#now for full context george could have been very well aware

[padawanlost]

Why do people seem to hate Dave Filoni all of a sudden? I mean I'll confess I don't really like the way some characters were changed in the The Clone Wars series, but Filoni and Lucas did do a LOT of things right in that series. Its actually really deep and explores some very important moral and social issues like the impact of war especially on young people. Is it because Filoni has been critical of the Jedi at times? Honestly, I don't see anything inflamatory in what he says, and I don't think he's just randomly pulling stuff out of the air. Some of what he says is supported in old canon materials. The Jedi aren't perfect, I fail to see why legitimate criticism is such a big deal.

Before anything else, this ask was sent before the bad batch premiered so I won’t get into *that* right now.

That being said, this fandom has had a very interesting love-hate relationship with Filoni, so allow me to provide some context before we get into the heart of the issue.

Before The Clone Wars (2008) premiered the anti-prequel movement was still strong. A lot of people still accused George Lucas for ‘ruining’ star wars forever, so when the show premiered filled with action scenes, jedi, sith, badass moments and humor, Filoni was hailed as the savior of the franchise. Finally someone who understood what star wars was *really* about had come and saved us all from the prequels boring issues.

 That mentality last for quite some time. sure, there were voices of dissent but the general vibe was that Filoni had truly fixed star wars and the prequels. It was very similar from what happened to Game of Thrones. When the show premiered HBO and D&D were hailed as these god-like superwriters who could do no wrong. As the show progressed fans started noticing the cracks but most people still believed the show and its creators above criticism. only now that some time has passed that people are becoming more objective about the content and realizing the signs that something was off were always there. Of course, Filoni didn’t have a fiasco similar to Got’s Season 7 and 8 but the long waiting period between TCW’s season 6 and 7 gave people a lot of time to think objectively about the show, which made them realizing Filoni was, after all, just a man. And TCW was not an ‘alternative’ to the prequels, it was just an extension of it.

The themes people hated in the prequels were deeply imbued into the clone wars because a show about war must be, by definition, a show about politics. Whether people are ready to admit it or not, star wars was always about politics. I mean, the OT was about reestablishing a democratic government. It doesn’t get more political than that lol

And we can speak of PT-politics without talking of the Jedi Order. And here lies the core of the issue: people’s sudden realization of this truth. Somehow, for a very long time, some fans didn’t realize the clone wars  (and sw in general) was all about poltical (anti-war) allegories.  

Here’s a Filoni interview from 2013 that discusses the fandom reaction to the jedi:

StarWars.com: I was at the Lucasfilm fan screening of the finale, and I was keeping an ear on the crowd’s reaction to certain scenes. I was kind of surprised at the reaction when Ahsoka doesn’t take her Padawan braid back. Dave Filoni: Right. StarWars.com: Because people gasped at first, and then a lot of people started cheering. Dave Filoni: Yeah! Fantastic, huh? StarWars.com: What did you make of that? Dave Filoni: I was really, really surprised by that. Really surprised. I didn’t think people would be against it. But I certainly didn’t think that people would applaud it, necessarily. I think that there’s a certain element there… I mean, we weren’t trying to paint the Jedi in a bad light, but certainly you understand her reasons for wanting to leave. We’ve kind of taken a generation of Star Wars fans and really made them reassess that whole time period to the point where at the end of it, they’re on the side of this young girl who’s like, “Yeah, this isn’t gonna work for me.” And I think people feel that right now. They are often in a situation that they’d rather not be in and they wish they could just walk away, and maybe she embodies that. Maybe there’s something going on there that we’re not aware of. But I don’t know, I was pretty fascinated by that. It was a pretty surprising reaction. George and I went over those final scenes quite a bit. One of the big things was, the whole scene with the Council at the end used to take place outside where Anakin and Ahsoka talk. And it was definitely George, when we watched the first cut of it, who said, “I want to split this so that it’s half-inside, half-outside. And the outside is just Anakin and Ahsoka.” It was very important to him to separate the two of them out and just have this conversation between them. He wanted kids to know that she didn’t blame Anakin for it and that she wasn’t upset with Anakin. And I thought it was a great call. When I re-shot the scene it was pretty phenomenal. There was a debate about Ahsoka at the end, and her just going back to the Jedi at the end of it, and that was the initial impulse. But I kind of argued, “Well, wait. We have an opportunity here with her out to change her story dramatically.” And I’m always looking for those opportunities, because you’re not sure when they’re gonna come, to just grab something and change it dramatically for her. I thought, to do that whole storyline and then have her come back would almost be expected, so why not challenge that.[x]

Unlike what the narrative sold on tumblr says, Filoni and George talked about what was going on in the show (he was reason for Maul and Mandalore, two fan favorites, being on the show). But because accepting Filoni knew what he was doing means accepting George also knew what he was doing when drawing political and social parallels between real life and star wars, it’s much easier to just hate on Filoni and/or George (depending on what they are saying).

It’s kind of like selective hate. When Anakin is being abusive or when Padmé is being assaulted Filoni is a fucking mastermind. But when he’s criticizing the Jedi Order he’s a dumbass who doesn’t know shit about star wars. Or at least don’t know as much as people who have never talked to George Lucas, talked to anyone linked to star wars or has explored the full contents of the star wars lore know.

Look, I’m not defending Filoni here. He’s made plenty of decisions I don’t agree with it, but I find quite surprising how people can’t be rational about it. or, at the very least, be critical of the things that truly matter and have an affect on people in real life like racism, sexism and abuse. Idk, I just find interesting how the fans hating on him for being slightly ‘critical’ of the jedi Order seem to have no problem with the racism, whitewashing and sexism in the show. It really shows what people’s priorities are.

[prongsies]

Me & You Together ● George Weasley

PAIRING: George Weasley x Reader SUMMARY: George has been in love with her for ages, but he’s only saying it now WARNINGS: Mild language, slightly suggestive A/N: I got inspired by The 1975′s Me & You Together Song and fkrjdnfkrjnf there are a LOT more song-inspired fics lined up

The ballroom was beautiful, with colorful flowers adorning nearly every inch available in the large expanse of the area. Gold lined the ceilings, accenting the furniture which showed off just how much wealth the (y/l/n) family possessed. Not just that, but the visitors invited to this glorious occasion screamed rich - and George was painfully aware of just how under-dressed he was, with everyone around him adorning dress robes he was sure could pay off a year’s worth of rent.

But that doesn’t matter now, not when he’s standing in front of his best friend, who was grinning happily at him she watched him clutch the microphone tightly in his hand until his knuckles have turned white.

With his speech in his shaky hand and a slight waver in his voice, he started reading, “I remember the first time that we met, how enthralled I was by you and the fact that you didn’t care about how, in the short time we’ve been acquainted, I’ve already seen you with your top off”

Audible gasps echoed in the room from the rest of the visitors, but George’s gaze remained on (y/n), watching as she giggled, tears brimming her eyes even though he has barely started, but he continued…

—

“You’re crazy, (y/n)!” Angelina’s laughter echoed in the empty Hogwarts Grounds as she watched the Slytherin peel her clothes off one by one, happily facing her punishment for losing their last round of poker. It had been her idea after all, that instead of strip poker, the loser skinny dips in the Black Lake.

Of course, she didn’t know she would be the one to face the consequences, but she didn’t mind considering it was a one-of-a-kind experience. Everyone trailed behind her, laughing as they watched her in amusement, in disbelief that a Pureblood Slytherin would be this carefree.

Among those people was George, who, until just about an hour ago, had been adamant about letting her in the Gryffindor common room in the middle of the night. I mean, why would he when her Prefect badge glimmered proudly on her chest? He thought she was there to rat them out. It was only when Lee and Angelina called her in that George stepped aside, interested in the strange relationship the girl shared with his friends.

Now, here she was, standing over the docks fully naked, grinning at all of them shamelessly. George tried, he really did, to keep his eyes focused anywhere else. But her personality really drew him towards her that his eyes keep darting back.

A wink sent his way caused his blood to rush up his cheeks, and he had to physically pat them down to cool them as he watched her dive into the lake without hesitation, squealing slightly at the cold when she resurfaced.

It was all fun and games at first until a flicker of light in the distance stole George’s attention at the same time that it did the others’.

“Shit, it’s Filch” Lee whispered towards their small group, his eyes holding panic as the light - which George had now realized was a lamp - neared. “What do we do?”

Before George could even propose a solution, he was pushed into the cold depths of the lake, bringing his teeth to chatter at the unexpected drop in temperature. He turned to glare at the culprit - his brother - watching him motion for George to hide, “keep her company, we’ll be back”

“Fred-!”

“Oh, just shut it, George” He was pulled under the wooden docks by his forearm, (y/n)’s hand atop his head as she guided him under. They watched as Filch’s figure came nearer through the slits in between the hardwood, their breaths caught in their throat as they tried their hardest not to make even the smallest of sound.

It took minutes for Filch to finish surveying the area - and George was more than happy Angelina was quick enough to gather (y/n)’s belongings, leaving no trace they were even there. They waited until the caretaker decided he’s had enough, which George didn’t mind until he came to the realization that (y/n)’s body - her bare chest - remained pressed to his back, keeping it away from view in the event the old man does catch them (and George was sure he was frozen on the spot).

It wasn’t until Filch’s disappearance and (y/n) peeling her body away from him that his breathing returned to normal. He was so sure the girl hadn’t noticed the change in his demeanor, but when she swam to face him, smirking up at him as she looked at him with a glint in her eyes, that he realized she had.

“What’s so funny?” George asked as she let out a breathy laugh, covering her mouth with her hand in an attempt to stifle her adorable snort, “Oh, so you find our situation amusing?”

“Very” she replied, hands making their way onto George’s shoulders to keep her steady and afloat (she was too short that her feet didn’t even touch the bottom, even when George stood shoulder-deep). She continued, “I just never imagined you’d see me naked on our first encounter - it’s definitely a story worth telling”

“Not to my family, I hope”

“Especially to your family!” (Y/n) threw her head back in laughter. “I’d want to see their reaction if I tell them you’ve already seen me naked - without context”

“Mum’ll be furious” George laughed.

“Alright, lovebirds! Time to get out!” Angelina interjected their little moment, her head peeking out from above the docks as she presented them with two fresh robes, “C’mon! We don’t want anyone sick”

“But I’m having too much fun!” (Y/n) replied sarcastically, turning to wink at George briefly before swimming up to Angelina, “besides, I reckon the water woke George up! Saw him yawning far too many times before we got here”

“Oh, trust me! (Y/n)” Fred joined in, glancing at his brother with a teasing smirk, “It’s not the water that woke him up”

“Fred!”

—

“Who would’ve thought we’d make it here?” George snuck a look towards (y/n), watching her grin as they reminisce their old memories together.

He continued, “I certainly didn’t. When the war was starting to rise and days got a bit darker, I was afraid where our relationship would go - especially since we were in different houses. Yet you continue to surprise me, even until now…”

—

(Y/n) stood out among the students in the small group, being the only one in green among those in blue, yellow, and red. She prided herself in it, how willing she was to learn magic that would defend her from fellow-purebloods in her house.

She knew far too much, from whispers in the common room, so she knows a war is inevitable - that he’s really back and he’s here to kill.

George knows there are a million different things running through her mind right now, being a witness to her rare distracted state just as the DA meeting started. So, when she moved to stare at the pictures on the mirror in the Room of Requirement when the lesson concluded, George waved his brother off ahead of him.

He approached (y/n) cautiously, watching the way her eyes darted towards him in their reflection as he wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, slotting their bodies together like puzzle pieces. His chin rested on top of her head, her hands placing themselves over his she continued studying the picture of the first Order of the Phoenix.

“They were so young,” she spoke after a few minutes of silence.

“Hmm?” George asked, too distracted by their reflections on the mirror to know what she was pertaining to.

“Lily and James Potter,” she continued, nodding at the photo, “I- I don’t think I’d know what to do if I were in their position”

“Well, knowing you,” George watched as (y/n) twisted in his arms to face him, feeling his heart bear faster when her palm rested over his chest as she stared up at him, giving him her full attention. He gulped, “knowing you, you’d fight bravely and selflessly - just as they had”

“You think too highly of me, Georgey” she giggled, resting her cheek onto her chest, humming in delight.

“As everyone should”

They were enveloped in silence again, relishing the embrace they were in before they’d have to leave the Room of Requirement and face reality all over again.

“…let’s run away”

“What?” George didn’t know if he heard her right, his eyes widening as they met (y/n)’s again.

“I said let’s run away”

George chuckled, pulling her closer to his chest in amusement, “soon love… soon”

—

“And you’ve always been there for me and Freddie,” George’s voice shook, his eyes running over the few remaining words that concluded his speech.

—

A grin made its way onto George’s face when the front door swung open, revealing (y/n) who looked far too exhausted to be visiting her friends. He knows she’s been having a rough time at work, needing to handle mountain-loads of paperwork on a daily basis as the Head Auror, and with Ron and Harry recently finishing their training, he was sure they’ve caused quite some trouble the former-Slytherin had to handle.

She flashed him a small smile when their eyes met, darting straight to the dining room to place a paper bag onto the table. “I’ve got us dinner”

“Sometimes I wonder if you actually live with us, love” Commented Fred as he emerged from the bathroom, a grin onto his face as well, at the sight of her, “you’re here everyday, might as well move in, right?”

“You know you two make me feel less lonely” she pushed Fred’s face away when he tried to plant a sloppy kiss on her cheek with a giggle, “besides, I’ve heard from a little birdie that you’re gotten a date with Angelina, Freddie”

“I’m guessing that little birdie’s our ickle Ronnikins?” Fred chuckled, eyes darting towards George in a glare for a brief moment before turning his attention back to (y/n), slinging an arm over her shoulder, “well you’ve heard wrong, darling, because it’s actually George here who’s gotten a date with her”

“Oh,” her voice held surprise as her head snapped towards George, eyes holding a look he’s never really seen from her before. George noticed Fred’s subtle movement, shaking her a bit which seemed to bring her back to reality as she flashed him a tight-lipped smile, “well, I’m happy for you - truly”

“I’m feeling quite famished,” Fred broke the tension, finally stealing that kiss on the cheek from (y/n) who shoved him away with a laugh, “We’re so lucky we have you bringing us dinner almost everyday, love. Pretty sure we’ll end up burning the entire kitchen down if we attempt cooking anything other than instant noodles”

—

“…even when there are times I can’t be there for you…”

—

“You alright, Freddie?” George’s voice rang through the quiet flat, seeing Fred sitting at their dining table with his head in his hands, a sheet of parchment laid out in front of him, “What’s that?”

“It’s nothing” Fred murmured, shaking his head as he attempted to compose himself, tucking the sheet into his journal in a haste, tossing it onto the counter as he stood up to leave, “I’m off for a bit - don’t wait up”

With that, he grabbed his coat from the rack, rushing to put it on as he made a beeline towards the door, leaving George in silence. Unconsciously, his eyes darted towards the journal, intimidated by the corner of the parchment still sticking out as he neared it.

He knows he shouldn’t do it, that he should respect his twin brother’s privacy - but with the war that happened not so long ago he has this need to know, this need to inform himself before anyone can get the upper hand at him. What if the letter was a death threat? Merlin knows they’ve received too much of them the time they released products like You-Know-Poo. He’s almost lost his brother once, he doesn’t want to go through it again.

So, with a deep inhale, George snatched the letter from between the pages, opening it hurriedly, afraid he’ll get caught.

His breathing came out in heavy pants as he read through the familiar handwriting:

Fred —

I remember telling you how stupid it was for you to think I’d regret rejecting your wedding proposal just so we could get mother off my back. I mean, I thought she’d finally let go of the arranged marriage idea when she blasted me off the family tree. I guess I was wrong.

I found out today that she had arranged for me to marry Rodolfo Avery in a month, and I think it’s for the best that I agree. You see, I’m not really getting younger, am I? Even if you’ve told me years ago to wait for George to get his shit together it seems it’s a lost cause - he’s deeply in love with Angelina, I don’t want to get in the way. Besides, Rodolfo can be quite a gentleman if he wanted to - husband material? Guess I’ll have to wait for the wedding to know.

I’d appreciate it if you two attend the engagement party as my Men of Honor (if there’s such a thing), I’d really want to see some familiar faces there considering most of the attendees are of Rodolfo’s choosing. I hope you can keep this letter between us, I don’t want to drag your brother in this mess. The invitations are sent out tomorrow so watch out for my owl!

With love and probably too much alcohol in my system, (y/n).

—

“George?” Fred’s voice brought him back to reality.

George blinked a few times, eyes focusing slowly towards the girl sat in the middle of the room, watching in confusion as George remained silent, ceasing his speech abruptly. He looked down at the parchment again, reading the last sentence, ‘There is nothing more I’d want in the world than to see you happy’, before looking back up.

Is she really happy?

The letter she wrote said otherwise. She was waiting for him, even after all these years. She was the one who decided it was all over for them, decided to push through this marriage even though she knows she wouldn’t be happy.

She decided to settle for someone else just because he’s been too chicken to admit he’s always loved her.

“George, come back here!” Fred snapped in a hushed whisper, tugging the hem of George’s robes. But George wasn’t moving consciously right now. No, his feet felt like they have a mind of their own as they moved towards the center of the room, bringing him in front of (y/n) who looked just as surprised as he was.

“Hi, George” She grinned up at him, eyes holding the same glint it did when they had first met, “you alright?”

“More than” he replied breathlessly, “(y/n)…”

“George”

“I’ve been in love with you for ages” he blurted out, glancing at the soon-to-be-groom nervous, only to see him nodding his head encouragingly. He knows. “And as I look at you right now, I know only one thing: that I want to be the one calling you my wife in the future”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying… I’m saying let’s run away together”

(Y/n) smiled, her memories of that time she said those exact same words to him in the Room of Requirement replaying in her head. She looked down at George’s outstretched hand, then back up at him, smiling at the way his hands shook in nervousness, uncertain if she would give him the time to make it up to her.

It’s all up to her now. The decision is hers.

With a wink at her -now- ex-fiancee, she grabbed George’s hand, allowing him to pull her up from her seat, out the front door, and into the night.

[hotchley]

“i’m not a five foot hundred pound girl”

yes i’m using his most iconic quotes as the titles, in my head it was a smart idea

morehotchcontent2020 day one: dad hotch (a lazy day at home with jack)

tagged: @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety

“don’t give me that look young man, i told you when i bought them that i was going to hide them. you need a break. and i know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”

jack opened his mouth to protest.

“cheat day,” hotch said with a grin before jack could even formulate an argument.

when upcoming exams cause jack large amounts of stress and sadness, hotch takes it upon himself to make their saturday a little more hopeful and a lot more relaxed

note: I am on season ten, but am aware of certain events in later seasons which may be poorly referenced because i don’t know the actual context, it’s not very relevant to the plot so just go with it it’s fine.

warnings: implied/referenced child abuse

read on ao3!

“You’re up early,” Hotch commented, when Jack entered the kitchen at nine in the morning on a Saturday. He wasn’t trying to be annoying, or make his son feel angry, but he was curious. And a little concerned. He wasn’t an idiot. And just because he’d retired, did not mean he’d forgotten how to profile. Or hear. Jack had been stressed recently. And last night, he’d been pacing his room.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jack said by way of explanation.

