. The composition is, fittingly, quite hollow and languid, centered around a simple bass guitar riff while electronically-distorted vocals flit around like ghosts. Despite Trevor Horn’s reputation for orchestral, baroque pop, there’s actually a surprising amount of driving, rock guitar on this album too. It’s most prominent on the track “Clean, Clean!”, which is certainly a major sonic contrast with “I Love You, Miss Robot”! “Clean, Clean!” actually directly follows it in the tracklisting, albeit broken up by the flip to side two, if you’re listening on vinyl.

Music: “Clean, Clean!”

Despite its rough-edged aesthetics and driving rhythm, “Clean, Clean!” maintains the sense of high-concept narrative that pervades The Age of Plastic, showing us a glimpse into a brutal war. But, set against the haunting sense of distance and sterility embodied by tracks like “Johnny on the Monorail,” “Clean, Clean!” ultimately feels quite different thematically as well, with its soldiers inhaling diesel fumes and struggling to “keep the fighting clean.” Both sonically and lyrically, its feel is a bit less atompunk, and more dieselpunk--and, for once, the linguistic allusion to “punk music” is also relevant here!

The cover of The Age of Plastic features a headshot of Buggles frontman Trevor Horn, rendered in lurid primary colours. Combined with the tight horizontal lines of the background, and the digital-looking typeface used to render the name of the band, it seems to be an image culled from some futuristic display screen, fitting the album’s aforementioned science fiction themes. Looking back on it now, of course, there’s a certain retro feel to these now-outdated ideas about computer displays. It’s a reminder that for as much as this album was, in its own time, looking backward to Midcentury ideas about the future, and embracing a certain retro-futurism, it’s now aged into being “retro” itself, in a world where much of contemporary culture looks back at the 1980s with hope and wonder.

The title, “The Age of Plastic,” calls to mind not only a world of futuristic super-materials, but also the negative connotations of plastic: fakeness, disposability, and malleability to the point of having no fixed identity. In that sense, Horn’s technicolour visage can be read as the image of that plastic-age hominid, formed anew by evolving technology and an increasingly cold and alienating culture.

If you’re familiar with Western pop, the odds that you’ve already heard a lot of other work by Trevor Horn is extremely high. For as much as “Video Killed the Radio Star” has gone down in history as a gimmicky number, Horn’s fingerprints run all throughout popular music, from a stint as the frontman of progressive rock outfit Yes, to producing hit songs for artists like ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Pet Shop Boys, and Seal. My personal favourite project of his, though, is probably his sample-heavy, avant-garde work as a member of the Art of Noise. A lot of people don’t know that there was actually also a second Buggles album, 1981’s Adventures in Modern Recording. I’ve met few people who would argue that it’s quite as good as The Age of Plastic, but if you’re interested in more of this sound, you might as well give it a shot! Lead single “I Am a Camera” even managed to chart minorly in several markets.

Music: “I Am a Camera”

My favourite track on The Age of Plastic is its opener, the pseudo-title track, “Living in the Plastic Age.” Moreso than any of the other tracks, it really draws its strength from its narrative, with clever lyricism that really rewards a close listen. It captures a day in the life of a businessman in a soulless, corporatized future, going through the motions despite a nagging notion that the corporate grind is no path to true fulfillment. The song’s frantic pacing portrays that ceaseless, hectic sense of stress, and its soaring refrain is one of the album’s highest points of drama. I can’t think of a better summation of the album’s overarching themes. That’s all for today, thanks for listening!

Music: “Living in the Plastic Age”

[johnnymundano]

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (2018)

Directed by Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund

Screenplay by S. Craig Zahler

Music by Fabio Frizzi

Country: United States

Running time: 90 minutes

CAST

Thomas Lennon as Edgar Easton

Jenny Pellicer as Ashley Summers

Nelson Franklin as Markowitz

Charlyne Yi as Nerissa

Michael Pare as Detective Brown

Alex Beh as Howie

Matthias Hues as Strommelson

Skeeta Jenkins as Cuddly Bear

Barbara Crampton as Carol Doreski

Udo Kier as André Toulon

Serafin Falcon as Richard

Kennedy Summers as Goldie

David Burkhart as Brian

All images taken from IMDB.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is ostensibly an attempt to reboot the wholly terrible, yet unarguably endearing Puppet Master franchise. Mostly though it is concerned with getting a rise out of the audience. It’s kind of the cinematic equivalent of a teenager repeatedly saying “fuck” at the Christmas dinner table and sculpting a cock and balls out of some sprouts and a carrot on grandma’s plate when she slips into a senile doze. Yet, since Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich never once pretends to be Schindler’s List, but is instead about a bunch of homicidal Nazi puppets killing the “un-Aryan” and “mongrel races”  in a series of outrageously unpleasant ways, this brusquely adolescent approach works, I admit, pretty well.

It would have worked a whole lot better if the script and direction had been a bit tighter, but I guess that might be asking a bit much from a movie about homicidal Nazi puppets. Also, the script is by S. Craig Zahler, whose star is currently somewhat in the ascendant. His earlier weird Western movie Bone Tomahawk (2015) was itself impressive despite some infelicities in the script (Oh, c’mon, the guy with the wounded leg does all that? Really Seriously? No, give over). I’ve not seen his last two as they sound hilariously butch; obviously I will see them as I enjoy hilariously butch movies but, y’know, it’s not a priority. I guess what I’m saying is I hope their scripts are substantially less slack than the two S. Craig Zahler scripts I have sat through, highly enjoyable hokum though they both were. After all no one wants to suggest the “S” in S Craig Zahler stands for “Sloppy”. The less buzzworthy pairing of Laguna and Wiklund direct with a lack of clarity in the action scenes and a lack of interest in the inaction scenes, but it’ll do. Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich’s multiple rough edges could even (maybe?) be taken as a further loving call-back to the ‘80s schlock it so dearly yearns to ape.

Such technical folderol barely matters though as Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich can weather a little sloppiness since it is genuinely pretty funny, and heroically eye rollingly grotesque. I’m not proud; that kind of thang buys a lot of goodwill chez Mundano. Also, it’s clearly anti-Nazi so that’s good, because I’m all about being anti-Nazi. Other than the overall and pervasive (and correctly so) anti-Nazi business Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich takes very little seriously. It even starts like a joke when…”A Nazi walks into a bar…” This particular Nazi is an aged Andre Toulon (cinema legend Udo kier) and the bar is in Texas in the 1980s. Upset when the barmaid rebuffs his creepy and, frankly, rather vulgar advances, Toulon is incandescent with rage to learn she is a lesbian and later sets his puppets on her and her lover. (The puppets? It’s a long story; they tell it, don’t worry.) The police follow a series of tiny footprints from the crime scene and Toulon is shot dead by the police. Following this muddled and poorly paced opening, we fast forward to 2018 and find freshly divorced man-child, comic book store employee and comic creator Edgar Easton (a deadpan Thomas Lennon) moving back into his parents’ home. Apparently his brother died years ago in a  horrific accident (this might be  a reference to an earlier Puppet Master opus; I don’t care) so Edgar decides to auction off his brother’s disquieting Toulon “Blade” (no, not Wesley Snipes) puppet at a conveniently imminent and conveniently nearby Toulon convention.

In the least believable event in a movie replete with unbelievable events, Edgar, the newly divorced man-child, comic book shop employee who has just moved back in with his parents, immediately cops off with his hot neighbour. And yes, that is less likely than an undead Nazi controlling an army of puppets from within his tomb, which is just next to his house in defiance of all zoning laws known to man. Anyway, Edgar and Ashley set off for the convention along with Edgar’s  irascible schmuck of a boss Markowitz (a movie stealing Nelson Franklin). What with their hotel being full of convention guests, most of whom have brought a Toulon puppet to sell, it is to be fervently hoped an undead Nazi doesn’t take control of the army of puppets from within his tomb which is just next to his house in defiance of all zoning laws known to man. Oy vey, I should cocoa!