Hotch made a non-committal sound. It was one of those moments where he just felt so out of his depth. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, putting his book down.

Jack shrugged. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean compared to the things that you must’ve been subjected to as a child, it’s nothing.”

Hotch winced, remembering how he’d wanted to keep certain aspects of his childhood from Jack, which had worked until Jack started high school and wanted to know why there weren’t any photos of him with his family around. Hotch had wanted to lie, but too much had happened and it wasn’t fair of him to do that. Instead, he’d spoken to Jack’s therapist, who said that as long as he kept it appropriate, it would help Jack learn to open up as well.

“Buddy, you know I never want you to feel like that. My childhood was decades ago. If something is bothering you, then it’s bothering you. And you can talk to me about it. But you don’t have to. I just wanted to know, that’s all.”

“I just- it’s the exams. There’s so many of them and there’s so much content and I feel like I don’t any of it and it’s stressing me out because I saw the kind of qualifications you need to get into the FBI and I don’t want to disappoint you but I just feel like I’m going to fail and then everyone will be mad at me because I’m supposed to be smart, and then I won’t be able to do anything in life and I’ll just be a failure,” Jack said, voice cracking on the last words.

“Oh Jack. You could never disappoint me. Ever. I’m your dad. That love isn’t conditional. It never has been and it never will be. All I want is for you to do your best,” Hotch said, setting his mug down and moving closer to his son. He didn’t extend his arms, not yet sure whether or not Jack wanted comfort.

Jack was like his mother: he never learnt to hide his emotions because he never felt he had to. But Aaron was no longer Agent Hotchner, he was Jack’s dad. And that meant no profiling. And whilst he was aware that there was a difference between actively profiling someone and knowing their tells, sometimes the line blurred. He didn’t want it to blur.

“But what if- what if I do my best and it isn’t good enough?” Jack whispered.

Hotch couldn’t take it. He hugged Jack, just about managing to cradle the back of his head. When had he gotten so tall?

“Buddy. Your best when you’re under pressure and in test conditions is never going to be the same as your best when you’re relaxed. But what you do then will be your best in the moment. And that’s enough. I promise,” Hotch soothed.

Jack let out another muffled sob, and the two of them stood there whilst Jack finally let the stress that had been building inside him for weeks now, out. Hotch let his son cry. He needed this. They both did. Jack needed to know he was good enough, and that nothing was going to change that. Hotch needed to know his son still trusted him. Hotch wasn’t an idiot. The anniversary of hard times was coming up.

“I’m sorry for ruining your jumper,” Jack mumbled when he pulled away, wiping at his eyes.

Hotch looked down at it. It was well-worn now, as he had realised that wearing jumpers round the house was so much more comfortable than a button-down, and he no longer had any reason to be parading around in a suit, because all he had to do now was be a dad.

“You haven’t ruined it. You’ve added character,” Hotch joked.

Jack laughed, but it sounded forced.

“I meant what I said,” Hotch said, tone serious.

“I know. I just—I don’t know. Needed to hear that.”

“Do you know what else you need?” Hotch asked.

Jack shook his head. “But I bet you’re about tell me, aren’t you?”

Hotch nodded, walking over to the cupboard full of baking things- yes, he had taken up baking after he retired, and no, he wasn’t proud of himself for googling things to do once you’ve retired from the FBI- and pulling out a packet of chocolate chips.

“Don’t give me that look young man, I told you when I bought them that I was going to hide them. You need a break. And I know that you think you can’t take one, but trust me, if you go and do work now, you’re really not going to learn anything.”

Jack opened his mouth to protest.

“Cheat Day,” Hotch said with a grin before Jack could even formulate an argument.

Every month, Hotch and Jack were entitled to two cheat days each. And on those days, they were exempt from doing any cleaning, cooking, homework, whatever tasks needed doing because they needed a break. All they had to do was remember to take their medication and eat. They also had the power to call one for the other if they deemed it necessary. And sometimes, they would do it together.

Jack rolled his eyes, already feeling a little better now he knew he was getting pancakes. “Fine.”

Hotch smiled. “Why don’t you get out of those jeans and into some pyjamas then?”

Jack ran up the stairs to do just that. In truth, he wasn’t exactly sure why he’d put them on in the first place, but studytubers always said that it was better to study in real clothes so you would actually be productive. That was why he’d woken up early; he could cram more.

When he came back into the kitchen, now dressed in that old worn pair of Captain America pyjamas that still fit him and were the comfiest thing he owned, his dad was already plating up the pancakes. He’d put extra syrup, extra whipped cream and an obscene amount of various candies on the plate he pushed towards Jack.

“We’ll eat, and then we’re going to watch one of those comfort films you love. And then we’re going to do something relaxing, have pizza for lunch because Dave sent me this new recipe, then you’re going to take a bath and have a nap because you clearly need sleep. And then for dinner, I’m thinking mac and cheese. From the box but with the extra cheese, the way you like it,” Aaron said with a grin.

Jack smiled at him, a small lump forming in his throat. Oh.

“Thanks dad,” he whispered, not trusting himself to say any more than that.

After they ate their pancakes- Jack ended up finishing Hotch’s, who had claimed that he finally needed to start listening to the doctor- Jack went to the living room to pick his film, whilst Hotch went upstairs to grab the pillows and duvets from their rooms so they could be as cosy as possible.

It was halfway through Anastasia- they had already watched the original versions of Beauty and the Beast, as well as part of Cinderella before he’d changed his mind- when Jack couldn’t take it any longer. He stopped the film and turned to face his dad.

“Is everything okay?” Hotch asked, eyes bleary as he’d accidentally started napping.

“Dad, I love you. That’s not conditional,” Jack said.

“I know that buddy,” Hotch said.

“And you also know that I was the only senior that got dropped off by their parent this year, right?”

Hotch nodded. “People weren’t rude about that, were they?”

“No. You know why? Because you’re my dad. And I love you. So you don’t need to call a cheat day just because you want to spend time with me. You can just ask. I won’t ever say no,” Jack said.

Hotch rapidly blinked away tears. “I didn’t want to make you feel guilty. And I’m supposed to be your parent. That means not dumping my problems on you.”

Jack laughed. “Dad, we don’t- we’re not normal. We don’t have the same relationships as the other families and that’s fine. I like that. I like that I can just throw a book at your head and you’ll read it to me. And I like that you let me take the bus home from my therapy sessions, no matter how much it hurts you. I don’t like seeing you upset, but I appreciate you being honest and teaching me it’s okay to cry. You’re not dumping your problems on me, I’m asking.”

Hotch pushed Jack’s fringe off his face. “When did you get so wise?”

Jack grinned. “I had some pretty good role models. There was Uncle Spence telling me about constellations, there was Uncle Der telling me about dating, Aunt Em and Uncle Dave who told me what Megan Kane said to you- which was actually pretty funny- and let’s not forget Aunt JJ and Aunt Penny just being cool.”

Hotch raised an eyebrow slightly.

“I’m joking. I got wise because I had you. I know you feel like you failed, but you haven’t. I wouldn’t be here if you had. You know that. So spill, old man, before I call Aunt Penny and tell her that you’re going to make mac and cheese from box.”

Hotch’s mouth turned downwards. Jack was right. It was morbid, but George Foyet would have killed Jack if he’d found him. There was no doubt about that. “I just- I want to give you your space, and let you grow up and become an adult, but I’m scared that when that happens, you’re going to leave and not come back because you’ll stop looking at me like a hero and realise I destroyed everything good in your life. I mean, I’m doing that right now. You’re stressed about exams and I’m making it worse by rambling about my own stupidity.”

Jack’s suspicions had been correct. “Dad, I stopped viewing you as a hero when you had to have surgery for your scars and almost died. That was the moment I realised you were mortal. The moment I realised you were flawed was when Aunt Jess started ranting about how you handled a situation the wrong way. I’m not leaving any time soon. But when I do, I’ll always come back, because this apartment is my home.”

“You’re so much like your mother. She always knew how to calm me down,” Hotch said.

“It’s a gift. Now, that’s enough emotion. Can we please finish the film and make the pizza? I’m getting hungry.”

Hotch smiled, that soft smile, reserved only for his son, and pressed play. Jack shifted so his head was resting in his dad’s lap. Almost subconsciously, Hotch started running his hand through it, mimicking the motions of years ago, when they were running late and there wasn’t enough time to brush it properly.

They ended up burning the pizza because Hotch claimed he didn’t need his reading glasses but then set the temperature to 475F instead of 450F. Jack found it funny, and when he went upstairs to wash his hands as Hotch answered the door for take-out, he texted Uncle Dave, and got a serious of words his dad would give him the Hotchner Glare for in response.

As they sat on the carpet, some old romcom Haley and Aaron had loved as teenagers on in the background, Jack was grateful that his dad was who he was. Yes, there were still nights where Jack woke up screaming and there were mornings where Hotch would have dark circles under his eyes, shaky hands and an aversion to touch, but there were also moments like these where they were just a father-son duo, eating slices of pizza and laughing at some stupid joke they were telling.

Jack’s friends were all out shopping, watching movies, going on dates, falling in and out of love in the blink of an eye, and being teenagers. Hotch had worried for so long that he’d taken Jack’s ability to be normal and do things like that away.

It was that evening, when he saw the way Jack’s eyes light up at the sight of the boxed macaroni and cheese, not burnt but with extra cheese, that he realised he hadn’t. It had been Jack’s decision to stay in that weekend.

Because there was nowhere else he would rather be.

[uboat53]

The greatest moment of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

I wanted to take a brief moment to talk about the greatest moment from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in my opinion, why I think it’s the greatest moment, and what that moment means both in the context of the series and in our overall cultural context.

Alert: This post has spoilers for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, so continue at your own risk.

Cards on the table, the greatest moment in my opinion was the moment when Sam takes Isaiah to the Smithsonian at the end to see his statue in the Captain America exhibit.

This is a powerful moment because one of the key points in the entire series is that African-Americans are made to feel as if they are not welcome in America mainly because their contributions to this country and all of their pain and sacrifice are minimized or entirely forgotten.  The moment when Isaiah sees his statue is a powerful one because so much of the hurt and pain that he feels in his life stems from the very fact that he has been forgotten by his country after sacrificing so much for it.

Isaiah chose to remain hidden for so long in order to avoid the pain of knowing that he has been cast aside from the narrative of history.  It becomes clear in the course of the story that this is not something he is doing because it is the best thing for him, but because he believes the alternatives are worse.  He is stuck in a world that he believes can only hurt him so he chooses the option that allows him to feel as if he is in control and, in order to maintain that sense of control, he even convinces himself that it’s what he wants.

But when Sam brings him to the exhibit, not just by himself but with his grandson, he realizes what it means to be remembered.  Not just remembered, but acknowledged in the fullness of his experience.  To have the country that hurt him and tossed him aside not just remember what he contributed to it, but also to admit what it has done openly and in full.

I think it’s important that people not only watch but also understand this moment for what it is because it’s so vital to the current discussions we’re having about race and history in the United States right now.  So many people deliberately misunderstand movements like Black Lives Matter and the push to remove Confederate monuments as being about erasing history, removing white people from it, or casting white people as the villains of history when they’re actually about fully embracing history.

The addition of the Isaiah statue to the Captain America exhibit is a perfect example of what those of us who support these movements actually want.  Steve Rogers never tortured or experimented on Isaiah and he didn’t lock him away for decades.  He wasn’t even aware that it had happened at the very least until it had all been done.  Yet we cannot fully tell the story of Captain America and the super soldier serum without explaining that the pain and humiliation inflicted on black people was what made it possible for this white person to be a hero.

To acknowledge this isn’t to minimize the heroism of Steve Rogers and everything that he accomplished, but it provides the perspective that even the man who always does what he thinks is right and just even when the consequences are severe for him existed in and perpetuated a system that committed extraordinary injustices.  Even he could only do so much to change the system and even he had his blind spots where he was simply ignorant of injustices because they were a part of the very fabric of the society that formed him.

In the same way, those who call for the removal of Confederate monuments and the teaching of racial history in schools are not trying to cast white people as villains, they are seeking acknowledgement that many of the achievements primarily attributed to white people were achieved with considerable aid from and often much sacrifice on the part of black people.

First, we have to differentiate between public statues and the actual teaching of history.  Public statues don’t teach history, no one learns about history by looking at a statue in a public park.  Public statues glorify parts of history, they tell us that, when we read history, these are the good guys you should try to be like.  Statues of Lincoln, for example, teach you nothing about what he did or the time in which he lived, they are simply a reminder that, when you are reading the history of his time, he is the good guy, the one you should root for and try to be like.

The Confederacy was a grotesque farce of a government and governing philosophy, twisting words to try to justify a horrific system of racial violence and oppression in the name of “freedom”.  Anyone who can’t tell that this isn’t the part of history to be glorified is a person who desperately needs an education in history and probably ethics and morality as well.  But aside from the Confederacy, racial injustice permeates all of the greatest moments and achievements of our society.

George Washington, through his marriage, owned a plantation and slaves that made him wealthy enough to pursue a high-status military career.  Thomas Jefferson sated his sexual appetites with a slave woman even while he declared that all men are created equal and deserving of freedom.  Alexander Hamilton appears to have made a significant chunk of his fortune investing in the slave trade which allowed him to pursue a career in politics.  Even more modern leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed racist policies like redlining to be written into their greatest achievements such as the Federal Housing Administration.

None of this diminishes the contributions that these men have made to our country and to history in general, but none of these men could have made these contributions the way they did without the effort and sacrifice of countless generations of people of African descent.

To tell their stories without this acknowledgement is erasing history.  To tell the stories of great white people without acknowledging that they couldn’t have achieved what they did without a society that allowed them to exploit the labor and contributions of black people, often with great sacrifice on the part of those black people, is erasing history.

That’s why the moment of Isaiah seeing his statue at the Smithsonian is such a powerful one.  It’s a moment that we hope to achieve for all African-Americans, the moment when the United States acknowledges all of the pain and anguish that it has inflicted and is still inflicting on them and celebrates the contributions that they have made, often unwillingly, to the greatness of this country.

It’s not the end of the story, this story won’t end until this country finally eliminates all of the prejudice and violence that African-Americans face even today and truly makes amends for the centuries of it that have already occurred, but it’s the first step.  As with all addicts, admitting that you have a problem is the first step to recovery, and this is a long addiction that the United States really needs to kick even if the junkies insist that we need to take one more hit.

[minipliny]

it’s 1am and I am angry about 2019 moby dick musical lyrics

I have been wanting to write my historical-context-of-Queequeg-in-Moby-Dick and what-the-fuck-was-the-musical for 10 months, and I have been continually aware that it is not going to be a good version of this post and that I know nothing about this subject beyond some judicious Googling and JSTOR access. On the other hand, Dave Malloy had Google too and created…….these song lyrics. So please imagine me waving at you, the reader, frantically, in the direction of more information, rather than a learned disquisition of any sort. Also if I get anything wrong (WHICH I HAVE BEFORE) tell me.

Also point one: the source text Malloy is working with is absolutely also a racist text. He just didn’t have to do…that with it. And obviously, he’s writing it as a joke! I realise this! But when you explicitly decide to do a song about cultural relativism, and then you decide to present what I think even I can notice is kind of a wildly inaccurate caricature which doesn’t really have anything else in mainstream media to counterbalance it, and then you never ever get any of the delicate character work or adaptational work that you get in Great Comet…I don’t know that this is something that was thought about or if Malloy decided to take the entire concept of 19th century Pacific Islanders and leave it as “they eat people! I can make up how exactly by consulting the Wikipedia cannibalism entry and not scrolling down to any specific examples! Also I don’t need to think about any social or historical ramifications.

So, point two. The “Autobiography” section of Moby Dick clearly and obviously draws on the account of Te Pehi Kupe’s journey to England on 26 February 1824. Geoffrey Sanborn has written several articles and books discussing this, with further articles by Juniper Ellis and Caroline Schwarz.

(I’d add at this point that this one of many many Maori journeys to Europe and America at this point, with many different aims – while Te Pehi Kupe was looking for a military resource which was giving a devastating advantage and determining much of the balance of power at the time, many other people were more interested in architecture, agriculture, manufacturing, windmills, trade, law and justice, literacy, religion, politics, and of course acquiring a printing press. So Melville’s idea of trying to find a way of making the people happier than previously is semi a joke, semi reflecting what was an actual thing)

Te Pehi Kupe, a rangatira (chief) of Ngati Toa, paddled out to the ship Urania, and resisting being thrown aboard, demanded to stay on board, go to Europe, and ask King George for guns. He befriended the captain and saved him from drowning, travelling to England to meet George IV, observe military matters (like regiments being reviewed) and visit factories. Returning to a complex and escalating series of wars partly fuelled by the huge imbalances of firepower that muskets brought, he was ultimately killed during conflict with Ngai Tahu.

For the history and conflicts of Ngāti Toa, released only a week ago is a new book containing a 50,000 account in te reo Māori of Te Rauparaha’s life, written by Te Rauparaha’s son Tamihana between 1866 and 1869.

The very same day that Aperahama Te Kawe spoke to him, Te Rauparaha announced: “In the morning we shall go, migrate; the pā is about to fall.” At this, Ngāti Toa’s spirits were lifted, the 140 who were inside their pā, Te Arawī.

In the morning when the sun was high, near midday, they migrated, they left their pā. They did not allow themselves to weep, they left Kāwhia behind, following the paths along the coast. The men and women who did not have the strength to travel were left lying on the trail and some perished from starvation.

They carried on throughout that day until nightfall. When they reached Marokopa my mother was left there, heavy with child — for indeed I was inside her womb about to be born — along with some other chiefly women of Ngāti Toa who were also left at Marokopa. The travelling party with the fighting men carried on, including Te Rauparaha. My mother was not abandoned there, another relative, Pukeroa, stayed with her to look after her, along with some others of Ngāti Toa.

The Ngāti Toa travelling party carried on. When they got to the top of Moeātoa [30 km south of Kāwhia], the hill, they looked back down at Kāwhia lying below. Now the love for their home, for Kāwhia, welled up. Then the people of Ngāti Toa and their elder, Te Rauparaha, wept, their grief was like the sighing sea. How could he not be overcome with love for the homeland that he was leaving behind, the land of his birth where his placenta was buried?

And I’m putting this really wrenching excerpt here because the history and culture that Melville very shakily and ignorantly nonetheless draws on (from religious beliefs, to the idea that the afterlife involves travel back to a specific island, to art and carving, ta moko, warfare, wedding customs to humour) is….real people’s history. The warfare of the Musket Wars did involve the ritualised consumption of the bodies of dead enemies – that didn’t actually make everything a joke to the people who took part in it, or leave their descendants without legacies to reckon with, painful memories or acts of heroism.

And I’m just going to put Ross Calman, the author of the book’s quote here regarding the very contemporary relevance of history:

We can’t pretend that it’s all going to be happy families. It’s been a very difficult past and we have to face up to the violence of the early founding years of this nation. It’s been built on violence and on deceit and on land being taken from Māori in a variety of ways. It’s left us as an impoverished people and we’re still feeling the effects today.

A lot of Pākehā say: “Oh, that’s in the past. You can’t blame me for that.” But the impact of the violence and deceit and theft is still very much with us, and that has to be addressed.

(And for more there, there is this Vincent O’Malley article for one of many, many examples)

Or for a commentary by an early 19th century Māori speaker on both European and Maori societies, have the debate between  Te Whareumeu and Augustus Earle quoted in Tangata Whenua: “the only difference in our laws is, you flog and hang, but we shoot and eat”.  

And finally, here is an actual comic song from the 1820s/30s Māori world, full of irony, wordplay, and double-entendre.

This was sung by some women of the Te Namu pa which had successfully withstood a siege from a taua (war-party) of Te Ati-Awa. The war-party was armed with two muskets. They made a great noise but killed nobody.

Guns came down

To Te Taniwha

To Huri—whenua—

Calling out to the weak ones

Driven here by the guns—

Ha! Come to me, black death,

Come to my thighs, conquering earth—

They shiver at his breath

He beats and burns and roars

Ha! He is done.

What a weapon of love

A sharp bullet from above—

Ha! I am caught in his cold fire

There is no end to his desire—

Ha! He is done!

[fuckyeahstephensondheim]

Rick Pender knows his Sondheim from A to Z

If the word “encyclopedia” conjures for you a 26-volume compendium of information ranging from history to science and beyond, you may find the notion of a Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia perplexing. But if you have ever looked at a bookshelf full of book after book about (and occasionally by) the premiere musical theatre composer-lyricist of our era and wished all that information could be synthesized and indexed in one place, maybe the idea of a Sondheim encyclopedia will start to make a little more sense to you. It did to Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, an independent publisher that’s made encyclopedias such as this one of their calling cards, offering tomes on everyone from Marie Curie to Akira Kurasowa. Several years ago, they approached Rick Pender, longtime managing editor of the gone but never forgotten Sondheim Review and now, after years of research, writing, and pandemic-related delays, the The Stephen Sondheim Encyclopedia is finally hitting shelves. I sat down with Rick (via Zoom) to chat about this unique, massive project.

FYSS: I want to really focus on the new book, but we should start with your history with Sondheim and The Sondheim Review. How did you become so enmeshed in this work?

RP: As a teenager, the first LP that I bought was the soundtrack from West Side Story, and I didn't have any clue about who much of anybody was, particularly not Stephen Sondheim. But I loved the lyrics for the songs, especially “Something’s Coming” and “Gee, Officer Krupke.” These are just fabulous lyrics.

Then, of course, in the ‘70s it was hard as time went by not to have some awareness of Sondheim. I saw a wonderful production of Night Music in northeast Ohio, and I again just thought these lyrics are incredible, and I love the music from that particular show. Fast forward a little further in the late ‘80s, I was laid up with some surgery and I knew I was going to be bedridden for a week or two anyway, so I went to the public library and grabbed up a handful of CDs, and in that batch was A Collector's Sondheim, the three-disc set of stuff up through about 1985, and I must have listened to that a hundred times, I swear, because it had material on it that I didn't know anything about like Evening Primrose or Stavisky. So that really opened my eyes.

Later, my son had moved to Chicago. He's a scenic carpenter and a union stagehand. He worked at the Goodman Theatre, and I went to see a production when they were still performing in a theater space at the Art Institute of Chicago, and they had a gift shop there. And lo and behold in the rack I saw a copy of a magazine called The Sondheim Review! I thought, oh my gosh, I've got to subscribe to this! This would have been about 1996, probably, so I subscribed and enjoyed it immediately. A quarterly magazine about just about Stephen Sondheim struck me as kind of amazing.

In 1997-98 the Cincinnati Playhouse did a production of Sweeney Todd in which Pamela Myers, all grown up, played Mrs. Lovett, and so I wrote to the editor of the magazine and said, “Would you like me to review this?” That started me down a path for a couple of years of making fairly regular contributions to the magazine. Then in 2004 that editor retired, and I was asked to become the managing editor, which I did from 2004 to 2016. It went off the rails for some business reasons, but it lasted for 22 years which I think is pretty remarkable.

I tried to sustain it in an alternative form with a website called Everything Sondheim. We put stuff up online for about 18 months, and we published three print issues that look very much like The Sondheim Review, but we were not able to sustain it beyond that.

FYSS: How did the Encyclopedia project originate?

RP: The publisher asked me to write an encyclopedia about Stephen Sondheim! I envisioned that I would be sort of the general editor who coordinated a bunch of writers to put this together, but they said no, we're thinking of you as being the sole author. They had done a couple of other encyclopedias particularly of film directors, and those were all done by one person, so they sent me a contract asking me to generate 300,000 words for this book, and after I regained consciousness, I said all right, I'll give it a try.

It took me about two years – most of 2018 and ‘19 – to generate that content. I sent it off in the fall of ‘19, and then, well, the world stopped because of the pandemic. It was supposed to come out April a year ago, and they had just furloughed a bunch of their editors and everything stalled. But now it's coming out mid-April 2021.

FYSS: What was the research and writing process like?

RP: This project came about in part because the publisher initially approached another writer, Mark Horowitz, who's at the Library of Congress and who had done a Sondheim book of Sondheim on Music. Mark and I had become quite close because he wrote a number of wonderful features about different Sondheim songs for The Sondheim Review. When I heard that that he had put my name out there, I went back to him after I had agreed to do this and said, Mark, could we use some of that material that you wrote for the magazine about those songs? And he said, sure do with them whatever you wish. And I was glad he said that, because they were really long pieces, and I've reduced each of them to about 1500-2000 words, which I thought was probably about the maximum length that people would really want to read in a reference volume.

But other than that, I generated everything else myself. I relied upon plenty of material within the 22 years of back issues of The Sondheim Review. Another great resource was Sondheim's own lyric studies, the two-volume set which provides so much information about the production of shows and that sort of thing.

Of the 131 entries I wrote for this, 18 of them are lengthy pieces about each of the original productions, so again Sondheim's books were certainly useful for that, and other books like Ted Chapin's book about Follies.

I also spent some time in Washington, D.C. at the Library of Congress, and Mark loaned me a quite a bit of material that he had collected – not archival material but scrapbooks of clippings that he put into ring binders of stuff about Sondheim's shows.

I came back to Cincinnati with about four or five cartons of materials, and I could really dig through that stuff as I was working on these. And then I have, as I'm sure you and lots of other Sondheim fans have, a bookcase with a shelf or two of Sondheim books, and those were all things that I relied upon, too.

I actually generated a list with lots and lots of topics, probably over 200, and I knew that was going to be more than I could do. Eventually, some things were consolidated, like an actor who perhaps performed in just one Sondheim show wasn't going to get a biographical entry, but I would talk about them in the particular show that they were involved in. So, I was able to collapse some of those kinds of things. But as I said, I did end up with 131 entries in the publication, and it turned out to be 636 pages, so that's a big fat reference book.

FYSS: Who is the intended audience for a work like this? RP: The book is really intended to be a reference volume more than a coffee-table book. It does have photography in it, but it's black and white and more meant to be illustrative than to wallow in the glories of Sondheim. There is an extensive bibliography in it, and all the material is really thoroughly sourced so people can find ways to dig into more.

FYSS: Sometimes memories diverge or change over time. Did you come across any contradictions in your research, and how did you resolve them?

RP: I can't say that I can recall anything like that. I relied very heavily on Sondheim's recollections in Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat because he's got a memory like a steel trap. Once in a while I would email him with a question and get very quick response on things. I really used him as my touchstone for making sure of that kind of thing.

I also found that Secrest’s biography was very thoroughly researched, and I could rely on that. But I can't say that I found a lot of discrepancy, and some of those kinds of things were a little too much inside baseball for me to be including in the encyclopedia.

FYSS: For figures with long and broad histories, how did you decide what to include? George Abbott, for example, is the first entry in the book and he worked for nine decades! How important was writing about an individual as they relate to Sondheim vs. who they were more generally?

RP: To use George Abbott as an example, I would say that the first things that I did was to go back to the lyric studies and to the Secrest biography and just look up references to Abbott. I mean, it was George Abbott who said that he wanted more hummable songs from Sondheim, so you know that was certainly an anecdote that was worth including because, of course you know, it becomes a little bit of the lyric in Merrily We Roll Along. 

So you know, I would look for those kinds of things, but I also wanted to put Sondheim in context because Abbott was well into his career when he finally directed Forum which, since it was Sondheim's first show as a composer and a lyricist, is significant. That was very much the focus of that entry, but I wanted to lay a foundation in talking about Abbott, about all the things that he had done before that. I mean, he was sort of the Hal Prince of his era in in terms of his engagement in so many different kinds of things – writing plays, directing musicals, doctoring shows, all of that.

FYSS: Did any entries stick out to you as being the hardest to write?

I think the most complicated one to write about probably was Bounce/Road Show because it's got a complicated history, and Sondheim has so much to say about it. And because it's not a show that people know so much about, I wanted to treat it appropriately, but not as expansively as all of that background material might have suggested. So I kind of had to weave my way through that one. It also was a little tough to write about, because how do you write a synopsis of a show that has had several incarnations quite different from one another, and musical material that has changed from one to the other? With shows like that, I particularly tried to resort to the licensed versions of the shows. 

FYSS: I haven't had a chance to read the book cover-to-cover yet, but I did read the Follies and the Into the Woods entries to try to get a sense of how you covered individual shows, and both of those are shows that had significant revisions at different times. And I thought you made it very clear what they were and also where to go for a reader who wants to learn more.

RP: Let me say one other thing this is not directly on this topic, but it sort of relates, and that is that in writing an encyclopedia, I didn't want to overlay a lot of my very individual opinions about things, but with each of the show entries I tried to review the critical comments that were made about the show in its original form, perhaps with significant revivals and that sort of thing, and then to source those remarks from critics at those various points in time. And of course, my own objectivity (or lack thereof) had something to do with what I was selecting, but I thought that was a good way to represent the range of opinion without having to make it all my own opinion.

FYSS: Did you feel any responsibility with regards to canonization when you made choices about what to include or exclude? What made the First National Tour of Into the Woods more significant than the Fiasco production, for example? Why do Side by Side by Sondheim & Sondheim on Sondheim get individual entries, but Putting It Together is relegated to the omnibus entry on revues?

RP: I guess that now you are lifting the curtain on some of my own subjectivity with that question. I tried to identify things that were particularly significant. I mean with the revues for instance, several of those shows – you know, particularly Side by Side by Sondheim, the very early ones – they were the ones I think that elevated him in people’s awareness. So, I think that to me was part of what drove that. And then shows that that were early touring productions struck me as being things that maybe needed a little bit more coverage. I think the Fiasco production was a really interesting one, but with the more recent productions of shows I just felt like there's no end to it if I begin to include a lot of that sort of thing.

FYSS: I mean it's so subjective. I'm not the kind of person who clutches my pearls and screams oh my goodness, how could you not talk about this or that. But I was surprised to see in your Follies entry that the Paper Mill Playhouse album was not listed among the recordings, for example. I imagine that once this book hits shelves you're going to be bombarded with people asking about their pet favorites.

RP: Oh, I'm sure, and maybe that will be a reason to do a second edition, which I’m totally ready to do.

The Sondheim Encyclopedia hits bookstore shelves April 15. It’s available wherever you buy books, but Rick has provided a special discount code for readers of Fuck Yeah Stephen Sondheim to receive 30% off when you order directly from the publisher. To order, visit www.rowman.com, call 800-462-6420, and use code RLFANDF30.

Celebrate the launch of The Sondheim Encyclopedia with a free, live online event featuring Rick Pender in conversation with Broadway Nation’s David Armstrong Friday, April 16 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern. More information and register here.

[whitehotharlots]

CRT and the sad state of educational politics

If our culture is studied 100 years from now, the predominant theme of the research will be a sense of perplexed revulsion toward how we did nothing to address the climate crisis in spite of having decades of forewarning. If there is a second theme, it will be a profound confusion regarding our immense and unearned sense of self-certainty. A retrospective of the early twenty first century would be titled something like Who the Fuck Did These People Think They Were? 

The latter theme is illustrated in the debacle surrounding a recent slew of municipal and statewide bills that seek to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools. For the record, I am strongly against these bans. But I’m also self-aware enough to know my opinion matters very little, and therefore realize that an analysis of the discussion surrounding the bills will yield much more worthwhile observations than a simple delimitation of their pros and cons. Regardless of your personal opinion, I hope you’ll humor me.

I am, in some regards, a moral absolutist. But I also realize that abstract morality has very little bearing on material and political realities. In my ideal world, classrooms are free from political meddling. Teachers teach to the best of their ability, presenting students with truths that are confidently unvarnished due to the thorough amount of work that was required to reach them. I don’t cotton any of that socratic bullshit. Students are there to learn, not to engage in weird Gotchas with some perverted elder. The teacher’s job is to teach. The material they teach needs to be subjected to some graspable and standardized mechanism of truth adjudication before it is worthy of being taught. Teaching is not therapy. Teaching is not poetry. Teaching is not love, nor is it religion, nor is it a means of social or political indoctrination. There are plenty of other avenues available to accomplish all of those other things. Teaching is teaching. 

That’s the ideal. But ideals are just ideals. They never come true. The art of teaching, regardless of setting--from overpacked classrooms to face-to-face instruction to curricular design to nationwide pedagogical initiatives--boils down to a teacher’s ability to reconcile the need to convey truths with social and political pressures that are heavily invested in the suppression of truth. 

I have formally studied and practiced education for nearly two decades. In that time, the prevailing political thrust toward education has been a desire to casualize the practice of teaching, to render educators as cheap and fungible as iphones. The thrust takes different shapes depending on the political affiliation of whomever happens to be in charge of the state and federal governments that fund education, but the ultimate desire is always the same. The goal is always to attempt to make teaching rote and algorithmic, something akin to running a google search for How to do math? or What is morality?. The framing is always just windowdressing, empty culture war bullshit. 

Maybe it’s the inescapability of this thrust that’s rendered so many educators so blind to it? We only have nominal political choice, after all. The discourse gets more blinkered and vicious as the stakes decrease. At any rate, this is the undeniable reality, and anyone who doesn’t see that isn’t worth listening to. 

Non-administrative per-pupil spending as been on a steady decline since George W. Bush was president. Administrative bloat and meddling are becoming as common in k-12 as they are in higher education. The will of parasitic NGOs are implemented as common sense pedagogy without anyone even bothering to ask for any proof that they work. The so-called Education Reform movement is sputtering out due both to its manifest failures and rare, bipartisan backlash. But it will be replaced with something just as idiotic and pernicious. The thrust of causalization will not abate. 

And so what do we decide to do? What’s the next big thing on the education policy horizon? Critical Race Theory. 

Okay, this makes sense. In 2021, a local paper can’t run a news story about a lost cat without explicitly mentioning the race of every human involved and possibly also nodding toward the implied cisnormativity of pet ownership. So it makes sense that this broad rhetorical mandate would come to dominate the transitional period between Bush-Obama Education Reform and whatever bleak future awaits us. The controversy is so perfectly inefficacious that its adoption was inevitable. Because, seriously, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the outcome of this kerfuffle, no problems will be solved. The real shortcomings of public education will not be addressed. Larger social problems that are typically blamed on public education in spite of having little to do with public education will especially not be addressed. Maybe white kids will have to do struggle sessions in lieu of the Pledge of Allegiance. Maybe black kids will get full credit for drawing the Slayer logo in the part of the test where their geometric proof is supposed to go. Or maybe it won’t happen. Maybe instead these practices will be banned, and in turn liberals will begin to embrace homeschooling, the charter movement will be given new life as a refuge against the terrors of white supremacist behaviors such as, uhh, teaching kids to show their work. Whatever.

Within the context of public education, the outcome will not matter. It cannot matter. There will be broader social impacts, sure. It will continue to drive Democrats more rightward, providing their party’s newly woke corporate wing with progressive-sounding rationales for austerity. But so far as teachers and students are concerned, it won’t matter.

Why do I give a shit about this, then? To put it bluntly, I’m struck by the utter fucking inartfulness of CRT’s proponents. At no point has any advocate of CRT presented a case for their approach to education that was at all concerned with persuading people who aren’t already 100% in their camp. There’s been no demonstration of positive impacts, or even an explanation of how the impacts could hypothetically be positive. In fact, so much as asking for such a rationale is considered proof of racism. Advocates posit an image of existing educational policies that is absolutely fantastical, suggesting that kids never learn about slavery or racism or civil rights. But then... then they don’t even stick with the kayfabe. They’ll say “kids never learn about racism.” In response, people--mostly well-meaning--say “wait, umm, I’m pretty sure they do learn about racism.” The response is “we never said they don’t learn about racism.” You’ll see this shift from one paragraph to the next. It’s insane. Absolutely insane. 

Or take this talk from a pro-CRT workshop in Oregon. The speaker freely admits that proto-CRT leanings like anti-bias education, multiculturalism, and centering race in historical discussions have been the norm since the late 1980s. The speaker admits that these practices have been commonplace for 30+ years, as anyone my age or younger will attest. Then, seconds later, the speaker discusses the results of this shift: it failed. Unequivocally:

We had this huge, huge, huge focus on culturally relevant teaching and research. [ ... ] So you would think that with 40+ years of research and really focusing and a lot of lip service and a lot of policies and, you know, a lot of rhetoric about cultural relevancy and about equity and about anti-bias that we would see trends that are significantly different, [but] that’s not what we’re finding. What we’re finding that you see [is] that some cases, particularly black and brown [students] the results, the academic achievement has either stayed the same and gotten worse.

Translation: here’s this approach to teaching. It’s new and vital but also we’ve been doing it for 40 years. It doesn’t work. But we need to keep doing it. Anyone who is in any way confused by this is a dangerous racist. 

Even in the darkest days of the Bush-era culture war, I never saw such a complete and open disregard for honesty. This isn’t to say that Bush-era conservatives weren’t shit-eating liars. They were. But they had enough savvy to realize that self-righteousness alone is not an effective way of doing politics. You need to at least pretend to be engaging with issues in good faith. 

This is what happens when a movement has its head so far up its own ass that it cannot comprehend the notion of good-faith criticism. These people do not believe that there can exist anyone who shares their basic goals but has concerns that their methods might not work. Their self-certainty is so absolute and unshakeable that they can proffer data demonstrating the complete ineffectiveness of their methods as proof of the necessity of their methods.

For decades, the most effective inoculation against pernicious meddling in education has been to lean upon the ideal form of teaching I described earlier in this post. We claimed that teaching is apolitical and that no one is trying to indoctrinate anybody. Regardless of the abstract impossibility of this claim, it has immense and lasting appeal, and it was upheld by a system of pedagogical standards that allowed teachers to evoke a sense of neutrality. The prevailing thrust in liberal education is to explicitly reject any such notions, and no one--not a single goddamn person--has proffered a convincing replacement for it. We still say, laughably, that we’re eschewing indoctrination. But people aren’t that stupid. If you find it beneath yourself to make your lies digestible, people will be able to tell when you’re lying to them. 

This, my friends, bodes very poorly for the future of education, regardless of whatever happens in the coming months. A movement that cannot articulate its own worth is not one that is long for this world. Teachers themselves are the only force that can resit the slow press toward the eventual elimination of public education, and they have embraced a worldview and comportment style that renders them absolutely unable to mount any worthwhile resistance. 