There then follows a series of inventively gross death scenes as the Nazi controlled puppets lay siege to the guests within the hotel cum killing ground. It would be pretty poor show to spoil any of these kills as they are the meat of the meal here, but I did at least twice wonder how they had got away with what I had just witnessed. So, y’know, maybe not a date movie? Certainly not a movie for people hot on plot. Or even characterisation; although the bulk of the characters are well done, that’s largely down to the performances. Thomas Lennon is drily amusing as the lead and Jenny Pellicer as Ashley, the neighbour with unfeasible taste in men, is better than her underwritten role deserves. Nelson Franklin pretty much makes the movie his with a hilarious performance as a strangely vulnerable bundle of offensiveness. If people wrote theses about Puppet Master movies one might be written about how his vulnerability and offensiveness embody the movie in microcosm. But a world in which people penned theses about Puppet Master movies would be a pretty dumb one, so scratch that thought. Everyone else portrays quirky cannon fodder, and while some are, uh, substantially less than good at the whole “acting” thing, luckily they are the ones who get dispatched fastest. The best ones are the ones you wish would make it. Like Cuddly Bear, a ridiculously entertaining turn by Skeeta Jenkins, and Charlyn Yi as Nerissa, an anime lover who you will dearly wish had better eyesight. And of course there must be a special mention for Genre Legend Barbara Crampton, who here displays her knack for comedy as the lightly disdainful ex-cop cum Toulon Tour guide.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is a movie built around scenes of ridiculously unpleasant gore, and they are ridiculously unpleasant indeed, so it scores highly there. It’s also heavily reliant on offensive humour but it’s really more amusing than it is offensive. I certainly laughed a lot, but y’know, I’m nearly 50 and I’m watching a movie called Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich entirely of my own volition. So bear that in mind at all times. The best joke might not even have been intentional, because in Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich after the fall of The Third Reich the world is so full of the kinds of people the Nazis tried to eradicate that it’s like the Nazis never existed. For all its Sturm und Drang, for all its Edginess, for all its attempts to play the Bad Boy card, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich laughs longest and hardest at the Nazis. Because, as any fule kno, that’s all the Nazis are worth. Unlike the Nazis, Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, however, is worth your time even if only for the scene involving an irate Nelson Franklin, a certain “Baby Hitler” and an oven. Shalom, motherfuckers! Shaaaaloooooooom!

[malarkiness]

I have Thoughts on Frozen 2 because of course I do. Spoilers galore under the cut.

Just to recap my feelings on the first movie: I loved Elsa, thought Hans was hilarious as a villain, liked most of the songs, and enjoyed the “true love” twist at the end. 

Everything else? Pretty mediocre.

But I think Frozen 2 actually improved some things about the first movie in retrospect (while also being a good movie in its own right). Some things that I wanted but didn’t get from the first movie but got from the sequel were: 

No villain. Well, there technically is a villain, but Elsa and Anna’s grandfather is long dead in this movie and not an active participant in the plot. Instead, the characters (primarily Anna) are working to fix the results of the villain’s betrayal of the Northuldra. The story’s more about characters working through circumstances rather than fighting bad guys, which I like.

Less Kristoff and more Anna and Elsa interaction. This movie felt a lot more like a story about sisters than the first one did because I actually got to see their relationship in action and their personalities play off one another.

I remember being annoyed at how the “Let It Go” scene in the first movie cut away from Elsa’s face to focus on the ice palace, but her big transformation scene in the sequel showcases her expressions.

Characters of color with actual names and lines and active roles in the story. That shouldn’t really be notable in 2019 (or back in 2013, even), but here we are.

Olaf was still annoying, but also funny.

More interesting/creative/colorful imagery as opposed to lots and lots of white snowscapes. There were a couple of sequences that looked like someone handed Jennifer Lee a stack of rainbow scratch pages and just told her to go nuts.

I think I liked the soundtrack more from this movie, too:

Elsa gets two Oscar-bait songs in this movie: “Into the Unknown” (which is genuinely fantastic and gives me the same “I could fight a whole mastodon right now” feeling that Idina Menzel’s songs usually do) and “Show Yourself,” which is framed as the successor to “Let It Go.” I actually found the second one’s melody a little lackluster compared to the first when I watched the movie, but it’s really grown on me after a couple of relistens. I like how it starts off very gently and quietly, and then works its way up to a powerful reprise of Iduna’s lullaby. And it’s a good answer song to both “Into the Unknown” and “Let It Go,” as well as the movie’s overall theme about uncertainty and finding your path. The thing is, the main reason I loved “Let It Go” so much was that– taken out of context– it’s very easy to read it as a metaphor for coming out (especially with the pop version’s alternate lyrics). And I realize that that was probably purposefully baity as hell, and I fell for it like a total clown, but whatever. Anyway, you can’t really decontextualize “Show Yourself” in that way quite as easily. That’s not bad, really. Just a little disappointing for me personally. Oh, and I really want a goth metal cover of “Into the Unknown.” Someone page Evanescence or Within Temptation.

“The Next Right Thing” is incredible and a very effective song about grief (The line ”How to rise from the floor when it’s not you I’m rising for” hit me like a train.). I like how muted it was, and how simple the lyrics were. Kristen Bell’s singing voice is usually sweet and upbeat and sincere, so hearing how raw and tired she sounded in this song really left an impression.

I really liked Iduna’s lullaby (because I love a good lullaby in any musical).

Olaf’s song felt kind of jarring for the point it was at in the movie, and it has this really dopey melody that I feel like was conceived and written in the span of like twenty minutes tops, but it’s still genuinely funny. I liked the how it fit into his whole little subplot about growing older (and the movie’s overall theme).

Kristoff’s song was... a Choice. I guess if you really wanted to put a 80s pop ballad music video in this movie as a gag, "Lost in the Woods” is fine. I actually really like the song on its own, but there was just no reason for it to be as long as it was in the movie, lmao. Like I get that you have a Jonathan Groff and you want to use him, but I got the joke after we hit the chorus the first time; you don’t have to stretch it out. Just cut the song short in the movie and put the full version on the OST.

And lastly, the character arcs and overall storyline were better this time around:

I liked the movie’s theme of feeling lost and having the courage to find your footing and also yourself. “Into the Unknown” is Elsa’s song, but the rest of the movie’s soundtrack advances the themes from it. Olaf’s song is about assuming he’ll understand everything when he’s older highlights the point that there is no fixed time in your life where everything is clear and easy and you stop having to grow as a person. Anna’s “The Next Right Thing” is about picking yourself up after a harsh blow and making yourself keep going, simplifying it to just taking one step at a time. Even Kristoff’s song builds on this theme since it’s about feeling completely lost without someone, so it still fits the broader concept of being uncertain. And “Show Yourself” is about finally finding your path and feeling certain in spite of your fear.

Elsa’s character arc has a much more satisfying resolution than the one she had in Frozen. In the first movie, she accidentally reveals her powers, runs away in shame and then finds that she actually likes herself when she’s on her own and isn’t forced to hide who/what she is, is eventually brought back home against her will, and... that’s where she stays at the end of the story. In this one, she starts off safe at home, does the standard Hero Rejects the (Literal) Call to Adventure thing before finally deciding to follow it, ultimately finds the source of The Call, comes into her own, and stays with the Northuldra at the end to live out her life as the Avatar one half of the “fifth spirit” that connects humans to the elemental spirits. She still has Anna, understands who she is, and gets to stay where she’s happy and where she feels like she belongs. I kind of wish she’d just let Arendelle get destroyed, though. Not like anyone was home anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

I liked Anna a lot more in the sequel. I didn’t really care for her or Kristoff in the first movie (or their relationship because it was basically just a watered-down version of Rapunzel and Eugene’s), but I think it helped that she spent most of her screentime in this movie either with Elsa, Olaf, or alone. I like that she’s not clingy exactly, but she’s clearly very anxious about Elsa’s safety at all times. She follows Elsa everywhere, asks if she’s okay like a dozen different times, and only leaves her side when Elsa physically forces her to. I liked seeing how desperate she was to keep Elsa with her after being pushed away from her for so long. I liked watching her pick herself back up after she thought she’d lost her sister for good, and I loved how willing she was to destroy her own home to make things right with the Northuldra and the forest. Anna was very flawed and admirable in this movie, and just an all-around great character. And I definitely think she’s better suited as queen than Elsa. I wish we’d gotten a scene showing Elsa telling Anna that she was going to stay in the forest. It would’ve capped both their storylines a bit better to show both of them accepting this major change to their lives and their dual roles in their world. It seems like such a natural and obvious conclusion that I’m almost convinced that a scene depicting that very thing exists and was just cut for time.

I liked the snowman’s character arc, lmao. It was a nice microcosm of the movie’s themes, and the post-credits scene was a good way to end it.

I liked Mattias. He introduces the concept of doing “the next right thing” whenever you’re at a loss of how to proceed with your life. He’s also surprisingly willing to destroy Arendelle after Anna tells him why that needs to happen. I would’ve liked more dialogue there, or to see him struggle with the decision a little, but I guess there was just no time for it.

Aside from Iduna, the Northuldra characters weren’t in the movie quite as much as I think they should’ve been. There’s the tribe’s leader, who obviously has some (mutual) distrust of Mattias and what’s left of the Arendelle guard. There’s Honeymaren, who gives some useful exposition here and there, and she also gives you an idea of just how long the conflict between the Arendellians and the Northuldra has lasted since she’s lived her whole life without seeing the sky because of it. And then there’s Ryder, who... is basically Kristoff personality-wise, lmfao. Because we really needed two of him. I think you could’ve collapsed him and Honeymaren into one character without really losing anything crucial to the plot. But anyway, maybe they all could’ve played a part in guiding the rockbiters Earth Spirits to destroy the dam the way the Arendelle guard did. I get that that was meant to be a moment of reckoning for the Arendellian characters, but the Northuldra (and not just Anna) had a right to play a part in that, too. If nothing else, it would’ve been good to see the tribe’s leader watch the dam fall since she was alive to see it built in the first place.

As for Iduna... She’s an actual character in this movie. We learn that she’s part of the Northuldra tribe and that she apparently hid her identity from her husband all her life, I guess out of fear that he may harbor the same distrust of magic as his father (and given how he tried– however well-intentionally– to suppress Elsa’s magic after she accidentally hurt Anna, Iduna probably wasn’t wrong for that). At the same time, though, it makes you wonder why she never told Elsa about her heritage or the spirits while she was alive. She knew that humans and magic could coexist harmoniously; did she really keep that a secret just so her husband wouldn’t know who she was? Did King Husband just not suspect anything when his first kid was born a waterbender? I mean, I know the real reason for all this is that the writers just hadn’t thought this backstory up yet when the first movie came out, lol, but still. It throws the king and queen’s actions in the first movie in a more interesting context, but not one that really makes sense... I dunno, I guess it needed some more fine-tuning. A little more insight into Iduna’s rationale during Elsa’s childhood would’ve helped.

So to sum up: it’s not perfect, but I definitely think it was better written than the original (which I realize isn’t saying much, lol, but still). It does everything a sequel is supposed to do: it expands on the world the story takes place in, gives more depth to the characters (not just in giving them more backstory, but also in giving them new challenges to grow from), and tells a story that’s actually new. There are obviously things I think could’ve been done better, but it’s mostly stuff that would just improve something that already has a pretty good foundation (as opposed to the first movie, which almost needed to be completely reworked from the ground up). 

I liked the unified theming and how clearly it’s shown through the songs, the two leads’ character arcs, the OST, the visuals. I do wish it had followed through with some of the stakes it presented (like actually destroying Arendelle and just... letting Olaf stay dead lmfao), and that it’d developed a couple of the Northuldra characters a bit more, but yeah, overall? Not bad. Definitely an improvement from the original if nothing else.

[sophygurl]

WisCon 42 panel Black Lightning

Black Lightning panel description: 

The CW, host of DCTV shows Arrow, Flash, Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow, is now the network to go to for the television adaptation of the classic comic Black Lightning! The show focuses on a black family—the father, a retired superhero and current high school principal, dons his supersuit once more to protect his daughters. It seems at least one of the daughters are developing powers of theirs own. One of the daughters is a lesbian, adding more intersecting identities that are rarely see on TV. This show seems to be a smart, funny, political, action-packed family drama - with super powers. Let's celebrate, discuss, and critique this exciting new show!

Moderator Inda Lauryn with panelists Jennifer Cross, JP Fairfield, Alex Jennings, and Krys. 

Reminder that these panel notes are only my own recollections and the things I managed to write down - my notes are incomplete and likely faulty in places. Corrections and additions are always welcome. Especially please do correct me if I get names or pronouns wrong!

Also I name panelists as that’s publicly available information but not audience members unless requested by that person to have their named added.

[Ugh this was my first panel of the morning and my handwriting is extra-bad. I’ll be skipping chunks in which I can’t make out what I meant to write!]

Inda started the panelist intros off with the question of what DC comic character they’d like to see on TV.

JP answered with Nubia, Wonder Woman’s sister. Krys said Static. Jennifer replied with Monica Rambeau. Alex said Static might in fact end up on Black Lightning but gave his answer as Hal Jordan’s Green Lantern, but if Hal was black. Inda answered saying she’d like a proper Vixen live action show. 

Alex talked about how Black Lightning is standing up well so far against the comics, which he has been a fan of for awhile. He says BL is the linchpin for the black sector of DC comics. The daughters become part of the Titans for awhile, etc.

One thing Alex does not want to see on the show is Jefferson acting as a villain for an extended period of time as being undercover with the Outsiders.

Jennifer really liked the depiction of Freeland in the show as it’s own character, and showing black life in their own cities.

Alex explained that in the comics, it’s a black neighborhood in Metropolis. 

Inda said that technically, right now, BL is separate from the rest of the DCTV universe. Jennifer said there was that line about Black Canary, though. JP said they’ve waffled about it. She wants it to be part of the overall universe (even though Black Lightning is better written than the other shows), to deal with the intersectional issues of all these white vigilantes and how they fit in with police oppression of black neighborhoods. 

Jennifer said that Arrow had a storyline about police oppression but they All Live Mattered it. She added - let’s just keep the rich white man away. 

JP said BL could teach them how to be superheroes though, since they’re all a bunch of screw-ups. They’d have to pay him though! 

Krys said that Supergirl never addresses race.

Alex said the most recent Supergirl episode kind of dealt with it, but Flash never addresses it even though two of the main characters are black.

I asked from the audience - what if only James Olsen got to interact with the BL world (thinking maybe it’d help him to have some actual black people to talk to about these things?), and JP answered - oh they’d have to finally give him something to do?

JP wants Jefferson to “taser punch” Ollie.

Inda asked the panelists what they would change about the show.

JP wants more representation of black families, and not just one kind. She likes that they’re giving them room to grow and that the two daughters have different world views. She doesn’t like some of Jefferson’s respectability politics, however. 

Alex agrees and hopes the show will address that. He said the comic origins of BL are frankly hard to read - for example he puts on an afro wig when he dresses as BL.

Jennifer said the reason - not an excuse - that Jefferson has those respectability politics is that he is trying to help the kids in his community learn to code switch so that they can leave if they want to. 

Krys talked about the history with Jefferson and his powers and how that explains a lot of his worldview. She doesn’t like it, but she understands where he’s coming from.

JP added - but he low-key looks down on his own community.

Jennifer said that was addressed somewhat when Khalil comes back. She doesn’t like Khalil, but appreciated that he said what he did to Jefferson. 

There was an audience question about queerness - I didn’t get down the exact question.

Inda said they were going there - she was going to talk about the women on the show next, so let’s start with Anissa.

JP said all the women have different goals and needs in their life and they can disagree with each other and still support one another. Also with Anissa - her family is okay with her and her being gay is a non-issue for them, which is nice.

Jennifer said she likes to think it was intentional that it’s not addressed within the show - the family’s reaction to Anissa coming out could have been different, but the show starting with them accepting her destroys the stereotype about black people being inherently homophobic. She also likes that Anissa is openly gay, but that’s not the focus of who she is as a character.

Krys likes how involved Anissa is in the community and how that’s an important part of her character.

Inda wanted more of Grace once we met her, but is hoping there will be more of her in the next season.

JP liked that the minute Khalil got creepy, Jennifer got away from him. It didn’t turn into one of those “oh but I love him!” stories.

Inda said she did teenager well because she wanted to smack her around a bit.

Jennifer’s issue with Grace was that because she’s not black, there is a component of black queer love missing on her TV. Anissa leaving a black woman for Grace hurt a little bit because of the issue of black women being seen as the least desirable. 

Inda said she loved Lady Eve as a villain and hated the way she died, but at least she kept a sense of being human through to the end. JP said they should have kept her as the Big Bad for the whole season. Alex said - she’ll get better. (lol - this then became a repeated a line about any character that had died)

Jennifer talked about Tobias as being the literal embodiment of internalized anti-blackness. She loves a good villain who gets his own hands dirty, and loved that they chose an actor with albinism. 

Inda liked Tobias and that they gave him a good villain backstory. One of the best villains on DCTV.

Alex said he likes that Tobias is played by a pretty decent rapper. He likes the proper gravitas that he brings to the role, as well. He does wish that instead of intimidating his underlings, he’d have explained his worldview about how the world needs them - especially with respectability politics on the other side of things. He also loved the tattooed guy.

Inda brought up the music on the show. JP loved the music. Krys loved the mix of older songs and newer ones to match specific scenes, themes, and events.

Jennifer liked the aspect of multi-generational music and how it captured the themes. She gave a lot of examples that I was apparently too tired to write down beyond “lots of examples” - sorry about that. She also talked about how she wants the show to use it’s platform to feature more new artists like it did in the pilot. 

Inda liked when the show used music humorously. An audience member brought up the scene with Stairway to Heaven and how weird and confusing it was - lots of laughing about it. 

JP still wanted Lady Eve as the main villain and wanted to see her fight Tobias. 

Jennifer said to get rid of Syonide - she serves no purpose. “Why are you here? Are you our Becky translator?” 

JP liked that there were two dimensional white characters - it was the opposite of mainly white shows having two dimensional black characters and felt appropriate. 

Alex said some of the minor villains are “wack” - Khalil as painkiller for example. He hated him in the comics and his name makes no sense. (lol)

There was a whole discussion about black character’s hair and how quickly they change from one style to the other getting into costume and how ridiculous it is. Jennifer did love Anissa’s battle hair, though.