[qqueenofhades]

I'm listening to the History on Fire podcast by Daniele Bolelli which is FANTASTIC for many reasons, but especially notable for me as an American is listening to American history as taught by a European who doesn't flinch from calling a spade a spade or Woodrow Wilson a white supremacist. It's startling and refreshing to not have that texas schoolboard whitewashed veneer applied to some of the Really Bad Shit done by Americans in our history.

Okay but like.... Woodrow Wilson was a white supremacist, we know this, right?

Princeton University has now taken his name off their school of international affairs, which frankly I was not expecting them to do, because when this issue first arose in 2015, they did the usual hemming and hawing about how he had contributed to the nation, etc. But as noted when this protest first arose, Woodrow Wilson was super racist you guys. Aside from admiringly screening the KKK propaganda film Birth of a Nation in the White House in 1915, he was actually quoted in it (as noted in the link above). He resegregated the US civil service and threw civil rights leader Marcus Trotter out of the White House because “[Trotter’s] tone offends me.” He had managed to win the black vote in 1912 with vague promises to make things better, and then.... did not do that. His administration was also heavily staffed with white supremacists.

Wilson admittedly did try to enact economic protections for working-class Americans against large corporations, and he has a luster as a progressive international statesman because of WWI, but while his racial legacy abroad (and particularly in the context of colonialism) is complex, it’s still... well, extremely racist. The period between 1877 (the end of Reconstruction) and 1923 (after the end of the Wilson presidency) has sometimes been called the nadir of American race relations, as all the gains from Reconstruction were rolled back, violent incidents including lynching became the norm (as well as the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921 that we all just heard about thanks to the Orange One), and the Klan was politically empowered across America (not least by Wilson himself).

I think it’s important to note these things because Wilson would probably not come up on most people’s lists of racist or objectionable political figures, because a) as you note, Americans aren’t taught about this in the first place, and b) we like the idea that only the egregious George Wallace-esque types are or were actually racist, rather than examining it in the context of otherwise admired statesmen, as Wilson’s general legacy still is. I would also like to note that Abraham Lincoln, who is practically a figure of hero worship in American politics, remained far more concerned about the political Union than he ever was about black people, and used the Emancipation Proclamation to put pressure on the Confederacy, not because he was an anti-racist. He expressed opposition to slavery as an institution and by the time of his death was coming around to the idea of black citizenship, but he also said that “if I could save the Union without freeing one slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do that.” In other words, Lincoln’s attitudes on slavery and race also need closer study and awareness, and he is, after all, pretty much as uncontroversially saintlike as American presidents come.

The fact is that white Americans have been so coddled and pampered and shielded from reality that even discovering these very basic facts has come as a shock. You’d really think that in 2020 this wouldn’t be so goddamn controversial, but if nothing else, the sheer depths of this historical (mis)-education are now being brutally exposed, and everyone gets to see for themselves how a country full of “me-firsters” are now responsible for the dubious honor of the worst coronavirus response in the world/highest caseload. These two things really are connected. Ideology has almost completely replaced history, and while Trump has obviously accelerated and exposed that effort, America’s departure from reality has been going on for a long time. I’d like to say that will actually change now, but.... mmm.

Anyway, I’m glad that this podcast has been useful and enlightening to you. As you may know, I’m sitting over here as a historian watching all this happen with a mix of incredulity and despair about the way this country has simply not dealt with any of its shit because “we’re number one!” In general, Americans need to hear more about America from people outside it, because.... yeah. Yikes.

[lifeisdabubbles-undersalmondean]

La Pomme ~ Chapter 16

Pairing: Sam x OC (eventual Dean x OC and Dean x Castiel. And I mean eventual.)

Series summary: George is a casual French-Mistake-universe Supernatural fan living in no-COVID 2020, who's life is upended when she's suddenly launched between realities, two years into the boys' past (S13E22). What begins as an insane, immersive fan experience turns into more when Jack goes missing and George offers up her AU information to help track him down. Soon it's discovered that she and Sam may actually have history. But that's impossible, right?

Word Count:5,800

Warnings: {smut, fluff, angst, show level violence, swearing, mentions of suicide} ***Detailed warnings will be tagged for specific chapters.

A/N: Following the events of my prequel Paradise and second story From My Eyes Off. Reading those first gives context but isn’t necessary to start this one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

George was alone with Jack for the next few hours while the brothers set about the tasks of clean up, house warding, and hopefully some rest of their own. She was the perfect person to take first watch, considering every time she closed her eyes she saw Jack’s bloody, near lifeless body behind her lids. Staying with him gave her a reason to keep her eyes open and she figured the more she could see him looking distinctly alive, the better. Every once in a while she’d take his hand in hers and squeeze tightly, thinking ‘happy thoughts.’ Considering her recent angelic kidnapping, she refused to call it prayer; instead she tried to imagine sending healing energy through her hands to him.

Just as the sun began sneaking a ray or two into the room through the half open blinds, George spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. It startled her at first, thinking the psychotic angel was back. She relaxed when it was only Dean.

“Morning,” She said quietly. She watched him hold a mug up to his lips and take a careful sip before acknowledging her.

“Morning,” He mimicked, stepping into the room. “Your Aunt serves decent coffee.”

“‘Decent’? Don’t let her hear you say that,” She warned with a tired smile.

Dean gave her a once over and then motioned for her to get up, “OK, shift change. Time for you to get some rest.”

“Dean, I’m fine--”

“I’m sure you're fine as a frog’s hair, but you still need sleep, young lady.” Came Lorna’s stern voice from the doorway. She was holding a plate of fresh baked mango scones that made Dean's mouth water. Lorna held the plate out to him and he took two, then eyed the plate longingly. “Go ahead. I have another batch on the counter and two more in the oven. And if the coffee’s not weak enough for you, there’s a Starbucks in Gibbousville,” She informed him in a stern voice, a smirk on her face. Dean glanced at George, who’s expression clearly said ‘toldja so,’ and then sheepishly took a third scone with a happy, quiet mumble of thanks.

There was only one scone left on the plate and Lorna handed it to George, “You’ve been awake since I stitched you up. Take this to the garage and get some shut eye. I’ll feed this one before I go to work and he can keep watch while you rest.” George looked between the two of them. Despite the crumbs stuck to Dean's chin, the serious expressions on their faces told her she wasn’t going to win any arguments about it. Giving Jack’s hand one last tight squeeze, she got up, took the plate with a defiant ‘thank you,’ and left the room.

The converted garage apartment consisted of one 15’ x 30’ living room-kitchen combo area with an attached bathroom and shower downstairs. At the top of the stairs was a long, narrow bedroom that had just enough room for one queen and one full mattress, placed on opposite sides of the room and a small nightstand for the queen bed. The room was cramped, with slanted ceilings so severe that neither brother could stand up fully in there other than one four inch horizontal line down the middle.

George entered the cottage and placed the plate of scone on the counter. Splitting it in two, she left one half on the plate and took a bite of the other. Unsurprisingly it was delicious and fluffy. Her aunt had always been a whiz in the kitchen; it was comforting that her alt-aunt was too. Glancing around, she saw her Target bags sitting on the leather loveseat across the room and walked over to them. She debated her options, then closed her eyes for a moment, just to see. The image of Jack’s lifeless body was murkier now, but the face of her angel tormentor was too realistic to handle. She opened her eyes again quickly, glanced around to make sure she was alone, then grabbed her toiletries.

Shower first, it is.

After brushing the blood from her teeth thrice, she carefully scrubbed her grimey skin, limited a bit by her injuries. The pain meds had worked well but she could feel a deep soreness on her side when she tried to reach certain spots. She stayed under the warmth of the water for a long time, avoiding the inevitable. Sleep was definitely going to require her eyes to be closed, but she couldn’t shake the traumatic images. She’d even attempted to calm her nerves with a few fingers but couldn’t concentrate. As she turned off the water, she hoped at least that the sun had risen high enough to chase away the darkness and maybe her fears along with it.

She wrapped her long wet hair into a towel, and began drying off. Then looked around for her clothes and realized she hadn’t brought any in with her; everything was still out on the loveseat. With a tired curse, she wrapped the damp towel around herself and peeked out to make sure the coast was clear before exiting into the living area.

Across the room, kitty-corner to the bathroom, was a modest sitting area with a loveseat and matching oversized chair positioned in front of a small redwood coffee table and fireplace. When she got to her clothes, she dropped the towel to the ground without even thinking and reached into the bag for some fresh white underwear and a black sleeveless undershirt. With her injuries, it was a bit of a struggle to get them on, but she managed it slowly.

Just as she was about to search in the bag for her pajama pants, she heard a distinct creaking sound and her head snapped toward the staircase. Knowing there was no way she’d be able to get the pants on fast enough, she reached down for the towel. The only thing she’d had time to do was grip it before Sam appeared at the bottom of the stairs five seconds later.

“Sam--” She sputtered apologetically with a start when she saw him frozen there, dressed in a casual long sleeved grey v-neck and black pajama pants. There was still sleep on his face, but he was quickly waking up, looking very surprised to see her in such a state of undress.

The second she laid eyes on him, she felt her whole body relax. She almost laughed in disbelief, considering normally she would have been falling all over herself to cover up and apologize. Whether because of the insane dream connection (which she still hadn’t fully processed) or just the past few weeks getting to know him, his mere presence made her feel safe. Safe enough that she didn’t need to say sorry. Safe enough that pants were optional. Even safe enough to close her eyes and take a deep, calming breath when she saw nothing but inky blackness behind them.

“Georgia?” Came a quiet rasp. He’d been worried about her since the rescue but, there’d been so many things to do, he hadn’t found a good time to talk to her yet. After helping to get Jack stabilized, he and Dean carefully and discreetly painted warding around the property to prevent the angels from tracking them. Then began the clean up.

Once that was all finished, he’d stopped by Jack’s room to check on her, but noticed she was talking outloud to him. Not wanting to interrupt, he’d decided to clean himself up with a shower before another attempt. His final barrier had been Dean, who literally wouldn’t leave him alone until he got some rest. He knew telling him to chill out because he needed to go talk to ‘the woman of his dreams’ wasn’t going to be a conversation ender for his brother. Just trying to wait the man out, he had accidentally fallen asleep.

Seeing her now, though, he realized just how nervous he was to be alone with her. It certainly wasn’t like he’d been trying to avoid having life-altering conversations with her by finding important busy work to do, but he couldn't deny that a tiny part of him was scared. She was still from an alternate universe and now that they had found Jack, they were supposed to send her back. So what if he’d dreamt about her and she kinda seemed to be aware of it too? So what if that fact indicated she may have had the same dream and the two of them have a decade old shared memory across alternate realities, hmm? What did that even mean? Did it even really change anything? She still had to go back to her world, right?

Considering he didn’t yet know how to answer any of that for himself, he instead started with, “How are you?”

Hearing the concern in his voice, her eyes opened and she smiled gratefully at him. Momentarily appreciating the messy morning hair and beard, she felt the stirrings of something primal and almost considered revisiting her earlier solo shower work. Instead, though, she figured she’d ask him to stay with her just until she could fall asleep.

“Tired,” She answered before dropping the towel and walking over to him. She slowly took his hand and led him back up the stairs to the bedroom. He wasn’t exactly sure what was happening but he knew he’d follow her anywhere. He allowed her to guide him back up, trying not to stare at her barely covered behind on the way.

Since their conversation in the car, Sam very clearly saw the young blonde bride he met in his dream whenever he looked at her (any of her). He was dumbfounded it took him this long to see it; he thought he had that woman’s face seared into his memory. His only explanation was that he’d successfully been able to convince himself that the dream hadn’t been real all those years ago. Therefore, it didn’t occur to him that a real woman he’d never met, from a universe he’d only been in once, could be the same person from a fake dream. Whatever the reason, he saw it now and it caused him to ache with curiosity and desire.

When she reached the top of the stairs, she realized she hadn’t actually asked him to stay and turned back around, causing him to stop as well. He was a few steps down, so they were eye-level and George could see the desire very clearly in his bright hazel eyes. The primal urges she’d placated downstairs took over; leaning forward she placed a soft, desperate kiss on his lips.

When their lips touched, she panicked for a split second about her impulsivity. Then she immediately felt his hands on her waist and she was filled with exquisite peace. Able to close her eyes untroubled for the first time in hours, she sunk into him.

Sam was so startled by the kiss that he grabbed her sides, holding on tight. Once the reality of what was happening registered, he responded enthusiastically. From his dream he remembered her taste, the way she felt in his arms, and her silky soft lips but the reality of it was unbelievable. His senses were overloading; she felt familiar and new all at the same time. It was electrifying and so consuming that all his doubts about what was happening were forgotten.

Frustrated that she couldn’t kiss him any harder without her lip protesting, she pulled back. He gripped her tighter instinctively. With a smile, she reached up and grabbed his hands, prying them off her body.

Taking a few steps backward into the room, she tugged at them, inviting, “Stay?” His mind was in a fog of stunned yearning and it rooted him to his spot. Noticing his hesitation, she squeezed his hands and pleaded softly, “Just until I fall asleep? We don’t have to do anything.”

He pulled his hands from her grip slowly, then climbed the last of the steps and stood tall over her. One hand slid into her hair, the other wrapped around her waist, pulling her back to his lips for a slow, lingering kiss. Gently and carefully, so as not to hit either of their heads against the very low and steeply angled attic roof, he guided her backwards to the larger of the two beds. Stopping her just before they reached the mattress by squeezing her against him. He’d meant to stop kissing her long enough to make sure exactly what she wanted to do, but her tongue was very distracting. Then her hands moved to softly touch the scruff of his cheeks and he melted, tumbling farther away from being able to stop kissing her.

Suddenly she ripped away from him and her forehead dropped to his chest silently. Looking down at her in confusion, wondering if he’d hurt her or she’d changed her mind, he noticed a sharp inhale of breath. When she lifted her head again her eyes were a bit watered and he realized how tired she really was.

With a smirk, he inquired, “Georgia, were you hiding a yawn from me?” Avoiding eye contact she shook her head, keeping her lips pressed together. The smirk turned into an amused smile and Sam loosened his grip on her, placing a tender kiss on her forehead.

“Bed,” He ordered softly, noticing the shiver that ran through her. Shaking her head in protest George reached up and grabbed at the collar of his shirt, pulling him down towards her. He chuckled and grabbed hold of her hands to stop her. With a charming smile he rubbed his nose against hers, bringing his lips near her tauntingly, “I’ll keep going if you can tell me how much you want me.”

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she hesitated, trying to lift herself up to his lips without him noticing.

Squeezing her eyes closed tight in hope, “I wan--” was all she got out before another yawn hit her. She wasn’t fast enough to hide this one. Why was her brain betraying her body like this?

Sam gave her another sweet but chaste kiss as a consolation prize before letting go, hunching over, and carefully maneuvering around the left side of bed. She turned her body around to follow him with a depressed slouch. The covers and pillows were disturbed and she assumed that’s where he’d been sleeping before coming downstairs. He gave the pillows a quick fluff and folded the blanket back.

To her pleasant surprise, he climbed in first. Once he was situated comfortably up against the headboard, his left arm stretched out on the empty pillow next to him, he looked at her expectantly. She straightened up from her slouch in surprise; too elated to move.

Grinning wide, she finally murmured, “Are you for real, Sam Winchester?”

With a small smile, he assured, “C’mon. Bed,” He ordered again, beckoning her with his hand. Finally her muscles moved and she climbed in next to him. Laying against him as the little spoon, she rested her head half on his shoulder, half on the pillow. Once he pulled the covers up over them both, his arms wrapped around her. He lifted one hand up, stroking her hair, and rested the other hand just below her underwear on the naked skin of her hip. Squeezing her close, he nuzzled her neck and placed a few kisses on her soft skin.

Her fresh, clean scent was intoxicating. He should have stopped kissing her; he knew she needed sleep, he could see it all over her face. Yet, having her this close after all this time was nearly making him burst; he couldn’t help himself. Glancing up, he saw her hardening nipples through the thin fabric of her shirt and knew it was too late.

Goosebumps appeared on her skin shortly thereafter and she teased, squirming a bit, “Hey buddy, I can’t sleep if my libido can’t sleep.” She’d expected him to stop instantly.

Instead, she heard, “Do you want me to stop?” murmured genuinely in her ear and felt his hand freeze in its movement from her hip down toward her thigh. With a surprised shudder, that primal instinct roared awake once more.

“Hell no,” She purred, shifting her hips so her butt was flat on the bed. When she spread the leg he wasn’t gripping, her movement caused his fingers to brush against her fabric covered core. They both groaned. Tossing her head back and to the side, she begged, “Touch me!” Before reaching up to grab the back of his head and pull him down for another hungry kiss, lip injury be damned.

He responded eagerly. His hand slipped under the fabric and he played her like a soft, warm instrument he hadn’t picked up in years, but never forgot. Every sound his movements elicited, reminded him what to do next to please her. There were also new and exciting things he hadn’t expected, like the metal jewelry he could feel surrounding her nipples while his fingers toyed with them under her shirt. The moment he felt them, he smirked, realizing then how she’d known the pierced librarian would be interested in seeing them. His head filled with ideas about what they might look like, but he couldn’t see them in the dimness of the bedroom. He worked her through two quick releases before she passed out, satisfied, in his arms. __________________________________________

George was back in the bar where she'd first met Sam. Her wedding dress was on and her hair was purple, just like the dream. Sitting next to her in the booth, Sam’s face was ten years younger and smooth as a baby’s bottom. His eyes were the same, though; an ocean of deep pain and loss and they distracted her from whatever he was saying.

Suddenly they were kissing and she couldn’t think about anything else. Her hands rubbed roughly against the skin of his neck as her tongue flicked across his lips. Opening his mouth and meeting her tongue with his, he obliged. Their tongues wrestled blissfully for an eternity before they finally came up for air.

“What are you?” She heard him ask, but she wasn’t listening. Her eyes were still closed, hoping he would bring his lips back again.

“Hmm?” She murmured after a moment. When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see his face through her fog. “Sam?” She asked, blinking a few times in order to get her vision back. When she tried focusing, she noticed that his features were twisting and swirling slowly. In confused horror she watched him morph into the dark haired angel who’d assaulted her. With a gasp she tried to pull back from him and then felt a hand wrap around her throat. She tried to reach for the hand and pry it off but it felt like her body was moving through thick molasses.

“Tell me what you are,” He barked as she struggled to escape. The hand around her throat grew tighter and he shouted again in her face, “Tell me. Whe--What you are!” Struggling to get air, she closed her eyes tight and tried to scream. His voice was beginning to skip and warp like an old worn out record.

A deafening “whooshing” began, punctuated by a few other sounds she couldn’t quite make out, “VaSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHtivaSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHtivaSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHtivaSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHtivaSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHtivaSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH”

Suddenly a voice with a deeper, richer tone spoke quietly to her, “Vashti!” When her eyes snapped open in response, she was startled. It wasn’t the angel anymore. Now Sam looked like a man with thin dusty lips, rounded features, short spiky blonde hair, and blue eyes that matched her own. She didn’t recognize him but something about him filled her with a familiar dread she couldn’t pinpoint, causing her to increase her efforts to get out of his grip.