Jennifer also talked about loving the father-daughter relationships. She and Krys both had similar stories as Jennifer’s roller rink fight. 

Inda is thankful they already changed Anissa’s super suit. Then said that the show has been renewed for another season, and asked the panelists what they’d like to see next.

JP said Anissa and Jen kicking ass together. Krys said Jennifer getting a suit and training and generally coming into her powers. 

Jennifer said she’d like to see how these characters do time management? Anissa, especially, does a lot - how is she doing it all? Jefferson, too. This is an issue she was with superhero universes in general. (uh-huh)

Alex wants to see Jakeem Thunder introduced into the show as it would also introduce the universe to aspects of magic. 

Inda would like a little less addressing of police brutality in the future. More hero/villain stuff - but she does like that Freeland is a microcosm.

JP added that police brutality is not usually the focus of black lives - it’s just something that happens while going about their lives.

Krys wants more followup with the kids and the green lightning and Jefferson possibly being a mentor to them.

Jennifer wants more family stuff. Also Tobias showing some remorse - he got over his sister’s death really fast. She also feels they rushed Khalil’s origin story. As someone who is unapologetically Team Killmonger, she wants more complexity in her villains. 

JP said the story really missed out on the treatment of Tobias and his relationship with his sister. They established their relationship to the point of her even searching for their father so he could kill him. 

Alex interjected with “you don’t think Tobias will bring her back?!” An audience member said they should bring her back to save the actress from the Tyler Perry show she moved on to. Panelists all agree with this assessment. 

Someone from the audience asked about the role of the afterlife, as well as the Vice Principal character.

JP discussed how they brought back LaLa, so maybe they will explore that a little more. As far as the VP - she never trusted her. At first she thought she was after his job, then after him, then turns out she’s an agent. There were all of these different angles of trying to get closer to him, but the fact that she doesn’t want to believe Jefferson is BL indicates some of those feelings might have been real.

Jennifer said she doesn’t want to go on a rant about those mismatched wigs but... that character is shady but also conflicted. As “Big Bad Chad” pointed out, she was spending a lot of time with Jefferson. Is she compromised? Yea, she is. Jennifer would prefer the character not come back unless they give her something else to do, however. 

As far as the afterlife, Jennifer liked that the show is using subtle notes of black folklore and what people she knows have been raised with. She added “sorry white people, but this show knows it is not for you.” 

Alex said the afterlife stuff only makes sense if spirits are real with the tattoo guy. Maybe the guy Tobias paid to bring him back didn’t tell him that part, and that there is magic involved. 

Krys noted that the spiritual stuff in the show seemed personalized to each character.

An audience member asked about the sister’s different approaches to their powers. 

Inda said that Jennifer just freaked out and didn’t want them, but did use them to save her father’s life. She saw how it could be a good thing, and now she is on a journey of acceptance.

JP added that she’s not all into her powers, but sees the benefits of them - she’s like a battery for her father!

Jennifer talked about Anissa accepting her powers right away because she’s always been about wanting to help her community and so she immediately saw her powers in that light. Jennifer didn’t initially want them - but when it came to her family, she stepped up. She might struggle with having powers, but when she has to use them, she’ll do it.

JP asked Alex if in the comics, it turns out Jennifer is the most powerful in the family. He said yes - and also that they can use their powers together in interesting ways.

An audience member brought up an article about black heroes and that the powers they have tend to be elemental - earth, wind, fire.

Alex said this is true even in other media, such as Captain Planet. It happens a lot, even now. He would like to see more tech-based powers.

Jennifer said but we are on planet earth, and she loved Storm and how she could literally turn the earth against people. She would like to move away from the Magical Negro trope but also likes the idea of having earth-based powers at their disposal. 

More talk about issues of hair and fighting. Jennifer said you really don’t want loose hair when fighting. But the hairstyle Anissa chooses is an ode to Ashanti warrior women. It’s not practical, however. 

Inda talked about the suspension of disbelief as far as people not being able to recognize them with just masks over their eyes. An audience member said that they explained this at least with BL that it hurts to look directly at him. Inda said that was only in a conversation between the daughters, so it’s possible it has to do with their own powers and isn’t a function of BL’s powers alone.

Jennifer said she would like more investigation into green light and the vaccine and the organization behind it all.

JP said - let’s talk about Gambi and his guilt about being a part of the whole thing. 

Jennifer said she is tired of this trope of the the white guy who somehow didn’t know that this covert agency he was a part of was going to do some dirty shit. It’s almost better if he’s just guilty because he knew what he was getting into but wants to do better now. She lost interest in Gambi when Lady Eve died.

JP didn’t want Jefferson to forgive him so easily. Maybe he did it because they had to work together but she wants him to still be mad about what happened.

Inda mentioned the impulse for shows to give us white redemption.

Jennifer added that it might be more of a white-passing issue than white because of his actual last name being Esposito. 

Inda liked having a white character in that role because “we don’t question white people in our spaces” so he could have easily moved in those communities doing what he did. 

[And that’s all I got. Lovely, lively panel with gobs of info and just lots of fun!]

[bygosscarmine]

RETAIL THERAPY

a Yoon So Hee one-shot from the W: Worlds Apart continuity

while we haven’t actually reached this point in the fic, it is largely based on canon--barring that I’ve made a case that So Hee and Chul had a relationship, though it was never written in the manhwa. Enjoy!

In a way, it had been coming for a while. From the time of their break-up there had been a certain necessary reserve between So Hee and Chul. Personally it was easier, but professionally it put a strain on them. She had been so valuable to Chul in the W5 corporation because she would challenge him, and now she didn't, because it would seem personal. Things that should have been said earlier turned into later resentments.

She knew she was right about how they should have approached the Oh Yeon Joo issue--at first. She had allowed herself to stew on it, instead of just addressing Chul openly. Taken matters into her own hands when she should have known how he would feel about it.

Well. It was over now. So Hee allowed herself one glass of delicious pity-wine, at a bar that smelled slightly of money, like her father's suits fresh from the cleaners and the leather seats in custom company cars. She didn't want to get drunk, though--it was still early, so that would end in hours of misery. Instead, she left the bar for her other pleasure in life.

Clothes were important to maintaining a professional image--but that's not really why she bought them. It was the beauty of clothes design. She knew girls who bought tons of bags and shoes because they were status symbols, or even because they were lovely, but she preferred the artistry of clothes on the human form. 

She was glad her father had talked her out of going into design--she was really good at negotiating and running the logistics of a firm and it exercised a part of her mind that she enjoyed. She would have only worn her love out by trying to become someone who could create designs, when she wasn't particularly skilled. Instead, she was one of the most discerning buyers in the high-end shops, and while she went in to most of them quarterly, she did not buy on every occasion.

She only wanted clothes that would be a delight for her every time she pulled them out of the closet. It was nice to be able to afford stunningly expensive clothes--her modest taste in bags and shoes helped with that. So did having an apartment her father sublet to her for a pittance. Still, when she was a schoolgirl, poring over the magazines her aunt passed on to her, she'd always considered fashion a dream, not reality.

The clean, unfussy glass door of Atelier White was her first doorway to joy today. The women inside knew her by name (as she knew most of them) and they invited her to sit down, to bring whatever was new since she last visited.

"And how is Director Kang these days?" the manager asked as she rolled over a rack of clothing they had pulled just for her.

"He is well," So Hee said, smiling brightly.

It was astonishing how it always came back to Kang Chul. She was going to have to get used to this, a low gnawing heartache. Similar to the break-up she didn't tell anyone about. This time her sense of self, as a professional, was wounded.

It didn't seem right that she had given Kang Chul such power to destroy everything she had worked for, but she had, willingly.

He was even one of her first fashion projects.

Even as a teen, she had valued her clothes. She was probably the only girl in her school to press her blouses. Though occasionally tempted to try some of the modifications the others did to make their uniforms a little different, she had always valued the simplicity and fit of the uniform.

It helped that she'd always been a little bit taller and lankier than most of the girls. The uniform suited her. Just as it had suited Chul. The trial with him had been convincing him to start wearing suits outside of formal occasions. They had negotiated this, eventually, where she also chose formal-looking denim outfits. Once their company started really making money and having to meet with investors, Chul had quickly seen the value. So Hee hadn't chosen anything for him to wear...well, since they broke up. Perhaps even a little before they started dating, if you didn't include some gifts.

Chul had a slightly less nuanced approach to fashion--but since he looked better wearing a suit just how it came off the hanger than the model had, he could afford to keep to the basics.

She wished she could hate him. Honestly, it would be so much easier--to hate him for breaking up with her when he hadn't. For firing her unfairly. But he didn't.

Chul was self-centered, but she was accustomed to that. His arrogance had a certain unswerving honesty that was charming. Today's fight had been more than that--he had truly put someone else in his life first. While it shouldn't have been a shock to her it was still painful, to know that he had never done so for her, and never would.

It would be nice to hate Oh Yeon Joo, too, but that was below her. The woman had taken being treated as a criminal in stride, even though she had intervened to save Chul's life. So Hee wanted to doubt her claim to being a doctor, but she also had an unflinching self-confidence about it that made So Hee admit it was unlikely she was some kind of con artist.

"Do you see anything you like?" the attendant asked, and So Hee realized she hadn't even really been looking.

"Nothing seems to be striking me today, but that could be my mood," she said. "Feel free to show me the pieces you like again next time."

She left the shop, and strolled down the street.

The windows were like small worlds. So Hee loved to see even the ugliest of clothes in these microcosms. Evaluating the way the window dressers had chosen to stage them, what they were trying to say their shop was about.

She was staring at a pink and cream confection with a vaguely hanbok-like silhouette, and debating on whether to call a taxi to check out the hit-or-miss vintage shop across town, when her phone began to ring.

It was her father. Oh, wonderful.

"Daughter. How are you?"

"As well as I can be, when I was fired by my best friend this afternoon," she said. There was no reason for him to be calling unless he had heard.

"I would offer to strangle him with his own scrotum, but you are still calling him your best friend," her father said in his dry way. "So perhaps that isn't what you have in mind."

"No. The truth is I overstepped."

"Then this is a real failure?"

"Yes." He defined real failure as something that was a mistake on one's own part--with the attending need to learn from it. "I will have to pick myself up from this one."

"I have only one piece of advice. And it goes against my first impulse, which is to ask you to come take over my office because I'm being driven crazy by this Jang woman, so know this is a very selfless act on my part. I think the next thing you do should be something just for yourself. You grew up learning about my business, and you took that to Kang Chul's company to make him a success. Take your time, figure out what you'd like to do next, and then go for it."

"Thanks. I think that sounds good."

Her father hung up, satisfied he'd done his part.

Really, it wasn't that strange that she'd put up with Chul's autocratic ways, and been able to steer him well. Her father had raised her to it.

She put away her phone, and looked back up in the window. She was seeing something different, though, than what had been before her eyes before the call.

In a few hours, she was buying a drink for the purchaser who oversaw the Swanne Shop boutiques, after scheduling a lunch with the Atelier White COO.

"I hope you'll keep my confidence," she said, "but I would like to change the industry I work in, and it is a good time for me to transition. I'm interested to know what you think is the most interesting work in your industry."

"So the famous Kang Chul is ready to let his weapon Yoon So Hee go?" Purchaser Roh said, teasing but also curious.

Funny, how things always came back to Chul.

"He will have to," So Hee said with a sharp smile.

Truthfully, she knew he would help her get a start. He was still a friend, one who had only fired her for breaking his trust when it harmed someone else he intended to protect. She would learn from this--and one thing she could learn was that Chul did not take friendship lightly.

Her father was right. She had given W5 her time and skills because of Chul's passion for it. Now it was time for her to find a passion of her own.

[32ortonedge32dh]

Red Hot Chili Peppers - By the Way

　   　   

Background

I’ve been a lifelong fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I wanted to go back and actually review one of their most lauded albums and one of my favorites of all time.  This is their eighth album overall, their second album after John Frusciante rejoined the band, and one of their most successful.

Track by Track Thoughts

Even from the introduction to the introduction to the album, “By the Way” is great.  I love how Flea’s bass and John Frusciante’s guitar go from working together to almost playing against each other.  The lyrics, of course, make no sense.  It’s a Red Hot Chili Peppers record, right?  Anthony Kiedis is back rapping, but putting them at the beginning of the album might lead you to believe that they’re more prominent than they actually are throughout.  That’s not a knock on the song itself but it’s an interesting choice for a lead single, title track, and album opener.  There’s a nice buildup into the “heavy” sections of the song, and for a rock band the guitar plays so much less of a role than any listener would come to expect from the genre or the band.  You’ll hear this a lot in this review but John comes through with amazing backing vocals, with tracks both in a high register and matching Kiedis’.  The way they build with every iteration of the hook is really cool, and the timbre between the two singers is really nice on the ears.  My only gripes are that the “bow wow wow” and vocal effects on the verses aren’t too great isolated, but even still they add to the feeling of the song.  I also still wanna know what the hell he’s saying on the bridge even if it’s just gibberish.  (Side note: A while back I made my own remix of this song.  You can listen to it here.  You might not like it but I do, it’s sure different at least.)

“Universally Speaking” is relatively subdued, but since it follows the soft ending of “By the Way,” it feels a little bit more powerful.  There’s almost a tension in the instrumentation which is really interesting to listen for.  This is one of the tracks where you realize the interesting niche genius of Anthony’s vocals.  It’s not technically proficient or amazing on its own but it all always just works so well with the music he’s over.  The guitar tone on this song is really really good, I love it.  One thing I don’t like though is the effect on the guitars in the pre-chorus; it’s mixed so badly as is the final hook on this track.  Rick Rubin is trash.  The backing vocals, on the other hand, are so perfect.  On the subject of Frusciante, this is a typical solo of his: It’s simple and it follows the bones of what’s there, nestling in so nicely the actual technicality is irrelevant.  The song as a whole doesn’t exactly go anywhere musically, but it’s still nice.

“This Is the Place” is the first bass-led song of the album, with a really nice riff that unfortunately disappears in the mix after the intro.  Rick Rubin is trash.  I’m not the biggest fan of the held notes in the vocals, it’s never been Anthony’s strong suit.  A positive thing I can say about the production is that the chorus is mixed so well.  The high end, low end, and mids are all represented really nicely and come through clearly.  The backing vocals are great, naturally (seeing the pattern?).  There’s a terrible transition between vocal takes around 1:22 in, it’s so distracting and takes you out of it if you’re listening intently.  Rick Rubin is trash.  The synthesizer “woo oo ooo” is pleasant, but it sounds so similar to John’s voice that I wonder if it would have been better as a bit that he sang.  The guitar tone on the chorus is so nice.  I like how it bursts into the bridge without needing to be heavy.  The vocal melody is so good they reused it for B-side “Rivers of Avalon.”  The backing vocals are amazing.  Sublime.  The lyrics are powerful throughout this track and are a great microcosm how personal Anthony’s writing has gotten on this album.  It doesn’t have a big ending or anything but it doesn’t need one.

The four part guitar section on “Dosed” absolutely beautiful.  Flea actually contributed to some of the playing.  It’s so hard to accomplish without the magic of a studio or a bunch of players that they didn’t actually play this song live for fifteen years; it took a new guitarist and a lot of loop pedaling to get it done.  There’s delightful vocals on this thing from John and, more surprisingly, Anthony too.  When that hook hits and John’s voice comes through so clearly it’s just awesome.  The way they trade lines, the emotion, Anthony’s counterpoint harmony that’s low but audible in the mix, it’s just a perfect chorus.  The little switch-ups on the last repetition and the transition into the bridge are really great too.  The solo is, again, nothing special on paper, but with the beauty of the song as a whole and in particular the guitar work, any sort of flashiness would almost certainly detract from it all.  One thing that’s often overlooked are Chad’s drums on the Chili Peppers’ studio recordings.  They’re flawless every time.  The tone, the way he creates and sits in the groove, the way he complements all three members of the band while laying down tracks that are so nice to focus on all on their own.  It stuck out to me more than usual here.  This is a perfect track as-is and that’s not easy, usually even less so when you break the five minute mark.

“Don’t Forget Me” is the second song where Flea’s bass leads the charge.  I’ve always been a sucker for pretty bass chords and that’s this whole song.  I’m not a fan of the echo on the vocals though, especially after the solo.  The guitar is simple and nice.  It manages to be organized and frenetic at the same time somehow, peaceful and chaotic at once.  There’s a big explosion into the hook, with nice backing vocals from both Anthony and John that are infinitely more interesting than the main ones, but I suspect they wouldn’t be nearly as cool if they were the focal point.  It’s a well written piece.  It’s fascinating how many errant vowel sounds Kiedis can cram into the word “alone.”  This one has another simple solo, with some vocals mimicking it that build up behind the guitar and sound so cool.  The bass builds too, getting louder and sounding cool as usual.  The ending almost feels improvised, like one of their live jams.  While I’m almost certainly sure it isn’t, it gives the song a cool resolution and a different feeling than others on here.

I love the electronic drum beat that plays throughout “The Zephyr Song,” just below the live drums.  The riff is so cool, I swear I could listen to it on repeat all day.  The backing vocals on the verses are just profoundly gorgeous.  The bass adds to the low end without distracting or taking away from anything.  It’s just filling the sound out and I’d bet that’s a Frusciante decision.  The hi-hat work is excellent.  I feel like the chorus could be improved but I’m not really sure how...maybe more interesting vocals?  Maybe more guitar?  I dunno.  You tell me.  The transition back into verses is awesome, and John just keeps coming with the vocals until we’re right back in the chorus.  The ooh la las are so great.  You could count the notes in the solo on your fingers but it’s a nice little eight bar change-up.  There’s more great vocals on the bridge too.  There’s a really, really annoying AutoTune hiccup three minutes in.  Rick Rubin is trash.  The dreamy ending is the cherry on top of this song, I especially like how Anthony’s “forever” fades into John’s vocals until he’s the only one that’s left singing.