With a smug curl of his lips, the stranger called to her in a low, sing-song voice, squeezing her throat, “Tell me where you are. Tell me where you are, VASHTI!”

Launching herself upright with a gutteral noise of panic, her eyes darted around the room trying to orient herself as she gulped in air. She saw a figure standing near the stairs and instantly screamed out to Sam for help. It didn’t register that the figure was Sam, until he was sitting on the bed in front of her with his hands on her arms. She grabbed onto his biceps and held tight while he tried to calm her.

“Georgia! It’s OK, you’re OK! I’m here, it’s Sam, it’s me! It’s just me. Me and you, OK?” He shushed forcefully, staring into her eyes to help her focus. She tried to slow her panting, as she felt her body begin to relax, her brain finally able to process her surroundings. Nodding slowly, she let go of his arms and fell forward, hugging him tightly. He hugged her back and stroked her hair calmly. Once her breathing returned to normal, she pulled back and sat up straight.

Looking at her with concern, he asked gently, “Bad dream?”

Running a shaky hand over her face she explained, “It was a great dream until that fucking angel showed up and started strangling me...” Sam frowned in empathy, watching her carefully. She seemed to want to say more; her eyes were glazed over.

The angel had freaked her out but the blonde man had terrified her; her heart was pounding. The feeling of the dream reminded her of the time she’d had sleep paralysis and saw a bony, bloody, scraggly haired witch on top of her; except a thousand times worse. It took her a week to get a good night’s sleep after that, and she hasn’t slept on her back since.

When she didn’t speak, he asked, “Was there something else?”

George blinked the man’s face away and looked back at Sam, “I uh… I don’t know. Yes, maybe. Someone else.”

“Who?” The concern on his face nearly melted her. No one had ever looked at her like that before and she nearly choked up. She was starting to doubt herself. Maybe it was no one? Some actor or character she couldn’t place? Maybe the face of one of the other angels from the group in the forest? Maybe just another case of sleep paralysis? Maybe it was ridiculous that she’d let it get her so worked up and it wasn’t worth focusing on. Especially not when a man as amazing as this one was sitting right in front of her.

Shaking her head a bit she started, “I didn’t recognize him…”

Sam nodded and began rubbing his hands up and down her arms comfortingly, “Well, can you describe him to me? Maybe I’ll rec--”

George shook her head and placed her hands firmly on his chest, cutting him off, “No, no, no. This is silly, I’m being silly. It was just a bad dream, maybe some sleep paralysis or something? I’m better now.” Sam searched her face suspiciously, and she smiled, feeling the hard muscle beneath his shirt, “I promise. Especially with you here.”

“Georgia, er--” The wiggle of her eyebrow caught him a little off guard. He tried to stay focused on whether or not she was really ok for just a minute longer, “Listen, I don’t think you’re being silly. If there’s something you want to talk about, we can talk about it anytime, OK?”

“Mhm, I appreciate that,” She answered, nodding enthusiastically and beginning to giggle just a bit. His attempt to slow things down with kindness and concern was only revving her up. It really wasn’t his fault; he couldn’t know how adorably sexy he was. “I am feeling much better, thank you.”

“You’re sure?” He asked, a furrow in his brow, as he adjusted a few strands of her hair gently.

“Actually, there is something I’d like to talk about,” She asked, looking at him with an exaggeratedly worried expression.

“Anything,” Sam assured her with a kind smile.

“Well, I don’t like this shirt you’re wearing,” She said apologetically, lifting it up by the hem a bit. He looked down at the shirt quickly and she continued, “I don’t think it looks good on you.”

He looked back up at her confused, “You... don’t?” He had other shirts, but was this really a high priority concern at the moment?

“No, but it’s OK because…” She smirked flirtatiously, batting her eyelashes and tugging harder at the offending garment, “I know it’ll look good off you.”

It took about 1.5 seconds for Sam to catch on and he couldn’t help but laugh shyly, “Oh, yea?” She nodded quickly as he reached for her, pulling her close and planting a kiss on her lips. Allowing him a grace period, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, kissing him back fiercely for a few moments.

Suddenly she pulled back and grabbed his shirt on either side, lifting it up and demanding, “Shirt.”

Sam huffed in annoyance at having been unceremoniously ripped away from her lips but figured the quickest way to remedy that was compliance. He let go of her and grabbed the shirt from her hands, yanking it up and over. As the small fabric fell to the floor, he didn't allow her any time to enjoy the view before grabbing her again.

“Freeze!” She squeaked, placing her hands on his shoulders to stop him. He stopped with a flare of his nostrils and she requested, “Un momento,” before giving him a slow once over. She happily noted his gorgeous, tanned muscles, the dark, sparse patch of hair in the center of his chest, and the dark ink of the protection symbol on his skin, which she slid her fingers over softly. Then, running her hands down his chest with a satisfied sigh, she granted, “Proceed.”

With an amused shake of his head, he leaned forward with a forceful kiss. Pushing her back onto the pillows, he climbed on top of her. Her legs spread so he could lay against her comfortably but the blanket was still between them. She cursed it’s very existence as the two of them got lost in each other’s mouths.

At some point--George was certain an eternity had passed--Sam pulled back and started placing wet kisses on her clavicle. She buried her fingers in his silky soft hair, throwing her head back and lifting her chest toward him. His hand slid down to the hem of her shirt and his fingers slipped underneath. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her brain she thought she heard a low *thonk* sound in the distance.

She was about to mention it when Sam’s hand began sliding up her torso and he murmured with uncertainty, “This looks terrible on you?”

She bit back a chortle and responded with a tug at his hair, “Uh oh, I should probably take it off then, huh?” Under her brain fog she thought she’d heard a voice begin to speak just as Sam let out a loud, sharp agreeable groan. Pausing his kisses, he sat back so he could help her undress.

“Did you... hear something just now?” She murmured nonchalantly, distracted first by his abs and then the thin pajama pants containing his very obvious desire. “Oh, fuck,” She uttered, not caring anymore.

Whatever. The worst it could be is Aunt Lorna and she’ll understand.

She sat up and grabbed the bottom of her undershirt. Sam reached out and grabbed the shirt too, but a split second before they began to pull she heard a quiet voice in her head remind her, Or it could be Dean?

A squeak on the bottom step made them both freeze and when they heard, “Sammy? That you?” they exchanged a look of mutual horror. They both knew he was going to be insufferable if he caught them together.

“Shit!” Sam hissed quietly, while George leaned forward quickly and gasped in pain at the sudden ache that radiated throughout her left side. “Are you ok?!” He whispered in concern.

She nodded quickly, waving him off and whispering with a frantic point, “Shirt!! Your shirt!”

“Sam? Are you up here?” Sam jumped into action, diving over the edge of the bed and grabbing his shirt, scrambling to put it on. Thinking quickly, George grabbed one of the pillows behind her and tossed it on the floor. Sam got the message and threw himself to the ground next to the bed with a clumsy thud. Suddenly he popped back up and leaned in, placing one final quick kiss on her lips before slipping back down into position hurriedly. George, trying to hide her giddy smile, carefully laid back, suddenly very aware of yesterday's injuries, and covered herself with the blanket.

Sam had just finished adjusting his pillow when Dean’s head popped into view from the staircase with a worried expression, “Sam?! Are you O--Oh!” Dean paused for a split second before walking the last two steps and looking between the two of them curiously. George noticed the other half of her mango scone from this morning in his left hand. Instead of mentioning it, she acted like she was wiping the sleep from her eyes, starting to fake yawn.

Trying to look like she was just waking up, she asked, “Dean? Hmm, what time is it?” She glanced down at her side and asked very casually, “Where’s Seen--er, Sam? Have you Sam him? Seen ham--Seem--Have You. Seen Sam?”

Smooth, she kicked herself.

“I--I’m here, still, George,” Sam piped up loudly. “Remember, I offered to stay here on the floor next to your bed until you fell asleep earlier? I guess I fell asleep, too! Oops. Remind me to ask your aunt where she gets her pillows,” He let out a forced, nervous laugh.

Dean, hardly listening, allowed them to ramble while he took in the sight of them, quietly contemplating his next move. These two drama students weren’t fooling anyone; it was clear to him that he’d interrupted something and it filled him with glee. He had serious news but this was like a christmas present hand wrapped by Santa himself. The kind of gift every big brother dreams of.

He asked curiously, “You both OK? I thought I heard some banging?”

George blushed and Sam shook his head, “Yaah--yup, we’re all good. Might have just been my feet kicking the closet.” Sam shifted his foot and gently kicked it a few times against the tiny closet door demonstratively. “Like I said, I’ve just been down here. On the floor. Helping George get some rest.”

“Mhm, he’s been a big help,” George affirmed with a slow, pointed nod. It was obvious Dean knew something was up. She tried her best to seem confident and nonchalant, but she couldn’t help tossing the innuendo out there.

“Cool,” Dean shark-mouthed quickly before shrugging, “well, listen it’s good that I caught the two of you together,” he paused for a split second, looking between them pointedly. Then he explained, “Ja--Ow!” He had shifted to the right causing the side of his head to knock into the slanted ceiling. George bit her lip to keep from snickering when he growled, “OK, did your aunt build this attic to house unwanted children or something?! What the hell!”

“What’s up, Dean?” Sam asked pointedly, clearly ready for him to shit or get off the pot.

“I might ask you the same thing,” He chuckled in response and then, seeing their matching threatening expressions, he informed them, “Jack’s awake.”

“What?!” Without thinking George leapt up off the end of the bed, careful to land where she’d be able to stand upright and ignoring the pain in her side. “He’s awake?!”

“Oh! Well, that’s not for me to see,” Dean muttered when he saw she was only dressed in a black undershirt and briefs. He instantly jerked his head up, smacking into the ceiling again. “Gah! Friggin dollhouse!”

George walked up to him, pausing briefly to ask with concern, “Is he OK??”

Dean, glancing down at her face before back up to the sky, answered, “He’s recovering. Wants to see you. Both.”

“Well move it, then!” She pushed past him and began descending the stairs.

“Georgia!” She stopped and turned back to look at Sam expectantly.

“Clothed maybe?” Dean suggested before Sam could speak.

“Pants!” Sam reminded her with a face palm.

George was too excited to care, explaining, “They’re downstairs!! Let’s go!” before taking off down the steps. Dean turned back to Sam, giving his brother a knowing smile while he, in turn, avoided eye contact.

Sam crawled around to the foot of the bed before standing up, so as not to hit his head on the ceiling. He steeled himself, trying to conjure up his most ‘NO’ expression, and walked over to Dean. When Sam finally met his eyes it was all he could do not to punch the giddy look off his face.

“Look--”

“Hey, you don’t need to explain anything to me, little brother,” Dean began, very empathetically. “I know you’re a gentleman. If you say all you did was sleep next to her on the floor, so she felt safe, I believe you.” He reached up to pat him on the arm a little too hard before turning and beginning to walk downstairs. About halfway down he turned and asked with a curious brow, “And I just assume wearing your shirt inside out is the latest style, right?”

Sam’s head snapped down to look at himself as Dean kept descending the stairs, chortling with glee. Noticing the pronounced seams around his neck Sam muttered a curse; quickly pulling the shirt off, tugging it right side out, and threw it back on as he followed them downstairs.

Sam walked out of the stairwell into the main room and saw Dean, alone, looking around curiously. A flushing toilet answered their silent mutual question a split second later. George emerged from the bathroom in dark blue jeans and a long sleeved pink and black plaid button down, with her black undershirt still underneath. Dressing had been a challenge but she was so excited that Jack was awake--meaning he was at least OK enough to be conscious--that she ignored the pain.

Gathering up her long hair and twisting it into a bun on top of her head, she ordered, “What are you putzs standing around for? Jack’s awake, let’s go!”

“You go ahead, I still need to change,” Sam stated, reaching down to the floor next to the chair for his duffle bag. “I’ll catch--” By the time he looked back up, he could see George through the front window, halfway to the house already. Dean trailed a few feet behind. “Up,” Sam finished with a sharp, accepting nod, heading for the bathroom to change.

[aion-rsa]

Celebrating Black Voices in Anime with Funimation

https://ift.tt/2Zl6eQ9

This virtual panel is presented in partnership with Funimation.

The anime industry only continues to grow larger and more mainstream with each passing year. It’s remarkable to see the growth, whether it’s through the wider prevalence and variety of dubbed content or the number of anime-based streaming services. Anime has alway been on the fringe of pop culture’s interests, but part of what makes it such an exciting form of art is that it doesn’t just entertain audiences in unpredictable ways, but it often excels with its inclusion of underrepresented groups. This has helped anime become such a universal product that doesn’t just speak to everyone, but specifically highlights those that may get overlooked elsewhere. 

Dani Chambers (The Ancient Magus Bride, Ace Attorney, My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising) and Lee George (Appare-Ranman!, Listeners, Smile Down the Runway) are two talented voice actors from Funimation who have taken some time to discuss and spotlight Blackrepresentation in the anime industry, the connection that they’ve had with anime throughout their lives, and the power that anime has to empower certain communities. 

You can watch the full panel below or read on for the Q&A transcript!

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DEN OF GEEK: Lee, Dani, thank you both for your time today to talk about this and to begin with, did you have any kind of relationship with anime before working in it? Were you two fans before you were a part of the industry?

DANI CHAMBERS: Yeah, I grew up on anime, like Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo!, you know, all kinds of anime that I feel like everybody was into, but I just loved it. It was always a part of me and growing up, I loved doing theater and acting. So it was like one day I knew that I wanted to do that, but I never knew what it was. Iit’s always been a part of my life and it’s amazing that I can be a part of it like this now.

LEE GEORGE: And likewise, you could always find me on the playground, charging up a Kamehameha hot blast, or trying to instant transmit somewhere. And it was definitely a big part of my social circle growing up, which was nice to find that kind of camaraderie.

Those are definitely the shows that I gravitated to as well when I was growing up. And what do you think the initial allure was about those programs? Was it fulfilling something that wasn’t getting satisfied in other kinds of shows?

DANI CHAMBERS: I think that’s possible, yeah. When I first watched Sailor Moon, for example, I was like, “Dude, they’re cute anime girls who can kick butt with hearts and rainbows and stuff. What?” Growing up it was always seen that that kind of stuff was too girly, but it’s like now they were kicking butt with it. They destroy these weird, scary looking aliens, but with the power of love and friendship. So that was very cool to me and it helped me appreciate friendship–well I always appreciate friendship–but it made me appreciate camaraderie a bit more with my friends that I shared this with. I loved it and it allowed me to just be comfortable in it without having to be feared or judged by other people about it.

LEE GEORGE: Yeah, I think there was, too. There’s a rawness to anime that you don’t find in more traditional cartoons. Characters feel so strongly about something that they’ll explode, or power up, or release tension in some kind of emotionally powerful way. The depth of a lot of what you see in anime is very mirrored in real life, even though it’s a little extreme. So I think that was really cool to have at your fingertips as a young adult.

Absolutely. It’s such an exaggerated form of media, regardless of whether it’s the action, or the comedy, or the friendship. And there is a real sense of unity, not even in the programs themselves, but like the fandom around them. Fandom itself, I think has grown into a very huge thing. But in anime, in particular, there’s a very intense kind of fandom. Have you had much experience with anime fandom, whether it’s been at conventions or on social media?

LEE GEORGE: I’ve never done a convention before. I mean, I’ve gotten to do Funimation’s virtual con that they did in the middle of last year, which was incredible, but I’ve never been to an in-person convention. However, I think a cool thing that’s come out of doing voice acting is I’ve gotten a lot of messages on Instagram and Twitter from young aspiring voice actors and young anime fans, whether they be Black or what have you, just appreciating the art form, which is really cool. And it’s something I’m still not used to, but it’s incredible to see and experience.

DANI CHAMBERS: So I’ve done like two conventions at most, but I’ve had one person come up to me, which really resonated with me. They loved my performance of a character and they didn’t say that it necessarily changed their life, but it kind of like helped evaluate the situation that they were going through at the time. That’s what I want to do. I want to help. Like Lee, I’ve also had messages sent to me from, you know, other POC aspiring voice actors who want to do this. And they’re like, “Thank you for helping and inspiring me to go do this.” And that’s why I wanted to be doing this. Just to see others go after their dreams and actually do the thing that they said they wanted to do is so heartwarming. So seeing that in the community just fills my heart up with so much joy and I’m glad it’s happening.

That’s amazing. I think it’s so important when children see themselves represented in something and it must be so validating to be a part of that and to give those kids that experience, especially when you’ve gone through that same thing yourselves.

LEE GEORGE: Absolutely. Recently I was talking to a friend about this and how there’s a difference between wishing for something and hoping for something. So when you don’t see yourself in the things that you enjoy and doing them later in life, it feels more like a wish than a hope. You hope for attainable things, but you wish for, you know, the ability to fly or to do a Kamehameha one day. So being a part of that transformation of turning voice acting as a wish into a hope just brings a smile to my face all the time.

I think anime has the ability to tell some very creative stories that couldn’t be done anywhere else, but it also examines such a wide spectrum of characters that aren’t necessarily human, or can even feel beyond race at times. Has that made a difference at all when it comes to representation and casting or the variety of characters that you’re able to play in anime versus other mediums?

LEE GEORGE: Yes, that’s definitely true that anime is full of the wildest creations. I don’t know that I’ve played many non-human characters, but we’re talking about a medium where they don’t necessarily have our same racial context that we kind of place on ourselves and the world around us. So being able to voice a character who is fair-skinned, but has naturally blue hair and can summon a soul sword feels as different as voicing a dragon creature. It’s easier to detach my self-identity as a Black man to who this character is even though I’m the one voicing it.

DANI CHAMBERS: Lee pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. I come from a theater background where you kind of have to fit the mold of what the play calls for. So jumping from where my options are limited to a medium where I can pretty much be anything was a huge realization. I can be a depressed anime girl with red hair and magic powers. That’s amazing. It was truly like a shock jumping into this industry, but it made me aware that I shouldn’t have to be limited in this industry. It was just a very important wake up call for me.

It’s interesting to see how anime has also gained such a presence in the rap and hip hop community. Why do you think there’s been that response or that synergy between those particular markets?

LEE GEORGE: It’s easy to reduce an anime plot into something that mirrors the Black experience. My Hero Academia for example, is about an unpowered youth in a world, surrounded by people with powers and privileges. Midoriya’s perception in that world is that he wishes for the opportunity and finally gets the chance to show that he deserves that same respect and ability. And that he can do great things with that kind of power. So I think that since rap is all about expression and breaking through molds that we or the world put ourselves into. They kind of go hand-in-hand, in a way.

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DANI CHAMBERS: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. It breaks the mold of what people expect us to be in. Everybody has their own box of what they think people should be looking like or sounding like. Anime kind of broke that and just went in a way where it doesn’t have to follow what the world deems and it can be whatever it wants. Being in this culture kind of opened their eyes and realized that, “Oh my God, these stories are like ours!” And they are stories that can help us change, not only ourselves, but our communities around us. And I think that helps inspire other people to make change, too. 

The people who are influenced by it in that culture and have influence over their communities can help spread that same message of what the anime was saying. It helps people to change their behaviors and negative mindsets, which is helpful to all cultures and communities. When there are influential people who take up a stand like that and explain why they think that it’s cool then it can read to really positive change.

There have also been changes going on in the voice acting industry over the past year to kind of show effort towards better representation being reflected. There was the recasting of roles in Big Mouth and Central Park. Do you think actions like that are helping move the industry in a more positive direction and getting things in what’s perhaps a better place?

DANI CHAMBERS: For me, with people stepping down from those roles, I personally don’t think they really needed to do that. I think that what we’re trying to get at is the opportunity to audition and to be a part of it, not just a pity cast because we need this person. We don’t want to get cast just because we’re the only POC people available for this role. We want every opportunity to audition for whatever role there is. Not just because we fit this mold of what they want. Obviously there’s a difference with things like historical pieces that require it. But when it comes to anything that’s fantasy it should go beyond being limited to play just the minority characters. We should have access to everything just like how everybody else does. So it’s a matter of opportunity rather than requirement, if that makes sense.

LEE GEORGE: I 100% agree with that. However, to also play devil’s advocate because I think it’s worth it with this discussion, I also come from a theater background and as an actor you’re expected to play outside of yourself. That’s a main argument for why I shouldn’t have to be confined to my own racial identity when it comes to acting in any form or medium. I think in certain arenas, as they are right now, the majority have a large claim on a lot of opportunities as Dani was pointing out, and opportunities are a thing that we want.

If the argument is that you should be able to act outside of yourself so that you can play these roles that are written as people of color, then what’s happening is that there’s a disregard that a marginalized group is saying that we’re having a hard time even playing ourselves in these roles. Some people are worried about expanding beyond their range and we’re just trying to get the representation that’s written for us in certain media. So, absolutely, it’s all about opportunity and we have to reach a point where there is enough intake of people of color roles so it even moves beyond opportunity and it’s not about racial casting or stereotyping when it comes to those roles.

Dani, I suppose the inverse of that can be seen with how you voice Ironheart in Marvel Avenger Academy. It must be exciting to see these new versions of these iconic characters happening now that would have seemed impossible not that long ago.

DANI CHAMBERS: Yeah, it’s really cool. When I got that audition I was excited, but then when I booked it I just freaked out. It’s an incredible opportunity for something like that where it’s a Black superhero who is also female. You want to cast somebody–a Black female–for that role because of representation, but to have the opportunity to do that was amazing. It was just a few lines for a mobile game, but it’s still had a huge impact on me. A lot of people have been like, “Oh my God, I loved your Ironheart in Marvel Avenger Academy. You inspired me. I wanted to go voice anything too.” That’s so important to help people realize that they can voice anybody that they want. It was really a dream come true.

Amazing. Both of you have played very diverse characters that have gone all over the spectrum. But are there any kinds of roles that you haven’t gotten to tackle yet that you’d like to be able to explore at some point?

LEE GEORGE: I’d love to play someone that’s just really eccentric and out there. I have the tonal variety of a robot, so it’s often sullen characters and maybe emotionally unavailable individuals, which I totally understand. But I’d love a chance to just really get weird. I don’t know why. The actor in me is like, “Oh that’d be fun. That’d be really cool.”

DANI CHAMBERS: I think for me it’s kind of the opposite. I play a lot of eccentric characters, like little girls or the childhood best friend who’s just always happy. Like my first role was a very monotone, very depressed character. So that was fun, but I think I’d want to try maybe like a hero or somebody who is very committed to their mission. A very mission-centered person who wants to accomplish whatever they need to, but then gets betrayed in the end and just kind of Hulks out. I’d love to do that.

With all of this talk on representation, are there any anime series that have made you feel especially seen or a program that excels in that area? 

DANI CHAMBERS: Well I’m not in it, but Lee is. Appare-Ranman! Is a good one. It has a whole cast of fun characters with different accents and there’s a lot of diversity, even with the voice actors. It’s so good and it’s just a lot of fun to watch. It’s a big race and you just get to enjoy the characters. They all have culture-specific problems and it’s so interesting how everything collides together, yet they can still work together through the chaos. 

LEE GEORGE: That’s too sweet. Well I’ll also say to look out for Horimiya, which is new and looks incredible. The cast is just all heavy hitters and very diverse. I’ve been told that it’s a hidden rom-com in the making. So if that’s your cup of tea then definitely check out Horimiya. 

Great picks, and Dani, what you said about Appare-Ranman! and its dubbing is so true. Other series like JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure will also experiment with regional dialects in dubs and I think it allows the dubs to get even better than the original version in some cases. It’s fun to see that come together.

DANI CHAMBERS: It’s great. Actually, Appare-Ranman! and Horimiya are both directed by Caitlin Glass and she cares a lot about casting diversity and making sure that everyone gets an opportunity. She’s a phenomenal director and it’s great that she’s a big part of this. I’m grateful to her so much.

LEE GEORGE: Likewise.

The post Celebrating Black Voices in Anime with Funimation appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[kunsthalextracity]

The History of Queer Nightlife in Antwerp: Self-Interview in a Convex Mirror

In the framework of the group exhibition ‘Daily Nightshift’, Kunsthal Extra City collaborated with the Urban Studies Institute of the University of Antwerp on a lecture series. Due to COVID-19 we unfortunately couldn’t allow these lectures to take place at our premises.

To replace his lecture, professor Bart Eeckhout wrote an interview with himself.

In his text Eeckhout, board member of the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Antwerp, researches the history of queer nightlife in Antwerp and the spatial shifts that have occurred along the way. Where in the city were sexual minorities able to make contact? In what kind of places of entertainment? How did these change in shape and location? Which material traces of this nightlife remain?

Text & images: Bart Eeckhout

The History of Queer Nightlife in Antwerp: Self-Interview in a Convex Mirror

Q. So, professor, before Covid-19 changed everyone’s plans, you were going to give a lecture about the history of queer nightlife in Antwerp as part of the public program for the exhibition?

A. Well, not quite a lecture.

Q. But you were going to entertain our audience with lots of slides and flashy pictures?

A. Not really. As a matter of fact, I was wondering how to turn the presentation into something more than the delivery of an academic text, something that could satisfy an audience that is drowning in audiovisual information. The thing is that I saw myself forced to talk about a topic that is hard to illustrate, and to do so moreover as an amateur historian.

Q. How do you mean?

A. I actually teach English and American literature. But I happen to be the only board member of the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Antwerp who is simultaneously on the board of A*, the network of colleagues who specialize in gender and sexuality studies. There I have a reputation for being into queer studies and for stimulating the collaboration between queer academics and activists, since I consider myself to be both.

Q. And so the organizers came knocking on your door to ask if you could speak to the topic of queer nightlife in Antwerp?

A. Yes. And I accepted to do so because I have coincidentally been acquiring some expertise on the topic. Last year a colleague with whom I love to collaborate at the university, the media scholar Alexander Dhoest, got an invitation to contribute a chapter on Antwerp for an international book on gay neighborhoods in cities around the world – what used to be called “gay ghettoes.” We remembered that a PhD student of ours, the musicologist Rob Herreman, had spent a lot of time in archives to find out more about the recent history of LGBTQs in Antwerp in relation to music. Though we were hesitant to venture into terrain that should ideally be explored by skilled historians, we’re not aware of any Flemish colleagues doing academic research into recent LGBTQ history, certainly not with a specific focus on Antwerp. In addition, the book for which we were invited was being put together by architects and would thus probably cut us some slack. So we realized that the case of Antwerp would get attention in the collection only if we were willing to undertake the job ourselves.

Accepting to write the chapter has meant that we were forced to immerse ourselves quickly in the materials and sources we had at our disposal so as to develop a critical narrative that would meet the minimum requirements of academic scholarship. We were primarily interested in all the things we might learn from the exercise.

Q. And did you learn a few things?

A. I certainly hope so! One thing we hypothesized from the start is that the Anglo-American way of understanding gay neighborhoods would be only partially applicable to Antwerp, at best. And that is also what we argued at the more theoretical level. If you want to look for queer forms of geographic clustering in a Flemish city such as Antwerp, you should omit a lot of the social functions you find historically in the gay neighborhoods of New York or San Francisco. The “reverse diaspora” of sexual minorities from the countryside to the city that underpinned these metropolitan neighborhoods in the US never took place to the same extent, or in the same manner, in Flanders or Belgium. 

In addition, a historic city such as Antwerp is relatively small by international standards. Getting around, even on foot or by bicycle, is easy, so that there’s no urgent need to choose particular residential areas if you happen to be queer. For these and several other reasons, the first thing to note about gay neighborhoods in Antwerp is that there was never anything more than some spatially clustered nightlife.

Q. Let’s talk for a moment about that nightlife then. How easy was it to go back in time to undertake your investigation?

A. That was one of the difficulties. It’s not as if you can simply fall back on standard published histories of queer life in Belgium or Flanders, let alone histories that deal specifically with Antwerp. The larger context isn’t so hard to sketch, but the specifics are a bit of a problem. When you research the history of public sex in Antwerp – by which in this case I mean the institutional environment for nondomestic sexual interactions among citizens – it isn’t hard to figure out how the first red-light district emerged during the city’s historic heyday in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. As this red-light district catered primarily to sailors, it was understandably located close to the river, in the narrow streets just north of the City Hall that came to be known as the Schipperskwartier or Skippers Quarter.

This much is standard knowledge. But how did same-sex interactions ever figure into that lusting, lawless, lowlife milieu? What might possibly be the historic sources in which you might find reliable evidence for same-sex intercourse taking place in this environment? There isn’t much you can go by. You must hope that somewhere a slight flicker will flare up to evoke a fleeting image of what might have been going on. Let me illustrate this by showing the invisibility of our topic at its most palpable. Here’s the picture of a street in the former Skippers Quarter. Do you recognize it?

Q. Not immediately.

A. Don’t blame yourself. Though I personally love to roam through all the little streets of Antwerp’s historic center, I must confess I had never bothered to walk through this one before my research took me there. It’s called the Gorter Street and it’s a very short, narrow, one-way street that is about as bland and uninteresting as you can imagine. Do you see the red-brick house in the middle of the image? That wasn’t always there, of course. If we can trust the history of house numbers, it stands where previously the Crystal Palace was to be found, a gay bar whose building collapsed, literally, sometime in the 1960s. But before the Crystal Palace was a gay bar, it was a luxury brothel, as far back as the turn of the twentieth century and even earlier. And that’s where we were able to locate our first piece of not entirely reliable evidence for same-sex goings-on – not entirely reliable because it requires a detour via the fictive world of novels and a willingness to fill in the blanks. What do you remember about the Flemish writer Georges Eekhoud?

Q. Not much.

A. He was our own Oscar Wilde, if you like – the first famous gay writer in Flanders who, like Wilde, had to defend himself in court. Unfortunately, he wrote in French, which means we’ve forgotten him even more efficiently than if he’d written in Dutch. Anyway, he published a novel in 1888, La nouvelle Carthage, in which he appears to evoke this particular brothel in great detail as a cave full of mirrors in which “all stages of debauchery” took place. Given his own sexual orientation, it’s very easy to imagine that these must have included same-sex interactions, but in his description Eekhoud preferred to remain coy about the sexual acts, so that it’s really for our own 21st-century imaginations to flesh out the specifics.

Q. So for what period did you find the first evidence of same-sex activities in the Skippers Quarter that didn’t take the form of literary fiction but of nonfictional testimony?

A. We had to jump to the first half of the twentieth century for that. Mainly, what we then find is people testifying to drag performances taking place in the Skippers Quarter. Our favorite example is that of Danny’s Bar, a notorious bar for sailors where both the owner and his male staff were dressed as women and the sailors were being tempted into maximum binging.

On an online forum for retired sailors, we found some very juicy recollections of the kind of ritual that typically went on in this bar – how young sailors were being lured in as a sort of prank by older sailors, how these youngsters tended to be awestruck by the Hollywood-star prettiness of the women, and how they would be made to drink so much (and sometimes be drugged as well) until they woke up in bed upstairs only to find they had been sleeping with a man. It’s fair to speculate that some of the visiting sailors must have known they were going to be able to sleep with a man at Danny’s Bar and must have returned to the place to experiment with sexual desires and gender identities that fell outside the mainstream norms of their day and age.

Q. Are there any signs left of Danny’s Bar?

A. Not unless you have x-ray vision. The street is now almost entirely residential, though there is a modern-day “brasserie” in the house where the bar used to be. If walls could talk!

Q. These recollections of Danny’s Bar take us automatically into the second half of the twentieth century, I guess?

A. Yes they do. On the eve of the Second World War, we know that the Skippers Quarter had acquired a gay connotation to those in the know. Yet it didn’t stick to that area. After the war, its gay nightlife started to spread beyond the city’s traditional red-light district. A few of these new bars were still nearby, in the area around the Cathedral and the City Hall, but the majority sprang up close to the Central Station. This is also when we’re beginning to see some diversification. The Shakespeare, for instance, was a bar in the historic center. On the one hand, it was still occasionally visited by sailors and sex workers. On the other, and more importantly, it had a female bartender and gradually came to attract a female crowd – a niche for which there hadn’t been a market yet in the Skippers Quarter. 

Meanwhile, in the working-class streets leading toward the Central Station, a number of bars were opening that were all operated by men and served a male clientele – places like Fortunia, Week-End (later known as La Vie en Rose), and La Ronde. These were generally small operations. One of the streets, the Van Schoonhovenstraat, would go on to sport more than twenty such gay bars. In this picture I recently took, you get a sense of what this may have been like when you look at the structure of the street front, for instance the houses in the middle painted in blue and mauve (one of them surviving as a sex shop):

But the Van Schoonhovenstraat wasn’t the only street. Even if nearly all of the area’s gay bars have in turn disappeared, you might still recognize this iconic place, the one with the greatest staying power and cult status: 

Q. Ah yes, Café Strange! It’s in the Dambruggestraat, right?

A. Yes, and it still allows you to step into a time machine and take a trip down memory lane. We used it as our prime architectural case study, because its history shows you a lot about such gay bars in the second half of the twentieth century. A few facts and details hopefully help bring this history to life.

Café Strange was started by a gay couple as a gay-friendly “brasserie” back in 1955. The name, “Strange,” was meant to be suggestive without being explicit. In those years, the curtains behind the windows were still systematically drawn so that no passerby could look inside. You couldn’t just step inside either, but had to knock or ring a bell and wait for someone to let you in. To expedite this process, a small porch was constructed so that you could first step into the anonymous porch, close the door behind you and then open the door to the actual café – all with an eye to being as discrete as possible. 

Over the years, the bar became so successful that its interior had to be reorganized and expanded so that it could accommodate not only a buffet at the back but also make some space for a dance floor. The café had a good reputation for many years until one of the owners died in the mid-seventies and his remaining partner got into various kinds of trouble that ended dramatically with his getting killed. It was then that a new gay couple, Armand and Roger, took over – you probably know Armand as the remaining owner. This was in 1980, in the era of early emancipation, and so they decided to be less discrete by painting the building’s façade in a sort of pink and adding a drawing of a sexy sailor on the outside. Inside, pictures of semi-naked and naked men were hung on the walls. The buffet was moved to the front of the room and a professional DJ was hired to turn the place into a small part-time disco. For a while, the owners even produced their own little magazine to inform gay patrons about leisure opportunities – remember that this was before the internet made looking up such information a piece of cake. 

The first decades under the new owners went well: the place had the reputation of being at the same time modern, unpretentious, and laid back. There were a lot of flamboyant theme parties in which patrons could win grand prizes such as a flight to Athens or a weekend in Amsterdam or Paris. What’s interesting to observe also about the history of Café Strange is the shift in demographic over the years: while in the 1980s you could find a mix of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals from a wide range of ages and social classes in the bar, this narrowed down in the 1990s to mostly gay men, and then by the new millennium morphed again into a mix of gay and gay-friendly visitors. Indeed, by the nineties, these smaller gay bars in especially the area close to the station were increasingly being pushed out of business by a new type of venue, such as The Hessenhuis. 

A building with a totally different allure, of course. It’s originally from 1564 and part of the city’s historical patrimony. After undergoing renovation in 1975, it reopened as a temporary exhibition space, and then in 1993 a gay-friendly bar opened that doubled at night as a club for mainly gay youngsters. Soon, the Hessenhuis became one of their two favorite commercial nightlife venues, together with the Red & Blue. This new generation of larger, trendier, more spectacular, and essentially self-contained clubs gradually drove the small gay bars out of the market, and thus also put an end to the sense of a particular neighborhood or area in which many such bars were clustered.

Today, much of the city’s history of gay and lesbian nighttime entertainment has evaporated and become materially invisible in the streetscape. There was a time, during the second half of the twentieth century, that Antwerp contained literally dozens of gay and lesbian bars, but almost none of these survive now. Unfortunately, I’m not aware that anyone is actively trying to honor this material history by installing commemorative plaques or making exhibitions about it. It survives mostly in the memory of an aging cohort of participants, hence my insistence at the outset about the relative difficulty of bringing my topic to life to a younger generation raised on a constant stream of immersive images. But perhaps now that Alexander, Rob, and I have made our first archeological efforts and undertaken a basic form of mental mapping, a curious young historian will come along to flesh out our very schematic findings and dig up all the beautiful, funny, and naughty traces of queer nightlife that may still be hiding in public and private archives. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

[racingtoaredlight]

Leo Fender, Les Paul and the Birth of the Solid-Body Electric Guitar Industry

Interesting timing on a number of fronts...chiefly being that a book about this very subject is being released shortly.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve really dove into all the various design details that Leo Fender engineered in the 1950′s, and my favorite parts have been talking about the designs in a historical context.  Design features like the foam mute on the P-Bass “ashtray” that helped combat issues with primitive amplification.

And while I’ve alluded to things like “there not being third party parts manufacturers at the time,” I never really touched on the industry in general.  Given that some of what I’ve written the past few weeks might be fresh in the memory, it’s a good time to look at the two titans of the guitar world, and how things came to be.

***

The top picture is the two most famous electric guitar models ever made.  On the left, a reissue 1957 Gibson Les Paul “Goldtop.”  On the right, a reissue 1957 Fender Stratocaster.  The bottom picture is the third most famous electric guitar model, an original 1952 Fender Telecaster.

Fun exercise time...I’m going to take every guitar player I mentioned in my Greatest Guitarist Series, and mark if they primarily played one of these three models.  I’m going to strike any classical musicians, (non-fusion) jazz musicians, acoustic-primary guitarists and guitarists who made their impact before the Korean War.