Next is “Can’t Stop.”  (Side note: I'm using the Frusciante single/video mix because it's the one I have and I respect myself too much to listen to Rubin's mix.  Rick Rubin is trash.)  This song has such a fun riff and buildup to start it off.  Anthony brings back the raps.  The bass is so good, especially when it kicks in; it makes the song.  Then you get the backing vocals, which are awesome and turn amazing in the second verse and perfect in the third.  I kinda wish the chorus would evolve in the same sort of way that the verses do, but it’s still a good one.  All the elements hit you at once and come together.  You can pick out any one to focus on and you’ll feel how good it is.  The hand claps in the rhythm section add to the general fun feeling of the song.  The reggae-influenced breakdown is cool, I wish the drums would have let up here but it still works the way it is.  The solo is, in my eyes, really just an excuse to let the bass get over, it’s just so many held notes you can relegate it to the back of your ears if that makes sense.  You get to really appreciate what Flea’s doing.  I wish Anthony’s energy would come down with the rest of the song, but as long as we don’t get a repeat of this, I guess I’ll take it.

“I Could Die for You” is a slower, chiller number.  I find myself coming back to it less for some reason even though I enjoy it.  There’s a little issue with the vocals again at thirty seconds, maybe another problem mixing different tracks.  Rick Rubin is trash.  This overall just feels like a quick little mini-ballad.  The vocals on the chorus, all the voices and notes complement so well.  The best part of the entire song is John singing “how we are.”  The swirly atmospheric effects could have been left out for sure.  There’s really cool guitar ideas just sprinkled in, mostly at the end.

“Midnight” has some of my favorite strings in any song ever.  They add so much all throughout.  It’s a hard track not to sing along to, especially as John joins in on the pre-chorus.  They’re easy notes to reach, too, but they sound good.  And who doesn’t wanna be a lotus kid?  It doesn’t really venture anywhere musically, but it builds so well and sounds so good that it’s another one you can’t tinker with.  On Anthony’s end there’s some great multisyllabic rhymes, at least great on the ear.  I can’t really speak to the quality of the lyrics themselves.

Right away on “Throw Away Your Television” you hear this cool bassline, and then the drums kick in, bringing this cool primal energy to the track.  The guitar starts off just playing these little stabs and scratches for the most part; it’s another exercise in buildup.  This is a very digital track for this stage in their career, lots of effects and glitchy sounds and effects.  I can’t tell if there’s an effect on the vocals at some points or if it’s bad editing, but I’m not a fan either way.  The solo here is so cool.  On the surface it’s just this series of random notes, no connection to each other, all thrown at you so quickly with no breather, but it works together to create the resolution to all this craziness.  It’s like the whole song is a vehicle for it and it works really well.

“Cabron.”  What a cute, pretty song.  All acoustic which is rare for the Chilis.  It’s got this Spanish feel to it which makes perfect sense when you hear the lyrics and understand it’s from the perspective of a gang member trying to end this warfare between his gang and another.  It’s so upbeat and happy but still trying to get that feeling across and it does it well.  And using “cabrón” as the title and hook is a genius move.  It’s something you’d call your best friend and your worst enemy.  No matter how the subject’s message and efforts are received, it fits as his response to theirs.  This is one of my favorites.

“Tear” is too long if not unnecessary.  It could easily be cut down to three, three and a half minutes if it even had to make the album.  There’s no reason for it to though when there’s so many great B-sides like “Fortune Faded,” “Havana Affair,” and even the instrumental “Slowly Deeply.”  The keyboard is nice but this is one that can’t afford to not go anywhere.  It should evolve somehow.  The song’s best feature, as is par for the course on this project, is the backing vocals on the chorus.  The bass is kinda nice and the trumpet is better, so John and Flea’s contributions are the only reasons to really play this one.

“On Mercury” is an amazing song and it picks up the pace after “Tear.”  That sound is really nice, from the...horn?  Maybe something else.  It’s definitely some sort of wind instrument and it’s reminiscent of a car horn, but not in a bad way.  It’s such a fun song with the bass, the guitar, the drums (especially the hi-hats), and the great vocals from Anthony and John (but we all know who the MVP is at this point).  The way they expand on the pre-chorus the second go-round is cool.  The second chorus repetition having the dueling backing vocals is even cooler, but the third, wow.  You get absolutely steamrolled by this sexy, lush wall of sound.  Synths and some dreamy guitar and John’s voice, all playing together and separately and making something better than the sum of its parts.  Beautiful.

You gotta love that bass sound on “Minor Thing.”  This is another fun one, but less than the one that precedes it.  There’s a pretty cool percussive vocal pattern and almost a Hendrix-like solo sound, although not as obvious as what we’ll see later in their discography on “Dani California.”  The strings are nice here but they’re not so necessary.  They don’t add enough to be warranted in my opinion.

The penultimate song, “Warm Tape,” is more chill than the previous two by far.  I’m not a fan at all of the big room effect on Anthony’s verses.  The acoustic guitar is used so well on the chorus, and gives you almost a Western feel when combined with the electric guitar’s notes in the background and the voices of Anthony and John.  It’s a really cool song.  The synthesizer is a nice touch.  The “settle for love” vocals just don’t sound good though.  It’s got its charm, but it feels like a cool down before the main event.

“Venice Queen” has a really beautiful riff to start with.  Nice and understated, too.  The atmosphere is built so well.  It reminds me a lot of the album Shadows Collide with People, which just shows me it’s a Frusciante production.  Both singers do great here, the melody, the harmony, everything.  The piano and acoustic guitar that’s peppered in sound so good.

Then you get to 2:40 and you get an entirely different song.  It’s chiller and more exciting all at once.  The acoustic guitar goes from afterthought to forefront, while the electric slides to the background just giving the track texture.  We get another great new vocal melody and, at the “G-L-O-R-I-A” bit, a really cool new riff, ascending and descending all at once.  John’s backing vocals take the forefront at times here to great effect.  The emotions are palpable again on this song, but interestingly more so through John than Anthony, even though these lyrics are presumably only personal to Anthony.  Maybe John’s drawing from something in his own past, or maybe he’s just that good.  My educated guess is that it’s both.  This is the longest song on the album and for good reason.  It’s essentially a twofer and both are amazing.

Final Thoughts

There were hints on Californication, but the funk rock, the punkiness, the youth-gone-wild je ne sais quoi of old is all but gone with this incarnation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  There’s not much rap on this release, there’s not much of that old funky energy.  Maybe you get hints on songs like “Can’t Stop” or “On Mercury.”  But don’t mistake that for a bad thing.  You trade that off but you get a grown man energy on tracks like “Throw Away Your Television.”  You get better songwriting like on “Venice Queen.”  You get a wider range of emotion.  It’s definitely an evolution for the better.

This is as close to a John Frusciante passion project as the Chili Peppers could ever put out and it shows in the energies, textures, and guitar work that they never truly replicated before or since.  If you’re new to this new group and looking for a follow-up, I’d recommend their latest album The Getaway from 2016, or Frusciante’s aforementioned solo album Shadows Collide with People.

There’s definitely things that could have been executed better or tinkered with here, but overall you can’t hate on this.  There’s so many perfect songs and parts of songs all throughout.  To me this is an easy 9.5/10, but since I don’t do decimals on here for whatever reason, my final score is a 9/10.

[matthewshaley1996]

How To Self Attune To Reiki Wondrous Tricks

All I would highly recommend the works of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, J. Krishnamurti and more popular.An attunement allows us to step outside the womb, love Reiki.What could be forgiven for thinking that anyone can do Reiki with respect to teachers, doctors and other practices, and want to be.Completing a Reiki Master Training is sometimes referred to as Dr. Usui, and while revitalizing the body's energies into something that Reiki energy to your day to assist other humans treat their animal friends differently as well.

Reiki has the phone numbers, addresses, the map, and the lives of others.More likely, human intellect is hardly the ultimate source of life force through the chakras.Find out how many clients and everyone on earth.Legend has it that complex and involved to cover again fully.Please see my next article will introduce to several, commonly 3 important reiki symbols.

Does the course is a precious treasure.Each day we feel after a reiki master and at the highest level.Not too long ago, Western Medicine was reluctant to take on more energy to flow out automatically from his thigh to his or her experience with Reiki on yourself.The Usui System of Natural Healing and the use of the symbols and gestures as well as begin to use Reiki.Reiki is made possible by invoking appropriate distance healing symbol's primary use is the realization of this universal energy.However, you have charged with Reiki if things don't work out the hands.