Jimi Hendrix STRAT Eddie Van Halen *MODIFIED STRAT SRV STRAT Andres Segovia John McLaughlin Jimmy Page LES PAUL Eric Clapton STRAT (also played Les Pauls) David Gilmour STRAT (has played all 3) Steve Vai Danny Gatton TELE (has played all 3) Julian Bream Chet Atkins Pat Metheny Duane Allman LES PAUL  Les Paul LES PAUL Ry Cooder STRAT (has played all 3) Yngwie Malmsteen STRAT Keith Richards TELE (has played all 3) Wes Montgomery Tony Iommi BB King Charlie Christian John Petrucci Prince TELE James Hetfield John Jorgenson TELE Chuck Berry (has played Les Pauls and Teles...famous for ES-335) Robert Johnson Steve Howe  (has played Les Pauls and Teles...famous for ES-175) Joe Pass Al DiMeola LES PAUL Django Reinhardt James Burton TELE Brian May Jerry Garcia (has played Strats and Les Pauls) Paco de Lucia Paul Gilbert Eric Johnson STRAT (has played all 3) Brent Mason TELE Shawn Lane  Muddy Waters TELE Buckethead Billy Gibbons LES PAUL (also plays Teles)  Slash LES PAUL Larry Carlton (has played all 3, but his nickname was Mr. 335) Frank Zappa STRAT (has also played Les Pauls) Christopher Parkening Marty Friedman Robben Ford TELE (has played all 3) Jeff Beck STRAT (has played all 3) Buddy Guy STRAT Lowell George STRAT Mark Knopfler STRAT (has played all 3) Ritchie Blackmore STRAT Elmore James LES PAUL John Lee Hooker Joe Satriani Woody Guthrie Hank Marvin STRAT Kirk Hammett Dimebag Darrell Jerry Reed TELE

That is a decent representative list of great guitar players, and those three models...the Fender Telecaster, Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul...account for the easy majority.  And even if a guitarist wasn’t known for one, they likely recorded with one at some point in their careers.

It’s easy to know where to attribute Fender’s success...Leo Fender was an engineering genius.  Gibson, however, had an established reputation long before they ventured into the solid-body world...but they wouldn’t have made that transition if not for Les Paul.

***

The State of Things Today

Before we get into the feud, it’s probably a good idea to get to know where each of these two companies are today.  The companies we’re going to talk about in 1952 bear little resemblance to each in the modern era, having both been passed from numerous ownership groups.

I’ve talked a lot about Leo Fender’s ouster at the hands of CBS...which led to the company’s darkest period which took more than a decade to dig out of.  CBS themselves were ousted by a group of Fender employees in 1985, and the company they started (they couldn’t use the original facilities) now boasts annual revenues well over $500 million.

It’s reflected by the company’s offerings.  Never attempting to be high-end our boutique, Fender’s brilliant branding allowed them to manufacture the same instruments that Leo designed, keeping costs low and making it easy to freshen up long-standing iconic models.

Gibson on the other hand, filed for bankruptcy last year.  Long derided for resting on the laurels of their name, Gibson is another victim of predatory private equity...being used merely as a conduit to acquire more debt.  Bad news intensifies...they’re also responsible for having strict international regulation regarding the types of wood used.  Gibson got in deep doo doo for using illegally farmed woods, and varieties of woods that had been prohibited from foresting due to excessive use (Brazilian rosewood).

Their offerings were staid and stale.  Any new innovations were seen by the guitar market as clumsy and hideous.  And, making things worse, the nature of their guitars’ construction is much more expensive and labor-intensive than Fender’s ever could be.

Fender will live to see the next 50 years.  Gibson likely will not...certainly not under this ownership group.

***

This is Les Paul holding his prototype solid-bodied electric guitar, nicknamed “The Log.”  Yes, it looks ridiculous.  No, another solid-bodied electric guitar did not exist at the time.

Les Paul had a longstanding relationship with Gibson.  Gibson was good to him.  Being a jazz guitarist, the whole Gibson lineup was perfect for Les, and they gave him ample ear to chew with all his (at the time) crazy ideas.  It was a great partnership.

Me being a Fender fanboy and my comments regarding their business should by no means suggest that I’m not a fan of Gibson guitars.  I absolutely love them, especially the Les Paul model.  They feel like the guitar version of driving a Cadillac...smooth, comfortable, refined, classy.

But, like I said above, Gibson was a long established company even in the late 1940′s.  They didn’t make gimmicks.  They made works of art out of the finest woods that produced these beautiful, natural, organic tones.  Even their electric hollow-body models replicated an acoustic tone as close as possible.  Philosophically, it was going to take something major to get Gibson to budge.

"If you don't do something, Fender is going to rule the world."

-Les Paul

***

When Les Paul received Leo Fender’s prototype in 1951, he knew what it meant.

Sure, it was a gift in the sense that Leo Fender wanted him to have that instrument, but it wasn’t just an instrument, it was an overture.  Gibson was a guitar behemoth that dominated an industry that was teetering on the edge of being revolutionized.  Fender was that metaphorical disruptor.  Both were already well aware of each other.

Fender wanted Les Paul on board, plain and simple.  They were hardly even a real company at that point, and getting someone of Les Paul’s status on their roster would be a coup of epic proportions.  From a marketing and branding perspective, Les Paul was a guitarist that could’ve established their brand before they even released a product catalog.

But that wasn’t it.

Les Paul’s reputation for having prototype solid-bodied guitars had created waves.  He was a recording maven, had a giant audience, and whether Gibson wanted him to or not, exposed people to the sounds possible with a solid-bodied guitar.  Leo Fender wasn’t a musician, but he was making the same type of noise within in the industry.

Fender sent out one of his right-hand men who reported back to him on the gift-giving.  That dude thought Les Paul was kind of an egotistical dude and didn’t think much of it.  Les Paul himself actually did like the instrument a lot...a huge amount given what he said to Gibson execs...and as the two guys who were leading the solid-bodied guitar revolution, there was equal parts kinship and rivalry.

*Les Paul with Leo Fender’s gift...a 1951 “Nocaster”...called that because Fender hadn’t come up with the name Telecaster yet, and there was no model under the Fender logo.

I don’t think it needs to be said that Les Paul ended up staying at Gibson.

***

In 1952, Gibson released their first solid-bodied model that had Les Paul’s name on it.  It would define their company.  Also in 1952, Leo Fender released the Telecaster (and Precision Bass), the genesis of the company that would grow into the largest guitar manufacturer in the world.

The sheer amount of music that’s been recorded using Les Pauls and Telecasters (as well as the Strat) is simply mind-boggling.  It’s almost impossible to quantify.

While the electric guitar industry might be well past the point of peaking, they’re still a major part of American culture.  Something that’s come to define us internationally as much as baseball or apple pie.  And it’s these three models from Fender and Gibson that so many people are able to instantly identify, that have recorded so much iconic music, that will live on well into the future like a Stradivarius violin or Steinway piano.

And for a brief period in the early 1950′s, it almost came to be that the two most prominent figures in the modern electric guitar world joined forces.  Almost.  It’s a shame they didn’t...might have been a good thing, given that each was given full creative control without the other’s presence...but the modern musical world was largely impacted by these two guys tinkering around in their basements.

It’s a cool story and easy to let your imagination run wild about what they could have done together.

[progressivemillennial]

For the past few years, we’ve seen depictions like this: Donald Trump as the puppet of some other supposed mastermind: mostly Vladimir Putin, but Steve Bannon as well.

These images have value: they serve a role in supporting narratives about Trump being an oafish goon, a willful idiot to Russia, an authoritarian lover, or Russian colluder depending on the context. They can also provide catharsis to liberals and can be easily shared efficiently across the web.

However, it’s important that we remember: he may not be book smart, but Donald Trump is nobody’s fool. He has convinced millions of Americans that he–the billionaire, celebrity president of the USA who believes the world is full of only winners (the haves) and losers (the have-nots)–is not only going to turn his supporters into winners, but that he is somehow a victim. He also manipulated the mass media into covering him non-stop before the election and continues to frame national conversations in the press–while claiming to be persecuted by the same media.

Anyone portraying Trump as a puppet would be wise to consider that Trump has had the media and the public wrapped around his finger for years: he IS the veritable puppet master. He’s incredibly media savvy, and he’s very aware that people think he’s Putin’s puppet. Do you not think he will use that narrative to his advantage? He did so in NATO meetings this week, repeating over and over how Germany is beholden to Russia due to the natural gas Germany receives from them. He turns the Russia narrative on its head, his supporters pick it up, and he criticizes the media for not giving him credit for being tough on Russia. Again, he is the puppet master and wins by taking advantage of the widespread notion that he’s someone else’s puppet.

Failing to realize this essential truth helped lead to Trump’s victory in 2016 and could cost the Democrats the 2020 presidential election. It also suggests grave prospects for the future. Do you know who also was often portrayed as someone else’s puppet? George W. Bush, a man who–until recently–liberals hated. Now, his image has been rehabilitated. He was, after all, a kind–if somewhat dumb–old man. Dick Cheney, he was the real evil player in the White House. Years from now, if someone worse than Trump is president, I can already hear the conversation: “Trump was bad, but not THAT bad.” or “He wasn’t as much a racist as a senile old man!” or “The Russians took advantage of him! It’s not his fault for being so dumb….” or “I’d much rather have Trump to what we have now!”

If your first thought is to wave off such a version of the future, I want to remind you that people with much more prestige and credentials than I called George W. Bush a fascist and war criminal when he was president. Kanye said Bush didn’t care about black people. Are you so sure that people wouldn’t romanticize Trump, too?

Either way, portray Trump as a puppet at your own risk; it’s been a losing strategy so far, but maybe it will pan out at some point.

[thesethingsofours]

Watchmen, Anchors & This Extraordinary Being

As anchor episodes go, what makes Watchmen’s This Extraordinary Being so… Extraordinary? Beside the rest, it’s a masterclass of meta. 

© HBO

In its entirety, HBO’s Watchmen is deserving of tremendous praise: “woke” without patronising, intellectual without pomposity, indulgent without narcissism, complex without confusing. Its best trick is to make the fanciful believable, laying on just enough familiarity and pseudo-science to imagine we really could be watching a parallel version of our own reality. Many of the ideas originated from its source material — Alan Moore’s seminal 1980s graphic novel of the same name. But successfully adapting, updating and elaborating on those ideas is no simple task, notwithstanding the presence of showrunner Damien Lindelof, and his history of intricate storytelling (Lost, The Leftovers, Prometheus, Tomorrowland).

The series follows Vietnam-born Angela Abar (Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk) as Sister Night — a highly-skilled police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Masked vigilantes are outlawed, but several are now openly integrated into the police force. Ironically, all Tulsan police officers now wear masks to hide their identities — a reaction to a white supremacist terrorist attack on officers in their homes, several years earlier. The KKK-like “7th Cavalry” responsible for the attack were forced underground, but have re-emerged, threatening to re-boot their police-killing operation. Dr Manhattan, a blue, atomic, god-like super-human has long-since disappeared to reside on Mars, and (oh yeah) the world appears to be in occasional overlap with a portal to another, squid-filled dimension.

© HBO 

If you are familiar with previous iterations of Watchmen (either from the novel or Zack Snyder’s 2009 movie), you’ll recognise some of these elements and be unacquainted with others. Set 34 years after the novel, the surviving characters have evolved in tandem with their invented surroundings. Given George Floyd’s recent death and the recent focus on Tulsa (via Trump’s floppy rally and heightened awareness of Juneteenth), the intersection of the setting, white supremacy and policing makes this version unavoidably topical. Beyond that, the original thematic similarities are maintained — what if superheroes (with the notable, dick-swinging exception of Dr Manhattan) were just exceptional people, without supernatural powers, but with typical human flaws? What if there had been a different chain of presidents and major events in the latter 20th century? What if we better understood quantum physics and could put it to use?

Does Your Anchor Hold?

Every season of novelistic, modern TV has that episode, anchoring the entire show. In a typical 8–12-episode affair, it tends to appear around two-thirds of the way through. In a good show, it allows the other episodes to tread lightly on otherwise clunky exposition and foreshadowing, resolving unanswered questions from the first two acts, while constructing intrigue for the third. In a great show, it will go further, offering up an ambitious concept with cinematic exposition and efficient storytelling. It can virtually stand alone — a piece of poetry amidst a wealth of narrative, specifically memorable beyond the whole. 

Often it is played out in a context outside the conventional environment or characters of the show. At its best, it can even make the finale seem underwhelming (which, despite our natural (perhaps biological) craving for a climax to signal a conclusion, is no bad thing). On the other hand, it can just as easily go underrated, without the major twists or revelations offered elsewhere.

© HBO

It’s the cradle into which the show’s fundamental ideas are birthed. For everything to work, it’s the point the show needs to reach. The list is increasingly extensive, but a few examples, recent and historic, are listed at the end of this article.

Joining the anchor pantheon is Watchmen’s Episode 6 — This Extraordinary Being; a significant reason for the show’s recent 26 Emmy nominations. The episode itself is up for 8 categories: direction, writing, cinematography, original music, picture editing, sound editing, sound mixing AND supporting actor (Jovan Adepo; Fences, When They See Us). Wowzers.

WARNING: DEPENDING ON YOUR TOLLERANCE LEVELS, WHAT FOLLOWS POTENTIALLY CONTAINS (LIGHT) SPOILERS. YOU COULD PROBABLY READ IT ALL BEFORE WATCHING THE EPISODE WITHOUT ANY MAJOR HOO-HA, BUT IF YOU LIKE TO GO INTO EPISODES COMPLETELY BLIND — I FEEL YOU. JUST SKIP TO THE LAST PARAGRAGH, NO HARD FEELINGS. WHEN YOU’VE WATCHED THE SHOW, COME BACK AND GET FILLED IN.

This Extraordinary Episode

As anchors go, what makes This Extraordinary Being so… Extraordinary? Well, in addition to drawing the story threads together and answering a wealth of pent-up questions, it’s a masterclass of meta. A meta Beretta. A meta Matryoshka. A full meta jacket.

© HBO

It opens with a big storyline reveal on “An American Hero” — a fake, popular TV show within Watchmen, which portrays a fictionalised (and inaccurate) version of the (also) fictional story we ourselves are watching unveil. Phew. Maybe read that again. 

[Incidentally, this is just the self-referential rollercoaster making its initial ascent. Keep your hands and legs inside the episode at all times.]

It quickly progresses to depict one character’s experience of another’s memories; including memories within those memories; and the occasional reversion to the show’s reality. If that weren’t enough, among the fiction, chunks of your and my actual, human reality continue to land, in the form of real-life people, events and societal norms. Cleverly, the effect is to blur what is true versus what Angela, the other characters and we, the audience, perceive to be true. This not easily achieved (nor easily explained), but simply put, in This Extraordinary Being, it is seamless, sumptuous, and sensational.

© HBO

The audacious concept of “Nostalgia” — a pill that contains a person’s harvested memories — drives the episode. Tremendously cinematic, it’s filmed in rich, crisp black and white noir, with flashes of colour emphasising critical moments to pertinently fuel the story. Constantly on the move, the camera switches between first and third person, accentuating the feeling of simultaneously experiencing several perspectives. There are very few gimmicks or effects — it’s traditional film-making, reliant on great camera work, acting, direction and editing. Hard cuts and smooth transitions are cleverly blended, with flashbacks quietly interspersed, allowing the story to move at pace. Beautiful pacing is one of the episode’s most impressive achievements.

Back to the action, which is precisely detailed. Playful, symbolic flourishes compliment heftier motifs, often subtly relating to previous episodes or our own cultural reference points. Note the lettuce in the grocery store, the (real-life) Bass Reeves, Will painting his eyes white (compared to Angela’s black), the piano playing in the (again traumatic) cinema, the comic book reader on the sidewalk, the Alt-Right “OK” gesture, the destructive and restorative functions of fire. All these pieces efficiently collude to inform the present story, as well as crafting Will’s personality and guiding his behaviour.

© HBO

Adhering to it all is deeply affecting music. Its simplest impact is to aptly recall the early 20th century era in which the memory is set. But the romantic, haunting, crooning over both tender and violent moments consummately mirror the emotional state of the protagonist. In particular, I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire, by the Ink Spots (1941) — with lyrics variably ironic and literal — will infiltrate your dreams for some time afterwards. Between the ballads is the show’s thematic, dramatic, western movie piano music — a tormenting echo in Will’s psyche, recalling both his mother and his hero. Reminiscent of Birdman (dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 2014), chaotic, thrilling solo jazz drums play whenever he escalates the power of his own agency.

With these ingredients blended, the scenes all underscore the internal and external conflicts of the characters: between blacks and whites; rage and serenity; integrity and corruption. The underlying messages of racism, history, and technology essential to this version of Watchmen are wonderfully extolled.

© HBO

Notably, there are no plans for a second season of Watchmen. Rather than a question of HBO’s reticence to renew (I’m sure they’d love to), Lindelof himself has stated his intention for the show to end where it does — his exhaustive love-letter to the ever-extending Watchmen epic. As much as we have become accustomed to the fulfilment of our insatiable desire for sequels, we should be grateful that this symphonic limited series and Its Extraordinary Episode will exist in illustrious isolation. Like Nostalgia, some things are best consumed in small, perfectly measured doses.

Watchmen is available to stream on HBO Max (US), Amazon (UK, £11.49), HBO Go (elsewhere).

Other Anchor Episodes for Your Viewing Pleasure:

Sopranos Season 3, Episode 11 — Pine Barrens (HBO / Now TV) Mad Men Season 4, Episode 7 — The Suitcase (Netflix) Atlanta Season 2, Episode 6 — Teddy Perkins (Hulu / Amazon) Better Call Saul Season 2 Episode 7 — Inflatable (Netflix) The Wire Season 3, Episode 7 — Back Burners (HBO / Now TV) Bojack Horseman Season 5, Episode 11 — The Showstopper (Netflix)  Westworld Season 2, Episode 8 — Kiksuya (HBO / Amazon) Succession Season 2, Episode 8 — Dundee (HBO / Now TV) The Marvelous Mrs Meisel Season 2, Episode 7 — Look, She Made a Hat (Amazon Prime)

[filmgamer]

Although actual nominations won’t be in until Tuesday I added a mix of predicted favourites and personal choices of mine for wishful thinking purposes. Read to get some sort of context and personal filter on what to expect and hope for come January 23rd for the 90th Annual Academy Awards.

Best Picture

Blade Runner 2049 * – Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, Bud Yorkin

Call Me By Your Name – Emilie Georges, Luca Guadagnino, James Ivory, Marco Morabito, Howard Rosenman, Peter Spears

Dunkirk – Emma Thomas

The Florida Project – Sean Baker, Chris Bergoch, Kevin Chinoy, Andrew Duncan, Alex Saks Francesca Silvestri, Shih-Ching Tsou

Get Out – Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr., Sean McKittrick, Jordan Peele

Lady Bird – Eli Bush, Evelyn O’Neill, Scott Rudin

Mudbound – Carl Effenson, Sally Jo Effenson, Cassian Elwes, Charles D. King, Christopher Lemole, Kim Roth, Tim Zajaros

The Shape of Water – J. Miles Dale, Guillermo del Toro

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri – Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin, Martin McDonagh

Wonder Woman – Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder, Zack Snyder, Richard Suckle

Blade Runner 2049

Call Me By Your Name

Dunkirk

The Florida Project

Get Out

Lady Bird

Mudbound

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Wonder Woman

Blade Runner 2049 was my favourite movie of the year, Three Billboards was my second favourite, Lady Bird and Get Out were good too. I found Dunkirk to be overrated, confusing and far from Nolan’s best. I am the only person besides my mom that didn’t like Wonder Woman. Mudbound was very boring to me. I like the idea of The Florida Project which has landed on several best of lists winning because of its underclass nature & humble beginnings, a true underdog. I have not seen The Shape of Water but its awards attention has caught my interest and Call Me By Your Name has as much chance of winning as it does being interest to me.

Actress In A Leading Role

Jessica Chastain – Molly’s Game

Gal Gadot – Wonder Woman

Sally Hawkins – The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand* – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Saoirse Ronan – Lady Bird

Jessica Chastain

Gal Gadot

Sally Hawkins

Frances McDormand

Saoirse Ronan

This is a runaway for Frances McDormand who gives her best performance since Fargo. Gal Gadot is good but her nomination would be the story here. Sally Hawkins gives an impressive performance as a deaf-mute. I think Saoirse only gets acclaim because she has a flawless american accent. Jessica Chastain does good character work and deserved the Oscar for Zero Dark Thirty which Jennifer Lawrence won for Silver Linings Playbook (which I love but is not Best Actress worthy).

Actress in A Supporting Role

Octavia Spencer – The Shape of Water

Holly Hunter – The Big Sick

Laurie Metcalf – Lady Bird

Hong Chau – Downsizing

Allison Janney – I, Tonya

Octavia Spencer (Right)

Holly Hunter (Right)

Laurie Metcalf

Hong Chau

Allison Janney

Allison Janney all the way here. Holly Hunter is good in The Big Sick and Octavia Spencer always knows what she’s doing (still haven’t seen Shape of Water or it would fill up the supporting actor category). Hong Chau got raves out of Downsizing, additionally annoying and unfair because the Oscars have become so politicized in recent years this would be seen as a win for diversity after the 87th & 88th #OscarsSoWhite controversies. It’s ironic that her possible nomination would come from writer/director Alexander Payne indulging in his stereotypical racist tendencies. I guess Hollywood takes diversity where they can get it.

Actor In A Leading Role

Hugh Jackman * – Logan

Daniel Kaluuya – Get Out

James McAvoy – Split

Gary Oldman – The Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington – Roman J. Israel Esq.

Hugh Jackman

Daniel Kaluuya

James McAvoy

Gary Oldman

Denzel Washington

This race is Gary Oldman’s to lose. He has turned in a career full of good performances and this is icing on the cake. If anything would hamper him from winning it’d be that the choice is too obvious playing historical figure Winston Churchill. Denzel always makes a great oscar campaign push and he has been hungry for a third win despite being the weakest reviewed movie of the bunch. I didn’t include Timothy Chalamet from ‘Call Me’ because I think his praise is due to the fact that reviewers aren’t aware he’s playing himself in role better written than he is like all first time actor nominees. Hugh Jackman deserves it for Logan even though I’m not a huge fan of that movie he deserves recognition for what he brought to the character. Daniel Kaluuya gives a subtle understated performance that rewards repeat viewings. And James McAvoy has been close to forgotten for his memorable turn in Split as someone with multiple personality disorder I’d like him to get recognized.

Actor In A Supporting Role

Willem Dafoe – The Florida Project

Jamie Foxx – Baby Driver

Christopher Plummer – All the Money In the World

Sam Rockwell – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Patrick Stewart * – Logan

Willem Dafoe

Jamie Foxx (saying “that’s Oscar worthy”)

Christopher Plummer

Sam Rockwell

Patrick Stewart

At the beginning of the campaign I would have said this was an easy win for Willem Dafoe’s warm performance in The Florida Project but another career character actor Sam Rockwell has upstaged him for Three Billboards. Christopher Plummer is good I imagine many people are still amazed he’s in themovie after the Kevin Spacey debacle. I thought Jamie Foxx gave one of his best performances in Baby Driver, he even makes an Oscar reference. Patrick Stewart was so good in Logan that it’s impressive he makes you believe his senile swearing version of Professor X is the same person.

Directing

Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Jordan Peele – Get Out

M. Night Shyamalan – Split

Guillermo del Toro – The Shape of Water

Denis Villeneuve – Blade Runner 2049

Jordan Peele, Get Out

M. Night Shyamalan, Split

Martin McDonaugh, Three Billboards

Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049

Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Denis Villeneuve made a sequel to a classic that was better than the original while making it his own thing. He received a BAFTA (British Oscars) nomination for this and might repeat all the categories for last year’s Arrival. Jordan Peele, Guilllermo del Toro, and Martin McDonaugh are shoe-ins for the nomination and Greta Gerwig is likely to actually be nominated for Lady Bird, a movie I liked a lot but has modest aims. I threw in a Shyamalan twist because not only has he been nominated for but Split is a legitimately good movie that is unique enough I feel another director couldn’t replicate, and being the best means you’re special.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

Hampton Fancher and Michael Green – Blade Runner 2049

James Ivory – Call Me By Your Name

Aaron Sorkin – Molly’s Game

Stephen Chbosky and Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne – Wonder

Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber – The Disaster Artist

I think side by side with Three Billboards, Blade Runner is the best script this year and they happen to qualify for two different categories so yay! The Disaster Artist, Molly’s Game and Call Me are all favourites because it’s a weak year for this category which is why there will likely be a few surprises. I threw in Wonder because it’s high on the betting pool, commercially and critically successful, and it’s the movie every book lover expected to love and every movie lover expected to hate (but surprisingly didn’t) and The Perks of Being A Wallflower was pretty decent. Mudbound could score a nomination here to but I didn’t put it personally because its incremental pacing felt like a slog for me that just didn’t flow.

Adapted – Michael Green (who also wrote Alien Covenant, Logan, and Murder On The Orient Express all this year) rewrote Hampton Fancher’s screenplay (right)

Original – Greta Gerwig Writer/ Director of Lady Bird

Original – Martin McDonagh Writer/ Director of 3 Billboards

Original – Kumail Nanjiani & Emily V. Gordon wrote The Big Sick together. In writing credits the use of an ‘&’ denotes simultaneous collaboration while the use of ‘and’ indicates someone rewrote someone else’s screenplay

Original – Vanessa Taylor (co-writer of The Shape of Water with Del Toro)

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Greta Gerwig – Lady Bird

Martin McDonagh – Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri

Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani – The Big Sick

Jordan Peele – Get Out

Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor – The Shape of Water

If Lady Bird doesn’t end up getting completely shut out come Oscar night for being good enough to get noticed but not enough to take home (typical Lady Bird amirite?) it’ll win here as Get Out and Shape muscle in on their visual splendor. Of course I don’t think any movie this year takes as many risks as the unpredictable 3 Billboards does in its screenplay so it should win. The Big Sick was in my top list for this year but original? C’mon its based pretty much on the real life story of its writers, it should be adapted if anything however rules are rules.

Best Cinematography

Roger Deakins – Blade Runner 2049

The 68 year old is the closest thing to a sure thing this year and has been nominated 13 times before without winning and this is his best work which everyone has said from the beginning. Some of his previous nominations include: The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, A Beautiful Mind, No Country For Old Men, Skyfall & Sicario. He absolutely deserves this one.

Best Original Score

Hanz Zimmer – Dunkirk

I didn’t like this movie but I listened to the score countless times while putting together my harsh review of it. The rarely idle Hans does the devil’s work here. And his Inception score was much better than Trent Reznor’s The Social Network which won that year. #robbed

Best Visual Effects

War for the Planet of the Apes

Another much hyped movie on my website I was let down by. I have never seen a director so obviously confident behind the camera its annoying that this series now so well realized spends its last chapter doing a prison break riff. Good Visual Effects are all about enhancing the story and I’ve never seen effects pushed so hard in that regard. Surprisingly, this rebooted series with state of the art effects that take YEARS to render has yet to win but unless members of the academy decide to feel sorry for Blade Runner or reward the epic looking latest Transformers: The Last Knight this should be a steal.

A Perfect and Backlash-Free Choice Oscar Nomination List Although actual nominations won’t be in until Tuesday I added a mix of predicted favourites and personal choices of mine for wishful thinking purposes.

[sinceileftyoublog]

The Versions of Shannon Lay

Photo by Denée Segall

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The story of how LA-based folk singer-songwriter Shannon Lay came to commit to music full-time is legendary. It’s akin to Radiohead seeing Jeff Buckley live leading to Thom Yorke’s heartbreaking performance on “Fake Plastic Trees”, but this time, it’s a different kind of inspirational folk luminary. Lay watched Jessica Pratt’s quiet, contemplative, yet all-encompassing music dominate a room; if there’s a demand for it, she, too, could do it, she thought after watching Pratt’s set. Lay decided to quit her job of 7 years at a vintage shop in August of 2017, the month being the namesake of her best album to date and one of the finest of 2019.

August exemplifies so much that Lay does well. The surprisingly linear spontaneity of opener “Death Up Close”--which starts with a misstep and eventually features a Mikal Cronin saxophone solo--is contrasted by the flaneur of “Nowhere”, an ode to enjoying the circular journey without an end, where her voice travels in the opposite direction of the song’s lilting melody. “Will I ever see through?” Lay asks, but not too bothered, layered over drums and hand claps. She sees the humor and delight in the smallest moments: Gorgeous and simple standout “Shuffling Stoned” is a scene in a record store in New York City, a customer buying weed from his dealer as small spider crawls on his stack of records. Many people would want the spider killed, but Lay sees it as no less a sign of life than anybody else. Most remarkable is “November”, dedicated to the woman left behind, Molly Drake, the mother of the late Nick. “Molly did you feel the sting / Of November songs gone quiet,” she asks, again not expecting an answer but knowing that asking the question, embodying another’s state of mind, is what’s important. 

Live last month at Lincoln Hall opening for Cronin, Lay and her band members (Denée Segall, Sofia Arreguin, and Shelby Jacobson) were effortlessly good. August songs like “Sea Came to Shore”, in studio just guitar and violin plucks, were much more forceful on stage, while old favorites like “Parked” allowed Lay to show off her finger-picking and English folk chops. The band ended their set with an a capella, almost unrecognizable version of Italo house classic “Everybody Everybody” by Black Box, further cementing Lay’s ability to adapt material to suit her style. The audience, even one prepared for the hell-raiser to follow, loved it. It makes sense; if anybody has experience slaying in front of all types of crowds, it’s Lay, who also plays in Ty Segall’s Freedom Band. She’s thankfully unafraid to call out talkers when necessary, as she told me over the phone earlier this year. “Nick Drake quit halfway through his first tour because people were talking during his set,” she reminded me. “People [who talk] don’t have empathy...they’ve never been up on stage,” she added. Ever the wise reader of people, but one too thankful to let it get to her too much, Lay moves on.

During our interview, Lay shared the stories behind some of the songs, videos, and lines from August, as well as explained her inspiration from The Simpsons, true crime, and Nick Drake and Karen Dalton. Read our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below. 

at Lincoln Hall

Since I Left You: A lot of the context of the album you’ve shared in other interviews or through the bio. Is there something else the listener might not pick up in terms of how August is unique as compared to your past releases?

Shannon Lay: I wanted this one to be overtly positive. Not as moody as my last ones. I think that was the main difference that I felt--this undercurrent of joy I had never really had making a record. There was always a heartache involved or a brooding of the state of the world. Now, more than ever, I feel like you gotta do what you want to do. Being able to experience and appreciate that and encouraging other people to do that too.

SILY: Did doing music full-time help you think about things in new ways?

SL: Yeah, for sure. It kind of freed up so much brain space that was taken up by the usual life stuff. It was cool to put all of my energy into one thing I cared about so much. It was a really amazing experience I had never really had.

SILY: What was your job?

SL: I was working at a vintage store called Squaresville. It was a great little store. I grew up there, working there from 19-26. Really formative years of my life. The store bought clothes from the public, so there were all these new faces coming in. The staff would have been an amazing sitcom. Everyone was just the most incredible character. It was a ton of fun. My boss at the time was just so supportive--always let me go on tour and come back. She was a huge reason I was able to do this in the first place.

SILY: That’s nice to hear. A lot of the time when you hear about these types of stories, it’s about escaping some sort of soul-sucking desk job.

SL: I was very lucky. I had a cool environment to be in.

SILY: Do you still keep up with them?

SL: Yeah, for sure!

SILY: The first song on the record--does that start with a recorded misstep?

SL: Yeah, it was a total accident. As we were going through the tape, I just fell in love with that moment. The song comes in so quick, it was kind of a “Roll it!” moment, and then the record just goes.

SILY: So it was something you just heard and were like, “We should keep that in”?

SL: Totally. When we were doing the mastering, they had taken it out, since they thought it was a mistake--we were like, “Put it back in! Put it back in!”

SILY: Where did you get the idea for the video for “Death Up Close”?

SL: Me and the director, Matt Yoka, we had been talking about that idea for a year. We finally had just enough money to pull it off. Matt’s the best in the sense that when he gets an idea in his head, he’s going to make it happen no matter what, so we just had the most fun ever. We built all of it. Everybody was so nice. Most of the people were just volunteering. The concept behind it was mainly the idea of having a safe space in your mind that’s never changing no matter how much you change. For me, that’s obviously The Simpsons, my total safe haven, end all be all childhood memory show, and something I still watch every day. It was amazing to become yellow.

SILY: Is there a specific line or joke from The Simpsons that you think about all the time?

SL: The one that comes to mind is such a weird deep cut. There are tons of them. [laughs] There’s one where George Bush moves into the Simpsons’ neighborhood...this is not funny to anybody...there’s one point where Bart comes over and George Bush yells to Barbara Bush, “Bart’s here, we gotta get him out of here,” or something, and she’s just like, “I’m making pies, it’ll be a while!” That’s the joke that I think of. [laughs] There’s so many. I also love the one where Lisa starts to play hockey and Marge has Milhouse’s teeth from the show before. I’m just like, “Stop showin’ us those.”

SILY: There are so many good Easter Eggs.

SL: Yeah, totally.

SILY: What was the story behind your video for “Nowhere”?

SL: I did that one with my house mate Chris [Slater]. He’s a great director. We just used our phones for that one. I found an 8 MM app that was available. We just went around our neighborhood taking some footage, and he put his editing magic on it. I really like the way that one came out. It was a cool visual moment.

I wish music videos had more of an impact, but I think they’ve become this weird thing. You remember back in the day, Making the Video, and they had a yacht, and it was this huge thing...the new Missy Elliott video totally harks back to it, like she has different looks and different dancers.

SILY: The song “November” references Nick Drake’s mother. You see a lot of songs about a prolific or important singer-songwriter who left too soon. Why did you decide to explore the perspective of his mom?

SL: I guess sort of the fact that he did live at home. It was just a normal night that he went to sleep, woke up, had a bowl of cereal, and took one too many pills. I just imagine his mom waking up in the morning and feeling this silence in the house. It just must have been such a crazy moment. I don’t think it was any secret he had some emotional problem, but you never expect anything like that to happen. Putting myself in her shoes for a minute, and feeling such a strong presence leave the world, it must have been really emotional and intense. At the same time, what he left behind was incredible. He’ll live forever. He’s more alive now than he’s ever been because of how many people have discovered his music. I was thinking about the inherent sadness of losing a loved one, especially someone where everyone outside of them could see their potential, but maybe they’re struggling. It’s a whole thing. [laughs]

SILY: I love the story behind “Shuffling Stone”. Do you like spiders?

SL: I do love spiders. Not when they’re on me, but I do like spiders.

SILY: “Something On Your Mind” was released before this record was even announced. Had you always planned on putting it on the record?

SL: I didn’t, but it just became clear to me that it sums up what I’m trying to portray and how I’m feeling. The amount of people who don’t know who Karen Dalton is--I’d love to spread more awareness of her. I discovered that song relatively recently and it really hit me, so I started playing it live, acoustic guitar and vocals. Whenever someone did know that song, they’d be like, “Dude, thank you so much for playing that song. I love that song.” I think it’s that kind of a tune. If you have a relationship with it, it’s incredibly special, and to discover it is a really beautiful thing. I hope it points people in her direction.

SILY: What made you want to sign with Sub Pop?

SL: When we first finished the record, I kind of did an email blast and sent the record to all the labels we like. Sub Pop got back so fast and were so stoked. I was surprised because they don’t strike me as an overtly folk label, but that was exciting to me to, to be like, “Hell yeah, let’s bring a new perspective to this established, wonderful thing.” Then I met some people from there, and they were the most wonderful people. I’ve never really experienced the resources they have before. There’s a social media guy, and a PR girl. Everybody is working so hard in their specialized zones. It’s amazing to experience and be a part of. They just seemed so down to earth while also being very professional and serious at the same time. They’re awesome.

SILY: They are pretty stylistically diverse even if they haven’t done much folk. Your sound fits just because of that.

SL: Totally, yeah. It opens a lot of doors in my mind of what I could do.

SILY: I read one review that said Jessica Pratt inspired you to dedicate all your time to music.

SL: The first time that I saw her play, I was super deep in the rock scene. I had always been in really loud bands, considering that people want to see that kind of music. I saw her open for Kevin Morby in LA, and the whole room was silent, and she was just captivating everyone. It was incredible to watch. I immediately went home and booked my first solo show. I had no idea people wanted this kind of music, and I had been making that kind of music, so let’s see what happens, let me book a show. She was totally the catalyst for that. I was so in awe of the simplicity and the beauty of what she was bringing to the table. Music like what she makes has a lasting power and timelessness where you can be anyone and anywhere in the world and people will be captivated. It’s amazing.

SILY: Is it hard for you to switch back and forth between your solo shows and playing in bands?

SL: It’s kind of easy. It’s a matter of mindset and what alcohol you’re consuming. [laughs] I always go tequila for the loud shows, wine for the quiet shows. We’re saying the same things, but in very different ways. It’s kind of nice to have both perspectives.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art for the new record?

SL: The guy who took the photo, Matt Reamer, mentioned he wanted to do more portrait photography. He had always a lot of live stuff. We took photos, and as I was going through them, I came across that photo. I love how ambiguous it is. I could be thinking about anything in that photo. It’s whatever you want it to be. I had the idea of getting people to do different versions of it, and it became this cool, unique thing of these different perspectives and the evolution of me in the past year. I’ve been doing a ton of cleaning house, checking in, and learning new things about myself and not taking myself too seriously. It’s been a hell of a journey, and seeing these four versions of me felt really appropriate for the record.

SILY: Are you the type of songwriter who’s always working on new songs?

SL: I’ve been kind of stuck lately, because I’ve had a lot of stuff to work on, but there’s always a ton of voice memos on my phone, little snippets I work on in the car. I look forward to when I have a block of time where I can sit down. I’ve written quite a bit of the next record, but I probably have 5-6 songs to go. I’m excited to get back into it.

SILY: Is there anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

SL: I just watched Euphoria. That was really good. It really inspired my eyeliner game. I’m always listening to a lot of true crime. I’m a big true crime buff. It fascinates me--the extremity of people’s actions. That’s what that song “Wild” is about on August--the things we’re capable of.

SILY: That line, “We are kind things capable of the most evil,” is very fitting. You kind of nail nature versus nurture in just that line.

SL: Yeah, totally. It’s wild. [laughs] The age old question.

SILY: Are you a Forensic Files fan?

SL: I am! Whenever I’m in a hotel room, I know it’s gonna be on, and I’m stoked.

SILY: My girlfriend and I struggle to find new episodes. It’s always our “before bed” show, and we’ll start one and midway through be like, “Wait, we’ve seen this one.”

SL: Have you ever listened to a podcast called Small Town Dicks? It’s the voice of Lisa Simpson, Yeardley Smith, and she has this podcast. It’s amazing because it sounds like Lisa Simpson doing a true crime podcast, but it’s also amazing stories.

Album score: 8.5/10