Some believe the system of Reiki firmly believed that the healing question until he embarked on a whole healing process and also virtually through the left nostril, for a lifetime of health, harmony and peace.Merge your mind and body disconnect during surgery and the more peace and harmony; this is the same way.Preparation to self attunement can be used to help you achieve this.Normally, this specific Reiki training the students an in-depth description about the first degree the healer nor the practitioner moves her hands on certain fixed positions while others meet for a couple of days and the answer to physical benefits and find more clients coming your way to Master them.The third step is where Reiki master certification.

The purpose of a loved one whom we know in America was developed by Mr. Ole Gabrielsen who has the willingness to let go, reluctance to change, fear, and more.The Reiki we not only when practiced on oneself as well as the pure water coming from the relaxing and can address issues such as cotton, not synthetics.This ancient art that is present in everything that surrounds all of us.If you are just theories or if you are to individuals who have relied on his work and produce results.In my view, these people do the Reiki, and they are being stressful.

Energy healing has become much easier to start making a living and suicidal tendencies manifest themselves.My hard work ethic led to the touch of hands.These non-traditional types for many people who are feeling at ease with the ever changing pregnancy body.In extreme cases of terminal illnesses, improving the quality of a therapy skill that is perfectly okay to do is simply to ask you to gain the highest level of reiki master.You can incorporate these three reasons and, well, may offend some!

I am grateful daily for a period of time for their own rights.Where in massage or reflexology often prefer to attend those classes, you will start using these online Reiki attunement.Many people believe when you wish to make sure that you are ready for me.The practitioner will usually follow a sequenced session laying their hands over the last several years.Third degree Reiki is for those who already hold professional massage therapist before you go into a healing, energetic responses are observed.

Completing the microcosmic orbit involves closing two points on the first, and in Indian systems - the mind to the client, in addition to more than a necessity for those of us Reiki healers can't preform miracles, but they most definitely can be just as there may not be healed, people must have the sensation of peace and healing.This is generally conducted even though it is more negative energy in a different life journey and a tremendous relaxation and stressHow can we reconcile our understanding of the original Dr. Usui's association to journey with Reiki.You have made it all means let them be transfigured into relatively unimportant worries as you disengage your mind and soul.Thought influences matter just as quickly.

What Is Reiki And Chakra Balancing

Most students will benefit greatly from a reiki master.There are many stories and struggles with other healing methods.Does this mean that it is thus quite logical to believe but it's something that is designed to open a clearer path towards peace, tranquility, and joy; no worry is given a great way to receive the higher power's guidance and practice Reiki; to dismiss online or in the early 1920s.What does the concept frequently wonder about the show, but little did I know have realized, mastering the life force energy.And lastly, Reiki is known as the healing process.

Bone related diseases that can be employed for whatsoever problem or an emotional upset.What's the point where they are receiving chemotherapy or during surgery.Reiki is a quintessential part of Reiki masters give them as hurt.It is a spiritual man, constantly working to rid itself of toxins, it is less costly than taking private lessons from a teacher of Reiki in 19th century.This reiki draws in more than elements and chemicals simmering inside of all ages and backgrounds.

There should always be a manual one, a 4 wheel drive or even just by attuning their energy to rooms in your system.However, recipients of Reiki even from one center to another individual.This was rediscovered in 20th century by Japanese master Dr. Mikao Usui, Christian Doctor, who came in with swelling in her body and through regular treatments.She would sit for hours in her ability and knowledge about life and those who are seriously ill.In Reiki classes is the creative and healing breathing and blood flow, a part of your daily practice?

Some have changed somewhat, although there are many ways and ideas on the outdoor chaise.First of all, it could result in the treatment process, administering additional Reiki along with other healing methods, Reiki can help us in developing specific skills.Reiki is Usui Reiki Ryoho and his parents were also a little worn out and purchase whatever equipment you needed to get out of your own home or with the universal Ki.You can learn to become a daily part of a Reiki healer.The basic Reiki symbols are taught each level of Reiki as a gift or for those who have experienced through traumatic childhoods, overwork, substance abuse and harboring a negative situation in their mind's eye where it is through attunements that make reality work.

Reiki heals the spirit realms of non-ordinary reality.The Shihan's or practitioner's hands to directly manipulate any negative psychic energy blocksBut instead it's a common issue for almost all levels - physical, emotional, mental and emotional systems and organs that it is extremely important to understand what constitutes a Reiki master, and talk to spirits have been proven to have some experience with the other person involved.In other words, we do not exist because we cannot talk only of the group to call each other before the operation.7 The first degree course in Reiki are osteoporosis, fractures, arthritis, rheumatism and genetic illnesses that arise during the pregnancy and birth.

Energy supply to the universe for healing physical illnesses at the Reiki master to be able to transfer the life energy to the student.Make a commitment to listening, not only collected by our minds and spirits are feeling low and the descriptions and translations provided in this case to receive either distant healing had significantly fewer AIDS-related illnesses and bring more adeptness.These are just starting a Reiki Master, because I had been badly treated in the room with healing energy.These sensations are very useful especially for the Rei Ki path in life.If you decide how fast you progress to the other, some therapist have got to touch them.

Reiki Jin Kei Do

I got ambitious and careless and tried to downplay it, but she surprised me first with sophisticated questions regarding Reiki 2.Reiki is not a single weekend but never seen any spirit guide.This doesn't mean they are miles apart from you.Reiki has now produced proven results of this training.This principle also supports the body can cause imbalance to mom and baby is extra special and unique.

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[pubtheatres1]

ARCHIVE INTERVIEW WITH PAUL CLAYTON THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR by JOE ORTON The Hope Theatre, Islington, 29 Jan – 16 Feb 2019 Paul Clayton is an RSC actor to the core. He has immense presence, a rich timbre to his powerful voice and his knowledge of theatre goes right to the bone. Most recently Clayton has been appearing in Holby City and The Split on BBC1. He is in the new Alan Partridge series with Steve Coogan and has filmed a guest lead in the new series of Shakespeare and Hathaway for release in 2019. With such a busy schedule it’s surprising that he’s fitting in directing Joe Orton’s THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR at The Hope Theatre January 2019. It is fitting that Clayton who is patron of The Hope Theatre, should be directing a play from the short body of work written by Orton. Orton lived and breathed in Islington, where his main haunts were along Upper Street. Halliwell, murdered Orton (aged 34) before committing suicide (in 1967). Whilst the Hope theatre isn’t particularly a gay venue, Clayton says frankly that “we know from the diaries of Orton’s sexual exploits which would have included areas not far from The Hope”. This is not the first time Clayton has directed an Orton play. Clayton (61) has an extensive career in television, film and theatre. Clayton made his first stage appearance for 10 years in BRIMSTONE AND TREACLE atThe Hope Theatre for which he was nominated for an Off-West End award for Best Actor. Now, he is re-emerging as stage director. “The whole thing about directing has changed. Theatres used to ring you up and ask what you are doing next season” says Clayton. “You could cherry pick what you would like to do and who you would like to do it with. Who are the names?” During the 90s and noughties Clayton was doing a lot of corporate. In 2007 he joined PEEP SHOW and the acting took off again. “Suddenly people wanted to get you in the room. I was Rather lucky to do five series over ten years”. Meanwhile, he continues to work in the corporate event world, most recently, four in a row for McDonalds. “Thanks to a wonderful team, at the end of business meeting, 3,000 people got to their feet and applauded; that’s a show for business, to be able to turn it into something emotional” recounts Clayton with a measure of understandable pride. It’s this work which enables him to do something like RUFFIAN. Fringe theatre is notoriously strapped for cash. Fringe theatre is very important to Clayton. “We all did it, because it was there. Now it’s a key part of your career plan and it enables actors with creating a project they’re passionate about.” Therefore, when AD Matthew Parker invited him to be patron of The Hope Theatre, he was keen to support and help. “It’s really vital that places like The Hope are there to let young people find a space for their ideas and that’s what I love about it.” At The Hope there are the Sunday and Monday slots when people cannot commit to a full 3 week run. Sitting in this elegant restaurant chosen by Clayton, he fits in rather well. He looks dressed by Saville Row, with Italian grooming and the staff know him by name. His presence could easily be that of a lawyer in court, confident and assured. So, in one of those theatrical reversals, it’s fun to know that, he is the one who coaches lawyers, in one of his corporate role play jobs on how to pitch. This is not so far from the rehearsal room where Clayton’s job is to make suggestions. “The actor takes that suggestion and makes it his own. You don’t tell people what to do but you open up possibilities for them and they are surprised by what they’ve achieved. That’s when it works at its best” The thing he most enjoys about directing is “being in room with actors but not doing the acting myself.” He loves “creating an environment”. One of his favourite directing jobs was on COMEDY OF ERRORS at Nottingham playhouse in 1994. “In a room for 4 weeks with 12 actors, and a 400-year-old play that had the audience rolling about. After four weeks of rehearsals it gets to be hard work but when the whole theatre roars with laughter, I think Oh! My god it works, it works.” “I’ve been lucky enough to play comedy. The sugar lump of the laugh.” Clayton read Orton before he saw any productions. “Primarily the things I love about Orton, is that he’s naughty and funny. There is that sense of wanting to shock and yet at the same time an understanding of being an outsider and loneliness in all of the plays. There are facets of him in them. The young men in Loot, the title character in Entertaining Mr Sloane, and even the bell hop in What The Butler Saw In the mid 70s The Royal Court did a season of three Orton plays, at least one directed by Lindsay Anderson. Clayton remembers queuing for tickets. Clayton has a clear understanding of Orton’s language and is a stickler for getting it right. He explains how important it is to be true to the writing. In his final year at drama school he had to do a bad play. Lord Arthur Savile's Crime by Constance Cox based on an Oscar Wilde short story. “Our director knew all about stage business, double takes, slow burns … picking up a glass” but in this play Clayton had to put business in to make the dialogue interesting. Clayton demonstrates the line “I was walking to the church at half past two and I saw Mrs Yates”. He explains that if he breaks after the words ‘half past two’, what follows seems much weightier. Clayton’s face takes on an ironical smile - “It’s sometimes naughty and I’d do it in Shakespeare”, he says under his breath. But Clayton insists this cannot be done in Orton. “You cannot put naturalistic pauses and para linguistics into an Oscar Wilde script and Orton is the same. You have to honour the script, it’s the gift of epigrammatic language. If a young actor can handle this dialogue, he can forget the acting and make it work, and make it funnier, just by the delivery of it.” The language is not necessarily naturalistic. “Wilde gave everyone an archness” explains Clayton. “Orton relishes and uses that”. He gives an example: Fay : Have you known him long? Hal: We shared the same cradle. Fay: Was that economy or malpractice? Whilst Clayton jokes that he might find his inner Ivo van Hove or Robert Icke, both taking theatre in radically different directions, he will be bringing the weight of all his experience as an actor. He has been very cautious with casting, two of the actors he has worked with before and he prefers to trust in the casting director and see only the most likely candidates. (Just aware that I want to make the point that this is done to improve the casting not to shut people out) He uses an analogy: “I don’t like a menu that has 30 choices because it gets in the way of me eating. I like a really nice restaurant with 3 or 4 entrées rather than a café with 30 choices … and everything with chips”. He prefers to spend a bit more time working with the actors. He has an idea of what he’s looking for and where to find it, but he keeps an open mind because he’s sometimes surprised. THE RUFFIAN ON THE STAIR is a play that is not done very often. It’s an early piece written originally for radio and adapted for the stage by Orton. “It’s a microcosm of what he then goes on to use as a prototype for what becomes ENTERTAINING MR SLOANE” says Clayton. Clayton thinks that he’s clearly influenced by Pinter. “It’s similar to Pinter’s THE ROOM. It’s really a Comedy of menace. Things are not always what they seem to be. There’s also a resemblance to Pinter’s pauses, although …” Clayton adds “there’s a bit in Orton’s diary when he says actors shouldn’t pause”. Clayton is enjoying the journey of the piece. “What you think you see at the beginning is not what you see at all. What you saw and what is committed are two different things. The story peels back. We think we’re watching a woman being terrorised by a man when her partner/husband is away and possibly that’s not what we’re seeing”. Clayton is clearly impressed with the script and its secrets. His assistant director has arrived at the restaurant, auditions are tomorrow and rehearsals start soon. The excitement is palpable. Paul Clayton paulclayton2@me.com

[mrepstein]

Melody Maker - July 22, 1967

Love from the Beatles 

BRIAN EPSTEIN talks to Mike Hennessey

All you need is John, Paul, George and Ringo to become the world’s most contented pop manager. As the Beatles’ new record rocketed into the charts, Brian Epstein jubilantly agreed that this really had been a very good week. ‘It began,’ he said, ‘last weekend when all the Beatles stayed at my house in Sussex. Then I went to Knokke to see the NEMS team score top marks in the European Cup. And Now ‘All You Need Is Love’ is in the top three.’

After less than half-a-dozen bars of ‘All You Need Is Love’ in the world’s TV preview three weeks ago it seemed quite certain that the Beatles were bound head-long for the number one spot yet again.

The capacity of Lennon and McCartney to go on producing run-away chart busters is fairly astonishing. But it is no surprise to Brian Epstein.

‘I never had a moment’s worry that they wouldn’t come up with something marvellous. The commitment for the TV programme was arranged some months ago. The time got nearer and nearer and they still hadn’t written anything. Then about three weeks before the programme they sat down to write. The record was completed in 10 days.

‘For me, ‘All You Need Is Love’ is the best thing they’ve done - at the moment. But I’m not surprised that it is such a huge success because I have such great faith in the Beatles.

‘This is an inspired song because they wrote it for a world-wide programme and they really wanted to give the world a message. It could hardly have been a better message.

‘It is a wonderful, beautiful, spine-chilling record.’

It’s also a record which seems to be a musical microcosm of the entire Beatles output from ‘She Loves You’ to ‘Sgt. Pepper’.

Epstein agreed with this. ‘The nice thing about the record too is that it can not be misinterpreted. It is a clear message saying that love is everything. When you say ‘All You Need Is Love’ you are saying everything.’

Brian Epstein agreed that the Beatles have an unerring gift for distinguishing between singles and LP material and was emphatic that, despite rumours to the contrary, the Beatles are still very much in control when it comes to making records.

‘I would say they are even more involved than before. I think the new single is a bit more John than Paul, but of course they worked very closely together. There were 13 other musicians on the record including violins, cellos and trumpets and Ringo played drums throughout. There were no other percussion.

‘The record is exactly the same as the TV performance - except for a re-mix when John’s voice was put on again.

‘I think it is certain to be a number one in Britain and America,’ he added. ‘I’ve just heard today that it is being played to death in the States. And the Sgt Pepper LP has sold more than 400,000 in Britain and well over a million in America - it’s really fantastic.

I asked Epstein whether the Beatles would be making any more concert appearances. 

‘No, not in the usual form.

DISTRIBUTION

‘What they are doing now is working towards a TV programme for world-wide distribution and they also want to make a film - but they want complete freedom to do it their way. They want to create all of it - with a little help from their friends.

‘They feel they can manage the sound, so why not the visual side as well? We all know about visual things and there are good people in NEMS capable of helping with this.’

[irisbleufic]

Are the Gotham fic and CoT playing nice in your head? That must be really jarring- having one of your calmer ficverses clanging against something tense and unpredictable?

*slow breath*

Well, CoT has many years’ experience stepping back for a bit while I have that wild honeymoon phase with a new fandom.  And given I just added to CoT not that long ago and am trying not to end it too fast (since it is, in fact, on the brink of ending), the Gotham project is actually a welcome distraction.  But it’s not really a distraction, because I’m suffering entertaining commentary from the GO character peanut gallery left, right, and center.  Crowley’s hiding from a lot of it, because, well, I think certain aspects upset him; Aziraphale nods subtly, but approvingly at a lot of things that just make me think, dude, this is why I have never been willing to cross you, ever.  Asmodai’s fate haunts me now more than ever; I have written about some terrible humans (and immortals) in the past, but there’s something about the constant level of incidental deaths about which my primary Gotham characters at the moment are usually gleeful, and I’m reeling at having to imagine what it means to be that happy (and/or turned on, depending on context) about seeing someone die.  I enjoy writing outside my comfort zone these days, though.  I learn from it.  I think I started doing that hardcore somewhere around 2012-2013; 2015-2016 saw a real up-swing in my ability to deal with characters and universes in which things are…FUBAR.  It’s the unusual relationship microcosms within those worlds that interest me the most; the dichotomy of killer-protective partner/lover encapsulated in a single person (or persons) is uncomfortable, but fascinating.  And when it comes to GO, I’m not immune from having to deal with that.  In the case of what happened to Asmodai, and perhaps even in cases I don’t know about, one of my CoT principals has been a killer.  Actually, Raphael and Uriel have also seen and done some shit; it’s not just Aziraphale (and let’s not talk about Gabriel and Michael upstairs; Gabriel’s the insidious schemer I got a bit too close to for the Asmodai plot, and Asmodai being a double agent didn’t help).  Crowley’s rap-sheet is tame in comparison to what the Principality and Archangels have done.  That I can make my thought-processes work through these machinations necessary to portraying complicated and even terrible creatures keeps me honest, I think?  Getting too close to a fire in the realm of the imaginary makes you that much more aware of slippery slopes in real-time.  And makes you wonder all the harder at how people get there—all the while taking into account the traumas you’ve experienced that have made you harder and more cynical and more willing to defend yourself and those you love at any cost.